do i get cigarette breaks?

1. I can, without stopping, throw a ball against a wall for about 37 years straight and never get bored. This being said, i might be construed as a very simple person or entirely worthless.

2. I cannot bring myself to essentially turn my brain off during the day for 8 hours and basically throw a ball against a wall, but on my computer and with drawings and stuff.

3. Can you believe i am single at this point? neither can i.

4. i got a $175 ticket for playing around in my apartment, i was conducting myself in a disorderly fasion. Disorder?! YOUR OUT OF ORDER, THIS WHOLE COURTROOM IS OUT OF ORDER. seriously? well your face is disorderly.

5. dis hors d'oeuvre?

6. as smoking as that last play on words was, i barely even get it, so dont feel bad.

7. its come to the point that the most exciting part of my day is walking down the train tracks on the way to and from subway at lunch pretending i am a vagabond, double-0 agent, or a meaningful scene in a movie.... all with their similarities, all to music.

8. In forest gump just about the best line ever written is "sometimes, there just isnt enough rocks" and i feel i should point that out. that movie is my entire outlook on life... not the rocks part, but more of the 15 doctor peppers part.

9. shrimp fishing = alot harder than it looks.

10. Today i recieved an access card to all of bucyrus that will open doors after hours in case i didnt get enough boredom earlier in the day when i sat here trying to make a funny list that is essentially striking out right now. i mean common, like i have been shrimp fishing

11. GIVER!!

12. in 200 years do you think they will still be reffering to our generations victories over other countries as "sacking" them, or will our perverse culture not be able to handle that?

13. In 200 years do you think they will still give a rats ass about our generation? not if i have anything to do about it, thats for sure

14. In 200 years will we be able to answer these questions that i am asking because of mecidal advancements so great that you just get to decide how long you live? Is there a really bad speilburg film with robots and humans somewhere in this question?

15. do you think that my office knows about this blog and reads it every day? I will have you know, i wrote this on my lunch break.

16. GIVER AGAIN! pronounced 'give her' but really fast, in referance to giving everything you have at the end of a bike race

17. hot lap?

18. this is the worst blog i have ever written, if people are still reading it, i appologize, dont leave me.

piano man is a great song

department wide meeting today at 9:30. Not totally on my game considering the spirited rendition of piano man litterally 7 hours earlier. I am in a dirty white shirt that apparently ripped at the elbow somewhere between putting it on and sitting down among 25 other people who dont know me, but work on the same floor as i do. I full-cup flipcup-ed a big coffee this morning so i am feeling ready to kick some meeting ass and really pay attention. After about a half hour of updates from the department head, we go around the room telling eachother a few things we have all learned in the last month since the last meeting (which i fell asleep at 5 to 6 times, i lost count because, well, i was asleep). what have you learned? some people had some good things to say, apparently shovels has inside jokes that everone but me gets, so i jovially laugh along like an idiot, thinking im having a good time laughing at the jokes people are making about what they learned.

so its getting close to me, and my mind has been running, i wrote down a few things i have learned in the past month, and since i really have only learned how much work blows (along with some other, far more endearing, life lessons), i made some up just for fun to make people laugh. heres exactally what i say with some commentary on the side (mind you, in front of my entire department, please refer to my physical conditions earlier in the blog): "Well, its alittle embarassing, but i finally learned how a shovel works!" 25 people in the room, i know they know how to laugh, they all did it just a second ago at the guy who went before me, SILENT...(its right about here the plane starts into a raging fireball and begins to plummit to the earth at a blinding rate, but i decided to hit the throttle and drive the whole damn thing into the ground to make it official) i come back with... "I learned that duct tape is actually stronger than bolts." Silence still, then i think i blacked out for a second because then i say "And i also learned that i am not that funny."

Holy hell. I dont even know what happened.... i sat back down and on the meeting went, noone said a word. Nothing. When the meeting ended we all walked back downstairs and noone said anything to me. When i walked by some people who had a shorter walk than me they just looked at me as i walked by, with kind of a "who are you?" look on their face. I wish i could bottle and sell awkward, because im a damn awkward factory.

THEN, oh i almost forgot, THEN AT LUNCH.... oh man, this is great... We are sitting at the bar at a burger place... i kinda tagged along because i didnt have anything else to do (that and i am a schmuck), and the bar tender looks at me and the guy im next to and goes "you guys should switch ties, it would look better." Heres me, im thinking "thats fun, im cool with that, i dont really like this tie anyways." so i get my tie COMPLETLY OFF and over my head, and the dude next to me looks at me and goes "no way dude, im not switching."

I tell ya, some days you just gotta count your losses and realize you really really got trounced, and be glad you didnt just get hit by a truck on the way to work. thats a good philosophy, at least you didnt get hit by a truck on the way to work. that is untill you actually get hit by a truck, on the way to work.

what a day. i hope my parents read this

dear paper jam

dear paper jam,
lets make it official, im going to print a picture of my foot in your printer ass and then when it most deffinatly jams, i will have effectively jammed my foot in your printer ass. maybe i will just print a picture of a strawberry, because then it could be a strawberry paper jam and possibly useful for a sandwich. if i printed a picture of the phish logo i think that would just be redundant, but still another way you can use the word jam. if you [the printer/jerk] can tell exactally where the jam is, and then tell me the steps to take to remove it, why cant you [the printer/peter francis geraci] just do it yourself [the printer/fritz benwallah]? why do you [the printer/im killing this joke] jam? are you [the printer/yep, dead] trying something new? isnt it the same thing over and over again? why are you [asshole] trying something new when the old way works? why are you [!] using reason, your [printer] a printer [printer]?

if i were falling from a plane i would aim for you [i knew a moose once, it bit my sister, its name was Paul Rinter... or P. Rinter for convienence], printer.

love, jim

so i am feeding my fake fish on my google homepage, they are very hungry, or at least they must be considering nomatter how much i feed them, it always gets eaten. maybe fish dont have feelings. that would make me feel alot better about fish surgery whenever they eat the hook too much when i am fishing. i just put the hook in the water, noone ever said they had to eat it, totally consensual.

at the china garden we were discussing (on 2 seperate ocasions) the idea of knowing you are going to bite it, and the ensuing actions you would take. for those of you who were not at the china garden (tisk tisk) i guess i would like to pan this out for you, not only because its interesting, but because its surefire hilarious and thats what i like. ok, so you jump out of a plane. you realize soon after leaving the plane, although you did pay to do this, someone failed to realize you were wearing only a camelpak; good for hydration (which you could use after pissing yourself in a second or two from now) poor for general parachuting needs. what you were doing with a camelpak on before driving over to the skydiving grounds, i dont know, but whatever, this story has alot of that ambiguity. Ok so its pretty much deffinatly positive that you are going to live for the next 30 seconds or less, depending on how aerodynamic you are. you have two options; panic until you die, or have a really great last 30 seconds of your life. be honest with ourself here. personally, im losing all my clothes, first things first. it will make it all the more better when someone sees a naked dude falling out of the sky in the jack-knife position holding their nose. i mean think of that. your at a family reunion and doing the group shot, at the exact moment the picture is taken, naked jim stemper doing a cannonball from 20000 feet up gets caught in the backround of the shot. it would be better if i had long hair so it was standing straight up and you could see just how fast i was going. we decided that it may also be adventagous, not for survival, but just out of principal, to aim for a pool. the smaller the pool the better. if you could potentially swan-dive into a kiddie pool you get bonus points. or if you were able to swan dive into a lawn-dart target i think would be wonderfully ironic, as well as an impressive last shot, especially if you were already an accomplished lawn-dart enthusiast whose last shot was a killer. maybe you could give your best friend a high five. maybe oyu have a cell phone and ask him to just put out his hand, and go for it. then again, as long as we are giving you props on your final descent, why not a rocking chair, or just an entire living room, or maybe a drink-umbrella for them to find in your hand when they dig you out of the ground. maybe you could tie yourself to a goose on the way down (heh, particularly my favorite image is finding me tied to a bird, which it seems i tried to use the bird as a parachute that day, premeditated)

although morbid, i feel that this idea of panic and die or have some serious fun and then die is a good thing to think about. maybe not good, but alltogether not a bad thing to laugh about. going out with style is never a bad call. i think it may be a very respectable trait to possess.

today the copier was kinda dead, and it was kinda 100% my fault. so i am standing there knowing full well i ripped a paper jam in half and the other side of the paper is way-way in there (but often interjecting "yea, this thing jams up all the time" or "who would do such a thing?" and "yea i really have a feeling that the paper is stuck somewhere around here, my keen engineering sense is just telling me that, im a really good engineer"), while other 3 engineers have at it with a screw-driver and some really fascinating ideas. i felt really bad, but it got to the point that having not have said something soon enough, i would have been an asshole to have just stood there and watched them struggle and then let them know what happened. good for them, they got it! then theres me: "oh look at that half sheet of paper with my name on it, heh, wow, who would have thought."
without these little things the day would be pretty unexciting.

i need to feed my starving fish, have a nice day.

so today i finally finished up this extreemly long drawn out process of finding out if a machine that already exists and doesnt tip, will tip. the machine dosnt tip in real life. my numbers: its tips, nomatter what. with my numbers the f-ing thing will tip if you blow on it, if a bird lands on it, if you look at it wrong, or if a dog relieves itself within a 5 mile radius. worthless! so that was a bit of a drag. i took alittle time to myself there to recover from the shock.

its gonna rain today. the forecast looks like this:
7am: possible showers
10am: possible showers
1pm: possible t-storms
4pm (when i leave): definate T-storms, 100% chance of rain.
soooo i guess they really arent messing around. its going to rain at 4. for some reason i feel i would be judged for complaining about something like that. i dont know why, but it seems that complaining has a bad publicist and is getting its butt kicked by rediculousness. Its rediculous not to complain about the fact that when i leave today, full grown cats and dogs will be just everywhere. Yeah, yeah, you do it to yourself, you dont have to bike to work, i dont feel bad for you, yada-yada-yada. its not that i want you to feel bad for me, yea its my fault i biked here, but it is NOT my fault its definatly 100% going to rain its butt off at 4. I think that if you look at it, if i told you "no the rain dosnt bother me, i like being cold, its good for my complexion, this way i dont have to shower! i love nearly dieing 4 times on the way home from work." you may think "what an impressive person (brittish accent)." OR if you stepped back, and realized "its the rain, and hes biking, that hes full of crap! hes being rediculous." somewhere along the line complaining got tangled up with "bad person, grumpus, hater." while rediculous hooked up with endearing and had tons of crazy little babies that are really cute and attractive. so if you care to know, no, i am not very excited to bike home, yea, its gonna suck. right? i mean isnt that reasonable? do you hate me now? who knows. oh well, its not that big of a deal anyways. i brought a rain coat, i like the rain, its good for my skin.

woah, apparently lunch is over. drag. i could use another sandwich, maybe i will head down to the beach and make one.

on the plus side i have a ton of new music to listen to, i slept well (so well that when my door blew down by the wind i didnt even wake up), and i have realized that i should consider myself lucky to have the ability to work as an engineer as well as the physical ability to ride there and back every day. its really a great gift. so bring on the rain, at least i am the one who decides whether or not i ride in it.

have a good day all.

I wouldnt mind being a kid again

Gone are the days where you could take all the couch cusions off the couches, sit in front of the sterio, and pretend you are a dj in your couch-cusion-walled recording studio, spinning some sweet beach boys and amy grant... thats all that mom had, but who cares?! your a DJ. In fact, probably better than a dj because as a kid, you have no worries. you dont have to be cool or funny or have a deep voice (good thing), your stuffed animals have a very eclectic music taste so whatever you play is good. and if you cut it off early to go to louie louie for the 5th time, they simply listen and appreciate your taste for a great base singer, and lyricly challenged songs. why is it that i cant turn my cubicle into a fort? i swear to you i would work harder here if there were secret compartments i could hide in from time to time. back when you could just go ahead and run around screaming and have people think, well thats ok. back when liking someone included punching them alittle, and chasing them around the room for 25 minutes before you get distracted by legos. i swear to you, to this day, one of the best gifts i probably ever recieved was from jamie, the next door neighbor girl who was also 5, and gave me a little blue bag that we put things in. then we went behind the couch and i punched her and it was over. lesson learned! bag lost. yes sir, back when you didnt worry that wearing the same shirt every day was wierd, it was your favorite shirt, so you cried until you got to wear it (lime green faceplant shirt). who cares? this reasoning probably could get you pretty far in life. its a good shirt, im wearing it, heck with you guys. i am sick of cheerios, im throwen it across the room, you pick it up, your the one who thought it was a good idea. whats that? i dont feel like talking right now, im going to take a nap. im going to build this block structure, then im going to throw a truck at it. now a days if you built something cool you have to take a picture or even glue the thing together. the fun part isnt building it, its launching it down teh staircase. what good is something on the shelf? maybe thats why kids put things away by throwing it all over the floor, it will be ready to do when you get back. 200 dollar shoes? 200 dollar chew toy. they are the same thing. 2 velcro straps from payless takes care of the job just fine. its a fascinating idea to look at things like a kid would, i think thats why i find alot of things rediculous, like money and ties... and the MU basketball team. and even peter francis geraci.



right? wouldnt you rather spend all day throwing beanie babies at eachother in your apartment instead of sitting around looking at a tv? or build legos?



maybe im going through a withdraw of kid fun now that i spend 8 hours a day looking at a computer screen. i miss jumping around on a trampoline and not hitting the ground every time. i miss diagonally cut grilled cheese and neighborhood politics. thinking that cutting the grass was a big deal. announcing and playing whatever sport or mission you were on simultaniously. everything you did being a covert operation, always with someone back at base, and everybody depending on you to steal the wooden spoon from mom when shes cooking.



i figure this is a 1/4th life mini-crisis. since i cannot afford a porsche i bought a double bacon cheeseburger. now thats something a 5 year old cannot do. so ha.

Rocking the Casbah

For some reason, i find it 100 times easier to function beyond just listening to music when i have one of the earphones out and in my mouth. Thats where i am right now, one in the ear, one hanging from my mouth. Yea, it is gross, but for some reason it promotes concentration. Just noticed that, and i thought since you are actually reading this you might not find that too boring.

Excuse me while i shoot the moon at will in hearts.

so i changed my desktop backround today to be autum colors which is generally brown and orange, but somehow still appealing.

wow, great, the news totally rocks... there was one west nile case confirmed (look out you other 4.5 billion people in the world, you have a 50 times better chance getting struck by lightning 34 times in a row while jumping in the air waving a rubber wand naked while singing "louie louie" as an actual pig not only flys by, but then shoots down another flying pig with an impressive negative-g manuver than getting the west nile virus), brittney is losing her kids for the time being (holy! im shocked, thank god her whole life is in the news, otherwise i would have never known all these awful things), Nepal peace process in turmoil as Maoists withdraw (i remember when the Maoists withdrew from my family and the peace was in turmoil, then i realized i have no idea who or what a maoists is, and im not from Nepal, thank god i dodged that bullet), a Nebraska State senator is sueing God (The Lord, Almighty, The Big Guy, G-O-D) in order to make him stop plagues of terror (yep, google news, check it out), and Musharraf pledges to step down as army cheif if elected (quite possibly one of the best political campaigns i have ever heard, although a seemingly pointless promise). That, ladies and gentlemen, is the news. The new "s" as i like to call it. short for the new shit. its new, and it dosnt come out of your mouth. I may just sue God (His Holyness, Our Father, *points up* Upstairs) too because im sick of being such old "s" considering its been so long since i was in the news for something completly insane. wow. This is why i love the onion, we can all be "local man" or "area man." I could start reffering to myself as that and life would be better.

"Area man gives local man a killer high five." WAY more important than pending turmoil in Nepal. Trust me. Have you ever been to Nepal? Turmoil waits in trash cans for you to, just for a second, think everything might actually be ok and peaceful. Now that the Maoists are gone, its just less people to spread the turmoil on, so of course it increased. I wonder if turmoil was personified or animal-ified what it would be. would it be something extreemly dangerous like a bear? maybe something that always seems to be pending danger like a prarie dog. prarie dogs can be tumultous, have you seen gremlins? Or maybe behind the turmoil door waits the sweetest little puppy youve ever seen, until he eats everything you own. tumultous!

i dont even think thats how you spell tumultous.

maybe its the token political stab that personifies someone as turmoil. for the sake of the day; hayden penatar or o.j. simpson.

ps, thank God hayden turned 18, because that was the only thing keeping every guy in the nation from totally "hitten that." i wonder if she had to get more space put on her voicemail.

well, its legitamatly now past lunch, time to go.

I see your low-carb diet, and I raise you a pasta sandwich

its like eating your way out of a car sized loaf of bread. no hands allowed

i was just flipping through the internet and i came across an article talking about the altitude trainer the marquette basketball program has. That hot little number will cost you about as much as a car, so i cant afford one (unless it smokes and has crap-for-brakes, i could trade my car for it), but my school can, how nice! can i use it?! it would really help me out with my biking! NO. you may not. suck eggs. ...so wait, the basketball players get to train in it, get free tuition, free housing, free food, free clothes, free phones, and come to our parties like we actually want them there... and i cant even bike in their stupid air tent? you know what? FINE! its not going to help you anyways, you jerks. instead of cheating, why dont you just run harder? OOOO practice was hard today, i ran in a f-ing TENT on a treadmill or rode a stationary bike, love me love me. you SUCK. why are you training at altitude? only about 3 of you can dunk, so being to high up is clearly not the problem. and what good is endurance going to do you when you dont even make it into the NCAA tournament? ooooo, get your red blood cell count up, bologna-sausage is what that is. why do you need a 10,000 dollar tent? thats like saying "no, i cant run outside, thanks tho, im a lame-ass. oh heres ten-grand, could you go flush it for me? no on second thought, i want to use it to inflate my ego alittle more, do you have any pointless tents? that one? but its only 40 bucks? heres $10,000, oh actually can i get a few bucks back, like 4, i kinda need a mocha-latte-frappachino-whip-im-a-pansy-ass on ice. only got 14 hours of sleep last night because i dont have to do any homework. a bit of a rough morning. thanks dude. keep on keepin on." MAN i just wanna jam an EGG in your EAR! sounds like a damn excuse for not actually working out, i say if you need a tent to modivate yourself to work out, go camping deuschbag. i bet tom sleeps in one because he can. loser.

i dont need your stupid tent anyways. if any of you b-ball players look tired on gameday i will personally kick your face off.

whew, i feel better now. sorry. I hope that it works out that my exact tuition dollars bought that entire tent and nothing else. i demand a plack on it that says "im a dumbass." and position it right in front of the treadmill. man that just rips my eyes out, seriously. ugh, im going to go throw up.


well now that thats over, back to not being "that guy" who just things he can yell and insult people before actually hearing their story. i was riding in today and started to notice that i see alot of the same people every day. the same bus driver honks at me and scares the crap out of me every morning, the same man yells at me from the bus stop still pretty drunk i think, i pass the same dude on his bike with a nice little wave, i see svens and think about how i could just skip the rest of my day and eat 4 matterhorns, see one person on the treadmill at the 24-hour fitness place (no tent), forget again about the trap-door bus stop which is embarrassing, almost get smoked at this intersection that i am still unsure what to do in, and say hello to the nurse. its good times.

well lunch is over, and its going to take me about a decade to get through all the papers in this pile, i figure i should get going

was decade a good enough exaggeration?

Im turning into a peanutbutter sandwich

You are what you eat. Its not a bad deal, you could deffinatly trade me for some shark fruit snacks.

Today i got here too early, so i hung out with the shop workers while they kinda just made fun of me for being in spandex (i dont think they knew we were hanging out, i think they just thought they were making fun of me and i didnt know it, but there were some key signs i caught on to (laughting and pointing being the money shot)). Took a shower and actually used the soap from the dispenser this time and it really does smell like feet. thats ok, i washed my feet with it and was overcome with an odd sense of comfort with the whole entire thing.

oddly enough, this has been one of the best days at work so far, i finally am getting a hang of engineering again, and i downed alot more coffee than normal. moreso on the odd side, i got seriously angry this morning at a guy i dont know, thought it was going to ruin my entire week, but for some reason i am totally beside the whole issue now. heres what happened:

some guy tells me this morning that i cant bring the bike into the building anymore, and i will have to park it on the racks. i looked at him with my stuck-up spoiled kid side and said thats unacceptable, this bike is litterally my only real possession and i am not going to risk it out there. he said there had been complaints. now, before i ate his very face off, i made sure to realize that he is mearly doing his job, that being said:
1. who is this dude?
2. its a bike, not: a skunk, bam margera, wwe raw, deadly gas, a tank, noise maker, lighthouse, lumberjack, bonfire, entire globetrotter team, rotten eggs, a chicken coop, peter francis geraci bankruptcy info tapes, peter francis geraci himself, a picture of peter francis geraci, or the cincinatti bengals. i dont see the problem here, those things are all way worse. besides, very few of those things i could actually ride to work in the first place (although you can ride those info tapes right into the ground where i hope they stay).
3. how in the hell did i offend someone in the time i walk in the door till the time i hit the elevator button and park it on the 3rd floor. a 3 minute process. apparently i wrecked someones whole fricking day when i rolled my bike past them.
4. who was that dude?
5. ROCKET LAUNCHER
6. how am i still in a great mood?
7. i just cant get it through my head that its a monday

so yea, i sent out some emails that were uncharecteristicly professional, calm, reasonable, and spell-checked. now can park my bike under the stair case.... which requires me to come in the building in the same place, and essentially do the exact same thing as before except now on a different floor. i dont do logic either, but i feel somthings amiss.

i must say, any time i do insult or make fun of (so-to-speak) it is not serious, everyone here is very nice and helpfull and i have no problems with anyone, nor the place i work. it just stands that i am working and its nice to relieve alittle stress by making some jokes that i hope are harmless yet funny. you have to respect a person who can bring themselves to work every day with a good mood and attitude even when it rules so much of your life, but they seem not to be ruled by it. I just havent gotten to that point, maybe someday i will, who knows. As of now i figure i might as well work hard for these people out of respect, even if i dont like my job.

ok, done with that disclaimer. today is unusually good. so i figured i would get that out there. i swear i will never do it again.

donny and i figured out the difference between engineers and buisnessmen the other day. there is no time in an engineer's life that he can jump up on his cubicle desk, throw a few pelvic thrusts, and scream "yea baby, thats what im talking about, i closed that deal bitches! thank you and you and you and you (pointing at suprised yet extreemly excited coworkers), if anyone needs me i will be taking the rest of the day off." I also will never get to answer the phone and within 4 seconds be screaming "alright poindexter, listen here, im not taking your low-ball crap, either get me a mans bid or look for a new job." slam the phone down and go "thats right, i cant believe i just said any of that, im going to go throw up."

oh well.

have a great day all

Lunch till 12:30

Why the shirt and tie? Since when were buttons so unattractive that we had to cover them with something? How about we just not have the buttons if they are that bad? Whose idea was it to tuck in a shirt? if your gonna tuck it in you might as well wear a full one peice suit. whenever you bend over you have to re-tuck, it wrinkles your shirt, it makes you look like the stay-puffed marshmallow man.... THE MARSHMALLOW MAN. i get dressed every morning and then i go, "i look rediculous." essentially i had a pair of really long socks, lost one, and i tied the other one around my neck, and said "look at you, classy." who!? what!? e-gads. why cant i wear something more badass to work? (Ape suit? Leather jacket? a shirt that says badass? a dress? i dont care!) i hate feeling like a sauce every morning when i walk through the machine shop in shoes that click, funny socks, nice pants (they are nice, i like my pants, well done), a tucked-in bedsheet that i cut in half only to button back together again every damn morning, and to top it all off; the tie. swinging around down there. acting pretentious. resting. waiting. not healing the sick. getting in the way of everything that has to do with water ever. why didnt we just wear a kite on our heads? theres a ton of crap i could just slap on my body that shouldnt be there. what if i had a stuffed hampster head pin? at least it wouldnt get in the way of washing my hands, and it wouldnt get all up in my soup, and it wont fall in the toilet when i lean over.... it SUCKS when that happens! a tie almost got my father killed when he was a young gun. 2 weeks into his new job he comes home to my mom with 1/4th of a tie on. turns out he leaned over to get a paper that fell, and the tie went on a suicide mission into the paper shredder and sucked him in! TIES man, they are out for us! TIES! They are already spending the day choking us to death, being all striped and patterned and bold and bland all at the same time. a man can spend 3 hours looking at ties at the mall, because there are 5 ba-zillion of them and you have a blue shirt and it seems that NONE of them even have a clue what color they want to be. i heard once, that a tie actually stole candy from a baby, tripped an old lady, and 3 to 4 other heinous steriotypical heartless crimes involving helpless old ladies and cute little puppies and your favorite stuffed animal from when you were a kid.

today is casual friday, i dont even have a tie on, i dont know what that was all about

i am starting to accept work for what it is, and enjoying it. i did attempt to sleep on the toilet earlier by leaning my head on the toilet paper as a pillow... something about that just didnt work out.

see you again monday.

The cube

lunchtime. the break room (which is bullshit, i have never heard of taking at break unless you smoke... im thinking about taking it up) is where the 3 microwaves for 39 people on this floor rest. not so bad when my soup takes 90 seconds to warm up, but the 4 course "requires different stages of heating and taking plastic off and poking holes and you might as well be microwaving a 23 pound turkey in my opinion, its not even that healthy anyways" meal in a box is a bit irksome. there are 2 refridgerators and 3 microwaves. if you filled both those refridgerators, it would take about 2 hours to warm it all up, but luckily there is only 45 minutes for lunch. there are alternatives; pb & j. thats about it. unless you want to be like the guy who forgot his lunch today and you walk by his cubicle and he is looking at pictures of sandwiches... just about the most depressing thing i have ever seen. (this stuff honestly happens, i couldnt make that up)

it is about 55 degrees underneath this air conditioning vent. cubes are not condusive to letting sunlight in to warm you up, not that it matters today, its gonna rain. maybe it is raining, these cubes are also not condusive to seeing outside. they are, however, condusive to hearts.

so there is a losers pool being started amongst the shovel division. the way it works is you pay 10 bucks and then each week you have to pick one team to lose. when you are wrong, you are out. last man standing wins. so the money is due today and they guy came around and scared the life out of me because i was writing this thing and listening to the beatles on full blast. i had a good head-bob interrupted by him putting his hand in front of my face. so, theres that. he reminded me that "if you want to get in the losers pool its the last day to get your 10 bucks in" i informed him that unfortunatly, i am a winner.

he didnt catch the humor and just thought i was serious and said ok and walked away. hah, wow, im an ass. truth is i dont have 10 bucks, which means i do not have enough money to get into the losers pool, which makes me feel like that much more of a loser. although noone wants to hang out with a pool full of losers so i guess i got out of that.

if you think about it, back when "birthday" came out by the beatles, how freaking obnoxious was it every time you were at a birthday, they played that song nomatter what. i bet for 10 solid years that was the only song you heard, and it actually made you hate your birthday after a while, because you were the reason the song was on.

good news! your done reading! go on your merry way!

I came, I pounded a mixed berry green tea, I feel good

Today i made my mom proud im sure. I was sleeping, heard my alarm, jumped right out of bed and headed for the kitchen to make eggs on toast and my lunch. Finished up some damn good eggs i must say, and i made two pb and j sandwiches (if you dont like them you can go down to the beach and make your own). headed back to my room to pack my bag, looked at the clock; 2:52am.



well shit. what have i done?



its at that point i checked the rest of the clocks to make sure i wasnt insane, turns out i am. its now 2:53am, and i have already eaten breakfast and made lunch, who does this? once i realized what time it was i also realized some other things; how fricken tired i was, its dark outside, eggs on toast are good nomatter what time of day it is, probably could have done without the "alarm clock going off" dream.

i kicked an ass and took a name this morning, theres really no better way to start off a day of work than kicking an ass and taking a name. the ass was my computer, and i kicked it and took a name. thats what happens when you wont log on to the network, you get your name took. then i spent the rest of the morning making bolts longer, i know, school sucks right? ill kill you all.

i love it when you realize that the man on the janitorial staff is happier at work than you and all of your co-workers combined. he says hello to everyone and just makes you feel good because then he tells you to "have a good one man, stay out of trouble." So i am warming my leftovers today, and the janitor walks in and we greet, and i feel better. another engineer walks in and heres the conversation i witnessed:

janitor: hey man you stayen out of trouble?
engineer: heh, thats an oxymoron
(engineer walks out)
*the microwave exploded, my noodles warmed themselves up while trying to escape, the janitor just plain melted right there and there was noone to clean him up, im still crying, hell actually got hotter somehow*

jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron. government organization is an oxymoron. living dead, same difference, tax return, dodge ram, work party, healthy tan, microsoft works.... these are oxymorons.... my head hurts.

so i guess so far its been a fairly confusing day. at least my pants are on straight and i didnt have to borrow the "tie of shame" again today like i did yesterday, since i forgot a tie *gasp, call security*

seriously... if your gonna let a comment loose like "heh, thats an oxymoron" you should be legaly obligated to send a warning shot over the bow or something, maybe a "here you will need these" as he hands you ear plugs. i cant just have people saying whatever it is they want whenever it is they want to say it anymore, i fear for my and the janitor's lives. and speaking of shots across the bow, what is the purpose? if it is to say "hey, i could have taken you out, but i would rather show you how good i am at shooting first, and let you load your cannons before we start to really take it to you." if thats the case that is pretty weak. i think if you want to impress some pirates you should at least take the parrot right off the shoulder of the captian or something. do you have any idea how big the "across the bow" section is on a pirate ship? its like bigger than the ship itself. thats like, "hey check this out timmy, i bet you i can hit that lake over there." ..."yea, i bet you can, its right there, and its a lake. in fact if you miss it i will hit it with you."

oh well. fun times. i guess that when you end up talking about pirates you have hit just about the bottom of the barrel of things to talk with yourself about (thats what a blog is right? talking to yourself?)

i have 12 minutes left of lunch, im gonna play hearts.

talk to you tomorrow

George Clooney is dreamy

Dude, The Chang is having a lecture on finite element analisis that is gonna litterally blow minds bitches. i mean it is going to melt my very face off. the man is 5' 6" but his brain is like at least 6' 2.5" and looks like george clooney, but what makes it better than george clooney is that it looks like george clooney at the exact time you thought he was most attractive. killer. if you dont like george clooney then it changes to look like gary buesy, because you suck. clooney rules.

so im sitting here, in the smallest cubicle on my floor... next thought

i think i will get a picture of just george clooney on my desktop... i honestly am only using him in this blog because he is like the universially time-transcending attractive dude, i think is nice, but i only like him as a friend. BUT how awkward would that be? can you get fired for a clooney shrine? i bet you could if it was like a marylin manson shrine. i guess theres just someting about clooney that is very shrine-esque, and when people walk by, instead of leaving for the day because they dont want me looking at them anymore, they think to themselves "yea, i really liked him in oceans 12 because he wore that white shirt and there was french music in the backround." MAYBE i would walk around and EVERYONE would have a picture of george clooney on their backround! holy!

....sorry got carried away, its just once you start thinking about the man your mind takes you places (i hope i dont end up on the news for this, it is a joke, before you know it they will be cropping my head on to pictures of gollum from lord of the rings and putting clooneys face where the ring is)

anyways. today is casual friday. but when you start here they come by and say "we have these shirts for you to wear if you want on friday, you get one for free, you dont have to feel obligated to wear it, but we thought it was kind of a team building thing, do what you want, i will be wearing mine along with the rest of the 454 people that work here, do what you want, its totally up to you.... wear the shirt or die. totally your call man, were cool like that. peace out yo."

so im wearing the damn shirt. Thankfully maroon is my color. Brings out my freckles.

im seriously thinking about turning my cubicle into a fort, it would be a totally kick-ass fort. you dont even know. i could watch movies, cheetos, hide under the desk.... no i dont already do that

well i have 3 minutes left on lunch, im gonna play hearts.

Generally Wrinkled

Walking into the office with a bike that clicks is like going to pride fest, eventually someone is going to talk to you and its gonna be awkward. "calling all engineers, you wouldnt believe how light this bike is, come pick it up, all of you!" I got to work ten minutes early for the second day in a row (send your cookies and praises to my home address, please), and instead of taking 10 minutes of "jim time" in my cubicle to do a few hot laps in my chair and kick my feet up like a hot-shot important person who is all endearing and saves the environment by riding to work (...cars broke) while the girls (...all guys on this floor, actually) swoon over my social awareness, I had my own little impromptu show and tell, and then wrote a rediculous run-on sentence. The best thing was when one guy turned to another guy who actually does bike to work, hits his arm, and goes "Ill bet jim here could kick your ass... like alot" heh, thank you 35 year old man, i appreciate it.

On the way to work i rode past my future; some person laying on a lawn bed chair thing in a bathrobe with curlers in, asleep at 6:30 in the morning with people magazine on her face. i hope she was there the whole night. hey, i could have curlers.

My shoes sound like high heals when i walk. its really embarassing when i walk on the tile floors and engineers pop up like gophers because they think a girl is walking by, throws your bathroom groove off a bit. guys, we have to think of a new reason besides streching when we want to stand up and look over our cubicle walls (i know you all do it), but it looked like the damn wave at miller park: slow mo.

Today, even my socks are wrinkled.

I made the decision to not repeat yesterday's preformance of three 32 ounce water bottles drank along with a hot green tea (berry flavored, tastes like my grandma smells, i will never get it again). I got the hot green tea because i am catching a cold from my cubicle, and although the water did lead to more bathroom breaks, it also led to a very uncomfortable half of the ride home in the rain, where i just eventually hid behind a dumpster (glad im a guy), because if i hit another bump, i may have seriously died.

nothing to exciting at work today. i did NOT almost fall asleep in my supervisors cubicle, again.

hope you are all having a nice day, im gonna play hearts.

I want to be back in bed

Totally stoked about the metal ruler with the cork backing i scored this morning when i raided the supply closet. Also aquired; post it notes, a blue pen, and a black pen. Tight.

I struck it off to a great start when they told me my computer wouldnt work until i was officially hired, i informed them that i would be offically pissed if they decided i wasnt fit for the job, considering the debt and all. good news! i am now an offically an employee. First things first, sign on. no dice. thats ok, i will call the help desk, unfortunatly earlier a dude walked into my cubicle, unplugged my phone, took it, and left without ever saying a word. welcome to work. On the up side, The Chang remembered me, told me he was smarter than me, and we went our seperate ways.

met my new supervisor. you would really hope that the head engineer of a big-bad-kickass-boomer of a shovel that could litterally dig the hole for your house in one swoop would be all tatted, up smell like smoke, spit on your shoe, and wear a sleevless dress shirt with one of those fish ties... because thats badass. but he is alittle more soft spoken, which is ok. its not badass... but it will do.

you know, there really arent many tatted up people here, engineers are pretty fragile, i dont think they could handle the ink. besides, engineering tatoos are really uncool to start with. or like "yea, i got that one back after a wild all-nighter, man, we ate like 3 bags of cheetos and seriously took down a case of dr. pepper. oh the good old days."

well so far today i rode my bike the 13ish miles to work and because i got up so early (still dark outside) i am tired. so that is the end of this for now.

I am so excited for my cubicle

Ive waited all summer, and its finally here. My very own cubicle. Complete with file drawers, file closets, file slots, a nail file, and a 500 dollar chair with more features than you could ever imagine (23, yea, thats a hard number to imagine), and walls that you can stick pins to. This is my place, this is where i "buisness" so to speak. Noone can tell that my pants rise up half way over my calf when i sit down, nor that my shoes are off and i have ankle socks on, nor that i am not doing any work at all. Yes sir, many a good blog will happen in this place.

I start work tomorrow, so today is all about preparing to kiss a serious amount of ass. I am excited to see The Chang again, wondering around aimlessly mumbling quietly to himself how much smarter he is than everyone else; "smarter than you, smarter than you, way the hell smarter than you.... ect." Thats why he walks so slow, there are alot of dumb people here that he has to note how much smarter than them he is, its very time consuming. I am also excited to see Bill again, my supervisor. Bill is an engineering warlord, most notably for his ability to get things done even know he never seems to be doing anything. By far the best conversation i have had with him was about the guy who potentially washes his hands BEFORE he goes to the bathroom. I told him i would be sure to double my already outlandish amounts of bathroom breaks during the day and begin to study everyones shoes, so i can find this person. He is still at large. ps, in the buisness world, a conversation that could be summed up in the previous 2 sentances honestly took 45 minutes to have. Bill is an expert at dragging out a conversation that could honestly be 2 minutes. you have to, its survival. othe second you see an oppertunity to strike up a friendly conversation with a co-worker, weather it be about obsessive compulsive bathroom breaks or wanting to sail around the world... or even the color green vs. red in coolness at christmas.... you have to strike fast. If everything goes well normally one thing will lead to another and you take it to the water cooler, where you inevitably will spend an hour talking about The Chang and the consistency of water and how to avoid "wife wrath" as they call it.

I realize this is a long blog. Normally they will be shorter, but today since i really honestly have nothing to do, i got alittle carried away. I hope you all enjoy your day at school today, i must say it would be smart to change your major now and stay in school as long as you can.

Good luck! I really tried to think of like a catch line to put at the end of these things. I will get it.