The Last Post Ever. I'm pretty sure I'm serious this time.

The central theme of this blog has always been my struggle with work.  My struggle with Opposite of Dog.  I would say that struggle reached an apex in the months leading up to August and was finally ended on August 1, 2016.  On that day, I sent out an email that channeled all the energy that had been building up from not only me, but from all my colleagues and coworkers.  It was a sounding board for so many people.

I immediately got back responses saying how amazing it was, how it "redefined epic", how I had the courage to say what so many others were feeling.  Every day since I've sent it out I've gotten random emails, facebook messages, linkedin notes, etc about how fantastic it was.

Fuck it, I've got brain cancer.  To stay alive I have to do all the horrible things most people will never have to, go through radiation, take horrible chemo drugs, deal with thinking horrible thoughts of what to expect and what may come of the rest of my life, however, that ALSO gives me the ability to send an open, honest email out.

I get to point out that the emperors aren't wearing any clothes.

Since odds are the only reason you're here is to see what will surely go down in Opposite of Dog legend and lore... like a bird I unleash it into the internetverse.  (Names removed to protect...certainly not the innocent...)

To whom it may concern:

First the formal part...

This letter is to tender my resignation from Furry Worm Global Mining LLC as of 6:00 AM Monday August 1, 2016.  Before 6:00 AM I did work pertaining to the SixtyFifteenBee for Furry Worm Global Mining LLC.  Based on today's work, I expect my health insurance to continue through the end of August 2016.  See attached PDF's of my email and Q&A from the Opposite of Dog Communicate website (See page 7 regarding health insurance coverage when leaving the company.)

Now for the fun part...

Why did I quit?  What would drive an engineering tech lead for an incredibly successful machine , the SixtyFifteenBee (sold out for the year by the beginning of July!), to quit Furry Worm?  

In a word, Tucson.  

I'll explain this further, but I'll do so in a way that Millennials would understand, since we were told that Millennials will LOVE Tucson.  How does one communicate to Millennials?  Why it's simple, through youtube videos, GIFs, and internet memes.

I mean, how is a person with roots in the Midwest supposed to react to being forced to move to a desert in the Southwest? 

Or, a person can focus their energy and their talent.   They can let their emotions be heard by their leadership team..

As this move progresses, and more people begin to find other opportunities and say goodbye the only way they know how:

(and BTW my middle finger extends especially high to [Jerk Coworker #1], [Jerk Coworker #2], and [Jerk Coworker #3].  You were horrible to work with and relied on the shoulders of engineering in SMKE to do your jobs for you and point out where you were absolutely worthless.)

The group will continue to spiral downhill and lose the people that actually do the work!

Soon, [Engineering Manager], [Product Manager], and [Division VP] this is who you'll be leading...

[Engineering Manager], in the future, it would be best to not cancel your all employee meetings because it's summer, people are on vacation, and you're SO busy moving.  You don't get bumped up two salary grades and get to do things like that... if you continue with a leadership style like that, you may have to take that hope of creating a crown jewel in HMS by taking one of your motivational emails and... well...

And [Product Manager], you're welcome for giving you the SixtyFifteenBee which is saving HMS sales.  Since you are only capable of listening to those that are yelling at you the loudest at any given time, here goes YOU ONLY GOT THAT JOB BECAUSE YOU SPEAK GERMAN.  The reality is you're a horrible product manager.  You decided not to fund the SixtyFifteenBee GP even though customers are buying ME versions and putting on their own longer booms and sticks, or retrofitting FiftyOneTenBee GP parts on the SixtyFifteenBee.  You also decided to send [Jerk Coworker #1] to represent the SixtyFifteenBee at Bauma rather than me to please your BFF [Service Manager].  [Jerk Coworker #1], a guy who didn't know how to look up a drawing until recently, over a tech lead who delivered you a machine on time, on cost, and on quality targets.  

And [Division VP], so, yeah, well, you know, you're a guy from Cali-Iowa, who, you know, yeah, well

Only in a company like Furry Worm could a VP of a group losing millions of dollars a quarter still be allowed to continue on with his idea to move a huge group of employees to Tucson, and only that company would think the plan would work and be successful.  Although I'm sure if you pull the critical OPACC levers and execute on your winning playbook everyone will be non-monetarily compensated for their hard work.

I asked the Tier 1 SixtyFifteenBee that will be built in Batam (Lingo version) what it thought of the Tucson move (I'm like a horse whisperer but for heavy equipment).  

It said to me, "All you have to do is look at my serial number and you'll understand exactly what that idea is."

(Haters gonna be screaming that picture is of a machine in Tucson... I know, that's why I did it!  That machine understands how bad it is there!)

Finally to my colleagues (those of you below a salary grade 25), you can find a job that pays you as much as Furry Worm, who's benefits are just as good, and who's business cycle won't be like riding a roller-coaster.  I would gladly review anyone's resume and give you numerous websites for job hunting.  I can be reached at the email listed in the CC of this email.  I hope this email will give you something to laugh about and motivate you to look for other opportunities on an otherwise dismal day at the shovel factory.

For those frothing at the mouth and grinding your teeth, remember, I have brain cancer, and I'll probably be dead way before you.  (I thank whatever gods may be that I'll die in Wisconsin and not Arizona.)  Unfortunately, you'll always have the memory of me in the Tier 4 SixtyFifteenBee's  Serial numbers LWN for those built in Dortmund and LWS01 for those built in Batam.  

I'll think back at my time at Opposite of Dog Global Mining as I play hockey with my kids on my backyard rink during the winter, sit on the beaches of Lake Michigan on a reasonably hot summer day, enjoy the great bands at Summerfest, and visit with my family (several times a year) that are only a car ride away.  I'll struggle through not being able to ride a trolley year round, but they make Photo Shop, so I think I'll be okay.

(A parody of a parody!!!)​

I haven't felt this good since the first time I quite Furry Worm and was able to get out of Peoria and back to Wisconsin.  (On a side note, the reason I'm giving such short notice is that the last time I quit, I was walked out and not paid for that time.  For those that find something in the future, keep this in mind.  You are nothing to Furry Worm, just a number.  They won't extend any courtesies to you.  They can fire you at any moment, so you have the right to walk out at any moment.)

"There is no point in looking back. Fuck no, not today, thank you kindly. My heart is filled with joy.  I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger:  A man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident." -Hunter S. Thompson

Pure Gonzo Engineering

And for those worried about that bridge behind me... well, there's an internet meme for that too...

(In this day and age, I conclude this email with the disclaimer that there is NO intention to communicate violence or destruction of property.  This is true for any statements, videos, meme, or gifs in this email.  The intent is to speak in metaphors for the sake of humor.  No actual violence or destruction of property is implied or intended.)

So there it was, and is, and ever shall be until the internet dies.  

Pure Fucking Gonzo Engineering!

At the End of the Day Goddamnit I’m Killin’ this Shit

When Christmas break rolls around I’ll have seven months in at Crawford County, OH. I’m looking forward to having a week and a half off. It’s been a furious string of designing for the last 7 months. The way we are designing this machine is A-typical, really Pure Gonzo Engineering. What we did at Opposite of Dog was structured and regimented compared to this. This is fun, and raw, and hectic. It’s all being done in parallel to get it done faster, which means more changes, and more mistakes that need to be fixed.

The scope and scale of this is just mind blowing. I saw the frame of my piece being built in Manitowoc last Wednesday. It’s about 30ft wide, 7ft deep, and 13ft tall and weighs around 30,000 pounds, just the frame of just my piece, three male African elephants. I’m in charge of a piece that is as heavy and as complex as an entire Opposite of Dog machine. Me and four other guys are bringing it to fruition.

It is a God damn Greek tragedy that Opposite of Dog is going to buy this company. It celebrated 130 years in December. It won’t see 131. I plan on wearing all black the day the sale is final. The death of a legend.

Sure Opposite of Dog will retain the name on some product, but far enough down the line all the horrible things Opposite of Dog is about will slowly leach into this company. The useless managers will come with their useless processes.

What a fucking shame. I really like it here. I like how things are done. I like how my boss actually knows something. I like my coworkers. I like this town.

Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart.

Operation Impending Doom 2

I've always fancied myself a pretty good engineer.

Not necessarily the kind that will ever be recognized in any way for greatness, but one that is creative. I think I have the ability to come up with elegant creative ways to address a problem. Something you can't necessarily teach or become good at through study or even training.

I see the forest for the trees. I'm a system designer with the big picture in mind, other people can worry about the details.

Last week I got the warm fuzzy feeling that my boss also thinks I'm a pretty good engineer.

He came up to me and asked to talk privately with him. I initially got struck by that cold bucket of water of fear. Had I been on the internet too much? Did I do something wrong?

We sat down as I started to sweat a little.

"First," He said, "I want to ask you to sit in on interviewing candidates for a senior test engineering position."

Ahhh, fear washes away.

"I think you can ask some intelligent questions to any candidates that come in."

A little ego stroke once in a while feels good. His second agenda item in our little talk took me a bit more by surprise.

"What interest do you have in being a test engineer on this machine?"

I wasn't really ready for that. I kind of just started talking out load to him about how number one I don't want to travel all over the world for months on end to test this behemoth. (South Milwaukee doesn't really have any open pit mines in it.)

I kept blabbering a bit and finally made my way to the real reason I didn't want to test this machine. I'd be set up to fail. I know the time lines they are looking at, and I know what it takes to test a machine that isn't much bigger than a Ford F250, so this thing would be a monster task. This companies upper management does not understand that right now.

Plus, with opposite of dog taking over in 6 months who knows if that sort of position would be relevant in 6 months.

My boss seemed to respect what I said. Overall I think I turned down the proposition pretty gracefully.

I sat in on the interviews on two clowns they wanted to run test. Neither really impressed me. We are kind of looking for a Unicorn of an engineer though. Too much experience and breadth of knowledge required (I don't have enough on paper.)

I had never been on the other side of an interview table before. It was kind of surreal, especially asking the guy who was like 50 years old some tough questions and watching him dodge them.

I feel pretty good about what people think of me after 6 months of working here. It's just a shame this shadow of corporate evil is looming in the future. My only purpose at work now is to get this machine designed and built and working before our new corporate overlords take over.

Was I Asleep? Had I Slept? Is Opposite of Dog my bad dream, or I am Opposite of Dog’s?

I began the day like I had most work days since I moved to Milwaukee. I got up, took the dog out, showered, shaved, put on my shirt and tie and went to work.

I got in before my boss, sat down and looked at a few erroneous emails I had gotten late Friday.

At about 6:40 am Central Standard Time, I got an email in my inbox from Opposite of Dog’s press release department.

I blinked hard. This was a joke, a clever email sent by an old coworker. It had to be. I clicked on the link. Opposite of Dog’s website came up, the highway yellow staring me in the face. Sure as shit, they bought us. By this time my boss had showed up. I went over to him and relayed the shocking news. He didn’t believe me either.

The rest of the morning was kind of a shell-shocked blur. This bizarre string of events had my mind swimming.

There was fear, relief, wonder, loathing. I left this place, and now they bought the company I went to.

This could be a good thing. They are keeping global mining in South Milwaukee. If they keep me, I get my seniority back, and my week vacation. By leaving I just piggybacked up to a 24 salary grade, 6% 401K match, 18% bonus, cheaper health care, all the shit they dangle in front of people to keep them in Central Illinois Hell I would get to have in wondrous Wisconsin.

There is the danger of being considered a “redundancy”. I think I left on good terms. No lawsuit to get that weeks pay they boned me out of, some strong words to an HR guy that he should have let me know I wouldn’t be getting paid, but I gave up on it. I know their system, I know this system, I should be valuable enough to keep.

I can only speculate on what the next year will hold.

Just like doctor Frankenstein. I officially bring this blog back to life because there are going to be some kick ass stories to tell as this shit goes down, and that’s the only reason anyone does anything any way, to have a good story to tell.

Pure Fucking Gonzo Engineering.

Since I am the main character in the story of lawryde. I can only assume this is how the conversation went in Opposite of Dog's board room.

“How much to get lawryde back…

8.6 billion…

Do it.”

Un-Fucking Believable

Pure Gonzo Engineering

I've been silent for the last month because I've been running the biggest deception of my life.

Tomorrow I'm going to resign from Opposite of Dog I'll give them my two weeks notice, and they'll probably walk me out because I work on machines that are critical to their new EPA emissions product launch. I'm on the front lines and I'm going to work for "competition"

I'll call them Crawford County Ohio, even though they are in South Eastern Wisconsin.

That's right, I'm moving back to the state I love, the resolution of the subtitle to this blog.

I'm getting a 9% raise over the 5% I just got from Opposite of Dog. Crawford County Ohio is paying me a grossed up $7500 to cover incidental moving expenses, paying the closing costs on my house in Bay View, paying in full a moving company to move me out of this cornfield hell, fully packing, moving, and storing my stuff for up to 60 days. Pretty nice deal.

This has been in the works for a while now. Seems like forever. It's the perfect job for me. Same line of work, same type of machinery, hydraulics, and I get to wear a tie to work. The Sand Box and the dirt was fun, but it couldn't last forever. Opposite of Dog's philosophy of management is horrible so if I stayed I'd end up being a jackass who makes powerpoints and attends meetings all day. Crawford County Ohio keeps its managers involved in the technical aspect. I like that.

We sold our house in 24 hours. It's pretty great, and I'm sad to leave it. We've made it our own. It has our blood and sweat in it. It's were Oz was born. We bought a new house in less than 5 days, just in time to take advantage of the $6500 repeat home buyer tax credit. Things that fall into place like this did were always meant to be. (You're always reading this blog post.)

So that's it. I start May 24. We close on the Peoria house on May 28, the Bay View house on June 2.

This is also the official end of this blog.

It was created to deal with Peoria and Opposite of Dog. That is done now. It would be disingenuous to continue posting under its title. Maybe I'll start something new and let people who I know would be interested about it, but this blog is done.

In the words (more or less) of Hunter S. Thompson

There is no point in looking back. Fuck no, not today, thank you kindly. My heart is filled with joy.

I'm Perfect on Paper

Still alive. Just Busy.

Working on wrapping up this wretched assignment.

The American Dream in action, Pure Gonzo Engineering.

A Moose and a Beaver

That was a nice little blog break this weekend. My birthday was pretty good. I got some books, and some money, and some boxers. Then I put my self into an all you can eat sushi and Chinese buffet coma. Luckily I came out of it in time for some vigorous sex.

What a great weekend for hockey. Too bad the USA couldn’t pull it off, but a great game. It sucked Crosby got the game winner too. I would have rather seen anyone else on team Canada get it. Anyone, a moose, a beaver, anyone.

That game had some of the highest ratings of any sporting event in recent history. The NHL and Gary “I want to go on several dates with Sidney Crosby then make sweet, sweet love to him and have his baby” Bettman shouldn’t be too excited though. Olympic hockey is something special. I like watching NHL hockey, but those two USA-Canada games were the best hockey games I’ve ever watched. It cracked me up they were trying to somehow explain fore checking to NBC viewers by relating it to the blitz in football. Guess what? Hockey will never be anywhere near as popular as football, basketball, or baseball in the United States. Why? You can’t just go out and play it in 90% of the United States 95% of the year. (They say 60% of the time it works every time) It takes special equipment and a special surface. Those other sports require a ball and a surface you can find almost anywhere or make up on your own easily. Hockey will always be a niche sport, but that’s part of its charm. I don’t want every asshole to like hockey.

My team of misfits almost beat the second best team in our league. We were winning most of the game an only ended up loosing 4-3, this after loosing to them like 8-1 or something like that last time. I can not score though for whatever reason. I had a chance all alone in front of the net about 10 feet out, and I buried it right in the guy’s chest. I need to work on elevating the puck.

Now that I’m a Senior Engineer at work I feel as though I need to contribute in a more meaningful way. I rocked it out pretty well this morning, but when I rock it out I’m too good and then have nothing to do in the afternoon. I need to pace the brilliance out.

When my promo announcement comes out I have a feeling there is going to be some unhappy people. My nonbeliever status in regards to overtime doesn’t go over well with the dudes putting in 50-60 hours a week. That’s not really my fault though. Fuck taking a pay cut. Find a metric a manager cares about and hang your hat on it. The rest will follow.

I’m attempting to cut my soda intake. I’m backing it off slow, like a junky trying to get clean. I’m limiting myself to 2 cans at work and one at home per day. In a week I’ll cut it to one at work and one at home. Then hopefully one in the morning and that’s it. My 29 year old body can’t handle all the high fructose corn syrup and mercury and aluminum.

You Electrify My Life.

30 or so minutes into my birthday it was already a good day. I haven't felt that good since Archie Gimmel scored against Holland in 1978! I’ll have to remember to thank my friend? Will when I see him again for his butterfly flapping its wings creating a hurricane.

I was able to post every day for a month straight. I’m pretty proud of myself. I’m coming up of the 5 year anniversary of this blog. My wife says the tone and content of my posts has changed dramatically over the five years. I’ll have to start reading the archives and see. I imagine it has, when you know no one is listening you yell a lot louder. Now I can’t be fully sure who all reads this. I have a vague idea based on the IP traffic I can see. If you read this post, leave a comment. Anything. Just say hello if you don’t know what to say, or wish me a Happy Birthday, or I’ll block you IP address. I can do that. I’ve blocked several Opposite of Dog IP addresses so no one from work can actually look at this at work, can’t be too careful in that respect.

So yeah, there it is. I’m 29. It’s my last year of not being old. Yes, I’ve already got a careerish type job and a family and a mortgage, but if you’re still in your 20’s you can at least still say you’re in your twenties, grasping at those wonderfully free and burden free early twenties. Hopefully it will be decent, 28 wasn’t particularly great.

Mmmm, That Feels Good

I am pleased to announce the promotion of Lawryde to Senior Engineer effective March 1, 2010. For the last 3 1/2 years, Lawryde has been in the in Hydraulics System Development team at Opposite of Dog. He has been instrumental in the development and validation of Track-Type Tractor and Pipelayer Tier3 and Tier4 new product introduction programs. He has exhibited leadership and initiative with responsibilities for the D6T Tier 4i machine level hydraulic validation. This significant Tier4 machine has been aggressive and demanding. He has identified multiple issues and drove resolution through his strong working relationships within the product groups and Hydraulic Systems Group.

Please join me in congratulating Lawryde on a well-deserved promotion, and wishing him well as he continues to provide highly valued work to the enterprise.

**** *******
Opposite of Dog
Hydraulic Development & Validation
Opposite of Dog Proving Grounds
Phone: ***-***-****


Once again: They bought it.

Gingervitis

Just watched Shaun White win gold in the half pipe. He is just so much better than everyone else. Too bad he's an ugly ginger kid. I do dig the American flag bandanna over the face too.

Kind of reminds me of the Flobots. Did he steal it from them, or them from him? Hmmmm.

I'm taking a half day tomorrow. My parents are here, and I also want to play hockey later tomorrow night.

It's a shame too because I kind of felt good again about work today. Earned my raise as it were. Came up with a creative solution to a potentially expensive problem. It was just hanging their in the meeting we were having, and no one else could grab it. I was reluctant to because it potentially meant more work for me, but I had to let it fly. I got some "Oh, sweet idea, why didn't we all think of that" looks and comments. It felt good.

Google Loves Me (Gonzo Engineering)

Although I somehow need to get above that dude who has the gonzo engineering website.




On a side note about engineering, everyone is shocked or surprised that Toyota is having these quality problems. I’m not.

Here’s how it works, you build a name for yourself by having stellar quality when you have low market share. People flock to your product because of it’s high quality and you drastically increase your market share.

You no longer can really gain much more market share, or increase your price so the only way to increase your profit (which is all anyone at the top cares about) is by cutting your product cost.

THERE IS NO WAY TO MAINTAIN QUALITY WHEN YOU CUT PRODUCT COST. Period

Things cost more for a reason. Someone spends time and care making them and/or they are made out of higher quality materials. This is true for a purely manufactured good. Once you’ve made it to the product level this may not be true because then you may be paying for a name or marketing.

So Toyota, you got greedy. You get to sleep in the bed you made, which is speeding away uncontrollably fast.

X was Larger than the Cost of Recall

I’ll admit, I’m not a strong proponent of American cars, but I also don’t have a huge boner for the Japanese philosophy of design and engineering. Much like many of the people in the company I work for do, and they had a hard time hiding it until now.

Nothing softens you up like a family of four uncontrollably accelerating into a 25 mph curve on a country road.

This whole thing proves that Toyota’s methodology, and the Toyota Production System are nothing special. They just got lucky for longer than their American counterparts. Eventually you’re going to design something that kills someone.

Maybe all the American design and manufacturing firms should stop trying to be like the Japanese and get back to what made us great, innovation and Gonzo Engineering. Take your philosophies and methodologies and go sell them to someone with too much money. Let’s just design some cool shit.

The Devil Went Down to Peoria

How much is my Mechanical Engineering soul worth? $5000, $10,000 or maybe $15,000? How about $20,000?

If selling my soul gets me back to Wisconsin would that make it OK?

I don’t know. I’m not a Pure Mechanical Engineer so maybe it really doesn’t matter.

It just really sucks that I’m doing this job right here, right now. I’ve peaked at 28. It will only be downhill from here no matter what. It’s just a matter of timing though, even if I stayed here I’d be forced into something worse, and it would be worse than anywhere else because it’s Peoria.

Would leading people who are designing something cool (in their opinion not necessarily mine) give me the same sense of worth as working on a complex machine?

If nothing else it could be a Purgatory I could cut my teeth in to move somewhere else that actually does make cool things. Lead people that actually make something I could get an engineering boner about. (ha ha get it, just like a culinary boner, but with engineering, and far less exciting than the real thing.)

Purpose

deleated due to too many companies I listed checking out this post.

Really... you pay someone to check out everything people are writing about you?

4 is more than I thought would have. Creapin' on my blog.

Tempt not a Desperate Man

The end of the work year. What a shit year. No raise, no bonus (be happy you’re still employed Lawryde.) Suck it, I’m a skilled professional, not some unskilled jack off. I did more work this year than I ever have.

We also learned no raises and most likely no bonus next year. That was a mistake on their part. Sure they get to maintain dividends and all the rich just keep on getting richer. Our CEO gets a check for over $70,000 the first of the year.

I am Jack’s total lack of motivation to do anything more for this company.

I’m owed 5% for the promotion they keep dangling in front of my face and won’t give me, 8% for my merit raise this year, and 8% for my merit raise next year I won’t be getting, or roughly $13,500.

I will be searching for a new job in Wisconsin with renewed vigor and intent in January. This economy is turning, and companies are hiring.

I will find a new job and be done here.

I’ve been fantasizing about the few weeks I’d have after I got a new job and was still working this one. (We used to read pornography…) Telling everyone what I really thought.

No turning back, once I was in Wisconsin I’d never be coming back to central Illinois.

Being able to operate machines every so often does not make up for everything else that’s wrong.

I’d be happier closer to family, where it stays cold in the winter, and cultural things exist and are generally free or cheaper than here.

I’d miss my hockey bro’s, my team I created, my work cohorts, my wife’s support system, but I’m over the rest.

Take your Team Opposite of Dog, you can have it. Soak these local douche bag engineers who don’t know any better and dream of nothing more than going to Bradley, getting a job at Opposite of Dog, farming in their spare time, and dying and being laid to rest next to a corn field.

I need something different.

The Long Hiatus

I haven’t written anything for a long time. Don’t really know why. I guess it speaks to twitter and facebook’s popularity. I’d rather just condense my thoughts into one sentence rather than a long drawn out story. Maybe this is the death of Pure Gonzo Engineering. More people look at my facebook status than this blog. Maybe I’ll try and be more in depth with my facebook status updates rather than: Lawryde is eatin’ lunch or Lawryde is sleepy or the other bullshit that I and other people ramble on about.

I have been working harder than I normally do. Not for anything more like I should be getting, but because we are understaffed. OMG, we got rid of all kinds of people and have a shit ton of work. This would be like if I crashed a dozer into the side of a building. Manager’s are allowed metaphoric crashes all the time with no repercussion. I’d be fired. I reported like 20 hours of overtime last month which is unheard of for me. I’m an 8 and out the gate type of guy. If I worked 20 hours of OT then my young single coworker worker like 100 hours of OT last month. Dude is here till like 7 or 10 at night all the time. I told him he needs to stop that shit. People will just start to expect it, and you won’t get anything in return.

I’ve begun to search for Gonzo Engineering work in Wisconsin, had a phone interview this Tuesday. I felt like a fucking idiot. When I was interviewing in college, when I got like 6 offers, I was a fucking professional interviewer. I knew what I was going to be asked, and I had stories for each of those questions. It was a think of beauty. Interviewers loved me. Last name Ever, first name Greatest. Now I’m all out of practice and my stories aren’t current. I stumble and repeat myself and have a hard time getting to the point, trailing of in incomplete sentences. Hopefully this one will be good practice for any future. Get me back in the game. I guess I’ll know if I was any good or not at this one depending on if I get an on site interview or not.

I’ve got this elitist hockey team I put together of(almost) all Opposite of Dog employees. We’re going to be the yellow team. (Ha ha ha get it, yellow… Opposite of Dog.) Can’t be really affiliated with the company in any way, wouldn’t want to sully the brand in any way. God knows I would, in the locker room and on the ice. The team seems like it will be OK, but there’s all this underlying anger towards Opposite of Dog and towards those that work at Opposite of Dog within the community. Hating the popular kid sort of thing, so we may have everyone step up their game to humiliate us.

Ahhh, this felt pretty good. Maybe we can do it again some time, more frequently than once a month. (ha ha, that’s funny right coming from a married man… that old stereotype of never getting laid once you’re married ha ha ha ha) (suck it lol, I type out my laughter, you can’t just box it up in three letters like that.)

The Hardest Working Man in Engineering

My wife was cleaning out a cabinet and found my daily planner from my last semester in college. I was paging through my daily life from exactly five years ago in awe of all the shit I did compared to now.

I don’t really like having to go to the store at night after work now.

Back then I was a full time student, had two part-time jobs (High School Tutor and Hospital Janitor on second shift), was interviewing for a real jobby-job, was designing my tattoo machine for the university invention competition, getting ready to graduate, getting tattooed, going to concerts, and was married.

Here was my interview travel schedule.

11-5-03: Drive to Beloit, WI
11-6-03: Interview with Fairbanks Morse. Drive back to Madison at 4:00
11-13-03: Drive to Milwaukee, WI
11-14-03: Interview with Harley Davidson. Drive back to Madison at 3:00
11-18-03: Drive to Milwaukee, WI Interview with Bucyrus Erie. Stay in Milwaukee
11-19-03: Interview with Modine Manufacturing. Drive back to Madison at 4:00
11-30-03: Fly to Akron, OH
12-1-03: Interview with Goodyear. Fly to Madison at 6:50
12-2-03: Drive to Peoria, IL
12-3-03: Interview with Caterpillar. Drive back to Madison at 5:00 pm
12-4-03: Fly to Seattle, WA
12-5-03: Interview with Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
12-7-03: Fly back to Madison

In a month I traveled over 5000 miles, had 4 flights including connections, took 4 road trips, and was in ten different cities (including connections). All this fit into a school and work schedule.

I took any second interview. It was a way to make extra money. The mileage and meal allowances were a third job. I had interviewing down to a science.

I got offers from Harley, Modine, Goodyear, Caterpillar, and Puget Sound. I paid my bills. I got AB’s and B’s and graduated. I got fourth place in the invention competition.

How the fuck did I do all that?

Rise, Together We Rise, Together We Rise

Yesterday a buddy of mine from work and I went to Chicago to see the Flobots at the House of Blues.

The show was at 6:00. We both took half days and headed up at 1:00.

First we had to drop off like 5 gallons of frozen breast milk to a woman from Detroit.

Seriously, you can’t make shit like that up.

Somehow this woman got in contact with my wife and a bunch of women from Peoria donated the milk for this woman and her baby. The plan was to do it at a Burger King in McKinley Park, but when we got there around 4:00 she was heading East on 90/94 which was out of the city during afternoon rush hour. We told her to head towards downtown since she was never going to make it to us in time.

We managed to get her the milk and found a place to park near the HOB. We grabbed some bar food and this nice little hole in the wall bar.

We got in and found a place to stand about 15 min before the first opening band came on. The HOB is a cool venue. It was pretty small, I think I read it held 1000 people. We ended up like 15 feet from the stage.

Redneck Poets (or something like that) were OK. They were 3 MC’s and a DJ. Nothing incredible, but cool. They did some spoken word poetry a’La Def Comedy Jam.

People Under the Stairs came on next. They were fucking awesome. Two MC’s from LA. They were full of energy and got everyone worked up. I’m going to have to check out more of their stuff. It was pretty awesome.





The Flobots came on a little after 8:00. They also put on an incredible show. This is the smallest venue I’ve ever been to for a concert, and it was cool being that close to the band. The played pretty much everything off their current album and threw in a few I didn’t know which I assume are from Platypus. They saved Handlebars and Rise to the end of the show. After the little instrumental solo in Handlebars and the lyrics kick back in everyone was going nuts. For an encore their Viola player took the mic and covered Heartbreaker. She rocked it out. The show got over at about 9:30. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to.

I got home at around 12:45 AM. It was a good time. I’d never been to a hip-hop show. It was cool.

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength

Had a little time while Mr. Oswald was asleep and made this little guy. Photoshop is fun. My eyebrows look gigantic even when they're stylized! Thanks Dad!

I Love Soviet Propaganda Stylized Crap

How do you like my new banner? I find it to be tits.