Meet Your Fellow Subscribers: Glen Hostetler

Houston transplant who had season tickets to 2001 Cup season

The latest in a series of stories profiling you, the subscriber, to Dater On Avalanche. If you want me to write on you too, email me a thumbnail sketch of your life, how old you are, a picture of yourself and I’ll then email you back to ask five random questions to fill these out. Email me: adater@comcast.net.

GLEN HOSTETLER

Glen Hostetler, on the left above with his son, was born in 1969 in Houston, but since 1984 - aside from one year at Miami of Ohio where he played goal for an intramural hockey team - he’s lived in Colorado.

After working in payroll accounting to start his working career, he’s been a software instructor the last 23 years.

“I've traveled all over the world thanks to my job, even got to see a Uwe Krupp-coached Sparta Prague team a few years ago.  Went to CSU and got a degree in statistics and played drums in the marching band up there.  If you remember "Number 5" and the Trombone choreography that they did in pregame before every game for 20+ years, I wrote that drum music.  Still go to every CSU home football game, haven't missed one since 1987. 

“Got married in 2003 and have two kids, an 18-year-old son who is headed to a D3 in Wisconsin to play lacrosse and a 16-year-old daughter who also plays lacrosse and is recovering from a torn ACL suffered this season. I was an Avs fan from the day they announced they were moving here, immediately changing allegiances from the Flames.  Still remember sitting in a Taco Bell drive-through at lunch listening to the announcement.  The Avs got me through some hard times in my life (hard for me, maybe not for others) and I was a season-ticket holder back in 2001 when they won the Cup.  That team is still my favorite, and while I have many players I liked, I would say outside of the big names, Ville Nieminen is still my favorite from that team, just loved his style of play.  I used to collect Russian hockey jerseys, if you go to Bender's and see the Kovalenko Locomotiv Yaroslavl jersey, that one is mine.”

Welcome, Glen, and here are your five random questions:

1. You're a software instructor. How long does it realistically take to learn to program/code and what's your No. 1 piece of advice on how/where to get started in learning if you're past normal school age and want to learn?

I would say you can learn how to write fairly complex code that works in a couple of months.  Making it work well/being an expert?  I'd say no less than 6 months to a year.  I teach more administrative/security-type courses and with those, you learn the basics and then it's all learning by experience after.  Less time in the beginning, but the learning never stops. If you want to learn later in life, it has to be something you are really interested in and you have to dedicate a couple hours a day with total focus.  

2. Let's say you're an atheist testifying in court and are asked "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?" What do you say?

I would say "I will.”  Internally, I know I am telling the truth, and if others believe me more based on my affirmation to a higher being, then so be it.

3. I once found a $100 bill in an empty parking lot (and, yes, I kept it). Have you ever found money like that, and what's the highest amount ever?

Probably $40 at a tailgater.  Asked if anyone around had dropped it, no one said they had so I kept it.  I was with a couple other people when we found a few hundred under the bleachers at the 1985 PGA Championship back in high school.  We turned it in, no one claimed it, so we blew it on souvenirs.  Any other day we worked, we made sure the area under the bleachers was well-cleaned.

4. If you could describe yourself in one word, what would it be?

Verbose.  (I changed this answer like 6 times and limiting it to one word was a problem, hence the answer).

5. Not to get too morbid here, but what's the time when you most thought you might die because of some near-accident? What happened?

Honestly, I can't really remember having had that thought.  If I did, it was probably when landing or taking off in really bad weather when I was travelling 20 weeks a year for work.  I probably just thought to myself "shut up, you'll think it in to existence."  If something like that happened now, I'd probably think of the response of the Mark Rylance character in "Bridge of Spies" when the Tom Hanks character asks him why he never seems to worry in highly stressful situations:  "Would it help?"  

I think I picked the right word.  :)