On something funny that Erica reminded me of
or,
I'm struggling with writing something serious, so here's something funny.
The last credit I took in college was Bowling. I graduated from Texas Tech in August of 1996. I walked in May with everyone else, largely because my mother wanted to see it. I would gladly have ditched the whole cap and gown thing and just accepted my diploma in the mail, but she and Ron paid for four years of school, and if they wanted a show, I figured they deserved to get it. I hope they didn't see me nodding off during the three hour ceremony, but oh well.
Anyway, I had three classes left to take in summer school that year, and I was staying in the dorms for the summer again which was loads of fun. The dorms during the year were kind of a drag, lots of people eating crummy food, never much privacy, guys stealing my beer out of my little mini-fridge. Plus, the dorm I lived in sophmore-junior years was haunted. But whatever. Summer dorm was cool, mostly because there was only one on campus that was open. It was like going to one of those really small local colleges you see on WB television shows, where you know everyone and friends drop by all the time just to say hi. First summer session I took Spanish, a class I was being forced to repeat ( I still can't hardly speak Spanish. It is a detestable, ugly language in my ears, not poetic to me at all, and I just can't get my head around it. This is in no way intended to insult Spanish speaking peoples or Latinos. just a matter of personal taste. Everyone knows how much I despise racism in any form. I wish I liked Spanish, but it's nails on the chalkboard to me. Sorry.) I think I also took a lab over again, geology. I aced the class but was forced to drop lab or fail it, largely because I skipped it almost every week. The reason for ditching lab during that specific hour of my week can not be disclosed, as she had a serious boyfriend at the time. Oops! Pretty sure he never found out. Ahh, college. Anyway......
Second summer session, I took Bowling.
That was it. Just Bowling. Two hours a day, four days a week. The class was taught by a Teacher's Assistant, a girl working on her M.S. in Sports Sciences, essentially a Masters in Coaching. Melissa was her name. She was only a year older than I was. I made it a habit to tell her, regularly, that if she failed me in Bowling, I wouldn't graduate. Tech required PE credits then, I think they have since abandoned it. Every day, it was the first thing I said every time I saw her, in this depserate frantic voice and with fear all over my face. I would corner Melissa, grab her by both elbows and beg, "Melissa, please, if you fail me in this class, I WON'T GRADUATE!"
She thought it was funny. At first.
Melissa began readily assuring me that no one, and I mean no one, failed bowling. Secure in the knowledge that my diploma was safe and my parents would not have to bask in the shame of a child that took more than 4 years to finish college (the horror!), we went to the bowling alley bar and ordered a beer. By the end of the summer session, we were good buddies, Melissa and I. She even dated a friend of mine. The two of us, and the other two guys on my "bowling team" within the class, which was divided into 12 teams of three, were the only people in the class old enough to drink. We drank beer in the bowling alley every day, noon to two. Everyone else in the class hated us. The final test was the tenth frame of our last game. If you bowled a strike with the first ball, you got 100 on the final. A spare got you a 95, nine pins a 90, eight pins and 80, and so on.
I bowled three straight stikes on my final. Who wants another beer?
Jun 24, 2003
Jun 23, 2003
On Please Please Please DON'T Send in the Clowns
or
How Friday the 13th, the full moon, and Clowns Local 442 ruined my weekend.
The initial conversation was taken lightly. "I have a large group of ..... performers..... all of us a part of a local orginization that are going on a pub crawl next week, and we'd like to come by your place for about a half hour or so." He wished to pay cover for the entire group in advance. He wanted to limit any hassle that his large group would create for me and my staff. He wanted to be a courteous customer. Then he dropped the other hideously large red shoe on me.
"We're an orginization of Clowns."
He was serious.
Two weeks later (clowns have calendar problems, apparently) they Showed Up. 47 clowns in full makeup and gear. No kidding. Literally. None of them were "being" clowns. No flowers squirting. No happy banter. No prat falls. They were REALLY falling down, drunk as skunks most of them. Bad dancing. I asked three of them at the bar, with a big shit eating grin on my face, "So you guys are what? Bankers?" I got back three blank stares. This is what happens when clowns drink. I asked one guy later, "So, ya'll all came in the same volskwagon?" He stared blankly back and said, slightly confused, "Um, no, we came in a bus." This is what happens when clowns drink. One of them handed me a twisted mulitcolored construction of balloons that only bore a resemblance to an animal if it were part of said animals DNA chain. I asked him, "Is it abstract?" This is what happens when clowns drink. Later I had to eject one of them because he was geting undressed. In the CLUB! He had his shirt off and was going for his pants when I asked him why, and he responded that, "she wanted me to." There wasn't a woman within 20 feet of him.
I kept thinking, "Who are these clowns?"
or
How Friday the 13th, the full moon, and Clowns Local 442 ruined my weekend.
The initial conversation was taken lightly. "I have a large group of ..... performers..... all of us a part of a local orginization that are going on a pub crawl next week, and we'd like to come by your place for about a half hour or so." He wished to pay cover for the entire group in advance. He wanted to limit any hassle that his large group would create for me and my staff. He wanted to be a courteous customer. Then he dropped the other hideously large red shoe on me.
"We're an orginization of Clowns."
He was serious.
Two weeks later (clowns have calendar problems, apparently) they Showed Up. 47 clowns in full makeup and gear. No kidding. Literally. None of them were "being" clowns. No flowers squirting. No happy banter. No prat falls. They were REALLY falling down, drunk as skunks most of them. Bad dancing. I asked three of them at the bar, with a big shit eating grin on my face, "So you guys are what? Bankers?" I got back three blank stares. This is what happens when clowns drink. I asked one guy later, "So, ya'll all came in the same volskwagon?" He stared blankly back and said, slightly confused, "Um, no, we came in a bus." This is what happens when clowns drink. One of them handed me a twisted mulitcolored construction of balloons that only bore a resemblance to an animal if it were part of said animals DNA chain. I asked him, "Is it abstract?" This is what happens when clowns drink. Later I had to eject one of them because he was geting undressed. In the CLUB! He had his shirt off and was going for his pants when I asked him why, and he responded that, "she wanted me to." There wasn't a woman within 20 feet of him.
I kept thinking, "Who are these clowns?"
Jun 6, 2003
May 25, 2003
On some thoughts. Of mine. Kinda.
Ok, first, I put up a section with photos from the Chicago trip. This is a really poor way to build a site for pics, I know, and it probably looks awful to all you Mac users, but I DON'T KNOW SQUAT ABOUT DESIGN! In case you didn't already know that. This site has never been about design, but about content. That it falls short in that area as well, I take full responsibility for. That the rest of it stinks is, well, Kevin's fault. Not really.
So, here is a thought. Kevin built this page for me and has an idea for a redesign that we have been talking about for, oh, I don't know, about a year. Anyone who knows Newsums knows that they are slow, not mentally of course, but in most other ways. They take forever to get anything done. This is not a character flaw on their part, just a genetic predisposition, and you learn to love it about them. My favorite Newsum is, in fact, the slowest.
Anyway, back to my thought. (Thank God I only have a few, anyone who knows Jefes knows that they love the sound of their own voice and like to tell long rambling stories that wander all over the place before getting to the point. Thankfully they are usually really good stories.) Alison is working on yet another redsign, all of 'em great, and Karen just had her site redesigned by someone else, the lovely and talented Leia.
I can't decide if I want my site fixed, expanded, or redesigned fully. So here's the deal.
Recently, I started the Official Cloudwrangler Softball and Cricket Team. (See, I told you my stories wandered all over the place) Attention all current Team members, both of you, we are now also a Cricket team, better learn to play cricket. It involves wearing white and drinking tea. Anyway, so far there are only three members of the team, myself, Billy, and Jess. They earned their way onto the team as Grand Champions of the Pez Contest for 2002 and Pez of the Month Winners for Jan-April of 2003. You can see the new and fully updated rules of the contest here.
Or, to get onto the team (which doesn't really play anything, yet) and score yourself a free Jersey like this, here's what you gotta do. Anyone who can pull these off will recieve unfettered acces to all the relevant server/administrator/hostng/password type areas they might need.
1) I need my positioning fixed for these damn buttons, and any other Mac related viewing problems sorted out. First person to do it gets on the team.
2) I want a comment system for this design. I have tried to half ass one myself several times, all miserable failures. Build me one that uses the pop up windows, and make it look as cool as possible. First person to do it gets on the team.
3) Build and teach me to use a photo gallery type viewing section so I can post my photos within the parameters of the current design and not have to build those lame ass pages like the one I got. First person to do it gets on the team.
4) Submit a redesign for this site. I'll let you use my webspace if need be, give you complete access to my hosting stuff, all that good crap. It can be Blogger or MoveableType (which I would prefer and am really anxious to use). I want to keep the logo design (the cloudwrangler chopped off font and probably the three cloud square design) in some form, but feel free to play with the colors, whatever you want. Go nuts. Anyone who submits a design, whether it gets used or not, gets on the team.
So I guess this is now officially the Third Cloudwrangler Contest, The Cloudwrangler Redesign Contest. As anyone who particiapted int he first two contests (The Pez Contest and The Chinese Swimmer Haiku Contest) knows, you really can win here at Cloudwrangler.
Easy, right?
Ok, first, I put up a section with photos from the Chicago trip. This is a really poor way to build a site for pics, I know, and it probably looks awful to all you Mac users, but I DON'T KNOW SQUAT ABOUT DESIGN! In case you didn't already know that. This site has never been about design, but about content. That it falls short in that area as well, I take full responsibility for. That the rest of it stinks is, well, Kevin's fault. Not really.
So, here is a thought. Kevin built this page for me and has an idea for a redesign that we have been talking about for, oh, I don't know, about a year. Anyone who knows Newsums knows that they are slow, not mentally of course, but in most other ways. They take forever to get anything done. This is not a character flaw on their part, just a genetic predisposition, and you learn to love it about them. My favorite Newsum is, in fact, the slowest.
Anyway, back to my thought. (Thank God I only have a few, anyone who knows Jefes knows that they love the sound of their own voice and like to tell long rambling stories that wander all over the place before getting to the point. Thankfully they are usually really good stories.) Alison is working on yet another redsign, all of 'em great, and Karen just had her site redesigned by someone else, the lovely and talented Leia.
I can't decide if I want my site fixed, expanded, or redesigned fully. So here's the deal.
Recently, I started the Official Cloudwrangler Softball and Cricket Team. (See, I told you my stories wandered all over the place) Attention all current Team members, both of you, we are now also a Cricket team, better learn to play cricket. It involves wearing white and drinking tea. Anyway, so far there are only three members of the team, myself, Billy, and Jess. They earned their way onto the team as Grand Champions of the Pez Contest for 2002 and Pez of the Month Winners for Jan-April of 2003. You can see the new and fully updated rules of the contest here.
Or, to get onto the team (which doesn't really play anything, yet) and score yourself a free Jersey like this, here's what you gotta do. Anyone who can pull these off will recieve unfettered acces to all the relevant server/administrator/hostng/password type areas they might need.
1) I need my positioning fixed for these damn buttons, and any other Mac related viewing problems sorted out. First person to do it gets on the team.
2) I want a comment system for this design. I have tried to half ass one myself several times, all miserable failures. Build me one that uses the pop up windows, and make it look as cool as possible. First person to do it gets on the team.
3) Build and teach me to use a photo gallery type viewing section so I can post my photos within the parameters of the current design and not have to build those lame ass pages like the one I got. First person to do it gets on the team.
4) Submit a redesign for this site. I'll let you use my webspace if need be, give you complete access to my hosting stuff, all that good crap. It can be Blogger or MoveableType (which I would prefer and am really anxious to use). I want to keep the logo design (the cloudwrangler chopped off font and probably the three cloud square design) in some form, but feel free to play with the colors, whatever you want. Go nuts. Anyone who submits a design, whether it gets used or not, gets on the team.
So I guess this is now officially the Third Cloudwrangler Contest, The Cloudwrangler Redesign Contest. As anyone who particiapted int he first two contests (The Pez Contest and The Chinese Swimmer Haiku Contest) knows, you really can win here at Cloudwrangler.
Easy, right?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)