These 4 Walls

The Moon Gets the Axe

2010-02-01T14:15:00.004-06:00

For the first time in my life, I find myself actually left in wonder after asking myself the question, "Did we really go to the moon back in '69"

I've always been a full blooded patriot in this matter. In my mind, there was no way we didn't go, hop around, play the front 9, then come skipping back. I mean come on, there were all of those photos, and, and, and.... Rocks!

As a kid growing up, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Alrdin were my heroes. I had so many childhood fantasies of strapping in to my space plane and blasting off to the moon like it was nothing. As a kid I dreamed that by the time I was an adult, space travel to the moon would be commonplace. I mean by then, the Air Force would really be more of a Space Force and I could be a space fighter pilot. I even wrote stories about it in 4th grade. It was so awesome, I turned it in 3 weeks late and the teacher still gave me a 100/100, even though before turning it in she said due to lateness, the best i could do was a 60. I was a believer. So where's the newfound skepticism fit in? Obama's new budget proposal.

With the new plan, Obama is cutting funds for the Constellation program, which is the program NASA is currently running to land a man on the moon by 2020. The reasoning behind the budget cut is that this apparent program is behind schedule, and overbudget. However, overall funding for NASA operations will be increasing for the next 5 years.

Wait,... what? Let me say that again. We're cutting the man to the moon program because it costs too much money. Then we're going to turn around and give NASA even more money. When looking at this critically, I have to really wonder what the beans behind all this is.

The Constellation program had some pretty lofty goals. Among others, it would help determine the possibility of a moon colony. And there have been a lot of advancements Earth-side recently to prove that this may actually be a viable option.

Constellation is taking a lot of what we used in the 60's and rebuilding it with modern computers and materials, but the basc overall approach would be the same. When I started adding things up, one question immediately came to mind. How in the hell are we so far behind budget, and especially behind schedule on something we accomplished 50 years ago with technology that is now outdated even in consumer markets.

On top of that, with the possible ramifications of the Constellation program, how could we take money away from it, but increase funds to other NASA programs. I immediately had to ask the question, what are we afraid of? I started to wonder if the program wasn't getting the axe simply because we didn't go before. Which would also explain why we're so far behind schedule and over budget... because we didn't actually build it the first time.

So as it stands now, I'm not swung that we didn't go. I still believe that we were there. But I feel a little hurt that our return trip is getting a lethal dose of The Man. I still believe, but I think the door has been opened, and I'm going to wonder about any new information that will come to light in the future.

No more moving with Mapquest

2009-12-29T08:46:00.004-06:00

My state will be putting into effect a new law that prohibits drivers from using data services on their electronic devices while driving their vehicle. This includes texting, surfing the web, and just about everything else you use your iPhone for. It looks like this will also apply to built in navigation systems. (We now are going back to pulling over to look at the map, kinda defeats the purpose right?) In addition, when in a construction or school zone, you can't even be on the phone unless it's in hands free mode.

Despite the cynicism above, I'm really a fan of this law. But I have to wonder, will people abide by it? I just finished reading a story on CNN about jurors who can't stop tweeting, googling, or facebooking during trials. One juror even sent a friend request to a witness during deliberations, causing a mistrial. Another part of the article mentioned a burglar who was captured in Pennsylvania because he stopped to check his facebook page at the home, leaving a trail for the fuzz to follow.

If people abide by this new law, I'm sure it will save someone's life, but will making it illegal really stop people from doing what is by now habitual, and on top of that, how are the cops going to spot the abusers? I know when I text while driving, i'm very surreptitious about it. (Aside from the weaving, red light running, and rear-ending of course.) And today's youth is even better. Many of them barely glance at their devices while firing back a text message. I have to wonder what measures can be taken to monitor or enforce this new law, and if it could potentially spiral out of hand.

In our town, the cops are very aggressive at pulling over motorists for very little reason, to check for drunken drivers. (during shool, we have nearly 40,000 college students in a town of 100,000 people.) On one occasion, i called the cops on my party happy neighbors on a tuesday night (like 3:30am), and decided to go grab a quick snack at Denny's while waiting for the cops to clean up the mess. When the cops get a call about a party, they'll have a few officers break it up, while a few others poach the roads leading out of the neighborhood or complex for drunken and driving partygoers. On this particular night, i got pulled over on the way back home by the very same police department I was calling to protect my sanity. The cop claimed my license plate light was out, wrote me a warning, then let me go. (As it turns out, my license plate light was working fine.) I've been pulled over in similar situations in our town 7 times in the last 2 years. Twice this has resulted in a moving violation I did not actually commit, and had to fight in court to reprieve... unsucesfully on one occasion.

While I applaud the intentions of this new law, I wonder if it is one that will be abused by some members of law enforcement. I'm guessing we'll see a rise in tickets in our area due to the younger population, and as always in a college town with more tickets being issued due to "college students" breaking this law, the likelihood that car insurance rates will go up in this zip code is a very realistic possibility. I have to wonder if there is anything we can do about the real problem, without causing more problems.

Those Damn Elevator People

2009-12-28T14:10:00.005-06:00

So here I sit, on the verge of collapse due to lack of sleep and overdoses of Full Throttle, and it occurs to me a good way to stay awake for a few more minutes might be to share my caffeinated glimpses of brilliance with you. Enjoy.

These days, things get on my nerves. People get under my skin. I... get annoyed. I never used to. Oh the naivete... when i could wander blissfully through the day without caring about the circumstances around me. I wish I had that back. But on the flip side, I now feel like I've empowered myself, because I now complain at will when something bothers me. And you can't stop me. First amendment bitch. Read it. (I haven't)

I figured I'd share some of the things that really get to me lately. Maybe you can share with me after you've read this, and we'll all feel a little better.

One of today's biggest annoyances are elevators. Not only are they a deathtrap waiting to happen, but people make it worse when they use them improperly. I'm talking specifically about the douchebag who enters on the second floor and rides up to the 3rd, then gets off. You my freind, are a jerk. Some people have several floors to travel, and here you are, not 30 feet from an escalator, making some claustrophobic dude spend an extra 20-30 seconds in a suspended steel death trap.

Unless you're legitimately disabled, you don't have any business in an elevator if you're going up or down just one floor. If it's a tall building, you better be going more than 2.

With the winter season brings an annoyance we're all familiar with. 4 wheel drive. I recently took a trip to a friends in "stupid to drive in" weather, that was made all the more dangerous by a lady with a huge suburban with 4 whell drive. It was windy, poor visibilty, and heavy snow, and I was driving on a state 2 lane highway, probably 5 mph faster than i should have been, about 60 feet behind another guy going the same speed, and this lady in her GMC felt we were too slow.

Sure, maybe you can obtain a higher speed than us lonely family car people. But your tailgating me while driving on 2 inches of snow is endagering not only you, but myself. If i lose control, ur gonna hit me right in the back, cuz you can't stop.

Worse yet, this woman then passed both of us, probably doing 55, on a bridge, endangering the lives of everyone in all 3 vehicles. I can't explain the anger i feel over this person taking chances with my life. I pray for everyone who behaves in this manner with a 4 wheel drive vehicle to end up in a ditch. That's a lesson that needs to be learned the hard way, and enough people don't learn it soon enough to save the lives of others.

Hangs head in shame

2009-09-16T09:29:00.003-05:00

This weekend was a real adventure for me. That's because I needed a new phone. I'm not sure how much fun your local verizon wireless store is, but ours is right up there with the dentist and the DMV. It's busy, the salespeople talk so much it confuses even the veteran cellphone users, and you have to be in line at 5am just to make sure to get served.

My trip tought me a just how much my world has changed in the last 3 months. You see, in those last three months, my mother has gotten on facebook, bought a Blackberry, and learned how to text. I should be excited about these, but you can't imagine the burden of getting a text from your mother at 9am on a Saturday morning that reads... "But what about mommy?!" While she's mastered the art and language of texting, it seems she still has a thing or two to learn about the mannerisms that go along with it. (Like no texting me before noon on the weekends.)

So back to the store. After shopping and listening to a convoluted tale of cost and lines and features from the salesman, my dad and i finally decide to take advantage of the BOGO Blackberry offer. We had to activate a new line to get it, since I wasn't yet eligible for an upgrade, and as a result, grandma now has a cell phone too. (I'm sure you'll get to hear more on that later.) As we're sitting there in the store setting everything up on the newly activated phones, the salesman tells my mom, "make sure to give these guys lessons on Blackberry's." I couldn't be more mortified.

The woman who still calls me every week for some simple computer problem, and only entered the internet social world 3 months ago, is now teaching me on how to use my smartphone. Just what have I turned into? It couldn't be that bad... could it? Oh yes. It could be.

As Dad and I sat there getting our emails set up, mom calls her sister to warn her that grandma can now call her for free. A few minutes into the conversation, my ears perk up when I hear mom start talking about custody. I'm puzzled, because all of my cousins are out of high school, so custody shouldn't be in any conversation. Then they start talking about adoption. Now I'm really confused, because last I heard, all of my cousins were, in fact, my cousins by blood. It got even wierder, because I realized that Dad is the one who suggested adoption. Without hearing anything more than I was.

I'm really worried now. My mom usually fills me in on all the Jerry Springer in our family, and this sounds like a ringer, but it's coming out of left field. I start butting in. "Who's being adopted?", "What's going on?" "Am I your real son?"

Dad looks at me, and replies. "It's Farmville."

What. The. Heck. I rack my brain. I've seen a fleeting reference to an application on Facebook called Farmville. I can't believe it. They're talking about Facebook. In a way that I don't understand. Dad, who only got on Facebook 2 weeks ago, and is still only capable of typing with his index fingers, (at an impressive rate though,) is more fluent in Facebook than I am. I'm ashamed to call myself part of Generation Y. I feel like the parent. I need to retire. I can't handle more changes like this...

Can't stop the voices

2009-09-04T11:30:00.000-05:00

I pulled this little post out of the Draft can. I never finished it, but you can enjoy a short post anyways...

So I'm trying this whole living on my own thing these days. Can't say I'm really a big fan. I get tired of myself pretty fast. Turns out I bore myself easily, even when I have a million things to do. The worst part is, I think I'm thinking too much.

You see I keep talking to myself in my head. I mean, who doesn't right? But now, my head-me just won't shut up. For example, while taking a shower, head-me composed this post about 8 times. That number is usually only 2. That's a 400% brain speak increase.

My inner ears just want my head-me to shut up. It happens even more so at bed time. I don't think I've fallen asleep before 1am since I moved in.

The Memory

2009-08-31T00:01:00.003-05:00

There are times at night when I remember it as if it were yesterday. Two and a half years later. As if I could forget.

Falling asleep. The window is cracked open letting in the cold air of an April night. Country music playing softly from a radio in the corner. It's how she likes it. It helps her sleep. I never could sleep with music, but somehow, with her there next to me, I truly felt happy, and happiness has a way of lulling you to sleep.

I remember waking up early in the morning. Just before sunrise. She's still sleeping, breathing softly next to me. The radio is still playing quietly, barely audible. The room is cold from the cracked window, but I'm not cold. My shoulder is sore from holding her in my arms all night. Then slowly the realization comes to me. I've felt love before. But this is different. This is more incredible than anything I could imagine. In that moment I know without a doubt that I will love her forever.

This realization comes with a hint of sadness, as I know that our time together will be short. Her life is taking her in directions I can't follow. In a few short weeks she will leave, and I know I will never see her again. But I will always remember that moment, especially on nights like tonight, with the windows of my room open and a soft breeze blowing in. For some reason I feel the need to turn on the radio. I let myself go, and for just a moment, I'm in that moment again. I can almost hear her breathing. Almost feel her head against my shoulder, her arm across my chest. But the moment passes, the dog turns over and whimpers in her sleep and snaps me out of my memory.

I turn off the radio and get up. I close the window. I pet the dog for a minute. Then I go back to bed, pull up the covers, and fall asleep. Alone.

2009-07-14T01:55:00.002-05:00

Every post I put up lately starts with, it's been awhile... so this time I won't bother with all that. I'll just list a few quick excuses for you to reference and discuss among yourselves, then delve into some more exciting things.

I broke my hand, and typing sucks
I've been working 60 hours a week
I've been developing 10 new sites for Instant Impressions Design

I've got plenty of other excuses, but those seem like the ones most likely to be true. Anyways, on to the good part.

Life has been INSANE lately. Instant Impressions has taken off to a good start, and I have so many client sites to work on, I haven't even gotten time to work on my own site. Some software issues with my computer's built in web server have given me a few hiccups lately, but I think I've found away around that, and will have my own Dev environment up and running later this week. It sounds like I'll have four of my ten client sites done in the next four weeks or so. Maybe then I'll actually turn a profit. (At least the IRS hopes so right?)

I've also begun leaving Duke out of the cage during the days since he stopped having accidents. It was a good choice, but helped me discover a few things. First, he is entirely capable of jumping onto the kitchen counter if I leave the bar stools turned the wrong way. Second, I think he's a genetically engineered sheepdog. Anything and everything that he can get his jaws on winds up in a huge pile in the middle of the living room floor by the end of the day. He doesn't chew, (lucky for him, since he decided to herd my $100 pair of Puma's) just herd's. It's kinda funny actually. I get my revenge on him by checking facebook when I get home before taking him for a walk.

I also bought a camera for the first time ever. I needed it for IID stuff, but have used it for fun stuff once in a while too. It's really pissing people off. Mainly because I've taken a couple hundred pictures that people are anxiously waiting for on facebook, and of which I have procrastinated uploading. It does some pretty fancy stuff, and shoots at 12mp, meaning I can blow up my coolest shots to poster size without sacrificing quality.

That's about all I got right now, (it is 2:30 in the morning,) but I promise I'll put up something worth reading tomorrow. I think my blogging will make a resurgance in the upcoming weeks and months, and you'll once again be spitting your diet coke out your nose onto your keyboard.

These 4 Walls Top Ten edition 6

2009-05-18T14:10:00.008-05:00

I realize it's been awhile since you all have seen a top 10, so I figured I'd pull one outta the draft can and throw it up here.

Before I get to that however, I'd like to announce that I have selected a name for my Web D&D business: Instant Impressions. You can visit my website at www.InstantImpressionsDesign.com. It's not impressive right now. (Actually, it's not even up yet.) I've been working on a couple other sites, (where I get PAID,) so I'm getting them up first. I'll put their URL's up one of these days when I feel like it. Without further ado, I bring to you... (Note: I am using some profane language I typically avoid in my posts, cuz dammit, these things are just funnier that way!

These 4 Walls Top Ten: Unfortunate Things

This edition of Top Ten focuses on those things which happen with the most unfortunate of circumstances. All of these things are errors that are completely and totally YOUR FAULT, and they also make you feel like a complete idiot. (or at least I did when they happened to me.) Nonetheless, I believe they are all also extrememly funny to everyone else when you do it, (and you will!). I hope you enjoy!

You've been trapped in a car for the last hour on the interstate. 30 miles back, you felt the need to go #2. By the time you make it to the rest stop, you can barely hold it in. You're in such a hurry, you grab the first available stall. Just after releasing that first big log, you glance at the TP dispenser and realize there's no Shit Tickets. Damn! Now you got frog march to the next stall in front of every tourist in the state.

It's the middle of winter, and it's freakin cold. You're hungry, and Pizza is on the menu. Since you're such a cheapskate these days, you decide to carry out instead of having it delivered. Since it also took you four hours to make this decision, the restaurant is just closing up when you get there. Since no ones around, and you'll only be a minute, you decide to leave the engine running. After coming back out, you head to your car and try to pull it open. No go. You locked your keys in the car. And it's running, and your cell phone is in the car. Maybe if you bang hard enough on the pizza joint door, the guys closing the kitchen might hear you? Either way, you're stuck in the cold and running outta gas fast...

It's Sunday night, and like always, you've procrastinated doing the laundry all weekend. Since you procrastinated all last weekend, you're now down to grandma's christmas sweaters and your old high school sweatpants. Time to do them jeans before you go to work in the morning. You toss all your work clothes into the washer and sit back to enjoy some Sunday evening television while waiting for your laundry. It's a rerun... and the sound of the washer lulls you to sleep. After drooling all over your couch for three hours, you wake up in the middle of the night, and go to your bedroom to sleep. You wake up in the morning and check the dryer for your fresh load of laundry. OOPS. "Hey boss, can't make it on time this morning... I don't have any pants..."

It's lunchtime. You have 45 minutes, and you like to go home for lunch. The round trip walk from building to car back to building is 15 minutes, so is the round trip drive from work - home - work. You're starving, and can't wait to attack last night's leftover macaroni and cheese. You get to your car, reach into your pocket, and come up empty handed. Immediately you remember the keys you've been spinning on your finger all morning. They're still laying on your desk. You don't have time to get them and still make it home for lunch. Worse yet, you don't have any lunch money. :(

So you're out drivin around with your buddy. You've agreed to be his DD for the night, and you're on your way to dropping him off. Since your cars tags are expired, you're driving his car. Halfway to your destination, your buddy gets a call, telling him to meet somewhere else. You need to go back the other way. You take a quick left on the first available street, and try to turn aound in the corner station's parking lot. As you're whippin a U in the lot, you notice the 5-0 pull in behind you and hit the lights. Apparently you turned right in front of them. Onto a one-way street. Going the wrong way. Apparently your buddy's car also has expired tags. In fact, he never re-registered it after buying it from his sister. He's not carrying his insurance card either, and the cops have a very large ticket book. It's time to start prayin, but your buddy isn't religious. CRAP! (this is a true life thing that happened to me, but one day when I was closing up the bar, the cops had one guy pulled over for this, and another one passed the first pulled over guy while they were sitting there ticketing him!)

So you've got this person at work that just doesn't get it. They live in their own little world. After getting their 5th outrageous email, you decide to forward on to a teamate. You're so wrapped up in your comments, you forgot that you initial opened the email with the reply button so you could respond to the nuisance.

It's Saint Patrick's Day. You didn't wear any Green.

You just pulled into the town your favorite college football team plays at. (Tha Illini of course) You have tickets in the 20th row on the 45 yard line. You had to park 3 miles from the stadium. 1 mile into your walk, you realize your ticket has fallen out of your back pocket somewhere between you and the car.

It's late on a Sunday night. You're chillin, watchin movies and Sunday night Tv. Maybe you've even had a drink or two. You decide ice cream sounds really good right about now. You pull the ice cream out of the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw a little, and head back to the living room to finish your show. It's the same Sunday night from #3, and that stupid rerun lulls you to sleep making you forget all about the full tub of ice cream sitting on the counter. Maybe it'll make a good soup or something...

You've been craving tacos for a week straight, but just haven't been able to go to the store to pick up some hamburger. Finally, you get a free night, and swing by on your way home. You get the hamburger browned perfectly, you head to the fridge to grab the milk so you can make your cheesy mix tacos. There's no milk. Oh well, you decide to use the regular seasoning with water instead. You head to the cabinet for the seasoning. There's no seasoning either. And that hamburger looked sooo tasty....

Hiatus

2009-05-10T12:10:00.003-05:00

Yeah, I know, It's been a while. It's been a long while. Ok, who am I kidding... it's been FOREVER, since I posted. I apologize. I've been trying to do a million things at once lately, and in today's economy, something had to be cut out of my day, and blogging has been it.

I know, blogging doesn't cost a dime, and there's other things that could be cut right? Well, the truth is, I've been up to a LOT lately, and blogging makes me feels like a guilty, cuz if I'm blogging, then I'm not studyin up on the things I need to do. (At least I'm not doin crack and bangin hookers right?)

First off, there's the good ole FT job. Pays the bills. Takes up 40 hours a week. Completely stresses me out. Secondly, there's the part time job, which provides fun money, takes away my social life (where I can use said fun-money), but gives me plenty of opportunities to meet interesting people.

Third, and most importantly, I've been working to launch my own company. Here's where you guys come in. I can't decide what to call my business. "Well Brian, what will you be doing?" you ask... I'm going to be doing web design and development. Basically, I'm gonna hunt down all the loser businesses that don't have a web presence and get them to pay me to give them one. So what the heck do you name that? I NEED YOUR HELP!!

I want you guys to leave comments and suggestions on names for my business. If I choose your suggestion, you better be watchin for the UPS guy....

Alright, so enough self promoting. There have been other big things going down since my last post as well. I found a girlfriend. (The ummmm friend). I then broke up with said girlfriend. I've also moved. It was a big move. I went across the hall. Here comes the big part: I'm living on my own. That's right, for the first time ever, I don't have a roomate. (Unless you count my dog Duke, but I don't consider an animal that poops on the floor once a week a roomate.)

So I hope you forgive me for not blogging for a while. Things have been crazy around here. On the upside, you will shortly get to see the fruits of my labor. I will be moving my blog to my own domain within the next week or two, and it'll be a complete redesign.

That's about all I can say right now, I got breakfast cooking, unpacking to do, and 6 websites to start building. (I need that name folks!)

Later.

Redneck Justice

2009-03-16T08:30:00.000-05:00

About a week ago, I finally made a decision to get a new phone. This was a tough decision, since I love my cool little Juke phone. But let's face it, I bought it so I could listen to music wirelessly when I worked out and road my bike. But now that my Zune has taken over that responsibility, I haven't used the mp3 functionality in months. This means the most important job of my phone is now texting. The Juke is built as an mp3 player first. Texting wasn't really the first thing the designers thought of. Don't get me wrong, I loved the thing, it turned heads everywhere I went, but just you try and carry on a text conversation using this thing:

That's what I thought. Not only is the keypad incredibly compact, the screen is tiny, and sometimes would break apart even single words. Lots of scrolling involved. Not to mention that the word recognition program didn't even recognize simple words like "her" or "and". I decided it was time to step up to the plate and get a phone that is up to date with touch screen functionality and an actual keyboard for texting. I wound up with the Samsung Glyde:

Much better! It even includes a pretty decent web browser. I have discovered a downside though. This little guy is big on butt dialing. If you're in my phone book and your first name starts somewhere between A or C, you probably already know this. It also probably made you pretty angry. You see, the only time my phone is actually in the pocket of my jeans is when I'm closin up for the night at the bar. This means it's either 1:30 on a Thursday night, or 2:30 on a Saturday night, and you're getting call after call straight from my booty. Even with the lock put on when I dropped it in my pocket, it was still coming unlocked and making calls. I eventually figured out how to stop this from happening, but not before a little incident one Thursday night after we closed up.

As I'm sweeping up the floor, I hear my phone start to ring. I pull out my phone, and see that it's my friend Aimee callin me. I happen to know this can't be Aimee, cuz I just saw her last week, and she let me know her number had changed, then forgot to send a text so I had her new number. Obviously, I'd been butt dialin someone with her old number. I figure I might as well talk to these people since I've been ruinin their sleep twice a night for two weeks now.

To get the full effect of the conversation below, imagine those who aren't me talking in a very thick southern accent.

ME: "Hello?"

Lady: "Who is this?"

Me: "Brian"

Lady (audibly upset): "I said, who is this?"

Me: "Brian"

Lady: "Brian who?"

Me: "I ain't givin you my last name!"

I don't think she heard that last part, because unbeknowest to me, the phone was either handed off, or more than likely, ripped out of her hands by one angry dude.

Pissed off guy: "Who is this?"

Me: "Brian"

guy: "well who are ya?"

(not this again...)

Me: "I'm Brian"

guy: "tell me where you're at so I can kick your ass!"

Me: "I ain't tellin yo where I'm at!"

guy: "tell me where you're at so I can kick your ass!"

These people are a broken record. I can't stand the angry repetition, so without telling them my side of the story, I hang up on 'em. They call back, and I answer and hang up without saying anything. They call back again. This time I answer, and decide to shout out my side of the story before they get a chance to trace my call and come attempt to beat me up.

Me: "Look dude, I just got a new phone, and it butt dials people. I'm sorry, but you have one of my friends old numbers. I'm deleting the number, it won't happen again."

I hang up. The phone rings again.

Me: "What!"

guy: "Where you at?"

Me: "I'm not F-in tellin you where I'm at!"

guy: "you in kankakee?"

Me: "What? No, I'm not anywhere near kankakee. I'm 300 miles from there."

guy: "Oh, well i thought you were in kankakee."

Me: "Well I'm not."

guy: "oh, well I'm sorry. I owe you an apology then. I thought you were in kankakee."

Me: "well, I'm not. But I apologize to for callin ya."

guy: "well I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

Me: "alright, well see ya then."

guy: "ok, I'm sorry man."

Me: "no problem buddy, it was nice talkin to ya."

I hang up for the final time. I look at the bartender. She's gasping for breath, having heard only my side of the conversation. I bust up laughing and realate the other side to her. We tried to analyze it using the play by play. We figure he must be the lady's boyfriend, and was worried about her extra curriculars a little bit, so he wanted to come kick the crap outta me. Apparently though, he wasn't willing to drive a few hundred miles to do it, cuz the second he realized that I wasn't around the corner, he apologized a whole bunch of times for wanting to kick my ass. Friendly town. Remind me not to visit Kankakee Illinois anytime soon. Or ever.

Just Like a Fireman

2009-03-03T17:00:00.001-06:00

You can all rest easy, I'm not dead. I just found out how much of a procrastinator I can really be. To be fair, I've had a whole bunch goin on since my last post. I'll do my best to catch ya'll up over the next week or two, so stay tuned.

Today's feature involves one of blogger nation's favorite subjects. Neighbors. Neighbors are a special breed of human being. Always a source of entertainment, whether you bought a ticket or not, you're gonna get a show. My neighbors have never failed to dissappoint. Some of you may remember about a year ago my neighbors who preferred to party every night until 4 am. They were great at avoiding the cops I called on them on a weekly basis. Before that I lived above a group of girls who were involved in a very involved church. (If you get my drift.) No complaints there though, they were pretty cool people.

It seems my new neighbors have topped the cake though. Before I go into details, I feel you should know some background about the people I share a common surface with. (My floor, their ceiling.) First off, nearly everyone in this town works for The Man. This includes myself, as well as both of my parents. This also includes the mother and grandmother of one of my downstairs neighbors. The girls grandma happens to be a personal assitant to my team. Her mother also sits right next to my dad.

So anyways, onto my little story here. I'm just getting home from dinner with my ummm.... friend (who I haven't received permission to blog about so I'm creating some SUSPENSE for ya,) and am getting Duke on the leash so he can do his business when there's a knock at the door. After confirming with Bill that he wasn't expecting anyone, I crack the door and take a peek. It's the ladies from downstairs.

"What's up guys"

"Do you have a drill?"

"Yeah..."

"Can we borrow it?"

Now I've hung out with this pair a time or two, and I'm not entirely convinced of their drill handiness skills, but I agree anyways, seein as how there's really no way they can hurt the drill. I give Duke to my ummm... friend, for her to take to the bathroom while I go fetch my drill from the garage for my neighbors. As I'm heading down the stairs, they inform me they may need my help installing something.

I run down, grab my drill and some drywall anchors, figuring they'll need 'em and don't have 'em, and head back up to their apartment. I open the door. I take two steps in. I peer into the living room. I see a brand new stripper pole lying there on the floor. It's Silver. It's long. It's a stripper pole.

Since I'm standing in their foyer, obviously speechless, they start to bring me up to speed. They want to mount it in the middle of their living room. I take a look at the pieces of the pole, and start to wonder how it's put together.

"Any idea how you're gonna mount this thing?"

"In the cieling..."

"Well, I'll tell ya one thing, there ain't gonna be no monkey swingin from this thing, it ain't strong enough. I'll wind up with a hole in my living room floor."

"Well then you guys can just use it as a fire pole to come down here! Besides, the video told us not to anyways."

"There's a video?"

"Yeah, with setup instructions and tutuorials."

"Ummm, tutorials?"

"Yeah, so we can get good ya know?"

"Right."

Anyways, I tell them they'll have to wait till another night for me to help them since I'm hanging out with my ummm.... friend tonight. I have yet to hear back from them, but I'm guessing it's not installed since I don't have a direct living room to living room hole in my floor yet. I wonder what the maintenance guys will think?

Warning: Contents Under Pressure

2009-01-21T16:56:00.004-06:00

There are words that you can say around a child, and immediately, the kid will start laughing. That's what's so cool about kids. Mention mellons, and they'll laugh for hours. Some of these words, while being perfectly normal, are deemed socially inappropriate. Take fart for example. It's a word only uttered in hushed overtones behind someone's back. It's a taboo word. And never should we talk about fart stories. Well I think that's just crap. (Pun intended.)

This morning I woke up like any other day. I woke up, went to the bathroom, and considered going back to bed. That's when it happened. (Guess what happened...) That's right, I farted. And it was bad. You know when sometimes you fart and it stinks so bad you gag? This was worse. This one stunned me. I couldn't even move. As a matter of fact, I nearly passed out. I don't know what I ate to make that happen, but I'm guessing if you were to attempt to chemically remanufacture this particular stink, you'd be breaking international laws. It might even be considered a war crime.

After standing there in shock for a minute, I went to the sink and drank a glass of water. It was no use. The terrifying smell of the invisible cloud had permeated my taste buds already. I was drinking my fart. It was worse than the time I accidentally drank bird food thinking it was Cherry Kool-Aid. (To be fair, dad mixed the stuff up in the Kool-Aid container.)

Somehow, I made it back to my bed. After that experience, I needed to sleep for another 20 minutes before getting ready for work. I crawled back under the sheets and tried to go to sleep. It was no use. My room is attached to my bathroom, and door's don't stop can't stop a toxic cloud that's taken on a life of it's own. Luckily for my dog Duke, he was under the covers, and couldn't smell it yet. Unfortunately for him, Krakatoa was getting ready to erupt again. I had no warning. I farted again. The temperature under the blankets musta jumped 20 degrees in 5 seconds, and my poor dog got the dutch oven treatment.

Duke immediately jumped out of bed and started sneezing. I couldn't help myself, I just started laughing so hard. Fate has a way of revenge though, because that just caused me to inhale. Stunned once again, I was helpless to prevent Duke from going to his water dish to attempt to drink away the fumes. Sorry buddy, I've tried that. He reacted to the water about the same way I did. He started heaving. After a few seconds of that, he just slinked away to his own bed and laid down back to sleep. Serves him right for all the dog farts he's laid right in my face.

As I was getting ready for work 30 minutes later, I sprayed on some cologne in the bathroom. It was no use. I still smelled like fart. Man! I really ripped that sucker. Nothing short of Kryptonite in an aerosol form was gonna dissipate that cloud anytime soon. I resorting to spritzing myself in my car on the way to work. Thankfully, that last ditch effort paid off. I carefully watched my co-workers faces as I walked in. There was no sign of discomfort on their faces. No hint of the lingering monster that came with no warning. I logged into my computer and looked at my calendar, hoping I could sit in my cube away from the rest of the world until my gas passed. (haha) Unfortunately, I had a meeting right away. Crap!

I hope you're all like me and enjoy this post. I hope it leaves you gasping for air. (Out of laughter anyways.)

Just Can't Help Myself

2009-01-15T18:26:00.006-06:00

So today I realized I'm an addict. Oh sure, we've all had our bouts with addiction. Some drink. Some smoke. Some even steal the handset to your desk phone. We've all dealt with addiction in some way or another. It's also true that all addictions have their dangers. Drinkers kill themselves slowly while sucking down the next frosty beverage. Smokers kill themselves slowly while breathing in compounds that are only otherwise found in sewers or dumps. The phone klepto's are yet to be caught, but I'll think of something good once we figure out who dun it.

My addiction is more of a hidden dagger. It's not publicly dangerous. But consumed in quantity, I'm sure it'll knock me over sooner or later. What am I addicted to? Full Throttle. The energy drink. Don't laugh. It's dangerous stuff. Each can is an aluminum bullet that has the effect of a super charged jump start. Each can also has 3000mg of caffeine. It says so on the back of the can. That data isn't tucked away easily lost in column along with other pieces of nutritional data, it's displayed proudly in large fonts with highlights and flames.

It makes it easy for me to add up the number of cans I need to drink in a single day in order to have a heart attack. Today I discovered that number is higher than three. I dread the day that number reaches four. (It might have been today, but I've managed to empty the vending machine early this week.)

For a while I dealt with my addiction. I went several weeks with no super charged energy drinks. I don't know why I fell off the horse. Maybe it had something to do with the holidays. I think more realistically, it was my way of coping with 2008. I just wanted it to end. And it just kept draggin on. I needed to speed things up. And now I'm officially an addict. Thanks 2008.

I've always gulped down copious amounts of liquids during the day, but it used to be just water. I want to get away from the Full Throttle, but the can is just designed perfectly to make you crave more. It taunts me every time I walk by the break area. It calls me from my desk. (The caller ID says so.) I don't know how to get away.

I try Gatorade. It's great, but it just doesn't fill me up the same way. I try water, but it doesn't have the caffeinated punch I need. I'm stuck here. For most addictions, there's a patch. I need a patch. It's my only hope. It just better look as cool as the can.

Deep Freeze

2009-01-14T16:42:00.004-06:00

About 6 weeks ago, our automatic Ice Maker broke down. If you recall mention of a unique tradition called Sunday Night Drinking, you may realize this was a big deal to me. I immediately opened a maintenance ticket at the front office with the apartment manager. She told me someone would be out "this week" to fix it.

"This Week" came and went. So did "Next Week." As a matter of fact, "Next Week" came and went three more times before I went back in to complain. After calmly explaining how I was told "This Week" over four weeks ago, she told me she'd talk to the maintenance guy and have him look at it "This Week." I gave her the benefit of the doubt, and refrained from describing to her my definition of "This Week."

Five more days passed, as did the weekend. I woke up Monday (Next Week) and decided I'd call them after their office opened up and explain to them that This Week means a collection of working days that concludes once the weekend starts. Luckily for them, my Monday was busy, and I had several things to get done This Week. (Which for me means by noon "Today") I failed to place my call.

Upon arriving home, I saw a copy of our work order and the maintenance guy's comments on the kitchen counter. After only 5 weeks, as shown below, we once again have ice!

At this point, I feel pretty satisfied. I turn into the kitchen to see what I can snack on and I can't help but laugh. All this time, I can imagine the front office complaining back and forth because we're causing a comotion over an ice maker. I realize that the only reaction the maintenance crew can have is laughter when they walk into our kitchen and realize the reason we've been pestering them about our ice maker:

If you can't put two and two together with the picture above and figure out why we were desperate for ice, then you're beyond my help. I was so happy to have the ice maker back in action that I almost bought the maintenance crew a gift certificate to the cafe around the corner. Then I remembered it took them five weeks to fix it. Maybe I'll just ask them over for a drink instead?

Killer OJ

2009-01-12T17:05:00.006-06:00

There are certain things in life you just take for granted. The refrigerator for example. You never really appreciate how useful your refrigerator is until a gallon of Orange Juice explodes on your kitchen counter.

Bill and I have this new Saturday/Sunday tradition. As you know, on the weekend, I work at a bar Saturday night. Bill happens to own the Karaoke company that DJ's at the bar on Saturday's. So every Saturday, after we close, we invite our friends and a few random people over to our place to continue to fun of the evening. The bars here close at 2, so there's nothing else to do for the night owls. Many times, our good times have extended into a phenomena called Sunday drinking. Usually this means that the people who wound up hangin out with us till the sun was high in the sky, come back after a nap and chill with us for a movie and a drink or two.

This is where the refrigerator and the explosive citrus come into play. In order to keep our guests content, we've stocked up our bar with every liquor and mixer you can name. You call it, I'll make it. This includes one of Bill's favorites: Tequila Sunrise. The Sunrise is 80% OJ, and we tend to go through the stuff at a decent rate. While grocery shopping on Saturday, I restocked on Orange Juice. Bill goes out later that evening and decides to stock up for the weekend's festivities. This includes a fresh jug of everyones favorite citrus sweet stuff. I'm sure at this point Bill is proud of himself for thinking ahead.

Upon arriving home, Bill discovers the juice already in the fridge. This presents no problems to him, (He's got enough tequila to go through a few gallons of the OJ.) Since there's already a gallon and a half of the stuff in the fridge, he sets the fresh gallon on the counter and leaves it there. It sits there for a few more days while we go through the remaining stock in the fridge. Neither one of us figures there's anything wrong with leavin it on the counter. Neither one of us thinks four days unrefrigerated is a big deal. Neither one of us guessed it was the orange juice that was making the funny hissing sound we heard while watching a movie.

Bill notices the ominous Cobra like hiss first. He makes me aware of it and asks if I left something on the stove. I glance in the kitchen, and remember how lazy I was this weekend.

"Nope, I didn't even use the stove today."

Bill goes back to watching the movie. I however, am a little more paranoid. My first thought is that the faucet is running. I can't stand to waste water, so I ask Bill to mute the TV. Once muted, my ears get a better sampling of the noise. That's no faucet or stove. I somehow realize something is wrong. My instincts compell me to investigate with extreme urgency. Like a flash I jump into action. I run into the kitchen and hit the lights.

What I saw was the last thing I expected to see. My eyes do a quick survey of the scene:

On the counter, the jug of OJ was twice the size it should be.
The container was doing a pretty good impersonation of Old Faithful, and our cieling was in danger of becoming a new shade of yellow
The counter, cupboards, and floor was quickly becoming the 6th largest body of liquid in the country

Oh yeah, it also smelled like the inside of a whale. I quick toss the jug into the sink and we start toweling up the mess. After a minute, I pick up the jug with my right hand and put my left on the cap. I'm about to twist it off, and then my brain intercedes.

Brain: "You really want to take this cap off right now?"

Brian: "Hmmm, why not?"

Brain: "There's enough pressure in there to make it look like someone pushed their finger three inches into the side of the jug."

Brian: "Yeah, it probably won't end well if I use my hand to open this will it?"

Brain: "Now you're thinkin."

I save my hand from a rough night. I grab a steak knife from the knife block. I hold up the jug and get ready to stab it deep through it's heart. My brain intercedes again.

Brain: "Really? You're gonna use a knife? Really? Do you never learn?"

Brian: "I know, but this is gonna be cool!"

Brain: "So was tying bottle rockets to a rubber chicken to see how far it would fly. You remember how that one ended up right?"

Brian: "Hmmm, maybe you're right."

Brain: "That's what I thought."

Before my Brain could prevent me from having any more fun, I quick ran out to the balcony and tossed the jug over the side. After falling three floors it hit the ground and exploded. The explosion that resulted was pretty impressive. After I put some shoes on and went back out to the deck to investigate, I saw that the aftermath had launched spray all the way up to the second floor.

Afterwards I googled "exploding Orange Juice" to see if this had happened to anyone else. I stumbled across this story. This lady lost two fingers, lacerated and bruised some ribs after her daughter handed her a water bottle full of OJ that had been in her backpack all weekend. Looks like I got lucky. I can imagine what the coroner's report would have read: "OJ did it."

Z2K9 - A first hand account

2009-01-02T09:51:00.004-06:00

2008 was a year that was destined to go out quietly. For me, it was going to go down a little quieter than I would have liked.

The morning started off normally enough. My alarm went off. I snoozed it. It went off again. And again. And again. After rolling out of bed, taking a shower and convincing Duke that he didn't want to spend the entire morning looking for a spot to pee outside, I toss my Zune into my bag and head into work.

Work promissed to be an interesting day. With most of the building empty, the day promised to go by pretty slow. I was looking forward to bustin out my Zune, crankin the tunes, and truckin through my days work blissfully unaware of the wasteland of deserted cubes around me. Microsoft was about to let me down big time.

I pull out my Zune not long into my morning, turn it on, and sync up my Bluetooth transmitter for some wireless cruising. I pick the Zune back up, only to find that it froze during the boot up process. I see a nice fancy picture of the Zune logo and an almost full loading bar. At first, I thought I did something wrong. It wasn't responding to button commands, and I couldn't even get it to reset using a power surge. Since I didn't have my sinc cable with me at work, I couldn't plug it into my computer either to force a reset. I head over to a coworker's office who has a Zune to see if I can borrow his cable. No luck. He's hangin out somewhere else on the floor.

I head back to my cube, sit down, and start googling. I surf the Zune boards and forums for a few minutes reading about frozen Zune problems. I come across a thread with several responses with the exact same problem I'm having. I realize that the date stamp is today, and is not a historical thread. This is my first cue that this is not my fault. I surf over to the official Zune forums at Zune.net. I discover a thread with over a thousand people responding to the same issue I'm having. I look at my watch. It's only 9:30am.

I start to laugh. Microsoft is screwed. It hits me that if this many Zune 30 users are having an issue, then all Zune 30's must be affected. Every single one. In the entire world. It's their most popular mp3 player to date. And they're all dead. While looking through the thread, I see that one of the Zune tech's has dropped his two cents in. In the state of the Zune, he says that most likely you'll have to send it in to get it fixed. No one responded well to that. Microsoft's repair service is notoriously slow. Many Zune users are also XBOX users who have had to send their BOX's in at some point or other.

At this point, nicknames for the Zune 30 start popping up all over the thread, along with a name for the day. Bricks, Mini-coffins, (the XBOX's are known as coffins), coasters. You name it. The day itself was dubbed first as "Black Zune Wednesday." Then: "Zunepacalypse", and finally "Z2K9"

The official word from MS wasn't making people happy. A short one-liner: We're aware there's a problem, we're working to fix it, thanks for your patience! The thread was almost growing exponentially. In the time it took me to read one page of reply's, three more pages of posts would be generated. People were UPSET. By the time I went to lunch there were 97 pages of posts on this topic in one thread alone. People were talking about everything from a class action lawsuit to how much they stil hate the iPod.

I resign myself finishing my day without my Zune. I don't know what to do with myself. I might actually have to go dust off a cd's for a day or two, (if I can still find them.) But I can't live like that forever. I won't be satisfied listening to one artist, one album at a time. I want it all NOW. I'm already trying to figure out which organ to sell so I can afford a new Zune 120 soemtime in the next month. (I won't survive without my Zune anyways, so no organ is ruled out.)

I make it through the rest of the day at work and head home, and immediately log into my forum account. The most recent news out of Microsoft is up. They'd been claiming all day that the crash didn't have anything to do with the end of the year. Turns out it did. (We all knew it.) They forgot the leap year. The Zune hit that 366th day and didn't know what to do with itself. It got stuck looping over the day while loading, and kept going until the battery was dead. This had a bunch of people worried too. The Hard Drive isn't designed to continually spin away for 4 or 5 hours. My Zune got hot enough to use as a pocket hand warmer.

So what do you suppose Microsoft's fix was? Do we all have to send our Zune's back in as we suspected? Were we all just SOL? Nope. The solution: wait. Turns out the Zune just drank too much and had a nasty hangover. It needed a day off. We were all instructed to let the batteries die, and charge them back up after noon on Jan. 1st.

I was skeptical, but did as instructed. I waited rather impatiently. Sure enough, I fired my trusty coaster up after noon on Thursday, and saw my trusty playlist screen. We're back in business people!

Oh by the way, anybody have a spare kidney they can donate to the mafia on my behalf? That would be great. Thanks.

Top Ten edition 5

2008-12-30T15:35:00.000-06:00

Well, it's finally happened people. Christmas came, and then it went, and now we're sitting here twiddling our thumbs wondering what to do with ourselves now. In my case this is particularly true, as I'm one of the unlucky 5% of people in our entire building that decided to work the day after christmas. Fear not my friends, I'm swooping in with yet another way to stem the tide of office boredom: Wikipedia.

You've all heard of Wikipedia by now. You may or may not have had a chance to use their Random Article link however. I decided to hop on the Wikipeda train and take a tour of the Wiki-country side. The Result is another edition of Top Ten. Below are my favorite ten random articles I encountered on my Wiki-journey. Hope you enjoy!

Harrow, Ontario - This was the very first stop along my Wiki-journey, and I learned how the phrase Dolladolla bill was coined among other things. Drunk Canadians too... always entertaining.

An Ji Hwan - A short biography. Extremely short. In fact, it gets right to the point. This was also my 2nd stop.

Shark Vegas - All about an obscure band. Now I can finally win that coveted Pink piece of pie in Trivial Pursuit!

Nova Cinema - Greece's version of HBO or STARZ.

OR2M4 - There are a couple of things you need to know before reading this entry. The first is Molecular Biology. The second is Advanced Chemistry. The third is Advanced Biological Molecular Chemistry. Good Luck.

Tulu Kingdom - This is one of those "Thanks for Sharing" type of entries. I'll give a Dolladolla bill to the first person that reads this and can confirm that any of the geographic locations mentioned are in fact real places.

Winifred Mary Ward - This speech patholigist is also known as "The mother of Creative Drama"

Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916 - You have to check out the newspaper headlines shown in this article. It's amazing how writing styles have changed.

Proggy Programming Fonts - All you programmer geeks know all about this. It's programmer geek code for "Font"

Koro-Pok-Guru - I saved the best for last. You have to read this entry. I couldn't help but be reminded of lawn gnomes and that TV show for kids in the 80's. "David and the gnomes" or something like that...

I hope you've all enjoyed the latest addition of the top 10. If you wish to go on your very own Wiki-journey, go to http://www.wikipedia.org/, and click on the random article link in left navigation. Catch ya later.

I Just Can't Wait

2008-12-22T13:40:00.003-06:00

Patience is not one of my virtues. Anything that requires me to wait, I handle badly. Fishing, traffic, shopping, tv shows with commercials, women, you name it. I'm a now kinda guy. One area I've always been patient about however is the holidays.

I've never been one of those people who starts the Christmas countdown in July. You might think that I'm so impatient that I can't bear to think about it, but really, the Christmas anticipation never affected me. I always waited patiently until Christmas eve to open gifts with the rest of my family. (Impatience runs in the family, so we don't wait until Christmas day.) This year however, I find myself counting down every minute of every hour. Why the change? I feel like a five year old who can't wait until christmas morning to go storming into the living room and jumping into the pile of gifts looking to see what Santa brought me.

I guess this years difference comes from an unexpected place. My wallet. You see, I'm not a very demanding guy. I'm not the one who enjoys christmas for what I'm going to receive. I do however, get a big kick out of giving. I think this is why I've always been patient about Christmas. It's because I've always been broke. When you get a kick outta givin, and givin's small, it'll make any guy settle down. This year however, my true impatient nature is free to shine. For the first time ever, I can afford to buy the gifts that I want for my family.

As long as I can remember, my mom has always spent a good amount of money on my brother and I for Christmas. There were a many years where I know it was tough for her, and several where she had to work two jobs to do it. But she never failed to pack a punch under the pine tree. This year, I finally can afford to return the favor. The feeling is great. Especially in today's economy, I feel lucky that I can spend more. Now if only I knew how to handle the wrapping paper...

Cheez It

2008-11-26T17:00:00.001-06:00

Here's a post I've fished out of my Draft Can. It was another one of those "influenced" posts you all love so much. This one never made it to the finish line. Hope you enjoy. I'm cookin up some good stuff for the next day or so, and I'm not talkin turkey...

After much deliberation, I've decided to grant a special request made by sevetral of my readers. Another alchol induced post. I had to think long and hard about tonight's topic, but in the end I chose the one that was staring me in the face all along. The floor.

You ever wonder who invented carpet? I sure don't. But for those of you who do, it's a hard knock life. There's berber, and shag. Green and Blue. Even old and new. How's a person to choose? Throw in a crappy resale value and you could have a life or death decision on your hands.

So what else inspires a hops and barley influenced individual to write so early in the AM of the morning? Lots of things. Things that I can't remember right now. Things that I may not remember in the morning. Things that the local rugby girls will be sure to laugh at me about the next time they come into my bar.

You know, I'm a pretty indecisive guy right now. I'm sittin her with a bag of doritos and a bag of lays original, and I can't decide which one I'm craving. The kicker is, it might be both, and I'll wind up working out the next 3 days to pay for it.

Anyways, on to more seriousness of things. I want a motorcycle. Maybe then I will stop having dreams about riding one. It's not that I want one during my consciousness times, but apparently my dream-self has a deep desire for two wheeled freedom. The funny thing is, I've already got all the riding gear, I just don't have a motorcycle.

I think I've decided to go with the Lays, but only because the CHEEZ-IT's are out of reach.

Have you realized lately how much modern convenience has taken over you life? Last night I was laying in bed and wasn't feeling perfectly comfortable. I used a remote to turn on the lights. I sat there for a minute. I then used a remote to turn down the fan.

We Never Grow Up

2008-11-19T09:26:00.005-06:00

This morning while pondering the secrets of the universe while shopping online, I realized something. If you were wondering, I didn't realize that I was in fact pondering and shopping instead of working. I realized how much we never grow up. I realized just how much work is like high school. There's still cliques and clubs, outsiders and insiders, jocks and nerds, and as always, the nurse's office is there for a long overdue nap.

This all came about when I was thinking, "wouldn't it be cool if there we had clubs here at work like we did in high school?" You know, one for the coumputer geeks, one for the media freaks, even one for the chess guys. Then it hit me. We do. Only now as adults, we prefer to call them comittee's and affinity groups. Yup, work is High School all over again.

Let me break it down by giving you some comparisons. Where are the cliques you ask? Why, just look around at the buddies you get coffee with every morning. Yup, that's them. What about recess you ask? That's simple, at work, there's recess 3 times a day. If you don't believe me, just take a gander at our atrium and all the people racing each other around it 3 times a day. First one to 2 miles wins!

There's bullies here too. Only they're a little more sneaky about it here. They wait until you take a vacation day, then wrap your entire office and everything in it with aluminum foil. They take your nameplates and make them into a bowl of Jello. They drop skittles in your Kool-Aid. They put no-chew spray for dogs on the pens you like to chew on while deep in thought. Yes Boys and Girls, bullies have evolved since high-school.

You know what else has evolved? The lunchroom. It still has a high school feel., I still got my variety of choices, but instead of handing over a ticket to the cashier, I hand over my credit card. Instead of there being hot lunch or cold lunch, I now have:

Grilled Lunch

Fried Lunch

Salad Lunch

Chain Lunch (Pizza Hut, Blimpie's, Chik-Fil-A)

Mama's Homecooked style lunch

Healthy Lunch (usually tasty)

Even Healthier Lunch (usually disgusting)

Oriental Lunch (the equivalent of mystery meat in high school. Tastes good, but who knows what it is)

Belt Buster Desert Bar for after lunch

Yep, we took the concept of lunch and made it the hardest decision of the day. Back into the day I could walk into 6th period lunch, throw a bunch of crap on my tray, hand over my ticket and be off to worry about more important things such as timing my jokes for maximum "spray-from-the-nose" effect. Now I walk into the cafeteria, and join the throng of Zombie workers wandering from station to station trying to make a decision. People have lost it here.

Inspiration or lack thereof

2008-10-27T10:51:00.002-05:00

I get the urge to post often. Why don't I post more you ask? Do I sit around and do nothing all do to inspire posts? Despite what a certain roomate may tell you, this is not the case. I have fun. It's just not always the type of fun that inspires literary creativity.

I can always post a rundown of my activities, but I'm terrible on the short term memory, and besides telling you when and who I've been havin a good time with, I'm not good on the recall. I often wind up starting a post, only to delete it in frustration because it's not the type of material I want to put up here.

With that in mind, I'm looking for something new. I want to write. I really do. I just know there are more interesting things to write about than myself. I have a few ideas on inspiring inspiration, but if you have any thoughts, feel free to drop them in the comment box. In the meantime, I'm going to leave you with this little gem. I was bored at work the other day and posed a question to a friend of mine in New York. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did:

Me: Do you ever wonder how Darth Vader picks his nose?

Dave: No. But tell me anyways.

Me: I haven’t figured it out yet. I assuming he wouldn’t use the force for a simple absentminded act such as retrieving a booger. But he’s gotta go into his special chamber and take off his helmet to get it out either way. (you don’t want loose boogers floatin around inside of a helmet like that, you might wind up eating it.) He can’t take his gloves off, cuz they’re hermetically sealed, which means his fingers are too big to fit up his nose. And we’re back to the beginning. If he uses the force and gets distracted, he might accidentally punch himself in the brain. No fun there.

Dave: My thinking is that there is a vacuum in his helmet that sucks out residual mucus. It is drained when the helmet is removed.

Me: I wonder how big the mucus tank is? And aren’t boogers caused when there is bacteria or such introduced into your system from the air? If Vader never breathes the air, maybe he doesn’t even HAVE boogers.

Dave: He is the chosen one. However mucus is generated by your body (think of the lining of your stomach) and excess is produced to clean out allergens and other harmful bacteria. However from what I have read, Vader has air directly pumped into his lungs through his mouth and nose and the suit breathes for him (hence the mechanical breathing sound) and filters the air. Therefore any residual mucus would be pumped out with the exhalation.

And to think I just pulled this explanation out of my a**…

Me: But not all mucus is bad mucus. So I guess by your explanation, the mucus would be recycled back into his system? So he’s really not breating air, he’s breating a carefully measured ratio of air to snot.

Dave: Don’t you love technology? Do you think he has an air freshener too? Like Endor Pine, Naboo Sea Breeze, or that New TIE fighter smell?

Me: I bet he has cartridges that he can switch out whenever he feels like. Didn’t you hear about the TIE pilot that slipped a little essence of Wet Wookie into his air freshener? Now that’s a prank worth dying for.

The Broken Road

2008-10-20T16:54:00.014-05:00

The following post just kinda wrote itself. It's longer than any other post I've
written by far, so I've split it up into 3 parts to make it easier to read.
You can skip back and forth using these links.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Comments

Part 1

It’s Monday. I figured I’d celebrate my favorite day of the week by
changing lanes a little on ya. You guys know me pretty well by now. I’m big
on light humor and witty sarcasm, and for the most part, avoid blogging about
the drama in my life. I like to make my readers laugh, and the sadness just
ain’t good for that. However, this post may have some of the poor me element
to it, so I apologize if you stopped in today for quick chuckle. I doubt you’ll
find it in here today. (Although, I may surprise even myself, as I don’t really
have a plan of attack for today’s post. I’m kinda just shootin from the hip…)

I guess I’ll start with a lead in story. I’ve been hangin out a Lunker’s (the
local watering hole) for a little over a year now. I passed the time with my
buddies here a couple times a week singing Karaoke and havin a good time. At
some point a couple of months back, the powers that be decided it would be
better for business if I spent some time on the other side of the transaction
counter. Since I was hangin out anyways, I accepted, and have spent 2 nights
a week workin there for the last 2 months now.

This has led to some interesting times. I never drank a lot while there, knowing
I had to drive home, so I knew what to expect. This time around though, I’ve
gotten a whole new perspective. Being the door guy definitely has it’s perks. The
big one being the girls. The campus our little pub sits on consists of 2/3
women. Needless to say, we usually have a 5 to 1 girl to guy ratio. On top
of that, most of the guys that are there are either old, or married, or fall
down drunks. Of the one or two single guys there, it seems the ladies think
the door guy is their safest bet.

I’m automatically accepted into any group at the place, dragged into them
against my will at times even. It’s provided a lot of laughs, and a lot of
attention, and the occasional open ended opportunity. (wink, wink.) I’ve always
passed on the opportunity. Up until this last Saturday, I always thought it
was because I wasn’t looking to get involved with any woman under the age of
23. I realized Saturday night this wasn’t the case. And age really doesn’t
have anything to do with the reason I’ve been turning women down. (Although,
it’s still a big factor in most of the cases anyways.) (And yes, I just contradicted
myself.) (Deal with it.)

Back to Intro

Part 2

The last few years have been a little rough on me relationship wise. I’ll
go back the last two years to give you a picture. In the last year and a half,
I’ve dated 3 women. 2 of these were serious. The first girl I met one night
randomly while out line dancing in Bartonville.

Being a Saturday night, there were maybe only 50 people in the place. So me
and the fellas were out on the floor, doing our thang, when to my surprise
I was suddenly surrounded by 4 women. Since it was obvious I knew what I was
doing, they watched my steps, and did the best to imitate my actions. This
went on for another song or two, then on came the slow music. The girls turned
tail and headed for their table.

Being the man of action I was, I reached out for the last one of the bunch,
and dragged her back to the dance floor. We hit it off right away. After finishing
our dance, the girls decided to head out for the night. Before she left, we
exchanged numbers.

I had planned to call her a few days later after the NCAA championship basketball
game was over. I could barely concentrate on the game thinking about it. I
hadn’t been nervous about calling a woman since I was in high school, and I
couldn’t even concentrate on the Gators as they tore apart the hated Ohio State
Buckeyes. With less than 2 minutes left in the game, my phone rang. It was
her. Apparently I had made as big of an impact on her as she had on I. We made
a date to get together, and from there, it was history.

This girl was Canadian, and was in school here in the states. I knew from
our first date that it would not work, since she had to move back in two months,
but that didn’t stop either of us. That was undoubtedly the best two months
of my life. I have never loved another woman the way I loved her. I just wished
I had told her this before she left. We both knew it. We both knew we felt
the same way. Watching her drive away for the last time, knowing I would probably
never see her again, was the hardest thing I ever did. It still hurts today,
a year and a half later.

The second relationship developed a few months later, and was completely unexpected
and random. I was keeping a pretty low profile, hiding out at my apartment,
purposely avoiding going out. I was still hurting, and I wasn’t looking to
start anything with anyone. I was avoiding women altogether.

I decided the best way to accomplish my low profile was to sit around all
summer and master Guitar Hero. I amazed even myself. I became an artist with
a plastic guitar and an overpowered sound system. Then one night, my bubble
popped. I was sittin around, playin guitar hero, (on expert I might add) when
I heard on knock on my door. Puzzled, I paused the game, looped the guitar
behind my back, and opened the door.

There stood that which I was trying to avoid. And she was gorgeous. She asked
if Holly was there. I made a pretense of looking around, just to keep her standing
there for a few more minutes, then replied. “Nope, “ I said, “No Holly here.” I
thought that would be the end of it. But the guitar slung over my back provided
a gateway I didn’t know was there.

“Are you playing Guitar Hero!?” Obviously I was, and told her so. “I rock
at that game!” She told me. At this point, I pinch myself. I’m hermitting myself
away at home, avoiding all contact with society, and this girl from every guys
dream knocks on my door, and she plays video games. (Geeks everywhere rejoice!) Me
being the studly type of geek, followed her statement up with the obvious response. I
invited her in to prove it. She accepted the invitation, and showed off some
pretty good talents for 3 songs around. (Especially since she had had a few
drinks that night.)

Having left the door open, and the sound cranked, we drew some attention. By
the end of her 3^rd song, her roommate had found us. They talked
for a minute about the evenings plans. I invited them both to stay and hang
out. They discussed their friend Holly as well, who apparently lived in the
next building over. My new friend told me that she would be back, but that
she needed to get her hat first. Yeah right, I thought. I’ll never see this
girl again. She left with her roommate, and I closed the door behind them,
and turned around, intent on completing Free Bird on expert difficulty.

Right about the time when Free Bird got interesting, my living room door flew
open, and my guitar was ripped from my hands. Apparently, the hat (bright pink)
came with an attitude. I dug it. We had a good time that evening, and started
seeing more of each other after that.

That relationship lasted about six months. I was pretty close to falling for
this one too. I was even considering moving away to follow her to
Chicago.
An idea I had always thought of as absurd before meeting her. But alas, just
when I thought everything was falling into place, she stopped talking to me
out of the blue. It was two weeks before I realized we weren’t together anymore.

Back to Intro

Part 3

I took it pretty hard. I never got a good explanation about what happened. The
only other time I saw her in person after she had made the decision to cut
the ties was over a month later when I got some of my old clothes back.

I had a lot of guilt about this. I was still in love with the first girl,
and I figured she realized that wouldn’t change anytime soon. I felt guilty
in the first place for dating girl 2 when I still had those kinds of feelings
for girl 1. (Even though I knew we’d never see each other again.) I felt even
more guilt thinking that this is what caused girl 2 to leave me, (even though
it had nothing to do with it.)

Since then I’ve been coasting. It’s been just over a year now. I realized
this weekend I’ve been afraid to get involved. Proof of this is girl http://anofficeblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/broken-road.html#3. We
met at Lunker’s before I started working there, and got along pretty well. After
two weeks I ended it. I didn’t really have a good reason. I just wasn’t ready. I
was still feeling the burns from the last two relationships. It seems like
the only women I’ve even been remotely interested in are either still in school
and plan on moving when they graduate, or are just plan not sure what they’re
doing in life, and want to leave the area.

While I’m not set on staying, I’m not ready to get involved with someone again
who wants to move in two months. That hasn’t left me with many options. So
what made me realize I was afraid to get involved you ask? What else? A woman.

This Saturday was different than usual. It was ISU’s homecoming. That really
made little difference for me, except we were busy when I got to the bar around
8:30. Generally things are slow until 10. The other big difference was the
average age. Usually on Saturday’s the average age is 22 or 23. This time around
it was more like 32 or 33.

It was really kind of refreshing. I didn’t feel like I had to sit in my corner
and keep an eye on the younguns all night. I was in a pretty good mood too. So
I spent more time talking to patrons than usual. One particular group pulled
me in right away. Two guys (drunk) and three gals. The alpha male of the group
decided right away that I was grade A material for his ladies. He let me know
that he had no attachments to any of them, and would not mind if I made a move.
(How kind of him.) I cracked up, said a few words to keep him entertained and
moved around to make sure we were ready for the late night crew.

On my second round that way, he stopped me again, and made sure to point out
the women to me again, just in case I forgot. I laughed, and noticed one of
the girls seemed tired of hearing this guy, so I decided to talk to her. We
did the usual where ya from whattya do sort of thing and exchanged mutual frustrations
about our jobs. While it wasn’t exactly the longest conversation, it was definitely
something more than I’m used to as the door guy. I made sure to stop by a few
more times in the next hour, and was disappointed to find out on my last stop
that they were planning on leaving and heading to the other side of town.

I decided the best course of action was to go back to my perch near at the
door and pout. (Not really, I had to keep an eye on things cuz the younguns
started to roll in.) Anyways, the time came when their cab arrived, and their
group started to head out. Then she came up to me. Took out her lipstick, put
on a fresh coat, and said one word. “Here” She leaned in close and planted
one on my cheek.

Now, as the door guy, I’ve had my fair share of peck’s on the cheek from ladies
at the bar, but nothing like this. This one was different. This wasn’t the
quick, “I’ll see ya next week” or the “I’m drunk and you’re cute” kiss. Neither
was she going around as some do, and following suit with several other guys
in the bar. This one was for me. This one was planned. This one meant something. This
time I knew I was receiving not because I was there, but because I was me,
and because she cared. And it felt great.

As I lay down to go to sleep that night, I actually felt the pang of loneliness
for the first time in a while. I think maybe somehow she this. Maybe she saw
right through my indifferent exterior and knew I was a real guy who wasn’t
out to bag the quickest girl in the place. Maybe she saw this and knew what
I wouldn’t come to realize until hours later while lying sleeplessly in bed
thinking it all over. It’s been a long time since I was with someone who cared
about me. And this brief glimpse of it showed me that I need that again. I
am ready.

I’m ready to give it another shot. After being burned so many times, the wounds
have finally healed, the scars faded away. I’m ready for another round. I don’t
know when it will happen. I don’t know how it’s gonna happen. I don’t know who
it will happen with. I doubt whether it will be her. She lives an hour and a
half north of here, and unless she graces my quiet little place again, I doubt
I’ll ever see her again. But whoever it is, I’ll have her to thank.

Back to Intro

Greetings from the other side

2008-10-13T01:19:00.005-05:00

I preface this post with a warning. I apparently wrote this post last night very late in the night. I don't recall writing it, and apparently I didn't feel the need to finish it. I don't drink much these days, so on the rare occasion I do, little things like this tend to happen. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did.

Tonight is a milestone for me. This is my first ever post written under the influence of alcohol. I think there's about half a bottle of Jack involved to be specific. I'll take exact measurements in the morning. I guess I can say it's another milestone, because it's the first time I've had more than a solitary drink in quite some time, but I can't count milestones after a half bottle of Jack. So I'm gonna stick with the first one and we'll call it even.

Anyways, in case you're wondering why I'm posting under the influence, is because... (well, I don't really know, I guess with all those HD channels on the TV, there's nothing good on at 1 in the morning.) By the way, thonights literary accomplishments are brought to you by Jack Daniels. (If I already mentiond that, please forgive me.)

Enough rambling. Let me get to the point. I hate Monday's. I'm very well aware of the fact that no one really loves them, but I'm high on the list of haters. My bed is especially comfortable on Monday mornings, and extremely hard to part with. (My sheets are Red.)

One thing that especially annoys me is the local radio station that my alarm plays when it goes off. It only picks up one local station, and as a result, I've listened to ten second bursts of Katy Perry every day for the last month now. I now know what if feels like to be in Bill Murphy's shoes.

Despite the warm covers and repetetive tunes, I still manage to drag my butt out of bed and make it to work every Monday. This is a feat that deserves many accolades from my peers. (Well go on, start accolading) What follows is nothing short of a miracle. Every morning pits me up against a ruthless schedule of re prioritizing leftovers from last week, and staff meetings to priotize new priorities.

This brings up another point. Wednesdays. What the heck is up with that? I mean really, what good are Wednesdays. They're just kinda there. Wednesday's are the most useless day of the week. You have my permission to call in every Wednesday between now and retirement just for the sake of the absurdity of it. I am a full believer that Wednesday's should be a new day off. Sort of a mid week break if you will. It can be an American style Siesta... Without the sombrero. (Hang on to the mariachi band though, that's good stuff.)

Speaking of Wednesday's, don't you just LOVE Friday's? If you didn't have to work, they'd be almost as awesome as Saturday's! Of course, you have to work on Friday's because two Saturday's would just be more excitement than the human nervous system can handle. Maybe another hundred years of evolution will fix this problem for us. (That is of course, if we don't melt Santa's workshop and drown ourselves first.)

Strut it like a Zombie

2008-10-06T15:57:00.005-05:00

So, I know you guys have been askin youselves for this past year or so just what it takes to slow me down. (Besides a couch and a fridge full of illicit liquids.) Turns out all it takes is a bad landing.

You remember all those sports I'm playin in? Turns out I have the capability to make it 2 points into a volleyball game before I forget that you land on the sole of your foot and not the side of it. (My bad.) Two weeks later, and lots of pretty colors, and I'm still trying to hobble along every morning. The X-Ray's were negative for breaks, but apparently, a bad sprain is just as painful and hard to walk on anyways. I was on cruthces for about 3 days, (should have been on them for a week, but I'm a man, and therefore must suffer for my stupidity,) and have been hobblin for about a week since.

I wasn't a big fan of the doctor's office. I practically crawled in the door. Then refused to take the elevator, and instead climbed 2 flights of stairs up to the doctors office. The nurse at the counter could tell I was in some serious pain, and offered to get me a wheelchair. Despite my injured pride, the pain made me accept. I figured none of my friends would be around to document the humility, and nobody at a hospital would think twice about a guy in a wheelchair. I get to keep my man card right?

WRONG. As I'm sittin in the waiting room (waiting of course) to be called in to see the doc, this 80 year old dude who can barely walk, comes out the door. He takes one look at me, then at the chair, then turns back to me and says "Wow, that's embarrasing isn't it?"

What the heck am I supposed to say to that? I just hung my head in humility and shrugged. He continued on to the restroom, then came back for round 2. Apparently he was a wrestling coach back in the day, and one of his heavyweights and knee problems and used to tool around in a wheel chair at school. Apparently he got made fun of. By the old man himself. I guess old habits die hard with this guy. I could hear him cackling even as he walked back to the exam room.

I did get a lot of attention from the nurses though. Who were impressed with my mad wheelchair talents. They thought I was a pro. "Nope" I said. "It's my first time." Apparently the average human doesn't realize the mechanics of operating a wheelchair. My skills earned me some serious style points. She wound up asking for my phone number. (That may or may not have had something to do with billing. I'm just sayin...)

Anywho, two weeks and four shades of Purple later, I'm still feelin the pain in the mornings, but by mid afternoon or evening I stop walking like a Zombie and can move around without much pain. I also finally fit back into all of my footwear. Which is good for my co-workers, because they were tired of looking at my feet. Which by law, were of course propped up on my desk at all times.

In a way, I'm gonna miss the excuse to be lazy. But who needs excuses? Not this guy.

Busch and Birthdays

2008-09-22T09:41:00.003-05:00

Hey guys. Miss Me? (That’s what I thought.)

I had a brilliant idea this morning, and as a result have decided that it deserves a new blog post. I typically like to publicize my brilliance in such a way, just to let others know how awesome I can be. Anyways, enough with the PR for my favorite person, and on to the good stuff.

Our Company is pretty good about giving stuff away. Over the years I’ve gotten some pretty good free swag. In addition to the random giveaway, they also let us choose among a selection of gifts for Christmas, as well as anniversary’s (5 years, 10 years etc…). The Christmas gifts are pretty nice, and usually would cost you about $50 to pick up at your local 7-11. (Or wherever it is you city folk go.) The anniversary program is even nicer. The gifts get progressively more expensive and impressive the longer you’ve been here. My mom got a $200 coach purse for her 15 year. (It was either that of some Tiffany earrings.) In browsing the catalogue, I can tell you that if it were my 50 year anniversary, I’d need some help choosing. Some great choices include:

A riding Lawn Mower
A queen bed and bedset
A Pool Table
An iMac computer

How’s a guy to choose? Anywho, the one area where I think that the company could do a slighty better job, is on your birthday. Used to be, a person could choose between receiving a Rose, or a 10 minute phone card, on their birthday. Since the advent of the cell phone, (and eventual world domination by Verizon,) the company has done away with the phone card, and left associates no choice but to receive a rose on their birthday.

Now you tell me, what’s a guy gonna do with a rose? I mean a single guy. With no romantic interests. Yeah, what’s a loser like me gonna do with a rose? While hashing this out with a coworker, I came up with a solution to this predicament that would score some major points with the company. We should be like McDonald’s. You know how they have boy Happy Meals and girl happy meals right? Well, they should do the same thing here. Let people choose if they want a Hot Wheels or a Rose. Or better yet, every year, give away a piece of track for a hot wheels stunt set. That way, you can tell who the baddest dude on the block is by the tricked out track he’s been able to assemble over the years. I plan to have Hot Wheels jumping the entrance to my cube on an hourly basis.

I mean, what better way for an insurance company to score points than to tell its employees they approve of gravity defying stunts with a motor vehicle? I can’t think of one. The only downside of this, we’d probably have to buy out Mattel in order to produce enough track for all the employees. We tend to stick around in this place.

And speaking of buyouts, what’s up with Uncle Sam lately? I feel like I should have market share in Wall Street with the way he’s been usin my tax dollars lately. And here I figured the Busch administration was the biggest collection of dumb people around. Now I realize the failing economy was all a clever deception in a bid to gain control of Wall Street. Brilliant! I think W deserves an Emmy for 8 years of great acting. Who else can pretend they don’t know what they’re doing for 8 years while at the same time masterfully planning a government takeover of every major American Financial institution? Flawless execution George. I’m going to write you in on my ballot for ’08.

Just the other day during a discussion with a friend, they mentioned how they were surprised our government wasn’t more heavily invested in the alternative energy corporations. I responded that I was actually kinda glad they weren’t, seeing as how I’m not sure I would like the government to have total control of the energy industry in America. Little did I know that just two weeks later, Uncle Sam would control the banks that finance those very same corporations.

I think you all know I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I’m just bitter. I mean, I got debt too, and here goes Uncle Sam, giving away hundreds of billions to corporate America to buy off their bad assets. Besides the bitterness, I’m more worried about what this will mean for the dollar. Inflation anyone? Or, worse yet, Stagflation? (turns out I only pretended to sleep through Economics.) I feel like I have a wallet full of Monopoly Money. Or, more accurately, Monopoly Plastic.

Oh well. Happy Birthday!

Going Down?

2008-09-05T16:24:00.000-05:00

Elevators are the biggest contributors to the decay of mankind.

Profound statement. I know. But think about it. Back in the day, your grandpa would be walkin down the street, and a random stranger would say hi in passing. That single syllable would turn into a conversation. That conversation would lead to a lifelong friendship. You know that old uncle you have that's not really part of the family but has known you long enough to have seen your dirty diaper? That guy that's "like a brother" to every male in your family who was around in the good 'ole days? He's in your life because elevator's weren't widely used back in the good 'ole days.

You know why you don't have a relationship like that? It's the elevators. Elevators are the objectification of all that is evil in our society. Elevators turned your friendly stranger into a disgruntled postman. Elevators turned that nice old lady on the corner into the mean old whitch that chases little kids with her broom. You don't even want to know what elevators did to Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

Why do I make this claim you ask? Where's my evidence you ask? What justification do I have for making you use the stairs to get to the only vending machine in the building with the guacamole flavored doritos? Just hold on! I'm getting there!

Before the rise of the elevator, our society was friendly, sociable, neighborly, and full of barber shop quintets. Just watch any clip of video predating the 60's. Everyone was nice and friendly. You could talk to strangers like they were long lost friends. You weren't afraid to ask the ice cream man for advice. (These days, you want to be as far away from ice cream man as possible. That's why the goverment forced them to play that annoying music loud enough for you to hear them several blocks away.)

Once the elevator became common, this all dissappeared. You see, taking the elevator is similar to riding the city bus. You get locked into a closed environment with people you don't know, and have little freedom of movement or control. The bus however, provides people with some semblance of freedom by providing windows. Something to focus on if you're shy. A way to avoid people's stare's in the event you woke up late and didn't have time to shower. If you happened to sit next to someone friendly, then no big deal. Not so with the elevator.

You go in, the door's close, and the entire world is four steel walls, the ceiling and the floor. There's no getting off until the next floor. There's nowhere to look except the floor. It's like prison. Just like prison, you usually aren't friends with the guy standing next to you. You never know what drove him into this elevator. So you better not dare to speak with him.

Just like prison, the experience stays with you after you leave. Don't think that the world hasn't changed while you were on that elevator. Things are happening fast out there these days, and you lost your connection to the world the moment you stepped inside. You will step out of that cold square box with a hangover of the memory of being inside. And this ghost will haunt you all day long.

The friendly look you used to carry is no longer displayed on your face to let passerby know that you're the guy to ask about the weather. The memory is so disturbing that you shy away from people you don't know, and you commit the biggest blasphemy in American culture. You fail to return a friendly wave. This failure is the virus behind the elevator. This causes the infection to spread, and is the reason evil lurks around every corner in big cities. Obviously, the more elevators you have, the worse a town will be. You don't see people in New York (lots of elevators) having friendly conversations on the street corner. In a city with a lot of elevators, you don't ask the guy at the corner drugstore about the forecast. (Chances are he's behind 3 inches of glass anyways.) And you definitely won't appreciate what happens when you wave at some one. (Besides getting run over by every taxi within a city block that is...)

Just to prove my theory, go to some old town with few or no elevators. Since there is no need for high rise buildings, there's not a big need for elevators. In these small American towns, the last vestiges of the good 'ole days remain. Old Bob down at the corner IGA knows all about the weather. And the local barber is the best guy to ask about sports. And by golly, if you wave at someone, they'll wave back.

Dirty Politics

2008-08-29T14:04:00.006-05:00

I have yet to use this blog to endorse a political party, even though I have long used the public forum to endorse the right to vote, and encourage my readers to do so. When it comes to persuading my readers to choose one side or the other though, I've hung back. I've stayed politically nuetral in the blogosphere. That ends today.

With the Democratic Convention over, and the Republican convention just getting started, things are really starting to heat up. We finally know the tickets. Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin. The race seems to be getting closer as time goes by. However, the last few days have brought a lot of new material into the ring, and it's due to this that I'm finally stepping out of the shadows and declaring a side, showing my colors, and announcing my allegiances.

These last few weeks I've kind of been going back and forth. I initially supported Obama during the democratic primaries. I felt he was the right guy to shake things up in DC. However, as time went on, Obama continued to speak (very convinicingly and passionately) about changing Washington, although, not so much on HOW he was bringing about the change. While I was still leaning towards Obama, I was eagerly anticipating anything solid they decided to throw my way.

Now though, the choice is clear. With McCain's recent pick of Sarah Palin as VP running mate, I now know there is no way I'm not going to vote for Obama. Not that I have anything against a woman in office, but McCain's pick show's just how truly McCain is for himself before America. I was already not a huge fan of his constant line of campaigning using ads that slander his opponent. I know McCain's got his hill's to get past when it comes to this election, but I'd rather see a man stand on his ideals than shine the light on his opponents faults.

This latest decision is last in a long line of "dirty politics" on McCain's part that clearly shows his first priority is to himself, and not the country. He wants to win at any cost, and that's not right. He has slandered Barak for not having enough experience, and for being too young. Now, he picks someone who's younger with (in my mind) has no credible experience in a ploy to entice disgruntled Clinton supporters to vote for him.

There are plenty of other female candidates who are much more qualified for this position than Sarah Palin. McCain, would be the oldest president to make it to office if he wins the office. It's not a far cry to imagine that with all his health problems, his running mate could wind up the president.

I'm not really comfortable with someone in the Oval Office who is bein investigated for ethics, and whose biggest decision in an executive office is to sue the federal government because they wanted to put Polar Bears on the endangered species list.

I haven't seen much more from McCain in terms of policy, but I'd rather vote for Obama, who will make the decisions he believes are best for the country, as opposed to voting for McCain, who I believe will look for his own benefit in every decision he makes on behalf of our country.

Some things never change

2008-08-25T22:21:00.004-05:00

Guess I owe you guys an update. A quick one two and who's who since you last heard from me.

We've had our first softball practice for the fall (more to come)
Brett has thrown his first TD for someone other than GB in more than 17 years
I took a pass on the whole online dating thing
the price of gas went down 30 cents (of course they waited until the day after I filled up)
ILLINI FOOTBALL IN JUST 4 MORE DAYS!!! (more to come)

Tonight we had our first practice with the fall team. The difference here being that this time, I'm the coach. It's a different experience. Normally, I just show up, do what they tell me too, and not worry about everything else. I never really anticipated coaching the team would be a big deal, (it's still really not,) but it did surprise me how far ahead I have to be thinking even for a simple practice.

All in all, things went pretty well. I've been hitting the cages regularly, so my hitting has been a lot more consistent. I hit 8 balls, 2 of which were caught (barely.) 1 was a stand up triple, and the other five, hit while I didn't have to run, looked to have been doubles. Pretty satifsfied there. On an even more positive note, I'm impressed with 3 of the new people I picked up. They are talented, and can play in several positions. I'm very hopeful, since they 5 guys I added to the old 7 will round out the team pretty well, and make us competitive in every game.

To top off my softball good vibes, I went to a friends game last night to watch her, and wound up getting drafted in the third after their starting first baseman twisted his ankle while running over 3rd base. This was my first exprience playing softball in cargo shorts and cleats without socks so I didn't really expect much. I did the best with what I could.

When I came in the game, our team was down by 3. When the dust settled, we rallied 13 runs in 1 inning to win the game 18-11. I somehow managed to hike up my cargo shorts for two at bats and hit a stand up triple (3 RBI's), and a solid knock to right (2 more RBI's) that could have put me on second without too much effort.

The past two night have got me back into a better mood. The weather has helped too. It's been mid 70's and breezy the last 2 days, and I'm a big fan of that. Despite all that, I still fell prey to an old worry tonight.

One of my biggest fears is going to the store and getting to the checkout line and giving them your debit card and it comes back declined. I wasn't good with money when I was a kid. And though I'm pretty good about it now, and usually know exactly what's in my account... the funny thing is, I still get a feeling in my gut every time I go to the grocery store (for some reason I never worry about it anywhere else...) and pay with my card. Even though I'm completely positive I've got more than enough to cover the minimal cost of the basket of items, I still stand there in a nervous puddle of sweat until after the card has cleared.

I hope someday I'll get over this, but I'm not bettin on it. I guess it's one of my OCD traits that'll never go away. (That and walking back up three flights of stairs to double check on the door I know for sure I locked.) I'm so bad that a couple weeks back, I took out 200 bucks cash at the ATM at the front of the store, just so I didn't have to worry about my card getting cleared at the register. I could have filled my cart five times without breaking the bank, but that still didn't stop me from paying two dollars and fifty cents to those greedy people at National City in order to satisfy my quirk. I guess to me, there's nothing scarier than leaving a shopping cart full of food at the register.

Fresha Out

2008-08-19T22:02:00.003-05:00

Things have been a little "blah" for me lately. No big news, no bad news, nothing really exciting any way you look at it. I've been workin out and gettin on the bike a little more frequently though. I figure this as a self preservation method, since I've signed up to practically kill myself this fall.

Besides workin the usual 7:30-3:45, I'll be involved in some sporting event or other nearly every night of the week. Here's the rundown:

Monday: Double header (softball) every night through September

Tuesday: Volleyball with some new friends from work

Wednesday: A night off! This night has traditionally been Karaoke night, and while we've taken a sabatical of sorts, I'm considering the comeback tour.

Thursday: Another Volleyball night

Friday: Another night off! Although, what right minded guy in his mid 20's is gonna stay in on a Friday night? (Not this guy.)

Saturday: Will be playin Flag Football every saturday through october, as well as traveling for at least 3 Illini football games.

Sunday: NFL football!

Sometime in between all that, I still want to get in at least 50 miles a week on the bike. (It'd be nice if half of that is off-road.) So if in the fall it seems like I don't post much, it's not because I'm procrastinating like usual, it's because I'm probably in the hospital for any number of injuries.

As far as other things go, I guess for the first time since high school, I'm trying to find ways to reach out to make new friends. I've found this is much harder than it was back in High School. (I never would've thought that was possible in the 9th grade.) I've made many friends at work, but I'm at least 4 years younger than any person on the rest of my floor. While I have found one person at work who I seem to fit in with and we actually hang out outside of work, that new small group of friends is a far cry from the huge group of friends I'm used to.

For the last 5 or 6 years, I've hung out with a massive group of people who were all pretty close, and we were more like a family than a group of friends. We hung out practically every night, and there was never a dull moment. But as time moved on, I did too. I think I grew up faster than most of the group. While I'm only a year older than most of them, I didn't attend college the same way the majority of them did, and instead worked full time since I was 19. 5 years of that, and I find myself ready to settle down and just live.

Most of the rest of that old group is still in the party every night mode. Not that I mind hangin out 5 or 6 nights a week, but I found that as time went by, the group would keep bringin in kids that were freshman or sophomore's in college. While I can relate for the most part to my long time friends, I have absolutely nothing in common with these "kids."

Now I just come home and sit around most nights after I'm done riding. I have my small group that I met through the girl at work, but we only get together 2 or 3 times a month. I'm bored. So bored, that the other night, I actually clicked on one of those "single" ads on facebook to see what it was all about. I always figured these groups were havens for people looking for a one night stand. It appears that a lot of the people who have joined this thing are the same as me. (According to their descriptions anyways.)

I'm kinda glad to see that there are online communities out there of people who just like me tryin to find new friends. The only problem is, I can't justify the ridiculous prices these kinds of sites charge you to join. (There are cheaper sites I know, but I'm not really looking for that kind of "fun".) There's always good 'ole blogger, which is a great way to interact with new people, but it's kinda hard to hang out with people in a different part of the world than you.

I really got no idea how to answer this problem. I'd like to find ways to meet new people, but I don't really know how to go about it. If you got any suggestions I'd give you a penny for your thoughts...

Transitive Verbs

2008-08-06T10:18:00.007-05:00

Apparently my grip on the English language these days isn't as good as I thought.

The other night while circled around the living room coffee table with a few friends playing Euchre while watching Acroos the Universe (on Blu-Ray... so awesome!) the conversation turned on me. Somebody mentioned transitive verbs.

My first thought was immediately: Is that an adjective verb? You know, a descriptive verb or something? Unfortunately, do to the beverage I chose to drink that evening, I vocalized my thoughts instead of keeping them to myself.

After the laughter subsided and we revived those who had passed out from a lack of oxygen, I was questioned as to why I didn't learn something that everyone else learned in 3rd grade. Apparently my friends had forgotten that I was certified Redneck up until 6th grade, and was lucky to have teachers who had graduated High School.

For those of you still wondering here's the actual definition of a transitive verb: "a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects."

About this point I think my Redneck roots came out, because I immediately thought of NASCAR. "It's like a driver and his car!" They all still laughed. My other friend sitting next to me is also a big NASCAR fan, so the next day we began plotting as to how all the NASCAR fans could take over the world.

Problem was, we kept getting hung up on the dang left turn...

One Man Show

2008-08-04T18:45:00.006-05:00

As you may have noticed, there's a few more changes to the good 'ole blog here. Since Bill has become more active on his own blog over at Holes in Happiness, and since I've expanded to a more personal type blog, we've decided to officially split. Bill will no longer be posting to These 4 Walls. (It was a civil divorce really.)

Since this is the end of an era for The Office Blog/These 4 Walls, I figured the only way to mark this milestone is with a montage. The following are some of the best "Bill Moments" on The Office Blog/These 4 Walls:

A little Clumsy

And Some Controversy

Meet our New Friend

Bill's gotta gloat

A Tribute

2008-07-31T21:45:00.004-05:00

The other day I was Surfin my friends blog, and she had a post up about her grandpa. It struck me how similar our grandad's were. And then the irony kicked in when I realized that it was my grandpa's birthday on that very day. So in memory of my grandpa, I'm going to share a little bit about him:

Grandpa drove a Coca Cola truck most of his life. He fell in love with the road, and traveled frequently even after diabetes caused him to lose both of his legs and give up his job. Grandpa learned to walk using wooden legs, and refused to park in the handicapped spots.

One time when I was four, shortly after grandpa got his new set of legs, he came to visit. Being the gracious host that I was, I let grandpa sleep in my room and took the couch. I figured it was only fair seein as how he brought me a bag of M&M's every time he came to visit. (Yes Heather, I Blame the Hershey's Corporation too.) On this particular trip, I was too young to understand what the difference between real legs and false legs were. So imagine my surprise when I walk into my room to see grandpa's legs lying in the middle of my floor.

My mom tells my I had quite the vocal reaction to that. Scarier than the cookie Monster. And, speaking of cookies, I have to share Grandpa's favorite daily joke:

Grandpa: "Did you have cookies for breakfast?"

Me: "No."

Grandpa: "Because you're face sure looks crummy."

Anyways, as the years went by, I spent many a good time hangin out with Gramps in Milwaukee. I remember trips to the zoo, visiting his old stores, hangin out beyond the fence at the Milwaukee airport to watch the planes take off, and a few Brewers games to boot. Grandpa was a pretty cool guy, but he frowned upon shenanigan's. One time, during a family get together when I was about ten, we were gathered around the table for dinner, when my cousin finally discovered the secret to burping. (We'd been trying to figure it out all day.) This was pretty unfortunate for Dan, seein as how Grandpa's backhand is faster than a tennis champion.

As I got older, I saw less of Grandpa. He frequented the hospital, since he hated listening to the doctors. I suspect he purposely disobeyed the doctor so he'd wind up in the hospital where he could flirt with the nurses all day. It wasn't shocking to hear my mom tell me that he was in the hospital for a few days or a week at a time. I never really thought much of it. I mean, grandpa seemed to like it right?

It went on that way for probably ten years. Grandpa would be in the hospital for a week, then Vegas for a two weeks. Then home for a week. The cycle would start over again next month, except he'd go to Tahoe or Wyoming or something instead. Grandpa went everywhere in his old Pontiac 3000 series station wagon with his CB gear in tow. Every time he went somewhere, he bought a button and pinned it to the ceiling of his car. As a kid, it amazed me, and inspired in me a desire to travel throughout my life.

A couple years back, grandpa went into the hospital for what would be his last time. The wooden legs had opened some sores on his legs, and since he wasn't so great with his meds, gangrene set in. The doctors did everything they could, but one night, they told us it was up to the man upstairs. God decided that night that it was his turn to get some M&M's and have cookies for breakfast.

The funeral was kinda rough on me. I hadn't seen gramps in a few years, but the second I looked down at him layin there, I lost it. There we were, me and my four cousins all standin there, grown men all of us, cryin like five year olds. I'll never forget how I felt that day. The most important lesson I think I learned that day is this: No matter how much time passes, the heart never forgets.

Happy Birthday Grandpa.

Writers Block

2008-07-30T11:05:00.005-05:00

I want to blog. I really do. The problem with blogging, is that it's the same as writing. Except with blogging, and I write as I think, instead of as I speak. (Which is fortunate for all you readers, BELIEVE ME.) It's starting that's the problem.

Back in the day, I used to be pretty talented at putting words to a page. Most college students have a form of this talent called BS-ing. In fact, by now, I'm surprised there's no BS-ing course required for all college freshman. The fact of the matter was, I was good at it. I was supreme ruler of BS-ing. Even though I hated writing, I could do it very well indeed. As I said before, it's starting that's the problem. Call it procrastination if you will, (I certainly do,) but every time I had to turn something in, I waited so long to start, I could never think of what to put down. (Just like Blogging.) As a result, I'm going to dust off the brain and share a memory of just such an example with you:

I remember once in sixth grade, we were assigned to write a fictional story. Since most of you guys are teachers, I don't have to tell you that writing a story for a sixth grader means 1 or 2 pages. That's all the teacher expected. I wasn't a big fan of her expectations. The deadline came and went, and I still had not bothered to begin my tale. T-minus 2 days, and my mother got a phone call from the teacher. (My mother by the way, is best friends with all my old teachers because of this method. Even to this day.) She informed my mother that because I was so late, even if I turned the story in the next day, I could receive no better than 70/100.

Not daunted by the prospect of the "drop a grade a day" system, I continued to procrastinate. My Super Nintendo had long since been tossed into a black hole, and my newly bought Nintendo 64 had been locked in some mysterious hiding place for far too long already. Still, I could not be persuaded to write my story.

Finally it got to the point where I could receive no points at all from my story since it was 2 weeks past due. My mom decided to sacrifice one of her kitchen utensils on my rear end since her method of reverse bribery had long since proven ineffective. Apparently, this was just the spark I needed to clear the cobwebs.

I sat down that very Saturday morning and began to write. And write, and write, and write, with mom ocassianlly checking to see I was actually working. I was a big reader at the time, a huge Sci-Fi fan. I wrote a tale called "The Space Warrior" (I think.) I wasn't too impressed, since at the time, I was reading Isaac Assimov's Foundation series, and my writing was in no comparison to his. But I plugged along anyways. Finally, Sunday evening, we started to print my saga. I started to worry that the printer was so slow. The teacher was going to give me 10 points back if I turned it in the next Monday morning. (I was her favorite of course, so she bribed me like this ALL the time...)

Turns out, in my zest, I wrote a 64 page story in just one weekend. It took our ancient printer close to three hours to print. But alas, Monday morning, I handed in my decent work of BS, satisfied that my mom may return my nintendo for my effort and I could get back to stomping mushrooms and falling down sewer pipes.

My teacher took one night to read and grade my paper. She handed it back to me Tuesday with the following note:

"If you had told me you were writing such a story, all you needed to do is ask for more time. This is more than I ever expected, and is a wonderful piece of work. 100/100."

I was actually shocked. I thought I did ok, but it turns out that my teacher thought I had taken the last 3 weeks to cook up a masterpiece of fiction worthy of a perfect grade, no matter the deadline. She gave me full credit for something I spent a day or so on, and turned in 2 weeks late because I hated homework. Needless to say, I didn't argue with her. She just handed me my golden ticket. I could turn this in for the return of a Super Nintendo right?

Ha! Turns out Black Hole's are a one-way street.

You Don't see things My Way

2008-07-23T16:10:00.004-05:00

Lately I've been pushing leadership in our company to open up to new Marketing/Business practices that will help attract younger customers. At least 60% of our business currently comes from the Traditionalist or Baby Boomer Generations. The frustrating part is that all of leadership is open and receptive to my ideas and thoughts, but our structure is such, that when I meet with the direct level leaders I need to, they don't have to capability to provide the direction needed to "turn the ship" so to speak.

Since I've hit a wall in the change department for the moment, I've been working to attend or organize events within the corporation that can help people understand just how radical of a change we're going to need to make to stay competitive.

Bill and I attended one such event today. The idea at said gathering was for people educate people on the 4 generations that are all working together within the company today, and how they see, hear, and say different things than the other 3 generations. During the discussion, someone brought up the technology difference and how the Traditionalists sometimes don't understand even the simplest technology. I started thinking about this, and thought of a recent visit to my Grandma's place that had me cracking up in the middle of our discussion for no apparent reason.

I walked into Grandma's after a quick knock on the door.

"Hey Grandma..."

Grandma yells back from somewhere in the back of the house... "Hey Brian."

Before I head down to the basement to work on a project with Grandpa, I plug my phone into Grandma's computer via USB to charge. (It's breathing on fumes...) I chuckle because I know how grandma doesn't quite understand technology, and I know she's not gonna be comfortable with it. I head to the basement, and inform grandpa of my ninja like manuever, and get to work. Not ten minutes later, Grandma yells down the stairs...

"Briaaan, what did you do to my computer? My clock is all messed up!"

I laugh and head up the stairs, knowing that when I plugged in my phone, it popped up an alert that said the computer found a new piece of hardware. In my haste (laziness,) I didn't bother to close the box. Apparently grandma was confused by the alert, and claimed I had messed up her computer's clock. After unplugging my phone, Grandma started to quiz me.

"What's that you had plugged into my computer?"

"My phone grandma?"

"Well, it's awful small for a phone..."

"That's because it's designed as an MP3 player first."

"What's that?"

"It's a device that plays songs from your computer."

"So you mean you can put stuff from your computer on your phone?"

"Yes grandma..."

Anyways, I figure I've given her the low down, and head back downstairs to finish up with grandpa. Later the next day, I'm visiting my parents, and my mom tells me that grandma was pretty upset about the whole thing. Apparently, between the way my phone looked, and my description, it sounded very secretive to Grandma. My mom tells me that grandma told her she thought I was spying on her.

I couldn't help but crack up at this. Yeah grandma, I'm with the CIA and I want to know about all those websites you shouldn't be visiting!

I'm Burnin Up

2008-07-22T09:44:00.008-05:00

There have been a lot of frustrations in life lately. Work has provided some of these, as have my social life, politics, and Brett Favre. Since we recently expanded, I'm going to save the work frustrations for another time and instead preach about something else... Senators.

Every night when I get home, I usually spend 45-50 minutes surfing the web on my sofa in front of ESPN on the TV. (Don't hate me for surfing without blogging.) One of the issues that has started to infuriate me more and more every day, is the Senate's involvement in sports.

The senate began a few years back by investigating the use of steroids in baseball. Then, after their commission received their results. They hired attorneys to prosecute these "criminals." Soon afterward, other sports have started getting the same attention. The most recent case of this in the news is Marion Jones.

Marion is an Olympic medalist who was given prison time in part, for lying to federal investigators. About steroid use. The last time I checked, steroids were not illegal. So why, I ask, are we spending taxpayer dollars to have senators and federal investigators investigate something that is not illegal?

Now, to make matters worse, Marion Jones has asked for a presidential pardon. This means we're going to have to spend even more money teaching W to read! Where does it end?!

It just seems odd to me, that the governement can justify spending all this money to investigate an activity that not only is not illegal, but is governed by the organization the athletes are a part of. It's no wonder our government has problems when it comes to balancing the budget.

I haven't kept up on this topic since day 1, so I'm not exactly sure how all this came about, but I have to wonder why they even decided to get involved. I heard somewhere that the senate decided that since Baseball is considered the American past time, and since so many American's watch, they needed to get involved to make sure the integrity of the sport was maintained. The investigation of baseball has stepped into the investigation of most other professional sports.

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but if they can justify wasting American resources in this way, what else will they be able to justify before the American public puts a stop to it? Just how much is enough, and do American's even care?

Instead of questioning the senate's reasons to get involved, we now all despise Barry Bonds for a practice that has most likely been in play since the days of Babe Ruth. For all we know, Barry's record is more legit than Hank Aaron's or Ruth's, since baseball has only recently banned some of the more impressive performance enhancers.

Anyways, I'd like to hear any thoughts ya'll have on the matter. I'm open to any information I may not have included, or even may have misrepresented. And as always, I value your opinion.

Occasionally I do write!

2008-07-02T12:50:00.006-05:00

So, I wrote a letter to the editor last week that was published today...so here it is. I will post my full version that I wasn't allowed to submit because our local paper has a 300 word limit on editorials, which is bogus. So I'll post the link below too so you can how I edited it and comments on the their website too.

Homosexuals should receive equal rights

"Many editorials have been published in recent weeks supporting the current laws in Illinois that ban same-sex marriage or civil unions (such as 750 ILCS 5/212). I, like many, have commented on these editorials to voice my opinion on the matter. I feel that I could be better heard now to go through more forthright means.

I personally have felt violated in reading the opinions of others for their lack of understanding of others. I understand that people’s comments to the editorials and articles are their opinions. And, I believe in everyone being entitled to their own opinion; however, I also believe that everyone should be respectful of other’s thoughts, ideas and beliefs. It seems that everybody would like freedom of religion, however I’m not given this should-be basic right. I choose to have no religion, yet everyday I’m forced to live with laws that are from the Bible and have little to no relevant value to our society.

For example, to think that same-sex marriage or civil unions shouldn’t occur is purely a biblically based reason. I’ve yet to hear one solid argument as to why this shouldn’t be allowed other than biblical reasons. Therefore I’m forced to follow the Bible when in fact I don’t believe in it. My choice of religion has been taken away.

I also find it alarming that several stories from the Bible are ignored when making this argument. Ruth & Naomi, David & Jonathon, and Daniel & Ashpenaz were all in monogamous same-sex relationships and there is no record in any of their stories that they were punished by God or condemned in any way whatsoever. So then why cling to a single verse or two that are more about sexual promiscuity than following entire stories that is more at the heart of the conversation?

I break the first commandment every day of my life any more, as I hold family, friends, work, money, and just having fun in higher regard than God. Yet, I have more civil rights and, generally, more respect from Christians than many people that seek equal rights and opportunities as a homosexual. I understand that many of you believe that homosexuality is unnatural or immoral, but are either of these reasons alone enough to deny equal rights to a population of people?

And some have commented on why there would be so many articles about this recently. Well, June is Gay & Lesbian Pride Month, so to run stories at the beginning of the month on this very issue has made perfect sense. While I may not be gay, I am an Ally. I will fight and stand up for what I feel is right and just. Kudos to you Pantagraph for allowing those in the community to voice their opinions!"

A Truly Happy Ending

2008-06-12T11:13:00.005-05:00

So you wanna know what it means to be teased? Probably not. But I'm going to tell you anyways.

First a little background:

Bill and I go out with a group of friends every Wednesday night to the local watering hole for Karaoke and ummm... beverages. It's the greatest fun on the planet. Seriously. If you buy the Illinois travel guide, this place is in the attractions listing. (Side note: we still don't know how, yes the fish is excellent, but aside from our group of 10-15 regulars, and a few other regulars, the place is never busy until Wednesday at 11:30 or Saturday at midnight.) (Another side note: Does that mean that we're really that cool that we single handedly got this place into the Illinois Travel guide book?)

Anyways, tradition as of late has dictated that we stop at Taco Bell on our way home from Wednesday night merriment. Last night however, I had to forego fun due to a lack of Benjamins. (Or for that matter, Jefferson's, Lincoln's, or Washington's even...) So I'm sitting around at home, playing video games and watching The Sarah Conner Chronicles, and thinking of how hungry I am, and wishing I had better things to eat than a can of Campbell's finest. I head to bed around midnight, and I'm not laying there more than two minutes when I get a text from Bill.

"So you want me to pick up some Taco Bell on the way home, or have you gone to bed already?"

I figure this is a trick question. Even if I was in bed (which I was) who wouldn't want to wake up for Taco Bell? My fingers go to work typing out a response that would net me some sweet and cheesy Steak Quesadilla's. I press the send button. Sending....

Sending....

Sending...

Then I get this:

"Message sent failed"

I figure it's a fluke. I open up my sent messages and resend. Same result. The logic in my brain decided that my phone needed a different message before it could send, so I changed my response and sent again. Still the same result. Now I'm really wondering.

Is God punishing me for not changing my diet at all when I've been trying to for the last 2 months (years)? What is going on? Bill's gonna think I'm asleep! I'm not gonna get sweet cheesy potatoes or crispy crunchy Quesadilla's! No late-night fulfillment that will transform my bad day into a forgotten memory! What will become of me?

In my panic, I almost forget that phones could place calls. I call Bill up... each unanswered ring is echoed in the empty halls of my stomach. Each moment of silence in between rings is spent holding my breath, hoping he hasn't already made it past the order box. One ring... silence... Second ring... nothing... third ring... the silence seems to last a lifetime... fourth ring... then:

"Hi this is Bill, I'm not here right now..."

I hang up. I wonder if my bed is in a black hole of cellular functionality. I roll out of bed and head into the living room, my window of opportunity closing with each footstep. I stand triumphantly in the center of the living room with my phone held high, finger poised over the redial. I take a moment to prepare myself, then call again.

I wait through each ring. It rings all four times, then right after the fourth ring, a pause.... a click... then:

"Hi, this is Bill..."

I hang up. I just stand there. I lower my head. My shoulders slump. My spirit falls. I turn around and head back to my room. Even the dog looks happier than me as he sits there is his crate, giving me his saddest look because I locked him up for the night. I think how lucky he is not to have known the promise of the little slice of happiness we call Psuedo Mexican Late Night Fast Food.

My head hits the pillow, and I fall half asleep. Ten minutes later, the phone rings. It's Bill. He wants to know if I'm up for Taco Bell. I look at the clock. It's around 12:15 am. I ask him when he's leaving the bar.

"In 30 minutes or so."

I think about it for a minute. Taco Bell closes at 1 am. I have to wake up at 6:30 am. I'm not sure my stomach can take any more dissapointements, and if Bill were to get held up, he might not make it there in time. He would come home empty handed. I will have stayed up and sacrificed my much loved sleep for the possibilty of the ultimate dissapointment. (Not that Bill would let me down.)

"Nah, that's okay, I'm just gonna go back to sleep. Thanks though..."

I hang up. I put my head back on the pillow. I fall asleep dreaming of the promise of next Wednesday.

And you thought this story had a happy ending... What ever gave you that idea?

A New Image

2008-06-09T11:54:00.002-05:00

You may have noticed, but we're no longer The Office (Blog). I've decided to branch out a little in the blogging world. Work has been frustrating as of late, so my desire to post about the office has pretty much gone out the window. (Figuratively speaking of course, since they don't let us escape the office easily by allowing their windows to actually open.)

Think of it as a merger. We're now two separate blogs rolled into one. You've still got the good 'ole Office (Blog) cheer and wit, but now with a dash of insanity and inspiration I call life. I've got plenty of non office things to bore you all with, so to kill some time, I've decided to start sharing. I considered starting a new blog, and just letting The Office (Blog) go it's own way, but that just didn't feel right.

I feel that we've cornered the niche market and could have a major office blog breakthrough at any minute, so I didn't want to just give up our marketshare. I also didn't want to divide my attention to two different blogs and build up a new fanbase or make all ya'll surf two different blogs. You'd think we were schizo's.

With all my infinite business wisdom, I've decided expansion is the key to success, henceforth the new name. I feel like this will give us the room we need to broaden our focus and bring into the fold those investors (readers) who were still on the fence. Also, this allows me to finally go public.

Sometime in the next few days after I've done some google de-spidering, I'll start to share more personal info so ya'll know what we're really about. I might even tell you where we actually work... Maybe.... Possibly.... If you really want to know that bad.

In the meantime, I'm going to spend a few days catching up on all of your blogs, and do my best to annoy the crap out of you with my ridiculous comments. I hope you enjoy. :)

Nothing but Noise

2008-05-12T22:20:00.004-05:00

There are many frustrations that come with working in the office. Some days you just never know how you'll make it through. I make it day to day by relying on my mp3 player, and my music. In case you're curious as to what I'm listening to, I've provided this handy little Zune card for your stalking pleasure...

Zune is a piece of software similar to itunes, but with some features I consider superior. (Bill will undoubtedly disagree.) Zune allows you to share information, music, playlists, and podcasts with your friends. It also allows you to use your Zune card to place an interace on your blog or facebook profile for all your friends and readers viewing pleasure.

This software also allows me to share my music with my Home Theater system through my xbox, allowing me to experience it in a truly digital 5.1 surround sound. (For those particularly frustrating days at the office.)

Now, I'm not usually in the business of product endorsement like Bill is, but I implore you to download this FREE software and give it a shot. Surf on over to the Zune site and check it out. Windows users only. (Sorry Bill.)

Communication Issues

2008-05-07T22:13:00.000-05:00

Communications these days just isn't quite as simple as it used to be. Bigger companies are becoming more and more diverse, adding more and more variety in culture and languages in the workplace. The same is absolutely true in our office as well.

To make matters even more difficult, each culture has several of it's own sub languages across different generations. Say for example I were to mistakenly send an email to my mother that I was intending to send to Bill. I may use language or intentional grammatical errors that would cause my mother to wonder just how it was I managed to get this job.

Now the really tricky part, is figuring out when it's okay to cross the lines when communicating across these gaps. Some people are more open and receptive to cultural influences in communication than others. Often times, when I send an email to friends or other people of my generation (regardless or their race,) I will type the way I speak. I will even attempt to recreate my slight accent and mannerisms through spelling. Likewise, some co-workers who don't exactly fit in my good friends, but nonetheless I get along with well, I will also speak to them in this manner through email. At times, I wonder if what I'm saying (or more accurately, the method of delivery,) will be understood in the right context.

Due to my need to sound drunk without wanting to be corrected, I've turned off the auto correct feature on my email editor. This has come back to bite me a few times. My "drawl" speak means I purposefully leave off the ending "g" in such words as leaving, getting, working, etc... Since my auto correct doesn't fix these, I've caught myself just in the nick of time before sending a whack email to our VP.

The question I ask myself is... would he understand that I'm putting my own spin and style in what I'm sayin, (see) or will he think I'm a moron who doesn't know how to use spellcheck?

Despite the know fact that Bill's department is widely known to be the loosest atmosphere, and accepting of different person style's and culture, my department doesn't seem to be too far behind in some areas of the floor. I've sent my ghetto/country grammar emails to business partners by mistake, and I've been pleasantly surprised to see someone outside of my culture zone respond in a like manner.

Things like this give me hope that someday I'll be able to truly express myself in the workplace the way I do with my friends. When I can present myself openly and without editing, I'm more at the top of my game, and more likely to be able to respond to a problem. Many of the brushfires I put out on a day to day basis get this treatment from me already, and for the most part, I believe my co workers have responded well.

Bill and I have had many the long conversation about the whole Diversity and Inclusion topic. Bill pointed out how Ironic it is that we have a 4 story Christmas Tree on display during the holidays, but only a small table or two displaying the Holiday traditions of other cultures. After giving this some thought, I realized he was right.

While we have many groups in the company promoting Diversity and Inclusion, there are still some big areas where this thought process has yet to worm it's way in. Hopefully, by doing what we can to help promote these ideas and sort of "push the right buttons," more and more people will start to think in a different way and allow our company to really step forth as one of the corporate leaders in this field as well.

The Big Move

2008-04-29T07:47:00.004-05:00

So...life here around the office has been a bit distant for both Brian and the past 5 days or so. You see, we moved Friday & Saturday into a new apartment, the same apartment. So now we're roommates. And well, normally Brian is waiting on me to pick me up because I wait to get up so I get every last millisecond of blessed sleep, however this morning (the first morning in the new place that Brian was going to work) I noticed something peculiar. I got up just before 7, and I don't hear Brian. So I take a shower thinking, "Maybe he already showered and I can't hear him getting dressed or ready or whatever." After the shower though I still don't hear anything, so I approach his room and knock to hear Wembley (remember my adorable dog!) bark and Brian still half to three quarters asleep yell back "yeah." So I tell him what time it is and I leave him in the dust. More because I'm taking the afternoon off, but whatever.

Also we had our first softball game (official, at least). We had a double header Sunday night, but lost both ends of it. On the bright side Brian played pretty well, and so did I. I played left field and had a couple catches (everything hit my way) and had some solid contact, unfortunately my line drives went straight to the shortstop or 3rd baseman all 3 at-bats.

Well, I'm out, time to surf the net some more! :-)

Email Madness

2008-04-28T09:55:00.001-05:00

The following is an email I received and thought I'd share with out readers. I hope you enjoy as much as I did:

AMAZING SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES

1. IF YOU'RE CHOKING ON AN ICE CUBE, SIMPLY POUR A CUP OF BOILING WATER DOWN YOUR THROAT. PRESTO! THE BLOCKAGE WILL INSTANTLY REMOVE ITSELF.

2. AVOID CUTTING YOURSELF WHEN SLICING VEGETABLES BY GETTING SOME ONE ELSE TO HOLD THE VEGETABLES WHILE YOU CHOP.

3. AVOID ARGUMENTS WITH THE FEMALES ABOUT LIFTING THE TOILET SEAT BY USING THE SINK.

4. FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE SUFFERERS ~ SIMPLY CUT YOURSELF AND BLEED FOR A FEW MINUTES, THUS REDUCING THE PRESSURE ON YOUR VEINS. REMEMBER TO USE A TIMER.

5. A MOUSE TRAP PLACED ON TOP OF YOUR ALARM CLOCKWILL PREVENT YOU FROM ROLLING OVER AND GOING BACK TO SLEEP AFTER YOU HIT THE SNOOZE BUTTON.

6. IF YOU HAVE A BAD COUGH, TAKE A LARGE DOSE OFLAXATIVES. THEN YOU'LL BE AFRAID TO COUGH.

7. YOU ONLY NEED TWO TOOLS IN LIFE - WD-40 AND DUCT TAPE. IF IT DOESN'T MOVE AND SHOULD, USE THE WD-40. IF IT SHOULDN'T MOVE AND DOES, USE THE DUCT TAPE.

8. REMEMBER - EVERYONE SEEMS NORMAL UNTIL YOU GET TO KNOW THEM.

9. IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.

DAILY THOUGHT: SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES - NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS.

Best Game Ever

2008-04-24T22:56:00.005-05:00

I don't like to brag much. But tonight, I did well enough that I think I deserve to give myself a pat on the back. Said brag revolves around softball, so... here goes.

When it comes to sports, I consider myself okay to decent. I have a pretty good idea of what I should do at any given moment, and can usually make the play. Sometimes I whiff in a pretty spectacular fasion though, and it's frequent enough that I'm not considered to be a natural talent at any sport. And I've never seemed to wind up playin for a team that had the capability of being a front runner in whatever league I participated in. (Although my Freshman year high school baseball team wasn't terrible.)

Tonight at softball, there was a whole new story. At the end of our one hour practice, we wound up playing a game against the team that was taking the practice field next. Since the other team was a few players short, I volunteered to play with them.

I lead off the top of the batting order and knocked one into center field for a good base hit. I made it home to score our only run that inning. Then I followed up in the bottom of that inning by making all three defensive plays to keep us in the lead.

At this point I was pretty happy with myself, but I was trying not to get over confident or cocky, and instead tried to focus on the game. It seemed to work, and I was "In the Zone," pretty much the rest of the night. I played short stop the whole game, and missed one ball that I probably should have stopped, but I made enough good plays that I can live with it.

Here's stats for the night:

I batted 5 for 6 (.833 average). I singled, tripled, popped out, doubled, singled, and singled.
3 RBI's (for sure 3, but I think there were 5)
We won by a ridiculous score, I think it was 25 to 7 or 8

While I was thrilled with my own success, I'm kinda saddened by the thought that the very team I'm gonna be playin with got absolutely crushed. But we've got potential, spirit, and an Asian guy, what more could you ask for?

How To: The Essential Office Guide to Inner Office Geography

2008-04-21T20:02:00.005-05:00

Three years ago, I was one of those guys who swore he'd never sit behind a desk for a living. I worked as a detail shop manager for three years, and a retail manager for three years before that. To me, the corporate world was an evil tangled mess of blandness. Cube after cube of office drones oppressed by The Man, lacking variety or spontaneity, and doomed to spend all their days fighting off sleep in front of their computer's or in their chairs in a conference room.

My mom has worked at an office almost my entire life, (at least the years that I can actually remember anyways.) The few times she took me into the office to show me off, I immediately got lost. I consider my situational awareness and directional intuition to be pretty good, but once I set foot into that building my hold on the situation went out the window. (Figuratively speaking of course, it's not so easy to escape an office building out a window these days...)

This Inner Office Geography, as I've come to call it, applied to me my first few months on the job. If I had to go somewhere in the building further than the next aisle over, I couldn't find my way back on my own. Since I couldn't just go on working this way, I payed attention, and soon learned the subtle nuances of Inner Office Geography. The changes in wall paper, the color of the floor, the difference of the snacks the vending machines had to offer... all were clues as to my exact location.

Three months later, I was a pro. People actually trusted my directions when I told them how to get to the conference room or the bathroom. Three years after the fact, I thought I had it down. As happens most of the time, I thought wrong.

While confirming our lunch plans today, Bill told me to meet him on 2 by the elevators. To a newcomer, this phrase would mean nothing. There are five different buildings in our office alone with a 2. But since Bill and I both work in the same sub building, a few floors apart, I took this to mean our building, by the nearest elevators. In retrospect, I think I was half right.

There are two sets of elevators in each sub building. Unfortunately, I was held up for a minute, then chose to set up camp at the wrong elevator. By the time I decided to check the other set of elevators, they decided I wasn't coming. Looking at the math later, I must have just missed them. But since I always play it safe, I headed back to the other elevator and waited another two or three minutes. Then, just to be absolutely sure, I headed down two more floors to Bill's desk to see if he hadn't gotten held up.

I'm now ten minutes into my lunch, and my stomach decides to make the decision, and I head up to the lunch room. I run into Bill at the cashier. I ask him what happened to the elevators on 2, and all he has to tell me is "We waited, you didn't come, so we left."

It would now appear I need to work on my Inner Office Geography a little. This coming from a guy who spends 3 to 4 hours a month building floor plans of the very same building.

A Return to Action

2008-04-18T11:30:00.003-05:00

As you may have noticed over the last few months, blogging on The Office (Blog) has been down. While Bill was never really a "frequent" blogger, my activity certainly decreased in posting, as well as reading. I'm one of those people who gets what you call Seasonal Depression. I lose motivation and energy bigtime during the winter months.

With the return of the Spring weather these last few days, the added boost to my system has helped me in many ways. Some of that is, and will continue to be noticeable in my blogging activity.

One thing to look forward to in the next few weeks is The Office (Blog) Dictionary. You may have noticed more links than usual in the last few posts. Most of these links will point you to the definition of that term as defined by us in our dictionary. These terms are terms that have special significance, or are used frequently in our blog. While the dictionary system is still under construction, (I plan to make the definition of a term pop up in a small browser window when you hover on the link,) I have started adding terms to give you the general idea.

I hope you enjoy our Return to Action!

Top Ten edition 4

2008-04-17T11:51:00.012-05:00

Today's hurried lifestyle comes with lots of ups and downs. Advances in technology, culture, and society have brought about a new lifestyle from those our parents lived. Now you may believe that this fancy intro is a prelude to some paper on Amerian lifestyle, but really, it's my way of adding filler before introducing the next Office (Blog) Top Ten!

Due to the aforementioned advancements, it's harder than ever to be on time. Even if you have a digital timepiece that tells you when exactly it is. For today's edition of the Top Ten, I bring you... Top Ten reasons I've been late to work.

Parking lot congestion. The apartment complex I've been living in for the past 8 months has been in the process of building more apartment units. The construction crews seem to take great delight in parking their trucks, tractors, and semi's behind my car, or in the middle of the exit to my parking lot.

Old habits Die hard. When I first started working for "These Guys" three years ago, the first few blocks of my drive to work were the same as my old job. However, after three blocks, they split and go in the opposite direction, and the two locations are about twenty miles apart. One daydreamy morning, I let my hands do the driving, and wound up 15 miles the wrong way before realizing I no longer worked for the guys in this direction.

Traffic Accidents. To the people in this town, Red is merely a suggestion, while Green is a call to action. Even my grandma will do a smoky burnout at every Green light in town. It's kind of like playing dodgeball, four or five motorists will tag through behind the last guy to get through the light legitimately, then do their best to dodge the speed freaks who were hiting the gas before the light even turned green. Even the boys in Blue play this game.

Frost. My morning routine is down to a science. Down to the last second even. It seems that no matter how warm it is outside, there's only frost on my window's on the days where I'm a few minutes behind schedule. It could be 20 below, and I'll be done with my routine and out the door five minutes early, and there's no frost. But on that one day where I'm a little slow, and it's a nice and sunny 40 degrees, you can bet there will be frost on my car to slow me down even more.

Bill. Bill likes to make me wait. I'll arrive in his parking lot in plenty of time to get to work early (in most cases.) It's the mornings like this where I can imagine Bill sitting up in his room with his other two roomates, betting on how long it will take me to send him another text telling him to get a move on. They're probably into him for hundreds by now.

Refueling procrastination. Let's face it, we're all lazy at times. And when you wanna go home, you ignore that low fuel light on your dashboard. Unfortunately, it doesn't go away overnight, and you can bet that by the time morning rolls around, I've forgotten that I have to make a pit stop in order to make it to work.

Daylight Savings time and Smart Phones. Why o why did The Man have to mess with the DST schedule?

Road Construction. Our town has a nasty habit of working on every major city street at the same time. I'd complain about it more, but with all the potholes, I'd rather be late, than calling the towtruck.

City Busses. We've got a very friendly public transportation staff. In the bigger cities, if you ain't at the bus stop, you better start walking. But here in never never land, I've seen people stand less than a hundred yards away from the bus stop, and the driver will still pull over. With oncoming traffic you're stuck. I've been stuck behind a bus that made five stops in three blocks (and there was only one bus stop in those three blocks.) Hey bus driver, do something for the environment, conserve gas by only stopping at the bus stops! Makes for a quicker trip for your riders too.

Public Works Department. Our city managers seem to like ticking off our motorists. About 50% of traffic in this town is all headed to the same place, on three major streets, between 6:30 and 8:00 in the morning. The city managers love to have the street sweepers or garbage collection crews out on these three roads during this time of the day. While I'm not a big fan, if I were in their place, I think I'd get a certain amount of satisfaction knowing I've slowed down some speed demon and made him late to work. Probably even saved him a speeding ticket in the process. I know Bill probably owes them a paycheck or two at least...

SORRY!

2008-04-13T00:11:00.005-05:00

I didn't wait to hear all your wonderful advice as to what puppy to get! I found one in town...He's a really cute yorkie/poodle mix. Or a yorki-poo. And I've named him Wembley. After the indecisive Fraggle from Fraggle Rock. (Or the great stadium in England, but not really) Here are some pictures!

Puppy Problems

2008-04-11T15:11:00.004-05:00

Blogging seems like a new frontier to me these days. It's such unfamiliar territory in the last month or so. Seems like I've posted maybe twice in the last 30 days.

Once I get to writing, such as now. I have the willpower to finish. However, it's getting over my need to nap that is the hard part. I may have some help in that department now in more ways than one.

First, work has finally slowed down. The last three months, I've had four major projects. They all concluded ironically on Tuesday this week. This post is the first one I've worked on while at work in almost four months.

Second, Bill and I will be roomates in two weeks, and he can pester me more often about my failure to post.

I guess the big thing right now is the puppy search. This place will be the first place either one of us have lived in that will allow us to have pets (35lb limit.) Since I am willing to wait a year or so to get a Black Lab and my own place, and since Bill is allergic to most dogs, he'll be the owner of the puppy we decide to get.

Since Bill doesn't really have much to do but surf the web most of the time, he's been inundating my Outlook inbox with links to puppies looking for home's. We've gone down the list of the following breeds:

Labradoodle (too big)
Goldendoodle (too big)
Cavachon
Pork a Poo
Yorkie Poo
Schnoodle
Some little Gremlin lookin thing
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Peekapoo

While I don't care too much about what it looks like (I can love any dog), I'd prefer not to cringe evertime the thing walks into the room. The last few he's shown me have fit the bill (no pun intended) in my eyes. He just can't make up his mind though. So I'm gonna ask for your help. Here are the pups he sent me, let us know what you think:

Schnoodle
Peekapoo
Yorkie Poo (Last one on the bottom right hand side)
Cavachon

These are all the real puppies we're looking at, and we'll most likely get one of the four. Your thoughts please...

No Excuses

2008-04-10T18:47:00.004-05:00

I realize I haven't posted much lately. I really don't have a good excuse either. I've just been too tired, or been up to other things at night now that spring seems to be making a comeback.

I'm working on it though. I promise.

haha brian

2008-03-26T12:59:00.003-05:00

So here I am...waiting for the presentation with the big guy...so I figured I would put a post from the new
phone. Which I love! So that's all I was just seeing if it could do it. And it can. Yay!

One-Up Manship

2008-03-24T18:31:00.005-05:00

Bill and I are currently going through a vicious cycle. We like to call it One-Up Manship. One-up manship is where one of us does something, then the other one does something, bigger, better, or more extravagant. Here are some examples:

I bought a XBOX 360 elite.
Bill Buy's a PS3.

I buy a Juke phone.
Bill buys an I-phone.

I get invited to a lunch with several of the chairmen of the company. (the guys that report directly to the big guy.
Bill has a meeting with the big guy himself.

I drink a beer.
Bill has a Tequila Sunrise.

I sing the Monkees at Karaoke night.
Bill sings the Beatles.

You see my problem here. My moments of glory and gloating last only until I decide to clue Bill in on my latest accomplishment or sweet purchase, at which point, he One-ups me.
While it's obvious this cycle can't last forever, it's been quite obvious that Bill has more stamina than I do in this matter. I have no doubt if I were to win the lottery, Bill would find out he's long lost royalty from some rich country.

One area however, in which Bill seems to be incapable of surpassing me, is in predicting the outcome of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. I've made two brackets for this years tournament. While one of them is my "fantasy" bracket, and isn't doing that great (about 40% accuracy) it's still kicking the pants off the bracket Bill has in that same pool.

In another bracket challenge, The Braggin Rights Challenge, I'm tearing him a new one. (I'm tearing everybody a new one at about 95% accuracy.) While Davidson seems intent to destroy my southwestern region, I'm confident Wisconsin will prevail, and keep me out of Bill's stricking distance for this particular bracket.

Let's see Bill one up that!

Smart Phone

2008-03-10T11:25:00.009-05:00

Don't you just love the way technology does everything for you these days? If you're tired of doing it, technology has a fix for you!

While I intended to get right into the story, instead I'm going to grace you with a little anecdote first. Yet another wonder technology has brought us.

Here at the big house, we've developed our technology to the point where we don't even need to remember our passwords. That's right, we're so smart, we program the computer to enter our passwords for us. To this, I must ask our systems developers... If you're going to automate the password entry, why even make it a secured program in the first place? I thought the whole point of a password was to make sure the right user was accessing your system. If all i gotta do is click, and the system enters my password for me, then it's not really secured is it? HAH!

While discussing this very thing with a fellow employee this morning, she mentioned that when she called in due to her system problems, they asked her her password. She told them they've been putting it in for her for so long, she can't remember it anymore. To which I replied: "Why of course! The moment man invented the switch he forgot how to make fire!"

I hope you enjoyed that. So on to business. Technology. It'll brush your teeth for you. It'll cook your food for you. It'll record your favorite TV show that happens to coincide with your preferred nap time. It'll even wake you up on the weekdays but not the weekends. Or will it?

A week ago I bought a fancy new phone. The Juke by Samsung. It's pretty sweet. It's extremely small, but it rocks as a wireless mp3 player. I now have the freedom to workout without hooking myself up to a half mile of wiring and three pounds of plastic. This sucker connects to my stereo bluetooth headphones and will play music for days on end. I couldn't be happier. It's also a great way to ignore people at work.

Another upside to this toy is the alarm function. Like most phones nowadays, it can be programmed with up to three separate alarms. Each alarm can be told when it should go off, and what days of the week. I love this. I can program this thing to leave me the heck alone on the weekends, but still have my alarm clock on my person at all times on the off chance I'll need to wake up and I'm not in my own bed. (Just sayin...)

In comes Daylight Savings time (three weeks early thanks to The Man,) and the wonder of technology that auto adjusts your time for you. I'm hanging out at our regular Saturday night Karaoke hot spot at the time, and I sneak a peek at my phone's clock, and noticed it skipped an hour ahead without the hassle of even turning it off and on again. Sweet! I never even gave a second thought to make sure the alarms were still set properly. I mean come on, they don't even have gadgets this cool in Star Trek, what could go wrong!

Apparently, though, this phone is too smart for it's own good. When it jumped the clock ahead an hour, it also took the liberty of adding an hour to all of my alarms as well. So this morning, instead of waking up at 6:10 to the annoying shrill of my phones alarm, I instead wake up just after 7 to a text message from Bill.

Not two seconds after I finish informing Bill that I am indeed awake now, my alarm goes off. I check the time. 7:10. I'm glad my neighbors are in Florida, because I have a talent for obscenity and profanity in the mornings. I also have poor volume control.

How To: The Essential Office Guide ed. 1

2008-03-03T11:41:00.008-06:00

Today I introduce another new Segment to The Office (Blog). The new "How To: The Essential Office Guide" will pretty much be our outlet segment. This is the part of the blog where you will find the majority of our complaints, gripes, groans, and dissatisfaction with The Man. So here we go!

How To: The Essential Office Guide to burning bridges.

I'm a pretty forgiving kinda guy. Sure, I'll get angry with ya from time to time. But I have a horrible memory, and given a day or two, I'll forget your transgressions, and we'll be good. Not very often does someone push my Big Red Button. Once you have hit this button, there's no going back. If you push that button, your dirty deed will be permanently seared into my memory, and no forgiveness will be found.

That button got pushed this last Friday. Part of my role here is a "Move Coordinator." Basically, this means that whenever we reorganize our department, I'm one of the people in charge of figuring out where everyone and everything is going to. Inevitably, whenever you move 200 people, you're going to have a few problems.

I do everything I can to give advance notice to an individual letting them know what night their stuff will be moved by the move crew. Most cases there is at least three weeks of notification. Now you would think that most people would have plenty of time to pack their items. We're not talking a house here, just your cube or office.

I go around during the day to make sure everyone who is being moved overnight is packed. So thursday night, when I looked in on "Jessica's" office, I saw ten boxes in the middle of the floor, and a bunch of personal items that couldn't really be packed. I figured that this was all of her stuff, and never gave it a second thought. (Regrettably)

About 5pm, the move crew leader comes over to inform me that Jessica's desk, bookcases, and storage bins were still full. Since none of the assistants were around this late, and Jessica was no where to be found, this meant I had to pack all her stuff, or we wouldn't be able to move anyone the entire night. (Not an option with my deadlines.) So I grab ten boxes (as it would turn out, 20 boxes too few,) and head over to pack her stuff up.

So there I am, One hour, thirty boxes, and five buckets of sweat later, finishing up her last drawer when I find a Michael Jordan trading card in a protective sleeve. Since I didn't think it would be a good idea to leave something this fragile (and possibly valuable) in a hastily packed box full of crap, I took the card and locked it in my secured equipment room. I then sent her an email letting her know I packed all her stuff, and let her know what I did with her card. I then left (40 minutes later than planned,) feeling good about myself, and thinking I'd get a big thank you in the morning. HAH!

I got an email from her first thing the next morning. No thank you, no acknowledgement that I single handedly saved the day despite her negligence. Just a sternly worded "Someone needs to fix my equipment ASAP." So I think to myslef... "Kinda rude, but we all have bad days, I'll send someone over." Turns out, she didn't know how to turn a key.

Twenty minutes later, I get another email... "Someone needs to fix my shelf as soon as possible so I can unpack." At this point, saying that I'm frustrated would be an understatement. I go check it out with my boss in tow, and discover she's missing a bracket. No big deal. Quick fix.

Another hour goes by, and this time I get a phone call. (BRB safety code entered) "I'm missing my notepad. You have any idea where it is? It's really important." (BRB has been pushed. We have detonation.) This woman had 30 boxes full of nothing but binders and notepads. The fact that she realizes one is missing is a miracle. The fact that she thinks I would have even the slightest idea which notepad she was talking about was even more audacious.

I basically tell her I have no clue where her bleeping notebook is and to leave me the bleep alone. (In nicer terms of course...) She takes it well, (or so it would seem) and feeds me the, "I guess it might be around here somewhere." She didn't even bother looking, she starts working her way up the ladder with the move team until she gets to one of the Superintendents. Of course, since I have dealings with these people, the Super, (we'll call him Dave) knows me and my team pretty well. Dave was also informed by his crew that I single handedly saved the day. He pretty much let me know she called him and was blowin smoke up his BLEEP. I told him how many notepads she had, and I was amazed she could count for one particular one in the first place. "The damn thing is prolly jammed into a binder in one of those thirty boxes."

Dave agrees, and hangs up. I can't recall a time when someone pushed my BRB more than once. This woman managed it twice in one day. Apparently my buttons weren't the only ones she pushed either. I talked to my boss about my chat with Dave, and it didn't exactly make her the happiest camper.

This woman has succesfully burned every bridge between herself and the support department. We are a pretty needed team in our department, and do lots of favors for everyone. I really hope I never have to deal with her again.

He said WHAT??

2008-02-27T11:50:00.006-06:00

The last few days have been pretty unbelievable, and extrememly hilarious, I might need two posts. And through all of this, Bill is on an expenses paid trip to Texas, where last night I found out, he found a place with cheap Tequila Sunrises and great scenery. We may never see or hear from Bill again.

Here's the rundown:

Two days ago, we musta had the red plagure around here or somethin. As I'm walking through the main hallway, the guy 20 yards or so in front of me steps into the elevator. By the time I get to the elevator, the doors are closing, and I catch a glimpse of this very big guy, (bout 6' 7", 300 pounds) with his knees bent, and slowly moving his back back and forth against the crack in the elevator wall. This reminded me nothing more than a big bear scratching his back on a tree in the forest. I almost lost it right there. Then, not ten minutes later, I caught someone else doing the very same thing against the corner of a wall, (being very subtle about it though.) I felt like I was in the wilderness at this point, and decided to use PT and take the remaining three hours of the day off before I was challenged to a territory fight.

The last few nights I've been staying till it is ridiculously late at night due to some projects. By about six O'clock, everyone was off the floor except for a teamate I was collaborating with, and the maintenance and cleaning crews. Not two minutes after they killed half the lights for night mode, someone came over the loudspeaker and said the most outrageous thing I've ever heard over a PA system.

It was so outrageous, I'm going to preface it with a warning. I don't wish to offend any of my readers, so if you're not particularly in the mood to hear crude sexual slang, then skip the next paragraph. I only decided to put this up hear, because it's so unbelievable, that you just can't understand unless I tell you.

So there we are, half lighting, sitting there chatting about our respective love life's as opposed to doing any real work, when all of a sudden the PA crackles, and we hear this: "Raging Clits please report to the atrium,... (pause)... then he said it AGAIN!

The first time the guy said it, we kind of just looked at each other and shook it off, figuring we both were hearing things, the second time he repeated it, I couldn't help it. I looked at her and said... "Did I just hear what I thought I heard?" She heard the same thing.

We both just sat there for a minute or two, trying to process exactly what we had heard. The PA system is wired through the entire building. During the day, this would mean anywhere between 10,000 and 12,000 people. Even at night, we're talking at least a thousand listeners, and more importantly, probably a few of the people on the upper floors.

I imagine this guys status of employment lasted a whole two more minutes. That's about the time it took me and my friend to put it all together and start cracking up. We took that as our cue to call it a night and head home.

We went out the back way to avoid any traffic headed towards the atrium. You never want to run into those (above referenced phrase) after dark.

Cover your ears

2008-02-18T16:50:00.014-06:00

So. We've been up to quite a bit in the last few days. Most of our good times have actually come from the after hours stuff recently. This past weekend was one of the best in my recent history, and we had a blast. Here's some proof.

These are a few pics of me. This is on Karaoke night at our favorite local nightspot. As you can see, I'm quite talented. I was shooting darts (and winning) and singing Trace Adkins "Rough and Ready" at the same time.I rock out on the Mic like our friend Heather rocks out on the guitar. It's a total blast. Both Bill and I sang a few that night.

My tunes were:

Matchbox Twenty - 3 AM
Trace Adkins - Rough and Ready
Tom Petty - Free Fallin (sung with Bill)
One other one I can't remember

Bill sang a few too, I think yellow submarine was one, but I can't remember the rest. (The night got a little fuzzy you see...) We planned to finish off the night at a Mexican restaurant across the street, but wound up extending the night with a little road trip when one of our buddies proposed heading to another club that closes at four in the morning.

Needless to say, we packed it up and headed outta town, only to get there and be turned away due to power outages. (Ironically, all the neon lights on the exterior of the building were shining from miles away.) Still, all in all, we had a blast.

Cuz I'm FREEEEEEEEE, Free FAAAAAAALLIIIIIINNNNN!!!

Be sure to continue reading, we posted twice today!

New Blog Formed

2008-02-18T12:40:00.006-06:00

So...Just letting any of you know that I've started my own blog. You're more than welcome to take a look at it, but I will warn you that by no means will it be a happy or funny blog. It's more where I can pose my own questions to life. If you have an opinion you're welcome to share it, or if you'd just like to read that's fine too, and of course you're always more than welcome to never check.

The link is on the side with other links. "Holes in Happiness"

Here are the lyrics to the song with the same title as the blog

The Sky was blonde Like her
It was a Day to take the child out
back and shoot it
I Could have buried all my dead
up in her cemetery head
She had dirty word witchcraft
I was in the deep end of her skin
Then, it seemed like a one car car wreck
but I knew it was a horrid tragedy
Ways to make the tiny satisfaction disappear

Blow out the Candles
on all my Frankensteins
At least my death wish will come true
You taste like Valentine's and
we cry,
you're like a Birthday
I should have picked the photograph
It lasted longer than you

Putting Holes in Happiness
We'll paint the future black
If it needs any color
My death sentence is a story
who'll be digging when you finally Let me die?
The Romance of our assassination
If you're Bonnie, I'll be your Clyde
But the grass is greener here and
I can see all of your snakes
You wear your ruins well
please run away with me to Hell

Blow out the Candles
on all my Frankensteins
At least my death wish will come true
You taste like Valentine's and we cry,
you're like a Birthday
I should have picked the photograph
It lasted longer than you

Top Ten edition 3

2008-02-14T18:04:00.010-06:00

WARNING: Do not attempt the following. These tacticts have been performed and perfected by true Office Professionals. Attempting these without proper training may result in negative side effects such as free time, enjoying work, and an improved social life. Other side effects include: write ups, invitations to "The Man's" office, bad rumors, increased stress, increased blood pressure, and termination. (A.K.A. The Boot, Gettin Canned, the pink slip, the door, the Long Way out, the One Way Ticket, you get the point...

At the request of a reader, this month's edition of the top ten is... "Ways to pass the buck." So without further ado, I give you the top ten ways to weasel your way out of a job.

When The Man is lookin to dish, AVERT your eyes. At no time do you want to stare down your fate.

Don't, under any circumstances, get any ideas about sacrificing yourself for the good of the rest of your team. You'll regret it. You're not like the old guy at a wedding who falls on the garter belt to save all the young single guys.

Volunteer someone else. This requires excellent foresight and a great reaction time... "I think Bob is GREAT at that sort of thing."

If you think the boss is coming to find you for a job, head for the bathroom. Even if the boss finds ya, he's not gonna assign you a crappy job while you're takin a crap. GET IT? (Just makin sure.)

At the start of the day, saunter pass your boss's door while chatting with a buddy. Something like this might help... "MAN, today is just going to be insane, I'm barely gonna have time for lunch."

Schedule a bunch of private meetings on your outlook calendar. If the boss thinks you're booked, you've got a golden ticket.

Have you used the diarrhea excuse yet? Just a thought...
Make sure you don't have a single un-cluttered spot on your desk. If you can't even organize that mess, then there is no way the boss is gonna want to have his job wind up lost in that mess.

Hold hourly "business" discussions with other team members at your desk. Not only does this make it look like you are busy, but your teamate also gets a free ride. This one is worth bonus points.

And finally, our best way to slip the chores... Call in sick! If you ain't there, you can't work. (Use at your own risk.)

Several of my fellow bloggers have presented our humble blog with awards in the past month or so. I would like to acknowledge this fact, (and gracefully accept) and inform you that as soon as I'm done working on our trophy case, I'll put them up and present them in true fashion to more deserving recepients. However, since I have a rather large ego, I'm thinking our trophy case needs to be something special. And as the saying goes... "All things in life are worth waiting for." So hold yer horses!

My version of 'Super Fat Tuesday'

2008-02-08T08:32:00.002-06:00

So...while my counterpart was busy working and going into a church to vote I had quite the different experience (which was much more fun I'm sure).

There's been this musician that I've been a fan of since I was only like 11 or 12 years old and while for awhile I stopped listening I have since returned to listening to his great music in the past year or so. I had never been to one of his concerts...until Tuesday.

I left 'The Office' a bit early and headed out on my way to the Aragon Ballroom in uptown Chicago (It's just north of downtown, go figure). I made it in plenty of time to get close to the stage and see the opening act "Ours" which was pretty good. I like it, a harder rock with a lead singer that sounds a bit like Chris Carabba of Dashboard Confessional or Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace (Two of my favorite bands ever), so that was good. Then after waiting about 40 minutes for the stage to change for the headliner I anxiously waited with pure joy and excitement...It was the most elated I had been in awhile.

Then in one fell swoop the curtain that had been hiding the stage was pulled down and we rushed closer to the stage to see the microphone having an attachment of a butcher knife on the end. The person holding that mic...could've passed for a woman on some days, but it didn't matter as he sang his version of a love ballad, "If I was your vampire" the crowd screamed, myself included at his stage presence and emotion while he sang.

This of course is the one that's been called "Antichrist" on more than 1 occassion, Marilyn Manson. His show was great, so while Brian voted in a church, I watched a Bible being burned and torn apart, a man fondling himself on stage in front of adoring fans, a mannequin get feeled up...then decapitated. And during all this I was close enough to have his spit and Twiggy's water on me on more than 1 occassion. So yeah, I think my 'Super Fat Tuesday' was better.

And a bit of irony is that I voted just before I left (in a Police substation) and the first thing Manson said to the crowd was about how dumb voting is because all the politicians are corrupt.

This is Twiggy Ramirez, the reunited bassist from the days of their best work.

Super Fat Tuesday

2008-02-06T19:46:00.001-06:00

So I lied. It's now technically the day after tomorrow. (Which by the way, I watched on TV last night instead of posting.)

Yesterday was a big day for me. It was Fat Tuesday, (the start of Mardi Gras,) and Super Tuesday, (presidential primaries.) It also happened to be the first election I've voted in. Somehow, I couldn't decide between Bush and Kerry in the last election, and didn't think it would make a difference.

It kinda felt wierd walkin into the place to vote. Mostly because it was a church, and technically speaking the United States operate under this whole "Separation of Church and State" thing. It just kills me that we've banned "under God" from the pledge of allegiance, yet we're voting in churches. To me, that's pretty far from separating the State from the Church.

The other feeling of weirdness came from the act of voting itself. The amazing thing about America is the amount of power and influence we've managed to gather in the short time we've been a nation. Yet, every 4 or 8 years, the most powerful man in the country just hands over the reins without a single word of protest, (publicly anyways...) In order to live the way we do, generations of soldiers have defended, and even died for this country. (Myslef included.) In my time in the service I never really cared about my right to vote. But somehow, when I was walking up to the church, I finally got it. I have a say.

I have the right to step up, and cast my opinion on who makes the decisions that will impact my life. There are some parts of the world that aren't so lucky. And for that, I feel, is the reason why when given the right to vote, it should not be wasted.

I chose not to vote in the last election, and I feel ashamed of myself for that. I can't imagine what someone who didn't have this right would say when meeting my old self. Anyways.... While I know this isn't the laugh happy post I promised, I felt it needed to be said. And it was something I was motivated to write about tonight.

Tomorrow or the next day I'll tell you all about the irony of road repair. And you'll laugh.

I plan to post another edition of The Office Blog Top Ten in the next week or so, and I'm looking for suggestions from my readers on any topics related to us or the Office that you would like to hear about. So leave us a comment if you've got that topic you've just been dying for us to write about!

Six Guns Smokin

2008-02-04T19:28:00.000-06:00

All right ladies and gents. I think we're back in action. I just went through my checklist.

Computer (check)
Blog Banner (check)
Fingers, arms, hands, feet and toes (check)

Yup, I think we're good now. While we were on our second break in as many months, many thins happened. I shed ten pounds. Then got horribly sick, didn't eat, and gained most of it back the first day I felt better. I'm hoping it's a few more days yet before the farmer across the street realizes there is a cow missing.

Other than that, I finally got the final part of my review in, the bottom line. It's the second straight year that I'm happy with my percentage.

While I really, really, really want to put up a gut wrenching, snot rocketing post right now, I just got done workin out, and I'm wiped. Although my mind is mush, this is the first time in a year that I've gone 15 plus miles on the bike, 3 on foot, and not felt any pain. Couldn't be happier.

So here's my pledge... Tomorrow I'll bring the heat and give you said Milk squirting out the nose post. Deal?

Sorry for the Convenience

2008-01-20T10:16:00.000-06:00

The Office (Blog) is having some major technical difficulties right now. We apologize for any harm we may have caused. If you remember our disclaimer, please remember that we are not responsible for any mental ailments we may have caused do to this unexpected breakdown of our site.

First off, our Flash banner is down. The site we were storing it on kicked us out because we didn't log in anytime recently. Apparently this means we aren't worthy of file hosting. (sigh) This means no cool green blog title for the next three weeks. Why three weeks you say?

Because that's how long it's going to take for the nerds at best buy to finish fixing the battery and power problems with my laptop. I would fix the blog temporarily and go back to the old template, but it's on my laptop. You'll have to excuse any gaps in posting in the next three weeks due to this issue. Right now I'm on Bill's computer. Why Bill's computer you say?

Weeeell, actually, a lot of reasons. Mainly because his car was at my place at the end of the night, and he was at his. So I had to wake my butt up this morning, and drive it to his, so he could go to work. So I figured I'd post while he was getting ready. Not that I mind using Bill's computer.

Turns out it's one of those brand new IMac's with an 8 gig processor and a 30" screen. It's got mega sweet features that I've never even dreamed about on my personal machine. I'm pretty jealous right now. But I can see while I'm typing ever so more clearly than before.

Anyways... This breakdown leads to Bill's favorite joke at work. It involves escalators. You ever notice that you never see an escalator out order sign? That's because they can never really break. They just become stairs. You might see a sign... "Elevator temporarily stairs... sorry for the convenience. You can still get where you are going."

We just love it when we see people walk up to the escalators when they're not moving, and look around like they don't know what to do. Really, it's hilarious. That's kinda like us right now. Not functioning correctly, but we'll still get the job done. It might just take a little more effort.

Crossing the Picket Line (Walking in Place)

2008-01-15T21:39:00.000-06:00

I bet ya didn't know the writers strike was going to affect your favorite blog did ya? Well, we have news for you... it didn't. Work has been absolutely insane this last month. For both members of The Office (Blog) crew. I've been pretty self focused to get things done on time, and every time I have went to write something down to blog about it, I would get interrupted and forget what I was going to blog about. We would love to show you a production chart of our blogging activity over the last month. But nothing is not very exciting to look at. (If you ask nice though, Bill may throw some flashy graphics on said nothing and give you something to stare at in awe for a few moments.)

Over the next few days I will be concentrating on catching up on all of my favorite blogs, and reading ALL of your posts that I've missed. I'll also work on the three partial posts I started, so you'll have something to read other than the thirty or so disturbing comments I will leave on said blogs. Seriously, I am warning you.

The big "happening" at work right now, is a weight loss challenge. It's a fairly huge one, and if I named it, I'm sure you might now exactly what I was talking about. But since it's a nationwide thing, and my department created it, and I'm trying to stay under the radar here, I'll just refer to it as "The Challenge" from here on out.

One of my would be posts was about my resolution to get back in shape, and "The Challenge" is providing a good atmosphere for that. (At work anyways. I've still got a cupboard full of doritos at home that love to tease me.) We've got crews that walk around and will trade any candy at your desk for fruit or nutrition bars. They're giving away "The Challenge" kits as well, with things like helpful CD's and those things that count your steps. These were actually going to be the target of one of my more recent would be posts. (I just remembered!) As a matter of fact here we go....

Walking In Place

(a should have been post by Brian)

Ever hear of a pedometer? These things are kinda funny. Apparently, they measure seismic activity or something, and tell you how many steps you've taken during the day. That way at the end of the day, you can calculate how many calories you burned doing your normal run of the mill routine. I've got two big things to say about this...

First, they're absolutely pointless. For those of us who are motivated to work out, they're unnecessary. We know we burned a bunch of calories because the bike gets used so much it cries when you enter the fitness room. For those of us who don't work out, it just gives us a reason to not work out. "Hey Honey, will ya look at this... I burned 500 calories at work today!" I'd take one look at that number, believe it was an accomplishment, and treat myself to a Big Mac for a job well done. As I said, useless.

The smart people may wonder how you burned 500 calories at work when the only walking you did was to the vending machine and back. Which leads me to my second point. The seismometer thingamajigger in these things suck. Or they're excellent... however you want to look at it. I swear that I blinked, and it counted a step. It's super sensitive to the slightest vibrations. Heaven forbid a man has gas... He'll rack up twenty miles on this thing before the day is done.

All in all though, the initiative has at least restored my drive to start getting back in shape by providing me with a little competition. I hate to lose. The tough part is here, that no matter what, I might not have a shot. I weighed in at 210. At 6 feet flat, my ideal weight is between 144 and 183. This means I've gotta ditch 25 pounds to be in the healthy area according to the Body Mass Index (BMI). The BMI doesn't account for muscle, which weighs more than fat.

Despite my layer of flab, my three years of running every night, then two years of government torture (Army) has built up some solid stuff under there that just won't go away through hard work and attempted starvation. I'm guessing at best, working out like I used to, and eating like a champ, I'll be able to trim the fat, come out lean and mean, and still not be able to duck under 190. That's about where I was at when I took that last fateful jump out of the plane back in '03. I didn't have a lot of body fat back in those days. Since then, the "Freshman Fifteen" of the office has visited a few times.

I'll keep you posted on my progress. I'm hoping some of you will help to hold me accountable. Maybe ask for chip count. If the Doritos ain't there, then I'm sure as heck not on the right track. And I promise to post up again in the next few days when I'm done catching up on all my missed reading. See ya'll!

Top Ten edition 2

2007-12-24T21:56:00.000-06:00

For the holiday edition of The Office (Blog)'s Top Ten, we bring you the cheesiest things about the holidays. While all of these are part and parcel of the holiday season, you sometimes have to realize just what kind of dignity, sanity, or common sense you've sacrificed to get that warm and fuzzy peace and goodwill feeling.

1. On Christmas Eve, every radio station from pop, to rock, to hip-hop, to country, plays nothing but Christmas tunes. The only discernable difference is how low Santa's pants ride, and whether or not he's got a bottle of Jack in his pickup.

2. The inevitable clothing gift that you would never wear in public. Seriously, who makes all those Rudolph sweater's with the nose that really glows? Are you aware that you've filled a landfill the size of Delaware just in the batteries it takes to light those babies up?

3. James Bond. This used to make my ten best things about Christmas list. Now though, spike TV thinks it's good television to interrupt some serious spy-vision with some UFC reality show. Do you think a couple of guys beating each other up is as cool as some gadgety watch that can drive a classic beamer by remote control?

4. Commercial intitiated traditions. How many of you put up your Christmas tree the day after thanksgiving? Me too. Can we really blame this on anyone but the stores who just love getting us in the spirit for the mother of all shopping days of the year?

5. Singing decorations. I've never wanted to punch Santa in the face more, than when he's hanging on a doorknob and starts threatening me with "You better watch out" every time I walk by. He even goes out of the way to call me a sissy by telling me "You better not cry."

6. Dressing up your pets. While this is cute, and looks good on a Christmas card, nothing is cheesier than five wiener dogs dressed up as reindeer. I still haven't managed to convince my mother that all five dogs despise her for this act of humiliation every year. She blames them throwing up on the carpet every Christmas on the rawhides.

7. Fake Santa's. I heard somewhere in California this year, parade organizers had to tell float makers to refrain from including a rent-a-Santa on their float. Too many parents were running out of ways to explain to their children why there was more than one Santa.

8. Decorating contests. The first person to accidentally set something on fire through sheer obnoxious talent wins. Especially if the guys in the space station can see you from orbit. I vote the guy on the next block over who has 65 plastic light up snowmen in his front yard. (Actually not exaggerating on this one.)

9. Office parties. You've all been to one of these before. It doesn't get interesting till the office lightweight slams down an eggnog they thought was alcoholic and thinks they're drunk. The pictures can and will be used for blackmail until next years Christmas party where some new guy falls for the same trick.

10. An official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time. This of all things cheesy, needs no further explanation.

Happy Holidays!

Solid Water

2007-12-10T11:08:00.000-06:00

As some of you may know or may have experienced, the central portion of our great country is in the middle of the next Ice Age. It's been three straight days of freezing rain, and it looks to be three more coming as well. This morning's commute was far from being fun. But Bill got a kick outta it.

I woke up 15 minutes earlier this morning (in theory of course) so that I could spend the extra time removing ice from my car and still make it to work on time. Of course, The Man, had different ideas. 10 minutes of pounding, swearing, chopping and pleading, and I still couldn't even open the door.

At this time, I know I'm gonna wind up being late, so I decide to give Bill a call. "Hey, can't get into my car, you might have to pick me up this morning." This was at 25 to 7 (yes, the am) Now, theortically speaking, Bill probably should have been leaving his parking lot right about this time, but me knowing Bill, was not surprised to hear the following response: "Okay, I'll have to get dressed and everything first."

By about quarter till, I finally managed to break in and start heating things up from the inside. I managed to head off around 7. (I'm supposed to be at my desk by now.) I text this achievement to Bill, and get the response: "I'm almost there already!" (He's supposed to be at his desk by now as well.) This is the first time in a while that Bill has actually arrived at work before me. A feat he will undoubtedly remind me of for the next several weeks, in between taunts of how bad his 'Boys beat the 'Pack.

While the main roads aren't really that bad, things are interesting on the side streets. I saw twice this morning where a car almost slid into a man road from a side road. Woulda been kinda funny if they weren't on a path of destruction and all. I tend not to like people when they collide with my car.

Secret Santa

2007-11-30T22:31:00.001-06:00

As the holiday season approches... Aw who am I kidding, since the holiday season has arrived, so have the office Christmas activities. While I enjoy participating in all of these, my budget this year is a little strained, so I've declined participation in some of the costlier activities.

One of these such activities is Secret Santa. For those of you who don't know what this is (you must be new to America) you collect all the names of the people participating, drop them into a hat, and draw names. You don't tell anyone whose name you have drawn. Then for a whole week, you secretly deliver presents to that person for a whole week, then during some big office event, you reveal who's Secret Santa you are. If this isn't how you're used to it, then too bad. This is how we roll. Get like us.

Since my lack of participation in this event gave some team members the idea to use me as a delivery system, I decided to get creative. Here is the result...
Nice huh?

The picture in the corner is one of myself doing something stupid. Happens a lot. I jumped off the roof of my apartment building into a 10 foot snowbank after a bad storm last winter. I got stuck. Everyone decided it would be more entertaining to see how I got out rather than help me.

I gave a copy to everyone on my team, and the orders keep pouring in. It's going to be a busy week. I'm gonna be wearing the Santa hat quite a bit it looks like.

P.S. Heather, I finally broke down and put a picture in my blog because of you. This is all your fault, and you'll probably regret it.

The Two Step

2007-11-30T22:01:00.000-06:00

The last two days at work have been very interesting. The biggest result of this being a little competitive fundraiser. By now it's no secret among my peers that I'm a country music fan and avid Line Dancer. My team has been waiting to exploit this habit, and Thursday, they finally got their chance.

It all started with a fundraiser. Yes, everything interesting in my team starts with a fundraiser. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go check out Granny Smith part 1 and part 2. This weeks fundraiser was a change drive for Adopt-a-family. One of the women on our team agreed to organize this for our team, and came up with (I'll admit a pretty ingenious) idea. She would set out to change jars that were to act as vote collection. The jar with the most change "wins." The jars represented two teams of three people.

What do they win you ask? Why, the winners get to learn a line dance in front of the whole team during our christmas party in two weeks. Who gets to teach them? You guessed it... ME!

We raised 50 dollars in one jar, and 45 in the other. In just a day and a half! We wound up having four days less to participate in the overall fundraiser competition. But still only wound up 20 dollars out of first place.

Now I have to decide which country music song I am going to teach. Here's the choices:

Sweet Home Alabama -Lynryd Skynryd
Copperhead Road - Steve Earle
Swamp Thing - The Grid
Cotton Eyed Joe - Rednex version
Dust on the Bottle - David Lee Murphy

These are all relatively easy to teach to beginners and should provide enough laughs for the rest of the team. What one do ya'll think I should go with?

Top Ten edition 1

2007-11-29T13:14:00.001-06:00

Today I introduce to you a new segment of our blog. The Office (Blog) Top Ten! Every so often Bill or myself will put together a top ten list of something (feel free to send us any suggestions) and share it. While the first edition is related to the office, that may not always be the case. We hope you enjoy. For the first edition of Top Ten we bring you...

The Office (Blog) Top Ten Obsessive Office Behaviors

1. Surfing the Web. Your day at the office is not complete without cruising the highways of the WWW

2. Counting the tiles on the bathroom floor. When you're sitting around taking care of your business, what else is there to do except lose yourself in the patterns of the bathroom floor tiles. After much contemplation of this, (and you all know where men do their best thinking,) I've come to the conclusion that each 1" by 1" tile had to be laid in by hand. There's no common pattern that could be made up of a larger tile for quicker installation.

3. Pranking. It's not a good day unless you can humiliate your neighbor. Bonus points if an executive happens to walk by during the process and gets a chuckle.

4. Sports talk. It never fails, you can't leave the office until some whiz kid with a bad memory repeats everything he thinks he heard on Sports Center last night.

5. Lunch. It's true, we've all got to eat sometime.

6. Making your lunch arrangements before the sun comes up. Seriously, you might wind up with the old maid if you don't make lunch plans before you even get your coat off.

7. Chain E-Mail. It's not been a typical day at the office until forward you a tragic e-mail about some guy with a billion dollars in Asia and no way to transfer it.

8. Checking your E-mail. Your level of self esteem at the office is usually directly proportional to the number of e-mails you get in the day. I've seen this bring people to tears.

9. Bathroom Breaks. These must be taken at a minimum frequency of every two hours. I swear it's in the handbook.

10. Fidgeting. It's impossible to sit still and work at your desk. Your pens will show evidence of this, and if you're very unlucky, so will your teeth after you accidentally bite trough the pen. Rubber band balls, stuffed animals, office supplies, and anything on your neighbors desk are all fair game to vindicate your need to do sometihing more than stare at your computer all day long.

The Results Are in

2007-11-29T13:04:00.000-06:00

After a week or two of leaving you hanging. I am now happy to report back to you the results. I know you must have thought I got fired or something since my lack of posting, but that has mostly been due to the change in the weather. I am one of those people who gets lazy, tired, and grouchy during the winter months. I tend to sleep like a bear through most of the winter.

The worse part about my most recent EPR was the preparration. I wasn't so much worried about the actuall conversation as I was submitting my preparation summary a week before I had "the talk." I dragged my feet on that one till the last possible moment. Then, when I couldn't wait any longer, I wrote it all up, and sent it in.

Turns out I did a pretty fantastic job. A couple of my co-workers told me not to worry, that our manager usually added in stuff for them that they had forgotten. This didn't happen to me. (I'm presuming that a good thing. If you suggest otherwise, I'll probably pretend I don't know you.) Several times she told me this was "great" or how I had put something down that was "very good."

I was shocked coming out of this EPR. As I mentioned before, this is the first time I expected to get critical feedback during a performance review. And while my manager did give me something I needed to work on, it was something I was already trying to get a handle on and was aware of. The one or two other areas where I thought I may have suffered, it turns out I was right where I needed to be.

What a relief! While I wasn't outwardly worried, somewhere inside me I was frightened with the thought of the new challenges this particular manager would present me with. The boss is a very smart and capable leader, who knows how to push to get the best possible performance out of someone. I'm glad to find out that I was able to provide myself with enough to get the job done in the manner that was expected.

So, here I am, still at it. Much more to come.

Judgement Day

2007-11-13T21:28:00.001-06:00

I feel like I owe ya'll another post since I killed that last one a little early. The down side about having a blog where you get much of your inspiration from work, is that sometimes you realize you can't write about something you really want to write about. So I guess for this post, I'll write about one of the upsides of having blog. Venting.

One of the hardest things to do, every year, is to go through a review. This is something I'm sure you're all familiar with in one form or another. In the past, it hasn't been too bad for me. I was positioned in a more low-key area, and while I shouldered a lot of responsibility, my manager made it very clear that the chair I sat on was made of gold. Since moving to my new team, I'm not going to have it so easy for my next review.

Much of this is the fault of my team. I have to give them a lot of the credit. My new team members are all very high performers, and make it very difficult for me to stand out. This is not one of those teams where you have an obvious all-star. Everyone is great at what they do, and we all have our own little specialties. In many ways, it reminds me of my days in the service. We all have a job we are given, and nothing less than our best is delivered.

So while I've got many projects I've worked on that I can showcase during my review with my new manager, I'm finding it difficult to really decide which ones I should choose. I've come a long ways in the last 8 to 10 months with this new group, and the way the work has reshaped my business decisions is remarkable. The things I would have put in my review last year are a bug on a windshield compared to just about everything I've done this year.

The other bad part about preparing for this review, is that you have to brag about yourself. I tend to be underspoken when it comes to this. While I like getting praise, I generally don't like to dispense my virtues to the masses on a regular basis. If I'm good at what I do, you'll know it, and I'll know it, and I like to leave it at that. I hate to brag about myself on paper where there's a permanent record of it. Unfortunately, it's one of those few neccessary evils of the office world that I've yet to cope with.

For the first time in any job, I find myself preparing for a review in which I have no inkling as to how well I'll do, or what the final outcome will be. It's nerve wracking. I think I can feel my eye twitch threating to come back. I'm restraining myself from starting any nasty habits to cope. In three weeks, I'll have gone through the fire. Guess we'll get to see how well that emergency management training went after all huh?

I'd like to take this opportunity to make a request. Or rather, request any requests. Is there a side of us you'd like to know more about? Any deep dark corners of The Office (Blog) you'd like to shine a light on? Let us know! Leave a comment with any of your questions, and I'll be sure to post up some good gossip!

In Case of Emergency

2007-11-13T10:42:00.001-06:00

One thing I've always thought humorous about the corporate framework is the emergency plans. This is something you have to experience first hand to truly appreciate it. I'll try to paint you a picture.

After 9-11, many companies took a fresh look at their evac plans. I'm sure many managed to revamp it, and come up with something a little bit better. We've revamped ours four times. And now no one is quite sure what we do in case of emergency. Do prove it, here's an example.

I'm part of a group on my floor that is supposed to step up in times of an emergency and provide direction during an evacuation. I have a stylish yellow vest and hat getup, along with a flashlight. We have several different evacuation routes. If there's a fire, I direct people down a different set of stairs than if there is a storm. The only difference here, is that during one case you go all the way to the basement, and in the other, you only go to the first floor and out. Try getting someone to remember one evacuation route in time of emergency. It's not too easy, the second those alarms go off, you can't remember where you saw those evacuation arrows. Now picture someone trying to figure out which way to choose. Let's seeee.... is it hot? Yeah, looks like fire, do I go left or right? Hmmmm....

So you can see it's not the most efficient plan around. But it gets better. Or not. We also have contingency plans for emergencies such as a shooter in the building. I want to tell you so badly what our plans are for this. But on thinking more about this, I better not publicize it. Most of the associates at our company don't even know this particular policy. Ohhh how you would want to know. But I like my job, so...

The powers that be are still workin some of these out, and I have faith that they will come up with something that will work. I'm just lucky enough to see the plan before it's fully assembled for it's most recent restructurization. It's funny lookin at it now, and I hope that nothing serious happens before we've got the latest plan in place.

Vending Machine Villany

2007-11-06T09:06:00.000-06:00

Today is a big day. For one, it’s the first time in two weeks we’ve posted. I know we’re busy at work, but an increase of activity of a social life outside of work has led to napping during the regularly scheduled blogging hours of the day.

Another, perhaps slightly more impressive reason that today is a big day, it just so happens to be Bill’s BIRTHDAY!! I’m sure Bill will leave some sort of metaphorical comment about wine and age etc… but don’t let him fool you, he’s the same old Bill, but now with a reason to go out on a Tuesday night. Happy Birthday buddy!

Anyways, on to a more philosophical discussion. Vending Machines.

Have you taken a look at the design and organization of a new vending machine lately? Maybe you haven’t. I have. (I do need to get up and walk away from the horror every so often.) While shopping for a snack in the break area the other day, deciding whether A7 sounded more appetizing than 1G4, I started to laugh. I noticed that the pop tarts were all the way at the top of the machine. I looked down into the receiving tray, and saw plenty of what could only be the crumbs from a Strawberry Pop Tart. Maybe you can help me out here, is there any logical reason to put the most fragile food at the very top of the machine? Maybe the vending machine guy thinks it’s funny. Maybe he likes to sit back and watch as the pop tarts tumble down the face of the machine like a Plinko chip from the PIR. Then you’ve got the gum, which is the smallest, least fragile of all items in the machine, at the bottom. No sense.

Then you’ve got these super fancy machines that look like they’re built to someday rise up and overthrow mankind. These things are touch-screen, talking, credit card eating monsters that describe every last detail about what you’re about to eat. I’ve only seen a few of these in the company so far, but they’re on the rise. They remind me of the food thingamajiggers from Star Trek. I feel like I can just walk up and tell the thing I want an order of French Fries seasoned with Martian Salt and a side order of Vulcan squid and BAM! It’ll drop onto the dispenser right in front of me.

The funny thing about these machines I’ve seen so far, is that they only contain “Healthy” snacks. They’re green in color with all kinds of foliage on the front to make you feel like you’re gonna lose weight just by standing in radioactive glow of one of these things. I can’t imagine they consume anything less than enough power to put a 747 in the air.

I think the nerds at NASA could learn a thing or two from the vending machine guys. Maybe if they were the ones planning all the Space Station construction, not only would we not be having problems, but by now, we’d have an orbital satellite snack delivery system that could deliver that must have candy bar to someone in the middle of the Sahara.

Another Day

2007-10-23T16:11:00.000-05:00

To prove how busy I've been at work, I'd like to mention a point Bill was laughing about the other day.

I've been so swamped with scheduling time to work on all the projects I'm associated with, that last week, I actually had to schedule a meeting with team members so we could plan out a meeting schedule.

That's right, we planned a meeting to plan meetings.

Other than that, life in general is back to usual. I found a mysterious boxed tucked away in my coat pocket when I went to leave yesterday. The box says it's Apple Jacks, but I'm not sure just yet.

I've also run into three people in the last two days that I haven't seen since high school. Turns out all three of 'em work in the same building. At least I won't have any problems finding a lunch buddy for the next week or two. Bill seems to only be busy around lunch time these days, so we don't get together for lunch as frequently as we used to.

I'm also looking for suggestions on ways to get back at my fellow coworkers for the plethora of pranks that I have been subject to recently. No suggestion will be ignored. My prank library is for great use against roomates at home, so it's not well suited for office uses. You rarely catch a coworker brushing their teeth or taking a shower...

Test Post

2007-10-22T19:51:00.000-05:00

Test Post.

Absent minded

2007-10-19T21:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was an exercise in futility. Everything I did backfired, broke down, screwed up, or embarrassed the heck outta me.

The day started typical enough. My alarm goes off at ten to six. I get out of bed at ten after six and crawl into the shower. I went through my pre-work routine absentmindedly, packed my lunch, piled into the car and headed out.

I get to work, find a close spot and head to the door. Once I arrive at the door, I reach down to my belt to grab my key card and come up with a handful of air. I look down, knowing what I'm going to see. "Crap"

At this point I have to take the walk of shame, all the way around to the other side of the building to the main security entrance where I have to get a visitor's badge for the day. This bright yellow badge of pride is unmistakable, and makes for an interesting day all by itself. But it had plenty of backup.

I pick up my phone about an hour into the morning to make a call. I get halfway through the call, and I'm getting frustrated because I can't hear. I don't hear as well as I used to, so I usually have the volume cranked. I check the volume, and sure enough, some wise guy turned it down on me. I crank it back up, figuring my problem is solved.

Ten minutes later and I get another call. Still can't hear crap. I'm yelling "WHAT" the whole time. After hanging up, the woman across the way from me starts talking and I can barely hear her. (She's pretty quiet most of the time, but I forgot that at this point and time) I start freakin out for a minute thinkin that I'm having another hearing episode where I've lost hearing in my ear for a couple of days at a time.

Instead of jumping to conclusions, I start tearing my phone apart, looking for an internal volume switch that someone may have set low to play a prank on me. After five minutes of frantic unscrewing and tearing apart, I glance at the phone handset, and realize that some wise guy has placed duct tape over the hearing end of the phone.

Just about then, half the aisle started cracking up. They'd been watchin me the whole time. HAHA. It was a good one, but I haven't decided what form my payback will come in yet.

Other mishaps for the day included a broken plotter, (a $8,000 printer capable of printing things the size of your living room,) tripping over a cord I myself was working on and forgot about, and leaving my phone charger at the office after I went home. I had to go back for it, because conveniently enough, I forgot to use it, and now my phone was dead.

Just another day at the office I guess

Well I'm Happy!

2007-10-18T07:47:00.001-05:00

So while all this relationship stuff can suck for Brian (sorry buddy) it is no excuse for the deflated persona! I expect constant fun and witty posts from my much more active counterpart.

Ok, well maybe not, I suppose this is warranted. But I will take this time to peer into my own life a little bit, since Brian posts all the time and you all know so much about him and nothing from the laziness that is me here in the basement.

Well I'm Happy! I've been engaged now to my wonderful fiancee Lisa for 2 1/2 months and things are going good there...she is going to seminary about 2 hours away which can be hard at times since we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like, but we still make time for each other most weekends (I'm not sure how I do this considering I'm still working between 55-70 hours a week).

Work is going well, it seems as though I'll be hired full-time here at The Office before mid-December which I'm very excited about. My side sports video gigs are going pretty well, with hockey season about to start I'll just be getting even busier, but that just means more money, which is also nice.

I guess that's all I have for now...time to continue oogling (I love that word!) over Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, I can't wait for next Friday!

As previously mentioned...

2007-10-17T20:27:00.000-05:00

As previously mentioned, it's been a pretty busy week for me. We're right in the middle of the fire at work right now with all the big projects that are happening. I've never had to focus so much on organization and lists. Used to be I never had to take notes. Now, if it ain't tattooed on my forehead, you better forget it.

A short piece on my personal life as promised, then I'll get back to what ya'll know and love. The girl I've been seeing for the last few months now decided that she was too busy for a relationship. The decision was totally hers, as I was happy with the way things were going, and had totally fallen for her. I had pretty much thought she was it. No other woman had made me consider moving before. I love it where I live, and I don't want to leave. But for her, I woulda done it. She's a nursing student, and has all of her majors in her last two years. She's almost halfway through her senior year, and it's gotten pretty stressful. She decided that the added hastle of a relationship was too much for her to handle. I wasn't sure how to handle it. I was totally against the decision, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince her that I was okay with gettin less face time. So no more girlfriend.

Anyways, back to the Office.

If you remember back to the Granny Smith posts, the fundraiser ended this last week. I'm happy to report that our department raised almost $2,000 dollars. This money will be pooled with the money from the rest of the company that will go to local programs and schools. So I guess, the apples had some effect after all.

I don't have much more for now, as you can prolly tell, my writing style ain't exactly the same as it usually is, and I'm beat and out of it for the night. I'll be back to my good humor and charming wit starting tomorrow. It'll be epic, just you wait and see.

Long Story

2007-10-16T20:03:00.000-05:00

It's been a bad couple of days for me since my last post. Sorry to all my fans. I'm single again, so my increased posts from now on should make up for my lack of them at the moment. I'll catch up with ya'll tomorrow or thursday once I've gotten some sleep and can think straight again. I'd post during work, but I've been swamped. I've even had to blow off Bill for lunch once or twice to get work done. Sorry buddy :(

Catch ya'll later

My Blemish drives a Navigator

2007-10-08T09:41:00.000-05:00

The last week has been pretty busy for me. Work has increased to an impossible workload due to new acquisitions in my area. Since I’ve been lacking on the updates through most of last week I’ll give you the rundown of the top 3 highlights of last week before getting into the meat of today’s post.

1st – Bill and I met our friend Matt for lunch on Wednesday. Turns out all three of us must have called each other the night before to discuss clothing options. We were all wearing blue shirts with black/grey pants.

2nd- I got to show off my Guitar Hero talents at an offsite meeting on Friday. I shook the house. (Pics wll be coming shortly.)

3rd- Right in the middle of a meeting where we were discussing our game plan for next year, another team members phone rang while she was at the head of the room taking notes on the whiteboard. Her ringer was non other than Sir Mix a lot’s “Baby got Back”
So there we are sitting around the conference table, and all a sudden: “I like big Butt’s and I can not lie…” I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. It sounded more like someone talking than a phone ringer. But since we are a good natured group, we all took it in with a good laugh and moved on. Still, it was priceless.

So on to life. My friend Heather over at The Wishful Writer has a redneck neighbor that she will have issues with from time to time. Here is her most recent post on the issue if you would like some reference. Her neighbor, nicknamed “Blemish” is not exactly the poster boy for the area.

While my “Blemish” may not be a redneck, he definitely has issues. Every night for the last three weeks, they’ve played their music, full bore, till 2 or 3 in the morning. It’s starting to drive me insane. I can’t sleep, no matter what I try. We’ve gone down there on 3 different occasions to ask them to turn it down. Last night, they totally ignored us, and actually made more noise after we retreated upstairs. They’ve been trashed on each occasion. Once they even attempted to bribe me with a twinkie and half a beer.

I hate calling the cops on neighbors. But it seems at this point, I may not have a choice. Even on the nights where they randomly aren’t attempting to resurrect Frankenstein, I lay there nervously wondering when the pounding will begin.

My eyelids won’t stop twitching. I get random pounding headaches. I’ve lost my appetite. (Never thought I’d say that.) I drag around all day from lack of sleep. I’ve tried every trick I know to sleep, white noise tactics such as running the dishwasher and my fan. Even leaving my TV on doesn’t drown out the music.

We plan on talking them tonight when they’re not trashed to let them know just how bad it’s getting for us. After that, if they ignore us, I’ll dial up the 5-0. I’ll also call the leasing company and start filing a complaint. I really don’t know if there’s anything else I can do.

Granny Smith - Conclusion

2007-10-02T11:35:00.001-05:00

Now that you've all had time to mull over my moral dilemma and put your two cents in, I'll finish the story.

First though, I'd like to take a moment to thank my friends Kristen and Two Write Hands for the moral support. Heather, thanks for magnifying my guilt. I got to re-experience that "oops" feeling that you described in your most recent post. And Bill, while I suspect you support my line of thought on this issue, it's necessary to have two personalities on the Blog, and therefore, you were obligated to represent the blog's "Axis of Evil."

Anyways... I agree with most of you that the money would have been better spent as a donation. While in the cafeteria today I scoped out the price of the apples.... $0.69 a piece. If I'm assuming that they purchased these at full price from the catering company that serves us, then by my calculations, with 400 employees on the floor, that's a donation of $276.00.

That's could buy a whole lotta food for a village of starving kids in Africa, or whatever equivalent demographic you would prefer to picture.

Epilogue

When I got to work Monday morning, my desk was decorated with apples from all of the team members in the unit, drawn up like Halloween pumpkins. The capstone piece of the setup was our team's mascot "Jorge" the stuffed pig, holding a fork that was buried deep into one of the apples.

Two thoughts crossed my mind:

I'm never taking a half day off on Friday again
The Man is ulitmately responsible for this cluttering of my neat and tidy work surface

After speaking with several coworkers and laughing about the dissaray of my desk, I mentioned "The Man" and one of my coworkers laughed and mentioned a former team member and buddy who was always referred to as "The Man" by us, especially now that he's sort of in a position of power over us as well.

My solution: I'm going to stick it to The Man. I wrapped up the ugliest most grotesquely decorated apple on my desk in a paper sack, and mailed it to him.

Granny Smith

2007-10-01T08:18:00.000-05:00

I apologize for my absence. (Although, I’ve enjoyed my time off.) Today, I take you back to a post I should have put up last week. But I forgot what I was going to post about, and didn’t remember till I was eating dinner last night. So now I’ll post before I forget.

Friday morning we came into work and everybody on the floor had apples sitting on their desks, along with United Way fliers. Like many local companies, out company participates in the United Way donation drive, and this was the most recent form of nudging from “The Man” to entice our encouragement in said program.

The first thing I do is think to myself “yeah right, like I’m gonna eat that thing.” It looked as if the apples had come from our cafeteria’s stores, and they’re not really known for being fresh from the orchard. After discussing with another coworker, we decided to hide our apples in spots on another coworker’s desk. We figured he’d find them eventually, if the flies don’t drive him crazy first.

Later on that day, I’m walking through the halls, and something made me think of the starving kids in Africa. And that’s when the guilt hit me. I started thinking about how all those apples could feed starving people, and we’re wasting them for fun.

Then I started to get angry at the aforementioned “man.” How retarded is it to pass out 400 pieces of not so fresh fruit to people who have no interest in eating them? And how are apples at all related to fundraising? I didn’t have a clue. Since most of the apples weren’t in the freshest condition, most people were just throwing them away. But they were certainly good enough to pool together and make or bake several good apple products that we could have donated to United Way instead of passing them out to us thankless office drones.

So the question I pose to you is… who is more in the wrong here? Me, for wasting good food, and not taking advantage of some free fruit, or The Man, for using bad judgment that lead to the waste of several hundred good apples?

Before I tell you the rest of the story, I’ll give you a chance to think about it this far, and weigh your opinion before I fill you in on the conclusion.

Tell me I’m not a bad person!

Week from somewhere below...

2007-09-26T09:07:00.000-05:00

This week...is already too long! I have a conference this Friday and am subsequently working at The Office for 10 hours Monday-Thursday to have Friday off...only to go to a student broadcasters convention Friday that starts at like 8...This isn't to mention all the video work I've already had to do last night, and more tonight, and more Friday night, and a football game Saturday, and another event Saturday night.
C'mon feel sorry for me already! I'm begging here!
Also, Halo 3 came out...not good, just something else to be addicted to, however, I'm still on WoW (I'm an 18 now).
And the new Heroes show Monday night was awesome!
In my job I help people that are presenting items to the company through satellites or streams, and when doing a satellite broadcast the weather can sometimes affect the signal being sent out...so while I've seen this happen, it's never happened to me...until yesterday. About halfway through a broadcast about filling out retirement forms (I'm so jealous of all of them!) we apparently just got some massive downpour or something and we lost our satellite signal. I just thought I'd share...I recovered nicely and all went well.
Best of all with that is that my supervisor had just been telling me how she didn't have meetings yesterday afternoon and said she would be doing some observing...SCORE!
I nailed it...that has been one thing I've been missing at work is dealing with the unexpected, or how I handle unprepared situations...and now I have.

The World Is Round

2007-09-26T07:39:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, I like to call Bill (not to his face) “The Pathfinder.” He’s always looking for a better quicker, faster way to get to work in the morning. Usually because like me, I think it takes him longer and longer to get out of bed in the morning. I like to think Bill would have been a big proponent for Columbus’ ridiculous “The World is Round” theory had Bill been alive back in the day. He’s even got one of those fancy pants GPS route thing a ma jiggers. (Bill I know you don’t use it for in town, but it’s not what really happened that counts, it’s what I can make the jury believe.)

We used to carpool together in the summer since we had the same schedule and we only lived a couple of blocks away from each other. It didn’t save us a whole lot of gas, but it saved at least a little money, and helped us to make sure that nobody slept through their alarm clock in the morning. (There were a few close calls.) Once summer ended we both changed our schedules. While we go into work at the same time, Bill works later so he can go home early on Friday’s. This means, we no longer carpool, so I’ve been missing out on some of the most recent route changes Bill has been working on.

This morning, I’m driving down main street on the most recent route change I’ve been informed of. (While I laugh about it, Bill is usually right with his directions.) Out of nowhere, Bill surprises me, and zooms around me and cuts into traffic ahead of me one car up. We go another block or so, and I turn left behind Bill to turn onto the road that our office is on, another two miles away. We get maybe three blocks on this road, and Bill suddenly turns left again.

So I start thinking… “What the **** is he up to?” The conclusion I come up with, is that this is Bill’s chance to try out a new backstreet route on the last leg, and compare it against my time going the usual way. I figure he’s gonna try to avoid the last three stoplights by cutting through some of the neighborhood instreets instead.

Bill will probably claim he was running errands, or had to pick something up, but that’s only because I WON. That’s right, I scored all three green lights and didn’t have to stop once until I hit the parking lot. I get there, look around, and Bill is nowhere to be found. Maybe he parked on the other side of the building to hide his shame or claim that he really made it here before me. But you all know better. Who’s more trustworthy?

Addictive Behaviors

2007-09-24T07:23:00.000-05:00

So I have this tendency towards very addictive things that don't include some sort of drug to be addictive, so there I was with my new iMac about a week and a half ago, so naturally I go buy World of Warcraft...bad idea...I've now logged at least 20 hours playing in that time that I could have spent, well sleeping or something I dunno...but anyways I leveled up 8 times this weekend from an 8 to a 16...in between watching football all day yesterday and working Friday & Saturday night...but anyways, back to work.

Terrible Tuesday

2007-09-19T07:08:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was crazy. Padded walls, straightjacket, sedation kit... THE WORKS. I'll give you the short breakdown.

Tuesday, 6:50 am. I make my way to the cafeteria to get breakfast. For some reason, I don't feel like grabbing a carton of milk and having cereal like I usually do, so I explore some breakfast alternatives. I wind up grabbing a banana nut muffin, and spot a new health drink/vitamin drink. It's got a cool container, so it has to be tasty right? That's my reasoning anyways, it's worked well for me in the past.

I proceed to the checkout, where the cashier sees me, and frantically starts pressing buttons on her screen. A warning light goes off in my head. My "spider sense" was tingling if you will. I shoulda bailed right then and there. But I played dumb, stuffed my hands in my pockets, and waited.

After almost two minutes she looks at me and says, "I asked her to make a button for the new drink, she was supposed to make a new button." GREAT. NO BUTTON. What in the world do we do now? Better call the family and tell 'em to hide in the basement, because there's no button. (I'm trying to provide an atmosphere or mood for the situation. Hang in there with me.)

So I ask, "Can't you just ring it up by the price tag on the top of the bottle?" Apparently not. She doesn't know what today's tax rate is for "Energy drinks." I'm not making this up, that was her response. So then I go, "Weeeeellll, (in my best Dr. Cox voice I can muster for those of you fellow Scrubs fans.) I usually go with the OTHER energy drink, but decided that this was such a pretty bottle and I just had to have something on my desk today that goes with my phone, but I digress, I happened to notice that this drink costs the same as the SOBE energy drinks that I usually buy. Can't you just ring up one of those?"

"NO, we only sell those in the other room, and I think they're ten cents more." (Hmmm, must be that special SOBE tax.) So I tell her I'm not thirsty, purchase my muffin, and take the trek back to my desk.

The rest of the day passes without too much excitement. Then, when I get home, my body decides it's time to lay down the insult. I popped a button. That's right, the button that holds your pants up. It just kinda flew off. The irony here, is that these were the one pair of four nice pants I have that actually fit somewhat comfortably. With my decrease in physical activity recently, I've gained a little weight. I've procrastinated clothes shopping every time I think, "Why go buy new clothes today, when tomorrow I'm going to start the diet and excercise program I was supposed to start yesterday? Then in a month, they won't fit..."

It was a good excuse up until now. But I finally broke down, went shopping, and am happy to report a succesful (I think I finally spelled it right) trip. Two pairs of slacks and a new pair of shoes, all for 70 bucks.

Oh, and I wound up being able to buy the new drink "FUZE" this morning. I will forgive the cashier's programmer, as it was totally worth the wait. I recommend picking some up if you get the chance.

Monday Morning Blues

2007-09-17T07:31:00.000-05:00

I just couldn't bring myself to get out of bed this morning. I pushed the snooze on my alarm for more than thirty minutes before finally rolling onto the floor and crawling on all fours into the bedroom and the shower. Unfortunately at that point, I had to stand up, since my shower is the non-bathtub model type, and I can't turn it on without standing up. After my shower, I check online to see if Bill has shown any hint of activity by coming away from idle. Nope. At least it's good to know I'm not the only one who is refusing to accept reality this morning.

It's only twenty minutes into the day, and I've already spilled Hot Chocolate on the front of my bright White polo shirt. I thought I had waited long enough till it was cool. I was wrong. That's how I discovered the true purpose of the little tiny hole on the sloped top of those Dunkin Donuts Hot Drink Lids. It's so you can strategically kill exactly the specific spot of your mouth that likes vegetables or other such nasty foods.

I'm glad the military never hooked up with Dunkin Donuts. Their coffee lids are way more accurate that any laser guided targeting system. If we really wanted to take out a terrorist cell with extreme pricision, we could just slap one of these lids on the nose of our bomb and let 'em fly. Guaranteed hit.

I'm sure as the day goes on it'll slowly get better. Funny how that works, the closer you get to going home, the better your day gets. Am I the only one that sees the irony there? Anybody?

Inventory Control

2007-09-10T21:17:00.001-05:00

Do you ever wonder why companies come so far off in their budget? How could Enron possibly make an accounting error so big as to screw so many employees out of their retirement benefits? I'll tell you how. Inventory control and Rent-a-cop security.

One of my job duties as a Floor Support and Technical Coordinator (yes I included my full title today because I needed to feel important and pad my ego,) is to control inventory in all of my departments. (My previously mentioned minions. There's roughly a thousand of them.)

Today I took the shuttle over to one of the other buildings to do an inventory sweep and clean up a cabinet where extra equipment is stored for loaner usage and random events, etc... After an hour of sorting through computer equipment from the last decade, I have compiled a box of (expensive) junk that this paricular area has no reason to have. So I set aside my box, finish my inventory sweep and get ready to head back to base.

I check with my two other FS and TC team mates, discuss the plan on getting through security on the way out with a box containing more than $2,ooo of computer junk in it, then head out. The rotating doors to get in and out of the building are automated and secured, and designed to stop anyone carrying any large objects through this entry. They will stop, and reverse, making you go through security. So rather than risk this embarrassment, I decide to tote my garbage up to the man in Black himself and check out, preparing to tell him I'm an inventory controller (no lie) and just heading back to corporate. I set it on his fancy counter, ask him to check it, and he never looks up from his computer screen before telling me to beat it. (my words, but you get the gist.)

Shocked I head out the door, for all he knows to stock the shelves of my Ebay store off of the crap I could have easily just walked out under the security guys nose. I guess it's lucky for them I'm an honest individual and wouldn't do something of this sort. But I can't speak for everyone in the company who is in my position, and I know we've had expensive equipment just disappear. I always suspected it was the overnight cleaning crews, but today, I realized the theft may be taking place where I never even expected it.

I hope the executive branch is capable of learning braille, cuz we could get robbed blind and never see it coming.

Weekend Warriors

2007-09-09T11:13:00.000-05:00

While originally we started this blog to only blog about the life at the office, I realize now that sometimes, what happens at work is inspired by what happens at home. So without further ado, and while nursing a hangover, I bring you the first Sunday edition of The Office (Blog).

Last night I got a text from Jim over at Always Sleepy, wondering if I wouldn't mind a little shindig at my place. I thought to myself, "sure why not" so i texted Jim back: "Sure why not." So I had some of The Normal Life crew over, including Bill, and sat around and drank and talked and watched USF upset Auburn. (side note: gotta love the upsets this year in the FBS.)

A big topic of conversation was how small a world it is. Two of the girls are newcomers to some of the members of our groups, but in talking with them, I was amazed I've never met either one of them years ago. We knew and hung out with all the same people and still somehow managed to avoid each other until now. See, small world right?

So now, as we work on our Sunday plans, lots of the couch and the NFL come to mind, along with my famous Chip Dip. See ya on Monday.

Worker's Comp

2007-09-07T13:39:00.000-05:00

So...there I was last week...just working in the TV studio at our wonderful, "not so little," company putting away a BNC (video) cable on a one of those hooks with a flat-top that you find in your garage that hooks into the piece of plywood that's hanging on the wall...when I in all my infinite brilliance reached across my body and scraped my left arm over the corner of this hook, and very effectively cut my arm on it...so I went and washed up in the bathroom after finishing the striking down process after our video shoot that afternoon, when it wouldn't stop bleeding...so I went up to Health Services to get a band-aid...which of course, is much more of a process than is necessary where I had to sign-in, see a nurse, have her put a band-aid on, which couldn't include neosporin, then go back to my desk and fill out some online form about what had happened...I'm thinking I should let it get infected so I can lounge around at home and collect worker's comp.

And on a side note...I like how Brian will often write about me since I never post anything on here...For example, I'm one of the people he refers to when saying that I'm willing to do something completely unrelated to my field to stay with the company...so here I am...actually posting...sorry to steal your thunder Brian.

Survivor guy

2007-09-05T22:04:00.001-05:00

Yes, I will survive. Day two on the no-cheese challenge has proven successfull. (I realize I have yet to spell that word correctly on this blog.) I hit up Chik Fil A for lunch and sat in the fourth floor atrium and pondered awhile.

Some of my random musing involved the cow on my cup staring back at me and thanking me for saving him. Other thoughts went to the start of the collegiate football season, and the Illini's loss. Supposedly Mcgee played great, personally causing four turnovers and effectively ending their chance of a comeback. Isn't that why you just LOVE sportscenter!?!?!

Another thought went back to a speech our CEO gave back in June. He mentioned the company loyalty test. He mentioned listening employees talk about their company and paying attention to the nouns they used. If they used them or they, then the employee considered themselves an outsider and not a personal part of the company. However if they used nouns such as we and us, then the employees took a personal satisfaction of the success of the company and their role within it.

While watching the range of hundreds of diverse people filtering in and out of the cafeteria today, I couldn't help but think about this. Several times I've talked to co-workers in the last few weeks, and they would rather take a position with our company in a field not of their specific interest, than look for something closer to their talents with someone else.

I can't think of a better test of loyalty than that. Now I'm not trying to be too mushy, but I think the object of today's post is to inform my readers of the pride I have in my (un-specified) company. No matter what else you may read here, I get much satisfaction, and can't imagine a company that takes better care of it's family.

If by now you're looking for your tissues and can't find them, it's because I ordered my minions to go out and steal as many boxes as they could in anticipation of this post. They live in fear of me, and sometimes are a little overzealous in their pursuit in pleasing me.

Guess you'll just have to use the upholstery on your couch instead.

Would You Like Cheese With That?

2007-09-04T21:51:00.000-05:00

This (extended) weekend, I made what may be the hardest bet I've ever made for myself. While eating breakfast with my girlfriend, she pointed out the fact that I asked for cheese on my hash browns, then grilled me (in a loving way) about my extensive consumption of my favorite of the dairy products. CHEESE!

She happened to mention "You couldn't go a whole day without any cheese." So of course, my pride pipes up and buts into the conversation: "I could go a whole week without cheese." Of course, this was too good of an invitation for her to pass up. So now I have to strategically plan my lunches at work around the exclusion of cheese.

My normal routine is to grab a personal pan pizza from the Pizza Hut in the cafeteria. (Did I mention our cafeteria has all the conveniences of the food court at the mall...?) This is often the quickest way to get food and grab a seat. There are about ten other options however that take slightly longer. A Grill, Blimpie's, a wrap joint, a oriental food line, a sandwich line, a mexican joint, Chik Fil A, Two salad bars, you get the idea...

The best line is the one I optioned for today. The (as I like to call it) grandma's cookin line. This will serve dinner foods that you would normally see at yo momma's kitchen table. One of today's option's (they make several different courses each day) was Swiss Steak with choice of side.

This made for a great alternative to a quick cheeseburger or pizza. So I grabbed a couple slices of steak, some mashed taters with some 'shrooms, and a banana nut muffin, and joined Bill for lunch.

So far I have passed day 1 successfuly and have managed to resist temptation. However most of my office pals are aware of my plight, and are prone to boughts of evil temptation. I hope ya'll are on my side and leave lots of nice comments to help me through the remainder of this week.

College Day

2007-08-31T16:06:00.001-05:00

Today was a pretty good day at work. We were allowed to wear jeans and our favorite college team apparell in honor of our companies sponsorship of several sports. In honor of that spirit, I wasted most of the morning looking up college pranks after I heard about this little gag on the radio on the morning commute to work.

I googled college pranks and found a nifty little page with the top ten best college pranks ever. I found three of these quite hilarious and therefore worth mentioning. You can view them yourself here, but I'll give you a rundown of my favorite three for more conventional viewing.

Prank #1. The Cal Tech students and the Rose Bowl. This is in my opinion, the most hilarious prank I've ever heard of. Primarily because it was televised to millions. If that ain't infinite infamy, than I don't know what is.

These guys messed with the cards the cheerleaders pass out to the student section and managed to spell out the name of their school (who wasn't participating in the game) as well as a couple of other slight changes. This took hard work, dedication, ingenuity, and persistence. I'm going to toast these guys next time I have a party.

Prank#6: The Olympic Underwear Relay. -
This guy took advatage of a great opportunity to run down the street with flaming underwear. Best part is, he managed to drag the whole city into it as well. I highly recommend you read the full story. You won't be able to stop laughing.

Prank #8 Hugo N. Frye-
What could be better than making a hundred politicians look like morons? Another great laugh. Just goes to show what people are like once they are in office. And I thought I was good at making up BS papers for class. These guys were probably masters.

Anywhoo, I made up for my time spent slacking by working my A** off this afternoon. I got done two days worth of work in three hours. My back was killing me from sitting like a statue to get everything done. But it made the afternoon fly by. (And that whole thing about a job well done too.)

In case you were wondering whose colors I represented...

I- L -L- I- N- I !!!!!!

Sick Day

2007-08-29T15:44:00.000-05:00

Today I returned to the office after two days off sick. As usuall after missing several days, I had to work hard to catch back up and pick up on everything I missed. It's tough to imagine how far behind you can get in just two days. But nevermind that, today, we get to focus on how an Office Sick Day should be conducted.

Here are my must do's for a sick day away from work.

1. This one is taken from Dane Cook. You gotta watch an episode of the P.I.R. Even with old man Barker retired, you're bound to catch a rerun with some good old green beans and peanut butter action. (The Price is Right, for those still wondering.)

2. Get in either an early morning or mid afternoon nap. Just so that you don't lie when you tell everybody you slept. (This may actually also help you recover. Take this medicine at your own judgement.)

3. Eat some chicken noodle soup. Whether you convinced yourself you are sick, or whether you actually are sick... this will also justify taking the time off work. This medicine works the best on the nasty little side effect we call guilt. (especially if you are playin hookey.)

4. Tune into Spike TV for some Star Trek. It's on all afternoon apparently, (Who knew!) so pick your hour timeslot wisely to work in with your other activities.

5. And finally, watch a favorite movie. I highly recommend surround sound, so the neighbors know you're home sick. If you are single, this is also a good way to try to get some sympathy and some company from the attractive single person living next door.

Those are my five steps for a successful sick day. Lemme know if you would add anything, or if I left anything obvious out.

End of an Era

2007-08-24T06:57:00.000-05:00

I preface this post with a warning: This post will not be like my usuall attempt at being humorus, rather, This will be a more drama oriented post. I just feel like I gotta tell the world, and this is the only way I know how.

About four months ago I was given a promotion, and I moved to our corporate headquarters. Before that, I was a team leader in one of our regional offices. By the end of a year and a half with that team, I made a lot of friendships, and a lot of connections. But the one thing I didn't have was a manager who could do their job. Or, for that fact, could not learn how to do it either. Between me and a few others, we kept that manager from making the mistakes that would put her in the limelight from every office coast to coast.

After being promoted and moving, I have stayed in touch with my old team members. They would tell me how it was proggresively getting worse and worse with this manager at the reins. Things were being done that were blatantly unjust to these employees. The all around management skill was just not there.

Now in my time, I got the opinion this manager, while having no management skill, was still a great people person. But soon after I left, the co-supervisor for that area left on an opportunity elsewhere in the company, and that left my old team with just this one manager. This is when things really started to fall apart. Without several of the members of her team that kept her from perpetuating her usuall blunders, she started to make some big mistakes. Her frustration bled through and was taken out on my old team members.

For some time we had been in discussions with our superintendent about the matter, but this superindent soon got a new position as well, and moved away. All hope seemed to be lost. Then (just when all hope seemed to be lost) The new superindent, (who was managing this group from over 1200 miles away) got on a plane to visit, and was clued in to just how bad the situation had gotten. I was told she actually shed tears upon hearing the kinds of things they had been subjected to. Shortly thereafter, my old team member recieved an e-mail from way up the food chain, that although no immediate action was to take place, over the next few months, changes were promised.

Well, yesterday, change finally came pretty fast. My friends came into the office to find their old supervisors desk and effects had dissappeared. I can only imagine at this point the excited whispering and supositions as to what had taken place over night. Regardless, the overall tone was a gigantic sigh of relief, both with my team, and the entire division. It was later announced that the supervisor had moved to another (lower level) position within the company, and that it was a "career choice." My guess was that this associate was given this "career choice" as an "either-or option." Turns out this was not the first time this associate had been forced to change roles due to poor management skills.

Whatever the case, I am thrilled for my old associates, they finally have the extreme pressure and stress that has been with them these last six months (and more) off of their backs. They can finally take a minute now, and just smile.

I'll drink to that.

Boot Scootin Boogie

2007-08-21T15:54:00.000-05:00

For today's office story, we go back to a promise made when I first joined this new team. When doing the whole "Hi my name is Brian" speech, I gave a little insight onto my high intellect and witty nature, as well Country Western background and my penchant for line dancing. When they discovered that I do this once (or twice) a week, and help teach from time to time... my fate was sealed.

It was decreed, that at an opportunisticly embarasing moment, I would have to demonstrate my talents. I thought I would at least get to wait until the drunken christmas office party, but no such luck. Today we found out we will be having a planning meeting for our team for next year, in addition to team building exercises. My manager thought it would be a great team experience to learn a line dance from, you guessed it, yours truly.

Best part here is, it sounds like we're still going to be in business casual dress. Now, I don't know how much you great readers know about line dancing, but office loafers and high heels, aren't exactly the best footwear to go stompin and spinnin around the dance floor, let alone a carpeted room.

Maybe I'll get lucky and find out Weird Al made a parody of "Boot Scootin Boogie". The "Office Loafer Boogie!"

I'll be sure to let you know how the Honky Tonk conference turns out later next month.

Temporary Leave of Absence

2007-08-19T11:36:00.000-05:00

So yeah, it's been a few days. Let me rephrase, it's been a few crazy days. I've had some time away from work due to moving and the work involved with all that. My fine tuned moving plan was busted up about the beginning of the week, so it got pretty hectic towards Friday.

The funniest thing that happened this week was actually a result of another fellow blogger. I was reading wishfulwriters post about Nemo , when I laughed so hard I actually woke up the person in the cube next to me. It's a miracle she didn't wake herself up first, her snoring was loud enough to be heard by a buddy of mine on the other line when i was on the phone with him.

She comes in every morning an hour early and sleeps most of it away before her shift starts. I guess she doesn't get along with her boyfriend or something. It's entertaining at times though. I've given idle thought to putting all kinds of balloons and streamers all around her while she's sleeping, then video taping her reaction when she wakes up. I figure it might get me on America's Funniest Home videos at least. Would you vote for this clip?

The Office Pool

2007-08-14T17:46:00.000-05:00

Today was pretty much my average day at work. Not much really in the way of excitement. Grabbed lunch with Bill and two of the new people that started yesterday. Took on yet another major project with an unreasonable deadline, and generally was an all around problem solver that the Tech Support guy I am usually is.

As usual I show up a little before 7am. (For Bill I'm sure it was ten minutes later...) It looked like there was a pretty nasty storm coming in and the temperature dropped by ten to fifteen degrees (thank god!) and the wind started picking up. Since I get to work so early, I usually get in pretty close to the building. Not so with those who start at 8. So on days like today, I like to stakeout a spot by the windows and watch the wind and rain wreak havoc on people. I know, it's pathetic, but it's kinda funny.

You have the people with the normal size umbrella, who really don't stand a chance in the rain. The only thing they gain from this is a wet spot on the floor while they open up their umbrella to dry during the day. They get just as soaked as the people that hot foot it inside and manage to navigate into every puddle on the parking lot on their way in.

Then, you have the guys who have the huge golf umbrella. I don't know what the concept was behind the golf umbrella. I mean really, how often do you use one of these things on the golf course? I s'pose, if it's just drizzling, and there's no serious threat of lightning, it can keep you dry. But if you're that much of a sissy, you should care that your $150 pair of golf shoes are getting wet walking on all that grass. The opposite situation, where it's really not smart to be on the course at all, let alone with a substitute for the lightning to aim for... well, that's kind of just self explanatory.

Anyways, I digress. The good part about watchin the guys with the golf umbrella is that most of them have the kind with two layers, where there's an overlap of material. I like to take bets with the other early arrivals on how many of these fancy umbrella's will get blown inside out by the wind. This is pretty much a freak bet. We haven't had anyone win the pot all summer and we've got a couple of the 8am people comin in early enough to get in on the action.

So that was pretty much it for me today. We've been swamped for some time now so work actually goes by pretty fast. I'm sure Bill can entice you with many tails of web surfing with the spare time I haven't had lately.

Opening Procedures

2007-08-13T23:22:00.000-05:00

Today's big excitement came at afternoon break time. While this is usually the most boring part of the day due to my tendency to take a nap for this, today I took a break from the norm to help an associate in need.

Jack was going to head to the small candy/coffee/drink shop located in the building to grab an energy drink, so I asked him to grab me one too, and gave him a five spot to cover the tab. I wait the ten minutes it takes to get there, hit on the cashier, and come back, then collected my drink from Jack's desk while he chatted on the phone with someone.

Five minutes later, I hear grunting and complaining drifting over the walls of my cube and decide that Jack realized either:

A. he left his computer unlocked while grabbing the drinks and inadvertently volunteered to buy lunch for the whole team tomorrow, or
B. He wasn't strong enough to turn the twist off cap to his SOBE drink.

To my surprise, option B was actually correct. So after putting in a smart comment, Jack shoves the bottle at me. I take it in both hands and turn. And turn, and turn, and turn, and turn. Nothing. Apparently the bottle was made without grooves on the inside of the cap, or the neck of the bottle. Bottom line was, it wasn't coming off by any conventional means.

Now, I'm a pretty avid SOBE drinker, and this has never happened to me before. If you don't know what these are, they're a great variety of natural energy drinks that come in 20 oz. glass bottles. Usually easier to open than the twist off cap on your average plastic bottle. But with no leverage, we had to get creative. We tried using a pen to poke through the tin cap. Strike one. Then we took an over sized enforced paper clip and tried to poke through. Strike two. Finally, I remember the company issued screwdriver tucked away in the back of my desk drawer and we give it a shot. Bingo! We open up about a half an inch hole in the top of cap, and turn it upside down and after two minutes, finally managed to dribble all the liquid out despite back pressure issues and an unsteady hand.

The co-worker across the aisle watches the whole show, and puts in his two cents afterwards. "You guys should write up procedures and put 'em online, you know, in case it happens again." then because we didn't already feel burned enough: "Did you come out ahead in the energy department after all that?"

I can understand

2007-08-10T13:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday as I'm making my rounds on the floor, I come across an empty cube (nobody home) and I see an intricate Masters certificate on one wall of the cube. Since it jumped out and grabbed my attention, I decided to take a closer look. I couldn't help but laught at what I saw:

"It has here by been decreed that "Julie" has been granted the degree of MASTER OF UNDERSTANDING from "Souther California University"

Are you serious? Naturally, at this point, i did what any confused person would do. I googled it. The first hit i came up with was a book on slaves, pirates and the economics of the bahamas. Altering my search a little did not do me much better, I got phoenix university as a hit and all their degrees were listed, and would read something like: "A degree in political science with an understanding of (insert whatever a political science major would understand)" But I have as of yet been unable to find anything on just a degree of understanding.

All I can think about now is those situations when someone's got a problem, and you try to tell them "I understand" and they come back at you with "you can't possibly". Well, if I was a Master of Understanding, I would keep this thing folded up in my back pocket and whip it out at times like these... "Oh, yes, I can understand. I got the proof right here..."

Directory Assistance

2007-08-08T16:40:00.000-05:00

The other day, like most days, I started the most difficult chore of my day. Figuring out my lunch plans. This is a highly involved process that starts at apporximately 9 in the a.m. and can go right up until lunch time. This process involves a lot of dirty work including opening up several outlook calendars or meeting requests to see when friends are available, making phone calls, and sending multiple e-mails. You feel like you're fishing.

Most days, it's not that difficult for me. I'll call Bill about five minutes or so before lunch and we'll meet up. (That is if I don't get his voicemail because he's also trying to call me.) But on this particular day, Bill was having more fun than hanging out with me would entail. I was on my own.

I decide to call a friend from my old office to see what her plans are. Her phone bounces to someone, and i ask for her. He puts me on hold and transfers. While I'm on hold I'm considering how weird it is that a guy answered the phone, since I happen to know there are no males in her unit. I hurriedly check the distribution list of people in her area and confirm my suspions. But before I can act on this, the phone is picked up. So I get into the flow of the conversation, talk about going out to lunch, what we've been up to for the last week or so, a few inside jokes (which she didn't laugh at) etc... Then I mentioned how our Friday lunch plans together the week before had fallen through, (two minutes into the conversation) and that's when I realized my big mistake. It just so happens that the person I thought I was talking to and the person I was actually talking to share the same name.

By now you've thought to yourself, "why didn't they realize this sooner, it took 'em two whole minutes?" Well, here's the thing, I knew this other person as well. As a matter of fact, the person I was on the phone with was one of my old supervisor's and a friend of my mothers. So after apologizing and hanging up, I realize that the "inside jokes" would have definetely come off as flirting.

Here's the best part, my mom was recently promoted so there will be a happy hour for her at the end of this week. I'll be there, and since this woman is a friend of my mother's, she'll be there as well.

CRAP!!

Welcome to The Office (Blog)

2007-08-06T11:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to The Office (Blog)!

Bill and I both work for that stereotypical, cubical, plain, boring, everyday office job. We recently realized that the antics and inter-office drama that take place here, are just as exciting if not more so, than the televised sitcoms that portray the typical office job. So, inspired by sitcom, we bring you real life office REALITY. All names have been changed to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the Jewish.

Bill and I both work in separate departments, so you may have to follow two different story lines, but we get together quite a bit, so you should be able follow along.* We hope you enjoy, and we hope you let us know if you love us, hate us, or if you fell asleep and drooled all over your keyboard. If that is the case we lost the forms for a keyboard reimbursement, and you can contact your local sanitary department for help locating them.

Enjoy!

*If you are not capable of following along, then you are not smarter than a fifth grader.