stinky urine shoes goodbye

Originally uploaded by sizeofguam

driving up to Boston we pulled over at a rest stop that didn’t have
any facilities which was OK, we only had to stretch our legs. in front
of our parked car were bunches of low growing raspberry bushes and I couldn’t resist going and eating a few of the ripe berries. stepping into the bushes, I must’ve tramped
through some fresh animal or human urine, because that
night at dinner I caught the unmistakable smell of it wafting up from
my left shoe.

normally, I’d be the type to soak, wash and dry a shoe
that had fallen on such a misfortune as this, but they had already
been demoted from training shoe to casual walking shoe status for losing the spring and support of their younger days. facing a 3 hour drive with a stinky pee shoe while i had a brand new pair waiting to be broken in i made the decision to wear the new pair and toss the old.

Downtube bikes are much sturdier than most folding bikes from Dahon, and better looking, now at a comparable price! Downtube is a small independent American company with an exceptional product line.

The 8H is their internal hub, maintenance free, 8 speed, 20″ wheel bike. This bike has no external shifter (aka rear derailleur), no gears (aka cogs). Never worry about improper shifting or cleaning your drivetrain. It is all enclosed in a completely sealed Sturmey-Archer 8 speed hub.

I bought this bike last year when I moved in to my tiny apartment, but now I have a room to store a full sized road bike which I need for triathlon training. I would keep it if I had more storage space and I was a little bit shorter (I’m 6′2″). It is great condition, it’s only logged about 200 miles total. There are a few superficial scratches in the paint job, but it still performs as a new bike.

Here are the specs for the 2008 model, roughly the same as last year’s.

The location of this bike is Greenpoint, Brooklyn in New York. Greenpoint is a neighborhood right next to Williamsburg.

These are in chronological order with my very first job right here at the top. I started this list a while ago and it’s not yet complete, I will go through and fill in the remaining jobs a few at a time.

Chauncey Creek Lobster Pier Lobster Disassembler

Shellfish generally, and lobster specifically I find tremendously repulsive, making me the MVP of the lobster disassmblers. The very fact that I wasn’t continually snacking on lobster pieces was enough to achieve me this honor. A pretty auspicious beginning to a spotty employment history. If I didn’t hate lobster enough when I started this job, hauling slimy barrels of spent lobster carcasses up to the sun-baked, maggot-infested dumpster fixed me for life.

Meserve’s Market Pizza Dough Stretcher

The first job I got on my own with no help from a parent. Also my first interaction with cheerleaders who were my co-workers. Always be wary of someone who disses your current girlfriend (’You can do better than her!’) but will not go out with you herself. Introduced to the word scubbing, a verb that means to soak the excess grease off the top of a pizza with paper towels.

Seaside Hotel Groundskeeper

The owner’s wife made muffins every morning and I made donuts on the tractor out by the giant pile of composting yard waste. The owner was a high-strung fellow and would whistle an ‘UH-OH’ sound every time he saw you do something improperly, like the invisible judge on a game show.

Once I was changing the battery out of the tractor my screwdriver slipped out of my hand creating a short from the battery to the gas tank.
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Sitting through a company-wide meeting I wrote down a few of the finer nuggets from our esteemed leader. I have provided the subtexts for you:

expanding our global footprint

“we’re moving all the good tech jobs overseas”

creating ourselves as just a global provider

“we’ll fleece our overseas workers just as bad as we’re fleecing you”

i’ve visited most of our centers on a number of times

“traveling on the companies dime sure is sweet”

we all share challenges

“i had to answer my own phone this week”

by all measures, that being said

“uhhhh” [stalling for time]

we lost a lot of dollars on an absolute dollar basis

“no matter how you look at it we’re losing money”

we must manage relationships in a profitable way on a go-forward basis

“we should get our heads out of our asses soon”

the 79 cent bagel i bought was so worth the 20 minutes of entertainment. a couple of the geese would take pieces right from my fingers, but usually doing so would cause them to get bitten on the ass by a hungry flockmate. i imagined it was punishment for being such a greedy brownnose. there were two smaller female ducks milling about with the geese who were faster and smarter when it came to watching where crumbs fell and snapping them up. smarter i thought until i saw one of them snap up a goose turd and chew it for a while until it spit the turd out.

this is disco stu. disco stu hung out with us for a while when we were signing the shelter logbook. i think disco stu was more attracted to our flashlight than he was interested stinging us humans. we gave him a kickass disco light show by bouncing the flashlight off the tequila flask. disco stu seemed to enjoy this immensely. here’s to you disco stu, keep on stayin alive.