Here, Michael gives us a little bit of insight into his personal life and hobbies.
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Ethan: What do you do outside of your professional work?
Michael: I've always been big on reading, a mixture of medical, non-medical, Stephen King fan, bird-watching, hiking, all of those coming out of being involved with Boy Scouts, getting a chance to meet people and hang out with individuals. We do some bible studies at our house. As I said, go out. Board-gaming is another big thing that I found to be a huge piece of, honestly, self-care, as well as a chance to get to spend time with the friends and family that we've built up over the years. We all grew up playing video games, but over time you get families and the time to sit down, have everyone go play over a computer or a local area network and shoot [00:01:00] each other on video games goes away. But you know what, you can set up a Saturday afternoon for everyone to get together and let's play a board game. And, you can pause board games and you can have a kid in your lap or talking to somebody or a drink in your hand. You can do all that with board gaming. So it has been a nice way for us to continue these connections and these relationships a little bit of a different way and still do our nerdy things.
Ethan: Yeah. Remind me, where were you born and raised?
Michael: Born and raised in Lexington. And again, eventually decided, you know what, I'm gonna go wander out of the state. And so, there was an opportunity to go up to Buffalo, where my mom's family's originally from. So it was both a new experience and yet a homecoming because I was the 4th generation in my mom's family to live in Buffalo. So that was a very special thing to see with my eyes. Some of the same things she saw and her grandfather, her father and his father, and for them, that they were also in Italy. But that was a really a fun thing for me as well as that was my first experience working in state facilities and starting to really see similarities [00:02:00] and differences within the veteran setting, within the state setting, but also just to see what another state looks like.
Ethan: And you went undergrad at UK (University of Kentucky)?
Michael: Yep. Did undergrad and pharmacy school at UK.
Ethan: Are you married?
Michael: I am married. My wife, Cynthia, is born and raised in Chicago, so that was the first tough sell was I had to drag her out of Chicago and take her to the suburbs of Chicago. That was a culture shock for her. And so then when I said, let's move back to Kentucky, it was Oh, okay. I was looking at jobs. One of them was in Corbin, Kentucky, which for those may not be aware, is a much smaller town in kind of south, south-central Kentucky, and so I think for her, Louisville's had a good balance where she can still feel like she's in a city with all the amenities and grocery stores and different kind of cultural activities, but still in, again, a little bit of a smaller environment.
Ethan: How did you meet her?
Michael: I met her on the Internet. She's like, ‘I had to block a lot of people before meeting you,’ but it worked out well. We met in Chicago actually, the first [00:03:00] day of my first job after residency was the same day as our first date. So I told her and everyone, it's even one of those days you're like, ‘Wow. It ended up being a very good day.’ I had 6 awesome years working at that school. And then now we've been for together for eight years now.
Ethan: And you've got pets?
Michael: We have one dog, Mo, he's a Dachshund mix. We call him a Dachshund on stilts because his legs are far longer than should be the case for a dachshund. He looks at times like he has Wolfhound or Greyhound in him, something like that, a little bit of a terrier, but he keeps us very active. Lately he's learning from my parents how to eat all sorts of things that we generally don't feed him. We're trying to be healthy, kind of whole foods for the dog. And she's like, ‘Hey, you want some pancake batter? Sure you do.’ So it's a little balance there
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