Misadventure Mark to the Rescue!

By the way...

2006-01-27T17:10:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear meeee, happy birthday to me...

Fu Manchu for you to view...

2006-01-27T15:51:00.000-08:00

Please see post below titled "Office Space". I am indeed Lawrence.

I got the job...

2005-10-25T21:53:00.000-07:00

The big boss stops by my desk and says an exciting phrase.

Jeff Probst: “We have to talk.”

He says it with a shit grin on his face. I was just waiting for my background check to clear, and then the job was mine. He pulls me off into the main isle, far away so no one could hear him.

Jeff Probst: “You got the job. Now when we go in to this meeting, the other team leads think that I’m playing a joke on you. When we go in there, I am going to tell you that something went wrong with your background check. I want you to get really pissed off at me and storm out.”
Mark: “Can do.”

We walk in to the meeting and my two team leads (essentially managers) are sitting at the big round table. The big boss and I sit down.

Jeff Probst: “Mark, as you know we had several employees fill out applications for this job. We did a background check on all of them. Your background check…(long dramatic pause)…came back with a problem. There is something on your background check that is keeping us from giving you the job.”

Mark: “What?!?” (slightly shaking my head in disbelief, while making an incredulous look on my face) “That’s bullshit! What is it!?”
Jeff Probst: “They couldn’t release those details to us.”

(I push my seat back)

Jeff Probst: “You can stay onboard here as a contractor, but we can’t give you the job”

(I stand up, throw my pen across the desk and it hits the wall and I say to him)

(I storm out of the room.
One of the team leads chases me down the hall.)

Team Lead: “Wait! Mark, are you ok?”
Mark: (I stop and hang my head low) “Yeah…let’s go back in there.”

The End

Good stuff, good stuff. Anyway, my boss finally tells the leads that I was in on it and we all laugh our asses off. I got the job AND I got to screw with my bosses. Fantastic.

Office Space...

2005-10-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

Yes I am. Who are you??

On a separate note, some lady at my work retired and I got hired on afterall!! Yay! No more complaining about not getting that job. I rule...

Obsessive Compulsive...

2005-10-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

I have come to realize that I am obsessive compulsive about doing my laundry. Let me first explain that I have more clothes than any other guy ever. I go about a 3 weeks without doing my laundry. When I finally do, I want to clean every last piece of clothing. I literally plan my outfits around it. I will separate my huge 3 week pile of clothes into about 6 different loads. Then if I start out with the white load first, I can't wear anything white until all the laundry is done. If I do, then that white shirt will be left sitting in the hamper after the wash is done. I need to have a full arsenal of clothing. Ever last piece but the clothes I am wearing is clean. I can choose from everything.

Now, I feel the need to tell you that I have already done the Blue Load today and the Whites Load today. The piles remaining to be washed: Brown Load, and the Green/Towels load. So I had to plan out what to wear tomorrow. I will be wearing a khaki (brown) pair of pants, a brown shirt, green boxers, and brown dress socks.

Tomorrow is jean day at work. I will be passing on jean day and will be wearing khakis, just so that it will work out with my laundry schedule.
Obsessive compulsive...

Leah...

2005-09-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

So I have this friend, Leah, that moved to Hawaii. She's always whining "no one ever wants to talk to me, no one ever calls me"...blah blah blah. So she calls me up and leaves a message. I called her back 5 minutes later and she talks to me for about two minutes and then was like "well..." and it's the kind of "well" that like saying "well...i should get going". Two minutes!? Why did you bother to call me in the first place if you didn't want to talk to me? I was all ready to talk and catch up but noooooooo....two minutes is all I get. So she just wanted to call me and leave a message, and make it APPEAR that she wants to talk to me, or that she is a better friend than me because she called...she doesn't actually want to talk to me. So that's my theory, thought i'd let the world know and make Leah angry.

Just not fair...

2005-09-13T17:42:00.000-07:00

I work as a contactor on a computer help desk for a large insurance company. Recently a position was supposed to open up at work. The big boss at my work started to gear me up, telling me to "get my resume ready" and basically hinting to me in every way possible that this job was obviously mine. Today at work, the big boss and my immediate boss call me into a meeting. My immediate boss tells me that he is stepping down from his position. He will be filling the position that I was supposed to get. WTF what kind of boss steps down from being a manager, all the way down to the job he was managing. Let me relate this for you. That's like a manager of a grocery store stepping down to become a cashier. WTF I've worked there for over a year now, making dogshit pay and working my ass off to make a name for myself. I've done just that. My bosses seem to be very impressed with me (and i'm not trying to be conceited) and essentially the big boss already gave me the job. He said to me "I can't guarantee you the job, you know. We still need to let other people interview, but you're my obvious first choice." WELL FUCK YOU. So I've worked there for all this time and only 2 positions have opened up since I've been there. I don't have another 6 monthes that I can spend wasting my time. I am absolutely crushed...and I have to go to work tomorrow knowing that my immediate boss is going to be taking calls soon and guess what...he's gonna suck at that too. I don't want to be "bitter guy" at work. I don't want to do a shitty job because I am so angry with this place. I want to quit, walk out, fuck them, never think of it again. Unfortunately I live in the real world, so I will have to continue to work there and get bent over. I really DID like working there and would have been literally THE happiest guy in the world if I would have gotten the job that I DESERVE. but no, I'm back at square one. I wish I could have written a better post for you to read, but I'm hurting and I'm at a loss for words and coherant thought...

Weird Dream…

2005-09-07T06:36:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty strange dream last night. I don’t remember the “meat” of the dream, but I do remember the basic idea. I had invented a sandwich burner. Sort of like a CD burner, except with sandwiches. I actually remember going to Best Buy and picking up a spindle of blank sandwiches too. Then I burned my friend’s sandwich and ate it.

Just thought I’d tell someone this before I forget. So in case you guys don’t hear from me in a while, just assume that I invented my sandwich burner and that I made millions of dollars…

American Gladiators…

2005-07-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

When I was around the age of 12 or so, I used to sleep-walk at night. I’d always end up in some strange place. Once when we were camping, I woke up in the middle of the night in my tighty-whitey’s laying on a mossy hill. Once I woke up in my 3.5x3.5 foot closet, curled into a little ball, lying on top of all my shoes. Once I woke up and found myself wedged between my mattress and box spring. There was one place that I often found myself when I slept-walked. At least on five separate occasions, I woke up on my bean bag chair, sitting about 5 feet from the TV in the living room. Every time I woke up there, American Gladiators was on the TV. I’m not sure how, why, or anything. It is true that I did enjoy that show quite a bit when I was younger, but not enough to watch it in my sleep.

I told someone about this today and that got me to thinking about American Gladiators. Kind of made me wonder what the good ol’ Gladiators are doing today…

Is Blaze running around throwing tennis balls at people thinking that this is normal behavior? Does Laser relive old memories while watching his pet gerbil roll around in a little toy ball, thinking “where has my life gone…”? Who knows…

On a separate note, I always referred to the big jousting sticks as Q-Tips, is that wrong? “Yeah, beat him with that Q-Tip!!!”

Bad Luck...

2005-06-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

For those of you wondering what little ol’ Mark has been up to lately, I will tell you. I recently had two of the most irritating days of my life. Just so we’re caught up here, I went on a fishing trip last Saturday to Michigan for four days and this is what happened before this:

Thursday:
11:30AM I awake, seems I set my alarm clock for 8:00PM instead of AM. I immediately call my boss and show up 45 minutes late for work

4:30PM I receive a phone call from a user who was severely screwed up her computer. I begin to walk her through some steps to fix this. I do the exact same steps on my laptop as I walk her through it so that I have a good idea of what’s appearing on her screen. Then I make a terrible mistake and tell the woman to do something you should never do on these computers. Nevermind what it was, but it left her computer inoperable. My computer, since I was following along, also broke and would no longer start up. I broke two computers in one fowl swoop.

5:45PM I go outside to my car on my lunch break. My front tire was flat.

9:15PM I drive my car to the gas station on a relatively empty tire and pump it up to see if it would hold any air. Surprisingly it did. I went to check the air pressure, and my little tire gauge thingy broke right in half.

9:16PM A bum runs up and kicks me in the nuts.

OK…that last one didn’t really happen, but I did look around half expecting an anvil to fall from the sky and crush me.

Friday:
6:55AM Get up and drive to the shop to get my tire fixed. On the drive there, my Service Engine Soon light came on. Just my luck. I told the guys at the shop to check that out too. The said my car would be done by noon. I’d be late for work, but not too bad.

12:15PM Still sitting at home waiting, I call them up and they claim that they just tried calling me. They said some cam sensor went bad and it would cost me about $180. They say the car will be ready by 1:00

1:00PM I show up and my car is not ready. They tell me that they got the wrong part and that it will be another 30 minutes. Then I sit and wait for 90 minutes. The whole time there is a homeless woman sitting in the repair shop watching soap operas on the TV. She felt the need to explain the entire show’s history to me from start to finish. After 45 minutes, I stop pretending that I’m listening and just look the other way. The woman continues to talk for another 45 minutes.

2:30PM They tell me my car is done, he just needs to take it for a test drive. I see my car driving off

2:32PM My car pulls back into the parking lot, and then promptly right back into the garage.

2:40PM They didn’t feel the need to explain anything to me, so I finally go ask what the hell is happening. Turns out my check engine light was still on. They need to check it out more.

3:45PM Nearly three hours after I showed up at the shop and $300 later my car is finally finished. They tell me that the little light sensor broke so now my Service Engine Soon light will be permanently on.

The rest of the day, was rather normal. The following days weren’t much better. I drove to Michigan and apparently lost two hub caps along the way. I guess they didn’t put them on securely. Then I found out that my windshield wiper sprayer no longer works. They forgot to plug that back in. Then I fish for three days straight, 10 hours a day, and catch only one fish. I AM THE LUCKIEST MAN ALIVE. The rest of the guys are up there until Saturday, so I'm sure the fish started biting the minute I left Michigan's state lines.

Things have gotten much better since then. I can no longer complain. I feel it’s worth mentioning that I am still dating the same girl, and things are going along very very well. We will have been together for six monthes on June 21st. I guess that’s about all the news from me! I just thought I would share my nightmare-ish few days with you all. Take care!

Adventures in the Bathroom...

2005-05-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

I work in a large building. Like most office buildings 99% of the employees are gone by 6PM. I go into the bathroom last night at 8:30. I'm probably one of ten people left in the entire building. As soon as I walk in I hear "HALT, WHO GOES THERE?" in a really deep voice. I jump a foot in the air and clench my heart. I finally get collected enough and say to the mystery man sitting on the shitter "Ummmm, Mark." He says "Oh, man, I thought you were the cleaning lady." I say "nope...but you just scared the shit out of me" and he says, while still sitting on the pot "wish you could do the same for me..."

too much for me, I finished up and got the hell out of there.

Flying is Easy...

2005-04-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

I’m home alive and well! The night before I left I watched an old episode of the twilight zone. It was the one where a man sees a monster on the wing of the plane who is messing with the engines. No one believes him, and they end up strapping him down and drugging him up…but when they landed the people saw that the wing of the plane was actually messed up and he wasn’t crazy after all! My plane ride was, thankfully, not like that at all. Once I got on the plane I was surprisingly not scared at all. I sat next to a nice 60 year old lady on the ride there. Her name was Miriam, she kind of reminded me of my mom. I kept looking out the window, which was, oddly enough, right by the wing of the plane, just like the guy in the show. I looked over at Miriam, tried to look as scared as possible and said very quietly “there’s a monster on the wing of the plane…” Thankfully she knew what I was talking about and didn't think that I was some raving mad man. She just laughed and followed it up by the comment “I thought kids today wouldn’t watch anything that was in black and white.” Nonsense, I told her, that show is fantastic.

Sorry, I sort of got off track there for a minute. Aside from the 30mph winds and the crazy turbulence on the ride in, the ride was a piece of cake. It seems like every movie I’ve ever seen, when the person gets off the plane his woman is waiting for him right there to run up and hug and kiss them right away. I walked out of the terminal and looked around. Sadly, she was not there to hug and kiss me. Turns out you pretty much can’t do that any more. They don’t let you into that area unless you have a plane ticket. So we met up at the luggage claim area, which is much less of a romantic scene. :-) But I’ll take it. I guess that’s the price you pay for better airport security. I was sort of looking forward to getting my cavity search at the airport though. There was a cute blonde who was working at the security area. I walked through the metal detector and it beeped. She looked at me and told me to take off my belt and shoes and I got all excited. Sadly, the alarm didn’t go off when I walked through this time, so she never looked at me again. Guess she just wasn’t interested in the goods. Off track again…

I had a great time this weekend though. We went out on Friday night and I got to meet all of her friends. All very nice people who seemed more than willing to give me a chance. I got to see her apartment and her room for the first time. It was very nice. Then on Saturday night we just watched “Finding Neverland” which was an excellent film. So nothing too exciting, I just had a great time spending some “quality time” with her. The good-bye wasn't too hard this time because I will see her in about two weeks. We have a hotel room for the weekend in Minnesota for my friend's wedding. I can't wait!

I got home exhausted yesterday. I don’t know what it is, even though the plane ride was only 45 minutes, it just sucks the life right out of you. I slept for about 10 hours last night and now it’s back to the grind. Work on Monday always sucks, but it sucks even more when you had a nice, long weekend. Oh well, can’t stay on vacation forever…or can you????

Plane Ride...

2005-04-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, so within 13 hours I will be on a plane, flying high high in the sky. Now, I'm finally starting to get nervous. I know that I shouldn't be, but I just can't help it. A few years ago I went sky-diving and that was my last experience with planes. I know, I know, not at all the same thing. And believe me, I'm not nearly as scared now as I was skydiving. But that butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling is still there. This is a lot of the reason why I'm doing it. Eventually in my life, I will have some money. (or at least I hope!) And I would like to travel. I'm gonna need to get on a plane sometime, so I need some practice. Besides it will all be worth it once I see my girlfriend. I'm beginning to forget what it feels like to touch her, and I don't want that to ever happen. Anyway, wish me luck everyone...again!

I'M BACK!!!

2005-04-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m back. I can’t say that I’m going to post any more frequently than I used to, but nonetheless I AM STILL BACK!!!… (waiting for applause…)

…

…(still waiting)

Ok, I guess there’s none coming. Anyway, you are get a crash course in the last month of my life. My fish, Baller, died. He was a 13 inch tiger oscar (part of the cichlid family). I had him for about three years. I was very sad to see him go; he was the first pet that I would ever really consider a true “pet”. Never had a dog, cat, or anything before. I have since bought a baby tiger oscar who is growing very nicely. He was only around an inch big, and very cute. Surprisingly my other 11 inch fish has not eaten him and seems to like him.

I had a severe cold, which took me about two and a half weeks to really get over. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I sold my car. It was the great Terrien family car hand me down. I guess my aunt’s father died, and in turn left his car to my aunt. My aunt then gave her car to my grandma, who then sold me her car for ten bucks. It’s the most pimpin’ grandma car you’ve ever seen. Not really, but it’s in very nice condition and it only costed $10!!! I sold my POS car for $500, so I’m making out like a bandit on the whole deal.

I’m still dating the before mentioned girl. It’s going surprisingly well. I only say surprising because of the long distance. I’m flying down to see her on April 22nd. I’m starting to get nervous because of the flying part. I’m more excited than scared though. I’m sure I’ll be fine.

My little nephew, Luke, just turned one year old on St. Patty’s day. He is sooooooo close to walking. He can pull himself up on the couch and walk along with it, but can’t quite make it on his own. He has bronchitis and two ear infections, poor little guy. He has to breath out of this little baby inhaler every couple of hours. He seemed to be getting much better though, I’m sure that he’s better since I’ve last seen him.

I’m quitting smoking...again I already told my girlfriend, so if she ever sees me smoking a cigarette again, I'll be getting a major guilt trip. So it’s too late to turn back now. I’ve quit for 9 days now. Actually there was a slip up night somewhere in the middle. So really only three days, then five more days after the slip-up. I got a little drunk and just couldn’t stop myself.

I went to Oshkosh to visit my friend’s college friends. Turns out I’m getting old. The college house was soooooo freaking dirty. I could not live like that any more. The sink in the bathroom was overflowing, but no one cared. There were beer bottles strewn about the house, and you couldn’t walk around without shoes on, else your socks would turn literally black. It was still a good time, but the fact that the house disgusted me so much, made me feel really old. Oh well…

My boss at work gave me a $50 gift certificate to Old Navy for no reason the other day. He said that he thought I was doing a really good job. But I am not allowed to tell any of the other contractors about it because I was the only one to get one (or so he says). Still it was pretty cool. Doesn’t exactly make up for the lack of health insurance, but it’s still nice to get my butt kissed from time to time.

I think that’s about it! I’m sure you were all just dying to be caught up on my life. I’m sure I’ll have some more elaborate stories at some point, but right now you’re all caught up at least.

CLOSED

2005-03-07T23:16:00.000-08:00

This site is temporarily shut down. Check back in a month or so. I just don't have the incentive to do this right now.

Funniest Shit Ever…

2005-02-10T22:10:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I recently won an auction on eBay for an MP3 player. The auction ended for $152.50 I was pretty excited about this because the player sells for like $250+ in stores. I bid on it in the last 30 seconds of the auction, so I didn’t fully read the payment type or details like I should have. It turns out the seller lives in China. He emailed me and told me that the shipping cost would be $40. Still, I decided I would go through with it. It still would be cheaper than buying it in the stores.

That’s when the shit started to hit the fan. It turns out that he only accepted MoneyGram and Western Union payments. Which are basically money order companies. I sent the money through Western Union. It did seem a little fishy to me, but I had not looked into it further. Then I check it out and he had received two negative feedbacks in the past 24 hours. I got an email from another eBay user, and here’s the warning that was at the top of it (the second bold line is what you need to read):

Ebay’s warning:

I got on that phone so damned quick and called Western Union to cancel my payment. The nice lady at Western Union informed me that pretty much any auction that asks you to pay via their service is a scam. She said that their service is designed only to send money to people that you know…and not to strangers in China. She said that if he were to receive the money, eBay could do nothing about it if he never sent me anything in the mail. I would be completely unprotected. That’s seems like an awful lot of trust to have to put into a random China-man. I tried emailing him about it but he never responded back.

I canceled the payment and here is the email I sent him:

This is when it starts getting good. Here is the email that he sent me back:

WOW! Funniest shit I’ve ever read. I just can’t stop laughing when I think of some pissed off little China-man banging away on his keyboard calling me a SHAMELESS WOMAN. The damned email was like two sentences long, and he managed to call me a bad egg, a son of a bitch, and a shameless woman. That’s freaking impressive.

Here is the feedback that I left him and his rebuttal:

I stand corrected my friend. Your mastery of the English language has made me change my ways. I will never distrust another Chinese stranger again. I'm sorry that you didn't get to scam me!!

Surprising...

2005-02-07T19:20:00.000-08:00

Strange...not that I want it to be, but I would have thought it would be higher. Let me know how yours turns out!!!

Crazy Math Time!!!

2005-02-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

I just spent $200 on an MP3 player. When I told my girlfriend about it, she made some comment how I could have flown to see her for that much money. I laughed because I thought that there was no way that could be true. I just checked it out and it only costs $145 to fly from Green Bay to Minneapolis! I didn’t think that it would be that cheap. I haven’t been on a plane since I was like six years old (aside from skydiving, but that’s supposed to be scary). I don’t think that I’m too afraid of it, so I’m sure I could handle it. It would take 13 hours (780 minutes) round trip and cost probably $50 in gas if I went in a car. It would take 160 minutes round trip and cost $145 to fly my ass down there. Now it just comes down to simple math.

MATH!!!!!!!!!

That’s today’s secret word!

AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! YAY!!!!!

Anyway, lets get down to it:

CAR
780 Minutes Round Trip for $50

PLANE
160 Minutes Round Trip for $145

DIFFERENCE
620 Minutes More Time With Her for $95
95 / 620 = .153225

So just to be safe we’ll round up to 16. Now the question is…would I pay 16 cents a minute to hang out with my girlfriend? Hell yes I would! So that settles it, I’m gonna fly over there sometime in the not so distant future. Wish me luck on my first adult plane experience!!

Refund Time Baby!!!!

2005-02-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

($501 Refund from State) + ($502 Refund from Federal) = 1 INCREDIBLY Drunken Mark

nuff said...

Top two worst rejections, #2…

2005-01-26T19:38:00.000-08:00

Years ago, my best friend Jeremy made me a shirt for Christmas. It was a plain black shirt and on the front it said in large bold white letters “I HATE SEX.” His intention was to get me to wear this so that he could take me places and embarrass me. I remember one specific time we walked into a gas station and he yelled out “Hey! Everybody look! This guy is worse than gay, he hates sex!” Oh well. Despite that, I still wear the shirt because I think it’s funny. So now, on to the other top worst rejection…

I was wearing the shirt and was standing out in the hallway of my dorm room in college talking to my friends. This AMAZING looking blonde girl named Ashley was walking through. I had seen her around but had never personally talked to her before. She walked right up to me, right past all my friends, looked at me and said “You hate sex?” I, trying to maintain my calmness and cool in front of my friends (plus thinking myself quite clever), said back “Yeah…you want to change my mind?” She looked at me in silence for what seemed like forever but was probably around two seconds in reality. Her eyebrows crunched up and just said “No” and then walked away. The thing is, it wasn’t just a normal “No”. It was just an “I’m so disgusted right now that I think I just threw up in my mouth a little, No”. She had such an awful disgusted look on her face when she walked away.

OUCH

Needless to say I have not used that line since. I was, of course, just kidding when I said it. I didn’t really expect that sort of response. I was expecting a laugh and then a “yeah right” response. My friends, of course, got to witness this whole event, so that was a real treat to deal with for a while.

I have no regrets about either of these rejections. Soon after that I became friends with both of those girls. We hung out for about a year before I finally brought up the massive BURN that both had dealt me. Neither one of them claimed to remember those events.
*cough-BULLSHIT-cough*
Either way, we all laughed about it. (Although I never, EVER, tried to pick either of these women up again, it obviously was not going to work.)

The reason I look semi-weird is because I believe I was in mid wink. I really don't have a lazy eye. :o)

Top two worst rejections, #1…

2005-01-26T18:08:00.000-08:00

I’ve been rejected by the fairer sex a great number of times in my life. But when I sit back and think about all of them, there are two instances that really stick out in my mind as the worst. At the time, they were quite painful, but as I think back now…they’re just plain funny. So here we go with the first…

After a long night of drinking, I ended up back in my room with a really attractive blonde girl. I know, I know, I was surprised too. Nothing was happening; we were just sitting on the futon and started to watch a movie. We sat there in complete silence because I was so intimidated. Finally, I got the balls up to do something about it. I looked over to her and asked “So…do you want to lay down?” To this, she looked me in the eyes, patted me gently on the leg and said “Mark…you’re special.” Then she promptly got up and walked out.

OUCH

She might as well have called me “sweetly retarded.” That really hurt.

#2 will be coming soon!

Treasure Huntin’…

2005-01-18T21:35:00.000-08:00

Every year we go deer hunting in the same area. This year my Dad ventured off into a new spot near his stand. He made himself a nice little log cabin to sit in. It was just before hunting season, there was no snow and the ground hadn’t completely frozen over yet. My dad sat down in his stand, just to test it out. He noticed a metal pole sticking out of the ground. It was only protruding about a foot or two from the ground. It was rusty and looked like it hadn’t been touched in years.

Why is this pole buried deep in the middle of the woods? It’s about a 20 minute hike in the woods and a 5 minute hike off the beaten path. For all real purposes, it was out in the middle of nowhere. Was this pole meant to mark something? If it was, why was it buried so low that it was barely noticeable unless you were up close to it? This gets my dad’s mind working.

He came back and found me while I was setting up my own stand and told me about it. He explains that there was an old railroad track about a mile away. He was thinking that someone might have robbed a train and fled into the woods with the loot. They buried it out in the middle of the woods and marked it with a pole. It wasn’t meant to be seen from far away. It just served as the guide once you were in the general vicinity.

I, of course, shouted ‘BULLSHIT!” I decided to check it out for myself. I followed him back to his stand. It was truly odd, he was not exaggerating. I grabbed a hold of the thick rusty pipe that seemed so out of place deep in the woods. I pulled and twisted and pulled and twisted, until finally it slowly began to work free. I finally pulled the entire pipe out of the ground. There was about three feet of pipe buried beneath the surface. I inserted the pole back into the hole and started to bang it down on the bottom. BANG, BANG, BANG! It sounded solid. BANG, BANG, BANG! This does not sound like a pole beating on regular old soil, it sounded almost as if it was banging on something hard with a hollow space beneath it….like a treasure chest.

I left the woods with my dad that day and told him that I was coming back to dig that up before the ground froze over. We made an agreement that whatever I found, I would split 50/50 with him. We even shook on it.

I told my best friend Jeremy about all of this. He has always been an optimist about such things. Most people would blatantly laugh in your face, but not Jeremy. He jumped right on board. Soon, he was as excited as I was. I agreed to give him 10% of the findings out of my own personal 50%. The next weekend we decided to go down there and dig it up.

I made…I mean…found a treasure map leading to the spot:

I kept this folded up and hidden inside of my baseball cap. Because everyone knows that’s where you hide a treasure map. Jeremy and I were discussing the supplies that we needed. First, and most obviously, we would need shovels to dig up the area. Then we figured it would likely take us a long time to carry all the loot of the woods and it would probably get dark. So we brought a lantern. Then we figured there would probably be a lock on the treasure chest, so we brought a crowbar to pry it open. Then lastly we brought a sack with to carry out all the gold and etc in. With that, we drove two hours from my house to get there. We got all bundled up and marched into the woods each carrying our separate loads of supplies.

I kept laughing the whole hike in. Here’s the conversation that followed my laughter:

Me: (chuckling to myself)
Jeremy: “What are you laughing at?”
Me: “I’m just thinking about how absurd this all is.”
Jeremy: “You won’t be laughing once we’re carrying all that GOLD out of the woods mother fucker!”
Me: …(after a long internal thought) “Yeah I guess you’re right”

I kept pulling our treasure map out of my hat and saying things like “according to this map, it shouldn’t be too much further.”

Then we finally arrive at the infamous pole supplies in hand. We take off our jackets and get down to work. We start vigorously digging, throwing dirt all over around us. We get down to about where the end of the pole would have been. I plunge my shovel deep into the earth and CLANK. It hits something. We start to frantically dig around the area and clear it out.

Rocks, fucking ROCKS. There was nothing buried there but about 10 ordinary boring ass rocks. Except one of them was spray painted blue (we still haven’t figured out why).

I bet all you readers that made it this far in the story as REALLY, REALLY pissed off right now. What an anti-climactic ending, I know. We were pissed off too, and now you know what we felt like.

There were a number of things going through our minds. Maybe we didn’t dig far enough down. Maybe some deranged escapee from a mental institution buried the rocks there because he thought they were valuable. In the end we decided that there must have been a piece of the map that was missing. It probably said something like, walk 50 yards due North from the pole and dig. I guess we’ll never know.

Oh well, it was quite an adventure…even if it didn’t end up making us rich and famous.

Half full or half empty....

2005-01-14T23:58:00.000-08:00

Half Empty

I just went through the part that I hate most about long distance relationships...goodbye. I'm always left with such an empty feeling after I have to say goodbye. I came home, alone, and sit here with nothing to do. I think about how empty my life is going to feel for a while because I've been so used to spending so much time with somone. You just don't want things to change because they were going so great.

Half Full

You get to experience those amazing hellos. You've spent so much time thinking about this person and then when you finally get to see them again, it's an amazing feeling. You feel like you're floating in the clouds during the entire time you spend with that person. You value every second spent together. You try to remember every last detail of the time together and truly appreciate it.

So is the glass full or half empty?...it's both. I just can't wait until my next hello. =)

Long Distance...

2005-01-10T18:33:00.000-08:00

I find myself, once again, in a long distance relationship. I had one in college once, and after that I swore never to do it again. Looks like I'll be breaking that little promise to myself. I have nothing but the best hopes this time around however. Because of one main difference...the girl I dated in college was a psycho, obsessive, bitch, and this girl most definitely is not. Some of you readers might be saying "wha-wha-what???? Mark, you're dating a different girl? How come you haven't posted about her?" The reason for that is simple. Several of my friends know about this page and she is friends with all my friends. So in short, if I write something on here about her, chances are it'll get back to her.

Let me just say, things with this one are going great thus far. If I said I could act like myself with that other girl I've posted about, I was lying to myself. I was very close but not quite myself. This time around, I've never been more positive about anything in my entire life... I am completely being myself. I say stupid things, obscene things, sick things, and even make up bad puns. Like when she said that her parents got a new car and she got the old one, I said "yeah, well you DROVE them to it!" HA! I make myself laugh sometimes. Anyway, I feel pretty good about this girl, and I'm willing to give the long distance thing a shot. Wish me luck!

Different Strokes for Different Folks...

2005-01-06T23:37:00.000-08:00

I was talking with one of my best friends from college tonight. Out of all the friends I made in college, he’s the one I still talk to the most. He lives in California. He’s some biogenetics lab rat. He works at Stanford University and lives right outside San Francisco. I think the reason I talk to him most is because of the fascination of where he lives.

I’ve always lived in Wisconsin. The only time I’ve ever even left Green Bay was the four and a half years I went to college in La Crosse. Other than that, I’ve been born and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I try to picture myself in my friend’s shoes. This is what I picture as a day in his life:

I live in my one bedroom apartment in the big city. The few times that I am at home I sit on my white leather sofa watching cable TV. I’m not home often enough to really have cable, but I do it anyway because I feel it’s an important part of relaxation. I leave the house and walk three blocks to the subway. I go down a few levels to get on the correct track. I take the subway and have to transfer to a different sub on the way. This sub takes me all the way to Stanford University. I get off and go into work. I do about four hours of biogenetics shit. Splicing DNA and all other kinds of crazy stuff. Researching a cure for cancer. I leave for my lunch. I start walking out the building and down the street. The weather is a comfortable 55 degrees. It’s sweatshirt weather, I love sweatshirt weather. I arrive two blocks later at a small little pizza shop. Where I sit at a window seat and watch the hustle bustle of a few hundred people walking by the window. I eat some amazing pizza. The kind you can only find in some tiny pizza shop in a big town like San Francisco. You view other people and how they interact with each other as they walk past the window. You see an old woman moving along with a walker. You see amazing looking blonde woman who was fixing her high heels as she meets eyes and smiles at a man in a business suit. You get done eating your pizza and you walk back to work. You work for another eight hours before going home and passing out while watching Letterman on the white leather sofa in your one bedroom apartment.

Snap, back to reality. It’s a completely different world.

You’re in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The cold-ass town that you’ve grew up in your whole life. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here in Green Bay. But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to just move somewhere else…to a different world. I definitely don't want to be in my friend's shoes. I don't want to work so much I can't go home. And I certain don't want to be a biogenetics lab rat! But I do think I might like to live in a big city like that.

Here’s what I’m thinking I want to do with my life. Right now, I want to live right here in Green Bay, Wisconsin and just live my life for a while. I find an amazing woman that I love more than life itself…Someone to share it all with. We stick around Green Bay for a while, then we get married. We’d have an amazing hometown wedding with the two whole families in attendance. Then after a few months of marital bliss, we’d move to some warmer state in some bigger city. I’d pick somewhere in Florida but there’s too many damned tornados and stuff there. Texas is too hot, Arizona is hot and dry. Then there’s California. I think I’d like to live there someday.

Tonight I realized this all for the first time. I used to think that I’d always live in Green Bay in the cold weather my whole life. Now I’m not so sure. I’m not saying that I will for sure move to California or somewhere. Like if I meet the right girl and she wants to stay in Wisconsin. That would be fine with me. But if this girl was into moving out there too, I think it could be amazing.

I'll probably never do it, and I'm not sure I completely want to, but it sounds amazing in theory. =P

RANDOM READERS...

2004-12-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

This post will be about the infamous NEXT BLOG button on every blogger's webpage. Sometimes, while I rot away here at work, I peruse some random strangers webpages. It's interesting to get some glimpse of someone else's life. 95% of the webpages are crap. There's the political bullshit sites, the I'm-tying-to-sell-you-some-piece-of-shit-merchandise sites, the foreign i-don't-speak-that-language sites, and most importantly the first time poster sites that only have "hi, this is my first post. I'm going to post here every day, I swear" listed there (which 99% of those people never post again).

After you weed through around 100 sites, you might find one single site that worth reading. If the person is a regular poster, then you might just get yourself hooked. There's one site out there that I reading for the past few days. Jen While reading her page today, it got me to thinking...do I have any random readers? I'm going to guess that if I do, they're not religious readers of my site since I don't post nearly often enough. Either way, I want ANY random reader that comes onto this site to post a comment here. Write something, ANYTHING. I need to feel important. :-) (Other readers who aren't exactly random, you can still write something too)

P.S.
Stace is sexy, hot, cool, and I'm an asshole because I forgot her birthday.

I am the SOLE SURVIVOR...

2004-12-15T23:03:00.000-08:00

.

This month’s motto: “outwit, outplay, and outlast.” Here’s the whole story:

I was originally hired on at the company I work for as a temporary staff employee. I was brought in just to handle the increased call volumes for a short time period. Originally I was hired on with 15 other temp people. A few months later all but three were let go. I was asked to stay for a few more months. I was already feeling good about myself. Then around 20 more people were hired on about a month an a half later. This past week the temp techies started dropping like flies. There were people swearing on their son’s names and shit, begging to let them stick around. My boss, lets just call him Jeff Probst, had been calling four to five people in his office every day. I saw them walk with their heads held low and their torches extinguished.

By the end of last week there were only three brave souls left from the temporary crew. Earlier in that week I had a job interview for a position that I did not get. But I wore my tie to work after the interview. Jeff Probst notices this and asked what was going on. I figured there was no use hiding it; I told him I had a job interview. He seemed surprisingly genuinely disappointed about this. Later that week Jeff asked for a conference with me. I assumed this was just to let me go like the thirty or so others I’ve seen this happen to before me. I held my head up high and walked in there ready to accept my fate and go out like a champ. Instead he whispers a conversation to me about how he wants me to stick around. He wants to add me to the “core” team. I’ll still be a temp employee but it just means that I’m not going to get canned. Essentially, I will be there as long as I want, or until they hire me on as a true employee. I guess I must have scared him with that whole tie thing. I knew that I didn’t get the job at that interview but I figured that I’d make it at least look like I was on to bigger and better things. I didn’t think it would actually work!

So the rest of the week I had to talk with the other temp employees. They were all saying things like “Man, this sucks, I don’t want to find another job.” Sworn to secrecy about my alliance with Jeff, I was forced to play along and say things like “yeah, me either…”. Not technically a lie because I, in fact, do not want to find a new job. But the whole time I was smiling inside because all these fools were getting the boot and I was safe. Today, the last two temps were let go, and I stand alone. I am the sole survivor. I outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted. What can I say, I’m just that good…

P.S. The only bad thing is the freaking Muzak on the radio. Fucking shitty Christmas songs all day. I go to sleep at night whistling Jingle Bells or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I’m going to go fucking insane. That’s the price I pay I guess.

I Love Hunting...

2004-11-23T13:50:00.000-08:00

I got back from hunting this past Sunday. For those that care, yes I did kill something. I got a nice nine pointer. It was really big and everyone was giving me all the attention for about three hours. Then later that evening, my brother shot the two largest bucks I have ever seen in my life. There was a ten pointer and an eight pointer. A large deer weighs about 200 pounds, and the ten pointer my brother shot was 240 at least. Not fun dragging those bastards a half mile out of the woods in the pitch dark. I had to stop at least 10 times because I thought I was gonna throw up. Anyway, enough about the specifics.

I think it’s funny that I even enjoy going up hunting. Let me describe the whole hunting experience for you. You go up to a dingy old cabin, where nothing works quite right. The microwave is useless and takes 15 minutes to heat something up, the coffee maker just plain doesn’t work, and the stove is from the 1900’s along with the heater. All the beds tilt in one direction or the other, so you’re constantly rolling out of bed every five minutes. The cabin’s only redeeming quality is that there is a hole-in-the-wall bar 50 feet away from it. Then, 90% of the guys I go hunting with are old fat smelly guys who all snore. It’s a regular orchestra of nostril music during the night time. I’ve come to notice that if five or more people snore at the exact same time, they eventually all start to snore in harmony. It’s quite weird. Then on top of all that, I get no sleep whatsoever. I typically stay at the bar with my cousin until around 12, then I lay down in bed staring at the ceiling for 2 hours because of the nasal symphony, then finally the alarm goes off at a lovely 4:30 AM. In my sleep deprived haze, I step out of bed. I can’t tell whether I’m dreaming or whether this is reality because I’m in such a haze. Then you go out in the woods for ten hours to freeze your ass off. Once you get back to the cabin, you eat some supper. Then it’s off to some deep-woods Northern Wisconsin strip club, where the women have no teeth and have stretch marks on every part of their bodies. Once you’ve had your fill of disgusting strippers, you make your drunken way onto the casino. Since you’re a little drunk you tend to get a little generous with your money and end up losing a hundred bucks. You finally make it to bed for another 3 – 4 hours of sleep before you do it all over again.

Even with all of that, I still look forward to it every year and enjoy every second of it. It may sound corny but there’s something great about sitting in the woods for hours on end isolated with only the thoughts in your head. It really gives you time to clear things up. To take stock of your life, and evaluate all the shit that’s gone wrong. i.e. the woman problems. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still pissed off and saddened by this whole thing, but it’s getting easier. I’m not exactly ready to get back out there and try it with someone else, but at least I’m not constantly thinking about it. I still haven’t gotten the chance to talk to her yet, but I guess it’s just as well. I’m pretty sure the conversation is going to suck anyway.

I guess that’s it, I’m out.

Quick Tally Update

2004-11-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

So here's the new tally on big news from my friends. One couple getting a divorce, Two couples breaking up, Two couples engaged, One couple moving far far away, one pregnant girl, and a partridge in a pear tree. If this keeps up, I ought to be out of friends by next month. Some big news has got to happen to me soon. Lets all just hope it's not a heart-attack...

Chilling Realization...

2004-10-18T08:21:00.000-07:00

This is my first ever post from home. This time it's not just because I'm bored and getting paid to do something. I saw something so amazing this morning that I felt compelled to share it with you. I was sitting out front of my house smoking a cigarette, and I saw a squirrel in my yard, chubby as all hell, vigorously searching for some nuts for his own personal stash for winter. Then I started to look around to other yards. There was one squirrel in every yard. There was never more than one squirrel. They are strategically covering the area, fattening up. Those little bastards are running a tight ship. I saw them bobbing and weaving, criss crossing, switching from yard to yard...never a yard that was already covered by another squirrel. I saw 'em doing a three-squirrel-weave. Like some weird surreal basketball practice. They ran down the middle of the street, weaving, passing a nut back and forth. They wanted to make sure that they weren't losing their quickness despite putting on all this extra weight. Then once they made it a few houses down, they split up and one went to each separate yard. The dutiful little man in charge of scouting my yard stopped, and looked at me. His little beady eyes met with mine. I had been noticing that he hadn't found anything worth while in my yard thus far. As our eyes were locked, I could tell he was thinking "what the hell man, where my nuts at. You better get me some nuts or I'm gonna get my boys and we're gonna make you regret it fool." I stared at him for a good thirty seconds, somewhat ashamed that I was afraid of a squirrel, but not willing to push it aside like it was an imagined threat. I immediately went in the house and grabbed a bag of shelled peanuts I had. I ran outside and threw a good 15 of them out into the yard. The squirrel looked up to me as if to say "you're lucky bitch." Then he looked around to the yards surrounding my house, he didn't make any noise, but then all the sudden three other squirrels ran over to my yard. It was almost as if they were communicating through mental telepathy. It was terrifying. I have come to the conclusion that the squirrel in my yard is some kind of higher ranking official. Perhaps even the Don of all squirrels. The moral of the story here: if you see a squirrel in your yard, trying to find some nuts to get fatter for the winter...give the little homie some nuts. They're a highly organized regiment of the animal world. You fuck with them, and you'll regret it.

I am Slacker, hear me ROAR

2004-10-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

Upon reading my blog, I've realized that it has turned into one big touchy feely love site. Not a bad thing, but my original intent was for it to be a humorous glipse into my gonzo-ridiculous-fantabulous life. Even so, I will still probably continue to post my sappy love life. As a quick update, I am still seeing the afore-mentioned girl. She continues to keep my attention and keep me very interested...not something easily accomplished by the fairer sex. Every time I hang out with her I like her more and more. We have such different views on some things, and that actually makes it all the more better. I am slowly starting to realize that when you date someone, it's not all about having the same interests, and having everything in common. Being the same as someone else gets rather lackluster after a while. It's our differences that make it so great. It helps you to value the other person even more. That's about it for the woman news for right now.

Back to reality...
I sit here, making $11 an hour while posting this message to you future noblemen and magistrates. I feel somewhat guilty that people are working at McDonald's and all the other shitty places in this world for less money than me. In any given day I'd say I probably do about 5 hours of work here, if that. For instance, tonight, it's totally dead right now, and no one is calling in at all. I've had one phone call in the past three hours. I played hackey sack by my desk for about thirty minutes, I wrote emails to friends for about an hour, then I stared at the wall for the last hour or so until I decided to finally make another post on my beloved blog. Sounds like a pretty rough job huh? Seriously, hacky sack....I can't believe I get paid to play hacky sack. For all of those out there who are grinding their teeth while reading this, because you're so jealous, don't worry too much. It will all be ending soon, in two weeks there is a software release that is going out to all 4000 people that my help desk supports. These are people who don't know how to attach something to an email and they have to go through a grueling six hour installation process and follow a 6 page list of instructions. My days of hell will come, don't you worry about that. Soon there will be call after call waiting for me for 8 hours straight. I'll go bald from the stress, I'll get pasty from lack of sunlight, I'll have bags upon bags under my eyes from the lack of sleep. Lack of sleep resulting from nightmares about nieve users calling in and asking the most ridiculous things. My day will come.

And on that note, I suppose I'll go play some more hacky sack in the meantime while I still can!

Flashback....

2004-09-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

With Oktoberfest less than 24 hours away, I can't help but think about last years festivities. It's a drunken 48 hour haze where little made sense, but was all fun. They block off the streets at night and the cops patrol the crowd riding on horses. I had been drinking for roughly ten hours at this point. I see a cop on top of his horse standing at the corner. I run up to the horse and immediately start petting it.

Cop: What the hell do you think you're doing?! That's an officer you're petting there! Would you pet me like that?!

Me: Woah!...maybe if you bought me a drink first...

Cop: Funny guy huh, you won't think it's so funny when I arrest your ass.

Me: Look man, I just wanted to pet the horse, and now I'm gonna walk away. You OFFICERS have a good night.

Cop: Just watch yourself.

Now, in less than 24 hours, I will be back in the mix in this year's Oktoberfest. Hopefully I can stay out of jail. Wish me luck!

Work...who actually likes it?

2004-09-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

Ok so I work at a computer help desk for an insurance company. All day long I take calls from people, and have to help them fix their computers over the phone. Sometimes I think that some people who call in create problems so that they can call us up and have someone to talk to. For instance, I had a call here today that lasted for about 2 hours. I sat there trying to fix this woman's computer as she went over every detail of her life with me. She was a younger girl, age 27. She talked about her husband, her child, her job, her future aspirations, her mother, her friends, EVERYTHING. Her husband was recently deported because his Visa expired. My suspicion is that she secretly just wanted someone to talk to. She asked me what I look like, where I was from, my goals in life. Who in their right mind truly cares about that kind of information from a random IT guy. At the end of her call she said that she was going to send me a picture of herself, and that I was supposed to send her one of myself. WHAT THE FUCK! Seriously, in the mind of most people, IT guys are nerdy, pasty skinned guys whose only means of human contact is talking to people online while playing Everquest. Who wants to get a picture of a nerdy guy like that. That's not a fitting description of myself, but how does she know that?

She's learned the secret. Maybe she's too boring for the average Joe to have a conversation with for two hours, but if she calls someone up at their job, they have no choice but to be nice. The unlucky recipient of the call, me in this case, has to be polite since I'm at work, and I'm getting paid to help people. I can't just hang up on someone. This woman has found the loophole, it's cheaper than calling one of those 1-900 numbers that charge 95 cents a minute, it's easier than trying to meet real people and struggling to get their attention and get them to listen. So she calls up a computer help desk for companionship. You sick twisted bitch. How cruel to pull that shit on someone while they're in a restrictive environment like the workplace. I say, buy a dog, a fish...just something that you can talk to and doesn't have to say anything back.

Ok, my first rant (most likely of many) is now over. It could just be that I'm hung over and I don't want to be here at work. You know what they say....Bad mornings usually follow good nights!

First Entry

2004-09-22T18:13:00.000-07:00

This is my first post. I don't know what to write, nor who would even read it. My page is titled the Misadventures of a Budding Ronsman. Let me just set some grounds rules here first. I will be brutally honest on here. No lies allowed. There is no topic that is too taboo for me to go over. I will post without the fear of offending anyone. In essence, BRUTAL HONESTY.