Off the Cuff with Dan Miller

Miller: My wife and I might go for a walk around the lake… In summertime, it’s projects: I like to work around the house… this year my project is fencing off the deck so my little dog can come out here and I don’t have to worry about him running down there and getting eaten by an eagle.

Miller: Coming up to Alaska when I was twenty three with a job, leaving my hometown was… I mean a lot of people do it, but it’s a daring move to do that break-away.

You know, skiing off ridge line, kayaking in the dark—I guess you could say it’s daring but it’s not like over-the-top daring, it’s just the course of growing up, and having fun, and doing crazy stuff.

Having kids, that’s daring, that’ll change your life… Maybe there’s a lot of daring things we just do naturally in our life that we don’t really count as daring.

Miller: I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan right before he died when he performed here in Anchorage, he was pretty good. He would be a good dynamic show to see again.

You know, actually I’d love to see an Oasis show. They’re not together anymore, so that would be reaching for it, but I bet you they would be a neat show to go see.

There’s so many artists that I want to listen to; I have a real eclectic musical taste. Like right now I’m listening to The Kinks. I haven’t listened to The Kinks in years and I hear a song by them and next thing you know I’m listening to them all the time. My kids got me into sea shanties. We sing along.

Here’s a deep, dark secret: I love to sing, but never in public. Only with my family. We sit around, we’re on a trip or we’re playing games, we’re all singing, I just love that.

Oh! I’d want to see Jimi Hendrix, that would be a classic.

Miller: I’m really interested in providing a good product to my clients. That’s what drives me, probably more than just making money. That’s a good thing. For my worst attribute? I’m a bit of a slob [he laughs].  Oh! Worst attribute, so one of the things is that I like to try a lot of different things—I paint, and it’s something I do just for the joy of it—and I like to try different things.

And if you see the things I’ve painted throughout the years, you can see sometimes it’s this, sometimes it’s that, and I think that can be a good thing, it certainly makes it fun. But as far as getting really good or proficient at one thing, it’s bad because I wish I could stay focused on one style.