The Cheesy Cracker

A Christmas to Remember

2009-12-25T10:59:00.000-06:00

This was several years ago but it hangs in my memory as if it was only yesterday and to this day, still resides in my mind as one of the most memorable Christmas’s ever.
I thought it fitting with our economic times to tell this story this year as a reminder, that some of the best Christmas’s don’t revolve around a bunch of gifts, but more around a bunch of memories, and that there are still good people out there when you least expect them.
And thus our story begins………

It was the Christmas of 2003
I was working as an “Underground damage prevention specialist” at the time, or for the non politically correct folk out there, a damn utility locator. You know the ones; they come and spray the lines in your yard whenever you need to dig a hole, indicating where utilities are. It was a very easy job with minimal overhead so I enjoyed it a lot. Plenty of fresh air, and my own hours, for the most part. There was one drawback though. Living in the upper north west, people tend to stop digging around October. This meant that every winter there was a lay off period where you only were called in when there was enough work or an emergency from a pipe burst or something.
So we went on unemployment and we had to make some sacrifices like working odd cash jobs to try and make ends meet in order to come up with at least a few gifts for Christmas.
This Christmas in particular was a unique one to say the least. My wife and I of the time were about to get a divorce and living in separate houses. She was living in an apartment, while I lived in the house we bought awaiting someone to knock on my door to tell me to get the fuck out because we had defaulted on the house. We’ll save that one for another day. Let’s get to the real story here.
This year was special. It was my daughters first year of school, real school that is. She was in first grade. No more half days, her own spot to hang her coat up. The only thing missing was riding the bus to school. But then again, we lived across the street from the school so unless there was a field trip there was nothing I could do. When Christmas came closer she would tell us about all the wonderful things her class was planning to do, and she was so excited.

But unfortunately, she became very sick the last week before Christmas break. She had gotten the flu, and it was bad. When her mother and I told her she wouldn’t be able to go to school that last week and enjoy all the wonderful things she had been telling us, it broke her heart. She cried, and cried. And any father out there knows, when your sweet little girl looks up at you with those beautiful eyes and cries, there is nothing more that will tear your heart to shreds. It was then I decided that I would do anything I could possible to make this Christmas as special as I could for her, even if I couldn’t afford much for gifts.

The next day, I called the school and left a message for her teacher. Moments later she called me back with her cheerful usual self. I explained to her how my daughter was sick and how disappointed and sad she was that she couldn’t be there to enjoy the festive things, all the other children would be enjoying this time of year. I explained to her an idea I had. I told her I had a video camera and wanted to come to her class the last day before the Christmas break to video tape all the fun things they had planned and share it with my daughter so she wouldn’t feel left out. She agreed and said that would be wonderful, and told me to arrive at the school, camera in hand around 8:00am.
I was excited, I didn’t tell anyone what my plans were, but inside I was living through her, excited, nervous, and cheerful. Like a small child the day before Christmas, I couldn’t contain my excitement. Soon enough the day arrived and I sprang out of bed giddy as ever. I got the oldest up and ready for school and got my youngest as ready as she could be to go to Grandmas for the day. I used the excuse that I had to work that day even though I had nothing on my plate, and knew that her Grandmother would keep a close eye on her while she was sick.
I packed up all my gear, my camera, my tripod, and my still camera and headed over to the school. Upon walking into the class room, I realized I was not prepared for what the teacher had done.
On the giant white erase board was a huge message to my daughter. “Merry Christmas, and get well soon.”
This was almost enough to break me down into tears, but I kept it together and setup my equipment.
The teacher came up to me and greeted herself and introduced me to the class. She then proceeded to tell me that the things they originally had planned for today had changed to accommodate my daughter’s condition. I fiddled with my equipment during this whole time, and got everything up and running, making sure with a few tests that all equipment was in order. I was still so excited, and seeing the message on the board only made everything seem so much more worthwhile. Her teacher returned to me once more, now having all the children gathered in a nice unique circle, to ask me if I was ready. With one last check, I gave her thumbs up and a grin ear to ear and acknowledged an affirmative yes.
She then turned to the rest of her students, all of them sitting so preciously, in their Sunday best for the last day before Christmas break, and announced,
“OK kids; let’s show his daughter what we did.”
With my camera pointed at them, a single student stood up and presented me with a very large piece of construction paper, folded in the form of a card. On it, it read, “Get well soon” with my daughter’s name, and on the inside, every student had signed it and left a special little message for my daughter.
They may have been very little people, with very big hearts, but at that moment all I wanted to do was hug each and every one of them with my daughter’s arms.
I had no idea when I thought of this that it would turn out to be so emotional and special for me. I kind of felt bad, I was doing this for my sick daughter, and here I was enjoying possibly the most memorable and best Christmas I have ever had.
She then told the children to present me with the gifts they had made for my daughter. One by one they all walked up with cards made from construction paper. I held the camera steady on each child as they came up and gave me their special card or picture with a special message written on each, along with them telling my daughter to get well and merry Christmas into the camera.
When all of them were done, I began to pack up my equipment, eyes full of tears. It was the most precious thing anyone could witness on such a sad Christmas week. It was at this point the teacher walked up to me and asked me to wait.
“Please, I have one more thing that I would like to give to your daughter that we had planned that I am sure she would love.”
“OK” I responded
Not knowing what she was about to do, I focused the camera on the circle of children now gathering around the center of the class room. In the center was a single chair. The teacher grabbed a book, and proceeded to enter the circle of precious children and sit on the chair. She then looked at the camera and said, “Now, we will read, the night before Christmas”.
This is probably a book and story she has read countless times to countless children before this class, and many of times I myself had heard. But no matter how many times I have heard it before, it never has meant so much to me as it did that day, nor have I really understood the real meaning of it until I heard her read it that day, and watch all those children’s faces focus on her every move, breathless, and motionless, they sat there listening. I soon realized I was doing the same, and I had to take a step back and ask myself just what Christmas was all about. This story I have heard so many times before, and meant nothing more than another Christmas story now meant so much more to me. It wasn’t about gifts that get tossed aside and collect dust and forgotten about. The true Christmas spirit is giving and the memories you take from them and the memories the people you give it to hold and cherish forever.

I filmed and watched as she told the story, intent and vigilant on ever word she spoke. When it was all done, I wiped my face of any tears and packed up my gear, making sure to thank every child in the classroom for making that day so special. I don’t know if any of them will remember that day, and if I could I would share my video with them to show them, but it doesn’t matter, from that day on, Christmas meant more to me than any gift you could receive.
This brought me to the next stage of my plan.
I promised my daughter one more thing that special Christmas, and that was to see Santa. The nearest mall that would house a worthy Santa was just over an hour away. I checked my watch and it was 9:30am. To get to my destination on time would take over an hour. I had nothing else planned so I gathered up my gear, jumped into my truck and headed for the mall.
I arrived around 10:30am and the line was, well, to say the least, long. I was probably 250th in a line of over 300, standing, waiting to see Santa. The only difference was I was the only one in line alone with a video camera. But it didn’t matter, I was on a mission. I needed to get a message from Santa to my sick daughter on tape so she doesn’t feel I forgot about the promise I made her. And I know any father out there would feel the same.
So there I stood, waiting, inching forward with every passing minute. Finally I was within the “rope” line, which put me about 50 people in touch of Santa. And then it came.
“Sorry Folks, but Santa has to go get a bite to eat for lunch”
It was now 12:30, and I watched after the announcement as parents and kids started to leave the line. There was one problem, anyone within the velvet rope line, made no move. They didn’t flinch, they didn’t walk. Nope, they stayed in their position holding it strong like a warrior at the battle of the gates, knowing if they left, they would not only lose their place in line but also disappoint whatever little hand was attached to their side.
I stood there watching everyone still in line, and it was funny. The parents who held their values about Christmas really stood their ground, in order to give their kids that same experience they had when they were a child. Again, I was reminded of so many different things of the “Christmas Spirit”. In front of me was a young couple very well dressed. It was a father, mother, and two young boys around the age of 6 and 10.
My arm still dangling with my camcorder in hand, my brow sweating from over dressing and now standing in a line of 50 other people in a warm mall, I stood there with the rest of the parents awaiting Santa’s arrival from lunch.
The couple in front of me whispered back and forth, occasionally glancing a stare my way.
After waiting in line for an hour, (Santa was not to return until 1:30pm) my legs tired, and my stomach starting to feel the ramifications of not eating all day, the father in front of me turned to face me.
“Excuse me, and forgive me for being blunt, but we couldn’t help but notice you are the only one in line without a child and the only one holding a video camera……….that’s kind of creepy.”
I laughed and chuckled understanding their point of view, and proceeded to tell them my situation.
“You see, my daughter is sick, and I promised to take her to see Santa this year, and since I couldn’t, I figured I would just record a very special message from Santa to her this year and hopefully it would cheer her up.”
“Oh, well that makes so much sense” he responded.
It was at that time he told me that he was a Doctor, while his wife was a nurse. He and his wife drilled me with questions, which I thought was sweet, that someone would care so much.
“What’s her temp” he asked, followed by…
“How old is she?”….. she asked
“Is she on any medication?” he asked….
I continued to answer their questions and thanked them for their concern, because seriously, I was worried. Flu, or not, what she had was serious and it wasn’t going away, nor was it behaving like a normal flu.
They assured me that the symptoms I described and her condition, that they have been seeing it a lot lately, and to just monitor her temp and keep a close eye on her, and she will be fine.
I said thank you, to them, and once again we were back to where we were before our conversation, standing in line, awaiting the arrival of Santa from lunch.
It was at this time that the young couple in front of me’s father said to his wife…
“Well, I think I should take the boys shopping for you, they are getting a little antsy.”
“OK, but be sure to be back in time for Santa.” She explained, and with a quick nod, he and the boys were off walking down the mall enjoying the many sceneries of the Christmas Holiday.
I stood there for another 20 minutes awaiting the announcement of Santa, but it never came. Checking my watch I wondered if it ever would.
The young couple in front of me returned to her wife. They spoke softly, which was fine, it was none of my business.
After a few moments, the two little boys turned to me with arms wide open and gifts in each of their arms wrapped up preciously. I had a puzzled look upon my face and looked up to face the father.
“What is this?” I asked
“Well….” He explained
“No one should go through Christmas like your daughter is, or without gifts and thinking that Santa doesn’t exist. So from our family to yours, we would really appreciate it if you took these few gifts that we wrapped and give them to her, and tell her that Santa gave them to her”
I’m not going to lie; at this point I broke down and started to weep. Looking down at those two little boys holding up these gifts that I had no idea what they were, and their parents looking over me with a smile, wanting nothing more than the pleasure of my daughter to enjoy Christmas, it really tore at my heart.
They turned away, and went about their business of waiting for Santa, who had now recently arrived from his lunch break. Slowly the line moved forward, one by one each person getting their chance to talk to Santa.
Finally, my chance arrived and there I stood. Right in front of the bearded white man with all the control of all the good little boys’ and girls of the world in his hands. I know he’s not real, and yet for some reason I still felt intimidated.
“Hi Santa…” I announced
“Well helol there young man……”
I told him about my daughter and why I was there alone. He nodded with a jolly smile on his face and said…
“It would be my pleasure; you just point that camera at me and let me do the rest….”
To my surprise I was nervous and was fumbling the camcorder almost not getting it turned on in time before he began to speak.
But eventually I had it working, and Santa delivered the perfect message.
“Hello there little girl, I understand you are sick. Well Santa is wishing you to get better so you can enjoy this Christmas like you should and I and my elves are wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”
WOW
That was awesome and I got it all on tape is all I could think of.
I walked away from that mall with a huge smile on my face, and yet I felt a little sad. Here I walked, camcorder in hand, with gifts from a stranger to my sick daughter who they don’t know and never met, and I had nothing to give back to all these other children in line that probably deserved so much more. All I could do was hope that the gift I was creating for my daughter would give back in some way what so many different people had given to me that day.
I walked out to my truck and returned home with one thing on my mind. To edit this video and make it perfect for my daughter.
Upon my return to home I hooked up the camcorder to my computer and proceeded to go through every second of it. Watching the entire day’s events, and reliving the memories once again brought tears to my eyes and made me realize how special this was going to be. In the end I made sure to deliver my daughter a special message from myself explaining that she was so sick this Christmas and she probably wouldn’t remember much, and I hoped that by having this video, she could watch it over and over again as a reminder of just how special that Christmas was.
I could hardly contain my excitement, but had to remind myself I still had a very sick child on my hands, and my first priority was to make sure she was ok.
I made the tape (yes I had a tape recording camcorder) and wrapped it up, placed it under the tree with the rest of the few gifts I worked to purchase and waited for Christmas day to arrive.
The day came, and before I knew it my house was filled with family members.
I watched and snapped pictures as everyone opened their gifts. When it came to my daughter, snuggled up in the love seat, with a blanket draped upon her body, and her eyes closed because she didn’t have enough strength to stay awake and open her gifts, we helped her along and took pictures.
No one new at this time of the video, and I waited until all gifts were open to bring it out and lay it on my daughters lap. Again I felt a bit guilty, here were all these people giving out hard earned gifts and all I had was this simple VHS tape.
“Sweetie, here, this is a special gift from Daddy to you. I hope you like it.”
She raised her head as far as she could, opened her eyes and tore open the wrapping paper. She had a blank stare on her face not knowing exactly what she had just opened. I told her it was a video I created for her, to show her she was not forgotten this Christmas. With that, I gently took it from her hands and walked over to the TV to play the video.
Intently everyone gathered around the TV as I pushed the tape into the player.
With a push of a few buttons, the VCR whirled and whizzed to life with the familiar sounds of an old dying technology.
From that point until the end, not a single person spoke a word or moved an inch. I wasn’t expecting this; all I wanted was to show my daughter that she was still important and could still be there.
She couldn’t stay awake for the video and I don’t blame her. She was so sick, and I felt so bad for her. When it was all said and done I’m not sure a single person even breathed through the short 25 minute film I created, but I will tell you, there wasn’t a dry eye in the entire room.
Again, I wasn’t expecting that, nor was I trying to make everyone feel like “Oh My GoD”, but that’s the way it turned out.
All I wanted was for my daughter to have a memorable Christmas.
I separated from her mother shortly after. I don’t know if she has seen the video since, but I hope in my heart that she has and looks at it every Christmas and thinks a little different about what Christmas means.

I never got the names of the people who generously gave those gifts to my sick daughter that year, nor did I ask. They wanted to remain anonymous, and I respect that, and I also some day want to give back in the same fashion. But if for some reason, they cross this post and read it, I just want to say thank you, thank you for showing me what Christmas really means, and how good people really can be. It doesn’t matter what I did that day, your simple gesture flipped my world, and my meaning of Christmas upside down.

Maybe you could do the same. Maybe you don’t believe in the toy drives, well, that’s fine. Then maybe you could walk up to that one guy, lonely and sad, waiting in line, and hand them a gift, and change their world like someone did to me.
Merry Christmas, and remember, it’s not always about the gifts that gather dust and are quickly forgotten, but more about the precious memories we can pass on to our loved ones.

Forever and ever my precious daughter, I think of you every day, and I love you so very much! Merry Christmas my sweet angel!

Here's a quick one

2009-12-09T13:00:00.002-06:00

And so it begins......

Phone rings:

Me: Thank you for calling IT, how can I help you?

User: Yes, my laptop was stolen and I am having some trouble with the replacement.

Me: Your laptop was stolen?

User: Yes!

Me: And someone actually gave you a replacement?

User: Yes, but.....

Me: Was it left in your car, or wait, I bet you went to a conference, and the speaker said, OK lets take a 5 minute break, and you thought, oh what's the harm of leaving my laptop out in the open while I run to the bathroom, I mean come on, I am in a high quality 35 dollar a night hotel, with exceptional well trained staff that would never think of taking anything so easily accessible as an unlocked laptop, along with my bag which conveniently contains all the proper cords, keyfob, and passwords I wrote down!

User: How did you know it was stolen at a conference?

Me: Lucky guess. Anywho, what seems to be the problem with your new one.

User: Well, I think they forgot a few things!

Me: You mean like installed applications?

User: No not exactly. I mean like.......well.......you see I had all these pictures in the "My Pictures" folder, and a bunch of music in the music folder. Then on my desktop I had all these important papers and thesis that I have been working on for months.

Me: .........

User: Hello?

Me: OH MY GOD, THERE'S A FIRE, Sorry but I have to go now.......

User: But what about.....

*CLICK*

*RING*

Me: Thank you for calling IT, how can I help you?

User: Yeah every time I close the lid on my laptop the display goes dark.

Me: What display?

User: The computer display, duh!

Me: Yeah, lets insult the guy trying to help you in the first 30 seconds of conversation!
So you have dual monitors?

User: No, on my laptop.

Me: Just to clarify, when you close the lid on your laptop the display on your laptop goes blank?

User: Exactly!

Me: Sir........ I can assure you that this is by design and is a power save feature, you see, the manufacture assumes that if you can't see the display then there is no point on wasting precious battery life and leaving it on.

User: But I can see it, see I found this little button by the hinge and when I push it simulating the lid being closed the screen goes blank.

Me: Did you honestly call me and waste my time to tell me this?

User: Yes, and I don't see it as a waste of time.

*CLICK*

If you need me, I'll be the one feeding the pigeons at the park with a blank stare upon my face........

New

2009-12-09T08:02:00.002-06:00

Yes the title says new. Not sure who all reads this anymore so I do have to be careful on what I post now. Although I could fill about 50 posts with some new content. I might have to really change things up a bit to keep it anonymous. Working on a few new stories in the background when I have time, and hope to have some of them posted soon, or at least for the start of the new year.
Until then feel free to click on the archives button and read through some of the old college day stories.

Time flies

2008-12-17T10:46:00.001-06:00

Time flies when you lose your job teaching and don't care, sit on unemployment for three months, then go back to work full time, at two jobs leave those eventually get a family, buy a house, get new job as engineer.

I know scary huh

More to come

4 times a month........get real

2008-09-23T09:07:00.001-05:00

I searched the intertubes and found nothing requiring a blogger to post 4 times a month. So the best you get is once a month.

And boom goes the dynamite

Wow

2008-02-23T20:32:00.003-06:00

Wow, people still visit this. Although most of them seem to be lost, or searching for obscure terms you wouldn't find anyplace else other than a blog called The Cheesy Cracker like "Turd Cutter".

I also still get the occasional search on the many weird programs used in Microsoft Vista from when I beta tested on of the very first Long Horn versions.

Well in any case, I am glad to see people still visit, even if it isn't to read anything lol.
As an update, I have re-uploaded the 911 video I made and corrected the link for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Mr. Cheese out
Never Forget

Crap Day

2007-05-03T09:38:00.000-05:00

Let it be known to all that from this day forward, today will be known as “Crap Day”. Feel free to crap on your favorite enemy on this day. If you don’t have crap, visit our online crap store where you can pick up tons of crappy merchandise. This is not a day to rejoice or celebrate, that right is reserved for “Crap Happy Day” to which the day has not yet been decided upon.

My Crap Day started out really well. My cat puked on the carpet during the night and now the carpet is stained. I stubbed my toe on the coffee table, burned breakfast, and left my fresh cup of coffee on the kitchen counter when I left the house. Ok but the ride into work should be much better, right? Silly fools it’s Crap Day, of course it isn’t better.

Oh look a teenage male pulling up to a stop sign while I am traveling down the highway at 60 miles per hour. On any other day he would stop and look both ways before cutting me off, but today is Crap Day so he decides to avoid the stop sign all together and just pull out in front of me causing me to slam on my brakes and almost rear-end him. As he looks in his rear view mirror to see that I am inches away from becoming a permanent fixture on his tailgate, he decides to up the ante on Crap Day and do a full fledged brake check causing my car to swerve back and forth like a snake on the hot desert sand. I understand its Crap Day, but that was just uncalled for damn it.

I tail his ass onto the freeway going over evil plans of what I want to do once I get next to him.

Should I flip him off? No that isn’t enough for this dick spit……ok, flip him off while calling him dick spit……no, no, he can’t hear me anyway………

And then it hit me, no really, a small rock hit me. It was kicked up by his tire and hit my windshield causing it to crack. That was the last straw, I’m sure he deliberately swerved to hit that rock at the precise point in which to make it spew out from beneath his tire and become a windshield projectile of death.

I reached over to the passenger seat for my work folder which housed a large yellow legal pad. Finding a blank page I grabbed my Sharpie from the center console (always have a sharpie handy for crap day) ripping the cap off with my teeth spitting it back onto the floor like a dirty cowboy spitting his chew.

I began scribbling fiercely onto the bright yellow paper, large letters, bold letters, a message any Crap Master would be proud of on Crap Day. I pulled my car into the other lane stepping on the pedal of my little four cylinder car to get along side of him. The RPM’s exceeding their limits, the engine howling in pain as I slammed it into fourth gear to achieve top speed………which was 65mph in my 4-cylinder 2.0 stratus. I look out the passenger window as my car evens’ up to his shooting all the evil eye I can muster up, I slam the yellow legal pad up to the window with my free hand. He looks over, his eyes scanning back and forth as he reads my message, mouthing the words which read “Pull over so I can beat you’re fucking ASS!!”. Moments later he hits the brakes and drops back several car lengths, I look in my mirror to see him frantically dialing his phone. It must have been a speed dial number because I only saw him press three buttons.

No worries, it’s off to work I go, trolley la, trolley la.
The minute I step into the door of work the secretary cuts me off asking for help. I really hate this. Nothing annoys me faster at work than being pestered the second I walk in. I walk over to her computer, solve her little problem and proceed to my desk. No sooner do I sit down when a student sitting on the opposite side of the room asks for help. It’s one of my better students so I assure her that I will be right with her in a minute. As I walk over to her desk I can see by the expression on her face that something is very wrong.

“What’s up?” I ask

“I need some help…..” she pauses for a moment “I’m just really upset…….sorry” she starts to break down.

“What is it?” This woman beginning to look like her best friend just died.

“I came in this morning and my drive wouldn’t boot up, so Sped took it out and put a new one in, now all my stuff is gone. Plus he loaded up the wrong operating system and never partitioned the hard drive so I can’t install Oracle, which I don’t want to do anyway because it will take all day.” Looks like Sped got the jump on me for this Crap Day and has already begun to crap all over me.

I assure the student that I will take care of everything including setting up a new drive and pulling the data from her old one. I give her an assignment to find out how many porn sites can be hit in an hours time before getting flagged by corporate to keep her busy …..because…….corporate wanted the stats…..yeah, that’s it. (Note to self: Hitting more than 20 porn sites in an hour could result in getting fired; from now on we stick with 19.)

As I work feverishly to get her data restored a student from across the way yells out.

“Hey…..this pop machine isn’t spitting out what it says it’s supposed to.”

“I’m sorry” I respond “Sometimes the cans get mixed up and you may get one accidentally that was not supposed to be in there.”

“Nu-uh” he says “This is my 5th one today (would explain the uncontrollable shaking) and each one has been wrong.”

“I’ll check into it” I say and head for the front desk to get the keys to the machine. I sure love my job, not only am I a teacher, I’m also the local pop machine vending bitch. No worries, I usually scam a case or two when it needs to be filled using the excuse of, “it can’t hold them all and I already took the plastic rings off of the cans, now they will all go bad if I don’t take them home and drink them.” You would be surprised at how many people believe that line.

I return to the pop machine and after fighting with the lock built in 1902 for 15 minutes I finally get it open. It doesn’t take long before I can see the problem. Someone (I’m sure you all know who I am thinking of) has randomly filled the machine with whatever in whatever slot they wanted. I head back to the front desk.

“Excuse me, but who was the last person to fill the machine?” I ask

“It was Sped, why?” The secretary responds

“Hmmmm……No reason, thanks”

Holy shit, Sped must have had Crap Day planned for some time because he’s on a fucking roll.

“Sped?”

“Yes!”

“Can you come here for a second, something I want to ask you?” I politely say

“Sure, what’s up?”

I bring him over to the front of the pop machine now displaying the lovely rainbow of colored cans placed randomly in any slot.

“See anything odd about this situation?”

“Mmmmmm……nope, why?”

“See these labels below each of the slots that specifically say what kind of pop to put in each slot?”

“Yeah, those tell me what kinds I need to put back in here.”

“No Jackass, those tell you which cans have to go in which slots so when someone pushes the button for the kind they want they will actually get that kind.”

“Really?” He sound stunned, go figure “I thought there was a computer or something that told it which kind to grab.”

“And just how is this computer supposed to know which can is which and dig through this holy hell pile to get that specific one?”

“I don’t know, figured it scanned each one and then an arm or something went and got it.”

“Are you fucking serious, you actually believe that line of shit and then think that all of this happens within the 1.2 seconds it takes to get your can of pop?”

“Well it’s actually closer to 5 seconds and……”

“Shut the fuck up! Now someone has to take every can out of this bitch and sort them properly by the labels.”

“Wow, good luck with that, I’m off to lunch.”

“Wha….wha……good luck with that what……that’s my damn line you piece of shit……and I am not…..” But before I can finish he has already exited the room. I start grabbing cans from the machine and placing them on the desk behind me while quietly muttering to myself “Stupid crap day…..”

“Crap Day, makes assholes happy!”

I want what she’s Smoking

2007-01-25T14:13:00.000-06:00

I’ve been thinking about getting some happy pills to help me quit smoking. Several people around me think this would be a good idea as well, mainly because they fear for their lives. If you don’t know what the happy pills are let me explain.

A long time ago in a pharmacy far, far away………

Depressed people all over the world didn’t know what to do with themselves until one day a little pill called Wellbutrin came along. This pill made the peoples depression go away. But with all drugs there were side effects. But in the case of Wellbutrin the side effects turned out to be good. People taking the pill that smoked found out that they no longer had an urge to smoke and within a few months were able to quit. That’s right, seems that little pill for depression suppresses certain urges in the brain. But it didn’t just suppress the urge to not smoke, nope; the pill didn’t know where to draw the line. Turns out the pill just suppresses urges all together. So, no more urges to smoke, ok that’s good, and no more urges to eat…..well if you’re over weight then that’s good too. No more urges for SEX! Ok that last one really sucks but what do I care, I live alone.

The pill is now marketed as a quit smoking pill called Zyban. Trust me people, the price is different but it’s the same damn drug. Here’s the real kicker. For some reason insurance companies want you to keep smoking. I know, I know, crazy thinking huh. But it’s true because if you try to get them to pay for Zyban you can forget it. However, getting them to pay for Wellbutrin, an anti-depressant drug no less, seems to be much easier. Now insurance companies are no dummies, they picked up on this little trick pretty fast. So now instead of going to my doctor and telling him I want to quit smoking, now I have to tell him I’m fucking crazy, and with me cutting back on smoking I plead a pretty damn good case, just ask my co-workers.
The best part about Wellbutrin is the fact that it is an anti-depressant. See normally quitting smoking makes people a real joy to be around, and by joy I mean getting an enema on a daily basis from an angry elephant while being skull fucked by two large men. However, since Wellbutrin is also an anti-depressant, quitting smoking is a lot easier because it helps to subside the crabbiness or in my case the, “shut the fuck up before I kill you” feelings. Yes Wellbutrin is my new happy pill. And that leads us into today’s story.

It’s Friday night around 7:00 and I decide to hit the pharmacy on the way home to pick up my prescription I had dropped off three days prior.
I walk up to the window at the local pharmacy to pick up my prescription. The lady behind the counter bears a striking resemblance to Grace the secretary from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. In fact I think it might actually be her. From this point on she will be known as Grace.

“Can I help you?” Grace asks me

“Yeah I’m here to pick up my prescription; I dropped it off three days ago.”

“Well if you’ll just go down two more windows someone will be with you shortly.” She says with a big cheesy smile on her face.

“But that window says ‘Drop Off’. And this one says ‘Pick Up’, which is why I am here.” I explain to her

“I’m sorry sir but as I already told you, you’ll need to go down two windows and someone will be with you shortly.”

I figure there is no sense in arguing so I do as she asked and head down two more windows to the “Drop Off” counter. Looking around the pharmacy I can see I am the only other one in the store, and Grace seems to be the only one working behind the counter. I wait patiently for a few minutes watching as her hands keep busy out of eye sight. I start clicking my finger nails on the counter hoping to draw her attention but to no avail (Possibly because I have no fingernails left after chewing them to distract my urge to light up). I start grabbing useless pamphlets near by to help curb my boredom.

Let’s see “When checking for breast cancer, start at the outer edge and work around your breast in circles, getting closer to your nipple with each circle.” OK!!! I think that’s enough reading for now.

I glance over at the side wall “If you need assistance please ring buzzer!” Hmmm……interesting. I push the button for the buzzer letting out a pleasant “Ding Dong”. This seems to have grabbed the attention of Grace as I see her heading my way.

“Can I help you sir?”

“Yeah, remember me?”

“No…… should I?”

“Yeah, I came in here to pick up a prescription I dropped off three days ago……I was down at the other window…….you told me to come over to this window…..remember!” The look on her face tells me I am wasting my breathe.

“No, doesn’t ring a bell, but you’ll have to go down to the ‘Pick Up’ window and someone will be right with you.”

“You’re joking right.” I say half smiling

“No, see the sign above you, this window is for ‘Drop Off’s’ only. You have a ‘P-i-c-k- U-p’ which is down at the other window.” She says that last part real slow as if I’m the retarded one here. She even talks like Grace from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ending each sentence with that big cheesy smile.

“And someone will be right with me?”

“Yes!” she assures me

“Aren’t you here alone?”

She looks around as if she isn’t sure of herself. “Yes I am.”

“Ok, so when you tell me someone will be with me shortly, you mean you right?” I’m trying to make sure I fully understand how this works.

“Yes I suppose so!”

It’s getting late and I just want to go home so rather than argue anymore I let out a loud sigh and shuffle back down two windows. In the process I seem to have forgotten to keep an eye on Grace and I am once again standing at a window alone. In fact she seems to have disappeared from the store completely. I keep my composure and look around for another buzzer but there isn’t one to be found at this window. I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt and wait a little while longer. I mean who knows; maybe she just went to the bathroom, or in her case, possibly abducted by aliens. I look up at the clock on the wall; it is now 7:30. I have now wasted the last 30 minutes of my life in this store for no reason. Ok, enough of this, I run down to the first window……yes that would be the “Drop Off” window for those of you still painlessly paying attention. I push the buzzer again, and immediately run back down to the “Pick Up” window, where Grace is standing with a smile on her face.

“Ahhhhh……you startled…..I mean where…….how long have you been…….”

“Are you ok sir?” She asks

“Ummmm…..yeah I think so.” Am I in the Twilight Zone?

“How can I help you today?”

“I’m here to pick up a prescription I dropped off three days ago.”

“Ok, I can help you, now what’s the name.” I give her my name and she taps away at her computer for a few minutes. “Date of birth?” I give her this as well before I finally hear “Oh here we are, yes…..ok……ummm……that will be about twenty minutes.”

“TWENTY MINUTES?????” I’m not enjoying this experience anymore “What the hell have you people been doing the last three days.”

“Well, I went to the store on Monday, oh and yesterday I had lunch with my sister….”

“I didn’t mean…..never mind……..can I ask you a question?”

“Yes!”

I lean in over the counter looking into her eyes. “When I walked through those doors forty minutes ago, did I walk into some weird realm of reality only known to you and this store?”

She furrows one brow thinking for a moment before responding. “No….I don’t think so.”

“Ok, just checking, and there’s no one else in the store to help speed this up?”

“Nope, but I’ll be back with your prescription in about thirty minutes.”

“Thirty? But you said…..” Before I can finish she is walking off amongst the many isles of drugs. By the time this is all said and done I think I will need a much stronger prescription. Once again I try and find something to occupy my time which isn’t going any better than the first attempt. I’ve now taken my blood pressure twice, which seems to be increasing the longer I wait here, checked both my breasts for lumps, which I am happy to say I am lump free, and discovered that this particular pharmacy stocks forty seven different brands of condoms. This is getting tedious, I decide to get up and walk around the store a little.
Soft pleasant elevator music plays through the speakers as I roam the isles one by one. I can’t help but hear this tiny whining noise like a small motor struggling to move a large object, but can’t quite place where it is coming from. I stop and look from side to side, still nothing, that’s when I glance up at the ceiling to see a security camera staring down at me like a watchful hawk eyeing its prey. Could this be where the noise is coming from? I walk two more isles down and head the opposite direction I was last standing. Sure enough when I look back up at the camera it is still focused on me. I turn to walk back towards the pharmacy desk when I am greeted by a large gentleman in a rent-a-cop uniform.

“Help you find something sir, maybe something small that will fit in your pocket” I seriously think I am in the Twilight Zone and this episode is entitled ‘What celebrities would be doing if they weren’t celebrities’ because this guy looks and talks exactly like David Puddy from Seinfeld.

“What the hell are you talking about? You think I’m stealing?” I ask totally insulted.

“Come with me sir!” He says grabbing my arm hauling me behind him like a rag doll.

The next thing I know I’m in a small dark office filled with thick cigar smoke from David’s partner. A naked lady calendar hangs on the wall from 1968, I giggle and point when I see it, David shoots me a stern look which abruptly stops my giggling.

“So did you really think you were going to get away with it?” David asks me, his partner leans forward blowing smoke into my face. I guess to intimidate me which would have worked if he wasn’t but three feet tall.

“I wasn’t trying to get away with anything; I was simply waiting for my prescription to get filled so I can go home.”

“Prescription huh, figures you would be on drugs.” Another insult delivered by the rent-a-cop

“Well what the fuck ever, that’s the truth.” I say leaning back in my chair crossing my arms smugly.

“Yeah right, that’s why you asked the clerk twice if she was alone in the store and then walked up and down each isle real slow. I suppose that’s also why you kept staring up at the cameras just before I stopped you from dropping a load of merchandise into your pants and robbing us blind.”

This goes on for another ten minutes before I just plain am tired and give up. “Yep ok you’re right, you got me bud.”

“I’m not your bud”

“Well whatever, you caught me, but since I don’t have any merchandise on me, I’m going to leave now, is that ok with the two of you?” I ask

“Yeah I guess, but mark my words, we’ll be watching you.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” I whisper under my breath as I walk out.

I head back down a narrow stair case out the security door and back into the pharmacy, which now has those little tiny garage doors at each window with signs that read “Sorry. We’re closed for the day!” I leave the store looking up at the cameras that are once again following my every move and I begin to laugh hysterically like a mad man all the while raising my middle finger at people who aren’t even there. Fast approaching footsteps can be heard coming from behind me.

You know………these padded rooms and white vests are kinda cozy.

A Christmas Carol, Story Thing

2006-12-04T09:36:00.000-06:00

Disclaimer:
This story is based on actual and true fictional events and in no way is affiliated with “A Christmas Carol” or any other legally bound and copyrighted movie, book, or play, so please don’t sue me, as I don’t have any money anyway. Thank you

Chapter 1: Sped is dead

Sped was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt what so ever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Mr. Cheese signed it. And Mr. Cheese’s name was good upon ‘Change for anything he chose to put his hand to’. Old Sped was as dead as a doornail.

The mention of Sped’s funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Sped was dead. This must be understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. Mr. Cheese never discarded Sped’s name plate. There it stood atop his desk. “Mr. Sped” as it has always been. They were at each others throats for years, and now, Sped was dead.
Mr. Cheese was a bitter man, hateful at times, an all around computer administration Asshole. His bitter heart within had wrinkled his face, humped his back and forever burrowed his eye brows into a low evil frown.
The thick cloud of an aurora surrounding him as he strode down the halls, his long black coat trailing behind him, gave him a sinister look that no man dared to disturb. Plants would wither as he walked past them, people would cower, and small animals would wince in pain as he stared deep into their eyes. No one ever asked, “Mr. Cheese, how are you today?” or “Say old chap, what time is it?” they new the withered old man would not respond but rather berate them on the spot.
But what did Mr. Cheese care? It was the very life he lived and loved. To scowl his way through town past the busy lives of everyone else. This is why most people who knew him called him “insane”. So begins our story.

Once upon a time……….
It was Saturday, Christmas Eve, and Mr. Cheese sat in his chair at his desk inside the old center. It was bitter cold outside, and the glass on the windows had all frosted up. Down below, Mr. Cheese could here the people getting into their cars to rush home for the holiday season.

“A merry Christmas to you Mr. Cheese!” yelled a cheerful voice from across the room. It was one of Mr. Cheese’s students.

Startled from not seeing the student enter he swung his chair around from the window to see who it was “Blah!” said Mr. Cheese “Heisenbug!” (Not to be confused with Bah Humbug mind you……..long story a lot of legal issues…….anyway.)

The student had bustled his way across the parking lot and into the building to take a final exam this merry day. His cheeks still rosy from the cold outside, his face a glow from the holiday cheer, his eyes twinkling in the light like stars on freshly fallen snow…….or maybe it was just the paint fumes from the office being repainted that morning. Either way Mr. Cheese was to have nothing to do with any of it.

“Heisenbug? why surely you don’t feel that way on such a beautiful and joyous day.” Said the student

“I do” said Mr. Cheese “What right do you have to be merry? Your test scores are low, your study habits are in the toilet, and worst of all…..you’re ugly!”

“Come on now” piped the student “What possible reason do you have for being so crabby?”

“It’s Saturday, Christmas Eve and I’m stuck here with you, that’s reason enough I should say.” Replied Mr. Cheese

“Is that so?”
Not wanting to continue the conversation any longer Mr. Cheese simply replied with “Blah!” shortly followed by “Heisenbug!”

“But Mr. Cheese”

“Blah I say, you celebrate your beloved Christmas in your own way, and let me be with mine.”

“I feel sorry for you Mr. Cheese, never having the love that everyone else shares during this festive season.”

“Another peep out of you and I’ll fail your entire course.”

“Fine, have it your way, I’ll do better studying at home surrounded by my loved ones anyway.”

“Blah” replied Mr. Cheese

As the student left the center two more took his place.

“Ah, Mr. Cheese and Mr. Sped.”

“Sped is dead!” said Mr. Cheese “died one year ago this very night!”

“Oh,…..I see” said the new visitor “I guess I didn’t notice.”

“Yeah no one really noticed him while he was alive either.”

“Well, the reason I came in was to ask for an extension on my current training.” The student asked with hesitation in fear of what the response might be.

Mr. Cheese furrowed his brow at the word “Extension”.
“You people are always looking for handouts, looking for the easy route out. ‘I can’t finish my studies in time, extend my training’, is the school in the local mall all filled up?”

“Why no, it is not.”

“And are all the trade schools closed?”

“No sir, they to are not.”

“Well might I suggest you take up a course at one of those less then fine academic academies where they might better suit your ‘extension’ needs, otherwise be gone with you, you’ll get no extension from me.”

“But my wife was ill, and……”

“Then you should have filled out the proper forms to put your studies on hold.”
The man said not a word, only stared down at Mr. Cheese who never once even so much as raised his head to look back at him. “Now if you don’t mind, I ‘m rather busy and wish to be left alone.” Mr. Cheese went back to his feverish typing on his keyboard.

–TAP-TAP-TAP-

Seeing that any rebuttal would only amount to the student being humiliated even more, he decided, to just leave the center. With his head hung low, he turned and walked away.

The center was slow for the rest of the day. Outside the night was closing in, and a low, dense fog was slowly moving across the roads. The moon cast shadows onto the parking lot below, almost seeming to dance between the clouds as they pass by overhead.

At last the hour was upon to shut down the center.

“Closing time, everyone leave.” Mr. Cheese announced. As he glanced around the center he noticed one of the more loyal students. “And I suppose you’ll want the center to be open tomorrow as well?” He asked the student sitting in his usual spot over in the corner who he called Crotchrot (Not to be confused with Cratchit mind you, long story, a lot of legal issues………anyway). He came in every day to study, passed every exam, never asked any questions, and kept quietly to himself; for all intents and purposes he was a model student.

“It would be nice.” The lone student said.

“It would NOT be nice” said Mr. Cheese “and it’s not happening either.”

“But it’s just once a year!”

“That’s a crappy excuse for making me come in here every December 25th just to better your damn education.” Mr. Cheese said zipping up his coat and placing his cap upon his badly comb over balding head. “Well if it must be, then stay all the later next week to make up the hours.”

The student nodded in acknowledgment. Mr. Cheese stood passively by waiting for the student to gather his belongings. One by one he began to gather his things and place them in an old tattered leather bag. He pulled out some gloves that had looked as if the dog had used them for a chew toy for some years; he placed no hat upon his head this cold day, only a hood attached to a thin sweatshirt he was wearing. Mr. Cheese paid no attention to any of this, it was his belief that it was always the poor mans own fault for being poor and no one else’s……well that and the whole lack of money thing.

Outside, it was beginning to snow. Mr. Cheese stepped out of the door to the center and looked up at the newly fallen snow now speckling down on his face all the while mumbling something under his breath about ‘why’s it gotta be a white thing’ before shuffling off to his car for what would be a long drive through the snow.

Mr. Cheese arrived at his mansion hours later. A rusty old mobile home built some time in the early 60’s, wrapped from end to end in plastic in a useless attempt to contain any heat that might still be radiating from inside. The yard littered with old tires and debris that people have thrown in his yard for the last century using it as a dumping grounds for anything and everything. The moon that danced between the clouds earlier in the night was now completely blanketed by thick smog from the neighboring factories making his obstacle ridden yard almost impenetrable without light. Slowly Mr. Cheese groped his way along the mobile home, with each slip of his shoe he braced himself against the old steal beast which at one time was called a home. The trailer would moan like an old bear as Mr. Cheese’s body weight would slam into the side of it. Eventually he made it to the stairs where in, one by one he climbed until at the top. The air seemed cold and thick atop the stairs almost as if you could reach out and grab it with your bare hands. Out of breath and slouched over, Mr. Cheese reached for the screen door handle when out of the darkness came a ghostly dark figure casting a faint light. It was not dark like the shadows that were cast along the ground, but more of a freakishly grayish white emitting from all around the handle itself. He withdrew his fingers as if touching a hot pot, clutching them in his other hand. His draw dropped his eyes wide, not a single huff of breath came from his gaping mouth.

After several moments of staring at the ghostly figure emitting from his screen door handle he regained composure and clenched his eyes shut.

“There’s nothing there, NOTHING……go away I say……” He shouted into the night. After several seconds he opened his eyes, the figure was no more. Just as quickly as it had appeared, it had vanished without a trace. The air returning to its thin stale self told him it was nothing more then his tired eyes playing tricks on him.

“Blah!” followed shortly after by “Heisenbug!” came from his lips. It was his way of reassuring himself that what he saw was just his imagination.

He grabbed the door handle and entered his home, turning only slightly to take another glance out onto the porch almost half expecting to see something there. But instead all he saw were his fresh footprints in the snow of his staggering trip from the car to the front door. With that he slammed the door, turned on the first light he could find and proceeded to lock the 14 dead bolts that lay vertically along his door. Mr. Cheese was not a man easily scared by flashy lights and ghostly figures……internet connections going down, servers with viruses….well that’s a whole different story.

He proceeded to take of his over coat and shoes when a noise came from down the hall. As he turned to look, he thought for only a moment that he saw what looked like the hearse from the movie “Ghost Busters”. He waved it off without a second thought and continued throughout the house checking to make sure everything was in order. Standing in the kitchen he had a perfect advantage point of seeing the entire mobile home which measured a mere 10 feet wide by 50 feet long. He looked left……yep the far bedroom (10 feet away) was all in order, he looked to his right…….yep the bathroom was fine as well. With everything looking to be just as it should be he proceeded to his bedroom to change into his Sponge Bob Square Pants pajama’s, and retire to his computer for some late night pr0n surfing. The wind outside whirled and whistled through every crack of the mobile home, sending a shiver down Mr. Cheese’s spine. He grabbed his rob and sat at his desk. The computer was not even turned on, and yet the sounds of a failing hard drive could be heard through out the room.

He tilted his head from side to side trying to find where the noise was coming from, but before he could discover its origin, it was gone.

“Heisenbug!” said Mr. Cheese and continued on at powering up his PC. With a push of a button, the computer came to life buzzing and chirping as it booted up. The screen came to life with a brilliant light. Mr. Cheese strained and shielded his eyes against the bright light squinting only through his fingers to see what was happening on the screen. Before him on the display appeared the same ghostly figure in which he saw on his doorstep only moments ago. He slammed his eyelids shut once again, but this time the light seemed to pierce right through his feeble attempt to block it out and penetrate to the back of his skull.

“Cheese……..cheese…….CHEEEESSSSEEEE……” The figure shouted out

“Wha…….wah…….do I know you?” Mr. Cheese asked the figure now appearing on his screen.

“Is…….is…..that you……Mr. Sped?” His voice quivered.

“Ah no, actually he couldn’t make it, said something about changing all the servers or some dumb shit like that down in Hell.”

“Hell?.....but I thought the center was hell.”

“Close, but no.”

“Well good luck with all that, I feel your pain.”

“Yeah, he’s already fucked up a ton of shit.”

“Can you…….can you…..take over my computer?”

“I can!” replied the figure

“Then do it!”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Not really.”

“Why would you need more proof then what you are seeing right before your eyes now as I speak to you?”

“I dunno……just because I guess.”

“Why do you doubt your own senses?”

“Because” stammered Mr. Cheese “ever have those really bad stomach cramps that you feel like you’re dieing, but instead you just had to fart really bad?”

“Oh yes…yes, yes, damn I hate those.” The ghost stayed his ground, his eyes never leaving that of Mr. Cheese.

“This is why I doubt!” said Mr. Cheese “See that power button on the computer?”
“I do” said the figure

“Well all I have to do is push it in for 5 seconds, give or take a second or two of course….”

“Of course”

“And your gone……”

With that the figure let out a huge roar, playing the scratched CD’s which hung from him like chains, with terrible songs. The sound was deafening, Mr. Cheese cupped his hands over his ears and shivered in fear from the noise now surrounding him as if in 5.1 stereo surround sound. Not those cheap speakers either that you get from the bargain bin at the local electronics store, but the big ones that the kid down the street with no balls plays every night at 3 am to crappy rap music.

Mr. Cheese dropped to the ground “Please…..please, I beg of you make it stop, why do you torture me with the sounds of Tiny Tim played at 78 speed?”

“Because you doubt me!” the figure said

“Yeah, ya got me there bud, but why do ghosts haunt me through my computer…..tell me oh please.”

“Hey, it’s the 21st century, high speed internet, we can get around a lot faster traveling the super highway then we ever could just floating around.” Replied the figure

“True, true, but still why do you bother me?”

“Dunno, bored I guess, oh that and the fact that your on a fast track to dooming your soul in this life. If you keep this up, you’ll be forced to spend eternity wandering the earth moaning and groaning to scare people into changing their own lives for the better.” Again the figure lifted his scratched CD’s and began to play horrible music this time from Yani. The figure then floated out of his computer screen and stood next to Mr. Cheese.

“You are angry with me” pleaded Mr. Cheese “tell me why oh ghostly figure?”

“The CD’s I wear around my body were forged throughout my life as an evil administrator.” Replied the ghost “I made it, CD, by CD, threaded with CAT5 cabling foot by foot.”

Mr. Cheese trembled in fear at this site.

“You know not the threaded scratched CD’s of country music you bear on your own soul right now.”

Mr. Cheese looked around at the floor around him trying to see any CD’s hanging from himself. “Dude……I don’t see any CD’s”

“Well…..no not now you dumbass, their in your soul.”

“Well hello, how the fuck was I supposed to know Mr. Ghost man?”

“Well…..whatever, you got them, you just can’t see them right now….ok!”

“Is this supposed to give me comfort?”

“I bring you no comfort, I only come to you now to show you that the life you are leading as an asshole computer guy will some day lead to the same demise that in which I am in.”

“Hmmmm…..doesn’t seem all that bad, you get to surf the net and stuff right?”
“NO……and all our systems are running on Windows ME.”

“NOOOO!!!! Oh say it isn’t so spirit, say it isn’t true. Tell me oh great one….tell me what to do so I can avoid this tragedy onto mankind.”

“Listen to me” hollered the ghost “and listen good, as my time is almost up.”
“Your time is almost up? But you’re a spirit!”

“Yeah, but TNT has ‘A Christmas Story’ on in an hour, and I don’t want to miss it. It’s kind of a tradition among us ghouls.”

“Ummmm…..you do know that it will be on again, and again, and……..”

“Enough” the spirit demanded “How I sit beside you today in this form I do not know. Many a nights I have sat beside you in this house without form…... without shape.”

“Many?”

“MANY”

“So you saw the….”

“Yes I did, now let’s never speak of that again. Now let us continue, you will be haunted” resumed the ghost “by three spirits tonight.”

“Just three?”

“Yeah I think so………I’ll have to check the schedule and get back to you.”

“Is this my chance to change my life and not listen to John Tesh through out eternity?”

“It is!” replied the spirit

“Then I think I’ll pass, Myth Busters marathon is on Discovery tonight.”

“Without the help of the spirits, you will travel the same path in the after life as I one hundred times greater.” The ghost demanded “Expect the first one to arrive tonight when the digital clock flashes 1:00am”

“Can’t they just all come at once so I can get it over with?” Mr. Cheese suggested

“Like an orgy? Dude that’s pretty sick.”

“No, I didn’t mean……..well maybe…..oh never mind.”

“Expect the second to arrive some time tomorrow.”

“Well what time tomorrow?”

“I dunno, he said something about dropping Casper off at day care or something.”
Replied the ghost “And expect the last one to arrive at the stroke….”

“HA, HA you said stroke.”

“SILENCE, YOU FOOL!!!!” the ghost was not amused “Expect the last one at midnight the third night.”

The spirit then turned dragging his horrible CD’s behind him and entered the computer screen once more. As he faded away like an old screensaver he turned once more to look at Mr. Cheese “Do not forget what I have told you tonight Mr. Cheese…….do not forget.” His voice could be heard trailing off into the distance as he faded into the darkness.

Mr. Cheese walked over to the computer and peered behind it looking for any signs of the ghost almost as if to still doubt what he had just witnessed. He could hear the whine of the fan as it cooled off the inner components. He leaned in closer with his ear…..closer….closer…… “BOO!!!!!!!!!” the ghostly figure popped its ugly head out of the rear vent of the computer case sending Mr. Cheese flying backwards against the wall, his robe up over his head now.

“Holy shit man that’s not funny.” Mr. Cheese said in a shaken voice
“Like hell it wasn’t, you should have seen your face man……..priceless. Just wanted to remind you to not forget…….” With that the ghost once again faded away into the computer. Mr. Cheese wasted no time springing to his feet and yanking the power cord from the back of the computer. He then disconnected all network cables not only coming into the computer, but also into the house.

“Super Highway that you bastard, I hope you get DDoS’ed by some script kiddies on your way back……..nOOb!!”

With the confidence that he could relax, Mr. Cheese headed down the hall and into his room to turn in for the night. One last time he looked behind him to make sure there was nothing there before closing his door and ducking under the covers.

Chapter 2

The first of three computer administrative spirits

Mr. Cheese’s weak bladder had awakened him in the middle of the night as it had done so many nights before. He sat up in his bed and stretched his arms above his head, arching his back his old withered bones creaked and snapped like old twigs in the forest. With his wrinkled hands he rubbed his tired eyes and looked over at the clock on the nightstand which read 2:08am.
“How could this be?” Mr. Cheese said to himself “The spirit said I would be visited by the first of three ghosts’ at 1:00am.” Mr. Cheese began to wonder if the whole night had been nothing more then a bad nightmare.
He stumbled out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom, along the way passing the frost covered windows that lead to the cold outside. He paused for just a moment at the living room window scraping the frost with his yellow tinted fingernails. A horrible screeching noise pursued as the frost flaked off the window from his feverish scratching. With his head up against the glass he peered out into the winter bliss, his breath fogging the glass, he but saw nothing but the blowing snow wispily across his small yard. Even the thick smog from the factories had fallen silent.
After finishing his business he lay back in his bed staring at the clock. No matter how hard he tried to pass off the nights earlier encounter he could not shake the vivid image of the ghostly figure which stood before him just hours ago. The clock beside his bed now showed 2:30 as his eyes drew heavy. Slowly he began to drift back to sleep when suddenly a flash of brilliant light flashed before him at the foot of his bed. The entire room was basked in a warm glow. Mr. Cheese lay in his bed awe struck as the figure began to appear before him.
Before him now stood a very large man built from head to toe. Around his body hung an elegant white robe which seemed to trail far behind his feet. His face was broad, his cheeks full, and his eyes dark and full. He had a large well trimmed go-tee which hung from his chin like a soft fur coat. Around his head was a woven mesh of wires and circuits which blinked beautiful red, green, and blue LED’s.

“Are you the first of three spirits sent to visit me?” asked Mr. Cheese

“I am!” replied the spirit in a very low but soothing voice, much like James Earl Jones when he played the voice of Darth Vader.

“Well then, you’re late.”

“Yeah well seems as if someone disconnected their internet connection so I was re-routed to the Seattle head end, and then had to take 27 hops just to get anywhere near here.”

“Oh yeah, sorry….forgot about that, so who are you anyway?”

“I am the ghost of computer administration Christmas past.” The spirit announced.

Mr. Cheese got up out of bed and walked over beside the spirit, which towered over him several feet making him look like a midget. Mr. Cheese stood on his toes, tilted his head as high as he could and cupped his hand to his mouth as to whisper.

“Evil administrators past?” inquired Mr. Cheese

The ghost bent down to Mr. Cheese and looked directly into his eyes. “No, your past!” replied the ghost

With that the spirit extended his hand to Mr. Cheese. “Take my hand and surf the web with me.”

“But won’t we need a firewall?”

The spirit laughed and as his hand touched that of Mr. Cheese’s they were sent through the pipelines of the internet. Before Mr. Cheese could protest they found themselves standing outside in the cold of a small suburban neighborhood.

“Do you recognize the surroundings?” asked the spirit

“Recognize it; I know it like the back of my hand. This is where I grew up!” explained Mr. Cheese.

They walked down the road, Mr. Cheese recognizing every little detail as if he were there only yesterday. “And there’s Billy and Joey, look that’s the snow fort we made when I was twelve.”

“These are nothing more then your memories of past, cast before you now as if a grand painting on a magnanimous canvas before you.” The ghost explained “They cannot see nor hear us.”

Mr. Cheese’s face was filled with delight as they continued to pass more children playing, carolers singing, and memories that were once of a happy time. But why? What could bring a bitter old computer administration asshole to smile such as he was now?
They came upon an old house at the end of the street, as they approached the door it opened in front of them to let them in. As they entered they could see a small boy sitting by himself in the corner, tinkering with electronics and tearing apart the family BETA VCR. Mr. Cheese knelt down beside the boy and began to cry like a little girl as he stared at the image of his former self. The spirit came to his side resting his hand upon his shoulder. Mr. Cheese turned and looked across the room admiring the pictures above the fire place, pointing out each person by name, reminiscing old stories of good and bad, laughing at some and crying at others. If only the people he knew now could see him like this. His voice ringing out in confidence, his wrinkled face now smooth, his frown now turned into a smile. Surely they would not recognize the man they see before them.

He turned once again to look at the boy “I wish I could tell him how it is, how it will be, I wish I could show him, but it is too late.”

The ghost smiled and took his hand, “Lets move on to another Christmas shall we.”

As he said this the room began to change, it turned darker, and the little boy that sat in the corner in front of him now grew to a young adult standing at the window his hands crossed behind him. From outside footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs. The door busted open and a gleaming man came rushing through the door.

“My brother, I have come to bring you home!” the figure in the doorway shouted.

“Home, but why?”

“Well, I was downloading music on one of those……”

“Let me guess, file sharing programs, and you have spyware now?”

“Yeah………”

“Always getting into mischief your brother.” The spirit said “But a good heart he had.”

“Yes indeed” said Mr. Cheese “That he did have.”

They watched out the window as the two men got into the cab.

“He died with a child?”

“He was promiscuous” said Mr. Cheese “He died with many, many children.”

“Ah, nephews and nieces?”

Mr. Cheese seemed a little disturbed at the thought of just how many children his brother had and answered “Yes!”

With a blink of an eye they were yet again set in a new place, this time a busy street in a large city. Cars bustled about the streets, while people walked along the sidewalks. The spirit and Mr. Cheese stopped just outside of town in front of an old electronics store.

“Recognize it?” The spirit asked

“Recognize it, hell this is where I was trained as a young computer and electronics apprentice, it is what got me interested in computers in the first place.”

“You see how wrong it is now to try and peruse a career in computers don’t you?”

“Yeah, damn outsourcing!”

They went inside “Look there, it’s Mr. Jenkins, is he still alive?” inquired Mr. Cheese “I still remember the day he decided to take apart a power supply without first discharging it’s capacitors, we tried to warn him.” They continued to watch as Mr. Jenkins called out for Mr. Cheese. The two of them like a well oiled machine went about fixing and repairing any electronics that came though the door.

“You looked happy then.” Said the spirit

“You can’t even imagine, I had not a care in the world, I had great dreams.” Smiled Mr. Cheese

“Time is running short” the spirit observed looking down at his palm pilot “we must move quickly.

Once again they were brought before a new place, and once again Mr. Cheese was confronted with his former self, this time much older and in his prime. He sat at his desk playing countless hours of Ever Craft. Beside him sat a most beautiful woman. Her eyes filled with tears glistening in the dark against the glow of the computer screen.

“You pay little or no attention to me anymore. Your only ambition is a machine you call a computer. I have stood by and watch your aspirations fall to the side while you learn everything you can about this new technology.” The young lady said

“And even as I sit here now learning this and becoming the great computer geek that I might become, I have not diverted my attention away from you.”

“Have you?” she asked “You have changed, and the promises we once made to each other at a young age seem nothing more then a fairytale in an old book.”

“We were young, and foolish!”

“Are we still foolish.” She asked “Where is the love I so deserve, where is the man I married? It’s as if you don’t want me anymore.”

“Have I ever asked you to leave?”

“No, not in words you have not.”

“In what then?”

“In the way you have changed, in the atmosphere that surrounds you now, in your attitude towards me and everyone around you.”

His head now lowered “Your wrong!”
“Then correct me as I stand before you today!” she stammered
He said nothing, only listened as the sounds of her heading out the door and out of his life echoed throughout the house.

“Oh spirit…….show me no more” Mr. Cheese cried out as he held his face in his hands and wept “take me home…….I beg of you.”

“But there must be one more tonight.” The ghost explained

“No please……” but before he could continue they were once again brought in front of yet another memory from the past. This time it was of a small house filled with a happy family all gathered around exchanging stories with one another.

“Do you know what I saw on the way home today.” Asked one of the people sitting in the corner “I saw Mr. Cheese sitting there in his office all alone on Christmas Eve, as usual, typing away at his computer.”

“What could he have been possible been typing on Christmas Eve?” asked a young man sitting across the way

“Who knows, probably just another program no one will appreciate him for.” They all laughed together at this thought.

“Spirit take me away from this horrible place.” Mr. Cheese begged

“I show you only the past, it is your past, you made it, and I can’t change it, so deal with it.”

“Take me back, I don’t want to see the past anymore, please…..” he grabbed the spirits rob and held it to his face as he began to weep softly into it. “Please I beg of you, take me home……” He whipped the tears from his swelling eyes and looked up to see the spirit, but instead saw nothing but the ceiling of his house. In his hands now lay his bed sheet covered with his tears. He looked around the room, the warm glow from the spirit now gone. He was exhausted and without hesitation fell back upon his pillow and cried himself to sleep.

Chapter 3

Spirit Two of Three

Mr. Cheese laid sound asleep in his bed until the horrible beeping sound from his alarm clock awakened him. Unconsciously he reached over with his left hand blindly in the dark trying to find the off switch with his head still buried beneath the sheets. He mumbled into his pillow as his hands glanced over each button until arriving at the one that would silence the screaming beast.

He rolled over in his bed and stared up at the ceiling. His hands formed into little fists as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His mouth gaping open as he let out a long and exhausted yawn, and just as suddenly as if to be stung by a bee, Mr. Cheese sat straight up in his bed and looked around the room remembering that the second of three spirits was supposed to visit him at 3:00AM.

He looked to the windows but saw nothing, he glanced inside his open closet and again saw nothing. As he turned his head towards his closed bedroom door he could see an ominous glow emitting from the space between the bottom of the door and the floor. He knelt down on the floor and tried to peer underneath but could see nothing. He tilted his head as to put his ear close to the opening and for a brief moment he thought he could hear the sounds of rap music coming from the other room.

Hesitantly, Mr. Cheese stood up and reached for the handle to open the door. It was cold and Mr. Cheese withdrew his hand as if touching a hot stove. After realizing the door could not harm him he once again reached for the handle and slowly began to turn it. As the door opened, a bright light began to fill his room like a tidal wave splashing against the walls and across his floor turning shadows into distinct objects throughout his room.

When the door reached the half way point a voice coming from the living room called out his name and told him to enter. Mr. Cheese was a bit hesitant but eventually succumbed and exited his room.
It was his house, or so it seemed, but something was definitely different. Gold chains and jewelry hung from all the walls giving the room a warm golden glow. On the floor were stacks of coins and money from every denomination. Everything about the room seemed to scream money and Mr. Cheese was beginning to feel a little more at ease.

“Get your ass in here cracker” the ghost demanded “and sit with me and my beautiful bling as so we can get to know each other a little better.”

Mr. Cheese strode across the room not making any eye contact with the ghostly figure that lay across his couch. His eyes were hidden behind oversized dark sun glasses, and he wore a large furry robe much like a pimp. Across his hands lay a ring that covered all four fingers with the words “Yeah” upon them. Atop his head was an over sized baseball cap turned slightly sideways.

“Are you the ghost of Computer Administrative Christmas present?” Asked Mr. Cheese

“WHAT????” replied the ghost

“I said, are you the ghost of Computer Administrative Christmas present?”

“WHAT????” again the ghost replied

“Ghost of Computer Administrative present?” Mr. Cheese repeated

“WHAT????”

“Ghost of Computer Administrative present?”

“YEAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!”

“Ahhhh……ok!” Mr. Cheese sat with a puzzled look at the ghost that sat across from him with a big smile across his face.

“My friends call me Lil John.” The ghost explained

“May I call you the same?” Asked Mr. Cheese

“OK!!!!!!” The ghost shouted “You have never seen the likes of a man such as myself have you Mr. Cheese?”

“No, I must say I have not!”

“Have you never walked with members of my race and statute before?”

“No, I can’t say I have had the pleasure!” Mr. Cheese stated

“WHAT????”

“I said no!”

“WHAT????”

“NO!!” Mr. Cheese was loosing his patience

“OK!!!!”

“Spirit, do with me as you must, I have already learned so much from the last spirit. I await what you shall teach me this hour.”

“Touch my robe” the ghost demanded “NO, not there you sick son of a bitch.”
“Oh sorry” Mr. Cheese moved his hand and grabbed onto the sleeve of the elegant purple and white furry robe.
In an instant the room and all of its glorious jewelry were gone.
They found themselves standing on a street corner of a dismal part of town. The streets were not plowed of their snow as the city refused to come to this part of town. Garbage was strewn about the streets, and cluttered up in large piles in front of old building fronts now all closed down. Windows were boarded up, while other boar bars across them to keep intruders out. It was not a pretty site and not one anybody would want to find themselves living, and yet there seemed to be a good sized population living here. There was but one shop in all of the small town run by a foreign guy paralyzed on his left side from being beaten and robbed so many times.
Mr. Cheese and the spirit stood by for what seemed like hours watching these peasants as they made the best of their poor lives. The spirit was especially and would sprinkle gold dust upon their heads as they passed by. As he did this it would bring a smile to each ones face. Although as with the past, the people could not see Mr. Cheese or the spirit, it seemed as if the mere presence of the spirit seemed to bring joy into the people’s hearts. In time the store closed, and the people on the streets hurried home to begin cooking their Christmas feasts.

“Why do you sprinkle gold dust upon their heads?” asked Mr. Cheese

“Because, it cheers them up, and takes all there worries away if only for a moment.” Responded the spirit

“But they are poor!”

“It is the poor ones that need it the most as they have nothing to begin with.”

“But it is your family and mine that has put these families out in the cold that have deprived them an honest day’s work and it is our past that starves them now.”

“YEAH!!!!” replied the ghost “There are some upon this beautiful earth of your kind….”

“And by “Your kind” you mean white?”

“Yeah…..yeah……that would have us all treated this way if they could prosper from it. Remember this and do not blame them, but only yourself.”

Mr. Cheese nodded his head in acknowledgment. As they strolled down the street they followed one person in particular until he arrived at his home. Once again the spirit began to sprinkle the gold dust across the doorway which read “The Crotchrot Family”. Yes that’s right, the spirit had followed and led Mr. Cheese to the door of the lone student with the tattered clothing.
Snow was beginning to fall outside as the spirit and Mr. Cheese shuffled themselves inside the old house. Before them in the dining area was a large table with place settings for several poeple. A small fire was burning in the fireplace and in the corner was an old Tandy Computer system. Standing next to it were two children around the ages of ten playing a game of pong. As Billy Bob Crotchrot entered the room two more children came running in to great him with smiles and hugs.

“Crotchrot really got around.” Mr. Cheese observed

“YEAH!!!!.......you crackers, always pushin mo babies out den you cans afford.” Replied the ghost.

Billy Bob Crotchrot looked around the room as if puzzled. “Why where is Bubba Fat?” (Not to be confused with Tiny Tim, or Bubba Fet from Star Wars mind you……long story, a lot of legal issues…….) It was always a game for the young stunted lad with an eating disorder which caused him to limp like a short fat Umpa Lumpa, to hide from his father while waiting for him to come home from work. Billy Bob Crotchrot stood in the center of the room for more then five minutes while everyone was silent. Finally after 20 minutes the stunted gimpy fatso boy came waddling out from behind a chair. It took him this long to muster up the strength to stand up.

“Ah there you are my chubby little boy.” Billy Bob Crotchrot bent down and gave his son a hug, his arms barely reaching half way around his large body.

Together they all went back to the table and sat at their respective places to eat dinner. The room was filled with laughter each one telling stories of their daily adventures. They were filled with joy as if they were the richest people on earth. You would have expected a huge fancy feast to arrive on the table with how everyone was caring on, but instead it was not. No huge bowl of mashed potatoes this Christmas day. No Pumpkin pie covered in whip cream. Not even a large stuffed bird to go along with the seasonal tradition. In fact when Mrs. Crotchrot returned from the kitchen with the plate to which the bird lay, it wasn’t even a small turkey, but instead a small pigeon they had found dead on the streets earlier that week stuffed with stale old bread crumbs. Mrs. Crotchrot drove the knife in just as you would with a large bird and gave each person a small portion to feast on. No one complained and they all enjoyed it as if they were sitting and eating at your local “Old Country Buffet”.
After finishing their meals they all nestled in next to the fire as Billy Bob Crotchrot threw another small log into the fireplace. Mrs. Crotchrot brought over a large jug and placed it on a small table beside Billy Bob.

“Ah my fair lady, did you brew me a batch of your famous Orange peal ketchup packet hooch?” Asked Mr. Crotchrot

“I most certainly did, finished fermenting just this morning.” Replied Mrs. Crotchrot

Mr. Crotchrot poured himself a glass of some of the most foul looking liquid ever to enter a mans mouth…….well unless you watched fear factor lately………oh, and there was that time on 5th street with the hooker, but that’s another story another day.
After a couple of glasses Mr. Crotchrot turned to the rest of the family and pronounced
“Merry chrishmash to ush all, God blesh us………BURRPPPPP!!!!!”

To which his family repeated….but with less slurring.

“God bless Twinkies!” Piped Bubba Fat

The entire family turned their heads to look at Bubba Fat in disgust.

“What the fuck is wrong with you boy!!!!” asked Mrs. Crotchrot

“Oh mother, he’s just hungry.” Replied one of his siblings innocently enough.

“I know he’s hungry, he’s always hungry, why the fuck do you think we had to eat a damn pigeon for dinner tonight. Damn kid eats out of house and home.”
Ma Crotchrot always got like that when she started drinking her hooch. The rest of the family would just ignore her. It was obvious that Bubba Fat’s excessive weight might some day send him to an early grave, this much was you could see just by looking into the sad eyes of the family.

“Tell me spirit” Mr. Cheese inquired “Will Bubba Fat live?”

“I see an empty sunken cushion on the love seat” the ghost replied “And an unopened Twinkie on the coffee table.”

“NO, NO, it can’t be, say it isn’t so spirit.” Mr. Cheese begged

“WHAT????”

“I said…. Oh never mind.”

They continued to watch the family on this joyous day.

“And to you Mr. Cheeeeessseee………I toast your wisdom.” Mr. Crotchrot said

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Mrs. Crotchrot asked “That old grumpy bustard, you’re going to waste my good hooch on that asshole?”

“Please mom, not in front of the children.”

“Well I will toast to his death but not to his wisdom” and with that she raised her glass and the rest of the room followed. The mere mention of Mr. Cheese’s name seemed to bring a black cloud to the festivities. They may not have been rich, and they may not have been pretty even by circus freaks standards, but they were happy. Mr. Cheese never took his eyes off of Bubba Fat, his face saddened, his eyes welling up with tears.
The spirit grabbed Mr. Cheese’s sleeve and guided him out of the house.
Mr. Cheese held his head low as they walked down the snow covered sidewalks, not lifting his head when the children snickered as he passed by them, not raising his head to watch the spirit sprinkle his gold dust on the people that crossed their path. He couldn’t stop thinking about poor fat ass Bubba Fat and his fate. A cold chill sent shivers down Mr. Cheese’s spine; he looked up to see a very dark and dismal place, well beyond the city.

“What is this place spirit?” Asked Mr. Cheese

The spirit said nothing but continued on. The sounds of waves could be heard splashing up against a shoreline in the distance. As they continued to walk a dim light shined through the night at the edge of the shore.

“Where are we going now?”

Again the spirit said nothing but continued on. The stepped off of a small dock and onto a boat littered with people. “I recognize these people.” Mr. Cheese commented. Indeed he did, the boat was filled with former students of his.

“Ha, Ha, Ha, Blah Heisenbug, he used to always say.” One of them commented

“Man we used to pick on him so bad behind his back……” another said

“Yeah, poor old son of a bitch never new what hit him when we were in there, I almost feel sorry for him.”

“Well I don’t” One student spoke up “he was a bitter old asshole who made learning anything a living hell.”

“Well it’s a pity he didn’t want to join us tonight to celebrate our graduation. He never was one for social gatherings.”

“Let’s play a game shall we. I will think of something and you all have to try and guess it, you may ask me any yes or no question you want and I will answer honestly. So who will begin?”

The students were all too eager to play along and before long they were barking out questions. “Is it an animal?” asked one to which the reply was “No!”, “Is it human?” to which the reply was “Yes!” It wasn’t long before they had narrowed it down to a human male.

“Is he old?”

“Yes!”

“Is he an asshole?”
“Yes!”

“I’ve got it, is it Mr. Cheese?”

“Yes, you’ve got it.” The student shouted in enthusiasm. The entire group roared with laughter at poor Mr. Cheese’s expense.

“Well Mr. Cheese, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, wherever you may be this night.” And with that the students all held up their glasses and toasted one another.

A single tear ran down Mr. Cheese’s cheek as he watched the entire display.

“I had no idea I was looked upon as such an evil person” But before Mr. Cheese could utter another word, the entire scene layed out in front of them was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. He glanced back at the spirit who now appeared to have aged significantly throughout the night.

“Is your spirit life short?” Asked Mr. Cheese

“YEAH!!!!”

“Oh Christ here we go again.” Mr. Cheese shook his head back and forth with his hand on his forehead.

Suddenly the old town clock stuck the hour of 4:00AM. Mr. Cheese raised his head to look at the spirit, but he was gone. Mr. Cheese was left alone in the dark with only the sound of the wind blowing through the dried branches on the trees scratching against themselves as they swayed back and forth. As the last stroke of the clock rang out Mr. Cheese remembered what the ghost who had visited him the first night had told him.
His heart began to pound loudly inside his chest as he could feel an uncomfortable presence surrounding him. His breathing became rapid as he was frozen in his tracks. Afraid to look around in hopes that maybe if he didn’t see the last spirit it might go away and yet for some reason he felt compelled to turn his head. Off in the distance he could see a dark figure approaching him. It was draped in a long black cloak; a hood over its head hid its face from being seen. It did not walk, but instead seemed to float a few inches off the ground as it approached him. Kind of like Chris Angel. Mr. Cheese looked back in hopes that the other spirit might reappear and take him away from this evil looking ghost, but there was nothing there. He turned back to the direction in which the spirit was fast approaching, who was now hovering over him like a dark shadow.

“Oh shit, this can’t be good.”

Chapter 4

The Last one, The Big Tamale

The dark shadow of a ghost hung over Mr. Cheese like hot tar on a freshly paved road. Mr. Cheese dropped to his knees from fear in the presence of this new spirit.

“You must be the ghost of Computer Administrative yet to come?” asked Mr. Cheese
The spirit stretched out his arm, his cloak hanging off of his arm several inches. From within the dark dwellings of his sleeve protruded a boney withered hand. He did not speak, only pointed with his index finger.

“Not much of a talker are ya? What’s the matter, cat got your tongue, ha,ha,ha……ha…….ha…………uh…………yeeeeaaaahhhh.” Mr. Cheese received no response from the spirit, he continued only in pointing in the same direction. “Your going to show me things to be, are you not spirit?” He was hopeful for even the smallest response from the spirit, but it stood there in the same position cold as stone, pointing. Mr. Cheese was getting pretty used to seeing ghosts, but this one made him uncomfortable to say the least. He stood up to face the ghost, knees shaking, lips trembling, scared to death as he peered into the hood of the spirit and saw nothing but darkness, even though he could feel the heat of it’s dark eyes staring down upon him burning into his soul.

The spirit began floating across the ground in the direction in which he was pointing. Mr. Cheese felt an irresistible urge to follow behind. The scenery didn’t seem to change; much like walking on a treadmill Mr. Cheese got the impression that they weren’t going anywhere. Instead of walking into the city as he had with the previous spirits, the buildings seemed to appear out of thin air all around, then the road beneath them, and just as suddenly there were people. They stopped outside a large building where several people had gathered. The spirit pointed to the group of men and Mr. Cheese obliged by moving in closer to catch a glimpse of their conversation.

“He’s dead all right” said a short stout man with a curled up nose.

“Are you sure? Did you kick him?” Asked a skinnier balding man

“What the fuck do you take me for, of course I kicked him, he was dead as a nail I tell you.” Replied the stout man

“Well is there going to be a funeral?” A quiet girl asked.

“I suppose so, but not much of it, no one liked the man.”

“What did he do with all his countless IT books?” Asked another

“Who knows, knowing him, he wouldn’t give them up even after death; he probably has a Will describing they all be buried with him, or better yet burned.”

A light hearted chuckle came from the crowd of people. Mr. Cheese knew the people; they were former students of his. The crowd continued to converse and fade away; Mr. Cheese looked back at the spirit who now was floating towards him once again, his withered finger pointing farther down the street. It wasn’t long before they came across another, smaller, group of people. Again Mr. Cheese approached them to listen in.

“Old bastard finally got what he deserved.” A business man in a suit said

“So it would appear.” Replied another

Mr. Cheese recognized these gentlemen as well. They were fellow colleagues. But who could they be talking about; surely they wouldn’t still be talking about his partner Speds death after all this time. Besides this was the ghost of things to come, not things in the past. Mr. Cheese shrugged it off and trusted that the spirit would guide him to these answers when the time was right. He stood quietly looking around the streets and busy crowds trying to find himself amongst the people but saw nothing to his likeness. This struck Mr. Cheese by surprise.
They continued to stroll, or rather float down through the town until they came upon a small dismal area known better as the slums. Mr. Cheese had never been here before but he knew the area well. He turned to face the spirit who once again was pointing with his finger to a scraggly house that was dimly lit. Mr. Cheese approached the window. With both hands held on each side of his head he pressed his forehead against the cold glass. Inside he could make out four people gathered beside an open fire and a large box.

“Well slide that damn box over here so we can get this over with.” A large man sitting upon a stool said.

“What’s the fuss, not like he’ll be needing these things anymore?” Another voice said sitting across from the first man

“True, but the sooner we get this over with the better I’ll feel. Just being in the presence of that damn box makes me feel all dirty and low inside.”

“Oh nonsense” said a women walking into the room carrying what seemed to be a pot of coffee “It’s just a box full of his belongings, what are you worried about.” The box was slid over to the large man on the stool while the rest stood by and watched him open it and begin removing the contents inside.

“Look at this, an old tattered rag of a hooded black sweatshirt…..ewww…..” The man said as he held up a large black coat before throwing it inside the fire. “No one will be needed that ugly thing anymore.” The fire erupted with a large flume of yellow and orange flame as the old coat landed atop the smoldering logs within. He reached back inside the box grabbing a handful of glass frames containing several IT certifications. The large man let them slip from his grasp and crash to the floor breaking the glass which once protected the fragile paper certifications inside.

“Ah now look what I have done…….dammit.” The man said

“Well they are of no use anymore, just a bunch of stupid pieces of paper; throw them into the fire as well.” The women replied

“Well if we get nothing else out of his death, at least he kept the fire burning for a few more hours.” They all laughed together at this comment.

Mr. Cheese could not believe how callous these people were with someone’s personal belongings. He cringed as they threw the IT certifications into the fire which once again came roaring to life as it devoured the delicate paper.

“I see spirit” said Mr. Cheese “I see that you are trying to tell me that the way this deceased man is being treated might be my own as well.” He lowered his head from the glass and turned toward the spirit. As he lifted his head the surrounding changed once again. This time he found himself in a cold dark room with not a glimmer of any light.

“Where am I spirit” Mr. Cheese cried out, but there was no response. He turned his head left to right trying to figure out where he was, what room he was in. He could here the scratching of tiny feet as rats ran across the floor boards. Two of them were scuffling off in the corner. Mr. Cheese dared not to get down off the bed as the floor seemed to fill with the sounds of more angry rats hissing and scratching all around him. Quickly he backed himself farther onto the bed before hitting a hard cold lump beneath the covers.

“What is this?” he asked himself, and in that moment a single light shine down onto the bed revealing the outlined figure of a man hidden beneath the covers.

“Who is this man?” asked Mr. Cheese

Another light, much more dim revealed the spirit standing in the corner of the room, rats scurrying beneath his robe. The spirit didn’t seem to mind this, nor did he try to move them out from beneath him, even as they began to bite and tear the flesh from his bones. It almost seemed like the spirit encouraged the little demons as if to be feeding his children. This very site sent chills down Mr. Cheese’s spine and he found himself in that same position he was the night the first spirit had visited him, scared to death. He looked again at the figure below the covers which was covered from head to toe.

“I ask you again spirit, who is this beneath the covers? Is this the man that the town seemed to hate?”
Once again the spirit raised his hand in silence, what little flesh he had was now dripping off of his bones like a hot candle burning through the night. He pointed at the mans head instructing Mr. Cheese to pull back the covers.

Mr. Cheese looked down at the figure, something deep down inside him wanted to pull back the covers, wanted to see what lay beneath, wanted to know, but there was a much larger part of him that withdrew his hand before it came in contact with the sheet which lay upon the face of the dead man.

“No, I can’t…..I CAN’T I TELL YOU” Cried Mr. Cheese

The spirit thrust forth his arm once again at the head of the dead man beneath the covers at which time a loud crack of thunder could be heard echoing from within the room as if the spirit himself had some how mastered the will of nature. Mr. Cheese reached for the covers once again, his hand shaking immensely. Closer and closer he got until he could hear the sounds of whispers all around him. These were not the whispers of pleasant people, instead they were angry whispers, spitting out obscenities and foul language like a cheap hooker. As Mr. Cheese’s hand got close to the sheet which covered the head of the dead man the whispers became louder, and louder, filling his ears to the point of screams. He withdrew his hand once again and covered his ears. The screams fell silent.

“No, I can’t…….please spirit don’t make me do it. Show me that there is someone out there that does not hate this man.” And with that the spirit withdrew his arm and opened his robe revealing a small picturesque window.

“Dude, you got a DVD player in your robe?.........That’s so fucking cool……..”

Mr. Cheese watched as a scene unfolded. It was the house of one of his students. Inside a young woman nervously paced back and forth as she awaited the return of her husband. The door swung open sending in the cold air from outside. The woman stopped in her tracks and turned to face the open door in which her husband stood.

“Is it good news, or bad?” She asked

“It’s good, the stories were true, he is dead.”

“So what about your training, who will take over as your teacher, can you get an extension now.”

“Slow down woman, I don’t know the answers to any of these questions yet, but for now we can rest easy.” And with that they both smiled and sat down at the table to enjoy their meal.

It saddened Mr. Cheese to see the only pleasure brought to anyone from the deceased man was in fact his death. The scene then changed again to that of a much darker one. It was Billy Bob Crotchrot’s house, only this time there was no smiles on the faces of the children. There was no Bubba Fat hiding behind a chair waiting for his father to come home. The family was dressed all in black and preparing for what looked like a funeral. Mr. Cheese listened in as Billy Bob broke down in tears weeping talking about his fat son. It was obvious that Bubba Fat had passed on due to his obesity. The spirit closed his robe and the room began to whirl with black smoke. They now found themselves standing beside a small church outside of any busy cities, away from all the hustle and bustle of any town. Next to the church was a small graveyard littered with old dead trees. The grass had not been cut for sometime, and the gravestones were buried beneath blankets of vines and overgrown grass. It was obvious that this was a graveyard for the forgotten, the hated, and the repulsed, for which no one ever visited.
The wind was howling throughout the graveyard as the spirit and Mr. Cheese approached a small headstone near the back of the site. They stopped several feet from the stone and the spirit once again pointed, this time directly at Mr. Cheese. His heart stopped and his knees fell weak as Mr. Cheese undoubtedly knew what the spirit wanted.

“Tell me spirit before I turn to look at this lonely gravestone, was the man lying on the bed……was it me?”

The spirit did not move, and even though the wind was blowing Mr. Cheese’s pajamas practically off his body, the spirit and his robe stood motionless. Mr. Cheese glanced over his shoulder at the headstone, squinting his eyes to see the name engraved upon it. A large crash of lighting lit the sky for miles illuminating the stone in all its glory. Neither grass, nor vines could hide what Mr. Cheese eyes now saw. It was his name engraved on the stone.

“Is this my fate? Is this my future? Please spirit say it isn’t so. I have learned my lesson; I will live the ways of the three spirits. I will embrace Christmas and all it’s glory, I will not go back to my old ways, I am a changed man, please tell me that my efforts will not go ignored, that I can still change this future.” Mr. Cheese dropped to his knees and clutched onto the robe of the spirit. “Please I beg of you, let me change…….” The spirit did not move as Mr. Cheese sobbed loudly into his robe. Again Mr. Cheese begged and pleaded with the spirit to give him another chance, and with that, the wind stopped, the howling was gone, and the robe in which he clung to, dropped into a pile of nothing at his feet. Mr. Cheese looked around to see he was back in his bedroom, the light shinning through the windows had told him it was the beginning of a new day.

Chapter 5

A new Beginning

Mr. Cheese sat on his bed looking around his room. Yes it was true he was back in his own house. He turned to where the lump from the dead heap lay before and saw nothing. A sigh of relief escaped his mouth. He gathered up the top sheet and used it to wipe his face dry from the tears.

“It’s true…..I am back in my own house. The spirits have given me another chance, I know they have, this must be why I’m back in my own room.” His face was a glow with enthusiasm as he jumped around the room in joy.
He continued running throughout the house in glee remarking at all the things from the previous night with each spirit.

“There’s the couch the spirit of Lil Jon sat. And there, right there, is my computer screen that the first ghost appeared.”

If anyone were to enter the house they would think he was insane parading around in his pajamas acting like the kings gesture. He truly seemed to be a changed man.

“ I don’t know what to do, I’m just so happy to be alive…..what day is it? I don’t know what day it is! Oh fuck I don’t care, Woohoo, woot, woot……..”

He rushed to the living room widow and thrust it open. Poking his head outside, his head turned towards the sky allowing the sun to splash against his face. Walking down the street was a young boy delivering the morning paper.

“Hey you, what day is it?” Asked Mr. Cheese

“Fuck off old man!” Replied the young lad

“Oh kids these days, funny, funny boy” Mr. Cheese said under his breath “I ask you one more time before I come out there and beat your ass down like the piece of shit you are, WHAT FUCKING DAY IS IT.”

This seemed to grab the little bastards attention as his next response was “Ah….well it’s Christmas day.”

“Christmas day WHAT?????”

“Ah Christmas day….ah…..Sir?”

“Oh goodie, I haven’t missed it, the spirits have blessed me once again……he, he, he….” Mr. Cheese said softly to himself while rubbing his hands together.

“Can I go now.” The young lad outside shouted

“Ah…..no, no, tell me boy, do you know the CompUSA store down on main street?”

“DUH!!!”

“Good, good…….” Replied Mr. Cheese “Do they still have the prize router in the window?”

“You mean the four port one?”

“The four port one, funny, funny boy……I like him.” Mr. Cheese said quietly “No boy, the big one, the 40 port monster?”

“Well yes I suppose they do.”

Mr. Cheese rubbed his hands together again with a huge smile across his face “It’s good…..it’s good….” “I want you to go down there and buy it, this very minute.” Demanded Mr. Cheese

“Are you fucking retarded, I don’t have any money.”

“Oh yes…….I will pay for it, tell the manager to deliver it here immediately, tell him there is a bonus in it for him, and if you do this in the next five minutes I will give you a hundred dollar bill.”

“Whoopee!!!” A sarcastic reply came from the young boy.

“Fine, make it a thousand, would that make you happy?” But before he could finish the boy dropped his remaining papers and was running as fast as he could towards town. “Ah…..good, good, boy. I’ll send that damn thing to Crotchrot’s house along with a brand new computer system to replace their dinosaur of a computer……he’ll be so surprised.” Mr. Cheese was beside himself now, giggling like a school boy.

Mr. Cheese ran off to get dressed, and clean himself up. It wasn’t long before there was a knock on his door. In a dash he ran to answer it. Standing outside the door was a very exhausted paper boy.

“Ok……..old man……..where’s my thousand bucks?” He said between breaths “Best Buy has an Xbox with my name on it.”

Mr. Cheese looked behind the boy to see a very happy store manager wearing a CompUSA shirt. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a brand new crisp thousand dollar bill and handed it to the boy as promised. Like a streak of lightning the boy took off running..

“That thing is huge.” Remarked Mr. Cheese

“Ah………oh the router, yes indeed it is.” Replied the store manager.

Mr. Cheese grabbed a piece of paper and pen and scribbled down an address onto it.

“Here, I wish to have this delivered to this address immediately.”

“Are you insane, I damn near broke my back carrying this shit here.”

“Really? Well isn’t that your car still running in my driveway?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Well then, here is your bonus, and some gas money, now hurry, go deliver that thing to the address I gave you.”

Mr. Cheese grabbed his coat and gloves and ran out of the house, scurrying down the street. Before he knew it he was in the city amongst some of the same people he had seen while out with the spirits the previous night. As he continued to walk briskly he came across the student which he had scolded a few days prior. Mr. Cheese was a bit hesitant to make eye contact with his former student in fear of how he might treat him.

Reaching out he grabbed the man by both shoulders. “Merry Christmas to you sir, I hope all is well with you.”

“Mr. Cheese” the astounded student replied

“Yes, that’s my name.” Mr. Cheese leaned into the student and whispered into his ear to which the student almost fell backwards.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Yes, yes I am, free training for as long as you need it, just come on into the center, I have already taken care of all the paperwork.”

The student was in shock, his mouth hung open not knowing what to say. When he regained his composure he took Mr. Cheese’s hand “Thank you, thank you very much….I …I don’t know what to say….I….”

“You don’t have to say anything, it is my pleasure.” And with that Mr. Cheese tipped his hat to the man and continued on with his journey.

Mr. Cheese finally arrived at his destination outside Billy Bob Crotchrot’s house. He stood outside for a minute before knocking on the door. In an instant his happy smiling face turned into a low frown. Every few seconds the smile would creep back onto his face, he couldn’t help himself. He could hear footsteps approaching the door, closer and closer, again he put on as serious of a face as he could. Billy Bob answered the door.

“Mr. Cheese? Can….can I help you.”

“You most certainly can fuck face, I opened the school today for you and you never showed up. A waste of my time, and for what…..nothing…….are you going to give me back the time I wasted today?” Mr. Cheese said in his old evil voice.

“Well I thought….I mean you said…….I didn’t think…..”

“Enough, I will not tolerate this anymore. And because of it, I have brought by a brand new computer for you along with a 40 port router so your entire family can enjoy the world wide web. I have also extended your training indefinably and brought you all the books you will ever need to pass any course.”

“I….I don’t understand” Billy Bob was undoubtedly confused by all this generosity from Mr. Cheese

Mr. Cheese couldn’t hold it back any longer; he let out a roar of laughter, followed by a slap on the shoulder of Billy Bob. “Oh man, it’s Christmas, I brought you all this for you and your family. I want to see you succeed!”

“Are you the same Mr. Cheese as my instructor, or was he kidnapped by aliens last night?”

“Well I’m not going to lie to you Billy Bob, I might have been probed during the night………but that doesn’t matter, I am a new man. Here, I also brought you a membership to Jenny Craig for your fat kid. Get that boy on a diet before he dies.”

“Yeahhhhhh……..ummmmmm…..ok.”

They exchanged some more small talk before Billy Bob invited him into the house to enjoy a wonderful Christmas dinner with his family. Mr. Cheese looked behind the chair immediately to find one large Bubba Fat playing hide and seek much like he did every night waiting for his father. He was relieved. Everything was good, and laughter filled the house…..except that is when Mrs. Billy Bob Crotchrot walked out of the kitchen and saw Mr. Cheese for the first time and began beating him with a rolling pin to within an inch of his life before Billy Bob could explain. But after that everything was good once again, and Mr. Cheese did change his ways, and his life. He lived a long happy 6 months (major stroke took his ass out) always giving full attention to his students and helping every one of them along the way.

The
End

Windows Vista

2006-10-27T11:58:00.000-05:00

About a year ago or more I posted a rather large article about my experiances while testing out a very early edition of Windows Vista. I haven't had a chance to play with any of the newer versions, only kmnow what I see on other sites or blogs. I remember digging around in the system32 folder at the time though and finding alot of odd tools and utilities. I will list them with my original descriptions below.

A couple of new things I notices while digging through the system32 folder, which may or may not be visible in other places of the operating system, are……

DFD- This tool is a hard drive failure detection and backup tool. From what I could gather, it looks like if the system detects a problem with the hard drive it prompts you to do a backup. I didn’t run the whole tool so not sure what it backs up or if you can change any settings.

Port Assist Viewer-Not sure what this is good for.

Dr. Watson-Yeah, unfortunately, he’s back.

DirectX Diagnostic Tool-Never needed one before, wondering what they know that I don’t as to why I will need one in the future.

Equinox Logger-I have no idea, but the name sounds scary....or cool, or cool scary.

Equinox Loopback-Cool scary's evil twin brother, and I still have no idea what it is.

Private Character Editor-Looks like you can design your own icons with this, which is pretty cool if you have the time.

Event To Trap Translator-According to Microsoft this is in XP, never seen it nor used it but they say “Configures the translation of events to traps, trap destinations, or both based on information in a configuration file.”…….um……ok, if you say so.

Bluetooth File Transfer Wizard-Now this I could see being very useful in the future with all the Bluetooth compatible devices hitting the market these days.

Getmac.exe-You got to love this. A tool to retrieve the built in MAC address………or is it now? I think with Winux they should also have a GetLinux.exe.

Narrator.exe-Only the interface of this looks slightly different with Vista from XP, with a few more options when starting up and a few other ways of getting to it through the system.

P2PHost.exe-Nope that’s not a typo. This thing actually has a p2phost built in. How long before that gets exploited and run silently from a remote machine. Looks like Microsoft has had it around for awhile, you can read more about it Here For a system that is supposed to be all it can be in the security area, this doesn’t seem like a very good step in the right direction.
They try to give it an innocent name in the task bar by calling it a “Collaboration Host”.
“No your honor, my client wasn’t using Emule to download files, he was simply using a collaboration host with other associates.”

Qclintfy.exe-This looks like a tool for network administrators to install updates or files remotely. Whenever I clicked on the .exe a message in the lower right hand corner would pop up stating “Your network administrator has finished updating your computer. Network access is restored” Could be handy, and also could be dangerous.

ScreenReader-Another text-to-speech tool.

Sdclt.exe-Back-up system for documents or something of the sort.

Shvcnfg.exe-This one is really handy if you use your own firewall and antivirus and don’t want Microsoft to keep bugging you all the time that its own firewall is not on. This gives you options to disable things like “Must have firewall”, “must have antivirus”, “must have auto updates turned on” "must switch to Linux".....ok so I added the last one.
If you’re running a system not connected to the internet or only a local intranet then you should have the option to turn these annoying little pop-up bubbles off, and it looks like this tool will allow just that.

Toggle.exe-If this works even close as it sounds to its description this good be a godsend for stopping Spyware and viruses, on the other hand it could also be very annoying depending on just how much it tries to stop. Here is the description I got when the tool opened “Windows is helping make your computer more secure by asking for your permission before making changes that requires admin rights. Do you want to turn this off.” Like I said, this could be a wonderful addition, or it could also be a very annoying tool.

Wercon.exe-New look on an old tool. Seems a bit of a twist on the help and solution center we are used to in XP. The title of the program is “Solutions to problems”, followed by “solve problems on your computer”. It gives a few options on the side like, “check for new solutions”, (assuming this is just windows update) “Review problems and check”, “View problem history”, “clear history”. Will wait to see how well this works, more then likely it will check for updates to software and hardware on your system including windows update, and I am sure it will also look into the event viewer for recorded problems.

I'm curious to know if anyone has seen these tools or tried to use any of them with the newer releases of Vista and what your thoughts are.

A Tribute To Tragedy

2006-09-11T09:14:00.001-05:00

I made this one month after the attacks. It was my way of dealing with the tragedy.

Never Forget!

Enjoy!

The Quiet One

2006-07-29T21:15:00.000-05:00

You always here on the news about the guy next door, you know the ones, “Oh he was so quiet I would have never suspected he was the Prince of Darkness ruler of all evil and gruesome death who liked to chop people up into tiny little pieces and feed them to his three legged Chihuahua with one eye .”

I live next to some of the loudest most retarded neighbors on the planet and I must say I’m pretty damn happy. If for some reason they move away and I get some single guy moving in next door who keeps to himself, never borrows anything and has his groceries delivered to his door, while the delivery man knocks threes times…..waits two steps and then knocks again before a 20 is slipped under the door, I’m out of here. Crap I think I just described myself.

“Well I’m heading out.” Sped says to me

“Really? Why the hell did you come in anyway?” I ask him

“I dunno.”

“So you leave at 1:00pm to catch the UPS guy at your house, who doesn’t show up until 6:00pm, then roll back into here for no apparent reason, and then leave 45 minutes later?”

“Yeah”

“Humph”

“Yeah well you only have one student in the quiet lab and one out here so you should be fine.”

“I was fine before you showed up…….. Anyway who’s the one student in the lab room?” I ask

“I dunno stocky, blonde, sits in the same place every time.”

DUN, DUN, DUN

“Oh crap, you mean that creepy guy who always wears the same cloths?”

“Maybe”

“And sits right next to the door?”

“Yeah I guess”

“And has a third arm growing out of his back?”

“What…huh……NO!”

“Just seeing if your paying attention, but is this one really QUIET?”

“Yeah kinda, why who is he?”

“Oh I dunno just some guy.”

“Well I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

I cringe as he walks off out of site. This guy is really weird; he always has the same facial expression no matter what. I mean the guys foot could be on fire and you would walk up to him and say “Hey guy (like I care what his name is) you know your foots on fire” and he would just look down, look back up at you and say “yeah, so” while chewing on the side of his cheek. I cracked a joke at this guy once to try and break the tension and all he did was look down at me for what seemed an eternity without saying a word, without blinking, hell I don’t even think he was breathing, and then finally he said “That wasn’t funny.” Turned and walked away.
Freaky huh?
He also never wants to leave this place. In fact he even scares the Zombies out of the center, which up until that started happening I didn’t think they were scared of anything, but you know what, they are, they are indeed, they are scared of “That Guy”. I’m not even sure he is a student here; he just appears out of no where. Fucking little Houdini bastard.

I look up at the clock, 50 minutes until closing. I hate trying to get him out of here, he never takes the hint. Usually I just lock up and leave, when I come back the next day I’m just thankful he’s gone and I still have my life. You all laugh but we get some pretty freaky people in here considering we give loans out to anything that can still move and has a slight pulse. Wait……scratch that……..I don’t think you need a pulse either, and there might be a check box on the application for “moving” being optional. Anyway, let’s get back to “The Guy”. I walk over to the water cooler where there is a large glass window looking into the quiet lab. How fitting the quiet guy always sits in the quiet lab. Crouched down I raise my eye lids up as far as they can go to the point that they hurt to scan the room through the glass.

I pear around the room……nothing, empty. The little bastard disappeared on me. Well no worries, at least I don’t have to try and push him out of the center……or worry about starting my car. I look down at my glass as the water trickles from the cooler filling it up. I stand up and take a deep gulp.

“Ahhhh, it’s good, it’s good.” I say to myself.

I turn around and “Holy shit, where the hell did you come from….I mean can I help you?” It’s “The Guy”. Fuckin Houdini bastard.

“No you can’t.” He says keeping his head down but raising only his eyes just enough to meet with mine……damn that’s creepy.

“Ummmm, ok, I’m cool with that.” I say trying to act all non-scared and what not. “I mean, I’m cool if your cool, that is to say if your cool with me being cool about being cool then I’m cool, otherwise I’m not cool, I’m just….you know…..”

In a very low voice he says “Shut the fuck up and move.” staring at me until finally letting out an evil smirk. I shuffle out of his way spilling half my water as I try to suck myself up to the glass window like holiday window cling.

He didn’t even raise his voice when he said that, and it still sounded scary as hell, what a freak. I think he might be an alien, or a robot, or worse yet, an alien robot guy. Staring at me with those dark eyes, probably reading my thoughts right now, yeah an evil robot guy from space or something. I think I saw an X-Files episode about him, it was called “Evil scary robot alien guy from outer space”, or something along those lines…..I’m sure of it.

Like a dark shadow of sinister death he slithers back into the quiet lab to do whatever it is he does. Five minutes to close I start walking around the center to lock up. The doctor comes out of the medical lab shutting off the lights as he leaves the room. This is in direct sight of the “The Guy” in the quiet lab; you think he would get the hint, but not this guy, nope. I head into the quiet lab and lock the door leading to the normal outside world in which I am from and “The Guy” is not. Oh how I can’t wait to go through that door. I start turning off all the machines near him watching myself so I don’t get to close. Like a hungry lion he follows my every move around the room, as if he is waiting until my guard is down to pounce.

“So I guess it’s time to close up shop here……yep……..8 o’clock….time to close.”

“No it’s not” he says to me

“Ummmm, no it’s not time.” Holy shit is he using Jedi mind tricks on me “wait, wait, yes it is.” I repeat

“I said, NO IT IS NOT”

“Yes, well I’ll just be in here if you need me then.” Scurrying off before I get a knife in my back

With this I walk out of the quiet lab, lock the remaining doors grab my stuff and get the hell out of there. I put the car key into my car door and glance up at the fifth floor window seeing only a dark shadow standing there. I hesitate, afraid to open the door. Where was he for those fifteen minutes I didn’t see him in the center? I peak under my car, nope no foreign objects. I slowly open the door wincing, waiting, anticipating a bomb to go off or something. Nothing…..silent. I breathe a sigh of relief, sit down in my car and start it up…..oh shit, what if it was rigged to the ignition…..stupid, stupid, stupid. Well nothing happened this time, thank god, but you have to watch out “for the quiet ones”.

Fucking Houdini bustard…………

Chain Letters Rule SUCK!!!!!

2006-07-22T00:43:00.000-05:00

Why do people insist on filling my inbox with chain letters?

“If you don’t send this chain letter back to me it means you don’t love me”

There must be a lot of people that think I don’t love them anymore.

“I sent this letter to only my very special friends; I would hope you would return it to me to show me how much of a friend I am to you.”

No, a very special friend would have deleted it and saved me the misery of having to open something I thought was from a very special friend but has now been added to my hate spam list for wasting the last 2.6 seconds of my life I will never see again.
Can you send a chain letter to get my 2.6 seconds back, huh?

Can you? I didn’t think so.

“If you don’t send this to ten people in the next ten minutes 10 people around the world will die.”

I call this Gods natural selection in life, who am I to interfere, and maybe just maybe I will get lucky and God will pick the originator of this letter to be one of those lucky ten people.

“Send this to 50 people in the next 24 hours to have good luck the rest of the week.”

50 people…..hmmmmm…..I know this may come as a surprise to some but I don’t even have 50 people I could send this to……(place sarcasm here). I suppose if I added up all my old email addresses I could send it to myself 50 times. I’m not sure which is more sad, the fact that I don’t have 50 people in my address book to send it to, the fact that I actually for 1 second (now I am up to 3.6 seconds of my life wasted) thought to send this garbage to other people, or that I actually have more old email addresses than people in my address book.

“Send this to ten people you care or a little girl will die in a third world country.”

Ok, ok I’m pretty sure I will not be the cause of a little girls death in a third world country because of a piece of shit chain letter filling my inbox, but if for some act beyond the God’s of email I am because I didn’t send this chain letter out to other people, are you going to pay my therapy bills for the next 10 years for the guilt I feel for causing such damage? Are you going to help me through rehab because I am so afraid to go near a computer now “because they can kill people with email”. Yeah I didn’t think so.

“Send this to 15 people to enlarge your penis. And if you really care about the size of my penis you will send this back to me.”

Ok, I sent this one out…….why is no one sending it back to me????.......oh…….I see.

Here’s a chain letter for you, “Send this letter to anyone and your inbox will be filled with spam, your dog will piss on the carpet, you will be stuck in rush hour traffic, your boss will demand more work in less time, the pop machine will eat you money, the shopping cart in Wal-Mart’s parking lot will roll into your car, it will rain, or not, someone will die…….eventually……”

And for any of you who any one of these things happened to you, now you can blame it on my stupid chain letter.

I’m still waiting for you to send the penis enlargement one back to me………anyone?

I really REALLY hate Fridays!

2006-07-06T19:14:00.000-05:00

Have I reminded you all lately how much I hate Fridays? For those of you who don’t know my schedule I will explain. Thursday nights I close the center, so I'm not home until around 10:00pm or so. I usually make myself something to eat shortly after getting home, read my emails, check my porn downloads, and watch some TV. Since my schedule all week consists of me starting at noon and closing the center I am wide awake when I get home until about midnight. This doesn't change Thursday nights even though Friday I have to turn around and open the center at 8:00am. Traffic in the morning is hell so I end up leaving my house around 6:30 am, which means I'm awake at about 5:30. Not much sleep from Thursday to Friday, to top it off it is a nine hour day instead of 8, and every other week I get to look forward to working Saturday as well. That’s not the worst of it, the bad thing is, Fridays are actually a very busy day for us, and I'm all alone. No nurse, no doctor (and by no Doctor, I mean mentally), no other IT teachers…..nothing, just me and the dreaded admissions people. This leaves me scrambling all day long answering questions from both IT and medical, administering tests, giving labs and of course, the occasional surprise orientations that the admissions people failed to tell me about or schedule with me. And now with no director in this place it is just that much more hell. Friday is just plain hell and I hate them more then Mondays. The last two Fridays were no exception……….let me explain………..

-Friday-

I arrive at about 10 minutes to 8, just enough time to swap out the back-up tapes and get everything up and running. 5 minutes after 8 the first student has arrived. For some reason Fridays seem to attract the most helpless of all students to the center.

"I need help" the student says

"Ah ok, just let me get logged into my machine." I tell him

-TAP-TAP-TAP

"Ok, so what's the problem?" I ask

"The other mentor signed me up for the wrong course."

"Well I know he's stupid, but are you sure?"

"Yeah, he signed me up to iNet+ for the CIW course."

"But the CIW course doesn't accept the iNet+ course as one of its elective courses"

"Yeah I know this now that I tried to get my certification and they denied it, now I wasted the last two months studying something that I can't use." He tells me

"Well I will get you the proper courseware, and extend your tuition for another two months to cover any lost time."

8:16, first dilemma resolved from Sped.

8:20, 12 students are now in the center……this place is filling up fast, I can already tell that it is going to be one hell of a day.

8:30, -DING- the front desk bell rings informing me that someone has entered and our secretary has not arrived yet. I'll wait a few minutes until I hear at least a second ding telling me they're bored. Besides my internet radio is not up and running yet.

-DING-DING-

Oooo…..two dings, must be something or someone important. I head out to the front to be greeted by a very lovely young lady with one hell of a rack. (Oh yeah they were real)

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah I'm supposed to take a test at 8:30"

"Ok no problem let me go into the office and see who is here to help administer that for you."

I head into the office where the only other person here is the admissions person……..oh goodie.

"Hey I have someone here to take a test, can you administer it?"

"Sure!"

I do a double take, what the fuck, he actually knows how to do this……cool, one less thing for me to worry about. I head back out into the lobby.

"Someone will be with you in just a minute" I tell her

"Ok, thank you." She says as she smiles back at me, while I continually stare at her enormous breasts………damn those things are huge. Anyway, I head back to my desk where I am greeted by a fairly new student. He is an older gentleman, and always has a ton of questions about everything. I call him Grandpa Simpson since he is able to take any conversation and seamlessly join it into a never ending story about absolutely nothing.

"I need some help."

"I would have never guessed." I sit down at my desk and begin typing away at nothing trying to make it look like I have more pressing matters to attend to. This doesn't phase him however.

"I can't seem to understand or grasp this whole sub-netting thingy."

Hoping to confuse him into a coma I begin, "An IP address is a unique identifier for a node or host connection on an IP network it's a 32 bit binary number usually represented as 4 decimal values, each representing 8 bits, in the range 0 to 255, known as octets separated by decimal points. Before you can even begin to subnet you need to know which class of IP addresses you are going to use A, B, or C. You do know which class you're trying to subnet right? Well anyway, the network bits are represented by the 1's in the mask, and the node bits are represented by the 0's………" His eye brow burrows down at me as he tries to understand what I am saying before he says.

"Back in the day my boys and I would go fishing all weekend long, and back then there were no limits unless of course the wife had potatoes for supper, cause the roads were really ruff, and that's why I climbed the silo…….."

Whew sure am glad the distraction worked, now all I have to do is look over at him every fifteen minutes or so and nod my head in acknowledgment. But let's keep in mind that it is Friday so we all know this won't last long either.

"Hey, I need your help up front." See I told you so! The admissions specialist is sweating profusely and looks as if he is about to break down. Normally I would ignore him, but I'm not about to pass up a free opportunity to stare at large breasts, plus my only other option is to sit here and listen about the civil war from Grandpa Simpson. I head up to the lobby where the admissions specialist is sitting at the computer shaking his head back and forth.

"What's the problem?"

"I can't find her name on today's schedule to take a test."

"That's because you’re a moron and you're looking at the Vue testing manager for Information Technology tests. She is here to take a medical exam."

"Oh, so what do we do now?" he asks

"Are you kidding me? You don't know how to do this?"

"No"

"Well neither do I, I'm not a medical person, nor do I have any medical students where I would have experience on this." Meanwhile it's going on 9am now and the student was scheduled to take this test 30 minutes ago. Just then another student walks through the door up to the front desk where both I and the admissions specialist are biting our nails feverishly trying to figure out what the hell to do.

"Hi, I'm scheduled to take a medical exam at 9."

"Ok, just have a seat right next to the other young lady also waiting to take a medical exam and we will be with you shortly." I tell her

"I look down as the admissions specialist is in a total freak mode now."

"What are we going to do, we don't know how to get their exams and….."

-SLAP-

"Dammit man snap out of it" I tell him "start going through all these filing cabinets, there must be some documentation somewhere around here about these damn exams."

Moments later…"Here I found something on the medical exams." He tells me

"Good, give it to me"

"But I found it."

"Oh shut up, we all know you can't read." I begin thumbing through the book as quickly as humanly possible "blah, blah, blah, yep, ok, ok, yep……ah ha……ok, you two need to look over the exam instructions, then fill out this form saying you acknowledge the rules and will abide by them." I hand the forms and the book to the two ladies and look back at the admissions specialist "Ok I bought us a few minutes" I tell him. Just then the second student that arrives looks over at me. Judging by her scowl I can tell I am about to get an ear full from an angry student.

"Are you telling me you guys don't know how to give the exam?"

"Well we're working on it" I tell her "Not sure who set these up or why that person is not here now but we will get it straightened out shortly, don't worry." This does not seem to have satisfied her however as she began to describe in great detail and a very loud voice just how bad this school is using every expletive known to man. I look back at the admissions specialist "You deal with her; I'm going into the testing room to get things setup."

"Me….what…..but….." he stutters

"Do you know anything about computers? I didn't think so; you’re the people person, now people-ize dammit." I head into the testing room and begin setting up two computers for the test only to find out that I need a login and password specific to each person that was emailed to the secretary the day before. I walk back out into the lobby where the one student is still screaming at our admissions specialist while the other student sits in awe. Just then the secretary finally walks through the door.

"Good you’re here, now we can get the login and password info needed to get these tests going" I say to her

"What login and password, I never received anything."

"Great……ok here, call the medical testing admissions, it's in New Jersey so they should be open by now, tell them we need to get the login and password for these two ladies." I hand her the phone number with the testing center "If you need me I will be at my desk." I leave the now very disturbing bitch fest and head once again back to my desk. It is now 9:30. An hour and a half since I opened the center and already I am ready for a drink.
The secretary comes running back to me.

"The Medical testing center says they emailed them to the old director." She says

"Oh great, tell them he doesn't work here anymore and we need them to resend them to you."

"Ok" She runs back to the lobby. Fifteen minutes later at 9:45 I see the secretary escorting both ladies into the testing center. Whew now maybe I can get some stuff done. I can see the admissions specialist behind her, but instead of going into the testing room with her, he continues on towards me.

"Hey I have a walk in orientation today can you take care of it?"

"Well since I am here all by myself I guess I will have to now won't I."

10:45 done with my orientation and getting exhausted. The good thing about Fridays, if there is such a thing, the day goes by real fast. By now our second admissions specialist has joined us and is also walking around helpless. I can tell he is looking for me, since he has the obvious lost look on his face.

"The doctor needs some help." He says to me

"No, the doctor is helpless!"

Let me explain my last statement. The doctor was brought into the school for one purpose and one purpose only. His credentials! He can't speak very much English; he takes about 200 smoke breaks every hour. He is never at his desk, has no idea how to do anything involving the school. This is a guy who could be replaced with a giant card board cut out, placed behind his desk with a little waving hand and no one would ever know the difference.

"He is trying to administer a remote test for a student." He explains

"We don't administer remote tests because it is a pain in the ass."

"Well apparently the other teacher set it up and told him how to do it."

"Go figure, this is the third damn time Sped has set up a remote test on the days he is gone because he knows what a pain in the ass it is, he also knows that he is not supposed to be doing this anymore."

"Well he did." He tells me

The only thing that would please me on this Friday would be hearing news that Sped was hit by a Mac truck and dragged for several miles down a gravel road naked, upside down, while killer bees sting him, before colliding into a tanker truck hauling sulfuric acid.

"Fine, give me the person's number and I will call them." He hands me a small post it note and walks off. I dial up the number……

"Hello" the voice on the other side of the line says

"Hello, I hear you are having some trouble getting a test to start."

"Yeah, but I am on the other line with the doctor, should I let him go?"

"No, leave him on hold he will not know the difference, besides it will keep him busy for awhile." I tell her

After several minutes of going over all the normal settings, I walk back to the doctor's office where I see him repeating "ello, ello, ellllooooo......" over and over again into his phone. I take control of his machine and continue to setup the remote test; I then go back to my desk to tell the student she is all ready to go.

"But the screen is blank."

"What do you mean the screen is blank?"

"I dunno, I clicked the link and it opened a new window, and I can see how much time is left, but I can't see anything."

"Hmmmmm, sounds like you might have a firewall blocking this. What firewall software are you using?"

"I have no idea, I'm at work."

"You're at work, well then hell yes your being blocked, your trying to virtually connect to remote machine and vise versa, of course your work is blocking you. You will need to come in to take the test."

"But this is the reason I chose your school, I was promised I could do everything remotely." She tells me

"Who ever would have promised you that?"

"The admissions person that signed me up, oh and some guy named.........!"

"Sped?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Ok, ok, now there are two things that would make me happy this Friday and both involve the same Mac truck but but now two people tied to one another. I explain to her that she will either need to come in to take the test or we could try and do this again but when she is at home and I might have more control over certain settings on her machine to allow the test. She agrees and hangs up. It is now almost 1:00pm and I am really in need of a stiff drink now. I sit back down at my desk where one of my Oracle students looks over from across the room.

"Busy day?" He says

"Yeah, but Fridays always are." I say with a smile. Just then the secretary rounds the corner.

"I have my very first accounting orientation today; can you sit in and watch over me in case I need help?"

"You’re an accountant?" I say in shock

"No not yet, but I am working on it." Seems to be a common occurrence here.

"Sure." I tell her, this might be my only chance today I get to relax. "Just make sure you print out their course guide, this will make things a lot easier in there."

"Ok"

I enter the conference room for the orientation and across the table I see two foreign people sitting. Already I know this orientation is going to take much longer because the secretary will be repeating herself a lot, or so I thought.
"So, this is your course." The secretary explains. She then proceeds to cross her hands together and sit back. The room is silent for several moments. I look over at her where she leans over and whispers to me.

"This is where you pick up." Wonderful, now I am an accounting teacher. I soon realize that I will be the one repeating myself over, and over and over again. I try to explain the course as best I can. Throughout the orientation I find myself talking much as I did to my blind student, louder and enunciating every syllable like an idiot. The orientation finally ends 3 hours later. I walk out of the room looking like I was just hit and dragged down a gravel road by the earlier referenced Mac truck. The secretary turns to me and says.

"Thanks a lot." And turns to walk away

"Yeah whatever." I respond

It is now 4:00pm, one hour before closing. I can see the lack of any teacher in the school has caused every student to leave early including Grandpa Simpson....thank god for small miracles. I sit down at my desk and go through a few emails and other minor details that need to be done before the end of the day. By the time I am finished it is now 4:30, just 30 minutes before closing. I decide I don't need the zombies showing up late in the day so I head out front and lock the door, only to find out I am the only one left in the entire school. Great, glad I could do everyone else's jobs for them today and they all got to go home early because of it. I head back to my desk grab my car keys, turn off the lights and proceed to head out before anything else could possibly go wrong.

God I hate Fridays!

Calgone take me away………

Meeting Requests Suck!

2006-06-27T20:20:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Monday, October 24, 2005

I hate meeting requests through email. They just seem so rude, especially when there is no option to decline it. This, in my opinion, defeats the phrase “Request”, but what the hell do I know.

-Meeting request from Director-

Staff meeting in my office on Wednesday at 2:00pm. It will be short but attendance is mandatory.

I reluctantly click the accept button, two seconds later three other teachers are hovering like bees over my desk asking what my thoughts were on the meeting.

“How the hell should I know?” I ask

“Well we just assumed since you guys have stayed after a few times drinking beer that maybe he let you in on some info or something.”

“Hey, I use that drinking time as blackmail, not to get info on stupid meeting requests”

They look upon me quizzically as if they don’t believe me.
“Look” I say “I don’t know what the damn meeting is about and I don’t care. Besides I doubt I will be at the meeting anyway.”

“Why do you say that” one of them chirps

“I dunno, but I will figure out something” With that said they scurry away mumbling amongst themselves.

My phone rings, I look at the display and see it is my blind student. With a pleasant voice I pick up the receiver “can I help you?” Normally I wouldn’t answer the phone with such care, but you have to be considerate to the disabled, or so the state has sent me a letter saying so. I ask how his day is going, how the kids are, does his Seeing Eye dog do any tricks and so on. This being nice thing is driving me nuts. Each pleasantry that spews out of my mouth feels like the stomach acid on the back of your throat after vomiting.

“And you thought it was raining because you were standing under a sprinkler the whole time…..HA, HA, HA, HA, no wonder everyone was staring at you…….oh man that was funny…..” That’s it, I’m going to puke “so, what can I do for you today?” I ask

“Well I was wondering if I can change the test date.” He asks

This happens to be a unique situation. Since he is blind, taking a test becomes…..err…..a challenge to say the least. Basically I have to sit in on the test with him to read the questions aloud and help him with colors and anything else he can’t determine on his own. This means I need to schedule at least two hours of my day with him to accomplish this task. See, legally he is blind, however he can make out blurs of objects that are placed directly in front of his eyes, and by directly I mean they need to be touching his pupils, that is unless he puts on his glasses, which have been specially modified for his vision. They consist of a very strong frame with extremely convex 3 inch thick lenses. No, I’m not over-exaggerating, they are three inches think. With the help of these, and him bringing in his 22” LCD monitor and me dictating the entire exam, he shouldn’t have a problem, well unless the state finds out a teacher is sitting in with a student to take a final exam, but he looks like a gambler and the odds are in his favor so what the hell.

“Ok no problem” I say “when would you like to schedule it?”

“Well” he says “what works best for you?”

“How about Wednesday, say...... 2:00pm?”

“That sounds perfect” he says “that will give me enough time to take the test and still catch the bus.”

“Cool, consider it done then”

I hang up the phone and walk up to the front desk where our newly hired secretary is on her second pot of coffee trying to keep up with the overwhelming amount of work she has been assigned in the last week to catch up from the last secretary who quit.
“I need to schedule an exam for a student”

-TAP-, -TAP-, -TAP-

“Ok, when would you like to schedule it?” she asks

“Wednesday at 2:00pm, and I will need at least a half hour in advance before and after the test to set this one up. Also I will need the testing room reserved exclusively for me and the student so I can administer the test with the lights off”

“?”

“Don’t ask” I tell her

I watch her eyes as she brings up the calendar for Wednesday.

“Ok…….that shouldn’t be a…….. Oh wait, I don’t think that will work.” She says

“Why not.” I inquire

“Well that’s the day and time that the director has scheduled the staff meeting”

“Oh is it really” I say in astonishment (yeah like I didn’t know that). “Hmmmmm……well you know what the director says, the student always comes first”

“He does?”

“Of-course, it should have been the first thing he told you when you started here, what is wrong with you?”

She begins to stutter “I….I….well he might have, I just…….I mean I have been so busy….and…..”

“Never mind that, I’ll let it slide this time” I say “So, back to the scheduling please!”

“Yes, done, and done”

“Thank you” I turn and walk back to my desk.

It’s not long before the director comes scurrying out to my desk in a panic.
“So” he says hands pitched on his hips as he so likes to do when he is trying to look important “I see you made it a point to get out of my mandatory staff meeting.”
“What........me?” I say pointing at myself as the innocent bystander.

“Yes, and I see it is to give your blind student a test so there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.”

“Oh, well my apologies, I mean I thought you said that the students ALWAYS come first.”

“Well…..yeah I did but…”

“Well then I think it only appropriate to stand by your word, especially in this case involving someone who is” I lower my voice to a whisper “handicapped”

“Well fine, you don’t have to stay for the whole thing, but you are going to sit in on the first five minutes, besides, I think you will want to, you’ll probably be the only one happy with the news.”

‘Ok” I say “but if I get any more complaints from the state about treating special people differently, I’m forwarding them onto you.”

He leaves the room and heads back to his office.

2:00PM

My student arrives, cane in hand and I guide him to a chair.

“It will be just a few minutes.” I say “I have some sort of meeting to attend to for about 5 minutes, and then we can get you going on your test.”

“No problem, I will just wait here then.” He tells me

“Good….oh and here is a magazine to keep you occupied while I am gone.” I toss the magazine on his lap and start heading down the hall before realizing I just passed a blind person a magazine that can’t see or read it. Note to self: expect another letter from state about proper etiquette around blind people.

I walk into the office where a small assembly of teachers, admissions people and other staff members has gathered. The director is still in his office with the door closed. An obvious attempt to build up the tension while everyone murmurs about what this could be about. Inside his office I can hear two voices. One is definitely the directors but I can’t seem…..to…..make…..oh…..wait that sounds an awful lot like our new legal teacher we hired for business law. Why would he be having a private meeting with someone who has over 30 years being a lawyer and working in the judicial system? Before I can even answer that the door swings open and out come both of them. The director stands for a moment with a large smile before moving towards the door and ushering anyone within 5 feet away from him and the door. He begins rubbing his hands together in a nervous fashion and teetering back and forth from his toes to the balls of his heals.

“Well I bet you’re all wondering why I called you in here today.” He says

Throughout the crowd you can hear slight “Yeah”, or “no kidding, I have work to do you know”, and “fat ass”, “jerk”……..oh wait those last ones were from me.

“Well don’t worry, this will be very brief.” With that he reaches behind his back and places one hand on the door handle before shouting “I QUIT!!!!!!” With his free hand he flips us all the bird making sure to turn it at everyone as if reading a storybook and showing us all the pictures. He then turns, opens the door and proceeds to walk out of the school, all while still shouting such phrases as “FUCKERS HAHAHAHA”, “EAT MY SHIT ASSHOLES”.

I look around the room, everyone still awe struck, mouths gaping open, the admissions people like little wind up robots stuck up against a wall are lost and don’t know what to do without someone to baby-sit them now.

I begin to laugh hysterically out loud.

“What the hell is so funny?” one of the staff members asks me

Wiping the tears coming out of my eyes from laughing so hard I look up at him and say “because, he told me I would be the only one who would enjoy his announcement and he was right.”

“I don’t think that is very funny, now we have know one to run the school, and who knows how long corporate will take to get someone in here, not to mention one of them will probably be up here to keep things on track which means we have to be on our best behavior, and…….”

“Oh shut up” I tell him “stop you’re damn whining, he wasn’t running the school anyway, besides, we’re free now; I think I will enjoy it. Now if you all don’t mind, I have to go administer a test to a blind student.”

I walk out the door, still laughing quietly to myself, listening to the roars of conversations now coming from the office. “That should keep everyone busy and out of my hair for the rest of the day” I think to myself.

“What’s all the commotion about?” my blind student asks

“Oh, nothing much” I say “but things are about to get real interesting around here.”

Very, very interesting indeed………………

I Had To Ask

2006-06-18T16:02:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Wednesday, October 19, 2005

I head into work the next day with a huge hang over. I open the door, my head hung low as to not draw attention to myself, dark shades over me eyes.

“Good morning” the secretary announces to me

“Morning” I say, in a low tone, my voice sounding like a Mack truck using its “Jake Brakes”

I waddle off to my desk for some piece and quiet, the center, seeming unusually quiet today……..a little too quiet.

-BEEP-

“Silence”

I wonder who that could be.

-BEEP-

“More silence”

“Yes” I say into blank air

“I need to talk to you, come see me in my office” The director says over my loud speaker
“I’ll be there in a few”

-CLICK- the sounds of him hanging up are heard through my speaker, but just to make sure…..”Fat ass……..” nope nothing, guess he really did hang up.

After getting a cup of coffee, taking a few aspirin (10 or 12) I head into his office.

“Ah, close the door behind you and take a seat” he says to me

I oblige and sit down holding my cup of coffee with both hands like a bum on the street, watching as the steaming liquid inside sways from one side to the other, almost cascading over the lip before coming back down. Back and forth, it continues to sway…..back….and forth……I begin to feel nauseas. Odd, that usually doesn’t happen until after meeting with the director.

“So what’s up?” I ask

“Well, I heard about the little 'to-do' yesterday.”

“Whatever are you talking about I ask” as if I have no idea

“Don’t think I don’t have ears, I know all about it”

“Funny, I could have sworn YOU WERE OUT TO LUNCH” I say shouting and looking at the closed door. I watch the base of the door as light and shadows dance across the floor, and the sound of footsteps can be heard scurrying away. (I have officially moved the admissions people to my hate list)

“Ah ha, thought you could get away with it did you. Nothing escapes me around here.” He says with assertiveness “I always know what is going on”

“Oh really” I say “then you already know what all happened and this meeting is pointless”

“Well……yes……but I want to get your side of the story” He says

“Yeah, ok….” I figure whatever; I can amuse him for a little while, besides this distraction is taking away from my throbbing hang over inside of my head.

“I just want to know what brought it on” he says

“Well, for starters, your lead mentor is an idiot.”

“Yes” he says shaking his head in a nodding form. I give him a quizzical look.

“So you agree?”

“Never doubted it” Again, I am puzzled

“And yet he is lead teacher?”

“Look” he says holding his hands out in front of him as if praying “I made him lead teacher because at the time there was no one else here, besides, the title is just a formality. He makes the schedule and reports to me what is going on throughout the network and what not.”

“Ok, but he said he was my boss” With this he lets out a huge laugh

“Far from it! As a matter of fact he should be taking orders and direction from you. He and I will be having a little talk as well and I will make sure he understands this.”

“Ah….ok” I turn and look around the room for any hidden cameras…..nope none that I can see. I pinch myself……..yep seems real. I look around again to be sure I am in the right place…….seems to be. Hmmmmm…..I think my director was abducted by aliens last night and replaced with someone else. This is just not like him.

“Let me ask you this” he sits back and looks up at the ceiling with his hands crossed behind his head “What is your first priority here?”

“The students” I say

He sits up straight in his chair, looks directly at me with a big smile on his face and slams his fists down onto his desk “EXACTLY!!!! And don’t you forget it. Actually you’re the first one I brought in here who got that right” he says “Junior seems to think otherwise.”

“Yes I know, I got that impression yesterday……oh and his name is Sped” I tell him

“Sped?” He looks at me with his head cocked “well never mind, are we on the cool now?”

“Yeah of course, I never once strayed away from my job duties.”

“Good, that’s what I like to hear, well get out there and continue on.” The director then leans back in his chair crosses his hands behind his head again and looks aimlessly up at the ceiling. He almost looks human.

“Oh and one more thing………next time you feel like your going to punch out his lights, come and talk to me first…….I can afford to lose him, I can’t afford to lose you.”

I shrug my shoulders “Ok”

“Yes, Sped and I will be having a long talk about things……..a very long talk…..” I am not positive, but I swear I heard an evil laugh coming from his office as the door closed behind me. Very odd indeed, I can’t help but think something is up with him.
I head back to my desk actually feeling pretty good about this last meeting. Maybe things will change around here. Maybe I don’t have to worry about things breaking or the network crashing and being down for hours because someone made a change that they thought was a good idea. Maybe I can finally get some things done like my own studying while the other teachers take some of the work load. Just then the lead teacher walks up to me.

“Hey, server crashed, all data is lost.”

“WHAT”

“Yeah I was running a check disk, and it froze up, now it’s in a continuous reboot cycle.”

“Why would you do a check disk on the server if it was running fine? Wait nevermind that, why in the hell would you run a checkdisk during normal business hours on a main server?”

“I don’t know, just felt like it.”

It’s at this point I begin to realize that nothing has changed that once again only smoke has been blown up my ass. I will not get to study, things will not finally work around here, and things are definitely not going to change with sped.

“I tried to reboot the server, and then I ran some utilities, then I swapped out…………”

His voice begins to drift off as my mind helplessly drifts away to a happy place. I look down at my cup of coffee, still swirling, not so steamy, splashing from side to side of my cup……..back and forth…..back and forth………back…………

There coming to take me away, ha, ha, he, he, ho, ho……

The Following Week

2006-06-13T20:09:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Thursday, October 13, 2005

After last weeks major fuck up from Sped, I walk into work on Tuesday with much skepticism as to whether or not anything has really changed. Sped cuts me off at the pass before I can even get to my desk.

“We need to have a talk” He says

“Yes we do” I say fearing we are not on the same boat judging by his tone and the look on his face.

“I sent you a meeting request in Outlook for 2:00pm today.”

“All right, fine”

I head over to my desk where I am greeted by the nurse.

“Good morning, and how are you.” She asks

“Ok, I guess, depends on this damn meeting later”

“Oh I bet it’s about this weekend” she says

“Why, what happened this weekend?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“No, obviously not, hence the question, what happened this weekend.”

“The computers were so screwed up that they had to shut the school down and send everyone home.”

“What do you mean they were screwed up, they working fine when I left on Friday” I say with concern

“I know that’s why they are blaming YOU!”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah, they said whatever you did messed up the computers so bad that they couldn’t do anything.”

“But I didn’t do anything; all I did was fixed Sped’s fuck-up.”

“Well I wasn’t here Friday so I don’t know what all went on, all I know is that they said it had to be something you did.”

I immediately head into the directors office to find out what’s going on.

-DOOR SLAMS-

“What’s this I hear I’m getting blamed for whatever happened this past Saturday?” I ask the director

“Yeah, seems the whole system was fucked up.” He tells me

“But I didn’t change anything” I explain

“Sure you did. Don’t you remember you whacked his public profile? The default profile didn’t have any of the network drives mapped or anything, so nothing worked.”

“Wait a minute” I say “I’m not the one that changed the profile, you did, and besides that I tested everything before I left and all the computers were working with no problems.”

“No….no, I don’t recall that, but anyway, what’s done is done, no big deal. Well I’m off to lunch see you later.”

“No big deal? Out to lunch? It’s only 9:30. Something is defiantly up with him” I think to myself

I walk back to my desk where coincidently the nurse turns to me and says.
“Don’t you find it odd the long lunch’s the director has been taking lately?”

“Yes….I wonder what’s up?”

“I dunno, but he seems to have a different excuse each day, first it was taking his wife to the hospital, then he had to help a friend move, then his car was struck by hail, and then……” The sounds of her voice trail off as I focus back on my computer to check log files on the server from this past Saturday to determine what happened. From the looks of it, the default profile does not look the same as it did on Friday. But how did it change? I was the last one out of here Friday night? Confused I ignore it for now and hope the meeting later can shed some light on the subject.

2:00pm

“Well, you ready?” The other teacher asks me

“Yeah I guess lets get this over with.” I say

We head off to a small meeting room where the director is to join us. That is if he still weren’t out to lunch.

“Well the director isn’t back from lunch yet so I guess it is just you and me.” He sits down at the table across from me and lays down a notebook with a page full of scribbled down suggestions, ideas and comments. “The director seems to think we need to communicate more on our daily activities if this school is going to run smoothly”

“Yes I would have to agree with that.” At this point I am expecting him to tell me that he made a terrible mistake last week in taking it upon himself to make so many sudden changes without notifying anyone or going through proper channels. I should know better then this.

“First off, you are not to make any changes to the system without notifying me first of what you plan to do.”

“Excuse me?” I say

“The changes you made on Friday were so bad they had to shut down the school, and I had to come in on Sunday to clean it up.” My blood pressure is beginning to rise, and a soar of emotions is quickly building inside of me to the point that I can’t contain myself in a proper manner anymore. At this point I have had it with this pile of puke and am going to let him know about it.

“Hold on here, for one thing I didn’t make any changes to the system on Friday, your director did.”

“Oh, it was? He didn’t tell me that part”

“Yeah taking blame around here is something no one seems to want to do and I am tired of it. Second, you told me you were coming in here on Friday to help fix all the shit you caused.” My voice is starting to elevate now to the point that the admissions office on the other side of the wall has fallen completely silent. “I did what I had to do in order to get the students on track, and I will do it again in the future with, or without your damn permission.”

‘No, you won’t” he asserts

“YES I WILL”

“No, you will contact me anyway you need to and discuss these changes.”

“The FUCK if I will. You were not here on Friday; you did not see the chaos you caused. You didn’t have to deal with angry students because they were not able to work on their material. I did what I had to do to get this place operational and that is my first priority and I will do it again, if you don’t like it then fuck off.”

‘Calm down…….”

“Fuck you, if you think I am going to sit back while this place falls apart, and everyone blames me for shit they did and on top of that try to get a hold of you on your cell phone and wait for your approval you got another thing coming.”

“Look” he says trying to calm me down “I know you probably don’t like the fact that I am your boss…..”

“MY BOSS, for one, your not my boss, two, if you were I wouldn’t give a shit…… if you knew what the hell you were doing, but you don’t. You suck in the IT field, you have no conception of what it is like out in the real world, you are fresh out of college and only book smart and think you know what it takes to successfully run anything IT. You’re a fucking moron, and in the real world you would have been fired 10 times over by now for the stunts you have pulled.”

“Yeah I know, but……..”

“But nothing, you openly admit this shit now and yet you continue to do it, and on top of that you want me to get approval from you? Yeah right, it’s not happening.”

“Look as I told you before, all decisions go through me from now on.”

“No, they don’t”

“Yes, they do”

“No, they won’t”

“Yes, they will”

“NO, THEY WON’T, I will continue to do my job as described to me, and that is, the students come first and they are my first priority. Whatever is needed to get that done, DO IT, plain and simple!” At this point I am yelling at the top of my lungs, and I stand up from the table looking down at him. “And in the future if the opportunity arises, I will not hesitate to do the same, and if you don’t like it then fire my god damn ass…BOSS, otherwise shut the fuck up.” I begin to open the door to leave this ridiculous meeting when he says…..

“Now come on, sit down.”

“Fuck you, this meeting is over!”

“SIT DOWN, NOW” Demanding me like his dog is not going to get him very far; I ignore him and proceed out the door. As I walk back to my desk I can hear him still in the meeting room mumbling something to himself about “great fucking meeting, glad I’m the only one here” followed by him leaving the room and slamming the door. On his way back he decides to swing by my desk. Now this is either an extreme act of bravery, or stupidity.

“I highly advise you to get the hell away from me” I tell him

“From now on everything goes through me.”

“What fucking ever dude” Ah stupidity rears its ugly head once again.

By now I am so furious I can’t concentrate on anything, and the urge to kick his ass is still very strong. About an hour goes by before he comes back out to my desk.
“Now is not a good time” I tell him “I am still extremely pissed off, and not far off from pounding the piss out of you.” He pulls up a chair and sits down.

“Ok listen, if we’re going to work together………”

“Maybe you didn’t hear me clearly the first time” Like a lion in the wild being approached while eating a fresh kill, I stop momentarily working on my computer, turn my chair to face him, look him straight in the eyes and in a low tone tell him “I said get the fuck away from me, NOW.” To my surprise he just sits there staring at me as if he didn’t hear a word I just said.

“We need to work this out, other students are noticing our behavior” At this point I could give a rats ass, but since I need the job I sit back to hear his ramblings. “I know I made some fuck up's last week…..”

“You know what, I don’t even fucking care, what pisses me off the most is that you said you were coming in the next day to help me out, and you never showed up."

“Well actually I did, but it was after hours.” HOLY FUCK, now I know why everything was so messed up on Saturday. It all makes sense now.

“Wait a minute; you came in here on Friday after hours? Why? Everything by then was working fine.”

“Well I had to…..you see…….I finished up……”

“You son of a bitch, what the hell did you do? Wait never mind that, how could you sit there and let me take the blame for something, once again you knew you did.” If I drop him three steps to the left of the giant air conditioner on the roof, he should hit the pavement right next to the overweight, chain smoking, and disfigured, handicapped women’s parking spot.

“Well, at the time I didn’t know what changes you had made on Friday.”

“I DIDN’T MAKE ANY CHANGES”

“Well, anyway, we need to work this out!” He says

“No, you need to go away whilst I calm down” Seeing my degree of anger he finally subsides and walks back to his desk.

Throughout the entire school all is still quiet, and for the first time I am actually able to get some things done. For some reason no one wants to ask me any questions or even sit any where near me. Must be giving off a vibe or something, oh well, no worries.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

The Next Day

2006-05-31T19:25:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Friday, October 07, 2005

Today is Friday and normally I would be alone. However, after yesterdays little disaster, I have requested that Sped, also known as the lead teacher, come in to help clean things up a bit. The director strolls past my desk and nods as he walks by, then freezes in his tracks turns to me and says “I heard there was a problem while I was gone yesterday?”

“Yeah, dumb ass decided it would be a good idea to deny access to the E: drive for all students.”

“Why would he do that? They need access to that server for their tests and all online material.”

“Yeah no shit” I say “well besides that, he also changed a lot of the web settings making things even more complicated, and changed all the local profiles to a more public one.”

“Wow! sounds like you guys had a fun day.” He says with a chuckle

“Oh yeah, about as much fun as pouring alcohol into open wounds.” I respond

He grimaces at the thought before asking “Well need any help cleaning things up a bit?”

“No, I told him since he made the mess he can come in today and help clean it up.”

“And he better of agreed?” he asks

“Yeah, he said he will be here around nine, so until then I will get to work on cleaning things up before students start coming in.”

“Very well then, sounds like everything is under control so I will just continue on.”
Not remembering why he came out here in the first place he turns and heads back to his office, while I begin to devise an attack plan to fix yesterdays problems as quickly as possible. It’s not long before things start piling up real fast.

“I can’t open this document!”

“Yeah me either” shouts another student

One of my less talented students, and by less talented I mean thinks he knows a lot about computers but really doesn’t, walks up to me and says "don’t worry I already tried several computers and got the same result.”

“Great….” I say running back to the server room to check the damage, only to find what I had suspected. Each time a student tries to print a document from the printer server they are denied access, mean while their computer keeps trying to access the printer locking their machine up. Thus every print sent to the printer gets hung up in the print queue also locking up the server. So I quickly clear out the print queue and reset the server, looks good, run back to the lab, too late, 4 other students have tried printing.
I yell out loud “No more printing, the server is down, I will let you all know when you can print”

I run back to the server while behind me I can hear my computer wannabe student giving some off the wall explanation as to why the printers are not working. Once again I clear the print queue and reset the server. Run back to the lab to begin working on the computers themselves only to find the printer now in pieces.
“What the hell happened?” I say looking down at a dismantled printer. From out of no where my computer genius pops up.

“Oh….ah, I thought maybe there was something wrong with the printer itself, so I took it apart.”

“WHY????” I ask him

“I was looking for a paper clip?”

This catches me so completely off guard that I just stand there with my mouth wide open not knowing what to say or how to respond.
“Ummmm……yeeeeaaahhhh….." Scratching my head in confusion "Explain this to me?”

“Well one time, at this place I worked, we had this printer, and it got jammed cause someone put a paper clip in it, so they asked if anyone knew anything about printers….”

“And let me guess, you raised your hand?” I ask

“Yep, and I took it apart and found the paper clip and fixed the problem.”

“Well great, now put this one back together because it has nothing to do with a paper clip.”

“Well I would” he says “but that was just a little inkjet printer, I don’t know nothing about these big fancy laser printers.”

“And yet you proceeded to take it apart anyway?”

“Well I figured I could learn something new.”

“Are you by any chance related to our lead teacher, Sped?”

“I don’t think so, why?”

“Never mind!”

I look down at what used to be the main printer for the students shaking my head.
“Well good thing fuck head will be in here soon” I think to myself.

I glance at the clock, 8:30am, and I am already breaking a sweat. Meanwhile I head into the medical lab to start working on those computers. As soon as I walk in I can see that I neglected to tell the medical students not to print. Off to the server room again to clear the queue and reset the server. By now I am getting pretty bogged down with other problems as well so I decide to redirect the printers to the one in the IT lab until I can get this mess sorted out and some help.

9:15am, no show from dip shit.

10:30am still no show.

At 1:30pm my printer is completely jammed up with requests from so many students trying to use it, the server has been reset numerous times, the printer queue is all fucked up, students are beginning to bitch about the response time at the school to resolve matters, and my lead sac of vomit has yet to show his ugly little head. I have narrowed the problem down to his little public profile that he created, but don’t have the time to sift through all the policies to determine what the hell is wrong with it at this time, so I head into the directors office. There is no need for words; my facial expressions said it all.

“I take it he never showed up to help?” the director says to me.

“Nope, and I am having a hell of a time trying to keep up with everything out there by myself and determine what the hell is going on with his profile he created. I either need the time to go through the policies one by one, or we need to do something more drastic”

“Hmmm…..” he says “well, easy enough, let’s just get rid of his profile.”

“Fine by me.”

With a few clicks of his mouse on the server side I watch as he renames the public profile, and resorts back to an old profile we used to have.

“Go check things out and let me know what happens.”

I head back into the lab and reboot the first computer I see to reset the profile. I open a word document from the web…..no problems…….print……and….and……nothing.

“SHIT”

Then I remember, oh yeah, my main printer is still in pieces, it printed to the other room. Running into the other room I am greeted by the familiar sounds of squealing rollers and the smell of burnt toner.

“Woohoo it worked” I shout.

I send out a message to the students to reboot their machines, and one to the director letting him know it worked. Shortly after the director walks out and confirms that all is well. I explain in more detail what the “Lead Teacher” he hired did the previous day while he was out. He assures me that he is going to have a long talk with him come Monday morning about proper change procedures.

“Oh really?” I ask “Again?” I ask

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks right back

“Well this is the eighth time he has done something so drastic that in the real world he would have been fired.”

“Are you counting?”

“Yes….but that’s beside the point, he knocked out the entire network for the students for several hours. If this was big corporate America, not only would he have been fired, they would have sued his ass as well.”

“Well don’t worry” he says “I will get him straightened out Monday morning!”

“Really...seems like this is a regular game between you two and nothing ever changes, it’s like you don’t give a shit……...or……..”

“Now see here, my first concern is the same as yours, and that’s to make sure the school is operational for our students and that will never change.”

“Good, then make sure he understands this time the ramifications of his actions, and that next time he needs to fill out a change request form so the rest of us can see what the hell he is doing and solve a hell of a lot of trouble in the first place.”

“Don’t worry; it will all be taken care of!”

Finally at 4:30pm, 30 minutes before we close, I get the main printer put back together and running. I spend the last half hour restoring the original printer to each machine before locking up the school. Tomorrow is Saturday and I am not on the schedule this time. Thank god for that.

I need a vacation

The Introduction of Special Ed (Sped)

2006-05-24T00:53:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Monday, October 03, 2005

Stupid is as stupid does sir!

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers, and never ever underestimate the lengths at which one will take his or her own stupidity to new levels in order to make the people around them more miserable.”
Mr. Cheese-Sept. 2005

12:00pm I walk into work.

"Oh thank god you’re here" the nurse explains to me in an exhaustion of breaths as if she has just run a marathon.

"Ummmm, ok, what's up?" You'd think I’d have learned by now to play dumb as if I heard nothing.

"Oh it's bad…..none of my students can work on their online material, and some are having problems printing, and he said not to touch the computers this morning and now I can't get word to open and then…."

"Ok, slow down; let’s back up to “he said"

She rests her arm on the nearby chair to catch her breath and begins to explain. "He said not to touch the computers in the lab because he was making some changes."

"And by "him" you mean the dumb ass that calls himself the lead teacher?"

"Yeah, that'd be the one" she says

"So what did he do?"

"I don't know but now everything is messed up"

"Ok, let me get situated and see what is going on"

With that she wipes the sweat from her brow and heads back to the front line taking enemy fire from angry students as she enters the lab room. My shift began at 12:00 today, and I know the Nurse is scheduled at 9:00am. So by my guess it's been down all day. I log into my computer and sort through 300 emails (I really hate a full inbox filled with stupid questions) from students, other teachers, corporate and the director. After a few clicks the entire list has been added to the spam server so I don't have to worry about my email box getting full every half hour. Since I don't see any major activity from the lab room I decide to head in and see what’s up first hand. The first thing I see is our fearless leader sitting at his desk surfing the web.

"So what's the deal with the medical lab?" I ask

"I dunno, something about they all can't access their online training" he says without diverting his eyes from his computer screen.

"Why aren't you doing anything about it?"

"Well, I checked into it, I don't know what’s going on." Still focused on the eBay item flashed across his screen.

"Really?" I give him a puzzled look raising one eye brow "You didn't make any changes to the system that would cause this?"

"No, nothing!"

"Are you sure? Because the nurse said you told her not to touch the computers because you needed to make some changes this morning."

"No nothing, I swear."

"Ok, fine, I’m going to go take a look at it." With this I head off to the medical lab to see first hand what the hell is going on. Upon entering the room I can see that several students are freaking out because they can't do anything and the nurse looks like she is about to have a nervous break down repeating over and over to herself in a low voice “find a happy place, find a happy place”.

"I don't understand it" she says looking down at one of the computers "It all worked yesterday."

Step by step I watch as she guides me through the process they use to access their material online. I then instruct her to try and login in herself with administrative rights. Shortly after I hear her say that she can log in no problem and everything works fine. I take a closer look.

"You have a different option when logging in." I say

"Yeah I always do" she says

"Well what happens if you click the other option?"

"It does the same thing as when a student logs in."

Now were getting somewhere. After two hours of checking every setting and trying to log in myself it is still not working, but I have determined that student logins are getting blocked by something. I tell the nurse not to worry I will get it working but I need some time to interrogate a certain witness. I head back out of the medical lab to confront local genius boy one more time.

"Are you sure you didn't make any changes at all to the system, no matter how minor it may have been, because it appears the students and only the students are being blocked which tells me there is a permission issue with the server" I ask him

"No, I already told you I didn't."

"Ok fine"

I walk back to my desk and call an old teacher friend of mine waking him from his mid day slumber. After several minutes of explaining the situation to him he tells me he has seen this before but can't remember what it was or how to fix it.

“So what did he do?” He asks me

“I don’t know he won’t tell me”

“Why won’t he tell you?”

“I dunno, maybe he’s trying to raise the bar for stupid people alike.”

“Hmmm…. You could be on to something there……..anyway here’s what to do in the mean time…..”

He then tells me I need to contact the head of the medical training at corporate and he will be able to tell me what is wrong. After hanging up the phone I begin to type a very detailed email to the head of the medical training team. I then walk back into the next room to tell dumb ass that I have alerted corporate to our situation, he proceeds to tell me that he has done the same but instead with a phone call. With that I head back to my desk awaiting a response.

About 20 minutes go by before I get a response from corporate. The email reads as follows.

"Just so we’re both on the same track, DON'T EVER DENY ACCESS TO THE E: DRIVE AGAIN. This is needed for the students to access in order for the online training and tests to work."

"Hmmmmm…..what an odd response" I think to myself.

-TAP-TAP-TAP "I'm sorry, I don't think I understand, I never denied access to the E: drive in the first place"

-CLICK- "Send"

Moments later my inbox sends the familiar sounds that a new message has arrived, and it is in response to the email I just sent.

"Funny, that’s not what the other teacher has just told me on the phone. Just don't let it happen again." So the bastard made changes to the system lied to me continuously when asked about any changes and then pinned it on me.

I take a deep breath and go to my phone where I dial up the fuck head in the next room over the intercom, what happens next can best be explained with an old movie quote.

Remember that part in the movie "Rambo II" where Rambo picks up the two way radio at the end and calls back to head quarters to his commanding officer, yeah I think it went something like this.

Rambo: "Murdock... "
Trautman: "He's here."
Murdock: "Rambo, this is Murdock, we're glad you're alive. Where are ya? Give us your position and we'll come to pick you up!"
Rambo: "Murdock... I'm coming to get YOU!"Rambo:

After screaming at his ignorance for the next five minutes I walk back into the medical lab dragging him by his ear to rub his nose into the first keyboard I can find like a bad puppy that just pissed on the floor.

"So you new all along what the hell the problem was and watched me for the last two hours scramble to fix it while you sat at your desk and did nothing. Then you had the balls to blame the whole situation on me?"

"Well I didn't think denying them access to the E: drive would be such a big deal"

"Why the fuck did you deny it in the first place, everything was working fine"

"I just didn't want them to have access anymore."

"Did it ever cross your fucking little brain that there is a reason the students have had access to this drive for the past ten years?"

"Well I fixed it now, so you can just calm down." He says with a smirk as if he had just saved the day.

I stand there for a minute still awe struck at the entire exchange that just happened not believing the stupidity I just witnessed and debating if I should go get my blood pressure checked by the doctor cowering in the corner after watching me berate the other teacher in front of the entire class.

Back at my desk I slowly begin to calm down and try to focus back on other matters.
Yeah, this lasts about 10 minutes before…….

“Ok now the program you made isn’t working’ the nurse says standing over my desk.

“It’s a script……..” haven’t I gone over this already? Anyway….

Immediately I head into the next room and grab shit head by the collar.

“Ok fuck nuts, what else did you change that now my script isn’t working?”

“Nothing……..”He says struggling to keep his composure “all I did was reboot each machine”

I walk back into the medical lab to survey the new problem. After several minutes of fighting with the systems to get them back to normal I reboot a machine. Once again my script is not working. I then log in as administrator to find out the local profile has been deleted and there is now a public profile being used on the server which is missing a very key component to the success of my script.

“Hey ass breath, what’s with the public profile?”

“Oh yeah I did change that too.”

After berating him for several minutes he makes the necessary changes to the profile for my script to work. Once again I walk back to my desk and try to begin a normal day’s work. This lasts for about another ten minutes before……..

“Now none of the students can open a word document from the web, and when they print it is locking up the computers.”

“HOLY GOD FUCK, what the hell is going on back there?”

This is starting to get really old and I am about two steps from taking the lead shit fuck to the ninth floor and making him a permanent addition to the asphalt in the parking lot. I ask him once again if he knows what the hell might be going on.

“Nope, I swear this time I haven’t changed anything else.” He assures me

“Ok, fine” and I head into the medical lab one more time. (If your asking yourself why I’m the only one fixing these issues, don’t worry I am still asking myself that too)

This time I see that the reason the computers are locking up is because there is no access to allow word documents to be downloaded from the web. Good thing to, with all those damn text viruses out there one can’t be too safe. I reset all web settings to default and then head back to the server to clear the printer queue. Things are back up and running for now and everyone is happy. I walk back into the room with monkey dung and explain what I had to do to fix the situation.

“Oh yeah, I beefed up security on the web and changed all default program settings” he says

“Oh, how interesting, so when I asked you AGAIN, if you made any changes to the system that would cause the problem in the medical lab, you said you didn’t.”

“Yep”

“But you did” I say with assertion

“Ah…..no, I didn’t” he says once again

“Ok whatever, Sped”

And thus, stupid is as stupid does sir

I think Clark Griswold said it best when he said……..
And I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol? Listen While you read along!

The Day Of Reckoning

2006-05-18T07:14:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Tuesday, September 20, 2005

“Got a minute” the director asks as I stroll in.

“Yeah sure”

As I enter his office he tells me to shut the door. Oh goodie more good news coming my way, I can’t wait.

“I want you to know I am backing you up all the way and this decision is not coming from me but rather from corporate.” I don't like where this is going. “They have told me that I need to cut your hours back.”

“BACK????” I yell “How much more back can you get?” I ask “I’m already only getting 33 a week and now you want to cut back more?”

“Well” he stammers “Like I said this is not coming from me”

“Yeah and you obviously don’t have the balls to stand up for anything”

“That’s beside the point” he tells me. “They said no more then 26 hours a week.”

“Are you fucking insane? I can’t live off of that, hell I can’t live off of what I am getting right now.” You know that whole thing you always hear on the news about teachers not getting paid enough, yeah it’s true.

“The only way I can increase your hours is to get your certifications completed”

“Would you shut the hell up about those damn certs for one god damn day?”

He sits there twiddling his thumbs for a minute and then says “Aren’t you working on a new program to help out the medical team”

“Yeah” I answer with little enthusiasm

“And how is it going?”

“Just fine I say”

“How long before you think it will be done”

“This is a problem you have been struggling with at every damn school for the last two years with no results. I have been working on this for less then a week and you’re already asking when it is going to be done?” I repeat my earlier question this time a bit louder incase he didn’t hear me “ARE YOU INSANE?”

“Oh, no, no, I understand I was just saying, ah, well if you get it done we can submit it to corporate and maybe that will help influence them to hire you full time.”

“Yeah whatever, are we done so I can go back to working on it now?” I say this as I am already walking out the door. The director really doesn’t get the hint whenever I do this to him; he instead continues to talk louder and louder as I walk off hoping I might turn around, but by this time my mind is already thinking of devilish ways in which to strike back.

I sit down at my desk shooting glares at everyone across the room warning them that this is not a good time to come bother me. The medical teacher sitting behind me turns around and sees my disgust.

“So what was that all about?” she asks.

I explain the whole situation to her in detail “and then he has the audacity to ask me when this damn program will be finished.”

“Wow” she says “so what are you going to do?”

“I will finish this damn thing and make it all pretty and solve his little two year dilemma.”

“And are you going to send it to corporate?”

“Hell no, they can kiss my ass”

She laughs out loud turns back to her computer screen shaking her head “you know” she says “I think I’m going to like you working here”

So for the past week I have been working on a simple script to automate a very tedious task of setting up a certain exam we have. It usually takes a teacher anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to set up a machine for this one test. After the test is complete all traces of it must be whipped so as no one else can sit down and cheat off of the last person. My script basically does everything needed in less than 2 minutes. Unfortunately the school does not have the necessary software in which to create a good script, so I had work on this mostly at home.

I finish the script exactly one week from the day I started. Nothing big, scripts are easy and fun. In total it came out to be just under 35 pages of code. I bring the medical team in to test it out. Each one giving approval and shaking my hand at solving a task that has plagued them for over two years.

“This is amazing” one explains “you don’t know how much time this will save us, how much agony you have taken from us” Dear God he looks like he is about to cry. It’s like these people have never seen a simple script before.

One of them looks at me and asks “So now what are you going to do with it?”

“Now” I say rubbing my hands together as I develop my evil plan “now I renegotiate my hours with corporate, muhahahahahaha” Ok so there was no evil laugh and I was only rubbing my hands together to get the Oreo cookie crumbs off of them, but its my story dammit.

After each medical teacher walks out of the director’s office praising my script (still don’t see what the hell the big deal is, IT’S A SCRIPT PEOPLE) the director calls me back into his office. I stroll in all proper and sit down.

“Well, looks like your little program is a huge success”

“It’s a script, but anyway yes” I give out a fake chuckle as if I really care

“Ok, well ship it out to corporate and attach some instructions, also get some beta testers from other schools so we can make sure it works on other systems as well, then…..”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down” I say “What makes you think this little thing is going anywhere?”

“Well because other schools have the same problem and need this.”

“And that concerns me why?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter; you made it here so technically you have to send it out since we own whatever you make while working here.” And this is when it got really interesting.

“Um, actually” I say adjusting myself to sit up straight in my chair “as I said before, it is not a program, but rather a script which was created using software you do not have at this school, or any other school. In fact I had to use my very own personal copy at home to create this. Therefore I am the owner of such said script and I get to say what, when, where and how this script will be used.”

The director, now the trap he has fallen into says “So you’re saying you’re not going to let other schools use it?”

“No, not at all, I think you misunderstood me” I say smiling and slouching comfortably back into my chair to ease the tension.

“Oh good” he chuckles “for a minute there I thought…..”

“You thought what? That I was going to tease you all with what it can do and then rip it from your greedy little paws.”

“Yeah”

We both laugh for a few seconds before I cut him off “well there of course is the licensing fee I will need to charge the school for the use of my software, plus royalties for each subsequent use, not to mention a bonus to my company…”

“Your company?”

“Oh yes the one I created about a week ago just before I started this project. Quiet funny actually, seems my new company specializes in writing complicated scripts for companies much like yours to automate daily tasks making everyone more efficient and saving the company a lot of money……..ALOT of money. Here is my card” I say passing him an impressive card detailing my new company "call us sometime and we can work out a price"

“This is ridiculous if you think we are going to pay you for something you wrote for us in the first place” he plays the part of good director bad director so well “I mean we could just get the software and write the script ourselves”

“True, true, and that particular piece of software runs about 150 bucks right now”

“Well see that’s not so bad, maybe we will just to that then”

“However” I intervene “in order for the script to run as an exe you will need the compiler as well, and that bumps the price of the software up to around 600 bucks. Not to mention the time and effort you will need to spend learning the language, then creating a script to produce the task at hand. How hard could it be, I mean you’ve only been sitting on this for two years now, I’m sure it will be a snap.”

“Ok smart guy, what is stopping me from going back to any machine right now and just taking it and then redistributing it on my own. I mean it’s your word against mine right?”

“Yeah that would have worked real well If I hadn’t password protected it with 128 bit encryption.”

“You didn’t?”

“Oh I did” I say leaning over his desk and glaring at him “not only that but, enter the wrong password too many times and the script thinks you are trying to hack in and it is then told to start deleting registry keys until the system is rendered useless”

I cross my hands over my knee and a smile emerges from ear to ear.

Let the negotiating begin!

Take Out Or Delivery?

2006-05-10T19:45:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Today was answer phone day. Seems like working alone is becoming an all to familiarity.

-BEEP- “Hey, can you take a question from a student, seems he can’t log into the web site or something and needs help”

I'm in a good mood, I'll play along. “Sure” I say “send him through” Moments later my phone springs to life ringing aloud. It’s early, but not to early to have some fun I think to myself. With a quick jab from my hand I send the receiver airborne catching the cord in my hand while deliberately allowing it to bounce off of my desk like a cheap yo-yo. After about five or six bangs on the desk, I grab the receiver and hold it tight in my hand while running it across the carpet as fast as I can in a forward/backward motion creating the illusion of bad static. Bringing the receiver up to my ear.

“Dominos pizza, take out or delivery?” I say

“Ah, isn’t this the school?” a confused voice asks on the other end.

“Nope wrong floor let me connect you” With that I hang up the receiver and return to my daily obligations. (Surfing the net for free porn to download on our T2 line)

-BEEP- “That student is back on line one, says something about getting transferred to a pizza place and then disconnected” The voice from the speaker phone tells me.

“Ok send him through, and this time try not to screw it up ok! I don’t want to tell the boss you’re the reason our students are complaining.” Ever see one of those ant farms, where all the ants look so busy bouncing into each other and the walls around them, all of them in some kind of big hurry yet none of them look like they have any clue as to what is going on? Yeah well, ever since our secretary quiet 2 days ago that’s kinda what it looks like around here, so messing with anyone answering phones is a highlight of my day now.

“Well…..I thought…….I mean…..I hit the……”

“Stop bubbling like a fool and send the call through for Christ sake before the student gets upset from waiting so long on hold” I tell him. My phone begins to ring once again. And ring. And ring, on the last ring before voicemail I pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Yeah hi, I’m having some trouble with the web site” He begins to explain to me in his own terms what he thinks is going on. “when I log in I see a screen and then it disappears, so I closed it, but when I typed the password it said error, so I went into tools, but the audio isn’t coming up, so I opened another and then got in, but I got a Java collision error, so I rebooted, and the static from the carpet made the mouse jump, so I…….”

I interrupt at this point “Have you been drinking sir?” I ask

“No…………….” long pause of silence “why?”

“No reason, how about paint chips?" I ask"

"Ah no I don't think so" He says

"Well never mind, anyway, can you or can you not log into the website?”
“Yes!”

“Yes you can log into the site, or yes you can’t log into the site?” Now I'm getting confused dammit.

He reaffirms his first answer again “Yes!”

“Ok sir, I don’t think you are understanding me, when you double click on the blue "E" on your desktop, and then type in our website and click "GO", you are prompted with a login and password box. Right?

"Yes" he says

"ok" I say "now are you entering your user name in the username field?”
“Yes, yes I am” He assures me.

“Good, were getting somewhere, now below that box is a password box, are you entering your password into that box.”

“Yes!”

“Very good, and after typing these in and hitting the enter key….”

“The what key?” Ok, I think I have determined what the problem is at this point, he is a fucking moron. I begin walking him through each step as he is actually doing it.

“Ok, so you are now logged into the web site and can see your course and course materials, right?”

Once again he assures me with his standard response “Yes!”

“Very good, now what happens when you try to start the lesson?”

“Well that’s when I see a flash and nothing else happens”

“A flash huh…….did little people tell you to walk into the light?"

"huh?" he responds

"Never mind……. anyway, did you read the warning that popped up when you clicked on the lesson explaining that a new window is going to open, and in order for it to open you need to turn off pop up blockers on your machine.”

“Ah no……I always just click through those, I don’t have time to read them all you know” He says.

“Right but you have enough time to call me and waste the last 20 minutes figuring out what is wrong instead of just reading a 30 second message from the school that would have solved everything.”

“Yes!” He says once again. (This guy should do really well in the corporate world)

“Well, turn off your pop up blocker and everything will work just fine, not to mention you can keep fueling the ever increasing spyware fire on the internet by clicking through all those messages that pop up.” (No wonder we have so much spyware, with idiots like this, I don't know why I'm not doing it.) Dead silence, I wait for a response. Tapping fingers on desk, place phone down, walk to coffee machine, get a cup of coffee, bullshit with a few students, finish coffee, run to bathroom, walk up to 4rth floor to see how construction on new business is coming and to steel whatever tools are lying around while the construction workers are on lunch break, return to desk, pick up phone which is still silent. “Anything yet?” I ask

“Nope….not….yet……oh wait, yep its working now, thanks a bunch.”

“Great” I say placing the receiver back into its resting place.

Not more then two minutes go by and again –BEEP-, (DAMN now I know why the secretary left, the damn phone never stops ringing.)

“What now?” I announce to the speaker phone.

“Ahem, ah, I have another student having some trouble at home with the course they are taking, can you help them out”

“Yeah send them through”

My phone begins to ring again, I grab the receiver and place it up to my ear, “County Sheriffs office, is this an emergency?”

“Ah, whoops I think I got the wrong…….” She trails off.

“hold please” I say, placing the call on hold and continuing my surfing ways.(Anyone who knows me, knows that I love to play phone pranks on people) A student waves me down in the next room needing assistance in logging into a test. I decide to actually go to his desk and log him in rather then VNC into his machine, besides I need to get up and stretch anyway. As soon as I enter the room, I realize the mistake I have made. Suddenly twenty students are staring me down like lost puppies all with questions needing to be answered. Great, looks like I will be in here for a while. Twenty minutes later and a lot of lying, bullshitting, and making false statements, I return to my desk to hear the most annoying beeping noise emitting from my phone.

"What the hell is that awful noise" I say outloud.

"You have someone on hold" the teacher across from me says.

I glance at the phone to notice that line one is still holding ever so patiently for me.
Hmmmph, that’s so sad.

I decide that they should be rewarded for waiting so long, so I pick up the phone and press line one. “Hello?”

“Oh good, someone is there, is this the school?” she politely asks.

“Yes, how can I help you?”

“Well I logged in”

“yes, yes, your already farther then my last caller” I say

“huh?”

“Never mind, continue on please” I tell her.

“and then as soon as I start the course a PRE-TEST pops up” she says with a hint of nervousness in her voice.

“Ok, and what, you can’t go any farther?” I ask not knowing what the problem is.

“Well I wasn’t sure what to do”

“What do you mean” I ask her

“Am I supposed to take the test?”

“You do understand the concept and definition of PRE, right?” (picturing some fat girl in high school with no clue to this previous terminology)

“Ya, I think so”

“Ok, a pre-test is something you take before anything else, hence the term pre. It is there to test your knowledge of the course before you start it so can skip areas you already know”

“But how am I supposed to know anything if I am just starting the course?” She sounds very confused now.

“The pre-test only tries to determine what, if anything you know thus far by giving you several questions you might see throughout the course, that’s it. After you take the pre-test the course will begin.”

“Really?” she says sounding astonished. “Wow I have been sitting here for two weeks thinking I shouldn’t take that thingy”

“Wow, well glad I could be of help.” I respond rubbing my forehead as an ever increasing headache is beginning to form inside my head.

“So, if I have anymore questions can I call you?”

“NO” –click-

-BEEP-

What the fuck, is this ever going to stop?

Wanted, good secretary to answer phones and answer simple computer questions, bad pay and stupid costumers, call for more details.

Bitches

2006-04-27T13:21:00.000-05:00

Originally Posted Friday, August 26, 2005

-BEEP- * Silence *

I always know when the director of the school is trying to get a hold of me on the intercom system, he never says a word just expects me to respond to the sound of heavy breathing coming from my speakers.

“So then I told him that the directors receding hairline looks like the top of a wet corn cob…..”

“Excuse me…….”

“Oh…..yes,” I say sounding as if I had no idea he was there.

“If you have a minute I need to speak to you.”

After getting a cup of coffee, checking out the new offices on the ninth floor, taking a nap in the janitor closet, I figured it was time to go see what the hell he wants.

I get up and head down the hall, peering into his office I decide I will walk past into the storage room to hear if I can pick up on what this conversation might be about. Placing my ear up to the wall I begin to listen intently.

“yes……yes…..I’m calling for the test results……..yes……..so all STD tests came back negative”

“Whoa”, I jump back from the wall and stick out my tongue as if I had just taken a bite from a sour apple. “Way too much information” I say to myself. Its obvious I’m not going to get any Intel from this approach, my best bet is going into his office to find out what the hell he wants.

Considering he is the director of the school you would expect him to have a rather large corner office. This however is not the case. His room measures about three feet by five feet with a desk that barely fits from wall to wall, causing anyone who sits behind it to pull a Dukes Of Hazard maneuver over the top of the desk in order to get out. On the wall are a couple of those inspirational posters that just make you want to puke. You know the ones “P.A.S.S.I.O.N, There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart…pursue those.” Who the hell came up with something like that, Elton John on crack?

Behind him stands a book shelf filled with books of computer programming, office management, learn to speak a foreign language in 21 days, etc, etc. Most of the books being from the library of the “Complete Idiots Guide To…..” series and “The Dummies Guide…..”. He sits at his desk facing me, his hands folded in front of him on the desk, and his back straight up and down at attention, not to show me respect mind you, but rather he doesn’t have enough room to sit back without falling out of the window. Sitting on the desk looking down at me is my favorite administrations person. My day just got ugly.

I frown at him.

He sticks his tongue out at me.

I slap him as hard as I can across the face.

He cries like a baby.

We go back and forth like this for about ten minutes before the director interrupts my anger management session.

“Now stop that you two. As much as I like to see a good fight as the next guy, we have some business to attend to.” With one final loud SLAP across the admissions persons face, I sit down in the chair opposite the director, my knees folded up tight against my chest, as there is no room for them in front of me.

“Good, now that I see we are all comfortable we can continue.”

The admissions person rubbing the side of his face and still slightly whimpering looks over at me and begins to explain that he has just admitted a student who will be coming in for orientation next Monday.

“Fine” I say

“Yes but what you don’t understand is that we signed him up for Java. You do know Java right?” He asks me, now holding his hand in front of his face and cowering like a beaten dog.

“I know how to use it jackass, I don’t know how to program in it you dumb fuck” I stand up and bring my hand back as if to strike him again when the director says.

“Now calm down everyone, this isn’t a problem. How is the Oracle coming along” he asks me. Can’t I just go one week without this damn question. I gotta get to downloading those answer sheets off of warez.

“Slow” I say “My students are farther in the course then I am and trying to bounce back and forth from where they are to help them and where I am in the first part is a pain in the ass and slowing things down”

“Great, keep up the good work”

“huh…..”

“As for the Java, grab the books in back and start thumbing through them so you have a better understanding when the student arrives.”

“So my understanding is, we don’t have anyone here who is certified or knows Java programming?

“uh huh” they both nod in unison.

“And you both new this already right?”

Again they both nod “uh huh”

“And yet you still sign up a student to take the course and expect me to teach them something I don’t know.”

“That’s right” the director says “we figured since you are doing so well teaching the Oracle course that you can handle this one no problem”

“Handling it well” I explain “its called acting, and I think the students are catching on.”

“Well you should have no problem with just one student” he says

“Yeah whatever” I say in disgust I begin to stand up from my chair to leave the office when…

“Ah……well, that’s not entirely the case” the admissions person says hanging his head down low while rubbing the back of his neck.

“Who the hell said you could speak monkey boy” I demand, slapping him once again across his face.

“Well, see he has a few co-workers who also need to take the course and I already scheduled them through out the week to have you orientate them”

“WHAT???” I scream “are you insane, I can’t be bouncing between two fucking courses I know nothing about trying to teach people how to do it well enough to pass a vendor exam you moron”

The director seeing my obvious anger and the fact that my slaps have now turned into whaling fists of fury stands up and says “Now calm down, I’m sure…….” He slides over his desk to our side and grabs the back of my shoulders trying to pull me off of the admissions person who is now crouched into the fetal position in the corner of the room. “we can call one of the old teachers I know really well who is an ace at Java”

“Yeah” I say wiping the sweat running down my forehead “well you better start calling him now”

“Just out of curiosity” I ask looking down at the admissions person “how many students did you sign up next week for this orientation?”

“fff…..iiii….vvv…eee…one…….for…..each……day” he says with a quivering lip.

“Oh that’s just great, you do know that I am here alone next week as the other teacher is going on vacation RIGHT?” I scream into his ear.

At this point he just sits there continuing to whimper like a baby, the director pushing on my back ushers me out the door so he can calm the admissions person down. I bring my shoulder forward releasing his grasp and swing around making a fist like action at the admissions person and stomping my foot on the floor causing him to flinch and wince in fear.

“BITCH” I say as I walk out the door.

Pork Chop Sandwiches!

The Great Race

2006-04-21T12:16:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Monday, August 22, 2005

It all started about 5 years ago when my buddy and I saw an ad in the local paper for an upcoming local canoe race. It consisted of three and a half miles down a shallow running rocky river, with twists and turns hidden obstacles that can capsize a canoe or shred it to pieces. No problem we thought, we're experienced canoe enthusiasts. We've paddled our way down much rougher rivers, how hard could it be (or so we thought). And ever since that day, we have entered faithfully every year. Some years we had disappointing results, and others, satisfactory result, but never the all mighty first place that everyone strides to achieve when entering any race. That however was all about to change.

The last year we entered we scouted the river a month in advance. Checking every rock, turn, and depth across the entire stretch of the race. We plotted which islands we would go on which side, and where we would have to get out and run because the river was to shallow to float the canoe. We spent countless weekends trying each side of the river, paddling as hard as we could to check our times. This all seemed to work really well, and would have given us a first place victory, had I not dropped a paddle half way through the race causing my partner to bail in what seemed to be the deepest part of the river. This set back dropped us from first place, to second. Since then we still continue to scout the river a month in advance of the race but with a lot more beer, and a spare canoe paddle.

This year presented some new challenges. The river was extremely shallow in several spots with a lot more treacherous terrain. Large exposed boulders with merely inches to spare between them meant tight navigation. Spots that would normally warrant heavy paddling were now no more then a foot deep with rocks hovering just below the surface. There was no way to see them until your right on top of them, which meant if we weren't careful, this year could also be our last.

In the past years the race has come down to a deciding factor of mere seconds. Hitting one of these hidden rocks could make or break any placement at the finish line. After several long and drunken trips down the river trying every scenario possible we had what we thought would be the best plan to achieve our goal. Aside from the occasional hidden rock, unavoidable thick weeds, or extreme shallow spots we should have a good chance against anyone unfamiliar with the river. The week's prior I ate like a pig to gain mass and worked out 4 times a week to prepare. Not knowing until a week before hand when the race was made it difficult to truly prepare for the event. The water level can change over night with enough rain causing all the weeks of planning worthless with changing currents and adjusting obstacles. The weather cooperated in the weeks prior to the race and thus our planning was all for not.

The day of the race was upon us. The weather was a very comfortable 71 degrees under mostly sunny skies with a slight wind of 10mph out of the north. This meant that the wind would be pushing us for most of the trip. The race was to begin at 1:00pm. Since so many people enter the race it would be impossible to send everyone down all at once.

Instead they send them down in groups of 5 with 2-minute intervals between each group. Because the river was so shallow this year my buddy and I agreed it would be best to get in the first group so we wouldn't have to worry about passing so many people during the shallows. To do this we arrived at registration 2 hours early to get a low number. This worked to our advantage and we were assigned number two. Little did we know that this would be our new lucky number. With our number in hand we headed back to my buddies house were we loaded up my canoe. A 17-foot old town with a flat bottom and built in seats, wide in the middle but made from composites to take the abuse of the river. Not your normal racing canoe, but under the circumstances of the river being so shallow we new we were going to hit some rocks, so my canoe was the best choice. At quarter after 12 we did one last check on our gear and headed out to the launch site at the start of the race. We usually arrive early in order to get in the water without fighting 20 or more other canoes and so we can size up any competition we might encounter. After setting into the water we found a quiet spot off to the side of the starting point far enough back to monitor everyone entering the river. It wasn't long before the portage was bustling with racers entering the water. Some of them experienced, and some are obvious novices. As my buddy and I sat in the cool water watching each canoeist enter the water we check to see what is ahead. Small crawfish and minnows swim next to our canoe, we watch the clock tick by and are shocked to see how many people entered this year.

12:30

"I count 15 canoes already" I said to my buddy

"1…2…I count 18" he says in response to my count.

"Damn we might have some competition this year"

We watch each canoe as it enters very carefully, measuring the size and width of the canoe with our eyes, as well as what the canoe is made out of and how the racers inside handle their canoe. So far we don't spot any Kevlar canoes, which is a great advantage in racing. For the most part I don't spot much competition except for two parties in our group, one of them being last years winners. I begin to doubt myself before the race even begins.

"What do ya thing? I ask my partner.

"I don't think we have anything to worry about."

My buddies reassurance helps to calm me down and bring back some of the confidence and moral I will need if we are going to win this thing.

"What time you got?" I ask

"20 minutes" he says

The anticipation is building and for some reason this year I actually feel nervous. Is this a prelude to what is to come? I look across the bridge, which is also the starting point, at the ever increasing number of spectators. My heart races even more.

"There" I say pointing to one of the people on the bridge "the coordinator is on the bridge we should probably move up soon"

"Yeah, lets move up next to them" my partner says pointing to an aluminum canoe in front of me stuck up against a tree so they don't start floating down river.

Our paddles dig into the sandy bottom next to the canoe, and with a couple of heaves the shore in which we were grounded upon releases its hold and we begin to float downstream towards the aluminum canoe.

"Coming along side," My partner announces to the participants in the aluminum canoe.

I feel the subtle tap as the back of our canoe bumps into theirs. With that the opposition offers his canoe paddle to me to grab onto. I grab a hold and pull myself towards their canoe so we are now parallel to each other.

"Hows it going?" I smile and nod to the guy in the front of the canoe.

"Not bad and yourself?"

"Good" I say

"This your guys first time?"

"No we enter every year," I say.

"Well be careful around those two," he says pointing across the front of my canoe to a camouflaged aluminum canoe holding last year's winners. "Last year they swamped us and cost us the race."

I nod with acknowledgment to show my appreciation for his tip.

A voice from on top the bridge bellows out "5 minutes, 5 minutes until the start of the race, numbers 1-5"

"Well this is it," I say

"Yeah I guess so"

"Good luck"

"Same to you"

With that I look back to my partner who nods his head acknowledging that it is time to get into starting position. We push off from the other canoe and position ourselves just under the edge of the bridge. My partner stabs his paddle down into the murky water-striking bottom holding our position until the whistle blows, while I keep my head down and my eyes focused on my paddle which is hovering just above the surface of the water.

My heart begins to race and I can feel each beat throughout my body.

"One minute until the race begins, 1 minute. Racers 1 through 5 line up," The coordinator announces from atop the bridge.

All five canoes now line up at the bridge, each one touching one another from the narrowness of the river. I can already tell we will be battling each other for lead while we try to break free in the first stretch.

"Counting down…10…. 9…8…7…" The coordinator begins to count down the final seconds. I bring my paddle up in front of me and let the tip of it enter the water. My muscles tense waiting the few final seconds before the whistle blows announcing the start of the race.

"5…4…3…2…1…"

On the last second I thrust my paddle back with everything I have shooting our canoe out of its holding spot. The first few feet are intense as each canoe is banging off of one another trying to gain the lead. Water splashing in from both sides as I drive my paddle in hard to try and break away from the other racers. The sound of five canoes and their paddles clashing as they echo beneath the bridge at a deafening level. At this point I don't have time to even look ahead for any obstacles, all I can do is keep paddling as hard as I can with my eyes focused on the water.

After about the first 50 feet, the canoe on our right breaks free and begins to fall back. There are only two of us battling for first position now as the other canoes follow suit behind us. Frustration sets in, as it seems like an eternity that last years winners and us are still stuck together. Our canoes stuck together as if they are glued, we can only continue to paddle on the one open side, which continues to steer both canoes into one another. The race has just begun and I hear a whistle behind us signaling the start of the second wave of racers. I begin to worry. If we don't break away soon we leave everyone behind us the perfect chance to pass us while the two of us struggle to break free. Suddenly both canoes come to a halt and I lunge forward as we hit the first low spot in the river. Without hesitation myself and the other canoes front man leap out, grabbing hold of the front end of our canoes we start sprinting as fast as we can down stream in search of deeper water. The river now dancing across my face and streaming down my glasses with each plunge of my foot into the shallow water. This may be the only chance we have to break away from one another. I push as hard as I can to pull ahead in the now foot race. I don't have time to turn and see if my partner has jumped out of the canoe with me, all I can do is keep running until the water is deep enough for the canoe to sustain itself. I look over to my left, amazingly not only have I gained a foot on our competition but we are now far enough apart that if I jump back in we can begin to paddle.

I take another glance down at my feet and see that the water is deep enough to jump in. With careful timing as not to tip the canoe, I grab hold of both sides of the canoe, still running I jump in. The canoe sways heavily from side to side as I regain my balance. A second shutter comes shortly after as I feel my partner jump in as well. I reach behind me grabbing my paddle, I waste no time jabbing it in the still shallow water.

-CRUNCH- The sound of my paddle digging into the small pebbles of the river bottom are echoed through my canoe paddle and sends a slight jolt through my arms as I use the rocks to push forward rather then paddle the water. Looking to my left I see we are still ever so slightly in the lead. My partner and I continue to paddle as hard as we can to keep our lead, but because the water is so shallow we need to pick our way along the river to keep from bottoming out once again. Unfortunately the pass to do this isn't wide enough for two canoes and it isn't long before we are once again glued to the side of our closest competitors. Our two canoes slam into one another and we begin the fight to try and separate from one another once again. Before I know what is going on, our canoe takes a hard right and was heading toward shore in an area I am not familiar with.

"What the hell are you doing?" I ask my partner

"We have no choice, it's the only way we can separate from these guys"

I reluctantly oblige and continue to paddle ahead now steering for shore. To my surprise the water here is deep enough to get in a good stroke of my paddle, and there seems to be an increasing current helping push us along near shore. When we emerge from our little detour I turn to see we are now one full canoe length in front of our competitors and going strong. Holy shit I can't believe it, my partners little sidetrack seems to have worked to our benefit rather then our demise. With them behind us I dig my paddle in as hard as I can thrusting us forward even more into the lead. My eyes now focused in front of our canoe to watch for obstacles and to navigate us back onto our normal fixed path. We keep up this strong pace for about fifteen minutes keeping an eye over my shoulder to make sure no one is gaining on us.

"Rock in front on left, steer right" I shout back to my partner. "Straight ahead, steer me towards the shore so I can pick up that current" We quickly get back into our rhythm of me navigating and my partner steering. Each stroke I relay the next directions to my partner in the back so he can safely maneuver us through the rough waters and keep us in the strong current. I glance back behind us once again to see that our lead has increased to around 50 feet and were still going strong. Our competition seems to be mimicking our every move but by the sounds of the noise and the frustration in their voices their not having the same luck avoiding the rocks. I fear that they will hold their position until the last stretch when the river gets wider then use our navigation to thier advantage to overtake us.

"You think they are following our every move to take us in the end?" I ask

"You mean pacing themselves until the last rapids?"

"Yeah!"

"Nah, once we get passed the hatchery there is no passing, whoever is in the lead will stay in the lead"

"Ok…hey looks like they are gaining"

"No there not, your seeing things" my partner says.

"Ok" I say shrugging my shoulders "Are you sure?"

"Yeah" my buddy says restoring any doubt I had of us losing the lead.

"Hey" he says "Switch sides, we need to get to the other side of shore, our first island shortcut is coming up"

With that I switch sides and begin to paddle hard to help steer the canoe. As we round the corner I can see the island. On the left is the short route but anyone looking at it would think twice. Directly in the middle, the river runs dry and you can see all the exposed rocks. Anyone in their right mind would go the other way thinking that the left side is impassable. But because we have scouted the river before hand my partner and I know that the river is actually quiet deep until the middle, which means we only need to get out and run for a short distance in order to get the canoe back in paddle-able water. We approach the left side, my eyes dart over my right shoulder to catch our competitors taking the right side. It worked I think to myself. However not for long, the group behind them can see we are gaining a lot of ground taking the left side and have started to head close to the left shore indicating they too will attempt the shortcut.

"Not yet" I announce to my partner letting him know it is not time to bail out of the canoe. If we jump to soon we waste coasting time, and tire ourselves out by running a longer distance. Seconds before we hit the rocks stopping our canoe I shout "NOW!!" with that I jump over the side and once again grab hold of the canoe and begin to sprint. This marks the half way point of the race and I begin to feel the heavy paddling up to this point taking effect on my body. My quick sprint turns into a fast walk, which quickly turns into a slow walk. My legs are wobbly and I feel like I am about to collapse. I look down to see if we can put the canoe back in the water and jump in where I can once again sit down to at least allow my legs to rest.

The water is only about five inches when I decide to take our chances and drop the canoe back into the water signaling to my partner to jump in. We both sluggishly enter the canoe, which is only slightly afloat in the shallow water. Both our paddles enter the water and dig into the rocks to push off. With one good push we are back in deep enough water to float the canoe. I look ahead to see we are now pointing directly at our next corner giving us another advantage to anyone taking the other way which will force them to put serious drag on their canoe in order to swing the tight corner and stay in the strong current.

"That’s it," I shout with enthusiasm "were half way now bud, we can do this, we have a shot to win"

Seeing the amount of distance between our closest competitor and us brings a second wind throughout my veins and I once again dig my paddle hard into the water. I begin to paddle so hard in fact that my partner shouts at me.

"Hey, you're doing the steering now"

"Ok!!" I shout back.

Knowing this I can better anticipate our next move and keep us on track leaving the quick short turns around obstacles to my partner. This works well and we keep about the same distance from any competition. Shouts and bangs from behind us assure me even more that our lead will not be compromised.

-SPLASH-SPLASH-SPLASH-

The sounds of footsteps running through the water sends a slight smile to my face knowing that the someone has just bottomed out and has had to get out and run. At this point in the race, the last thing you want to do is get out and carry a 75 pound plus canoe through the water.

We're now three quarters of the way through the race, my arms are like rubber. My left thumb is throbbing with pain. I glance down to notice that the canoe paddle has created a large blister between my thumb and index finger and the constant rubbing from the paddle has already busted it open and torn the flesh completely away exposing a large red raw piece of flesh. My stomach is nauseous and I feel as if I am going to vomit. My mouth gummy and throat dry as I search for any sign of moisture inside my mouth to wet my cracking lips. It's no use; any moisture I had inside my body has already been expelled throughout my pours as sweat. I can feel dehydration setting in as I splash some water across my face to cool me down. I can't give up now I think to myself. The finish is just around the corner.

It is now 40 minutes past the hour in which the race started. My entire body is weak and every other stroke of my canoe paddle is lifeless. Ahead I see the last major corner before the finish. A third wind kicks in and I try my hardest to paddle. Maneuvering around the last few boulders we round the corner and I can see the bridge signifying the finish line. Littered across the top of the bridge and below along the shorelines are spectators. Cheers erupt as they see us come around the corner. Shouts of encouragement begin to head our way. A burst of adrenaline shoots through my body and I reach down deep to muster every last bit of energy I have to paddle hard. (Well that and to look good in front of the pretty ladies) Stroke after stroke we shorten the distance between the finish line and us.

"What's your number?" someone hollers from the bridge.

"2" I yell back

Seconds later applause comes across the crowd as we glide underneath the bridge ending our journey for this year. My partner and I bring our canoe into shore just beyond the bridge and exit the canoe. With whatever strength we have left we hoist the canoe onto shore. We stand there for a moment, looking at each other our hands set on our knees breathing heavy. Our bodies shaking from the last hour of physical punishment we put our bodies through. A huge smile crosses our face as we begin to realize we just might have won this thing this year. We won't know for sure until all the times from each group are tallied, but deep down we know we did pretty damn good. We didn't swamp the canoe twice (first year) we didn't lose to a Kevlar canoe (second year) we didn't drop a canoe paddle and have to stop to get it (third year) we just busted our ass, and for that we're proud. Moments later the second canoe crosses the finish line. My partner and I enter the river once more to help the other racers bring their canoes in. The rugged cool water that fought us the entire way now sweeps between our legs relaxing our tired muscles and cooling us off.

After sharing stories with other racers and listening to the problems they had we venture up to the bar were the results will soon be read. My partner grabs a spot at a table and I head up to the bar to order us a beer. I sit down on a stool, my body still aching, and light up a cigar. My partner and I begin to reminisce about the trip, retracing each step in detail, complementing each other of our decisions down the river . The bar quickly begins to fill with racers all of them carrying their own tale, some of them wet from head to toe from swamping their canoe, others bruised and battered from the ride.

The coordinator soon comes in with his clipboard signaling that all racers have crossed the finish line. He swings in behind the bar and pulls out the trophies. Is this the year? Is this the year our hard work finally pays off? In the next few minutes we will find out. The bar goes quiet as he scans his clipboard.

With the anticipation building I start going over each fault we made during the race wondering if any of them will be a deciding factor in our victory.

"Whose number 2?" The coordinator shouts from behind the bar.

"We are," I say standing up waving my hand in the air.

"You guys placed first, congratulations!"

And with that the entire bar begins to applause us as I walk up to accept our trophies. Finally after 5 years of hard work, scouting and exercise, my buddy and I hold the title for 2005. A big weight is lifted off of my shoulders and I have a grin from ear to ear for the next 4 hours. I turn and hold up our trophies to show everyone in the bar and head back to our table to hand my partner his trophy. It may be a silly canoe race to most people, but for us, it was a lot more then that.

Will we keep the title next year? I don't know and I don't care, all I know is this year, we were the best, and frankly that’s all that matters to me right now.

This is my proudest post thus far

Assume nothing Part II

2006-04-19T18:33:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Thursday, August 11, 2005

My second orientation is scheduled for 3:00pm. Perfect, that gives me two hours before we close to take care of the new student, this should be more then enough time.

4:00pm, still no word from the administration team as to where my new student is.

4:10pm, I see one of the administration personnel walking into the conference room with someone. Ah this must be my new student, and running a little late I see. This is going to be cutting it awfully close to my beer time.

Finally at 4:30 the administrations person walks out of the room and heads my way.

“Can you do the orientation?” he says “ I know its late sorry but the student was late”

“Yeah, I guess so”

“ok thanks, it should be an easy one, he is just taking one course of the entire MOS certification”

“Ok cool, anything else I need to know?” I ask.

“Ummmm….. no, that should do it” He strides off to the office collecting his belongings to head home. Must be nice to go home early. I enter the conference room and my new student continues to stare straight ahead. Hmmm…..is he trying to intimidate me? I sit down in front of him and introduce myself as his new teacher.

“Welcome to our facility” I say with a smile.

“Hi, I want to start off by saying I am legally blind, so I can’t see anything you are pointing at or referring to.”

“Ah….uh huh, well then” this would explain the blank stare I am getting. When I asked the administration person if there was anything else I should know, this would have been an excellent point to bring up. I guess he assumed it was not something I needed to know before hand. At this point I begin to talk very loud, almost to the point that my voice is echoing throughout the small room.
“SO YOUR TAKING THE MICROSOFT ACCESS COURSE?” Why am I shouting, he never said he was deaf. I try to lower my voice without being to obvious of what an ignorant ass I am at his handicap. He just continues to stare straight ahead, a quiet smirk on his face as if to say to me “damn ignorant fool”

“Yes I am, and you don’t need to shout, I can hear you fine” he explains.

“OH…..AH, I didn’t realize I was shouting” Trying to hide my ignorance. At this point I make direct eye contact with him and speak very slowly as if he can read my lips. Again, what the hell am I doing, he isn’t deaf, he’s blind!

“Are you ok?” he asks “you sound a bit frustrated”

“I’m fine thank you,” I tell him trying to conduct myself in a professional matter without making anymore of a fool out of me.

“You know it’s alright, I get this a lot from people who don’t understand my handicap” he tells me. With this I begin to make faces at him and gestures that are best left out of this text for younger viewing audiences. Not even so much as a flinch, wow, I guess he really is blind, either that or I will have a pink slip waiting on my desk when I return. * Quick scan around room making sure they haven’t slipped any of those damn cameras in here *

I glance up at the clock on the wall –Tick, tock, tick, tock- “Well since your blind, no sense in going over any of the paperwork as you can’t read it anyway. I’m sure when you get home you can have someone read it out loud to you” Did I just actually tell a blind person there is no reason to waste my time in reading through a bunch of material he can’t see in the first place? Yep, I’m going to hell. I move on to how he needs to log into our system to access his course materials.

“Ok, so what you see on the screen here is the same thing you will see…..at……home” I slap my hand across my forehead “well never mind about that you can’t see that either” Damn this might be the shortest orientation yet. “All right enough of this, how in the hell are you going to take a course you can’t even read the book for?” I ask

“I have someone that reads it to me.” He chuckles

“And what about the test?” I demand

“They come with me for that to, and read the questions to me and the possible answers, I then give them the answer I want selected and they choose it”

“Well that’s not allowed” I say “You can’t have someone else in the room with you, they could be giving you the answers for gods sakes”

He begins to laugh hysterically at my ignorance “The state sends someone over that is certified to give the test for disabled people such as myself. Who did you think I would bring, my sister?” He continues to laugh.

“Yes……well…….anyway” With a sheepish look on my face I hand him his book. (Just for fun I keep pulling it away just before he can grab it.) and send him on his way.
I help him out the door and towards the front desk where the director meets me.

“New student?” he asks me

I nod my head without saying a word, and slide up next to the director. Quietly I whisper into his ear “yeah, but he is 90% deaf, so if you are going to introduce yourself you need to speak up in order for him to hear you”

He looks back at me and whispers, “but isn’t that rude?”

“No” I say “I thought that to, but he totally expects it, otherwise he won’t hear you at all”

The director walks up beside the new student, lowers his head to his ear and begins to shout at a deafening level “WELCOME TO OUR FACILITY”

The student startled beyond belief stagers backwards clutching onto the desk to keep him from falling, with a wave of his hand he continues on with a look of fear as if he is expecting more. His hands trembling down the side of the desk and across the wall searching feverishly for the door handle to exit as quickly as possible before something else happens.

“Did I say something wrong?” The director asks looking back at me.

“Dunno, maybe” I say

“hmmmm, odd fellow, he seemed to just look right through me rather than at me, and did you see how he was running his hands all over everything like that?”

“Yep” I say “Bet he was looking to steal something until you startled him”

“Yes……yes, keep an eye on that one, he might be using that disability excuse to rob us blind.” he says squinting one eye.

“Well you got half of it right.”

I have nothing more to say!

Assume nothing Part I

2006-04-12T22:10:00.000-05:00

Originally posted Saturday, August 06, 2005

I have two orientations today, and since I have only done this a limited number of times each one bringing about its own little twists and turns this should make for an interesting day. My first unsuspecting victim/student rolls in around 11:00am, and once the admissions person is through with them they are handed off to me.

“Muhaha!!!”

“And this is your teacher, he’s going to walk you through your course and explain everything else.” The admissions person says as he heads out the door of the small meeting room.

The room rectangular in shape measures about 5 by 7 foot with a small dark window at the far end, a desk in the middle of the room and a chair on each side of the desk. Last I checked, this seems awfully close to the dimensions and attributes of your average interrogation room…….or so I think last time I watched Cops………ok fine, so I’ve seen my fair share of police brutality, I mean interrogation rooms.

Anyway, above us is a florescent light flickering on and off with the sounds of a crackling electrical outlet as it tries desperately to stay lit causing our shadows to dance across the walls with each flash. I slide my chair closer to the desk, grabbing some nearby papers I begin to shuffle them in an obscure matter while squinting one eye across the table at the victim/student. He sits there quiet, hands folded in front of him, his face looking that of a wounded zebra moments before the lion attacks.

With a loud “ehhhh……hemmmm” I clear my throat, grabing the attention of the studentas he arches his back and sits at attention.

“So” I say “you’re here to take the MOS training course”

“Yes….yes I am….” He replies “my ah, job is requiring me to become a certified expert in MOS”

“Really?” I shoot a puzzled look across the table. Confused as to why any business would want someone to become an expert certified Microsoft office products person is beyond me. I shrug my shoulders “well ok if that’s what they want”.

Now comes the boring part. I begin to go over all of our policies and procedures with the student as they try not to fall asleep. Once this is complete I have them read a few things over to make sure they understand everything, then lots of signing of meaningless paperwork which I have added a few pages of my own way in the back with very small print as so no one can make out what it says. Its been so long since I wrote them I forgot what they even say, something about, “I will not ask my teacher questions” and “I hereby give my teacher full ownership of my sole upon my death” you know, stuff like that. It assures that there is a full understanding between the teacher and the student.

“So while you look all this over I am going to go print out your course guide and get your books” I say pushing the paperwork across the table at him before standing up and heading out the door locking it behind me watching as he signs his life away. Memories of similiar dark obscure room come to mind as I remember a man pushing paperwork at me before walking out of a similar room.

“Now sign this confession and we’ll go easy on ya!!”

I shake my head ending the Scooby Doo like trance “Ah good times….good times” I say to myself as I trot back to my desk and begin scrolling through endless courses on my computer screen. “hmmm…..that’s odd” I say while rubbing my hand under my chin. “I can’t seem to find any information on the course this student has signed up for.”

Several more minutes go by and I still can’t find anything. I glance over my shoulder at the two way mirror that sits between myself and the student in the next room (when did they install that? I need to stay awake more during the week) to notice he is quickly getting bored, and starting to fiddle with his restraints…..errrrr school swag wrist bands. I send out a quick instant message to one of our sister schools asking if they know anything about the MOS expert course.

Tap….tap….tap…. “Why can’t I find the course material for the expert MOS course?”
My computer beeps as a message is sent back to me from another teacher, “Because we don’t offer that course, we only offer the core part of the course, they have to go somewhere else to get the expert course.”

TAP…..TAP……TAP……”GREAT, I have a student who was just admitted for the expert course”
Beep…..beep….. “That’s funny, looks like you have an issue with your admissions personnel.”

TAP….TAP….TAP….. “Funny? There is nothing funny about it”

Beep….beep…. “LOL, Yeah it happens all the time I’m just glad it happened to you instead of me this time”

-Note to self- record incoming ip address from Instant message program for later use on spam server. (Now that’s funny)

I head back to the room opening the door just enough to peak my head in, “It will be just a few more minutes” I say with a huge cheesy smile on my face.

I lock the door behind me once again, wouldn’t want a costumer to escape before paying, and head down the hall to the admissions office looking for some answers. With my teeth clenched tightly together I ask, “Would one of you like to explain to me what course you signed the new student up for?”

“Yeah…..” a voice pipes up from the corner of the room. “I signed him up for the expert MOS course”

“Yeah, and did you bother to check to see if we even offer that course?” I ask finger nails now digging into the palm of my hands as I begin to make angry fists.

The admissions person seeing my degree of anger grabs his shirt collar and begins to loosen it up “well, ah….we offer the core so I assumed…….”.

“YOU ASSUMED WRONG!!!!” I interrupt “we ONLY offer the core, and have never offered the expert course.”

“huh….that’s interesting” he says now whipping the sweat that is running down his forehead. The director pops up behind me from out of no where. (How does he keep doing that?)

“What’s going on out here?” He says, arms perched on both sides of his hips.
I begin to go into a long-winded explanation about the situation while he nods and scratches his head trying to keep up with everything I am saying.

“……so now I have a student sitting in the conference room awaiting my return with his materials and the expert course guide which we don’t have” I say inhaling deeply trying to catch my breathe.

The director stands there for a moment in his serious pose before saying “Well then, do some research and find out what books we need for that course, then go about ordering them so we can keep him as a student. Until then give him the core books and tell him he will need to take those courses before he can take the expert course, this will buy the time needed to get the other books, plus he will be purchasing another course from us which means more money in our pocket.” And with that he turns and heads back to his office.

So now, not only do I have to lie to the student on behalf of my admissions specialist team but I also have to fix their problem by getting the material we don’t have for a course we never offered. I turn around to face the admissions person as he is trying to quietly escape out the door before I can notice.
With a sharp jab from my elbow to his ribs I make my way past him through the door, ignoring his pathetic attempt to apologize and assure me it won’t happen again.
All I can do is hope that the next orientation will go better.

To be continued…

Can't a guy get a BRAKE?

2006-03-27T20:13:00.000-06:00

Originally Posted Wednesday, August 03, 2005

I decided to save a little money this weekend and install a new set of front brakes on my car. Word of warning, if your car exceeds the 150 thousand mile mark, replacing brakes could lead to other repairs, or as so it did in my case anyway. After replacing the brakes on my car I took it for a test drive. Vroom, down the street I went, screw the slow test, we went right for the 50 miles an hour towards a stop sign, if I fudged up the brakes we’ll hit a brick wall on the other side of the street. With a firm stomp from my foot on the brake pedal my car came to an immediate halt. “Cool” I thought to myself, everything is in working order. Nothing else went wrong and I saved a ton of money by doing it myself.

The next morning I am greeted with the warm sunshine cascading through my bedroom window. Anxious to test out my new brakes on the open road, I waste no time in getting ready for work and busying myself out the door. After a few short miles I am on my way down the interstate……and that’s when things went bad.

It started out as a slight squealing sound.

“That’s odd” I said out loud. Deep down in my gut I started to feel a sinking feeling, much like the one you get after swallowing something from the refrigerator that you realize has expired 4 days prior. Trying to ignore the obvious I begin to look around the car for anything that might be creating the noise other then what sounds to be a failing brake system.

I turn the radio down…….nope that doesn’t help, its still there, and turning the radio down has only proven more so that the sound I am hearing is emitting from outside the car right around the left front tire.
Immediately your mind starts to race through every step you undertook in the procedure leading up to this nasty sound.

“Did I tighten the lug nuts? Did I put the right brake on the right side? Was that little metal clip that broke off while banging on it with a hammer to get it into place that important? Why did I have more bolts when I finished then when I started.”
I now begin to realize that I could possibly be driving my coffin to my own grave site. Trying to relax I decide since the noise isn’t getting louder I might be ok and the piston on the caliper just needs to adjust itself a little more. I turn the radio back on to try and relax myself.

“I’m on the highway to hell……..I’m on the highway to hell” The sounds of AC/DC’s Highway To Hell come screaming through my speakers. My fingers stretch out and begin pushing the preset buttons trying to find something a little more appropriate to lighten the mood and ease the tension.

“I’m on top of the world looking down on creation and the only explanation I can find……” ah the soothing melodies of Karen Carpenter, its so relaxing I think I’m going to puke. Suddenly without warning my head is thrown forward towards the windshield, my seat belt catching my upper torso and thrusting my body back like slingshot. My heart is racing; confused at what just happened I look around to see if I struck something. Nope can’t see anything, the car now slowing at an alarming rate as if I dropped anchor off my port bow. It only takes a few moments to realize something has gone seriously wrong with my newfound brake installation. After a few miles of the most horrific screams coming from the front drivers side wheel, and my car jerking ferociously from time to time as the caliper continues to fail I begin to wonder if I should have taken my car into the shop to get the brakes done. “Nonsense” I shout out loud to myself as if that little voice of reason inside my head were listening to me. “I’ve changed my own brakes before, and I have even done it on this very same car with no problems. Obviously it must be the brakes at fault.” I decide to push forward knowing that I am only a few miles away from my first stop, the bank. This will give me an opportunity to see if I can see any damage to the car. Besides “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere…..it’s up to you New York…….” Ok, time to turn the radio back to a rock station before I go insane with show tunes. I arrive at the bank, heads turning, eyes wincing, as people throw their hands over their ears at the obvious sounds of pigs being slaughtered comes from my front tire.

Great timing, the bank hasn’t opened yet giving me the time I need to inspect the front tire. I step out looking around as if I have no idea what people are staring at. Hmmmm, I wonder how hot the wheel is from the brake being stuck for the last 10 miles. A hissing sound and a sharp pain emits from the tip of my finger as I test my last theory.

Yep it’s hot all right.

“Too late to turn back now” I think to myself. All I can do is hope the wheel cools off enough while I am in the bank for me to make it to work.

Mental note, explaining to officer you needed to pee on your tire to cool it off might result in a breathalyzer.

Digital interference

2006-03-21T22:31:00.000-06:00

Originally posted July 29th 2005

This morning started as I suspect all mornings start out when you’re in Hell. I spilled coffee all down the front of my white shirt, logged in to find that a student had disconnected my Ethernet because they preferred that port on the switch, and of course it’s Friday so I am all alone.

The director strides in all smiles and wide eyed, obviously pointing out the fact that he wasn’t indulged in any late night drinking affairs such as myself.
“Good morning everyone, and how are we today?” He announces from the other room.
A very quiet and somber “ehhhh” comes from anyone within earshot.

Not really wanting to be confronted or bothered this early in the morning I decide to look busy at my desk until I hear him retire into his office. After a few minutes of office chat I hear his door open and close. I figured this would be a good time to make a break for the bathroom as all the coffee, minus what I spilled onto myself mind you, is catching up with me rather quickly. With no students in yet I take my chances and make way to the front door rather then escape through one of the convenient side doors. But before I can get there I hear the sounds of a door opening behind me.

“HAPPY FRIDAY” a loud voice shouts from behind me. The unexpected sound startles me to the point I almost piss my pants. I recognize the voice as the directors and spin around to confront him.

“I saw you coming and thought I would say good morning.”

Saw me coming? What the hell is he talking about? I glance over his shoulder into the office as his door is closing to witness a small color television with several images on it. Holy shit they’ve installed cameras here. My face goes pale and a bead of sweat runs down my forehead as I try to be nonchalant looking around the room for the little devils. It’s not long before I spot my first one peaking out from beneath the ceiling tile just behind from where the director is standing. It appears to be a typical wireless webcam you can pick up at any convenient electronics outlet, white in color no less to match the tile in an obvious attempt to conceal it from everyone.

“Like our new security?” he says watching my eyes as I scan the rest of the room looking for more of these little bastards.

Trying to show as much interest as possible while being distracted by the ever increasing urge to expel a jumbo sized cup of coffee, my face scrunches up and I begin to squirm uncomfortably “Yeah, very interesting.”

“Looks like you spilled something on your shirt” he points to my chest and I inevitably fall for the oldest trick in the book as I look down at his finger just before it comes back up at my face whacking my nose forcing my head back. While holding onto his stomach and slapping his hand across his knee he begins to laugh hysterically to himself. “Now that’s funny” he says “and I bet it was caught on our new security cameras too.”

I let out a half ass smile while nodding my head and rubbing my nose.
“So what’s with all the added security suddenly?” I ask

“Well” he says wrinkling his face into that of a person who just ate a sour grape “corporate says we should have more security incase……”

“Incase a student goes off the deep end and starts throwing books like a rapid dog?” I say sarcastically

“Well……yeah kind of, but more to act as a theft deterrent.”

“Theft deterrent?” puzzled by his comment.

“So students aren’t leaving with books or materials they shouldn’t be."
Yeah because stealing school books is an ever rising crime in this country and these evil-doers must be stopped at all costs.

“So why wireless?”

“They were the cheapest, plus I saved a ton of money from what corporate allowed us to spend on them, which means we have money for other things.”

“errrr………yeah…..right, well then lets hope they do the job” I say “now if you will excuse me I really must step out for a minute”

“Oh but of course” He crosses his hands behind his back and with a smile turns to head back into his office. Before he can take even one step I swing my foot as hard as I can under his right leg as he begins to walk forward. -WHAP- his legs become entangled and he stumbles forward almost falling onto his face. He turns catching his breathe and fixing his stringy comb over looking around to see if anyone had just witnessed his little debacle.
“Good one” he says pointing his finger at me.

Standing at attention, a smirk on my face, taking in my brief moment of victory I say out loud, “And caught on our new security cameras too.”

“Yeah…….” He admittedly responds “by the way come see me in my office when you get a chance” still pointing his finger at me, now in the shape of a fake gun he cocks his thumb back and makes a motion as if to fire at me giving me a wink and making an odd –chhhck- sound from the corner of his crooked mouth. Great, anytime you’re pulled into his office it can’t be for anything good.

With that I run down the corridor to the bathroom making it just in the knick of time before my bladder explodes.

So, not only do I have the problem of spying eyes to worry about but now I get to look forward to a meeting with the boss about something I don’t remember doing at a time that doesn’t exist in a place I never was. I need to come up with a way to kill two birds with one stone. (A man thinks best while holding onto his brain in front of a urinal cake filled cesspool.) Back at my desk I decide to do some research on our new little spying eyes. This particular model that he decided to purchase happens to operate at 2.4GHz, which is very close to the operating frequency of most standard microwave ovens, (2.45GHz) and ironically we have a standard household microwave oven in the lab. How convenient. This would be a great time to test how long it takes to boil water, wouldn't you agree? With a few beeps and pushing of buttons the microwave comes to life while I watch a bowl of water inside spinning round and round on the turn table like an outdated vinyl record.
Around the corner there seems to be some commotion coming from the front desk. I peak my head around to see what's up.

“What are you doing?” The receptionist asks.

“I need this chair to get up to our new security cameras, something seems to be the matter with them, the screen in back is giving us all kinds of noise and static on every one of them. I just want to make sure that the connections are all ok.” The director says as he begins to mount a swivel computer chair.

“Well ok, but be careful…………”

-WHAM-

The sound of a thunderous crash is echoed throughout the hallways as the director comes crashing down.

“Wow, who would have thought standing on a swivel chair with wheels would have been a bad idea.” I said standing in amazement.

Several people attempt to help him regain his composure, however it appears he injured his back when he fell and will need to go to the doctor.

“Anything I can do to help?” I ask

“No, no, just mind the shop until I can return” he says hunched over, eyes wincing in pain while he rubs his back.

“Ok then take care….” I say waiving to him “oh and I guess that meeting in your office is postponed?” He mumbles something back to me that I can’t quite make out and waddles off to the elevators.

Poor son of a bitch, I hope he’s ok!

I wonder what I can get on eBay for 5 wireless spy cameras?

To laugh or not to laugh!

2006-03-14T22:36:00.000-06:00

Originally Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2005

There are a few things that happen throughout the course of the day that can cause you to either laugh or cry depending on the situation. Let me give you a few examples.

“Can you help me with a lab?” a student asks

“Sure, let’s take a look” I say.

“I’m supposed to set up certain permissions and groups according to the lab, then create a dummy web site and restrict who can see the main page.”

“Ok” I say “Sounds simple enough, where are you stuck?” I ask

“Well I setup the permissions like it says and then the groups, and then the web site”

“And den?”

“And then it doesn’t work” he explains.

“Can I take a look at the lab?” Grabbing his book I take a quick scan over the current lab he is working on, I then proceed to check over all the settings to make sure they are the same as the lab. Sure enough they are all the same. I then log into his fake website to see if the proper people are denied access. At this point I see the failure; everyone has access to his website. Interestingly enough after turning the page in his lab book I can see that this is exactly what the lab wanted in order to teach the student about permissions. This student has been struggling with the lab for well over an hour now.
“Interesting” I say. “Have you turned the page yet?”

“No, was I supposed to?” he asks.

“Well that would be the next logical step” I hand his book back to him “read the first paragraph on the next page for me please.”
He takes the book from me and begins mumbling under his breath, his eyes darting back and forth over each line.

“Oh….” He says aloud “Oh….OH…..I see, well that’s really funny” He laughs.

Yeah funny that’s exactly what I was thinking of. Who would have thought you needed to turn the page to figure out what the problem was.
Now this is a situation where you just want to cry. It’s an honest mistake you say! Yes I would agree, if it was a one-time event, but this is the most common event to plague the students. Maybe we need to write to the publishers and have them include a statement at the bottom of each page “SEE NEXT PAGE!” I do believe these people are the for most cause of why we have such labels as “Caution, content in cup maybe hot” or “do not point air nozzle at eyes”

Let’s move onto our next example shall we?

“So how did your student do on his final exam?” I ask a fellow teacher.

“He failed”

“Well, the tests can be difficult; they cause a person to learn a lot of useless terminology and not a lot of real life situations”

“I think the tests are very accurate” he says sounding offended by my last comment.

“So you’re telling me that out in the real world you will have no outside influence, no outside resources, and that the CEO you’re explaining the situation to really cares about the difference between Winblows DOS, and a DoS attack, or any of the other technical jargon that makes up over 40% of each test? Or do you think he just cares if you can get the job done?”

“I don’t think you should take a job unless you know every single thing that might come up while on that job,” (yeah good luck with that one) “and I think the tests do a damn good job at that.” He says puffing out his chest at me.

“Really, answer me this” trying to stay as calm as I possibly can while asking this “How long have you worked out in the field”

“About 3 months after graduating here, and I didn’t come across anything that wasn’t covered in the course or test”

“Wow that’s a long time out in the field you must know everything about Microsoft administration.” (He thinks he is an MCSE God) “look” I say “It’s impossible to know everything about something, and sooner or later your going to need someone’s help even if that means doing some research on the internet”

“Well I haven’t yet?”

I ended the conversation there, but I wouldn’t have to wait long before my theory would be proven. The teacher in question also thinks he is an expert at computer repair in every aspect.
Moments later a student who had been sitting at one of the computer stations preparing to do a lab was having some difficulty trying to get into the bios of an old Compaq Presario desktop computer. His teacher happened to be the so-called “expert”.

I watch as he approaches his teacher and begins to ask questions. I can’t hear the exchange but I can see the student pointing at the computer and making odd hand gestures trying to relay what he has already tried in remedying the situation. I then see the teacher exchange words also with several hand gestures. It’s starting to look like the monkey cage at the zoo. Before long both of them return to the suspect machine which happens to be right in front of my desk. I listen in as the teacher tells the student that Compaq’s are proprietary systems and that includes the way you enter the bios. This statement is true, one point teacher.

“You need to press the F10 key on Compaq’s to enter the bios”

“Actually” I interject “depending on the Compaq model, the way you enter the bios can vary, we wouldn’t want the student to be led to believe that it’s always going to be F10”

“Well yeah, but for this model its F10”

WRONG, two points me.

I sit back and enjoy the monkey half time show being presented to me. If only I had a banana, video camera, and a midget clown I might actually be amused by all of this. After several reboots and attempts to enter the bios, I can see that the teacher is getting a little frustrated.

“Need any help?” I ask with a smug face.

“Ah…..no……um, I don’t know what is going on, I think the system is hosed” he says.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well the book says to enter the bios to hit the F10 key repeatedly”

Trying not to laugh in his face I say “And it’s not working, what will we do now?”

He now tells the student to hold on, he then proceeds to sit down at a working station and open Internet Explorer.
Using outside sources to help your feeble mind, two more points to me.

“Tap….tap…tap….”

“Excuse me…..but are you so stumped that you’re looking on the internet for the answer?”

Two more points, me.

“Well there is obviously something wrong with the machine because I am hitting the correct key at the correct time.”

“True” I say “but on the older models you also needed the diagnostic tools loaded in order to access the bios. Are you sure those are loaded?”

“That’s ridiculous……I’ve never heard of that.”

After several minutes of him clicking through countless web pages I see him get a puzzled look on his face.

“hmmmmm…….funny” he says “looks like that model needs some sort of diagnostic tools loaded to enter the bios”

Gets the rebound, shoots, and boom goes the dynamite.

“Really, how odd that information wasn’t in a book or on any test. Instead you needed outside information to find your answer. I guess if you were out in the field working on a client’s machine with no outside help, you would be screwed right now”

He says not a word but only gives me a glare, the student who had also heard the earlier conversation looks over at me and smiles. I begin to laugh hysterically out loud.

If you don’t understand the above story, try turning the page.

The Zombies have invaded!

2006-03-08T09:09:00.000-06:00

Originally posted Saturday, July 23, 2005

I don’t look forward to Fridays like I used to, or like most people do for that matter. Basically I am stuck here all alone on Fridays, so anyone and everyone comes to me with questions whether or not I can help them is yet to be seen. Then there’s always the comforting thought that I will be back here tomorrow morning. Yep, with this job I’m pretty sure I am a Sundays Mondays kind of guy. The good thing is, come football season I will always have a day to recover from Sunday game hangovers. Speaking of football, they say beer can cure any pain. I think I’m going to test that theory this season, with Brett Favre as quarter back there’s bound to be a lot of pain.

Ok enough about that!

I’m sure we have all been at our favorite grocery store, department store, or restaurant at the last few minutes before closing. You know, check your watch 15 minutes before 9:00 and realize oh shit I forgot something really, really important at the store that I needed and that can’t wait until tomorrow. Once you arrive you again check your watch which now reads 8:54. Whew, 6 minutes before closing, you slide in between the automatic doors just before the PFY courtesy one boy scowls at you for breaking his attempt to stop anyone from coming into the store to late.

8:57 and you can’t seem to find anything you’re looking for. You look around for help, but of course any help left in the store is hiding in cloths racks, smoking out back, or sitting on the toilet while the water reflects upon their turd cutter (I finally found a site with my vocabulary-see side links). As you dance from isle to isle like a frog on hot pavement you get the sinking impression you’re being watched with angry eyes from every remaining clerk in the store. 8:59 and then the inevitable happens. They begin to flicker the lights at you. Maybe their flickering the lights at someone else, I’m sure you’re ok to keep wondering the isles aimlessly, - right?
“Attention costumers……..the store will be closing in 2 minutes, please bring all items to the cashier to be checked out. Thanks for shopping with us, and have a great day”

In your mind you’re still thinking “I doubt they meant me, I’m just here for one or two items, they probably mean anyone with a ton of stuff because they will take the longest.”

“Attention costumers, the store is now closed, please bring any un-purchased items to the cashier immediately………..this means you sir, isle three, white shirt, blue jeans who has been walking around lost for the past 10 minutes”

Damn the cameras, they found you.

Now this wouldn’t be so bad but you know once you get up there the first thing she will ask is…. “Find everything ok?”

To which you try to respond with “Ah no, I was looking for someone to help me locate…….”

But before you can finish, “that’s great, here’s your receipt sir, have a nice evening….ok bye, bye now” she responds.

Then there are the ones that hang around well after store hours, taking their sweet time. They don’t care, they’re the costumer right? If you have ever had the pleasure of working at any of the above mentioned type jobs then you know what I am talking about. They walk around all smug, ignoring every attempt you make to hurry them out of the store. Flickering lights has no effect on these people, their like cats and can continue even under the low light emitting from the emergency exit signs. You cut them off at an isle, "Anything I can help you find sir”

“No I’m fine thank you”

“Ok well ah….you do know the store closed 15 minutes ago.”

“Yes but I’m not done shopping” Really, well maybe I should order some road construction outside your house at 3 in the morning jackass.

Now for the most part these people must go somewhere once they do finally leave those stores. Like zombies I think they walk around looking for one another and then all disappear into the night…….or so I thought was the case. WRONG!!!!!!!!

Seems as if they all congregate to some unsuspecting place that happens to be open!
“……hmmmmmm………5 minutes to 8:00pm, and still 10 students in here, what gives, ah crap, the zombies have invaded.”

A few things I have noticed about the zombies. First off, unlike the movies, they seem to be rather intelligent when formed in groups.

Our first group tend to sit around chatting with each other as if to be planning their next move once they leave the school. I call these the coordinating zombies. There doesn’t seem to be, at this time anyway, a one lead zombie, so killing any one of them in this case is going to have no apparent effect on the collective of other zombies.

Our second group is the communicator zombies, these are the ones that duck out about every 15 minutes or so to make a cell phone call (zombies using cell phone? Damn this ever evolving technological world). From what I can gather, these conversations consist of rounding up more zombies to converge onto my location. Depending on what kind of night it is, I have seen reinforcements show up as late as 10 minutes to closing.

Third we have our evil zombies. Thank god for the other zombies keeping them inline, because if these shit for brains had the chance they would suck the life out of you at the first chance they got. These zombies usually keep to themselves like sleeping dogs until about 30 minutes before closing. At about 7:30 they awaken as if some internal clock has just set off inside their body. (I am still trying to figure out if the other zombies are some how communicating with them with some other form then voice communications. I know what you're saying…”Zombies using telepathy?” Rule number one, never under estimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.) Once awake, they move into position, this is usually guarding doors, light switches, unattended machines, and any other means I could use to single closing time.

Once all exits and light switches are guarded the zombies go into what I call “LPA” mode, or “Learning Performance Artist” mode. In this mode, all conversations stop, faces bury into books, and fingers dance across keyboards and mouse clicks making it look as if they are really busy and intent on what they are working on. It’s really a show to watch, if you’re not careful you can fall into a trance at just how busy they make themselves look, before you know it, your brains have been sucked out and your one of them. See most people will not close down if the zombies look really busy. After all, the costumer comes first!

Any feeble attempt by me flickering any un-guarded light switches or shutting down machines is quickly met by an evil guard zombie who will immediately sit down at the machine I just shut off and turn it on. He doesn’t need to look busy the slow boot up of our ancient machines is enough to suffice.

When asked “Why don’t you go and use one of the machines already booted up?”
His/her response is usually something to the effect “ugg, this machine mine” followed by several incomprehensible grunts and moans.

Some of the more simple minded ones can be easily lured out with shinny objects to an awaiting open elevator met by my foot kicking them in the ass to help them along. But others are much more resilient. Today’s success with any of them will be tomorrow’s failure as they continue to adapt to my methods.

For now there is nothing I can do but sit back and wait until they get bored with me and move onto their next victim.

And Boom Goes The Dynamite.

If it’s not broken don’t fix it

2006-03-01T22:17:00.000-06:00

Originally posted Thursday, July 21, 2005

When I went to this place we had some very good learning materials to help you complete a course. Now they have new technology, new courses and of course new courseware. I think I can sum up the new stuff in a few sentences.

It sucks!

I don’t like it!

It’s retarded!

Yeah that about does it! When I asked the director the reason behind the change, he simply responded with, “The students today didn’t like the old material”

“Compared to what” I asked.

The new stuff seems to cater to lazy and really ignorant people. The old training material focused more on the student actually trying to learn the course. Seems like our standards have dropped considerably in the past few years! I’ve tried to use the new learning tools, I just can’t stand them. I asked the director if any of the old ones are still available for use.

“Yeah one of them is for sure but the rest are all gone”

“Really, well then sign me up for whatever’s left.”

“Would love to” he says “but unfortunately all our licenses for that one have run out.”

Great, so now I am stuck with this crap. So I decided rather than try to learn this new courseware, my time would be better spent testing out counters for this site.
After setting up two of them and signing up for a third (yeah I don’t know what I want yet, see bottom of page) I have concluded that yes, my time today “Was” better spent surfing the net then working with that crap-ware.

Meanwhile back on the front line all of the computers in the medical lab seemed to have mystically been renamed to all the same thing. So now none of the students can log on. Well actually I shouldn’t say that, one student can log on, but that’s it. The rest of them will have to wait their turn damn it.

I would rename them and join them all back to the domain but it appears as if my credentials are messed up. See, I can take people out of the domain, but putting them back in…..well that’s a different story.

“Hey did you get all the medical labs computers straightened out?”

“Nope, can’t rejoin them to the domain”

“Why not?”

“Well it seems as if I am not part of the administrator group.”

“Are you sure it’s not an I D 10 T error” he laughs

Yeah, um, have I told you all how much I like it here yet? “I don’t think so” I say
I go back to surfing the net, but this time making sure I sign up for every news letter and gay porn site I can using his company email account. Should make for some interesting talk at the next employee meeting I think.

So again, my time was definitely better spent surfing the net today then working with crap-ware for Oracle. Old school rules!!!!!

For JJ, “I said HA HA”

Mr. Cheesy

2006-02-25T09:55:00.000-06:00

Ok time for a new post.

I’ve been monitoring my stats the last few days and there seems to be a reoccurring theme. People are showing up at my site by searching for the term, “Mr. Cheesy” (One was even from the PGA Tour, how fucking cool is that?). As wonderful as I think this is and as much as I love the publicity to my site including the page ranks I’m getting on yahoo search engine I have to say I don’t think I am the Mr. Cheese you are looking for. In fact I don’t think you are looking for “Mr. Cheesy” at all. Let me explain.
Until last night I didn’t know why people would be doing searches for a “Mr. Cheesy” until I saw one of the latest, most god awful Burger King Commercial, staring “Dr. Angus”
Pay attention people, his name is not “Mr. Cheesy”, it is “Dr. Angus”. I think where everyone is getting the cheesy part from is because in the commercial he says he has a degree in “Cheesy” and then proceeds to put on some Hollywood fake ass smile.
As far as I know, no such degree exists, trust me, I did a lot of research on this. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one cheesy enough to call themselves, Mr. Cheese, Cheesy, Cheesy Cracker, or any other combination you can think of. Sorry to disappoint you all, but at least you helped in padding my stats, if for only a short time. Now if this doesn’t prove to you all just how pathetic I am by spending all my time trying to figure out if there truly is someone out there calling themselves “Mr. Cheesy”, besides myself, then I don’t know what will.
For bringing people to my little corner of the world, Dr. Angus, I salute you sir.

On a much higher, cheesier note, some of you may notice some slight changes in the site, minor details here and there, a little this, a little that. But the biggest change by far is that cute little button you now see on the side bar to the right…….no not the damn Google search button either, I’m talking about the ever so stylish and very handy “PayPal” donate button. Scroll up a little if you can't see it.....go ahead, I'll wait...........nice isn't it! How cheesy is that to be asking for donations to my sorry ass on a blog site? Oh yeah now that’s cheesy. Dr. Angus aint got nothing on me! Cheesy degree…..yeah whatever, if there were a cheesy degree I think I would be the Dean of that university. Feel free to donate as much or as little as you like, or just leave a comment telling me to piss off.

Could I have said Cheese anymore in this post? hehe

The one, the only, Mr. Cheese!

Life is just a game

2006-02-22T08:50:00.000-06:00

Originally posted Wednesday, July 20, 2005

“Captain,…were under attack!!!”

*WOOT…..WOOT……..* the sounds of sirens scream all around me.

I’m confused, not sure where I am or what to do. Everything is a blur. My ears still ringing in pain from the piercing sound of the last explosion.

“Damn it Captain, snap out of it” A loud “SMACK” echoes through the bridge as his hand lands across my face leaving an impression of his fingers upon my cheek.My eyes dart back shooting a stern look at second in command assuring him that I have regained my senses.
“What are we to do Captain? Were losing ships fast” His face now reflecting the fear of the entire crew!

“Man battle stations” I bellow “scramble all fighter jets. We must protect the fleet at all costs until it makes the jump.”

“Yes sir” he says without hesitation. Seconds later I hear his voice over the loud speaker as he repeats my orders to the rest of the crew. Regaining my composure, I scan the deck to asses the damage.

“Lieutenant……how bad is it?” I ask.

“We took some heavy damage in that last attack sir, but I think we are ok” he assures me.

BLAST……….*KABOOM*

A large shudder falls over the ship as we are hit again. Sparks begin to fly from damaged electrical components; my nostrils burn from the smell of melting electronics as large plumes of black smoke escape from several consoles filling the deck with a large poisonous cloud.

“Put those fires out immediately” I demand.
The entire crew staggering in confusion through the smoke trying to find any means possible to extinguish the flames.
“Sergeant, get us the hell out of here NOW!!!!!”

“I, I Captain”

From across the bridge I hear “Sir we’ve sustained heavy damage to the ship including flight deck 7”
A quiet hush falls over the crew as we begin to realize that we may not have any fighters left to escort us out of this mess. All eyes are now focused on me as they look for the guidance needed to get us out of here safely.

With a strong voice I announce “Lieutenant…….”

“Yes sir”

“Your in charge.” I say

“Sir?”

“You heard me dammit. I’m going down to the flight deck to see if I can salvage any fighters. I’ll be damned if we lose this fleet while I’m in charge.” Slamming my fist down onto the console “As soon as I clear the ship your orders are to escort the fleet into the jump.”

“But what about you sir”

“Dont' worry I’ll be hot on your tail" I say "but for now someone has to keep those slimy bustards from entering the jump and trailing us”
With that, I storm off the bridge into the lift “Deck Seven” I announce. The lift begins to move my eyes watching the numbers as they count down, “15, 14, 13, 12, 11” a lump begins to form in my throat the closer I get to deck 7 fearing the carnage I might encounter when the doors open. “10, 9, 8, 7.”
Before the doors even open I can feel the heat and smell of burning fuel emitting from the room.

“WHOOSH” The door wisps open. Amongst the mangled fighters and twisted metal I can hear screams coming from wounded soldiers. There, in front of me, about 15 feet I can see what appears to be the remains of a badly wounded crewman. The automatic extinguish system obviously not working fast enough as his entire body is completely charred from the flash fire of burning fuel. His arm extends reaching out to me. As he lifts his head to look at me his mouth begins to open begging his body to give him the strength to produce tangible words.

“help…..me……..PLEASE!!!!” With that he collapses to the floor, his chest heaves one last time as the final breath of air escapes his lungs.
I turn away as the taste of vomit enters the back of my mouth moments before I start convulsing. The smell of buring flesh is unbearable. I run back to the lift my hand reaching for the button to open the doors. Before I can press the button to leave this unsightly hell I remember why I am here.
“What am I doing?” I ask myself out loud.
If I don’t do something now the suffering of my crew members will be all for not. I turn on my heels, keeping my eyes focused on what looks to be the last fighter still intact and begin to run towards it all the while trying to ignore the screams and cries coming from my men still trapped or severely burned. I climb aboard the fighter and strap myself in. With a few flicks and clicks of buttons I’m quickly comforted by the familiar sound of the engines firing up. Shortly after a loud burst emits from the behind me as the fighter slowly begins to pull forward. I grasp the control stick and try to maneuver my way through the tangled mess of what used to be a hanger. Ahead I can see another inbound enemy fighter preparing to hit the deck, no doubt to finish what he started.
“It’s now or never” I say in a loud voice trying to give myself confidence, knowing all to well that if he fires before I get off the deck I am as dead as the rest of my crew.
My hand shoves the throttle completely forward, throwing my body against the seat. I struggle to keep my hands gripped to the flight stick.

*CRACK……..CRACK…….CRACK*

The sounds of his lasers ricochet behind me as I am whisked out into space.

VVVVVSSSSSSS………VSSSSSSSSS……….

Shit, two more enemy fighters whiz past and have taken point on me. I take evasive maneuvers, but can’t seem to shake them. More shot’s ring out nearly hitting me.
I swing the fighter around, now facing the ship from which I just narrowly escaped.

*If I play this right I might be able to shake them by flying close enough to the deck in the opposite direction as the rest of the fleet. With only one fighter they might ignore me and think I am just abandoning my ship*

I drop the fighter to the deck racing between columns and other obstacles littered across the top of the ship. It’s not long before the shots coming from behind me slow down and eventually come to a halt. I turn my head in the constrictive cockpit to get a better look behind me.It worked they’ve given up chase and diverted their attention back to the jump ship’s. With both of them focusing their firepower on something other then me I can move in behind them. I steady the fighter and settle in to an advantage point that should take out both of them with one shot.
“Steady now” the adrenaline building inside of me.

.…..THUMP THUMP………THUMP THUMP…..

The sound of my heart echoing throughout my entire body, my finger trembling on the trigger with anticipation as I move in closer!
This is it, if I miss, I won’t have a ship to return to.
I line up my sights………slowly I begin to squeeze the trigger…………..

………….BEEP………… (My intercom springs to life next to me back at my desk)

“Are you available for orientation of a student?”

Startled and confused I begin pressing the wrong keys on my keyboard. Come on just a few more seconds…….

“HELLO….” An impatient voice says from the intercom as if I didn’t hear him the first time.

“Ah fuck,” I shout, drawing attention of the entire room “I just crashed my fighter into the deck of the mother ship. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get this god damn far in the game?” I ask.

“Ah……no……..” a crackled voice says from the other side.

“Four god damn hours. Now I have to start the whole fucking level over from port station 10.” I say in disgust.

“So you’re available?” he asks.

“Yeah I guess so, meet me in the conference room.” As I throw my keyboard off in front of me and watch on my screen as my entire fleet is slowly destroyed.

If he was on my ship, I would have him jettisoned out a torpedo tube for such insubordination!

Technically Speaking

2006-02-15T22:49:00.000-06:00

So I am supposed to be learning Oracle. Why in the world would anyone want to learn Oracle you ask? Good question, when someone has an answer let me know please. Until then they decided that since I could spell Oracle correctly that I should get every single student currently taking the course. (Around 40 of my 60) Oh boy what fun? I have barely even started looking over the course, every time I try I get so damn bored by the material that I fall asleep. I would rather watch an all day Marathon of Yentl then be subjected to this course anymore. The director asks me on a daily basis, “So how’s the Oracle course coming along, take any of the tests yet?”I hang my head down in shame, kick my foot at the floor and say “No, not yet, but soon” And so this seems to be my daily ritual.
“Remember me?”
Why do people ask this question? Obviously if I did I would have said hello, or flipped you off depending on how I remember you.
“Ah…..no…..refresh my memory please”
“I sent you an email with some questions about Oracle”
“Oh” I say “right….right ….right……because your email had a picture of you to associate with for when you came in here?”
“ummmmm…..no….” he says with an almost lost look on his face. I keep forgetting sarcasm is a lost art form here.
I figure what the hell, it’s after the weekend and I’m still in a good mood, I’ll play along. “well anyway, what seems to be the problem?”
“I’m trying to create a query to display the last name, job code, hire date, and employee number with the employee number appearing first using this statement”
……….long pause………..
“Hello?”
“Oh sorry you were asking me?” I say with a look of surprise, as I have no idea what he is talking about. “Ah…..ummmm….ok, lets see what you have written down”“Yes…..uh huh…..yep……looks good……oh wait, yep right there” I point to a vague spot on his paper.
“Right where?” Looking down at my finger, I quickly move my hand before he can ask any pertinent questions about the particular spot in which I was pointing.
“Let me ask you this first……” still not knowing what the hell any of his answers mean, I need to come up with something that sounds at the least half ass intelligent. “…..which Oracle test are you studying for?”
“Oracle 9i, see where it says it right there on the top of the page?” Was that an insult I just heard? “But I have worked in the past with Oracle 8i!” he replies looking all smart now.
This is my opportunity to pounce.
“Well then there you go, this statement doesn’t work in 9i, only 8i” I say.
“Are you sure? Because the lab says to use this statement”
Great not only does he insult me, but now he is calling me a liar. Ok, calm down, deep breaths, think of emphysema women.
“Oh yes so I see, well, you can’t always trust the labs.”
“I can’t?”
“You know how computer technology is, it moves so fast we can’t even keep up.” Both of us let out a fake chuckle. “So you did this entire lab?” I ask.
“Yes and took the final exam as well, here are my answers” as he passes off a very impressive and comprehensive final exam to me................ Idiot!!!!!
“Oh no, this isn’t good, see here” pointing to some of his answers on his test “almost all of your answers were using the data from Oracle 8i instead of 9i”
“So I failed?” His shoulders slump, eyes swell up “I have been working on this for two days now” Poor guy I almost feel sorry for him, oh wait that’s right he insulted me and then proceeded to call me a liar, now where was I?
“Well technically speaking you did yes,….but…….” His head picks up, eyes widen waiting for something positive to come out of my mouth “since I technically didn’t grade this yet, then technically speaking it’s as if you never took the test”
“Technically?” he says
“Yes technically”
“Ah….ok…..I guess….” The look in his eyes changes from excitement back to gloom as he begins to realize the inevitable.
“Well what I am trying to tell you is now you can go back and only skim all the chapters. Then, when it’s time to take the test, come find me first and we can go over everything to make sure that your prepared.” I think I just picked up my own mentor.
“Really, wow……….thanks a lot man”
“No problem MAN” I laugh “just think if you would have turned that into someone other then me.” We both laugh as I hand his books back. “Now get back to studying”
“But what about that test?” he asks
“Oh this” I say as I look down at his completely finished final exam in my hands “well, don’t worry about this I’ll get rid of it before anyone else sees it.” as I toss it onto my desk amidst a ton of other paper work.
“But can’t I use it so I don’t do the same thing next time” he asks
“Listen pal, do you want me to help you or not!” raising my voice for full effect now.
“Your right” he says “I’m sorry, and thank you again for clearing that up for me”
“No problem, anytime” I say
I watch as he slowly walks back into the computer lab and slumps down into his chair, dropping his head onto the desk and sobbing quietly to himself.
Just then the director walks up.
“So how’s it going today?” he asks
“Not bad” I say with a big smile on my face “I’ve made a lot of progress in the last few days”
“Well that’s great news……..say,” his face gestures into that of a serious look as he moves in closer motioning with his finger for me to come closer to him.“How’s the Oracle training going?” he whispers as to not let any students hear him. It's so hard to find things you can rely on these days; thank god I can count on this question every damn day. “we really need to get you going on this” I’m close enough to his face now that the stench of black coffee emitting from his breath would put the Folgers coffee guy to shame.
“Actually” I say “it’s going really well.”
“Really?” he says with an almost astonished look on his face, “take any of the tests yet?”
“As a matter of fact……” I say reaching over onto my desk for the test that the student just handed me “here is my first one” he takes it from my hand and grabs his spectacles from his pocket to get a better look.
“Mind if I look it over?” he asks
“Not at all, be my guest sir, I think you will find that I did surprisingly well for only being here a week”
“Great, I look forward to reading through it, keep up the good work” he responds giving my shoulder a solid slap and one of those all too familiar fake corporate smiles, before turning and heading back to his office.
Stop looking at me like that, I know I’m going to hell!

Over the counter drugs RULE!!!!!!

2006-02-08T08:51:00.000-06:00

Originally posted July 16th 2005

It’s a slow day, computer wise anyway, probably because it's Saturday and I’m working. Two hours after taking the Benadryl for my allergies I’m beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea after all. That stuff just seems to really knock me out. I can barely keep my eyes open. Oh well too late now, no worries.

I started the day at 8:30, by 9:00 am 6 students had rolled into class, each one telling their own story by which they walk and carry themselves.

Yep, there’s hangover guy, dark shades, slumped shoulders, stumbling over himself a little bit as he walks past my desk rubbing his forehead trying to find a suitable work station, far from sunlight or any noise as possible.

No doubt the only reason he came in today was probably to have some piece and quiet.

“GOOD MORNING!!!!!” I shout.

Like a deer caught in headlights he jumps back startled looking all around in a half daze, before realizing where the pleasantry had come from.

“Oh….ummmm…yeah, same to you” he says as he puts his head back down walking into the lab trying to conceal the fact that I just intensified his headache by ten fold.

So far everyone has hunkered down at the work stations in the other room working on assignments. I have the entire computer lab to myself. Nothing but piece and quiet……….a little too quiet………creak…..clunk. The front door opens and shuts signaling another student has just entered. Great, don’t these people have anything better to do on a Saturday?

“…….tap……tap…..tap…..” I hear him logging into the front desk computer.

My mouse races across my desktop as I check to see who just logged in.. Hmmmmm…….some student by the initials “TR”. I scan my student list, (which seems to be increasing on a daily basis now even though I haven’t added anyone new......... damn FNG syndrome), to find someone that fits those initials.

Odd, I don’t recognize the name, but then why should I, it’s only day 5 on the job. Ok scratch that, we’ll just wait and see who rounds the corner. Come on super model, (I can wish can’t I?)

Ah DAMMIT, its kaki shorts, dress shirt, sandals guy. Interestingly enough he must have had a problem with his socks staying up because today he has taken geekdom one step further by adding those little tiny suspenders to each sock.

His face is turned to the other side of the room when he clears the hallway. Quick I grab my Oracle book and open to a page, raising an eyebrow and placing my hand on my forehead rubbing it back and forth to signal that I’m in deep thought and shouldn’t be disturbed. Seems to be working fine for drunk guy in the other room, even though from my advantage point I can clearly see he hasn’t even logged into the machine in which he is sitting at yet.

I wait a few minutes as Super Geek (that’s what I call him now) settles into a computer not more then a few feet from me. I can tell by the quizzical look on his face that he has something on his mind and wants to talk to me……….god I hate that. I add in a few “humph” and “sighs” along the way to really play it off that I am busy.
You really have to be on the offensive if you want the busy look to fool the student, and I think its working. I can see from the corner of my eye that he is getting up, possibly to go ask someone else, or maybe to move to another room or maybe………..*eyes getting heavy now*………….my mind begins to drift off thinking of happy thoughts like sleep, yeah sleep is good……..wait a minute……I think the Benadryl is really kicking in now. I twitch slightly in my seat as if my body is trying to tell my mind we need to stay awake, although I’m not entirely sure why.

Oh crap, my guard was down, did he notice? I slowly bring my head up and raise my eye to see where he is. Cool, I don’t see him; he must have slipped into the other room when I was dozing off. I relax for the time being and sit back in my chair, arms behind my head, with a slight grin of achievement on my face thinking I had won the battle.

“Can I ask you a question?” I hear come from just behind me.

Damn it!!!!!!! RED ALERT....We’re under attack, every man for himself.
Super Geek, using his oversized brain power has some how flanked my left side when I wasn’t looking. Damn his powers, DAMN them to hell I say.
Now I’m just plain pissed off.

“Sure what’s up?” Trying to show at least some effort!

“I seem to be having trouble with this SQL database, ….blah…..blah…….blah, blah……..” eyes getting very heavy now…….”the first select statement for employee last name…………blah……blah………”

“Shhhhhh quiet time now” I say before he can finish.

“……..huh?...” he stammers.

“I said quiet time………..” drifting……..drifting………..gone.

I love you Benadryl!!!

Does anyone have an Inhaler?

2006-02-01T09:06:00.000-06:00

Originally posted July 10th 2005

2:00pm, sit down log into machine.

2:01pm, “EXCUSE ME”……………..”HELLO”

“Are you talking to me?” I ask.

“Yes……” as she draws in what seems to be an extremely labored breath, “I already talked to the guy sitting here” pointing to an empty chair at a computer station.

“You mean the access point where everyone sits down to log into the shared drive”

“Well he was there 10 minutes ago” she says in a huff.

Since I just sat down at my desk not more then 2 minutes ago, and it is my third day on the job still not knowing what all is going on, I take offense to her tone. As I swing my chair around to confront her and throw a little attitude right back I notice my co-worker peering at me over her shoulder watching to see my reaction.

“And what seems to be the problem” I inquire with as much decency as possible and an all to fake smile on my face.

“I told the guy………..” another labored breath, starting to wonder if I will need to call the paramedics soon, “over 10 minutes ago…….. that the............" oh oh, deep breath "DAMN PRINTER IS OUT OF PAPER!!!........cough…..stager…….cough” she says yelling and shaking her finger at me.

“Are you sure you don’t need a smoke” I say under my breath

“Excuse me?” she asks,

“I SAID, are you sure it’s not broke?” trying to hide any sign of sarcasm on my face now.

“Oh….ummmmm…..no it says it’s out of paper” as she shoots a puzzled look at me.

“Well then, let’s go see if we can fix that right up for you.” I say with a big smile, jumping to my feet in excitement.

I walk slowly over to the door where the other printer is located hoping another user might catch my eye and something more important to ask me. Upon entering the room, I can see that's out of the question, since there is a line of people standing over the printer looking at it as if it is a strange robot from another planet.

“WOW, are you all waiting for the printer?” I ask as sarcastic as possible, but being the idiots they are, they just all nod their heads up and down in compliance to my question.

Like little kids waiting for the adult to turn on the sprinkler on a hot summer day I can see the anticipation building up as I begin to look over the printer with a raised eyebrow.

“Hmmmmmm………." I ponder for a minute trying to ignore the large blinking display screen sceaming at me that the printer is out of paper. "well here’s the problem” I say as I pull out the paper tray, “its out of paper”.

A gasp falls over the crowd…………no really I’m serious it really did.
Mean while emphaziema women finally makes it back in to inspect my diagnosis. I swear to god if she put a mask on she would be Darth Vaders mom............a very very heavy crispy cream mom, but non the less.

“So was I right?” she says snobbishly.

“You sure were” I say with a big grin on my face. I wait a few seconds realizing I am not about to get a thank you from this women, so it’s time to see if she picks up on my sarcasm this time. “And I want to THANK YOU miss for bringing this to my attention so that the problem could be remedied as quickly as possible. Who knows how long this thing would have been down if you didn’t find me”……and the puzzled look has once again returned to her face confirming that this entire room does not know the definition of sarcasm. So with a smile on my face I extend my hand to shake hers all the while saying “Thank You” with each shake of the hand about 20 or 30 times.

I can see working here might be fun after all!

Day Two

2006-01-26T22:28:00.000-06:00

Originally posted July 8th, 2005

Day two of my new endeavor and I must say, I don't think I have ever seen so many nerds in my life. I mean don't get me wrong, Mr. Cheesy is a nerd himself, but these people actually dress like them to. Some of them I wonder if they have showered in more then a week, although I am sure it is difficult to fit in a shower around a busy and hectic life style consisting of back to back matches of Dungeons and Dragons, followed by countless hours playing Counter Strike online.
Lets face it people, if you get up in the morning and dress yourself in a long sleeve blue button up business shirt, tan kaki shorts, black knee high dress socks, sandals, and walk out the door thinking, "Damn I look good", there is something seriously wrong with you. I suggest you drag your 42 year old ass back into the house and ask your mother what she thinks.

With a name like Cheesy Cracker I never thought I would be the most normal person in the room.

Coming Soon...........

2006-01-24T23:11:00.000-06:00

Coming soon to a small computer screen near you! He made you laugh, he made you cry, he made you see what assholes he has to work with everyday, and now he’s back, and he’s PISSED OFF!!!!

Return of the Archives

Starting this Thursday he’s back and better than ever! You’ve never seen him like this before. Digitally re-mastered in 5.1 surround sound (where available), new Bold font, hyperlinks galore. All your favorite characters return to the computer screen one last time to tell their story. Find out how Sped got his name, how the director almost died!!!!! From day two of his adventures until the day his blog mysteriously went down, you'll get to read them all as they were meant to be……..in written form…….on your computer.
Staring Mr. Cheese as, Mr. Cheese, Sped as his idiot counterpart, and those crazy admission boys as the dumb asses we all love to hate. Also staring, the lovely Nurse, the Doctor no one can understand, and the introduction to Corporate Ass #1.
Don’t miss out on this once in a life time opportunity, be there!

These archives have not yet been rated!!!

Chapter 5

2006-01-22T18:13:00.000-06:00

A new Beginning

Mr. Cheese sat on his bed looking around his room. Yes it was true he was back in his own house. He turned to where the lump from the dead heap lay before and saw nothing. A sigh of relief escaped his mouth. He gathered up the top sheet and used it to wipe his face dry from the tears.

“It’s true…..I am back in my own house. The spirits have given me another chance, I know they have, this must be why I’m back in my own room.” His face was a glow with enthusiasm as he jumped around the room in joy.
He continued running throughout the house in glee remarking at all the things from the previous night with each spirit.

“There’s the couch the spirit of Lil Jon sat. And there, right there, is my computer screen that the first ghost appeared.”

If anyone were to enter the house they would think he was insane parading around in his pajamas acting like the kings gesture. He truly seemed to be a changed man.

“ I don’t know what to do, I’m just so happy to be alive…..what day is it? I don’t know what day it is! Oh fuck I don’t care, Woohoo, woot, woot……..”

He rushed to the living room widow and thrust it open. Poking his head outside, his head turned towards the sky allowing the sun to splash against his face. Walking down the street was a young boy delivering the morning paper.

“Hey you, what day is it?” Asked Mr. Cheese

“Fuck off old man!” Replied the young lad

“Oh kids these days, funny, funny boy” Mr. Cheese said under his breath “I ask you one more time before I come out there and beat your ass down like the piece of shit you are, WHAT FUCKING DAY IS IT.”

This seemed to grab the little bastards attention as his next response was “Ah….well it’s Christmas day.”

“Christmas day WHAT?????”

“Ah Christmas day….ah…..Sir?”

“Oh goodie, I haven’t missed it, the spirits have blessed me once again……he, he, he….” Mr. Cheese said softly to himself while rubbing his hands together.

“Can I go now.” The young lad outside shouted

“Ah…..no, no, tell me boy, do you know the CompUSA store down on main street?”

“DUH!!!”

“Good, good…….” Replied Mr. Cheese “Do they still have the prize router in the window?”

“You mean the four port one?”

“The four port one, funny, funny boy……I like him.” Mr. Cheese said quietly “No boy, the big one, the 40 port monster?”

“Well yes I suppose they do.”

Mr. Cheese rubbed his hands together again with a huge smile across his face “It’s good…..it’s good….” “I want you to go down there and buy it, this very minute.” Demanded Mr. Cheese

“Are you fucking retarded, I don’t have any money.”

“Oh yes…….I will pay for it, tell the manager to deliver it here immediately, tell him there is a bonus in it for him, and if you do this in the next five minutes I will give you a hundred dollar bill.”

“Whoopee!!!” A sarcastic reply came from the young boy.

“Fine, make it a thousand, would that make you happy?” But before he could finish the boy dropped his remaining papers and was running as fast as he could towards town. “Ah…..good, good, boy. I’ll send that damn thing to Crotchrot’s house along with a brand new computer system to replace their dinosaur of a computer……he’ll be so surprised.” Mr. Cheese was beside himself now, giggling like a school boy.

Mr. Cheese ran off to get dressed, and clean himself up. It wasn’t long before there was a knock on his door. In a dash he ran to answer it. Standing outside the door was a very exhausted paper boy.

“Ok……..old man……..where’s my thousand bucks?” He said between breaths “Best Buy has an Xbox with my name on it.”

Mr. Cheese looked behind the boy to see a very happy store manager wearing a CompUSA shirt. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a brand new crisp thousand dollar bill and handed it to the boy as promised. Like a streak of lightning the boy took off running..

“That thing is huge.” Remarked Mr. Cheese

“Ah………oh the router, yes indeed it is.” Replied the store manager.

Mr. Cheese grabbed a piece of paper and pen and scribbled down an address onto it.

“Here, I wish to have this delivered to this address immediately.”

“Are you insane, I damn near broke my back carrying this shit here.”

“Really? Well isn’t that your car still running in my driveway?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Well then, here is your bonus, and some gas money, now hurry, go deliver that thing to the address I gave you.”

Mr. Cheese grabbed his coat and gloves and ran out of the house, scurrying down the street. Before he knew it he was in the city amongst some of the same people he had seen while out with the spirits the previous night. As he continued to walk briskly he came across the student which he had scolded a few days prior. Mr. Cheese was a bit hesitant to make eye contact with his former student in fear of how he might treat him.

Reaching out he grabbed the man by both shoulders. “Merry Christmas to you sir, I hope all is well with you.”

“Mr. Cheese” the astounded student replied

“Yes, that’s my name.” Mr. Cheese leaned into the student and whispered into his ear to which the student almost fell backwards.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Yes, yes I am, free training for as long as you need it, just come on into the center, I have already taken care of all the paperwork.”

The student was in shock, his mouth hung open not knowing what to say. When he regained his composure he took Mr. Cheese’s hand “Thank you, thank you very much….I …I don’t know what to say….I….”

“You don’t have to say anything, it is my pleasure.” And with that Mr. Cheese tipped his hat to the man and continued on with his journey.

Mr. Cheese finally arrived at his destination outside Billy Bob Crotchrot’s house. He stood outside for a minute before knocking on the door. In an instant his happy smiling face turned into a low frown. Every few seconds the smile would creep back onto his face, he couldn’t help himself. He could hear footsteps approaching the door, closer and closer, again he put on as serious of a face as he could. Billy Bob answered the door.

“Mr. Cheese? Can….can I help you.”

“You most certainly can fuck face, I opened the school today for you and you never showed up. A waste of my time, and for what…..nothing…….are you going to give me back the time I wasted today?” Mr. Cheese said in his old evil voice.

“Well I thought….I mean you said…….I didn’t think…..”

“Enough, I will not tolerate this anymore. And because of it, I have brought by a brand new computer for you along with a 40 port router so your entire family can enjoy the world wide web. I have also extended your training indefinably and brought you all the books you will ever need to pass any course.”

“I….I don’t understand” Billy Bob was undoubtedly confused by all this generosity from Mr. Cheese

Mr. Cheese couldn’t hold it back any longer; he let out a roar of laughter, followed by a slap on the shoulder of Billy Bob. “Oh man, it’s Christmas, I brought you all this for you and your family. I want to see you succeed!”

“Are you the same Mr. Cheese as my instructor, or was he kidnapped by aliens last night?”

“Well I’m not going to lie to you Billy Bob, I might have been probed during the night………but that doesn’t matter, I am a new man. Here, I also brought you a membership to Jenny Craig for your fat kid. Get that boy on a diet before he dies.”

“Yeahhhhhh……..ummmmmm…..ok.”

They exchanged some more small talk before Billy Bob invited him into the house to enjoy a wonderful Christmas dinner with his family. Mr. Cheese looked behind the chair immediately to find one large Bubba Fat playing hide and seek much like he did every night waiting for his father. He was relieved. Everything was good, and laughter filled the house…..except that is when Mrs. Billy Bob Crotchrot walked out of the kitchen and saw Mr. Cheese for the first time and began beating him with a rolling pin to within an inch of his life before Billy Bob could explain. But after that everything was good once again, and Mr. Cheese did change his ways, and his life. He lived a long happy 6 months (major stroke took his ass out) always giving full attention to his students and helping every one of them along the way.

The
End

Chapter 4

2006-01-19T22:56:00.000-06:00

The Last one, The Big Tamale

The dark shadow of a ghost hung over Mr. Cheese like hot tar on a freshly paved road. Mr. Cheese dropped to his knees from fear in the presence of this new spirit.

“You must be the ghost of Computer Administrative yet to come?” asked Mr. Cheese
The spirit stretched out his arm, his cloak hanging off of his arm several inches. From within the dark dwellings of his sleeve protruded a boney withered hand. He did not speak, only pointed with his index finger.

“Not much of a talker are ya? What’s the matter, cat got your tongue, ha,ha,ha……ha…….ha…………uh…………yeeeeaaaahhhh.” Mr. Cheese received no response from the spirit, he continued only in pointing in the same direction. “Your going to show me things to be, are you not spirit?” He was hopeful for even the smallest response from the spirit, but it stood there in the same position cold as stone, pointing. Mr. Cheese was getting pretty used to seeing ghosts, but this one made him uncomfortable to say the least. He stood up to face the ghost, knees shaking, lips trembling, scared to death as he peered into the hood of the spirit and saw nothing but darkness, even though he could feel the heat of it’s dark eyes staring down upon him burning into his soul.

The spirit began floating across the ground in the direction in which he was pointing. Mr. Cheese felt an irresistible urge to follow behind. The scenery didn’t seem to change; much like walking on a treadmill Mr. Cheese got the impression that they weren’t going anywhere. Instead of walking into the city as he had with the previous spirits, the buildings seemed to appear out of thin air all around, then the road beneath them, and just as suddenly there were people. They stopped outside a large building where several people had gathered. The spirit pointed to the group of men and Mr. Cheese obliged by moving in closer to catch a glimpse of their conversation.

“He’s dead all right” said a short stout man with a curled up nose.

“Are you sure? Did you kick him?” Asked a skinnier balding man

“What the fuck do you take me for, of course I kicked him, he was dead as a nail I tell you.” Replied the stout man

“Well is there going to be a funeral?” A quiet girl asked.

“I suppose so, but not much of it, no one liked the man.”

“What did he do with all his countless IT books?” Asked another

“Who knows, knowing him, he wouldn’t give them up even after death; he probably has a Will describing they all be buried with him, or better yet burned.”

A light hearted chuckle came from the crowd of people. Mr. Cheese knew the people; they were former students of his. The crowd continued to converse and fade away; Mr. Cheese looked back at the spirit who now was floating towards him once again, his withered finger pointing farther down the street. It wasn’t long before they came across another, smaller, group of people. Again Mr. Cheese approached them to listen in.

“Old bastard finally got what he deserved.” A business man in a suit said

“So it would appear.” Replied another

Mr. Cheese recognized these gentlemen as well. They were fellow colleagues. But who could they be talking about; surely they wouldn’t still be talking about his partner Speds death after all this time. Besides this was the ghost of things to come, not things in the past. Mr. Cheese shrugged it off and trusted that the spirit would guide him to these answers when the time was right. He stood quietly looking around the streets and busy crowds trying to find himself amongst the people but saw nothing to his likeness. This struck Mr. Cheese by surprise.
They continued to stroll, or rather float down through the town until they came upon a small dismal area known better as the slums. Mr. Cheese had never been here before but he knew the area well. He turned to face the spirit who once again was pointing with his finger to a scraggly house that was dimly lit. Mr. Cheese approached the window. With both hands held on each side of his head he pressed his forehead against the cold glass. Inside he could make out four people gathered beside an open fire and a large box.

“Well slide that damn box over here so we can get this over with.” A large man sitting upon a stool said.

“What’s the fuss, not like he’ll be needing these things anymore?” Another voice said sitting across from the first man

“True, but the sooner we get this over with the better I’ll feel. Just being in the presence of that damn box makes me feel all dirty and low inside.”

“Oh nonsense” said a women walking into the room carrying what seemed to be a pot of coffee “It’s just a box full of his belongings, what are you worried about.” The box was slid over to the large man on the stool while the rest stood by and watched him open it and begin removing the contents inside.

“Look at this, an old tattered rag of a hooded black sweatshirt…..ewww…..” The man said as he held up a large black coat before throwing it inside the fire. “No one will be needed that ugly thing anymore.” The fire erupted with a large flume of yellow and orange flame as the old coat landed atop the smoldering logs within. He reached back inside the box grabbing a handful of glass frames containing several IT certifications. The large man let them slip from his grasp and crash to the floor breaking the glass which once protected the fragile paper certifications inside.

“Ah now look what I have done…….dammit.” The man said

“Well they are of no use anymore, just a bunch of stupid pieces of paper; throw them into the fire as well.” The women replied

“Well if we get nothing else out of his death, at least he kept the fire burning for a few more hours.” They all laughed together at this comment.

Mr. Cheese could not believe how callous these people were with someone’s personal belongings. He cringed as they threw the IT certifications into the fire which once again came roaring to life as it devoured the delicate paper.

“I see spirit” said Mr. Cheese “I see that you are trying to tell me that the way this deceased man is being treated might be my own as well.” He lowered his head from the glass and turned toward the spirit. As he lifted his head the surrounding changed once again. This time he found himself in a cold dark room with not a glimmer of any light.

“Where am I spirit” Mr. Cheese cried out, but there was no response. He turned his head left to right trying to figure out where he was, what room he was in. He could here the scratching of tiny feet as rats ran across the floor boards. Two of them were scuffling off in the corner. Mr. Cheese dared not to get down off the bed as the floor seemed to fill with the sounds of more angry rats hissing and scratching all around him. Quickly he backed himself farther onto the bed before hitting a hard cold lump beneath the covers.

“What is this?” he asked himself, and in that moment a single light shine down onto the bed revealing the outlined figure of a man hidden beneath the covers.

“Who is this man?” asked Mr. Cheese

Another light, much more dim revealed the spirit standing in the corner of the room, rats scurrying beneath his robe. The spirit didn’t seem to mind this, nor did he try to move them out from beneath him, even as they began to bite and tear the flesh from his bones. It almost seemed like the spirit encouraged the little demons as if to be feeding his children. This very site sent chills down Mr. Cheese’s spine and he found himself in that same position he was the night the first spirit had visited him, scared to death. He looked again at the figure below the covers which was covered from head to toe.

“I ask you again spirit, who is this beneath the covers? Is this the man that the town seemed to hate?”
Once again the spirit raised his hand in silence, what little flesh he had was now dripping off of his bones like a hot candle burning through the night. He pointed at the mans head instructing Mr. Cheese to pull back the covers.

Mr. Cheese looked down at the figure, something deep down inside him wanted to pull back the covers, wanted to see what lay beneath, wanted to know, but there was a much larger part of him that withdrew his hand before it came in contact with the sheet which lay upon the face of the dead man.

“No, I can’t…..I CAN’T I TELL YOU” Cried Mr. Cheese

The spirit thrust forth his arm once again at the head of the dead man beneath the covers at which time a loud crack of thunder could be heard echoing from within the room as if the spirit himself had some how mastered the will of nature. Mr. Cheese reached for the covers once again, his hand shaking immensely. Closer and closer he got until he could hear the sounds of whispers all around him. These were not the whispers of pleasant people, instead they were angry whispers, spitting out obscenities and foul language like a cheap hooker. As Mr. Cheese’s hand got close to the sheet which covered the head of the dead man the whispers became louder, and louder, filling his ears to the point of screams. He withdrew his hand once again and covered his ears. The screams fell silent.

“No, I can’t…….please spirit don’t make me do it. Show me that there is someone out there that does not hate this man.” And with that the spirit withdrew his arm and opened his robe revealing a small picturesque window.

“Dude, you got a DVD player in your robe?.........That’s so fucking cool……..”

Mr. Cheese watched as a scene unfolded. It was the house of one of his students. Inside a young woman nervously paced back and forth as she awaited the return of her husband. The door swung open sending in the cold air from outside. The woman stopped in her tracks and turned to face the open door in which her husband stood.

“Is it good news, or bad?” She asked

“It’s good, the stories were true, he is dead.”

“So what about your training, who will take over as your teacher, can you get an extension now.”

“Slow down woman, I don’t know the answers to any of these questions yet, but for now we can rest easy.” And with that they both smiled and sat down at the table to enjoy their meal.

It saddened Mr. Cheese to see the only pleasure brought to anyone from the deceased man was in fact his death. The scene then changed again to that of a much darker one. It was Billy Bob Crotchrot’s house, only this time there was no smiles on the faces of the children. There was no Bubba Fat hiding behind a chair waiting for his father to come home. The family was dressed all in black and preparing for what looked like a funeral. Mr. Cheese listened in as Billy Bob broke down in tears weeping talking about his fat son. It was obvious that Bubba Fat had passed on due to his obesity. The spirit closed his robe and the room began to whirl with black smoke. They now found themselves standing beside a small church outside of any busy cities, away from all the hustle and bustle of any town. Next to the church was a small graveyard littered with old dead trees. The grass had not been cut for sometime, and the gravestones were buried beneath blankets of vines and overgrown grass. It was obvious that this was a graveyard for the forgotten, the hated, and the repulsed, for which no one ever visited.
The wind was howling throughout the graveyard as the spirit and Mr. Cheese approached a small headstone near the back of the site. They stopped several feet from the stone and the spirit once again pointed, this time directly at Mr. Cheese. His heart stopped and his knees fell weak as Mr. Cheese undoubtedly knew what the spirit wanted.

“Tell me spirit before I turn to look at this lonely gravestone, was the man lying on the bed……was it me?”

The spirit did not move, and even though the wind was blowing Mr. Cheese’s pajamas practically off his body, the spirit and his robe stood motionless. Mr. Cheese glanced over his shoulder at the headstone, squinting his eyes to see the name engraved upon it. A large crash of lighting lit the sky for miles illuminating the stone in all its glory. Neither grass, nor vines could hide what Mr. Cheese eyes now saw. It was his name engraved on the stone.

“Is this my fate? Is this my future? Please spirit say it isn’t so. I have learned my lesson; I will live the ways of the three spirits. I will embrace Christmas and all it’s glory, I will not go back to my old ways, I am a changed man, please tell me that my efforts will not go ignored, that I can still change this future.” Mr. Cheese dropped to his knees and clutched onto the robe of the spirit. “Please I beg of you, let me change…….” The spirit did not move as Mr. Cheese sobbed loudly into his robe. Again Mr. Cheese begged and pleaded with the spirit to give him another chance, and with that, the wind stopped, the howling was gone, and the robe in which he clung to, dropped into a pile of nothing at his feet. Mr. Cheese looked around to see he was back in his bedroom, the light shinning through the windows had told him it was the beginning of a new day.

Chapter 3

2006-01-13T00:13:00.000-06:00

Spirit Two of Three

Mr. Cheese laid sound asleep in his bed until the horrible beeping sound from his alarm clock awakened him. Unconsciously he reached over with his left hand blindly in the dark trying to find the off switch with his head still buried beneath the sheets. He mumbled into his pillow as his hands glanced over each button until arriving at the one that would silence the screaming beast.

He rolled over in his bed and stared up at the ceiling. His hands formed into little fists as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His mouth gaping open as he let out a long and exhausted yawn, and just as suddenly as if to be stung by a bee, Mr. Cheese sat straight up in his bed and looked around the room remembering that the second of three spirits was supposed to visit him at 3:00AM.

He looked to the windows but saw nothing, he glanced inside his open closet and again saw nothing. As he turned his head towards his closed bedroom door he could see an ominous glow emitting from the space between the bottom of the door and the floor. He knelt down on the floor and tried to peer underneath but could see nothing. He tilted his head as to put his ear close to the opening and for a brief moment he thought he could hear the sounds of rap music coming from the other room.

Hesitantly, Mr. Cheese stood up and reached for the handle to open the door. It was cold and Mr. Cheese withdrew his hand as if touching a hot stove. After realizing the door could not harm him he once again reached for the handle and slowly began to turn it. As the door opened, a bright light began to fill his room like a tidal wave splashing against the walls and across his floor turning shadows into distinct objects throughout his room.

When the door reached the half way point a voice coming from the living room called out his name and told him to enter. Mr. Cheese was a bit hesitant but eventually succumbed and exited his room.
It was his house, or so it seemed, but something was definitely different. Gold chains and jewelry hung from all the walls giving the room a warm golden glow. On the floor were stacks of coins and money from every denomination. Everything about the room seemed to scream money and Mr. Cheese was beginning to feel a little more at ease.

“Get your ass in here cracker” the ghost demanded “and sit with me and my beautiful bling as so we can get to know each other a little better.”

Mr. Cheese strode across the room not making any eye contact with the ghostly figure that lay across his couch. His eyes were hidden behind oversized dark sun glasses, and he wore a large furry robe much like a pimp. Across his hands lay a ring that covered all four fingers with the words “Yeah” upon them. Atop his head was an over sized baseball cap turned slightly sideways.

“Are you the ghost of Computer Administrative Christmas present?” Asked Mr. Cheese

“WHAT????” replied the ghost

“I said, are you the ghost of Computer Administrative Christmas present?”

“WHAT????” again the ghost replied

“Ghost of Computer Administrative present?” Mr. Cheese repeated

“WHAT????”

“Ghost of Computer Administrative present?”

“YEAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!”

“Ahhhh……ok!” Mr. Cheese sat with a puzzled look at the ghost that sat across from him with a big smile across his face.

“My friends call me Lil John.” The ghost explained

“May I call you the same?” Asked Mr. Cheese

“OK!!!!!!” The ghost shouted “You have never seen the likes of a man such as myself have you Mr. Cheese?”

“No, I must say I have not!”

“Have you never walked with members of my race and statute before?”

“No, I can’t say I have had the pleasure!” Mr. Cheese stated

“WHAT????”

“I said no!”

“WHAT????”

“NO!!” Mr. Cheese was loosing his patience

“OK!!!!”

“Spirit, do with me as you must, I have already learned so much from the last spirit. I await what you shall teach me this hour.”

“Touch my robe” the ghost demanded “NO, not there you sick son of a bitch.”
“Oh sorry” Mr. Cheese moved his hand and grabbed onto the sleeve of the elegant purple and white furry robe.
In an instant the room and all of its glorious jewelry were gone.
They found themselves standing on a street corner of a dismal part of town. The streets were not plowed of their snow as the city refused to come to this part of town. Garbage was strewn about the streets, and cluttered up in large piles in front of old building fronts now all closed down. Windows were boarded up, while other boar bars across them to keep intruders out. It was not a pretty site and not one anybody would want to find themselves living, and yet there seemed to be a good sized population living here. There was but one shop in all of the small town run by a foreign guy paralyzed on his left side from being beaten and robbed so many times.
Mr. Cheese and the spirit stood by for what seemed like hours watching these peasants as they made the best of their poor lives. The spirit was especially and would sprinkle gold dust upon their heads as they passed by. As he did this it would bring a smile to each ones face. Although as with the past, the people could not see Mr. Cheese or the spirit, it seemed as if the mere presence of the spirit seemed to bring joy into the people’s hearts. In time the store closed, and the people on the streets hurried home to begin cooking their Christmas feasts.

“Why do you sprinkle gold dust upon their heads?” asked Mr. Cheese

“Because, it cheers them up, and takes all there worries away if only for a moment.” Responded the spirit

“But they are poor!”

“It is the poor ones that need it the most as they have nothing to begin with.”

“But it is your family and mine that has put these families out in the cold that have deprived them an honest day’s work and it is our past that starves them now.”

“YEAH!!!!” replied the ghost “There are some upon this beautiful earth of your kind….”

“And by “Your kind” you mean white?”

“Yeah…..yeah……that would have us all treated this way if they could prosper from it. Remember this and do not blame them, but only yourself.”

Mr. Cheese nodded his head in acknowledgment. As they strolled down the street they followed one person in particular until he arrived at his home. Once again the spirit began to sprinkle the gold dust across the doorway which read “The Crotchrot Family”. Yes that’s right, the spirit had followed and led Mr. Cheese to the door of the lone student with the tattered clothing.
Snow was beginning to fall outside as the spirit and Mr. Cheese shuffled themselves inside the old house. Before them in the dining area was a large table with place settings for several poeple. A small fire was burning in the fireplace and in the corner was an old Tandy Computer system. Standing next to it were two children around the ages of ten playing a game of pong. As Billy Bob Crotchrot entered the room two more children came running in to great him with smiles and hugs.

“Crotchrot really got around.” Mr. Cheese observed

“YEAH!!!!.......you crackers, always pushin mo babies out den you cans afford.” Replied the ghost.

Billy Bob Crotchrot looked around the room as if puzzled. “Why where is Bubba Fat?” (Not to be confused with Tiny Tim, or Bubba Fet from Star Wars mind you……long story, a lot of legal issues…….) It was always a game for the young stunted lad with an eating disorder which caused him to limp like a short fat Umpa Lumpa, to hide from his father while waiting for him to come home from work. Billy Bob Crotchrot stood in the center of the room for more then five minutes while everyone was silent. Finally after 20 minutes the stunted gimpy fatso boy came waddling out from behind a chair. It took him this long to muster up the strength to stand up.

“Ah there you are my chubby little boy.” Billy Bob Crotchrot bent down and gave his son a hug, his arms barely reaching half way around his large body.

Together they all went back to the table and sat at their respective places to eat dinner. The room was filled with laughter each one telling stories of their daily adventures. They were filled with joy as if they were the richest people on earth. You would have expected a huge fancy feast to arrive on the table with how everyone was caring on, but instead it was not. No huge bowl of mashed potatoes this Christmas day. No Pumpkin pie covered in whip cream. Not even a large stuffed bird to go along with the seasonal tradition. In fact when Mrs. Crotchrot returned from the kitchen with the plate to which the bird lay, it wasn’t even a small turkey, but instead a small pigeon they had found dead on the streets earlier that week stuffed with stale old bread crumbs. Mrs. Crotchrot drove the knife in just as you would with a large bird and gave each person a small portion to feast on. No one complained and they all enjoyed it as if they were sitting and eating at your local “Old Country Buffet”.
After finishing their meals they all nestled in next to the fire as Billy Bob Crotchrot threw another small log into the fireplace. Mrs. Crotchrot brought over a large jug and placed it on a small table beside Billy Bob.

“Ah my fair lady, did you brew me a batch of your famous Orange peal ketchup packet hooch?” Asked Mr. Crotchrot

“I most certainly did, finished fermenting just this morning.” Replied Mrs. Crotchrot

Mr. Crotchrot poured himself a glass of some of the most foul looking liquid ever to enter a mans mouth…….well unless you watched fear factor lately………oh, and there was that time on 5th street with the hooker, but that’s another story another day.
After a couple of glasses Mr. Crotchrot turned to the rest of the family and pronounced
“Merry chrishmash to ush all, God blesh us………BURRPPPPP!!!!!”

To which his family repeated….but with less slurring.

“God bless Twinkies!” Piped Bubba Fat

The entire family turned their heads to look at Bubba Fat in disgust.

“What the fuck is wrong with you boy!!!!” asked Mrs. Crotchrot

“Oh mother, he’s just hungry.” Replied one of his siblings innocently enough.

“I know he’s hungry, he’s always hungry, why the fuck do you think we had to eat a damn pigeon for dinner tonight. Damn kid eats out of house and home.”
Ma Crotchrot always got like that when she started drinking her hooch. The rest of the family would just ignore her. It was obvious that Bubba Fat’s excessive weight might some day send him to an early grave, this much was you could see just by looking into the sad eyes of the family.

“Tell me spirit” Mr. Cheese inquired “Will Bubba Fat live?”

“I see an empty sunken cushion on the love seat” the ghost replied “And an unopened Twinkie on the coffee table.”

“NO, NO, it can’t be, say it isn’t so spirit.” Mr. Cheese begged

“WHAT????”

“I said…. Oh never mind.”

They continued to watch the family on this joyous day.

“And to you Mr. Cheeeeessseee………I toast your wisdom.” Mr. Crotchrot said

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Mrs. Crotchrot asked “That old grumpy bustard, you’re going to waste my good hooch on that asshole?”

“Please mom, not in front of the children.”

“Well I will toast to his death but not to his wisdom” and with that she raised her glass and the rest of the room followed. The mere mention of Mr. Cheese’s name seemed to bring a black cloud to the festivities. They may not have been rich, and they may not have been pretty even by circus freaks standards, but they were happy. Mr. Cheese never took his eyes off of Bubba Fat, his face saddened, his eyes welling up with tears.
The spirit grabbed Mr. Cheese’s sleeve and guided him out of the house.
Mr. Cheese held his head low as they walked down the snow covered sidewalks, not lifting his head when the children snickered as he passed by them, not raising his head to watch the spirit sprinkle his gold dust on the people that crossed their path. He couldn’t stop thinking about poor fat ass Bubba Fat and his fate. A cold chill sent shivers down Mr. Cheese’s spine; he looked up to see a very dark and dismal place, well beyond the city.

“What is this place spirit?” Asked Mr. Cheese

The spirit said nothing but continued on. The sounds of waves could be heard splashing up against a shoreline in the distance. As they continued to walk a dim light shined through the night at the edge of the shore.

“Where are we going now?”

Again the spirit said nothing but continued on. The stepped off of a small dock and onto a boat littered with people. “I recognize these people.” Mr. Cheese commented. Indeed he did, the boat was filled with former students of his.

“Ha, Ha, Ha, Blah Heisenbug, he used to always say.” One of them commented

“Man we used to pick on him so bad behind his back……” another said

“Yeah, poor old son of a bitch never new what hit him when we were in there, I almost feel sorry for him.”

“Well I don’t” One student spoke up “he was a bitter old asshole who made learning anything a living hell.”

“Well it’s a pity he didn’t want to join us tonight to celebrate our graduation. He never was one for social gatherings.”

“Let’s play a game shall we. I will think of something and you all have to try and guess it, you may ask me any yes or no question you want and I will answer honestly. So who will begin?”

The students were all too eager to play along and before long they were barking out questions. “Is it an animal?” asked one to which the reply was “No!”, “Is it human?” to which the reply was “Yes!” It wasn’t long before they had narrowed it down to a human male.

“Is he old?”

“Yes!”

“Is he an asshole?”
“Yes!”

“I’ve got it, is it Mr. Cheese?”

“Yes, you’ve got it.” The student shouted in enthusiasm. The entire group roared with laughter at poor Mr. Cheese’s expense.

“Well Mr. Cheese, a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, wherever you may be this night.” And with that the students all held up their glasses and toasted one another.

A single tear ran down Mr. Cheese’s cheek as he watched the entire display.

“I had no idea I was looked upon as such an evil person” But before Mr. Cheese could utter another word, the entire scene layed out in front of them was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. He glanced back at the spirit who now appeared to have aged significantly throughout the night.

“Is your spirit life short?” Asked Scrooge

“YEAH!!!!”

“Oh Christ here we go again.” Mr. Cheese shook his head back and forth with his hand on his forehead.

Suddenly the old town clock stuck the hour of 4:00AM. Mr. Cheese raised his head to look at the spirit, but he was gone. Mr. Cheese was left alone in the dark with only the sound of the wind blowing through the dried branches on the trees scratching against themselves as they swayed back and forth. As the last stroke of the clock rang out Mr. Cheese remembered what the ghost who had visited him the first night had told him.
His heart began to pound loudly inside his chest as he could feel an uncomfortable presence surrounding him. His breathing became rapid as he was frozen in his tracks. Afraid to look around in hopes that maybe if he didn’t see the last spirit it might go away and yet for some reason he felt compelled to turn his head. Off in the distance he could see a dark figure approaching him. It was draped in a long black cloak; a hood over its head hid its face from being seen. It did not walk, but instead seemed to float a few inches off the ground as it approached him. Kind of like Chris Angel. Mr. Cheese looked back in hopes that the other spirit might reappear and take him away from this evil looking ghost, but there was nothing there. He turned back to the direction in which the spirit was fast approaching, who was now hovering over him like a dark shadow.

“Oh shit, this can’t be good.”

Chapter 2

2005-12-26T16:37:00.000-06:00

The first of three computer administrative spirits

Mr. Cheese’s weak bladder had awakened him in the middle of the night as it had done so many nights before. He sat up in his bed and stretched his arms above his head, arching his back his old withered bones creaked and snapped like old twigs in the forest. With his wrinkled hands he rubbed his tired eyes and looked over at the clock on the nightstand which read 2:08am.
“How could this be?” Mr. Cheese said to himself “The spirit said I would be visited by the first of three ghosts’ at 1:00am.” Mr. Cheese began to wonder if the whole night had been nothing more then a bad nightmare.
He stumbled out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom, along the way passing the frost covered windows that lead to the cold outside. He paused for just a moment at the living room window scraping the frost with his yellow tinted fingernails. A horrible screeching noise pursued as the frost flaked off the window from his feverish scratching. With his head up against the glass he peered out into the winter bliss, his breath fogging the glass, he but saw nothing but the blowing snow wispily across his small yard. Even the thick smog from the factories had fallen silent.
After finishing his business he lay back in his bed staring at the clock. No matter how hard he tried to pass off the nights earlier encounter he could not shake the vivid image of the ghostly figure which stood before him just hours ago. The clock beside his bed now showed 2:30 as his eyes drew heavy. Slowly he began to drift back to sleep when suddenly a flash of brilliant light flashed before him at the foot of his bed. The entire room was basked in a warm glow. Mr. Cheese lay in his bed awe struck as the figure began to appear before him.
Before him now stood a very large man built from head to toe. Around his body hung an elegant white robe which seemed to trail far behind his feet. His face was broad, his cheeks full, and his eyes dark and full. He had a large well trimmed go-tee which hung from his chin like a soft fur coat. Around his head was a woven mesh of wires and circuits which blinked beautiful red, green, and blue LED’s.

“Are you the first of three spirits sent to visit me?” asked Mr. Cheese

“I am!” replied the spirit in a very low but soothing voice, much like James Earl Jones when he played the voice of Darth Vader.

“Well then, you’re late.”

“Yeah well seems as if someone disconnected their internet connection so I was re-routed to the Seattle head end, and then had to take 27 hops just to get anywhere near here.”

“Oh yeah, sorry….forgot about that, so who are you anyway?”

“I am the ghost of computer administration Christmas past.” The spirit announced.

Mr. Cheese got up out of bed and walked over beside the spirit, which towered over him several feet making him look like a midget. Mr. Cheese stood on his toes, tilted his head as high as he could and cupped his hand to his mouth as to whisper.

“Evil administrators past?” inquired Mr. Cheese

The ghost bent down to Mr. Cheese and looked directly into his eyes. “No, your past!” replied the ghost

With that the spirit extended his hand to Mr. Cheese. “Take my hand and surf the web with me.”

“But won’t we need a firewall?”

The spirit laughed and as his hand touched that of Mr. Cheese’s they were sent through the pipelines of the internet. Before Mr. Cheese could protest they found themselves standing outside in the cold of a small suburban neighborhood.

“Do you recognize the surroundings?” asked the spirit

“Recognize it; I know it like the back of my hand. This is where I grew up!” explained Mr. Cheese.

They walked down the road, Mr. Cheese recognizing every little detail as if he were there only yesterday. “And there’s Billy and Joey, look that’s the snow fort we made when I was twelve.”

“These are nothing more then your memories of past, cast before you now as if a grand painting on a magnanimous canvas before you.” The ghost explained “They cannot see nor hear us.”

Mr. Cheese’s face was filled with delight as they continued to pass more children playing, carolers singing, and memories that were once of a happy time. But why? What could bring a bitter old computer administration asshole to smile such as he was now?
They came upon an old house at the end of the street, as they approached the door it opened in front of them to let them in. As they entered they could see a small boy sitting by himself in the corner, tinkering with electronics and tearing apart the family BETA VCR. Mr. Cheese knelt down beside the boy and began to cry like a little girl as he stared at the image of his former self. The spirit came to his side resting his hand upon his shoulder. Mr. Cheese turned and looked across the room admiring the pictures above the fire place, pointing out each person by name, reminiscing old stories of good and bad, laughing at some and crying at others. If only the people he knew now could see him like this. His voice ringing out in confidence, his wrinkled face now smooth, his frown now turned into a smile. Surely they would not recognize the man they see before them.

He turned once again to look at the boy “I wish I could tell him how it is, how it will be, I wish I could show him, but it is too late.”

The ghost smiled and took his hand, “Lets move on to another Christmas shall we.”

As he said this the room began to change, it turned darker, and the little boy that sat in the corner in front of him now grew to a young adult standing at the window his hands crossed behind him. From outside footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs. The door busted open and a gleaming man came rushing through the door.

“My brother, I have come to bring you home!” the figure in the doorway shouted.

“Home, but why?”

“Well, I was downloading music on one of those……”

“Let me guess, file sharing programs, and you have spyware now?”

“Yeah………”

“Always getting into mischief your brother.” The spirit said “But a good heart he had.”

“Yes indeed” said Mr. Cheese “That he did have.”

They watched out the window as the two men got into the cab.

“He died with a child?”

“He was promiscuous” said Mr. Cheese “He died with many, many children.”

“Ah, nephews and nieces?”

Mr. Cheese seemed a little disturbed at the thought of just how many children his brother had and answered “Yes!”

With a blink of an eye they were yet again set in a new place, this time a busy street in a large city. Cars bustled about the streets, while people walked along the sidewalks. The spirit and Mr. Cheese stopped just outside of town in front of an old electronics store.

“Recognize it?” The spirit asked

“Recognize it, hell this is where I was trained as a young computer and electronics apprentice, it is what got me interested in computers in the first place.”

“You see how wrong it is now to try and peruse a career in computers don’t you?”

“Yeah, damn outsourcing!”

They went inside “Look there, it’s Mr. Jenkins, is he still alive?” inquired Mr. Cheese “I still remember the day he decided to take apart a power supply without first discharging it’s capacitors, we tried to warn him.” They continued to watch as Mr. Jenkins called out for Mr. Cheese. The two of them like a well oiled machine went about fixing and repairing any electronics that came though the door.

“You looked happy then.” Said the spirit

“You can’t even imagine, I had not a care in the world, I had great dreams.” Smiled Mr. Cheese

“Time is running short” the spirit observed looking down at his palm pilot “we must move quickly.

Once again they were brought before a new place, and once again Mr. Cheese was confronted with his former self, this time much older and in his prime. He sat at his desk playing countless hours of Ever Craft. Beside him sat a most beautiful woman. Her eyes filled with tears glistening in the dark against the glow of the computer screen.

“You pay little or no attention to me anymore. Your only ambition is a machine you call a computer. I have stood by and watch your aspirations fall to the side while you learn everything you can about this new technology.” The young lady said

“And even as I sit here now learning this and becoming the great computer geek that I might become, I have not diverted my attention away from you.”

“Have you?” she asked “You have changed, and the promises we once made to each other at a young age seem nothing more then a fairytale in an old book.”

“We were young, and foolish!”

“Are we still foolish.” She asked “Where is the love I so deserve, where is the man I married? It’s as if you don’t want me anymore.”

“Have I ever asked you to leave?”

“No, not in words you have not.”

“In what then?”

“In the way you have changed, in the atmosphere that surrounds you now, in your attitude towards me and everyone around you.”

His head now lowered “Your wrong!”
“Then correct me as I stand before you today!” she stammered
He said nothing, only listened as the sounds of her heading out the door and out of his life echoed throughout the house.

“Oh spirit…….show me no more” Mr. Cheese cried out as he held his face in his hands and wept “take me home…….I beg of you.”

“But there must be one more tonight.” The ghost explained

“No please……” but before he could continue they were once again brought in front of yet another memory from the past. This time it was of a small house filled with a happy family all gathered around exchanging stories with one another.

“Do you know what I saw on the way home today.” Asked one of the people sitting in the corner “I saw Mr. Cheese sitting there in his office all alone on Christmas Eve, as usual, typing away at his computer.”

“What could he have been possible been typing on Christmas Eve?” asked a young man sitting across the way

“Who knows, probably just another program no one will appreciate him for.” They all laughed together at this thought.

“Spirit take me away from this horrible place.” Mr. Cheese begged

“I show you only the past, it is your past, you made it, and I can’t change it, so deal with it.”

“Take me back, I don’t want to see the past anymore, please…..” he grabbed the spirits rob and held it to his face as he began to weep softly into it. “Please I beg of you, take me home……” He whipped the tears from his swelling eyes and looked up to see the spirit, but instead saw nothing but the ceiling of his house. In his hands now lay his bed sheet covered with his tears. He looked around the room, the warm glow from the spirit now gone. He was exhausted and without hesitation fell back upon his pillow and cried himself to sleep.

A Christmas Carol, Story Thing

2005-12-18T00:20:00.000-06:00

Down but not out

2005-12-14T23:32:00.000-06:00

Working on getting the blog going again, sorry all archives are offline for now, had to rebuild the site from the ground up, hopefully will get them back up soon.

Stay Tuned..........