I recently caught up with Aaron Wegner who made TOTW in Week 2 of Season 12. We met up at a bakery in Northwest Denver where I sat down and talked with him about one of our favorite subjects: Trivia.
Tim: What questions stood out for you on your way to TOTW in Week 2? How many times have you made TOTW in any OQL format?
Aaron: I don’t really remember which questions were from this week. All the trivia games blend together after a while. I guess one that stands out is the Kotte question. I try to put a lot of information on my flashcards hoping it will help it stick and my national capitals card for Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte says “the last word of the capital refers to an ancient kingdom.”
In OQL USA playing D4/D5 I usually make TOTW about 3 times per season. I think I was overall TOTW once before this season. In OQL UK it has become kind of a running joke that I am the one who always gets the seat that is most heavily British and end up bombing but I think I have still managed TOTW twice in three seasons.
Tim: How did you first get into trivia as a hobby?
Aaron: I was always curious and learning about anything and everything was my biggest hobby as a kid. I always enjoyed watching game shows with my parents and when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was big we always had that on and I had the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire game for Gameboy Color. In those days to apply for Millionaire you had to call in and answer questions on the phone by pressing buttons and my parents had me answer the questions for them because I was 7 and not eligible to go on.
My family was also extremely competitive and constantly playing games. I enjoyed trivia games but they got soft-banned from the house since my dad didn’t like playing games that he would probably lose and I was fairly young when I got to the point that I would win most trivia games. I went to high school in Kansas and the high school quiz bowl equivalent there is called Scholars Bowl and I did that throughout high school, although I didn’t know anything about college quiz bowl so I didn’t get to continue with that.
Tim: When did you first get into online trivia? How did you first get into OQL?
Aaron: When Allie was in grad school in New York she got a part time job as a trivia host and met someone who referred both of us to LearnedLeague. I was in grad school in Virginia at that time so we played LL but didn’t know about any larger quizzing community. However, the New York trivia discord that Allie is in was also how we heard about OQL several years later while we were living in Arkansas.
Tim: What other quiz leagues do you play in besides OQL?
Aaron: Under the OQL umbrella I am in OQL USA, UK, and Regions. I have played Pop Solos and ICC but am taking the current seasons off during my long wait to start treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. Once I finally get a CPAP and am not exhausted all the time I will probably come back to the individual competitions.
I also play LearnedLeague, and have recently played BPTrivia, QuizNations, and Mimir’s Well, although I am not as regular about playing those. 2 LL seasons ago was my first in A Rundle after a 28 season climb from D and one of the things I like best about LL is the readily accessible stats that show my progress as I see how high I can climb.
Tim: Did you go to the first two Sporclecons? If so, what was the experience like?
Aaron: I did go to the first two Sporclecons. It was great meeting people who I had only met online and solidifying those relationships. I really enjoyed BP Titans and LearnedLeague Live in particular. Sadly for Battle of the Brains I ended up on scratch teams both years and the people assigned to my team were not the most pleasant to play with.
Tim: What are your other hobbies and interests besides trivia?
Aaron: I love animals, so I volunteer at an animal sanctuary and work with some of the chickens and pigs there. I also was introduced to the Colorado Pika project by Kelsey Barcomb and I go out and survey Pika habitat in the rockies. I was planning to also join the Denver Zoo’s Team Toad citizen science project and try to find a wildlife rehabber to volunteer with but have put those plans on hold until I have more energy. More casually I enjoy birding, hiking and wildlife photography (although I don’t really have the best equipment for it.)
I also love cooking and particularly enjoy exploring food heritage so I seek out heirloom and landrace grains and vegetables to cook with. I have a lot of different varieties of beans, wheat, corn, and dried peppers that I like to cook with.
Another thing I like is fabric arts. I learned to crochet in middle school and did that a lot through college although I didn’t have a lot of time for it once I got to grad school. Allie and I have recently taken up quilting and I am currently working on piecing together my first quilt. I find both crocheting and sewing great destressors and a good way to soothe anxiety when it flairs up.
I also come from a big tennis family so that is my sport of choice. My brother is a tennis pro at a club in Wichita and both he and my mom play in a bunch of USTA leagues. I don’t play all that much these days because I am tired and out of shape but hope to get back into playing once I am able to breathe while I sleep.
Tim: What is the restaurant scene like in Denver? What are your favorite places and your favorite food and beverage?
Aaron: To be honest I am not that impressed by the food scene in Denver, although there are some good places. I was spoiled from my time in Charlottesville which has a very good food scene. In Denver, Blue Sushi Sake Grill is a small-ish chain that has great vegan maki. City O’ City has good options but they changed their menu last year and took off my favorite things. Mister Oso is also a favorite taco place but their vegetarian taco rotates and the current one is something Allie doesn’t like so we probably won’t go back until it rotates again. One place that we tried for the first time last week and will probably go to a lot is Bao Brewhouse, an Asian fusion restaurant that is within walking distance of the Denver Center for Performing Arts where we are season ticket holders for the opera and ballet.
The thing I really love is bakeries, and in particular will seek out the best savory pastries any city has to offer. Bakery Four in Denver and Moxie in Louisville/Boulder are top tier bakeries and if they were a little closer to my house I would spend all of my money there.
For drinks my absolute favorite place is Milk Tea People, which makes great tea lattes. I am generally not that into beer or wine so the breweries and bars don’t usually have that much to offer but I like a gin cocktail and there are a few good distilleries around. In Denver my top place to go is Deviation Distilling, and if you want to venture further outside the city Dry Land Distillers in Longmont is great.
Tim: What is the live trivia scene like in your city? Do you have a regular place where you play almost every week?
Aaron: There are no shortage of options in the Denver metro but none of them stand out that much to me. I don’t really play every week but we try to get together with Denver OQLers semi-regularly. We are kind of spread out throughout the metro and don’t have consistent schedules so we will pick a different place every time depending on what day of the week works and where the available people are coming from.
Tim: What music do you listen to? Did you follow the Grammys and did you agree with who won in 2024?
Aaron: I have never really been a big music person. Most of my social media algorithms have dropped me in the sapphic bucket so the playlists that Spotify generates for me and the things TikTok shows me tend to be Chapelle Roan, boygenius, Renee Rapp, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, etc. When I lived in Arkansas I found local artists Nick Shoulders and Willi Carlisle and really enjoyed them so I will listen to them quite a bit. Rhiannon Giddens also gets a good amount of play. I went back and checked my spotify wrapped from the past couple years and apparently Fleetwood Mack and ABBA have been consistent favorites.
Besides that I listen to whatever I have been making flashcards about as I try to shore up my major trivia deficiency that is music. I have also been getting into opera and ballet over the past year so I will listen to a lot of that but I don’t really have strong favorites yet.
I have no opinions about the Grammys. I flip through the winners because someone will probably ask a trivia question about it but it’s hard for me to care about awards for things that are entirely subjective voted on by people who don’t even listen to all of the nominees.
Tim: What sports teams are you a fan of and what are your top five sports moments as a fan?
Aaron: Tennis is the number one sport I follow, particularly WTA. It can be hard to pick favorites there since there aren’t many WTAers that I dislike, but Iga Swiatek is probably my favorite just because she is quiet and has social anxiety so I relate to her. It also helps that she is the best player to emerge in 20 years. I also have been enjoying Danielle Collins' resurgence/retirement tour. She played at UVA and won the NCAA singles title there while I was in grad school and I walked past the UVA tennis team practicing every day while walking between my apartment and the lab.
My parents are both from Sheboygan, Wisconsin which makes my favorite pro teams the Packers and Brewers. My family was very into sports and the only time I was allowed to stay up past my bedtime as a kid was when the Packers were on Monday Night Football. The CC Sabathia year for the Brewers was also when I was writing all my college admission essays so I would stay up late and write my essays while watching that team.
For college sports there are kind of too many teams to count. The place I was born and have lived the longest is Iowa, but I don’t have a strong connection to any of the schools. I tend to root for all of them which is blasphemy to most people in Iowa. The first college I attended was technically Wichita State. I took the hardest math class my high school offered as a freshman so I got to be the little nerd whose mom dropped him off at college because he could drive yet to take harder math classes throughout high school. That was also at the time that WSU was most exciting, the last Turgeon years and first Marshall years. I enjoyed those teams until it was revealed Gregg Marshall was abusive towards his players and it all fell apart. My older cousin also played for the Wisconsin football team when I was in elementary school so that was the main team I supported before WSU. Then I went to undergrad at Oklahoma, grad school at Virginia, and did a postdoc at Arkansas so I have no shortage of teams to support.
Top 5 sports moments as a fan:
UVA winning the NCAA basketball tournament while I was living in Charlottesville (2019)
Going to a game at Lambeau Field and seeing the Packers beat the Bears in person (2008)
Going to a Wisconsin-Iowa game in Iowa City to watch my cousin play for the Badgers. He was a backup but it was not a close game so he came in for a few snaps at the end (2002)
Attending the US Open and seeing Serena Williams, Martina Hingis, Andy Murray, and Stan Wawrinka play in person while visiting Allie in New York (2016)
Packers winning Super Bowl XLV. I drove home from college in Oklahoma so I could watch with my family (2011)
Aaron: I know it kind of isn’t in the spirit of the question, but spending time with five famous people who have more in common with each other than me sounds like a social nightmare. I think a lot of my fellow physicists might choose someone like Richard Feynman but I’ve read his book and to be honest his arrogance and sexism overshadows his brilliance. You might say “why not Iga Swiatek” but the thing we have most in common is that we don’t really like talking to strangers so that might not be the best pick either. My childhood hero Brett Favre? Turns out he is not a great guy. Don’t meet your heroes, kids.
Throughout my life I have always struggled to connect with people and build meaningful relationships. There have been a handful of people who were extremely important to me who made me feel safe and valued who eventually outgrew the friendship and decided I was no longer useful to them. I think about them every day and the answer to who I want on my trivia team is that I just want all my people to come back and join me and I don’t care if that means our trivia team loses.
Tim: Have you ever been on any game shows and are you currently trying out for any?
Aaron: Never been. I’ve been trying out for Jeopardy! since I was eligible for the Teen Tournament and have auditioned a couple times but never got the call. I have recently auditioned for other shows but have not heard back from any of them either way.
Tim: What was your experience like in Quiz Nations Global this year?
Aaron: This was my first season playing and to be honest the format wasn’t my favorite. I enjoyed getting to play with some people who I hadn’t been on a team with before and I would happily team up with them again although I don’t think we are coming back to Quiz Nations next season.
Tim: Thanks for your time and I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.
Comments
Post a Comment