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February 2007
Random Profile: Justin Watt
Justin Watt. |
Every other month, Staff Notes Monthly spotlights a
staff member
selected from the phone directory with the help of a random
number generator. This month we profile Justin Watt, who
provides food service support for Event Services.
Justin has been working for Event Services in the Mesa Lab
cafeteria since April 2006. His main duty is dishwashing,
though he also prepares and serves food during the lunch
hour.
His favorite part of the job is his co-workers. “We
always have a good time and joke around a lot,” he
says.
His least favorite part of the job is waking up early enough
to commute from his home in Nederland,
since he’s not a morning person and doesn’t own
a car. “I have to wake up at 5 a.m. to catch the bus
down to Boulder, then catch the Skip, then take the shuttle
up to the Mesa Lab, so it takes me a while to get to work,” he
explains.
Before coming to NCAR, Justin was manager of Neapolitan’s
Italian Restaurant in Nederland, where
he started as a dishwasher and worked his way up
before the restaurant closed. He aspires to some day open
his own restaurant with a hookah bar (a café for smoking
flavored tobacco called shisha). “I love to cook and
am really good at making Mexican and Italian food,” he
says.
He doesn’t have a favorite menu item in the cafeteria,
but if he could make any addition, it would be something
his family calls “hospitality casserole,” a dish
passed down from his grandmother that consists of noodles,
spinach, black olives, cheese, and beef. “It’s
something my mom makes, and it’s really good,” he
says.
Justin lives in Nederland, the same town in which he grew
up. He used to play bass in a band, and more recently he’s
taught himself guitar and drums. He uses his computer to
record the music he creates, playing it through eight speakers
in his house. His musical influences include everything from
hip-hop to metal to Irish rock, particularly the Pogues and
Flogging Molly. “I wish I could play fiddle or accordion,” he
says.
If he could design his own dream concert, picking the band
of his choice to see at any venue, he would see One Minute
Silence, a London band he describes as political rap/metal,
at Tulagi’s in Boulder.
On the weekends, Justin likes to play pool at his house with
friends. He recently built a ping-pong table from scratch. “One
corner isn’t flat, so someone gets an advantage or
disadvantage, depending how you look at it,” he says. “But
it works.”
Justin gets together with friends to golf, bowl, and play
pick-up football, basketball, and baseball. He also snow
skates in the homemade skate park in his parents’ front
yard. He likes movies as well, particularly dark comedies,
horror flicks, and independent films. The best movie he’s
seen recently is Little Miss Sunshine.
One thing he doesn’t like is interpersonal drama.
“I avoid it at all costs,” he says.
Working at UCAR/NCAR seems to run in Justin’s family:
his mother, Carlye Calvin, works in Communications as a photographer
and Web designer, while his father, Andy Watt, builds instruments
for ground and airborne research in EOL.
“So far, no one has any clue that she’s my mom,” Justin
says about Carlye.
Justin’s brother, Mike, lives in Boulder where he attends
CU, and the two hang out frequently.
•Nicole Gordon
In this issue...
New
data center to be based in Cheyenne
Climate
Change and Islands: Are Scientists Serving Society?
Snow
closures: A look behind the scenes
Random
Profile: Justin Watt
Images
by NCAR scientists on display
Delphi
Question: Cafeterias trans-fat-free?
Just One Look
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