• When you were young, were you embarrassed to be a male gymnast?

No, not really. Gymnastics is considered a more female sports, but I never really let that bother me. I was pretty good, so I had nothing to be ashamed of. I started with gymnastics at the age of 7 or 8, after I had done a year of athletics. My athletics trainer suggested my parents to look for a gymnastics club as I would really love to do that. And yep… I did like it :). In my 7-year career I must have collected about 15 gold medals, 6 or 7 silver medals and a couple of bronze medals. I pretty much won everything I participated in :P. My greatest achievement was winning the Belgian Championship in Charleroi when I was 13 or 14 I think. That was one of my glory moments ;). So, I challenge everybody who considers gymnastics a sissy women sports to beat me at it :P.

• What is your favorite animal?

I don’t really have an absolute favourite animal, but I’ve always been fascinated by dinosaurs. They don’t exist anymore, but they were my primary animal of interest when I was young. Oh, and… of course, I love our dorm cat Sylvester :). What a lazy ass, but he’s cute ;).

• Tell us about your first exciting experience with astronomy.

Hmm… tough one… When I was little I had gotten a cheap grocery store telescope. It sucked, but I could see Jupiter through it, as far as I remember. I don’t remember much of that time, but I remember that a few years after that I got a little more expensive telescope which I used to look at the moon, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and its rings, Mars, etc… All pretty exciting :). I’ve been interested in astronomy since I was like 8 years old or so, so I don’t really remember any first exciting experience, but two of the highlights in my astronomy career are definitely the total solar eclipse of August 11th, 1999 which I witnessed together with my mom and my dad in northern France. The eclipse was in the morning, so we started driving at like 10 am or so towards the middle of the zone of total eclipse. We didn’t really have a target but just looked for a cloudless place on an open terrain. And guess what? By accident we stumbled upon a group of about 20 or more people with big telescopes, ready to catch the special moment with their cameras. And I was soooo embarrassed :?. These people all had huge 14″ telescopes and there I was with my tiny 4.5″ piece of junk. Luckily I got over it, cause it was pretty cool to watch the moon float between us and the sun. The most exciting thing about a solar eclipse though is the environment that becomes darker and silent. It’s a strange kind of dark. It’s very unreal. Not like dusk, but more like a huge thunderstorm coming up, but that’s not exactly it either. Very strange… If you ever have the chance to experience a total solar eclipse… then take it. You’ll never regret it.

• (Since I am an English speaker) how do I pronounce your name?

My name is Tijl Kindt. My first name (Tijl) is pretty much pronounced like ‘tail’ or ‘tale’. If you say it like that, I’ll be more than happy and you’ll be pronouncing it better than any Dutchman :P. My last name is kind of pronounced like ‘tint’ but then with a k. So… my name is Tail Kint ;).

• You claimed to be retired. But you came back. What are your plans with that? (Did it have anything to do with SLoB leaving? :twisted: )

Well… Yes, I claimed to be retired. There are three big reasons why I left, and there are three big reasons why I’m kind of back in a limited way. The three big reasons why I left are firstly the fact that I had an imporant time coming up with my research project and some exams I really needed to pass. So, taking some time off was definitely a good idea. The second reason was that there wasn’t anything worth staying for anymore. The community had gone a bit irritating and there was no hope for Cities3D either… And thirdly, yes… Sir Loin of Beef was starting to annoy me a lot. The three main reasons why I’m kind of back now are firstly that I had a great and productive summer, and I feel much better than before April, so I’m convinced I’m a stronger person now. It would definitely be a bad idea to pass too much time on S3D now, but I’m pretty sure I can handle some free time to work on Cities3D, which is actually the second reason. Jason has finally resumed working on it :) and I’ve been one of the main testers of Cities3D in the past, so I’m hoping I can continue doing a worthy job on that. And the third reason is that as you know Sir Loin of Beef hasn’t really been here for a while, and I feel it was a good thing for the community… It’s much more friendly again, I think. And well… I guess I missed it a little ;). In either case, I’m not back at full capacity, and I don’t plan to ever be back at full capacity. My only interest is seeing some friends again from time to time and work a little on Cities3D in my free time. That’s all.

More questions tomorrow by Maija.