Orphans, Cornbread Crackers, Odd Jobs, Coffee Pee...And Well, That's About It.

It has recently been brought to my attention that it's been nearly a month since the blog has been updated. My sincerest apologies. This blog tends to slip my mind, or at least lies in the dusty back part of my brain. It's pretty much the orphan child no one wanted. But I will love it again and hopefully nourish it back to health because, let's be honest, the blog has become rather lame.

Well, I realized a few days ago that the human race has officially invented everything. Late one night last week, I went into the cabinet to pick out a flavor of tea to brew. The cabinet is located in the lower part of the island in the kitchen and inside there is a shelf that rolls out (this is where the tea is located, along with the pasta and popcorn). Just below this shelf is where my parents store their chips, crackers and various cooking oils (oh, and some maple syrup). So before I pull out the shelf I noticed a box of crackers labeled, "Cornbread Crackers". Curious, I open the box, take out a cracker, and eat it. As I'm chewing I'm thinking, "Holy crap...they did it. Those madmen finally did it. This little cracker actually tastes like cornbread." I was in shock. Now, I'm not a cornbread fanatic, but to put the authentic taste of cornbread into a thin little cracker is quite the achievement. Humanity, I salute you. As well as Archer Farms. The men and women who make up your business should also do something about cancer. If you can put the sweet, buttery taste of cornbread into crackers, surely you can find a cure to a devastating disease.

Also, I made it back to St. Louis Missouri. Although somewhat disappointed I didn't decide to stay in Idaho Falls just a bit longer, it does feel kind of good to be back home. For one, the weather is above 55 degrees, which is fantastic if you're ready for summer to be here (and I am). I was rather terrified when I came back because when I had left everything was still budding, and then a week later when I returned everything was green and flowering. Made me feel like I was gone a lot longer than I actually was...

Still looking for a job, but I've had opportunities doing odd jobs, such as last week when I helped Kurt Selzle (a realtor from church) clean up a house he is planning to sell. Lots of cleaning grime coated windows. Cleaning dust from the basement. Scrubbing floors on hands and feet. But Kurt was kind enough to pay me $10 an hour. So from 12-10:30pm I worked with him. Earned $105 and since spent some of that money for books on Amazon. Everytime there's a little cash, it goes to books. I have a problem, and I would like to talk about it.

I still drink a lot of coffee. Three cups a day, except today, I had a pot of green tea. Other than that, coffee every day. I don't know how to stop it. I think there was even a day when my pee smelled like coffee. You know you have a problem then, even if it doesn't actually smell like coffee. Either you drink sooo much your pee ACTUALLY smells like coffee, or you've gone completely mad and believe that, yes, even your wee wee smells like coffee. I'd almost prefer the former...

I started to ride my bike a lot more. The weather has been great too. Not too hot to where I can not breathe, and not too cold. And the sun has decided to shine nearly everyday. Thanks sun. I appreciate it.

I should probably carry a notebook around to list ideas so I don't forget them before I get to the blog. That's why you've been reading boring, ridiculous stuff the past ten minutes. I had a lot of great things to talk about. LOTS of great things. Believe me. But I procrastinated, and have since forgotten any and all of what I wanted to say. I apologize. The next blog will be a doozy.

DON'T ABANDON THE BLOG YET!!

New Things. Not So New Things. Heck, Let's Be Honest Here, Nothing's Really Changed.

Just spent roughly three hours looking for jobs in St. Louis filling out applications with tedious questionaires. Somebody should get back to me about SOMETHING...

Also the house phone rang about 7 times today. None of which were jobs which I've applied for the last few days. I let all of them go to the answering machine. These roofers and solicitors need to stop calling. I don't enjoy false hope, which is immediately burned alive (screaming) when they leave a useless (to me) message. Or just hang up once the robotic answering machine voice finishes it's speech.

Ugh.

In other news, I've added a new goal to the already long list of life goals I have for myself: I plan to marry a girl who is not native born to America. Sorry American women. I'm sure there are some nice Italian men out there. But those foreign women are going to have to wait. I've got some stuff to get out of the way (live outside of the country, tame bears, build log cabins, write four famous novels, compose the greatest rock album, start and lead churches...to name a few).

Other than that, nothing has really changed. I still live, breathe. I continue to read. Coffee is still a drug of choice, but I have yet to abandon tea.

Spring is here. That's for sure. I love summer, so seeing that nature is finally getting it together makes me feel not so dreary. Life isn't quite as bleak right now, and maybe there is hope for the future. Sun has been hanging out a lot too. His mother now allows him to stay outside and play after six o' clock. Happy times are ahead.

Also, in two weeks I will be traveling towards the west. My mother and I plan to visit her side of the family for a week at the start of April. I'm in rapture. I need to leave St. Louis, if only for a bit. Plus, I love Idaho. I may even plan to stay there and tell my mom to sell the return ticket. I'll let you know whatever happens. Maybe I'll update while I'm there. The mountains may give me a new breath of creativity.

Sorry if that was boring. Its just been so long since I last wrote on this thing.

Anyway, more to come.

"Are You Not Much More Valuable Than They? Who Of You By Worrying Can Add A Single Hour To His Life?"

"'Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you leave the Home of Students. You shall do that which the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little minds. And if you are not needed by your brother men, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies.'"

"...for a finger of the hand of the oldest rose, pointed to us, and fell down again. This was the only thing which moved, for the lips of the oldest did not move as they said: 'Street Sweeper'" - Both quotes taken from Ayn Rand's Anthem

Sometime ago (I make it sound like 15 years ago. It was actually more like 2 or 3 years ago.) I played out a scenario in my head. This scenario consisted of me walking through a park with a paved path and trees all about. I visioned myself alone, and this park was basically Arnold City Park (If any of you know what that is, it may help to envision the scenario, but I believe only Dave really knows what I'm talking about because him and I spent many hours fighting the dead and rotting trees in that park. Yes, we have big imaginations and a lot of time on our hands. Which is basically the definition, in my finite world, of a child). So, I'm walking for a while, and suddenly a man walks out from the trees. He walks towards me as if he has something to say to me. Something important. Something life changing. I know this, so I wait and allow him, without any sort of fear or apprehension, to approach me. He is in a robe and has long nappy hair with a scraggly beard. Not to be confused with Jesus in any way. I see him as more of a guru, or a boddhisatva. He finally reaches me, puts both hands on my shoulders, looks me dead in the eye and says, "You're supposed to be an accountant". Immediately after saying this, he turns around and starts walking back into the woods, never to be seen again.

This isn't the only way this scenario plays out in my head. Sometimes he tells me more such as, "You're supposed to marry Sarah Tomlin. You meet together in spring. She's wearing a pretty, white dress. She has brown wavy hair. You two date for a year and half, get engaged, marry in the fall, and move to Colorado. You have two kids. You name them Gabrielle and Monica"...and so on.

Yet, of course, a wise man isn't going to approach me and explain my path. This is completely irrational. And somewhat creepy. I don't think I would be very calm if a man of this description, or any description for that matter, came up to me from out of the woods and put his hands on my shoulders. In real life, this guy just might move his hands to my throat and kill me because he's actually escaped from a mental ward, but all that is far beside the point.

The actual point in all of this is that, I know my whole life is an adventure. Whoo hoo. Yip Yip. I play it out, in real time, and see fate and the future unfold. It's supposed to be exciting. But, unfortunately, I have no foresight. I'm a blind man stumbling in a dark antique store. And I'm obliterating all the fine china. And the vintage action figures.

I hate not knowing what I'm doing right now. I don't know how I'm supposed to figure it out. I don't know what is going to make me happy. Instead, I'm running into these crappy jobs, and the job market and society in general and my own stupid idiotic choices that have brought me to this point make me want to pull my hair out. Or shave my head. Wait...I already did that. Apparently madness isn't too far off...

So, I don't really like to be told what to do, but right now, in this very moment, I wouldn't mind an old man pointing a boney, crooked finger at me and saying, "Street Sweeper" or "Hot Dog Vendor" or "Yoga Instructor". Really, just tell me what I'm supposed to be doing. Who am I, what is my purpose if I have one, and just give me, if nothing else, a glimpse of the potential future, an idea of where I'm headed if anywhere.

I promise though, the next post will not pertain to jobs or my quarter life crisis. I'll get something really riveting and relateable.

Until then...

Things I've Learned In Life So Far: Never Apply, Interview, and Accept an Entry Level Sales Job.

It's been over a week since the Living Blog was updated. I apologize for not remaining committed to writing on this. I do have an excuse, and it's, "Things have been kind of crazy the past week."

You can probably gather from the title what we're talking about today, boys and girls. Afterall, that's what titles are for, to give you somewhat of an idea of what this massacre of phonetic symbols is going to communicate.

All right. Where do I begin...

Monday, February 15th, 2010. A normal day if I do say so myself. At first. Two days prior I spent a few hours on my laptop at the Bread Co. on Olive browsing Career Builder. I found a lot of listings for entry level marketing jobs (Entry level sounded good. A guy fresh out of college likes the sound of that, mostly because a fellow like myself has found a lot of jobs asking for 3 or 5+ years field experience, which at this point in my life, I just don't have. There's a lot of jobs I just don't have the qualifications for...except for these entry level jobs which exclaim, "No Experience Necessary!"). Of course, I'm easily enticed. I figure there could be a fair chance of landing one of these jobs. I apply for a couple, find a writing job in Clayton which I also apply for (I never heard from them though. They're legit I'm sure, since they didn't come begging to me for an interview. They probably found a very qualified individual very quickly and went on their merry way). I sit back, take a sip of coffee, and hope for the best.

So we get to Monday. I get two calls from two of the places saying they want to set up interviews the next day. Giddy with excitement, I agree, schedule the interviews, and then run out to get some nice clothes. My father slips a few twenties into my hand, and I rush out to find something nice. I get a nice blue shirt, a nice sports jacket, a couple ties, some nice shoes, and come back home to prepare to tackle the world.

Tuesday comes and goes. I go to both interviews, get an idea of the jobs, asked by both to come back for a second interview (which was pretty much in spending a couple hours in the field, seeing what they do).

So I'm excited, completely unaware of the lies and deciet. I rest easily.

I go to the first job. They are a company in the auto glass repair market. Now, red flag number one: I come in, sit down, wait, and see some of these entry level guys preparing for a road trip to a location in Arkansas. One guy has a couple grocery bags with loaves of bread and snacks. I'm fine with it. We all need some snacks when we go on long drives. We're freaking Americans, we need to eat all the freaking time. So the manager (the man who interviewed me) says, "Well, when I go on trips I usually eat out." Poor kid, brainwashed and pulled into this mess says, "Yeah, I've had a lot of bills this week so I only have eight bucks in my wallet." Are we serious? This is the major bank going on here? This guy works his butt off here, and has barely enough to scrape by?

All right, so I go out with two girls and this guy Tim. Now, here's what they do on a day to day basis: They go to these "events" at car washes and and gas stations. They have permission to be there, but what they do is they try to "fit in" like this is some covert operation and clean customer's windows. As they do, they look for chips and small cracks in the windshield. When they find one, they mention it to the customer, tell them if they have full coverage the service is free, and then fill in the chip/small crack right there on the spot.

As you can imagine, all though it's not completely terrible, it still felt...if I could invent a term..."scammy". I will say the employees were nice about it, and didn't try to press anything onto these people (or at least trick them, or hold them down until they agreed to have their windshield fixed), but I still thought this whole thing was a sham. Sure, there was this faint promise in the future to reach managment level, but the goals were unrealistic. Plus, I didn't want to spend eight hours of my day in the freezing cold. As you can probably already gather, I didn't properly express my passion for the job, so Tim called Nick (the manager. Funny Story actually, the managers of both places I interviewed for are named Nick) at the end of the "second interview" and then gave the phone to me. Talked to Nick, and he told me they would call. Haven't heard back since Wednesday. Thank God.

Trabajo Numero Dos. This job was VERY similar to the other one. Later on Wednesday I met with a guy named Maxwell Harrison to do pretty much what I had done only a few hours before and that was shadow his lousy sales job. I did for a couple hours. It wasn't too bad. At least it was a little better gig than the windshield repair. I was warm and inside and things seemed like they would be okay.

Job description: Basically, this company has people go to Home Depots around the area, walk around with a binder, and sell people free in-home consultations.

"Sell them something free? How does that work Michael? Do tell."

Well, basically I walk up, tell them who I am, ask them how old their home is, and if they had done anything with the kitchen cabinets. If they were new, I would be on my way. If they were old and crappy and they wanted to change the look of them, I would tell them about the resurfacing project and have them sign up to have an appointment. At the appointment, people from Home Depot would come out, talk about ideas with the potential customer, give a quote, and the customer would decide if they want to to do it or not.

Of course, with anything you try to sell, there is a big "No Factor". Now, they told me about "The Law of Averages". Basically, for every no you get, there's bound to be a yes coming. This of course is a lie and a sham.

Anyway, I want to get into more detail about that later. I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, I meet with Maxwell. Walk around with him. Talk with him. I start lying to myself and saying, "I could do this. Maybe this will be okay." The time with Max goes well, he calls Nick, talks to him, then tells me to leave the Home Depot where we're at (On South Lindbergh) and go to where Nick is at, the Home Depot on Manchester. I visit Nick, we talk a little more. He gives me the job, I agree (I shouldn't have) and leave.

Now. Thursday, February 18th, 2010. First day on the job. I get to the "office" (I put it in quotes because, although the top level of this building is an office and thats the HQ for this company, there's multiple companies/businesses that use the office [I believe] and the office for Systematic Services, as far as I could tell, was just Nick's little office way in the back of the catacombs. Oh, and there was a break room, but I'm still pretty sure that was communal). I fill out paper work, listen to a little lesson on the "Five Steps" (What they use to talk to people and pitch their sale) and then we were on our way.

I was assigned to be with Maxwell again to be trained. The office is in Chesterfield and we were told to go back to the South Lindbergh Home Depot (roughly about 35 mins with light traffic). Max doesn't have a car. Great. So I drive both of us. I talk to Max on the way about a number of things. There is mostly business talk, but we also discuss other things. I find out Nick (the manager guy) Joey (an employee) and Max are all living in Nick's aunt's house. Now, they haven't been in town all that long, but long enough they should be able to find a place and...oh, I don't know....pay for it with the "good" money they're making (also, the previous day Maxwell slammed 9-5 jobs because no matter how much work you put in, you only make what's on the paycheck, and then when you retire you don't have money. What he fails to realize is he's not really making money now and that there is SO much work put into this that whatever money you make it will never be worth it [By the way, the job was 6 days a week. And to give you an idea of the hours, I went in at 10:30, went through a normal day, came back to the office, left around 7. Today they wanted me to come in at 9. No way.])

Sorry, tangents.

So we get to Home Depot. Sign in. I watch him, then I start to get my feet wet and try it myself. In the end, I walked around Home Depot 700 times for 6 hours. We took a couple five minute breaks. The first one was mostly so I could practice the pitch with Maxwell. The other one was a legitimate sit down, relax, realize how much this sucks break. No lunch. Just straight sales. They even said before we left that there's an hour for lunch, but they don't take it because that just eats into sale time (haha...lunch...eats in....man, where do I come up with this stuff?).

What kind of hell condones sacrificing an important meal time just to hound more people?

Sorry. Tangent again.

So we do this forever. Max gets 2 leads. I get none. He says that's typical for the first day. And I think I want to pull a gardening hoe down and chop someone up with it to release some tension. Just a little.

Now, he calls this a slow day. The day before when I was with him, he got a lead before I came. With that said, earlier on Thursday when I came in they had a total of 31 leads. So lets do some math here. Without me, there is 5 people. So with 31 leads, that gives each about 6. Of course this is with the assumption that they all make about the same, which there is error in that, but with what I'm showing, there is wiggle room. So, it's Thursday and they've had about 3 days. So if we continue with MY mathmatic reasoning, that makes for 2 leads per day. Now, if you'll recall, for Max at least, 2 leads is a slow day. Bull. It's average, and they're trying to con me into this trap.

At 6 o' clock, with my belly aching for food, we leave the store and go back to the office. I deal with the mess of traffic on 64. I consider smashing the car and killing us both, but I'm not quite over the edge. Actually, once we left Home Depot, I believe I felt better. But I had to spend and eternity in there first. We make it back to the office, they tell me to come in at 9 in the morning and I bid them goodnight.

As you can tell, I called today and quit the job. I have more dignity. I want a salary and benifits. And freaking lunch! Even if I do talk to a bunch of people into this free service, they still have to make the decision to reface the cabinets. That's where I would make money. What little I would make.

It's a sham, a lie, a trick, and I've learned a valuable lesson from all of this: Never apply to entry level sales/marketing jobs, especially when they have multiple postings on Career Builder and have the posting in big, capital letters. They're cheating you out of time and sanity and will only feed you propaganda like, "Law of Averages" and "Postive Attitude" and "Strong Work Ethic".

Thanks guys. But I'll take my 9-5 job any day. You can take this job and...well, you know the rest.

Procrastination Aid

Hey there.

I'm only making a new post because I hate to see the same post up all the time. Even I come here from time to time. And then I see that it's the same post from three days ago. And I get upset and I say, "Hey, why doesn't this Mike guy get his act together and put something new up? He exists solely for my entertainment!"

And then I quiet down and think, "Oh, right."

So here we are. With nothing to say. But, hey! The upside is, this is new. You haven't seen this before. I like to think of this as "Procrastination Aid". Mmm. Delicious.

So what are you procrastinating from right now? I know you are. You're killing what precious time you have as a living, breathing, thinking, functioning human being reading this instead of doing something meaningful. Or getting something done that you're supposed to have done by tomorrow. Or yesterday.

Let's make this interactive. That's what lazy people do, they tell the viewers to send in stuff and put together next weeks episode so the people who are paid to do that don't have to. They get to have the week off.

Yeah. It's a sham. But I'm in kind of shammy mood. So, do tell, what brings you to The Living Blog? What bit of life are you trying to escape from, or at least, postpone?

P Is For Poetry

Okay, so I graduated in English. And I assume you guys want to see the real stuff. The stuff I actually studied. Well, here's a rough, rough draft of some poetry that I just recently wrote. It'll more than likely see a few revisions in the future.

P

I hear it in both
pain and pleasure.
I keep repeating that playful sound
pounding out of my mouth
made by

that bump
that flag on a flag
pole waving
its hands and arms
with that patriotic dance.

That sound, that
push from the lips.
They, the lips, pucker
press together, voiceless
bilabial plosive
nothing but the sound of air
squeezing through squeezing
lips.

Listen to the sound, the pop
like bottle rockets escaping
from Earth's gravitational pull
and they never make it, they
just explode, sparkle, fizzle
against a purple back drop
then fade
into
ash.

That's the sound
the letter makes
when it finally
speaks.

Full Circle: Dreams From My Childhood May Finally Become Reality. If I Don't Become Distracted First...

I think I figured it out. My calling in life. Where I should take my yet to be established writing career. Science Fiction.

Hack writing? No. There's plenty of Sci-fi writers who are respected not only in the science fiction world but also in the writing world in general. Such as:

Robert Heinlein
Philip K. Dick
Orson Scott Card
Ray Bradbury
L. Ron Hubbard
Isaac Asimov

And...for good measure,
Mr. Douglas Adams.

All of these guys have become well know and well respected. Their books turning into halfway decent to detestable film adaptations (Blade Runner: As timeless and great as the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? from which the story was derived. Battlefield Earth on the other hand...stupid. Very stupid.)

I also believe there's a high market for Science Fiction, even if its mediocre. Nearly 33 years since the release of Star Wars: A New Hope and there's at least 200 different books, by different authors, taking place at every time and place that one could even imagine within the Star Wars universe. There's a Star Wars book with zombies called Death Troopers. I mean, I could totally go and write about ridiculous things like that. And then there's books based off Halo and Mass Effect. Video games are becoming common bases for literature. Or at least cheap Sci-Fi.

Plus, I've always wanted to write Sci-Fi. I had a big plan to when I was a kid. It lasted for a few months, but you know how kids are. They change their minds about what they want to be when they grow up all the time. One week they want the be a fire fighter. The next they want to be a Power Ranger. I wanted to write sci-fi novels when I was about 9 years old. It was right after I figured I wasn't force sensitive enough to be a real Jedi. Couldn't even levitate stuff. And the blade to my light saber was made of plastic instead of hot plasma, or whatever that stuff is made of. Its friggin' hot, I know that. So, when I realized this, I knew it was time for a career change. Suddenly, I liked writing. I wanted to be a writer (which the dumb idea would come back to destroy me only a decade later). I made up a super hero named Galactic Man. Had a trilogy going in my head with world domination and evil robots. It was a darn good story. At the time. But I loved Star Wars, so I loved anything science fiction. That was my plan when I hit the age I'm at now. I even had the hope that my critically acclaimed book series would become full length major motion pictures. I had high dreams. Then, in fourth grade, we had to write essays and stuff. A lot. So my writing career quickly deteriorated. I hated writing for class. At that point, I began to search for my next career path.

But now, after wanting to be a cartoonist, entreprenuer, bass player, animator, and famed poet and novelist, I think I'm going back to my first love: Writing sci-fi. I don't think I'm really going to go through with it, but we'll see. I bought Orson Scott Card's claim to fame, Ender's Game, to get myself back in the mood. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll go into screen writing and write something better than that friggin' Avatar. I can write a movie with an underlying focus of all of America's atrocities from the last 200 years too (with the exception of slavery. Apparently they couldn't shoe horn that in. Or it was just much too far).

Anyway, I should start developing my I, Robot, or Stranger In A Strange Land, or Fahrenheit 451. I have a lot of work to do. If nothing else, by next week I'll decide to be a yoga instructor or tattoo artist. We'll see how things pan out.

Thanks for devoting your hard earned time to reading this. Always remember what you could have done instead of reading this. You're now closer to your death bed, and what do you have to show for it?

Tootles!