Personal History - And Now For Something Completely Hilarious...

How would you describe your sense of humor?

I don't know. I say funny things sometimes, and sometimes people get it - my family laughs at me quite a bit, but I can't always tell if this is good or not.

I know what sorts of things I find funny, and I know that they're a little off, usually.

My biggest love is Monty Python...not the gross stuff so much, but the offbeat stuff that starts off with one premise, but takes on a life and logic of its own. Like this...

Or this...

I also like Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson), Rob Reiner and Mel Brooks and Steve Martin and Jim Henson, most cat and baby videos when they're funny, Too many others to post them all.

I really get British humor overall, but not so much humor from other cultures. I like some standup comedy, from lesser-known comedians. My oldest girl watches Korean comedy shows, like Running Man and Gag Concert. Sometimes I get the humor, and sometimes there it goes, sailing right over my head.

What is the funniest practical joke you ever played on someone?

I'm not a practical-joke person, since they can go badly really easily, and then I would feel bad if that happened.

However, I do know that God loves a good practical joke. I know this, because he played one on me once.

It was before I got married, in the early 90s. I would ride a bicycle to the gym after work, which kinda made the gym a pointless destination, but anyway...

One evening, I'd finished my workout, and I was riding home on this clear sidewalk next to the road. These really dark clouds gathered, and droplets of rain started hitting my face and arms.

'No, no, no...I've got to get home" I thought in my conversation with God...I talk to God like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof did.

And then, in a moment of bravado that came from some great frustration (maybe it had been a bad day), I said to the sky, out loud, "Fine, if you're going to rain, get on with it already! I dare you!"

Not two seconds later, a torrent of rain fell on my head, like no other rainstorm I'd experienced up to that point in my life. I couldn't see the road anymore. I could barely see the sidewalk. I think I was breathing in water, and the drenching soaked every inch of me.

At that point, after about a minute of trying to struggle forward and dropping to my feet instead, I said again, out loud. "Okay, you win - enough already with the rain! You win!"

And...I kid you not...

the storm stopped in that very moment, and I watched the cloud rumble off into the distance. I could have been mistaken, but the rumbling sounded suspiciously like laughter to me...