My girlfriend did a post a while back like this. I asked to be interviewed. Here goes my interview, not that you care.

The rules:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five Questions!

1)    What one quote/lyric/etc do you live your life by? Why?
I don’t think it’s good policy to live one’s life by a single quote or lyric or saying. I have some favorite quotes and lyrics. There are many that I think influence me, but none that I look to when I need to make a decision. I like to think that I don’t live my life by anyone else’s words. I live it by mine. I’m intelligent and insightful enough to go through my days looking no further than my own mind for words.

2)    What is your earliest memory?
I remember my parents’ first house. I remember sitting in the living room on that ugly couch. I was 3 years old. I remember that same year my little sister was born. I remember my parents telling me that I was going to get a sister. I asked very seriously “Do we have to keep her in the house?”

3)    What would someone be surprised to learn about you?
I am deathly afraid of bees. I’m not really allergic to them in any kind of life threatening way. I’m just scared to death of them. I will run away from some bees. Other bugs and crawly things don’t bother me. Heights? No problem. I very much like the dark. I never cared much about what was under my bed or in the basement. Bees just scare the shit out of me.

4)    If you had to pick one meal to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?
This is a difficult question. I don’t really really like any certain food. I don’t even eat a certain thing on even a weekly basis. I’ve never been able to truthfully answer the favorite food question. I would think if i was going to eat one meal to eat forever, it better fuckin’ taste good. Maybe like pizza, or cheeseburgers, or cheeseburger pizza. It would also have to have the necessary vitamins and minerals and such to actually keep me alive for a while. So pizza, cheeseburger, and cheeseburger pizza are out. I would have to say that even if what choose tastes great, I’d still get sick of it eventually. So I would want to be fed intravenously. You can’t get sick of that taste. There is no taste, as your mouth is uninvolved. It may sound kinda shitty. But think about eating one thing every day forever. I bet after like a month you’d be begging for a food tube to be jammed into your arm instead of yet another pizza.

5)    Would you ever do anything just to get on tv?
Negative. TV pisses me off. It would be cool to be on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. My job isn’t dirty though, so that probably won’t happen. I HATE reality TV. It would be neat to be on one of those shows where they take a bunch of people and make them all live in a house together. I’d be normal for a few weeks to gain their trust and make sure the viewers would notice if I disappeared suddenly. Then I’d get piss drunk, naked, start peeing on stuff and set the couch on fire. Just go nuts. It’d be neat to see how they worked me out of the story, or if they’d just let it roll, and let me fuck with a group of people to the point where they all move out.

Today was the worst day. Ever. First of all it’s monday. Fuck monday. Second of all it snowed like hell last night and this morning. The roads were so bad this morning. Some assholes caused some traffic on the highway. I was driving 35mph at least 100 feet behind the asshole in front of me. His brake lights come on. I hit my brakes too. Right as I hit the black ice. I flew off the road before my ABS even had time to think about pulsing. I spent my morning sitting in the center of the highway on the grass, stuck in a ditch, waiting for a tow truck to yank me out.

I finally get to work at 11 and there’s A MILLION things to do. Everything needs done right now, and I don’t  have time to do my own damn job let alone everyone else’s. It’s not my fault I’m the only competent motherfucker in the damn department.

While I’m at work I found out about my raise for the year. I get a 4.75% raise over last year’s salary. My salary goes from $58,000 to $60,700ish. Inflation in 2008 was 3.8%. Because of this, I get like a $500 raise. Woohoo 500 bux. I can buy myself…nothing. I’m thinking that the amount of time I spend at work may be reduced this year. I don’t get paid overtime anyway. Bastards.

I wait all day patiently to hear from the girlfriend, who’s in Europe. She finally gets some time online and I end up being in a meeting and she get’s off before I re-appear.

I finally get to leave work, drive straight to the gas station. Buy some relief-from-a-bad-day tools, and go home. I’ll leave you with an example of how to deal with your bad day. In summation, FUCK MONDAY!

How do you deal with your problems?

How do you deal with your problems?

I’m an asshole. It’s been a while since I’ve written here. I know I said that I would be better, but I’ve been a busy man. I have excuses. I’m sure my 5-15 readers/day aren’t really all that interested in my excuses, but I’m going to write them anyway.

The Valentines Day trip to DC that the girlfriend has posted about here was a great time. I think she did a good job explaining what went on. A little outside her scope would be the “space-y museum” we went to on Sunday. The Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly is a more accurate description. I’ve never been there, but have always wanted to go. They have a space shuttle and an SR-71 Blackbird. They also have the Enola Gay. The space shuttle was friggin’ huge.  I had no idea they were that damn big. Very cool to stand next to it. The SR-71 is also a neat plane. I stood there and fired off facts and info at the girlfriend while we were looking at it. She was uninterested. Not that I can blame her, though. Planes that fly 2200mph+ just aren’t her thing. Standing next to the Enola Gay was accompanied by a weird feeling. Being about 5 feet from something that killed around 140,000 people in once day makes my brain, not to mention my soul, hurt a little. My feelings on nuclear warfare can be left for another day, though. All in all, it was a FANTASTIC weekend. Good times.

I’ve been super crazy stupid busy at work lately too. This sucks to an extent, but at least I have a job. The job market right now is not so hot for manufacturing engineers. I’m planning a post on industrial safety at some point coming up here. This may sound like it will be boring and useless. I promise, you’ll be suprised…in a good way.

I know these are bad excuses. I don’t care. I’m busy and lazy and tired and my brain hurts, damnit. I will make it better by coming up with a new feature. Here goes “Headlines”. I’m going to list some news headlines that may or may not be real. You get to guess which are which. I’ll post answers at some point in the near future. Hooray for fun times.

1. California Aquarium Blames Flooding On Curious Octupus
2. Parliament of Clowns Laughs Off Financial Crisis
3. Hubble Kaleidoscope Finds Evidence of Space Looking All Crazy
4. The Obama Team’s Drink of Choice Coke, Not Pepsi
5. Virginia Beach Resident Intends To Marry Coolest Girl On Earth
6. Violence Between Repo Men, Car Owners On The Rise
7. No Sex Please, We’re German
8. Police In Bathurst, NSW, Australia Assaulted With Sex Toy
9. Woman With World’s Longest Fingernails Loses Them In Car Crash
10. Study: Alligators Dangerous No Matter How Drunk You Are

They could all be fake. They could all be factual. No cheating and looking up answers either, damnit. You must sit in suspense until I divulge the truth. I make the rules here. I’ll try to be fast with it. I haven’t got much else to do. The girlfriend is on her way to Europe for a school trip over spring break. I’m stuck here in the stupid dirty south. So goes life.

Had another one of those funny revelations today with my roomate. We were sitting around watching TV and we started talking about the ridiculous commercials currently on the radio for Monster Jam. The commercials haven’t changed much since I was little. It’s always this coming weekend at the (insert local arena name). You always have to look forward to the “CAR CRUNCHIN’ MEGASAURUS!”. You usually have an opening act to be excited about such as “QUAD WARS!”, or some guy named bob that does wheelies on a dirtbike for half an hour before the monster trucks. Here’s the kicker: “KIDS SEATS ARE STILL JUST 5 BUCKS!!!!”. I’m talking still…after all these years. They’re still just fuckin’ 5 bucks. Inflation, the economy, gas prices. Folks, Monster Jam is effected by none of these things. I can’t even get a god damn Big Mac meal for 5 bucks. Half the bars down here are more than 5 bucks for a decent beer. Thank the maker that I can still take my offspring to see Gravedigger, Maximum Destruction, and 10,000 rednecks trying to yell over the sound of enormous trucks with loud exhaust pipes driving around in-doors for still…just 5 bucks.

I’m an engineer. My girlfriend is not. One day last week whilst I was at work the girlfriend was talking to me on the Gchat. I told her a bit of what I was doing. She replied with how she interpreted it. My coworkers were asking me if I was ok because I was laughing so hard. Here’s some of the things we talked about:

me: you could do my job instead
i need to redesign the JF-3-DB standard single taper locator
Girlfriend: all i hear when I read that is is “I need to redesign the jello jiggler single scotch tape dispenser”
me: dude if we sold those….we’d make millions

I laughed so hard, that I just started talking about random shit I was working on.

me: i wonder what else you can hilarify from my daily job
i just ordered some morse taper extra length drill bits
also some C5 Capto 5-series insert cutting units
Girlfriend: mmmm morsels
like chocolate chips
me: haha
they are for use in making a mark 3 loflo centrifugal pump
Girlfriend: like a mach 3 men’s razor?
with a circular breast pump?

At this point I almost choked on my coffee.

me: that big machine i bought that i’m working with alot..
it’s a yamazaki mazak e800 v5 integrex
it’s a 6 axis mill-turn machine
got a 40 horse turning spindle and a 30 horse milling spindle
added a V axis to it
so it does a shaping function on our serrated flange face
Girlfriend: Kawasaki ninjas cool! Kawasaki ninjas rule!
it uses 6430 millipedes
in a V formation
to serrate your phalanges and your face
it’s a very mean machine

I think at this point, I peed myself a little.

me: what do you think of the coromant capto modular tooling system
i think it rocks
we are also thinking of trying to switch to vargus vardex thread milling products…because they’re indexable
Girlfriend: I enjoy corona’s captain. Mondo’s were a pretty good cooling system when we were 8.
Vargus windex thread windowsilling products are windexable indeed

Never have I thought about what I work on in such funny terms. Also, never have I laughed so hard at work. I feel that I was obligated to share the hilarity with the world. Sucks though, if you’re not an engineer, odds are you won’t have any idea what I’m talking about either. In which case you should make up your own funny substitutions. Bet you won’t beat the girlfriend, though. She’s the bestest.

Steelers won! Then again, if you’re finding this out from me, you should probably just crawl back under whatever rock was covering you. I’m happy they won. Did I really keep track of the season to this point? No. Am I a huge football fan? No. But I do like to watch the games (if they’re Steelers games), and drink beer. So I win. I do, however, miss the steeler games of my youth. Sitting with my family and neighbors watching the game, eating chips. Everyone had a terrible towel. The tv was muted and Myron Cope was on the radio cranked up really loud. Yoi and Double Yoi, he’d say, and everyone was merry. Now I’m in Virginia, surrounded by people who like the Redskins. Suck.

On the brightest side of today, my car is functional again. I didn’t put the interior back together yet, so you can see the road go by through the holes in the floor for the shifter and t-case lever. That’s planned for tomorrow. It’s been like 3 weeks without a car. It’ll be nice to be off 2 wheels in the damn cold. I think I froze my testicles one morning driving to work. Hopefully I’m not sterile. The transmission is completely rebuilt and the car’s got a new clutch and clutch cable. All of this was accomplished for about $300, and I know it’s done right. Any shop would’ve charged a grand easy for this work, and who knows if they’d do it correctly? When i bought this car, I took it to the dealership to get the valve lash adjusted. They fucked it up. I don’t trust people who work in the service industry. I’d rather do things myself.  Besides, as a college educated engineer, I think I’m much more qualified to rebuild a transmission than some asshole at a service station who probably dropped out of highschool. I have some pictures that I’ll probably put up here at some point. I’m too lazy to do it now. I’ve also been to0 lazy to post pictures of the wrestling match between the girlfriend and I. It’ll happen eventually. Give it time.

Here’s everything…by the numbers:
300 – dollars spent fixing this
210 – number of miles driven in only 4th gear
36 – number of beers required to complete all this work
35 – number of degrees Fahrenheit in which i worked on the thing outside
21 – number of days without a car
20 – oz in the bottle of coke i had to pour on my pants to put out the fire
6 – number of bearings in my transmission
5 – number of gears in my transmission
4 – the gear I had to drive all the way from DC to Virginia Beach in
3 - Number of cuts on my hands requiring super glue to stop the bleeding
2 – Number of bearings that self destructed, making me have to go through this
1 – Number of times I hit myself in the hand with a hammer and screamed really loud
0 – Times I considered conceding to the “expertise” of an automobile service professional

I’ve never mentioned it, but I’m from Pittsburgh. Today is the superbowl. Pittsburgh is in the superbowl. I’m excited. Every year for the superbowl, I remember the episode of AHH! Real Monsters where they surf the huge wave of sewage that happens when everyone goes to pee at the beginning of halftime. Does this make me weird? I think not.

I’m going to hopefully get my car back to running condition today. Update on the car later. Until then, Enjoy the game. GO PITTSBURGH!

Lastly, watch this commercial for Monster.com. I think it’s hilarious and i’m not sure why. I think it’s the face the conductor makes.

I set my leg on fire today. I was grinding an easy-out trying to get it to fit in the transfer case filler plug for my car. I got the plug out, but i set my pants aflame in the process. I poured coke on them to put them out. Sent a text message to the girlfriend saying “I’m burning, I’m burning, I’m burning, I’m burning for you….literally.” I don’t think she found it funny. Transmission is ready to bolt back up. A bigger update later.

It’s against some sort of rule or law to post the same kinda thing two days in a row….but I had to. One of my roomates posted a personal ad on Craigslist. I think it was a joke, but he could be serious. You can never really be sure with him.

I am pennsyltuckey white trash but im a pretty kick ass dude – 22 (chesapeake)


Reply to: pers-1008546375@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2009-01-26, 2:37PM EST

I think is kind of pathetic that im posting something on here. But maybe call me old fashion id rather just bump into a girl in the store and have that spark. But I suck really bad at pickin chicks up. So heres the down low on me, my names Gus middle initial is A which stands for asshole. I’m from Derry, pa and moved here last June. I absolutely love Pabst blue ribbon, Jim beam and creedance Clearwater revival. (Pretty much all at the same time too). I’m rebuilding a 69-triumph bobber. I went to Penn state for manufacturing. I like to party in my tuxedo t-shirt so of course I like my baby Jesus to party in one to. I do not practice martial arts. But I like dive bar fights. I do have a good job, I do have a good car (dub diesel), and I do have my own place. HOWEVER I DO NOT want to pay for your shit. So if you think just cuz u got tits and a vertical smile in your pants that you’re gettin a free ride from this guy fuckin guess again. “However when we go out I will pay for you just cuz I am a little bit of a gentleman”. If you have a flat head that’s a plus cuz I like to set my beer down from time to time. I do not like girls with black eyes because they just don’t listen. I have a motocross track in my back yard. I love war movies exceptionally in surround sound all whiskey bent and side ways. I like to dress up from time to time but most of the time I wear cut-off camo shorts and boots. The last time I bought cloths was when wife beaters were 75% off at the dollar store. If your still reading by this point I love red Swedish fish, naked chicks, and Free bird. The smell of diesel fuel makes me horny. I may need a security deposit of a case of beer or whiskey until I get to know you…. so email me or find my on my space or face book…

I write about craigslist pretty often. Shit just cracks me up. The best-of never fails to amuse me. Here’s another wonderful post someone felt the need to grace us with:

I Puked at the MegaChurch


Date: 2007-06-04, 4:12PM MDT

yesterdya I was out for a bike ride and I’m cruising and digging the grass and trees and farms and cows and horses and sayin hi to other people riding bikes and being cool with cars and liking the deep rumble of motorcycles as they blow by me.

I ride into this small town that will remain nameless to protect the small townies. I stop at this place to buy some stuff and they are like BRATS OUT BACK! so I’m like BRATS? And they are like FREE! so I’m out back yacking about the cows and farms with other lycra people stuffing pork meat encased in pork intestine into our holes. With mustard. Score! So I cram one down and think, why not and I crunch another tangy hot juicy pork thing down my hole.

Then, I’m off! Full of pork. Ready for more cows and horse manure smells. I even have me a tail wind as I leave this town and hit these hills. Short hills, that step up steeply. Like steps. One after another. I’m high on free meat so I punch it and get a good groove until about 3/4 of the way up when I feel not-so-good. I slow down and finish the last pitch to the top breathing hard and feeling funky.

I pull off the road into this parking lot which turns out to be the lot for a megachurch. And its sunday and they’ve been harvesting souls and the harvesting is over and the harvested souls are all meandering out to their jesus mobiles.

And I puke two free greasy pork meat brats with mustard onto their lot. Hoark! Plop! Drool runs from my lips to the sun warmed ashpalt as I let go with a dry heave. Damn! I suddenly feel fine after bulimatizing that load of pig chunks.

I look up at the jesus people who are looking at me and I yell, OUT SATAN! OUT!. Then I scoot outta that megachurch lot.

so there.