A conversation between myself and Mr. Ryan Schenk

Ryan: Dude! Check this out
Mike D: Daaaaaaang
Ryan: I know.
Mike D: I’ll watch Erin McNaught try ANYTHING. She should have a TV show called “Watch Erin McNaught do stuff.”
Ryan: ha ha. I’d watch that show.
Mike D: Things I’d like to watch Erin McNaught do: drink a soda
Ryan: replace the batteries in the tv remote
Mike D: send a text message to a friend
Ryan: evaluate hair brushes
Mike D: clean her countertops
Ryan: address envelopes
Mike D: consider different options in the condiment aisle
Ryan: wait for a CD to finish burning
Mike D: winterize her windows
Ryan: make Kool-Aid
Mike D: reheat yesterday’s take-out lunch
Ryan: gaze listlessly out the window

Someone make this happen.

1. Kevin makes some dinner

Carl: Kevin, this meal you made is really delicious
Kevin: What do you guys think of the meat?
Others: It’s really great!
Kevin: That’s good. The meat’s from July.

2. Carl wakes up Eric who crashed on the couch at the HoR

Carl: Hey Eric wake up.

::pause::

Carl: Hey Eric.

::pause::

Carl: Wake up Eric.
Eric: unnnnng
Carl: Eric, I just wanted to let you know it’s 7:15
Eric: huh?
Carl: It’s 7:15.
Eric: Thanks?

Eric rolls over to fall back asleep.
Note: At no time did Eric ever request to be woken up at any particular time.

3. Jesse sends me an instant message

Jesse: no lie, I’m in Delaware
Jesse: whaaaa?

Tuesday 12:15pm

Mom D: Dad D. is now painting the house
Mike D: he’s a maniac!
Mom D: well, it does have to be done and he has some free time now that he is FUNemployed

Ha! funemployed!

Shaun L. provides the following story:

Physical Trainer: You gotta have a healthy breakfast man! This morning I had 6 egg whites, a protein shake, and a bowl of oatmeal. What’d you have for breakfast?

Heavy-set man: I had a Coolata.

Physical Trainer: A Coolata?!?! YOU GOTTA COOLATA THAT!!!

Classic.

I pass on a joke I’d heard from Kevin and Theresa…

Mike D: RYAN SCHENK!
Ryan: Yo.
Mike D: What’s orange… and sounds like a parrot?
Ryan: Pyrilia aurantiocephala
Mike D: oh.

March 20th. 12:40am. Mike D sits drearily in bed bathed in the light from his computer monitor. The room is otherwise dark.

Ryan: MIKE D! What are you doing up so late?!
Mike D: I can’t sleep
Ryan: aw man, that happens to me sometimes. Sometimes I get all worked up about how I’m not sleeping, and it just makes me not sleep even more.
Mike D: Yeah, that’s usually what happens to me too.
Ryan: Did you know that I have chronic insomnia?
Mike D: I did not know this.
Ryan: It’s true. I don’t sleep very well. I never have, since I was about 3 (according to my mom).
Mike D: I feel your pain. This stinks.
Ryan: Ruth thinks it’s my karmatic payment for being so awesome
Mike D: ha ha ha ha ha

30 min later….

Mike D: Ugh, Sarah I can’t sleep.
Sarah: aww Mike D. That stinks
Mike D: yeah. I hate it when this happens.
Sarah: Why can’t you sleep?
Mike D: I have no idea.
Sarah: Maybe it’s nature’s way of balancing the fact that you’re so awesome during the day.

And there you have it folks! Insomnia explained through two independently developed theories.

Sarah got me a little webcamera for use with Skype. It’s pretty sweet. But as I prepared for yet another trip to Ohio (by the way, I’m in Ohio again), I had to find a place for it in my carry on and I didn’t want to damage the camera. I was looking around the house for a box. The one I ultimately found was the one that my distortion pedal came in.

As I checked to see if the camera would fit inside, I chatted with Brian who sat on the couch.

Mike D: “Sweet! It fits. Although the people at the security checkpoint might wonder why I’m bringing a distortion pedal onto the plane”
Brian: “Obviously, Air Guitar”

HA!

Rental car lady: well, we don’t have many cars left tonight but you can take whichever one you’d like.
Mike D: Okay. what do you have?
Rental car lady: We have a Chrysler 300, a —
Mike D: CHRYSLER 300!! I LOVE THOSE. I’ll take that one.
Rental car lady: okay, sure. You should know though, that it’s rear wheel driver – not necessarily the best in snow
Mike D: Awww man… what else do you have?
Rental car lady: a minivan?
Mike D: DARN IT. sigh. I’ll take the van.

Mike D: “Hi, I’m here to sign in.”
Guard: “what’s your last name?”
Mike D: “DiDonato. That’s D – i – D -…”
Guard: “wait what? Hold on. How do you spell it?”
Mike D: “D – i – D…”
Guard: “D”
Mike D: “D – i – D…”
Guard: “D – i – Z?”
Mike D: “D as in Dog”
Guard: “okay. D – i – D. then what?”
Mike D: “O – N -”
Guard: “O – M”
Mike D: “Nnnnnn”
Guard: “O – N”
Mike D: “A – T – O. DiDonato.”
Guard: “A – C – O. DiDonaco.”
Mike D: “yup. perfect.”

Ed: “and when do you need these motors?”
Mike D: “whew. well? pretty much now.”
Ed: “realistically?”
Mike D: “Well, if we had them on site by the middle or end of next week that’d be awesome.”
Ed: “gah… okay…”
Mike D: “and if we had them on site on Monday it’d be even awesomer.”
Ed: “Awesomer?”
Mike D: “yeah.”
Ed: “is that even a real wo-”
Mike D: “probably not.”

At the RPI Library…

Mike D: Hi. Are we allowed to check out technical books from the Library? I was hoping to take a Vibrations book for about a week.
Librarian: Yes. The only books you can’t take out are the reference books in the reference section.
Mike D: Excellent! Well then, I’d like to take out this Vibrations book please.
Librarian: no problem, do you have your ID?
Mike D: Yup, here ya go.
Librarian: okay, let’s see here. ::types:: okay. All set. And this is due back in 15 weeks.
Mike D: Wait, what? 15 weeks?
Librarian: Yup. February 7th, 2009.

PDXSarah: Wait, hold on. I need a moment to steep in your hypocrisy

and later

PDXSarah: Here, why don’t I get out of the way to make room for your ego

P: “how much load is on the bearings?”
Mike D: “None! they seize up even without any load.”
P: “that’s really strange.”
Mike D: “What are some of our options? we really need to provide good bearings to our customers.”
P: “I agree. I’ll have an engineer call you.”
Mike D.: “okay. What’s the guy’s name who will be calling me?”
P: “Rob Schnieder.”
Mike D.: “Rob Schnieder’s going to call me?”
P: “yes.”
Mike D.: “THE Rob Schnieder?”
P: “No.”
Mike D.: “oh.”

As our company picnic concludes and I start my walk back into the building to get my stuff and head home, I bump into two of our executives.

Vice President: “Mike D? You suck at the tire throw.”
President: “and at basketball free throws.”
Vice President: “and at horseshoes.”
President: “and at the egg toss.”
Vice President: “Wait, the egg toss too? Weren’t you on one of those final teams Mike?”
Mike D: “… no…”
Vice President: “oh. well? okay then.”

Stupid work. They never choose rock climbing or Kung Fu sparring as company picnic sports.

Mike D: Ugh.
Sander: What’s up dude?
Mike D: Name three places you’d rather be right now. Go.
Sander:

1. Painful eye surgery
2. World’s ugliest woman contest.
3. Shoveling dung behind an elephant.

Mike D: Yeah, that sounds about right.

Professor Sisson: “Have we figured out how to raise the melting point of Aluminum yet?”
Professor Apelian: “Yes we have. You just use a different Thermocouple. It works every time.”

HA!

Ryan Schenk: Mike D, I just played the funniest joke!
Mike D: Do share.
Ryan: There is a command on the mac called “say.” If you type in the command followed by a sentence, the computer will actually say the sentence in a computer voice.
Mike D: Okay.
Ryan: It’s especially funny if you log into another user’s mac remotely with SSH, because then the audio will play over THEIR speakers
Mike D: ha ha
Ryan: example

say “Hey Neil, you sure know how to push my buttons, if you know what I’m sayin’”
(neil is my boss)

Excellent Job Ryan Schenk. Excellent Job.

RING RING RING

Mike D: Hello this is Mike D.
President of my company: Hi Mike.
Mike D: Hi, what can I do for you?
President of my company: I’m frightened that you got a B in your ethics class
Mike D: ha ha ha
President of my company: what happened?
Mike D: I was horribly bored with the subject matter and stopped putting effort into the class.
President of my company: Ha!

Colleague: I haven’t received that package you guys sent
Mike D: Really? We sent on Thursday next day air.
Colleague: uh oh.
Mike D: Hold on a sec
I open up UPS.com and check the tracking number. It says “Delivered. Porch.”
Mike D: The package is on your porch.
Colleague: What?
Mike D: check your porch. The package is on your porch.
…
Colleague: Wow. Yes it is. Well done.

Mike D: I think I have to come into work this weekend.
Sander: Bummer.
Mike D: yeah, I suppose it could be worse though.
Sander: that’s true. your office could be full of snakes.

We had a sales rep come up from Alabama yesterday.

Sales rep: “and I’m headed off to San Francisco tomorrow.”
Mike D: “oh man, that’ll be nice and warm!”
Sales rep: “yeah, but I came from Alabama. When I left it was 70 degrees”
Mike D: “ahh. well, I guess this is chilly for you then.”
Sales rep: “it is… although right now we have tornadoes in Alabama”
Mike D: “you have family there?”
Sales rep: “Wife and three girls. When I left I reminded them where the basement was and wished them luck.”

On the topic of environmental regulations.

Professor:
One particular interesting story is about a barge that was sent out of New York. It had hazardous waste in it and they wanted to dump it out at sea. This was before the laws completely prohibited the practice. So the barge goes out and New York says it can’t dump it within their waters. So the barge goes south. And as they go they keep meeting resistance. No one will let them dump the garbage. I mean, if it was solid waste? If it was solid waste they could have put it in a landfill. But obviously this was something atypical. They got all the way down to Costa Rica. And still… nothing. So what happened? Where did they have to go?

Classmate:
New Jersey?

Bryan arrives home at the House of Rock…

Bryan: Did someone cook fish?
Mike D: Whoa. Wow.
Bryan: What?
Mike D: Yeah we had fish but it was, like, four hours ago. That’s amazing!
Bryan lowers his head in shame, and points to himself
Bryan: Fat kid.

I call a customer back after our call is disconnected.

Mike D: Hi, this is Mike.
Important customer: Hi Mike. I’m sorry. This stupid cell phone disconnects my calls all the time
Mike D: Oh, no that was me.
Important customer: But you’re not on a cell, I called you at work.
Mike D: yeah… I turned around in my chair and it pulled the cord. The cord pulled the phone base which teetered on the edge of my desk… I grabbed for it but missed and hit the body instead of the edge thus pushing the phone base off the desk. It bounced across the room and the phone cable came undone. Sorry about that.
Important customer: wow.