Interview Questions Thanks to Queenie Carly

1. You used to play ball for the Longhorns. What was the greatest thing that came from that experience? What do you miss most post-retirement?

The absolutely best thing about playing ball, and not just for Texas, but for as long as I've played seriously, is the friendships I've established with some of my teammates. As soon as I got to Texas for orientation, I had 18 friends who helped me figure out so much as a freshman. Now, I'm still close with several of those friends and hope to be for the rest of my life. To invest so much mental and physical effort into being an athlete on a team, and playing a sport, that means everything to you with those people, all striving and sacrificing for the same goal, is much like being in a relationship. So there's that understanding and connection between us that will never go away. Many of my best memories in life are with those friends.

As a close second, which you didn't ask for, but is still important, is the opportunity to come to school at UT. If not for playing ball, it would be hard to justify spending so much money on my education; I was only on a partial scholarship. But the possibility of winning a National Championship in the sport I've played all my life was too great an opportunity to pass up.

The thing I miss most post-retirement is simply playing ball, in the most basic and pure sense. All those baseball movies you've seen, cliche underlying love stories aside, actually reflect a ball player's love for the game.

Today I finally let Wilson talk me into going to the batting cages and to throw the ball around. The reunion was like hugging your first love but knowing you could never be together again. Today was hard. But I will always, always love and miss just going out and feeling like a kid throwing the ball around, and feeling the gratification for all my efforts as I made a huge defensive play in a big game.

2. What is one constant track on any mixed CD you do/would make for a friend?

I can't even remember the last time I made a mixed CD. But it would have to be "Business Time" by Flight of the Concords. I love those guys and like to spread their funk.

3. Which destination are you most looking forward to on your Texas 4000 trip this summer?

Vancouver, of course! Actually, I'm most excited about the stretch from Yosemite to Whistler for all of the great cities--and scenery--I'll be seeing. Oh and Anchorage, because it means I'll get to come home to all of my friends and the boys, and that I've completed this crazy experience.

4. You were recently considering some very bold career options. What is one thing you've had in your life, one influence or one experience, whatever, that enabled you to be such a remarkably courageous woman?

It's got to be that I read so much as a kid. I would walk around with as many books as I could carry, or take a huge stack out into the back yard, throw down a blanket, and lay in the grass reading all day long. I remember doing that in first grade when we had a reading competition, and I finished something like 300 books, children's books of course, but nonetheless that's a lot of reading. When I was reading Huck Finn and anything else of Twain's I could get my hands on, I found this old leather strap to keep the five or six books I was concurrently reading at the time together so I could carry them around with me everywhere I went. When I was helping my dad on this one particular house I remember we would stay really late some nights, and that's the week I read all the Greek mythology my mom had at home.

So very early on I had so many new worlds opened up to my imagination, and was aware that there was much, much more in the world for me to see than what my tiny home town offered. This, coupled with my belief from an early age that my life here on earth is all I get so I must do as much as I can while I'm able, were my foundation for ambition.

5. What is one thing that your friends and family see and instantly think "Rachael."

Jets. My dad always calls and tells me of the programs on the Discovery Channel and the Military Channel, or Modern Marvels, about fighter jets. And I get calls from my friends when they are at sporting events with flyovers. My friend who is in the Air Force in Tampa right now rubs it in that she works on the flight line, and that the Blue Angels practice out there.

I'm stoked about becoming a helicopter pilot, but I will always dream of being a fighter pilot.

...And here are a couple of bonus questions just for you.


*What do we have to do to get you to post more than once a month?

Well I'm finished up with school for the semester, so now I have more time. And with the summer I have coming up I'll have a ton to talk about. Expect many posts and many pictures in the near future.

*I read Ten Things You Need to Know about RC online. If you get another cat, will you name him Vince?

Not that I plan on a third, but if it happens I can't see that there would be any other name for him to have...Except for maybe Cat, after "the Big O" Cat Osterman. But that'd just sound silly.

*What do you want to trade for that I Heart VY shirt? (Can you even still get them???)

I looked again at the Co-op the other day, and they haven't sold them in months. But I can be pretty crafty, so I can make it happen. You've waited all this time for it, so what's 2 more months? I will personally deliver it to you when we pass through Vancouver. July 18 and 19. Mark it.
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