Tell Me About It.

So, i'm pretty much over this blog thing. As a window into your own soul it sucks. I've made 10 posts and I dont feel like the world understands me any better. And the fact that everyone, anyone, can just stop in, read and then leave. Well, thats just the age in which we live.

I mean, really it's reality television for everyone else that isn't dysfunctional enough to get on to "Shot of Love with Teela Tequilla." So in keeping with my protest, I implore you to tell me about a time in your life when you were at your best. This is a selfish endeavor, seeing people at their worst isn't fun, so show me your best. It doesn't have to be when you were the BEST at any one thing, but just a time in your life that you were at your best. Also, please save your fuckin resumes for someone else - if you think I care about your i-banking internship, you should find a different wall to write on. Aside from you, if you're like most of us this was a fleeting moment but if you're lucky it was few minutes, moments or it's still happening. Tell me about it - like a call in radio show: tell me about it. ha - thats a good name for a blog.

15 Step Video that I made

The New Look Americans

Glowing ember of light,
Shining through a cold war, big fight.
Your colors red, blue and white
Oh, YAYY!! What might

Then the father of a boy rose to power
Under his political tutelage a family did flower
While in office he made the world cower
And the image of America did sour.

The next eight years brought us a Clinton.
He had the pundits smitten
While in office he went crazy for the kitten
But in the end, even he was bitten.

The Son of the father was next in line
After the election America felt fine
A few months in and suddenly the worlds worst crime
Uh oh, from the growing darkness we got a horrific sign.

Then a war, a storm and a crisis came along
Looks like America has taken too many hits from the bong
A stuttering president cannot sing a soothing song
All we hear in the news is that we're always wrong.

Tonight, Americans made history
What happens now is a mystery
A change was needed; easy to see
A stable, happy and peaceful country is a myth to me

Our future is only a guess
We could be diving further into a blurry mess
But of America the world could not think much less
Of that, I am embarrassed, I must confess.

A smart decision is not an individual win
A black president is not a cardinal sin
In fact, it gives us a leader that I'm proud to call my kin
And a new chapter for America can begin.

A little less average

So Im a white guy. Average. Basically what you’d expect. Grew up in a fancy town, with some pretty fancy friends, but no one too fancy. Went to a good school, but not too good, just good. Recently got job with a reputable consulting firm, but nothing too great, just a job.

Consultants travel. Constantly. A consultant has no company to call his own. The universe of American business is home, I guess. And that’s ok. Because businesses all look the same anyway. When you walk into any hotel room, you instantly know that it’s not home. When you walk into a business, you can’t tell the difference between AT&T and Goldman Sachs, they are indiscernible. Depressing?

The next time you drive down the highway through a rough part of New Jersey, and you say to your co-pilot “Ugh, what is that smell? How does this happen? Look at this, it’s awful!” That is business too. It happens there too.

They sent me there. A few thousand average people like me packed like scared puppies into a glass cube in the middle of awful. Inside the cube it’s the same as every other place, New York, San Francisco, Boston. Outside, it is very different. Not average.

Two weeks passed and I took less than 50 breaths of actual fresh Newark air. As my hotel is attached to the office I can go from my room to my office without ever going outside, or touching the ground even. Listening to my gut, I avoided going into awful. Weekends provided enough fresh air. Live to consult another day, right?

Wrong. Agoraphobia is unbecoming. Wednesday of week three; Breakout. Taking only the clothes on my back: Black Banana Republic pants, slim fit white and brown shirt, black loafers, sunglasses; and an unhealthy fear of the awful outside, I busted loose from the lunch line in the corporate cafeteria in search of something awful.

The loafers touch their first awful sidewalk. Regret. This town doesn’t seem to appreciate average white kids. One block in and one block away from the office. So far so good. Still alive.

Definitely began this trip on edge. Maybe the air conditioning finally got to my brain. Had to mix it up today. But. Should have planned this out.

Wandering. A few people walk past and don’t notice me. Just another corporate pilgrim. A guy asks for money, and when I don’t comply with his request he sears me with his hatred. I really don’t have anything for him, only plastic.

More relaxed, I tune into other senses. Hunger and smell. There is the scent of burning meat. It’s coming from a block ahead. Wandering over, following my nose, I post up in line inside a Carnisqueria. Not an Au Bon Pain.

Seven dollars bought a rack of ribs, a pound of fries with rice to match, and a soda. My nose didn’t fail me. Cooked over a wood-burning fire pit and seasoned with their sauce and spice mix. A perfect crisp of skin, sauce and spice. “Thank you,” I said to the cashier. “You’re welcome,” she replied. Looking around at the tables, I know that I’m not welcome as more than a day-time guest, regarless this so isn’t awful. My appearance is out of place; my enjoyment of this meal is not.

Retreat and return. Back to the ivory tower. Food coma. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a coffee. Stuffed. Satisfied. Scared shitless, no more. Sitting at my desk. Starting to sift and test as part of my average job I can still taste the salty and charred lunch. Quietly, my tongue picks at my teeth. I smile because I feel a little less average. But only a little.

Polishing the Glory Days

So now that you're a few years out and you're probably a few months into the rest of your life I think it's an appropriate time to look back. The conversation starter for this post is things you wish you knew as a freshmen in college; and might tell to someone about to enter college life.

While you're actually swimming in the kiddie pool that is Freshman year, your life is all about meeting people, living on your own, probably performing a make-over on your life, and exploring the boundaries of your personality. But something that I wish I knew is that Freshmen year, like the other 3 years, is also about classes and results. As freshmen year is 1 of 4/5 years of college it's probably about 25% of your grades in college. If you screw the pooch in classes during your freshmen year there is little that you can do to elevate the average of all of your grades in college. While, I feel that this average has little relevance in daily life, it comes up. Like any other grade, it's a way to objectively rank a 22 year old with 0 experience. Have no fear, you will have to tell someone your GPA. So my first lesson is, do whatever it takes to ensure that you get at least moderate grades. Since I don't want you to miss out on a few sessions of Sunday drinking or spontaneous Monday night pajama-jammy-jams, Shoot for B's. You can improve on B's.

When you are out of the library meeting new people you'll probably be drinking a few brews, and sometimes you'll drink too many. This excess drinking is fantastic, but it leads to hangovers, which are not fantastic. It's the hangover that leads former high school athletes to become current college fatties. Even if you aren't recruited to play basketball at Duke, you SHOULD remain active. When you graduate and start the rest of your life, you're going to want to get away from your cubicle from time to time. If over the last 4 years your soccer-legs have become slow-walker-legs, getting away from the desk becomes quite a daunting thing. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you do, just keep some form of activity in your life and fresh air in your lungs. Your athletic abilities probably are not so natural that they will be there when you want them in 5 years. Also, if you weren't very athletic in high school, college is a wonderful place filled with teams/clubs/people that require limited athletic ability or prior experience. The right fit is there.

Once you graduate, drinking doesn't go away. In some respects it's actually more intense after college because your tolerance falls off a cliff, so learning how to stay active AND party with your friends is extremely valuable. Don't become one of those people who crumble when they are hung over. This is no way to live your post-college life. A hangover is not an excuse to cry.

College is all about exploring. Take some zany internships, go to Europe with no money, meet the "other" people. But remember to pull some grades, stay remotely fit, and learn how to live a good life.

Quit talking about Obama and talk about this with your friends. Post-up some of your lessons.

Your Theme Song

This weeks conversation starter is bold. I mean, this baby is heavy. So maybe you want to go read something else for a second, get a little warm up, I don't want you tweak after reading on this space.

Ok now that you're back from blog warm up laps. I'll hit you with it.

Pick your theme song. The song will be played every time you walk into a room, work included. Before you get crazy, there are a few rules. If you walk into a room with more than one person, the most appropriate song will be played. This rule is known as the "how cool are your friends rule". If your friends are cool enough, a totally inappropriate song should play almost every time you walk into a room. This will happen because you've all chosen such ridiculous songs that the mechanism that chooses will be befuddled by the lack of taste in your song choices. Also, you can change your entrance song twice a year. I believe that everyone should go through phases, such as the "spandex base layer - every day" phase, or the "adding -eze to all words" phase. Having a temporary theme song will assist you phase your way through life. "Remember when i was in my competitive-eating and 'Crazy Train' phase!!"

Right off the bat you should rule a few songs out: 'Black Bird' by the Beatles, or any of the other touching covers that exist. This beautiful, melodic song is too tasteful. People will assume you are really deep and tasteful, and you'll surely disappoint them. Also, the entire Creed library of songs should be out. There is almost no way to recover from an entrance to "With Arms Wide Open."

Some good options are: 'Why don't we do it in the road' : why even go to a bar? The ladies will get the message. Also, '...Baby one more time' by Britney Spears says your nostalgic for the good ol days when craziness was hidden behind pure hotness and personal issues were handled in private rehab offices.

So let me know what you'd chose as your temporary theme song. I also suggest asking your friends and coworkers.

Get Yourself a Ring Tone

So I decided to write this one about me. Yea suckers, that’s right…

But you get to participate.

I was asked to identify a skill that I can do better than the average room of 100 people. The thought of which is worthy of significant consideration. Imagine this: you, wait... imagine me standing in a hotel conference room with carpeted walls and a disco ball over-head, with 100 randomly selected people from the worlds ever growing population. A suited gentleman, i can only assume is the organizer of this fandango, stands before us with a mega-phone and tells us "that every material and prop ever invented is on hand in the next carpet-walled conference room and that we (the people) will be asked to perform a skill that we feel we can perform more better than the other 99 people in the room. However, should one of the other 99 people prove that they can perform the skill better than you; you have to actually perform a task from the book 'Would you Rather.' The task will be selected at random, and there will be no negotiations, you'll have to actually chose one and do it." Given the world of opportunity presented by this challenge, I've taken some time to consider some things that I'm really fuckin good at.

The first one that came to mind was attending large parties that I'm sure I know fewer than 2% of the people in attendance. Knowing that I don't know anyone at a party literally guarantees that I'm going to have a total blast. (The skill here is my ability to Rock It at a party alone). I'll dance with old people, talk with the manly crowd, mingle with the young ladies, and try to lick the ice sculpture before the night is through. However the thing that makes me so damn good at this is that I know I'm not being judged by anyone. If there were even a possibility that someone were having a better time (the would be victor of the challenge) than I would definitely not try to lick the sculpture. Too risky.

Then I thought, I really kick ass at inventing games never before seen by the human race using only primitive materials used as building materials in modern society. I once created a game where we'd throw pieced of asphalt at bee hive that was perched on a tree next to a road (made of asphalt). The only rules of the game were that the first person to get stung by a bee lost the round (at the time only one round needed to be played as the loser was guaranteed to start crying uncontrollably and begging for mommy). The skill of the game was to stand as far away as possible and still be able to nail the bee hive, so that one of your less accurate friends would inevitably get attacked by a swarm of bees. The skill of 'inventing a game never before seen by the human race using only primitive materials used as building materials in modern society' is easily derailed by someone from a developing country simply lying about the fact that said game had been played for years in their homeland. Assholes.

After racking my brain for a few seconds, I was distracted by a escalating beep a few feet from me in my cube. An alarm immediately went off in my head and my right foot instinctively raised off the ground. The alarming beep sounded exactly like a radar detector I once used on a road trip to Vermont. This awoke my senses and also made me realize the thing I can do better than anyone else in a random room of 100 people. I can identify sounds, be it songs, grunts, clanks, cranks, or smacks, I can almost always put a sound to an object or action. So bring it on 99 randomly selected people from the worlds growing population. I dare you play 3 seconds of a Neyo ring tone and identify it faster than me... You can't.

This is where you come into play. Stop thinking about other people or your stupid job for a second and ask yourself what your skill would be if you were in that room. Leave it on the message board. Maybe someday we'll all be in the same room and we can challenge each other. Or just randomly when we're on the street you can "throw down." (i just did it, i just created a game out of no where...)

Interns

An intern story

As our country celebrates another year of independence from warm beer, and taxation without representation many work havens open their doors to bushy tailed college students who take their first wobbly steps in the corporate world as interns. Some of these interns come from prominent families, and top schools while others have inherited a hard working, "this is a chance of a lifetime", cannot-blow-this mentality, while others, I'm quite convinced, arose one morning dawned some pleated pants and tasseled loafers and decided "yea sure, internship!?"

Without exception every college-aged intern brings to the office a youthful perspective on the stuff that has otherwise become mundane. Suddenly the understocked and dusty supply room becomes an arcade of excitement as interns bounce from the bin of over sized erasers to the shelves of multi-sized legal pads to a plethora of highlighters and paper-clips. Smiles dance across their faces as if they've found gold in the kitchen when shown the free coffee and water jug. And what once was the quiet (productive) hour between 9:45am - 10:45am is filled with hydraulic explosions made by adjusting the height of ones chair. These are things that you cannot hate an intern for.

With their naive wonderment and joy, interns also bring other gifts to the work place. First and foremost are the ancient secrets passed down among the successful generations of their family and friends: "The O'Mally Rules to Success in Business". This set of rules, not specific to the O'Mally clan, is sure to fire some people up. One report of an intern in London, has a father telling his son that successful bankers talk and scream at/to their computers. Since successful bankers have done this in the past, the intern has chosen to do this today. No doubt, the boss will hear various points of the conversation and draft a job offer.

Another good lesson from the family guide to success is the inherited executive stubbornness of their successful mothers/fathers. It is true, that many interns come from powerful families who have worked incredibly hard to attain a certain status. BUT, the interns job title is not CEO - it's just intern. As such a common gripe of interns is the classic scenario of "I did not go to school for this". When in fact the interns statement is false. This is exactly what the intern went to so school for. It's a job where you use your finger tips more than your biceps, so pile it on.

Finally, many interns subscribe to other success guides in addition to their own families. Peter Lynch, Jack Welch, Warren Buffet - the list is very impressive and all of their books are certainly worthy a gander. The age old intern adage of "'first on the floor, last to leave" is tied to books like these. I implore interns to work efficiently, and ask for more work, work until 10 every night if there is work there. But sitting at your desk reading espn.com articles for 6 hours doesn't seem to be an efficient use of time. But that's just me. Honestly, it stresses me out knowing that Joe Intern kills himself to get to the office just to sit around.

Something to consider discussing with your interns (or if your an intern yourself), is that fact that every guide to something is created by someone that is already successful. What worked for them probably wont work exactly the same for you. For instance, screaming at your monitor doesn't make you look busy or important - unless you are actually busy and important.

No one writes a success story until their done. Isn't it possible that they've glossed over most of the details in order to be perceived as more successful? People want lists, and checks, people buy certainty and that is what successful people can provide... a list of things that they did. But buying their biography only ensures one thing, you'll know where they've been. Be successful (and happy by the way) by keeping your head up, being consistent to the people around you and being open to people and ideas.

Leave a good intern, work story on the message page.

Boomer and the Nudge

Last weekend I ran in a relay race with my energetic and fit girlfriend. We weren't racing against each other so suffering the ultimate embarrassment of losing to her wasn't a possibility. In fact, we were teammates. She ran the first 5k and I completed the final 4.4 miles. I got to pick the team name and chose "Boomer and the Nudge."

As soon as I stepped onto the empty roadside where my leg would begin - I felt something drop in my stomach and I actually smiled. I thought that what I felt was nerves. Two of my friends were also running the race and surely bragging rights would be awarded to the fastest friend. Knowing that my buddies are fast, and competitive, winning this race would be very difficult. The three of us walked around our starting area, speculating about the performances of out teammates, and the potential neck and neck fight that would certainly be the final mile. Soon, the top runners came. As the rest of the pack approached I realized that my nerves had not yet lifted on my stomach, at that moment then I felt my bladder swell, and my brow sweat. It wasn't race-day nerves that were holding me down.

The shackle and chain combo that sent radiant doubt to my thighs and feet could not be ignored. In a slight panic, my eyes darted near and far for an compartment of relief. There would be no such haven for me. And as my teammate pounded closer, one step at a time, the reality of running a race on a um, full stomach, was setting in.

The other two had already left the start as their teammates arrived before mine. But along came Lizzie, bumping into the the midway point with a word of encouragement. She had run her race a little ahead of her pace. I could see she was exstatic with her performance. There was no time to explain my predicament to her. I would have to do this alone. The only relief to my stress was 4.4 miles away.

2 miles into the race I was cruising by people and felt pretty good. I even started to think that maybe I could catch my friends or at least finish closely behind. As I (surely) dazzled hundreds of middle-aged women and old-men in the middle of pack, I thought, "no problem, I'll get through this without a care."

False. The inevitable was smuggled into my brain among the mid-race endorphins. My cadence slowed. I could no longer march forward to the cadence of a tight snare drum, but rather dragged on, beat-by-beat, to the obnoxious roar of of a bass drum. Each step the drum beat got lower and slower until the drum hit the ground. I had to stop to avoid certain disaster. As the race sprinted ahead in the final mile, each runner put their head down on the final strait away, my eyes had locked onto their target, a cool-blue/green hut with a chimney. My legs carried my body off the road. I melted onto the grass, and then into the strange, repulsive glow of a port o potty. Sweet relief.

After completing the race. I had to laugh with my friends. I was glad to finish with a smile, rather than a... well it could have been much worse.

I guess it happens to runners. But one thing I can say is don't force yourself to learn this lesson the hard way. Warm up in advance, take care of business and prepare to race...non-stop. In the end the funniest part about the race happened long before we laced up our sneakers. There was actually some conflict about my choice of team name. Who was the Nudge? Who was Boomer? Well, after the race the characters were clearly identified, I was Boomer.

DOMINATE!