One of my favorite habits during my years in academia was shelf-reading at university bookstores. I particularly liked to see what other disciplines were requiring for their research methodology courses. Although my discipline (MIS) is interdisciplinary in nature, I went qualitatively beyond that, aiming to publish in other disciplines as well. I personally am fascinated by people with multiple talents (in part, because I consider myself one): e.g., athlete Bo Jackson who played in two professional sports, actor Ben Stein, who played the monotoned junior high science teacher Mr. Cantwell in The Wonder Years, is also an essayist and financial advisor, and the Beatles who not only revolutionized popular music but wrote most of their timeless hits.
[On a personal note, I'm a very good, articulate orator, a talented writer in different genres, a good conversationalist and humorist, and a gifted evaluator, reviewer, and problem-solver. I had a reputation for diagnosing my students' programming code issues in a single glance, and one student got creeped out when he came to my office to ask me a question and I answered it before he opened his mouth. When I worked for an APL timesharing company in Houston, one of my colleagues asked for a small utility; I wrote something off the top of my head that rated at about 79 cents (lower cost being better). My branch manager took it as a personal challenge to trump my effort and made several efforts, never getting closer than about $1.20 (and was not gracious in defeat). In another case I wrote an APL program for a manager at an Exxon real estate subsidiary to track computing costs, and the manager told me my utility (without documentation or training) spread like wildfire, with over a dozen managers using it.
On a different level, I once participated (with 4 or 5 other students) in a reading of the Passion at Good Friday Mass at the University of Houston. I played the role of Pontius Pilate. I guess my performance was effective, because this one woman in the congregation made a beeline to me after Mass and mentioned how I reminded her of the miracle plays she watched when she was a young girl. I was honored but felt a little sheepish about being praised for playing the most despised man in human history, whom ordered the execution of Christ.]
During a recent staff lunch at work, we had an interest popcorn question, a general interest item asked round robin: If you had the opportunity to have lunch with anyone, living or dead, who would you choose and what would you talk about? (The reader is invited to ponder that question.)
Some of my colleagues responded flippantly: one guy mentioned his wife (whom works two blocks away), and a follow-up respondent said he wanted to have lunch with the first guy's wife. One of my colleagues, a fellow Catholic, said he would have lunch with Jesus and (tongue-in-cheek) ask him for next week's lottery number. I hate to tell him this: no doubt after he won, the Congress would ex post facto declare him to be an AIG "bonus baby" manager to accomm0date their unconstitutional bill. Actually, if I was to have lunch with Jesus, I would ask Him a different question--like whether I'm going to heaven or to where Obama is sending our economy.
A couple of my colleagues wanted to have lunch with Barack Obama; they can have my tickets (yeah, right). (Obama would need to pay an RAG retention bonus for me to stay through lunch.)
Two of them mentioned a long-deceased parent. I was empathetic to that; I've wondered about my maternal grandmother whom died from cancer when I was about 3 or my paternal grandfather whom died when my dad was in his teens.
However, a few touched close to my runner-up: one of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson. (They chose Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin, respectively.) According to Wikipedia, "A polymath, Jefferson achieved distinction as, among other things, a horticulturist, statesman, architect, archaeologist, inventor, and founder of the University of Virginia."
Who did I choose as #1? Another polymath, Leonardo da Vinci: an artist, sculptor, inventor (e.g., conceptual designs for a helicopter, tank, and calculator), engineer, geologist, musician, architect, and scientist. As for what I would ask him, I told my colleagues I would ask him what kinds of things he would do if he was to make a fresh start today. (A couple of colleagues wisecracked "Java developer"; guess what they do for a living...) However, it was clear to me that my choice was unexpected and had created a buzz beyond any of the other choices.
One of the reasons I wrote this post is because I think people have certain stereotypes of conservatives. Condoleezza Rice, the Bush Administration Secretary of State and a classically-trained pianist, loves to listen to hard rock band Led Zeppelin while exercising. I have a book shelf of books on creativity. The fact is, there are conservative think-tanks and even former Speaker Gingrich whom are seriously interested in solving our nation's problems and aren't interested in simply rerunning the Reagan elections and 1994 (i.e., when the Republicans took control of the House for the first time in decades).
