Will the real Daniel Bliss please stand up?

This is Daniel Bliss (unintentional rhyme). Today I had the pleasure to sit down and really meet Dan. Dan is a PSEO student and high school senior from Lino Lakes, MN, a suburb twenty minutes out from Minneapolis. From what I gather, he enjoys the free credits he is receiving from the university but has no plans to return as an incoming freshman in the fall of 2011, cheap bastard. Dan is an charismatic individual who is easy to talk to and easy to get along with and relate to, at least on the surface level. As far as politics go, he doesn't seem to have a whole lot of stake in it, but he would say he is more conservative than anything, though he would not identify as republican. Dan is adopted and originally born in Korea. He embraces his background and has educated himself with it's culture. He's even visited twice and enjoys "the level of respect" Korea's citizens have for one another, as opposed to American society. Dan's one sport or passion would have to be tae kwon do. When I asked him if he was inspired to start the sport by his Korean roots, he replied by saying "No, i joined because of the Power Rangers". He has been participating in tae kwon do since age four and working at it ever since, eventually becoming a third degree black belt. While I marveled at this accomplishment, he simply said "You'd be surprised who they're handing black belts out to".

Dan's tae kwon do is also what lead him to his first experiences in working. He begun being paid as a tae kwon do instructor as early as sixth grade, earning 18 dollars an hour from the beginning. He continued to teach young students after that, even working as an instructor for some Kindercare locations around Minnesota. He describes the jobs he's had as "under the table business" while we both laughed comparing the methods in which he's paid to a drug dealer receiving cash. One summer he did some more manual labor, working for his friend's father as they fixed up an old restaurant for a little above minimum wage. Nowadays, he works for himself as a tae-kwon-do instructor and performer who is available for hire for things like birthday parties and other events. While his rates are somewhat negotiable, he has a rate of 50 dollars an hour. The interesting and intelligent part of this is that these performances cost literally no money for Dan, with the exception of gas, as he has no equipment.

Dan's father graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from the U, and now works for a medical company, working his way up from a project manager to a more overseeing director of operations. He has never been in a situation where he was involved with a union. Dan's mom works as a sales rep for a jewelry company and travels around Minnesota helping with displays in places like malls for the company's products. His mom seems to complain about dealing with some of the stuck up people she has to work with and is grateful she is the only Minnesota representative for her company so she has a more flexible schedule where she is free to pick her own hours.

As for unions and more specifically union strikes, We found ourselves agreeing that a lot of the time they cause more problems than they resolve. Dan believes they often times end too emotional and those emotions lead to violent and negative ways of arguing protestor's points. Dan does not enjoy when people take things way too seriously and become way more emotionally involved than necessary. He says this may be thanks to his mom, who has a habit of doing so.

Dan is stand up, down to earth guy. He fits the stereotype that asians are ninjas thanks to his black belt. He enjoys being asian and making white people look stupid. I hope he enjoys my brief and shallow description of the things I took away from our chat. I also hope he appreciates the fact that I refrained from making the pun "Ignorance is Bliss", which I really wanted to, it's just so damn punny. I am both interested and excited to work with him on the upcoming project.