My Own Personal Dwight

Epilogue

2007-10-05T12:51:00.000-07:00

This is part 2 of a two part update. Make sure not to miss The Final Chapter.

So that's the story of my own personal Dwight. Now I'm back in Chicago, still working for the company and hopefully not returning to Minneapolis for any extended periods of time. As for Dwight, I haven't talked to him since I left. I guess the new kid replaced me in his heart and his desire to visit Chicago subsided. I've given some thought to the experience and I think the most fun thing to watch was Dwight's relationship with secretary girl. This is all pure speculation, but I'm pretty sure he had a crush on her. Sadly though, she was engaged. He told me a few times that he thought that her fiance was a jerk and she deserved better. It was kind of like Pam from The Office... but if... she's Pam... and he has a crush on her... that makes him more like Jim... which mean...

Oh my God! Am I Dwight?!

Final Chapter

2007-10-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is it. The end of my summer. Last week of work. Last week of Dwight. As expected, nothing was different as far as Dwight was concerned. Here's the thing about internships, and believe me when I tell you this, an internship is a glorified temp job that most of the time you don't get paid for. You start out super motivated. "I'm going to prove my worth. I'm going to do a great job. I am learning. I am improving my life." Halfway through you lose interest in learning new things, because what's the point? By the time you get it down, it'll be time to leave. Just stay the course and keep doing your thing. The last week... you could give a shit. It's strictly a run out the clock scenario.

Monday, Last week of work...
I was spending the first hour of work how I usually do, reading my webcomics and enjoying my coffee. Dwight stops by to ruin the whole thing. Usually when people would walk by my cube while I was catching up on my comics I'd try to switch to a more worklike screen, like email or a spreadsheet or... anything, but since it was Dwight and it was my last week, who cares? Dwight does, of course.
"Reading comic books?"
"Well.. it's not really a book."
"Reading comics."
"Yes, I'm reading a comic."
I imagine that the conversation would have gone on like that for a while but Dwight was distracted by my iPod which was laying on my desk. I wasn't using it at the moment, and in fact, the headphones weren't even out of my bag yet, but for some reason he thought that I was magically listening to it.
"Wireless headphones?" he asks me.
"Mmm... no?"
"Oh, they're not out yet?" This was a confusing statement because what he meant was that they had not been invented and released to the public yet, but I couldn't really understand that.
"Not... out of my bag... yet?"
"No, you can't buy them yet?"
"Oh... I don't know. You can probably get them somewhere."
"Yeah," he says, and this is the kicker, "It probably uses 'Bluetooth Technology'"

Forgive my rant right here, but "Bluetooth Technology" is a term that big corporations use to impress people who don't know anything about technology. Most normal people will just say something like "They're bluetooth headphones" or "I got this bluetooth keyboard" or "my phone has bluetooth on it". Notice how you never hear anyone say "My new computer is enabled with Bluetooth Technology!" It's just a fluffed up phrase to make something that's not very impressive sound like it's the predecessor to flying goddamn cars.

And that's how I feel about the phrase "bluetooth technology".

Tuesday, Last week of work...

Apparently unawares that in five days time I would be 500 miles away, Dwight invited me to go to the Minnesota State Fair with him. The state fair is a huge event that I guess everyone gets excited about. It was taking place the weekend after I was to arrive back in Chicago. So Dwight asks me if I want to go. I tried to explain to him that to do that, it would mean that I would drive from Minneapolis to Chicago and then... four days later, I would drive back to Minneapolis, only to return to Chicago the next day. Even though Minnesota has the "Best State Fair in the world" according to Dwight, that's just not something I'm willing to do.
"Doesn't Illinois have a state fair?"
"I... don't know."
Does Illinois have a state fair? I seriously don't know. I've never heard of one.

Here's a fun story he told me, in paraphrase...
Have you ever been over by the University of Minnesota? You know how there's an eight foot razor wire fence around the campus? That's because the state fair is right by the campus and it gets craaaaazy. That's why school never starts before labor day there. They always wait for the state fair to end first.

True story.

Wednesday, Last week of work...
"Do you like Guiness?"
"It's alright"
"Hey, have you ever had a guiness?"
"...yes."
This is the kind of stuff I dealt with all summer.

"Do you know what's in a black and tan," he then asks me.
"I'm pretty sure it's half guiness half harp."
His eyes then got really wide and he started nodding his head slowly, "Those are good, dude. Ever drink an Irish car bomb?"
"No, I don't really like chugging things."
"Well, I'm German, well... half German, and we like to enjoy the taste of our beers, and we like good beers."
Which is an odd statement coming from a man who had repeatedly admitted to loving Bud Light.

Thursday, Last day of work...
This was the last day I ever talked to Dwight. He stopped by to say goodbye at the end of the day because he was taking Friday off to... go sit on a boat or something, I dunno. Anyways, he lent me a book on VI which is the text editing program I was using at work. Unfortunately he lent it to me about two months after I had already figured out how to use it, so I just threw it in my desk drawer and said thanks. Well, he wanted it back before I left so I opened my desk drawer and pulled it out. It was full of loose napkins that I had accumulated throughout the summer from eating lunch at my desk. I held it up and kinda shook it until all the loose napkins had fallen out and then handed it back to him.
"Did you use it?"
"Not... really."

So this is the end. I shook his hand, as was the custom of the time and then the new kid who Dwight had been hanging out with a lot walked by. Dwight told him it was my last day and he wished me luck and did all the normal work goodbye stuff. Then Dwight made him do some intricate handshake like 19 times in front of me. I think that the new kid hadn't really figured out what he was getting into quite yet because he went along with it. Then Dwight turns to me and says, "That's how we do it in Minnesota. Even in the winter."
"It was a stunning display."

And that was the last time I ever saw Dwight.

Apple, Mancena, and Unions

2007-09-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

My Friday started with Dwight, naturally, showing up to hassle me. "Hey, do you have a video iPod," he says to me.
I knew where the conversation was headed, but I decided to play along. "No."
"I do."
*sigh* "Congratulations."
He made me shake his hand, which was just as awkward as ever. I decided to start a conversation so as to end the awkward handshake, so I asked him if he put any videos on his iPod yet. He sure did.
"Yeah, do you ever watch that... that Carlos Mancina?"
I was pretty sure he was talking about Carlos Mencia, but I didn't want to press the issue.
"Yeah, I've seen a few of his sketches."
"Do you like him."
Honestly I don't, but I didn't want to get into an argument, so I just went with, "He's alright."
"I like him. So, are you proud of me for buying an apple product?"
"I guess..."
Then he started staring at my chest, which was odd since I am a man, but he was apparently trying to read the insignia on my polo shirt. It was a shirt I got from my old college job. I worked at Marquette's student union, and the shirt had the logo and said "Allumni Memorial Union" on it.
"It's from my old job," I explained.
"Oh, you worked at the Union? So did Secretary Girl. It was pretty bad though. They never let anyone take breaks. Did they let you take breaks?"
"Well... I suppose so. If we wanted to. Marquette has a pretty nice Union."
"Oh, so does The U." (What is what people in Minneapolis call the University of Minnesota)
At this point I could see an conflict taking place within Dwight. He was torn between admitting that his school had an inferior union (and honestly who cares? Dwight does...) and impressing me with some random but of trivia about labor laws. I think he ultimately decided on telling me about labor laws while trying his best to not admit that I was better than him at anything, namely at choosing a school with a good student union.
"Yeah, where Secretary Girl worked, they wouldn't let anyone take breaks and it's a Minnesota State Law that you have to take a 15 minute break for each 4 hours you work."
"I'm pretty sure that's a national law."
"Oh, well... It's enforced more strictly in Minnesota. They make you turn in timecards and they check them and stuff."
Actually, as it turns out, I was wrong. This is not a national law.

The score stands at...
Me - a lot
Dwight - 1

Water Pressure, Claw Hands, and Hannah Montana

2007-08-30T22:48:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the two week hiatus. Everyone will be happy to know I'm settled into my new home in Chicago and I've got about a week and a half's worth of Dwight notes to finish up and then we can all lay this little experiment to rest. When we last left off, I believe it was a Tuesday about 10 days before I was going to move. It should be noted that around this time Dwight found a new host body to latch his teeth into. I never learned this poor man's name, but he looked eerily like me, except with different color hair. In any case, he didn't seem to hate Dwight and Dwight didn't bother me as much, so I just accepted these occurences as good things.

This didn't, however, stop Dwight from annoying me at least once each day. The Wednesay where we left off starts off with Dwight telling me about the apartment he's thinking about renting. Knowing that this would be his first time living outside of his parents' house, I decided to be a decent person and tell him a few things he might want to check during apartment walkthroughs. This included counter space in the kitchen and water pressure in the shower, because there's really nothing worse than moving into a new place only to discover that your shower runs slower than the drool from the mouth of that kid who used to sit next to you and fall asleep in high school algebra. You didn't feel cleaner after algebra and you won't feel cleaner after using that shower.

But I'm getting off topic. Dwight listened to my helpful advice and twisted it into what he percieved to be a veiled insult toward the state of Minnesota. As though I were suggesting that the state were not technologically advanced enought to understand something like modern day plumbing. "Oh no," he assured me, "We got good water pressure up here. I don't know, maybe the water system in Chicago is old or something, but we always have great water pressure here." Sigh. You would think I would have learned by now.

Then, since the topic of showering was on his mind, he felt it neccessary to smell both his armpits right there in my cube in front of me. I told him that it was kind of gross. He says to me, he says, "I need to *pssh pssh* (as he makes the motions of a man applying axe body spray to his underarms). I took a shower today though."
"Yeah, you're probably gonna want to use deodorant, too."
"I forgot."
Lovely.

He also told me about this iPod cover we was thinking about buying. It was made to be waterproof and that was exciting for Dwight because he likes to wakeboard. He was telling me about how wakeboarding isn't his first love though, he only does it during the summer to keep his legs in shape for... well, the important part about this is not so much that the next word is "Snowboarding" but that he bent forward a little and held his hands forward like claws at me as he said it. Kind of like the stance you always see in high school wrestlilng photos... kind of like this, except that he was imitating someone snowboarding.
"Do you always have the claws out while you're snowboarding."
"No man. You gotta have your arms out to stay loose. You lead with this arm *holds up one claw* and you balance with the other one."

The next day he didn't actually come into my cube, but on the door near my cube the company had hung up some signs advertising their upcoming Octoberfest celebration. I saw Dwight reading it for a few minutes and then eventually he turns to me and says, "Ha ha. You can't come." Which is really a shame. I'm actually not too broken up about it.

The real fun on this day was that secretary girl came by to ask me if I had the hookup for presale concert tickets. A friend of mine actually does have the hookup for quite a few shows, mostly for smaller clubs and whatnot but I asked her what the concert was.
"Hannah Montana"
I laughed a little because I thought she was kidding, but it became clear pretty quickly that she was not.
"They're for my step daughter."
I offered to ask around and see if anything came up, but I'm not really sure how popular Hannah Montant concerts really are. Was she worried about it selling out? She agreed, and this is the funny part, she says to me, "Yeah, you're right. I guess it's not like a... Goo Goo Dolls concert or something."
Are Goo Goo Dolls tickets really that hard to come by? And if they are, is it just because the Goo Goo Dolls aren't touring? The Goo Goo Dolls... really? What a funny example. I wonder if she ever found tickets...

Anyways, that's all for now. I've got some more stories left to be told, but I think I've written enough for tonight. Keep checking back, I plan on wrapping this all up soon. Thanks for your patience.

Sorry

2007-08-15T07:24:00.001-07:00

I've been really busy lately with the move back to Chicago coming up and getting ready to start school again and now my aunt is in town plus work and some other things. Long story short: I'm probably not going to be able to update this for a little while. I'm still keeping notes every day though, so when I get back to chicago and have some time I'll finish everything up. Thanks for reading.

Delayed

2007-08-10T07:45:00.001-07:00

New Post Tonight!

Trying to break my spirit.

2007-08-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm starting to get annoyed again. Dwight hasn't been coming by to talk to me quite as much, which you'd think would be relaxing, but when he does come to see me, instead of being kind of ridiculous and mildly amusing, he's just trying to get into pissing contests with me or trying to make fun of me maybe? Okay, example... As you may have gathered he's a Twins fan. On Monday morning he says to me, "Did I tell you that the twins won 2 out of three over the weekend and are now just 4.5 games back?"

What kind of question is that? I haven't seen him since friday. How would he have told me about something that has happened since. Clearly he just wants to be a jerk. So I decided to be a jerk too. There's this great little site, www.coolstandings.com that my friend introduced me to that constantly runs simulations of baseball seasons and spits out odds that any given team will make it to the playoffs. So I pulled up the site.
"Oh cool. Let's see... they now have a 9.7 percent chance of making the playoffs."
This did not make Dwight happy. He tried to argue.
"They're a second half team. Underdogs. In 1991 they came from last place to win the world series."
Sadly... math doesn't care what you think.

He then tried to play it cool.
"Remember, it's only a game." He says.
"Mmm hmm."
"It's not a matter of life and death."
"Okay."
"It's not like I'll die if the Twins lose."

And then today, the only thing he says to me is, "Hey, do you like coa coa puffs?"
"Not really."
"No? What about Kix?"
"I don't really eat cereal."
"Oh... cause you know that commercial where they feed the kid cereal and they're like 'Mikey, he likes it.' Yeah I was just thinking about that because of you."
"Ah."
And I thought the conversation was over, but I could still see his eyes peeking over the wall of my cube.
"Yeah, I was just thinking about that."
"Great."
"Mike's a cool name, that's all I'm trying to get at."
"Okay."
"I'm just saying Mike's a cool name."

I think he tries to assign me nicknames as a way to establish his dominance over me. Meanwhile, I've tried to express how I don't want to talk to him by not saying his name at all for the past 2 months. It doesn't seem to be working.

Which brings me to my next point. After the cereal conversation he says, "Hey, I'm going to be 23 tomorrow."
"Awesome."

I can't decide if I should just ignore the fact that its his birthday tomorrow or if I should try to give him something really awkward. I can't think of anything good. Oh well.

Finally, he asked me for some advice.
"Hey I found an apartment I like, but there's one problem."
"What."
"It's about an eigth of a mile from where I'm living now with my parents."
"Dont't do it."
"Why?"
"You don't seem too excited about it."
"No, it's really nice and the rent is pretty good."
"Well then take it."
"Okay."

I just don't understand this child. My internship ends next friday, so this blog will be coming to an end soon. One more post this week. Two next week, and then maybe some closing thoughts... I hope you enjoyed it as much as I... didn't... but I guess I did. I dunno. I'll save it for the closing thoughts. See you Thursday.

Bawling, Betting, and Bridges

2007-08-03T07:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the late update. My mom was in town last night, so I went out to dinner with her instead of posting. Lame, I know.

Other than the Minneapolis bridge collapse excitement, it's been a relatively slow Dwight week so far. He must be busy. I had the opportunity to chat with his mother on Wednesday (she works here, too) and she is a delight. His father works here as well and he's a pretty nice guy but a little aloof and awkward. I suspect Dwight inherited his mother's outgoing personality and his father's social awkwardness. An unfortunate combination.

Anyways, I was chatting with Mrs. Dwight's Mom and she was asking me about when I go back to Chicago and if I'm excited and my plans for the future. You know, normal mom small talk stuff and we were having a pretty good time until Dwight walked by and was all, "Oh, what is this? Are we just paying you to sit around and talk?" Well, his mom said I'm leaving soon and she was just getting all the details and that seemed to sit okay with him for a while, but after she left he stuck his head in my cube and said, "Dude, you can't leave I'll cry."

Except that he was still kind of walking by when he said it, and he mumbled it so it was more like, "DudeyoucanleafIkai."

I made him repeat himself a little slower and not walking, and I kind of regretted that decision. What a creepy thing to say. I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I figured, "Good" wasn't an appropriate response, so I went with, "I think you'll survive."

And now for the exciting conclusion of Dwight Bet where you, the reader, had the opportunity to win some Schrute Bucks. And the winners are...

Dwight will blame me for the bridge falling down - 5:1

First thing he says to me Thursday morning...
"You guys from Chicago come up here and break our bridges."
"Yeah, it was me. Don't tell anyone."

Dwight will give me advice about something pertaining to bridges - 2:1

"If they had built it right like the one next to it, it wouldn't have fallen."
"Well, it was there for a pretty long time."
"It could've been standing for another hundred years like the one next to it, if they had done it right."
"Really? The bridge next to it is 150 years old."
"Well... it's like 100 years..."

Dwight will act like he knows more about the bridge collapse than anyone - 3:2

Now, he didn't say this directly to me, but in the middle of our conversation another guy we work with walked by (I like to call him, "Quiet Guy" because he talks real quiet. I like him.) and Dwight asked him what he thought of the bridge collapse.
Quiet guy said, "Well... I guess we won't really know what happened until they go through an investigation."
"No way man, I read what happened. You see..."
Then I stopped listening, sorry.

Dwight will be excited that the bridge fell down - 10:9

This topic got brought up a couple of times. First, he tells me that he was going to go to a Twins game last night, but instead went over to the bridge and was "rubbernecking" all night.

Example two: (this is my favorite because I think I made him feel bad about himself for a second)
He says to me, "If you go to CNN.com you can watch the bridge collapse. BOOM!"
"Yeah... I don't know if I want to see it."
"Why not. It's DESTRUCTION!"
"well.... People died because of it. I dunno if I want to go watch it for entertainment value."
Then Dwight paused for a few seconds. Absorbing this information...
"It's not entertainment value, it's shock and awe value."
*Sigh*
Some things never change.

Then he lectured me on bridges again. I think that he thought I was really distraught about the incident. I'm not really. I mean, it sucks and all, but it's not like I'm going to fear for my life every time I drive over a bridge. But still, Dwight took a few moments out of his day to console me... and act like he knows everything.

"You see, dude, we find out what happened and then we make sure other bridges don't fall."
"Mmm Hmm."
Now, you have to imagine this next phrase being said in the most condescending way you can.
"That's how it works. It's going to be okay."
"Thanks, Dwight. I'm sure everything will be fine."
A true humanitarian, he is.

Dwight Bet

2007-08-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's some odds in case any of you want to place bets today...

Dwight will blame me for the bridge falling down - 5:1
Dwight will give me advice about something pertaining to bridges - 2:1
Dwight was on the bridge - 10000:1
Dwight will act like he knows more about the bridge collapse than anyone - 3:2
Dwight will say something about giving blood and saving lives (associated with the bridge collapse) - 3:1
Dwight will talk about the coast guard - 10:1
Dwight will be excited that the bridge fell down - 10:9

These are my predictions.

Staying Healthy, Eating Real Food, and Doing Prostitution

2007-07-31T16:02:00.000-07:00

I found myself in a familiar situation last Friday: Sitting in my cube, staring at Dwight with nothing to say. So I went with an old favorite...
"Do anything exciting last night?"
"I watched cops."
"Oh, cool. Did anyone get arrested?"
"Oh yeah. All kinds of people got arrested. Now, here's a little tip for you."
Dwight loves giving me life lessons.
"Excelent."
"If you're ever going to be carrying around dope..."
"Uh huh."
This is really good.
"Hide it in a piece of foam rubber and strap it around your stomach so it looks like you have a gut."
"I'm with you so far."
"Don't hide it in a little shampoo bottle and tie it to your leg because the cop will go like this (imitates someone frisking his leg) and they'll ask you what's in the thing strapped to your leg."
"Gotcha."
"Also, if you're going to be walking around at night always carry an ID or else they'll think you're trying to do prostitution. Like, there was this one lady and it was obvious what she was out there to do, and the cop says to her, 'Just be honest with me and you'll walk away from here.' So what the first thing she does? She be's dishonest. So... just make sure you have an ID on you or people will think you're trying to do prostitution."
"I have been accused of that in the past."
"Really?"
"No."
"Oh..."
I was tired of listening to him talk so I thought I'd share a little of my own life with him for a change.
"Well, I did have a shirt from my old job that said 'I Work Here' on the back and while walking home someone asked me if I worked the corner... I should've said yes..."
"You do know what you have to do if you're working the corner. Right?"
I decided that this would be a fun time to mess with him.
"Sure. I could've made a hefty profit."
"See. Me. I'd rather make my money in a legal way. That way the cops won't come chasing after me."
"That's too much work."
"No it's not. You just have to work."
"Yeah. Like I said. You have to work."

I agreed to go out to lunch with Dwight and Secretary girl on Friday. We went back to the Thai place we went to a couple of weeks ago. During lunch, he mostly talked about being healthy. You know, what foods are good to eat and how he works out and everything. I let it slip that I don't really like most fruits and vegetables and this did not sit well with Dwight.
"How do you get your Vitamin C?"
"I dunno... eating things."
"Like what?"
"Who knows. I haven't died yet though, so something's working right. I take flinstones vitamins."
"If you eat fruit you don't have to take those."
"Yeah, but they're pretty delicious."
"I love vegetables. I eat broccoli, onions, peppers, spinach..." He went on for a while like that, and then I realized that he was probably going to give me a list of every single vegetable he's ever eaten, so I decided to interrupt.
"I don't really need the whole list."
"I'm running a 5k, so I gotta eat healthy."
Here's a little side note for the interested reader. 5k = 3.1 miles. That is not a very long way to run, relatively speaking. If I did it, I'd probably be pretty tired at the end, but I'm pretty sure I could do a slow 5k.

Finally, lunch was over. Secretary girl and I both had cards, but Dwight... Dwight had a giant wad of crumpled up singles. Secretary girl asked him if he had been at the strip club last night but the joke was lost upon him. He was too overjoyed for having found a 5 dollar bill amongst the ones.
"Careful who you're flashing that cash around. You might get held up outside." I warned him.
He was also not amused by this joke. He got very indignant on me and inquired...
"Dude, I'm 6'6" Who's going to hold me up? I think I'm going to be okay."

While riding the elevator back up to our floor I asked him to stand up straight and measured myself up next to him.
He's 6'3"... 6'4" tops. Why do people always say they're taller than they really are? Dwight acts like being shorter than he is is a lower social class.

Then a glorious weekend.

Then... Monday.

Dwight is done with class so he's back to visiting me first thing in the morning. Usually before I've had any coffee. Usually before I want to talk to anyone, let alone him. Nevertheless...
"Hey, dude. Ever been to Apple river?"
"Meh."
"It's in Wisconsin."
"meh. Did you have fun?"
"I would have had more fun if I had remembered to not drink hard alcohol... and beer... at the same time."
"Hmm." great. another Dwight got drunk story...
"When it's 90 degrees. "
"Cool."
Then he holds out his arm for me to inspect. There was no bandage from a blood donation... oh that reminds me. On our friday lunch excursion he went on and on about how he gives blood and saves people's lives and how great of a human being he is for it again... but on this particular occasion there was no blood given. Just his bare, boring arm.
"Check it out I used SPF50 and I didn't get burned."
Congratulations... you've shown an aptitude for not being a complete dumbass.
"Cool."
"Yeah, [SPF 50 was] like I was wearing armor. I was armored... from the sun... with... armor..." and... then he just kinda trailed off about armor while I stared at him and then walked away. Only to return a few minutes later holding what appeared to be an oversized box of kleenex.
"Check it out." I'm always having to check things out for him...
"What?"
"Don't you have a box of kim wipes?"
Why would I have a giant box of kleenex...
"No."
"How will you clean your desk?"
"Meh."
"It's like living in filth."
"That's how I roll."
(Warning, quick subject change)
"That first of Thai was awesome."
"From last friday?"
"Yeah. It's good stuff."
"Mmm..." Let me remind you. This was now Monday.
I think he is starting to feel that our friendship is in Jeopardy. I've been in situations like this before and one thing I've always noticed is that the person in Dwight's place will notice that I opt of out activities in favor of other plans. To counter this, they will start trying to plan activites with me ridiculously far in advance. Case in point:
"Hey are you going out to eat with your cousin this friday?"
"Eh? I dunno. It's only Monday."
"We should go get some real food."
"Real Food?"
"Yeah, some American food with big (hand motion) portions of meat and... some real food!"
First off, that's gross. Basically, his point was, "Let's get more food than we can eat and then either gorge ourselves or throw most of it away."
Second, he was inferring that Thai food (one of my favorites) was not "real food" because it originated in a foreign country.
And Third, he then suggested that we get this "real food" from Boston Market, which in my opinion, with the exception of the corn bread, is rather underwhelming as a lunch establishment.

And that was the last I spoke to Dwight all week. I saw him today but he did not talk to me much. i think he may have said... oh yeah! In the morning he stopped by to tell me how much money he had in his bank account and how much he expected to have by September because he's thinking about renting an apartment and moving out of his parents' house. That's great and all, but I don't really need to know that he has $2,460 in his savings account right now. I found out later though that he was cranky today from Secretary Girl. She walks up to me and says, "Are you inebriated when you're at 0.08?"
"Umm... I dunno. I never tested my own blood alcohol level."
I guess she told him a story about how her husband and his friend were golfing and having a few drinks (but were not drunk) and they forgot to put the parking break on their golf cart (which was their's, not the golf courses) and it rolled into a forest and got all dinged up or something. She thought it was funny, but Dwight did not. According to her he said, "That's not funny. That scares me."
A strong reation from a man who spent the weekend "drinking beer and hard alcohol in a kayak".

Curious...

Boating, B-, and Revealed Secrets.

2007-07-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was a sad day. It was Dwight's last day of class. This means that he's now back to working regular hours which means that I no longer get to enjoy my mornings. He wasted no time in coming to visit me after his final. He walked into my cube and cleared his throat.
"How was the test?"
"Can I write on this?" He points at a piece of paper I'm using to keep track of software errors.
"No I'm working on that."
"Do you have a scrap of paper I can write on?"
"Sure... wait what are you writing?"
"I'm gonna tell you how my test went?"
*sigh* "Can't you just tell me?"
"I'll just write in the margin."
"No, you're being over dramatic."
"Okay I'll just write in the air. It went A-W-E-S..."
"Okay I get it."
"...-O-M-E. It was awesome. Best test I've ever taken. Did you eat yet?"
"No, I haven't. Did you study for a billion hours like you said?"
"I studied for like 4 or 5 hours. So what are we doing for lunch."
"Oh... I'm going out to eat with my cousin, actually."
He acted indignant for a few seconds and then left to go get lunch.

I managed to hide the fact that the company was sending me to Disney World from him for so long. I really didn't want him to know because I knew he'd bitch and moan about it forever. Well, a few hours before the end of the day on Friday my manager let it slip that I was going on a trip, and sure enough, Dwight was pissed. He was upset for a few minutes, but then he tried to play it off like he didn't want to go anyways.
"What are you doing down there."
"I dunno... learning about the company. Team building BS."
"Oh it's not like with customers?"
"No, it's just an intern meet and greet thing."
"Oh, THAT'S why I'm not going. I've been here too long."
"Ah."
"They didn't do that kind of stuff when I started here, but I wouldn't want to go down to Florida to just sit in a hotel all week."
"Well, I never turn down a free trip to Disney World."
"It's in Disney World?"
"In one of the hotels yeah."
"Ahh, I see... the company just made a big deal with Disney. That's why they didn't do those kinds of things when I started here. It's all becoming clear now."
"Is it?"
"Yeah, it makes sense to me now."
"Good."

Then one of his classic lead in questions...
"Do people like lunch meat?"
"What?"
"Do people like lunch meat?"
"Lunch meat?"
"Yeah, like ham."
"...I... yeah? Probably. It still exists. Someone's eating it."
"Oh, I'll just ask Guy."
"Why?"
"He and his girlfriend are coming out wake boarding with me this weekend, and I don't want to be out there all day with nothing to eat." (like I'm some kind of an idiot)
"Oh, cool."
"I'd ask you to go, but you've always got people coming to visit and things to do."
"Yeah. That's true. My sister would probably be pretty upset if she came to visit and I wasn't here."
"Well. She can come too."
"I'll have to ask her."
"No-- no, it's too late now. I've already got those other two coming."
"Oh.. too bad."

So then I went to that conference for a few days, and upon my return today, Dwight was quick to try to make me feel bad that I got picked to go and he did not. There was also an intern lunch this afternoon that he also did not get invited to. He was also kinda upset about that.
I tried to change the subject.
"What've you been up to?"
But he only got more indignant on me.
"I've been working. That's what we do here."
Bah. Whatever. He then decided to get a little braggy on me. Apparently he got a B- in his summer class. Now... maybe it's just me, but when did getting a B- become something to brag to your friends about? I mean, it's one thing to be happy about your grades, but he made me shake hand again. You can't force people to congratulate you!

Then, for some reason he asks me...
"Ever been in a kayak?"
"No."
"Have you ever done anything fun?"
"I've been canoe-ing, if by fun you mean 'in a boat'."
"Didn't you ever leave the city on the weekend?"
"Not usually. There's things to do in the city."
"It's all too expensive."
"That's why you have a job."
"I can't wait to get out of the city on the weekend."
"You should enjoy some of the culture of the city. Go to a play or see the symphony or something."
"I don't like the symphony. If I'm gonna go see some music I want to go see some rock or some jazz but not like slow jazz like... Some guys who can really play fast. Some good songs like Louie Louie. You know? I want to see good musicians."
Now, this is a little pet peave of mine. Saying someone is a good musician because they play fast is one of the most ignorant things you can do. Sure, some fast songs are difficult and you need to be talented to play them, but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily "good". To prove my point, no one ever walks up to a musician after a live performance and says, "Hey man, you really played fast tonight." And if you do say that to people... stop immediately. Continuing on...
I pretty much stared at him with a look of horror in my eyes while he went on this tangent. I needed to clarify a few things afterward.
"So... you don't think that symphony musicians are talented, but guys who play covers of 'Louie Louie' are?"
"No. That's not what I mean... I don't like the symphony because I played the saxophone but there's no saxophones in the symphony."
Well.. he went of for a while like that and said that he doesn't like cities because he didn't grow up in one. I countered that I grew up in a suburb too but I went into Chicago all the time.
"Yeah, but your suburbs are the same size as Minneapolis."
"I... whatever."
(interesting side note, my town's population is about 60,000. Minneapolis? 3 Million.)

Then to end out the day I hear Dwight whispering outside my cube.
"Dude, watch..."
"What?"
"I was trying to do the slow motion run."

Now I don't have to see him until tomorrow...

Ask Dwight Week

2007-07-25T20:13:00.000-07:00

I was on a "Buisness Trip" all week... in Disney World... which is actually a terrible place to have a buisness trip. The fun parks are just sitting there... taunting you... while you're stuck in a conference center for 12 hours every day. Also, there is no free WiFi at Disney World. Let me be the first to say it: Disney World is no longer the most magical place on Earth. You can't even get internet access! So that's why I didn't post the Ask Dwight Week blog last night. So, without further adieu...

Ask Dwight Week

Thanks to everyone that submitted questions for Ask Dwight Week. Sadly, I was not able to get to some of them, and the rest were just completely absurd. You had an opportunity to learn some real life lessons from a man with wisdom to spare, and you blew it. You should be ashamed.

Not all of you though. Here's the questions that made it into my conversations with Dwight in the last week...

Juli asks, "What's the best type of shirt?"

Dwight: I dunno. Express has some nice ones. Polos. Don't get their dress shirts. But I got like 4 polos for $20
He went on about polo shirts and how when you bend over they don't untuck in the back because the back is longer. Then this guy showed up who I was told used to be me, as far as getting a lot of attention from Dwight goes.
Guy: Are you bothering him while he's trying to enjoy his lunch.
Dwight: Yeah, but I'm leaving.
Then Dwight noticed his shirt.
Dwight: See? This guy wears express shirts. But not polos.
Guy: No.
Dwight: Do you ever wear polos?
Guy: No. I just roll up the sleeves in the summer.
Fascinating stuff!

Bry asks "Who was the best president?
Dwight had to think about this one for a moment, but after considering he came up with an answer.
Dwight: I guess I'd have to say Washington.. or Eisenhower.
Me: You like Ike?
Dwight: Yeah, I liked him because he was not a hot head like Patton. Like, Patton was in it for the glory and he would just do things to win, but Eisenhower was the one that would say, "No, no, we don't need to do that."
Me: I see
Dwight: Did you know that Lindon B. Johnson was least liked president?
Me: I did not.
Dwight: Yeah... cause of Vienam...
Me: Oh...
Dwight: Yeah...

Juli asks, "Where can I get some explosives?"

Dwight: I was looking at this sniper rifle that I want, but it's $4000.
Me: Careful what you talk about at work
Dwight: This is Minnesota. Everyone has guns. You need a gun cause everyone goes hunting. You know... Duck hunt, phesant hunt, deer hunt, bear hunt, (He goes on like this for a while)
Me: I'm just saying, corporate culture and all. Might not be a good idea to run around talking about getting sniper rifles...
Dwight: No one cares here in Minnesota.
Me: Do you know where I can get some explosives?
Dwight: Montana.
Me: Montana?
Dwight: Yeah you can get everything in montana. You know what an M80 is?
Me: Sure.
Dwight: It's basically just dynamite. and an m100 is a half stick. If you strap six of them together... you have 3 sticks of dynamite.
Me: Ah
Dwight: ...but yeah, 4000 dollar gun. I can do shots from a mile away. Not much point around here though. The shooting ranges aren't long enough. When you get a gun...
Me: I'm not getting a gun.
Dwight: Why not?
Me: Just don't want one.
Dwight: I'll take you to the shooting range. Once you shoot off a couple hundred rounds you'll think "This is pretty awesome."
Me: Hmm...
Dwight: I just like shooting paper. Shredding paper up... with a gun.

Yogurt asks, "What's the smartest breed of dog?
I tried to get smartest dog breed out of him, but he talked about english labs. How people say they're better than yellow labs or black labs, but he doesn't believe it.
Me: Oh, are they supposed to be smarter?
Dwight: I dunno man. A lab's a lab, I say.
Sorry Yogurt.

Apple of the Earth asks, "i seriously want you to bring up veganism and just see what he says."

Not... really a question, Apple, but I can fulfill your request anyways.

Dwight and I discussed veganism after going out for Thai food. I ordered a noodle dish with Tofu and he was just... stunned... that such a thing even existed. He was also very curious, because he heard that "Tofu is healthier for you." (He's trying to get in shape.) He just didn't understand why people would stop eating meat.
Dwight: Why would you be a vegetarian.
Me: Well... there's a lot of reasons. Some people do it for heath reasons, some people just don't think we should be eating animals.
Dwight: That's dumb. It's not like we're the first people to eat animals. People have been raising animals to eat forever.
Me: Well...I think the argument is that we have advanced to a point where we don't have to anymore.
Dwight: People have been eating animals forever. There's nothing wrong with it.

So there you have it. Ask Dwight week. I'll maybe try to get some more questions answered in the future, if I can.

Summer Olympics, Nash Theory, and Final Exams

2007-07-20T07:32:00.001-07:00

Like I said before, I was away from my desk running tests for the past two days so I didn't really see Dwight at all. He did manage to catch me during lunch once, so I'll tell you about that story. He has a final in his economics class... well today I supppose. He's probably taking it right now. Anyways, he decided a good use of my lunch would be for me to hear all about his class and the grades he got on his homeworks and why he thinks he's going to do well on his test. He then started bragging about how he was planning on studying for 8 or 9 hours for the final.
"Yeah, so, you think that'll be enough."
"Usually when I study for finals, I realize I know everything after about two or three hours."
"Oh. (In a braggy tone of voice) So you never could study for that long."
"Well... I have studied for that long a couple of times, but usually I don't have to."
"We used to have these three hour long finals in the math department and you had to study forever for those."

Then he explained on of the "economic theories" he has to know for his test to me. It was the "prisoner's dilemma" or something like that. Basically it was a 2x2 matrix with each row and colomn labeled "confess" or "don't confess" and the theory being you write in how much prison time each criminal has to do if both confess, one confesses, or both don't confess and then the best choice is the one involving the least total amount of prison time. If that's what the final is on... I'll go take it. It's called "Nash Theory" as well, which is named after that guy the movie "A Beautiful Mind" is about. You know... Russel Crowe. So that's what Dwight's doing right this instant.

In other news, I was showing him a map of Chicago on Google maps cause he wanted to know where something or other was and he asked about the boat slips on Lake Michigan. I told him that they were going to start building more because Chicago was bidding for the Olympics and he was just... flabbergasted... at that.
"Why would you bid for the Olympics?"
"Umm... once again... didn't think I'd have to provide a reason."
"No one even goes to the summer olympics anymore. My friend went to them and he said there was like 8 people there."
"Well..."
"The winter Olympics are better. Everyone likes the winter olympics."
"Uh huh."
"They're going to have them in Whistler soon."
"Cool."
And on and on he went about how the winter olympics are better. Blah blah blah. Snooooozerrrrrs.

So next week I'm in Disney World from Sunday to Wednesday. I'll try to write up a synapsis of "Ask Dwight Week" for you. Hopefully the hotel has internet.

Today's post...

2007-07-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

I'll do it tomorrw... I'm tired.

I spent the last two days stuck in a little room testing things, so there's not much to report anyways. I'll type it all up tomorrow morning though. This reporter needs some rest.

4 Million Dollars, Sportsman Shows, and Dwight's Soul

2007-07-17T20:26:00.000-07:00

Dwight went off on a big tangent about how if he were a baseball player and he was running toward home plate and the catcher was blocking the base line, he would jump in the air and kick the catcher in the chest with both feet. He also mocked one of the Twins pitchers for not playing this season because he had elbow surgery because "You don't need to bend your elbow to pitch" and "for 4 million dollars a year [he should] keep playing". I tried to argue all these points, but I guess I had momentarily forgotten who I was talking to.

...

Dwight.

I had a terrifying look into Dwight's soul last week. He asked me what I was working on, and I told him. Then he got all worked up. I just kinda leaned back in my chair and stared at him with saucer eyes. Anyways, the rant went something like, "You're just doing AIX editing. I could do that. I learned java. I learned C++, but everyone keeps telling me that I can't do what you're doing."
"Who tells you that?"
"I dunno, like... my mom, but you didn't know any of this stuff when you started right?"
"No."
"See, so I could do it too, but people think that just cause I'm not a computer science or electrical engineering major that I can't."
"I believe in you..."
"Thanks."
Now... If I can wax philosophic... or... psychologic... here for a minute. His whole attitude towards me fits. My theory: He's a dude who got a job in an engineering company because his parents work there, but he's getting an economics degree which has nothing to do with what the company does so he doesn't get a whole lot of responsibility. Meanwhile, I come in, with my fancy college degree and book learning and he thinks I'm getting all the "good work". I'll be honest, anyone with a 6th grade education could probably do what I'm doing now, but what I'm doing now isn't exactly what I want to base my career on either. It's a foothold. The schooling comes into play later, which is maybe what he doesn't understand. On top of that, I'll bet people get kinda mad when he shows up expecting their jobs when he didn't go through the same BS in school as them. I'm not sure what it's like getting a degree in economics, but I do know that getting a degree in engineering or computer science is a pain in the ass, but it's something everyone has to go through. Except Dwight. He's special. Anyways...
At this point he offered me his hand to shake. Why? I don't know. I try not to ask questions.

He asked me if I could bring back some food for him since I was going out to lunch and he had to keep working. I decided to be nice and take him with me and we both just did carry out. We went across the street to this kinda fast food chinese place. It's decent food. Not amazing, but good for what it is. However, it is not good enough for Dwight. He made a special point to stop back and tell me he did not enjoy his lunch and thought he was over charged for it. I found this a little insulting because 1) I attended his pity party earlier in the day and 2) I gave up my lunch so that he could come with and pick up some food. Then he comes by acting like it's my fault he didn't like it. That's how it goes, though.

The next day, I found myself, once again, with a random piece of paper shoved in my face by none other that Mr. Dwight.
"Check it out, dude."
"Umm..."
"I got 100."
Sure enough, it was a blank piece of paper with the number 100 written on it and circled in red.
"I've never gotten 100 on anything before in college. It's pretty awesome."
"Yeah good."
Then he puts out his hand again as though to shake mine. You can not do that. You can not demand someone else give you their congratulations. That is against the rules! Was he congratulating me?
"Aren't you going to shake my hand?"
"Isn't that something I'm supposed to offer to you?"
Then, sighing, I gave up and just shook his hand so he'd go away.
"I'm gonna go show my dad."
"Great..."

I hung up a picture of my family from graduation and a picture of some of my friends from my trip on the 4th. He saw it and asked me about the pictures. I explained what they were from and he started asking me about the 4th and fireworks...
"I just blew stuff up in my driveway on the 4th. I like blowing stuff up. Can you get fireworks in Chicago?"
"No."
"Really, not even like sparklers or things?"
"We can get small things like sparklers."
"I just like blowing things up. If I ever joined the military, that'd be the one perk, I'd just want to blow stuff up all day. "
"You should do it."
"Well, I would join the coast guard. You don't get to blow stuff up there, but you do get to save lives. Just like this (points at arm from when he gave blood) it's the same thing. Saving lives. Eh? Eh?"
The blood drive again... He just likes to brag about it for some reason.
"I am not amused."
"I'm not trying to be amusing."
He was trying to be amusing. Either that or he just wants me to think he's a really cool dude or something... I was still thinking about my terrifying glimpse into his soul though, so I asked him about his plans for the future, hoping he would say he was actually going to do something with his economics degree... no such luck.
"So what are you going to do after you graduate?"
"What do you mean?"
"Where do you want to work?"
"I'll just keep working here."
"You don't want to get a job in economics? "
"Nah. This is a good job. Not the best job, but I like it here. I usually just stay at jobs until I get sick of them. I never get fired because everyone always wants me to stay because I'm a really good worker. People fight to have me."
"Uh huh... Will you go back to school?"
"Like grad school?"
"Whatever." I was kind of hoping he'd think it might be good to get a CS degree.
"No. As soon as I'm done with school, that's it. Except for the DMV, I am never taking another test in my life. I'm just gonna get married, take my boat out during the week, get a house, nothing real big, cause that's just a waste of heat. Something to fit my needs."
Then his dad walks up. They're going to eat lunch together like they do every day but his dad just says, "Outside."
"Okay.
Creepy...

Later he comes walking by with those obnoxious yellow "Support Our Troops" Magnet ribbons. First off, you find me someone who is not supporting our troops, and maybe then those will be justified. Second, why does Dwight have four?
"Want a 'support our troops' magnet?"
"No."
"You don't support our troops?"
"I don't support little ribbon magnets all over my car."
"No, it's for your computer."
"I certainly don't support magnets on my electronics." Little safety tip here, readers... Don't put magnets near electronics.
He then went on to explain to me that computers are "mostly empty anyways" and that the magnets would not hurt them. Even if that is true, I'd rather not intentionally stick magnets near my hard drive. As a final thought he said, "Ever since my yellow bracelet broke, I've needed a new way to show my support." (Read: ...need a new way to look like a douche bag... I'm sorry. That was uncalled for.)

To end the day I hear him going "Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh." And dragging his feet across the carpet, right into my cube.
"I thought I'd cross country ski into your cube."

Then finally, today, I lost the contest of whose state has colder winters. I told him a little snippet about my personal life, which clearly was a mistake, but here it is so that you're in the know as well...

While I was looking for grad schools, I was really interested in moving to Seattle for school. It just seemed like a neat town and... I was interested, I dunno. Turns out though, there are no colleges that offer a masters degree in electrical engineering in the whole city. Too bad. However, Dwight adds in, "Why didn't you apply to University of Minnesota?"
"Because... I don't want to live in Minnesota."
"Why not?"
"...I didn't think I'd need a reason...okay. Well, the winters are too long, and I didn't just want to move to another place in the Midwest."
"Winters in Chicago are cool right? In the winter you guys in Chicago wear them hats and suits and carry around tommy guns." (I swear I'm not making this up)
"I think you're mistaking winter with the 1920's."

Here's some other questions he asked me about Illinois...
-Do you have lakes in Illinois?
-Does it snow in the winter?
-Do people ice fish in Illinois?

Then he got into how Minnesota is better because the winters are harsher and it stays 20 degrees below zero for three straight months. Oh! And then we played "Agriculture trivia." The question was, "Is wild rice native to Minnesota?"
"I have no idea."
He looked disappointed, but it was okay because Illinois isn't a big agriculture state. Then I explained to him that Illinois is about 80% farmland by my estimation, and I also explained how I never go much farther south than I-80 when I'm there.

"You've never been to the southern tip of your state?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because... it's a 7 hour drive and there's nothing there."

And lastly, he invited me to come back to Minnesota in the winter, I guess to enjoy the sub zero weather with him. To lure me up, he said we could go to a "sportsman show".
"What's a sportsman show?"
"It's like a fishing and boating show."
"I don't fish."
"Do you boat?"
"No, not really?"
"What about a hunting show?"
"I don't hunt."
"A car show."
"Not really that into cars."
"What about hockey. You can come see a hockey game. Do you like hockey."
"It's alright, I guess."
"And you don't have any hockey teams down there. Do you."
"We have the Black Hawks and the wolves."
and then the greatest thing happened. He left.

Blood Drive Day

2007-07-12T21:01:00.000-07:00

I didn't see Dwight yesterday. It was a good day. Well, actually, that was a lie. Not the part about it being a good day, but I think I did see Dwight once before lunch. Secretary girl stopped by to ask if I'd seen him (they eat lunch together), but I had not, and then he stopped by a few minutes later looking for her. Apparently, I am everyone's keeper. I need to get a map of the building and some push pins. Everyone has to check in with me before changing locations.

Moving along...
Today was great. It was blood drive day. There was a little man sitting at a table in the lobby waiting for people to sign up, and the blood drive van was out in the parking lot. Incidentally, I had no idea any of this was happening. I had a lot of work to do, so I decided to just go get something from the cafeteria and eat at my desk. As I was walking into the cafeteria, Dwight was about to walk out. "Awww..." I thought. There goes my productive lunch.

Sure enough, he had lots to tell me. Particularly, "Check it out, man." As he flashed what appeared to a green sweat band wrapped around his forearm. I stared, trying to figure out why I was supposed to be impressed.
"Did you give blood today?"
Then I understood, "Oh... no."
"Are you going to."
"Probably not."
I started to walk away toward the lunch counter.
"You should, man! When you get hurt later today, where are you going to get blood to save your life?"
"From you."

As I left the caf with my meal, I saw some familiar faces sitting at one of the lunch tables, I decided to say hello and be a friendly person and it paid off. They were short one player for their golf team in the company golf league. Coincidentally, I carry around my golf clubs in the trunk of my car year round because once or twice someone asks me to play golf, and when that day comes, I am ready. Not that I'm any good, but I'm ready. This is important for later. Trust me.

Not ten minutes into my lunch, Dwight comes into my cube to chat. I guess he thought I was on lunch so I didn't have to work. Not so, but I decided to take a break anyways. I was feeling chatty today.
He once again made me look at his arm band, which at this point I had figured out was actually a green bandage.
Stops by a little later, shows me the arm band again.
"Do you ever give blood?"
"No."
"You should, it makes you feel good because you lose all that blood and then you get new blood. Your body replaces it all with new blood. "
"I don't think that's true."
"Sure it is, you get all new blood."
"But you lose a bunch of blood first, so you're just back up to status quo. Really, it just makes you feel crappy and then eventually you feel back to normal.
"No, it's new blood. You feel good. Also, you feel good cause you're saving a life."
"Okay, I'll agree with that one."
"Plus you get free cookies and candy and juice. I didn't drink any juice this time though cause I wasn't thirsty. "
"I don't think that thirst is the main issue there."
"Well... I guess it is for blood sugar. I never feel woozy though. I need to lose a lot of blood before that happens."
"That must be handy."
"Yeah, like this one time I was... something something... "
I'll be honest, I zoned out at this point. I noticed my email was up and I got nervous he would see the "my own personal dwight" comment notifcation emails. So I switched to another screen and thought about what I would do if he started to ask about it. I'd have to pull the blog offline immediately. Anyways... I started listening again and he was saying something about cooking or knives.
"...so then the knife slipped and my instincts told me 'pull away, something sharp!' so then I cut my fingers and there was blood dripping down my wrist. I asked my mom for a band aid and she was like 'OOOOhh!' but I was like, it's okay, I just need a band-aid."
I'm assuming the part I missed was that he was cutting up some food or something. Sometimes I just stop paying attention to things though.

Around 3:00pm he came by again to talk about how he gave blood. I managed to sneak in a few "Ask Dwight Week" questions I got, but you'll have to wait until Ask Dwight Week for those stories. Anyways, Newjack walked by and Dwight showed him his bandage.
"Hey, did you give blood?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't do needles."
Newjack did not break stride. He's learning.

Then the guy orgaizing the golf team I was going to be playing on came over to make sure I had all the details, but before he could ask me anything, Dwight asked him if he gave blood.
"No, I've got golf tonight, I can't have sore arms."
"No, man, you don't need both arms."
"Yeah... you do."
"No, you just strap the club to one of your arm and let it rip."
"Yeah... anyways," he turns to me, "did you get all the details for tonight?"
"Oh, yeah, I just need to know where the course is."
Dwight was flabbergasted, "You're playing on their golf team?"
"Yeah they needed a sub."
"Oh man... you wait until the day I give blood to start inviting people to join the team."
Golf guy was not upset that Dwight couldn't play.
"Well, you only need one arm anyways."
That made me laugh.

Later we were talking about guns (again, you'll have to wait for Ask Dwight Week) and I brought up that the only gun I ever planned on owning was the NES light gun. He asked if I had a Nintendo, and truth be told, I do. I got it when I was 20 because my parents never let me have one as a kid so I felt as though I should fulfill that lifelong dream. Let me tell you, it's been awesome. But back to Dwight. He went into a story about how when he was in grade school, his parents said that if he got A's on all his spelling tests, they'd buy him a Nintendo. He did it, and that's how he got a Nintendo as a kid.
"I got it when it first came out, I remember it was in the summer."
"Nintendo came out in 1985."
"No. It was later than that. I remember when it came out, and I was born in 1984."
"Yeah, so was I, but I'm pretty sure it came out in 1985."
Newjack happened to be walking by again. Dwight called him over.
"Hey man, did you have a Nintendo."
"Yeah."
"When did you get it."
"Hmm... we got ours in... 88' I think."
"No it came out later than that, I was in grade school."
"A simple wikipedia search will resolve this," I stated, and then proceeded to look up Nintendo on Wikipedia. The beginning of the article read as follows...
The Nintendo Entertainment System (often referred to as the NES or simply Nintendo), is an 8-bit video game console released by Nintendo in North America, Brazil, Europe, and Australia in 1985.
I don't like to brag, but usually I'm not aware that Dwight and I are having a competion, so therefore, I lose a lot. I have to savor the victories.

Finally, it's the end of the day. He stops by for one more chat, and probably my favorite conversation I've had with his thus far.
"Hey, I told the guy downstairs not to give you any of my blood if you get hurt."
"Good. I don't want it."
"It's pretty good blood, dude."
"I've had better."
"You've had better blood than mine?"
"Sure."
"Well, I've never been hurt bad enough to need to get more blood."
"Then how do you know your blood is good?"
"Well I know it's really good blood because it clots fast."
"But you've never had any other blood."
"So?"
"So you have nothing to compare it to."
"I never needed any other blood."
"Yeah, so how do you know that yours is good. You can't. You have no basis for your comparison."

He had nothing to say to that argument. Ah... I win again.

Ask Dwight Week

2007-07-12T06:59:00.000-07:00

Hello Readers,
A week from Monday I will be departing on a "business trip" to Disney World for some big Intern thing... We'll call it InternCon for now. Anyways, everyone's favorite little scamp, Dwight, will not be joining me and thus I will have no new Dwight stories for you that week (July 23-27).

I figured you would all be saddened by this information, so I decided to make next week "Ask Dwight Week". You can post questions you'd like to ask Dwight as comments to this post, and I will do my best to work them into casual conversation. Then, the posts the week of July 23 will be Dwight's responses to your questions.

There are really no rules as to what you can ask him, but keep in mind that I do have to work your question into casual conversation, so don't make it too outrageous. I encourage you all to think of a question because otherwise I'll look pretty dumb for having posted this.

Take care,
CC

Big Banana, Poor Children, and Galileo's Laws

2007-07-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was a slow day at work. It was right after the 4th, so a lot of the more important people were on vacation. What does this mean? Going out to lunch with Dwight and his friend the secretary! He stopped by my desk around 10:50 and asked me if I wanted to join them. I agreed, but then he said they were going at 11. Dwight is way into early lunch. He's one of those people that tries to go to lunch earlier than everyone else to "beat the rush" even though he borders dangerously on going out to breakfast.

The other exciting news was that Dwight's parents were also away on vacation so he got to take their fancy race car thing car. It was this big dodge something or other and it was yellow and had race car seats and said "The Big Banana" or something on it. It also said "Hemi" on the hood. I sat shotgun.

We got out onto the road and Dwight, of course, floors it. The "hemi" kicks in... or something... I'm not that into cars, I'll be honest, but we sped up fast and the engine sounded like it was working pretty hard.
"Sorry guys. I just gotta do it, you know."
"Hmm."
The secretary girl asks him, "Does this thing have a hemi?"
"Yep. What do you think of it, dude?"
I thought about it for a second and responded, "Yeah... it's really... umm. Yellow."

So we decided on going to a Thai place. I love Thai food. While reading through the menu, the waitress is talking to some people at another table and she must've said something about teaching them something. Dwight was eaves dropping again, and he leans over to me and says, "I'd let her be MY teacher, know what I'm saying?"
"Her?" I asked, indicating the secretary girl.
"No... the waitress! She's cute."
"Oh."
"No, we tried that before and it didn't work out. Put my heart out there. She shot me down," he said, indicating the secretary girl.
"...sorry."
Secretary girl decides to interject, "I'm sitting right here."

We managed to finish our meal without too much more awkwardness. The nice thing about going out to lunch with Dwight and other people is that he tends to leave me alone and instead talk to the other people. Especially if the other people have boobs.

We got the check and I threw in some cash for my food plus the tip, Dwight did the same, but the secretary girl just had a credit card. So, normally, I'd assume she would take the cash and pay with her card, and so did she, but this was far too easy for Dwight. He was like, "Wait wait wait. I gave eleven dollars, you gave ten... and the check is for twenty six... so plus tip.." and he goes on and on like that. I'm not really sure what he was getting at. It was pretty much an even three way split, but he whips out his cell phone to use the calculator.
I tried to reassure him, "It's okay, she'll just take the cash and then pay with her card."
"Yeah, I know, I'm trying to figure out how much she owes." Then he got a little condecending, "It's not a big deal, dude."
"No, it wasn't until you started being a crazy person about it."

We payed and managed to get back to the office, but not without him blasting his hemi... or whatever you call it.
"Sorry guys."
"No you're not. You loved every second of that."

Yesterday he came by while I was doing a wikipedia search on string theory to check some facts I was quoting to a friend. He saw I was on wikipedia and asked me about what I was looking up. I told him and he started talking physics with me. Sadly, I think he's starting to realize he doesn't know as much about physics as I do, so he doesn't try to outdo me. He did start quoting Newton's laws, and how he knew all about those and how great Newton was. Newton was pretty smart, but sadly he was proven to be wrong on a lot of things. I told Dwight this and he was slightly flabbergasted at this fact but then he asked me, "But Galileo's laws are all right, aren't they."
"Galileo's laws?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not sure that there's any such thing."
"But like, if you drop a ball if you're riding a horse it will fall straight down from you."
"Umm. Momentum? Yes. Momentum exists."
And then we somehow got on the topic of the transformers movie. He told me that he heard that it wasn't as good as the old transformers movie. I asked him if he was refering to the cartoon, but he said no. There was an old, live action transformers movie. I looked around the internet for a little bit, but I think that no such thing exists. Anyone know anything about an old live action transformers?

On the topic of movies. Dwight got "Shooter" on Netflix over the weekend and he proceeded to tell me all about how when you shoot a guy from 2200 yards away you have to account for the curvature of the earth and how when it hits their head their whole body explodes and limbs travel 200 feet. I just kinda sat there and nodded hoping that I never need to make use of this information that he was telling me. Oh, also, there's a girl in "Shooter" that "Looks like Jessica Simpson but isn't really Jessica Simpson." It was also apparently "awesome".

The secretary girl walked by my cube and said that Dwight made her stop by to let me know he said hello.

Later he walked by and said, "Working hard?"
"You know it."
Then he saw this as a good opportunity to give me some career advice.
"You're going to move right on up in this company. Keep working hard. You'll be in that big office. You'll do real good if you keep working hard."
Thank you Dwight. It's lucky I have you around to provide such insights.
"You'll be in that big office and I'll be like, 'Hey remember me, we used to hang out when you started here."
"And I'll still say 'you're fired'"

Then, this morning, he asks me, "How was your night?" Which was pretty nice.
"It was alright, I watched a soccer game. You?" (I went to my cousin's soccer game)
"I watched "Hell's Kitchen", there was lots of yelling. It was cool." I think he assumed I was watching soccer on TV but I didn't feel like explaining it to him because last time I told him I had a cousin he asked me if she was hot, to which I responded, "well... she's 13"
Oh, then a guy we work with walked by real fast and through a door, but Dwight caught a glimpse of him and yelled his name real loud, but the guy was already through the door and because he's smart, he did not break stride or turn around.
"Did he get a haircut?"
"I... don't know."

I asked him if he watched the home run derby, last night, you know, cause he's such a big baseball fan.
"Watch the home run derby?"
"No, don't have cable."
"Oh yeah, that's right."
"You know, us simple folk... don't have fancy things like cable... satellite..."
I don't think you're allowed to play the "my family's poor" card if you have a crazy banana, only four thousand of these were made, car. Maybe that's just me.

Finally, this afternoon, around lunchtime, looking out my cube was just as good as watching a sitcom. Dwight walks by...

"Seen Secretary girl?"
"Haven't seen her today."
"She must've gone downstairs to get food."

Secretary girl stops by.
"Have you seen Dwight?"
"He just went looking for you."
(chat about marriage for a while)
"I'd better go find him." So then she left.

Dwight comes back up.
"You just missed Secretary girl."
"I should probably go down and find her. Can I leave my food here?"
"Sure."
"Are you going to eat it?"
"Maybe a little." Don't worry, I didn't though. It was chips and a cookie.

So that's it.

To the person who was directed to this blog after searching for "How to Fist"...

2007-07-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry if you were disappointed.

Illegal explosives, white powder, and slide rules.

2007-07-05T19:18:00.001-07:00

Yeah, that tomorrow morning thing was BS. I was just being lazy, but now I feel like writing again, so you're in luck. I had a delightful vacation. Thank you for asking. I hope you also enjoyed your holiday if you're American and if you're not, I hope your Wednesday didn't suck ass.

I found myself back in my cubicle this morning. It was not my happiest moment. I always have a hard time adjusting to work after a long weekend and today was no exception. Luckily, my RSS feeds had been piling up the last 5 days so that kept me busy for much of the morning. Right before lunch though, the headlining act showed up. That's right, Mr. Dwight himself. He wasted no time in returning to his old act. The five days I had off from him were really quite refreshing so I was ready to dive back in. You know, really get some good material out of him.

"Did you see the chicago fireworks last night?" He asks me.
"No I was driving back here."
The plain fact that I was sitting in front of him should have been evidence enough of that. Maybe they were on TV though. I'll let this one slide. That's not even the funny part. The funny part was that before I could even finish that sentence he buts in and says, "We got the Menards special."
"Ah... what?"
"The Menards special."
"Nope."
"It's a fireworks package you can get at Menards for cheap. But my neighbors, they got some illegal stuff... it was like Dooouuuge. Boom. Dooouuuge. Boom. and there was another one that was like doo doo doo doo, boom boom boom boom, doo doo doo doo, boom boom boom boom."
This was complete with hand motions showing how fireworks shoot off. I'll leave that to your imagination, but in case you need a hint... it's up.
He continued, "I'm surprised the cops didn't come."
I tried to continue the story of my five day vacation, something I assume most people would be mildly interested in. Even if just to humor me, "I saw the Milwaukee fireworks on the third."
"Oh, yeah it was like six would go off. doo doo doo doo, boom boom boom boom. It was called 'the annihalator'."

He then told me about how he likes lighting off fireworks and showed me his hand.
"I still have 10 fingers."

Then I lost a contest of who went to bed later. I went to bed around 11 because I decided to celebrate independence day by sitting in the basement and not talking to anyone. Dwight, on the other hand, had all that firework excitement, then decided to go for a run afterwards at like 10pm. This seemed odd to me, but he's really into this running thing, in case you haven't noticed.

So then he left for a while, but still stopped by toward the end of the day to have a 45 minute chat. He got a new watch he wanted to show me.
"It has a slide rule on it."
"A slide rule, eh?"
His watch had some funny notches around the face of it which could supposedly be used for multiplication and division, and perhaps some higher order math functions. It's not a slide rule, traditionally, but I guess it's a sailor's calculator kind of thing. Dwight only knew how to use it for multiplication.
I told him he should just get one of those digital calculator watches and he laughed and then proceeded to make fun of a guy he knew in high school that had one.
"He'd be like, 'I can calculate any number imaginable on my watch.' What a dork."
"That's pretty much what you just said to me about your watch."

Then Newjack walked by and stopped to say hello and ask me how my vacation was like a real person. I didn't get the chance to answer, though, because Dwight butted in and questioned Newjack's wardrobe.
"Where are your dress pants today? What's with the cargo pants? You think this is casual day?"
Newjack responded, "It's... casual... Thursday." Good for him.
"I think you look nice, Newjack," I said. "Also, Dwight, you're wearing jeans."
"Yeah, but... I wear dress pants and a tie all winter. If I did that now I'd be all sweaty." Then to Newjack, "You wear a lot of golf shirts."
Newjack responded, "Well, I work in a golf pro shop when I'm back at school."
"Oh, what's with the shiny shirts?"
"Which... ones?" Newjack is clearly not experienced with communicating with Dwight.
"I see golfers wearing shiny shirts all the time."
"It's... just a style of shirt."
"Oh, I thought they kept you cooler or something."

Newjack smartly took his leave after that, but I was stuck to continue my conversation with Dwight. He brought up how he hates flying because he doesn't fit in the seats because of his triumphantly long legs. Not wishing to get into that argument again, I asked him about the next time he was going snowboarding. He went on and on about how great his snowboarding trips are.
"I just sit around and drink beer all week."
"You can do that here."
"Yeah, but I also ride powder that's four feet deep."
"I guess you can't do that here."
"Riding powder is like riding on a cloud. Well, not really. It's more like wake boarding but slower, you know?"
"Yeah... no. I don't."
"Well, you used to skateboard right? It's like when you're skateboarding and oyu take a really sharp turn but then slow that down about five times. But you're still going the same speed."
"Ah."
That didn't make any sense to me. Anyone? No?

So that was just today.

I can't wait to see what the next few days hold in store for us.

Post will be up tomorrow morning.

2007-07-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry. I'll get this thing updated tomorrow morning. See you then.

Well this is a first.

2007-06-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

Looking over my notes from the past two days, all I have for you is this: Dwight is buying an iPod.

That's all I talked to him about these past two days. I've been working too much. I'm sorry. However, toward the end of the day, I went back to my desk and sure enough, he stopped by to chat.
"Do you have an iPod?"
You may remember the previous conversation I had with Dwight about iPods in the Modified Pants article. His opinion of iPods at that point was not very high. His opinion on Apple products in general has not been very positive in the past, as a whole, but now he seems very interested in the iPod. Particularly the 80Gig video iPod. Here's a short list of why he likes this particular product:

1) It plays music. Lots of music.
2) You can put movies on it.
3) It allows him to be able to watch movies on the plane.
4) It is easier to navigate through than the Zune.

Now, lets examine some points brought up earlier...

1) "Why would I spend 400 dollars on a video iPod? Ooohh... you can put little videos on it. That's dumb."
2) "You can't use an iPod on a plane anyways."
3) "...I'd make a bid ol' pocket that I can keep my laptop in and put some battery packs on my belt...."

Certainly people are allowed to change their minds, people including Dwight, but I just find this very amusing.

It was actually a pleasant conversation. I told him how you can get software so that you can get music on and off your iPod without using iTunes, I showed him some of the different features on the various iPod models... all in all, I didn't want to murder anyone.

I think this is good. I have alluded to, and several readers have quite astutely pointed out, that I have been rather hostile toward Dwight in the recent past. It's true. He has been wearing on me. However, perhaps after this short hiatus, plus my five day weekend coming up (due to the holiday) I can return with a renewed dedication and entusiasm to my observation experiment. This is my hope.

Also, there will be no update next Tuesday as I will be out of town until July 5th. Have a safe holiday.

Stretching, contests, and the special K challenge

2007-06-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

Ahh, it's been a nice quiet week with minimal Dwight visits. I feel relaxed. Don't worry though. This is not to say I had no contact with Dwight. Simply... minimal contact. This is the ideal situation.

Today he only stopped by once. He felt the uncontrollable urge to shove some papers in my face and yell, "Check it out!"
"Ohh..." I said, trying to figure out why my vision is all of a sudden full of computer printouts. "What'd you do...."
"I'm running a 5K!"
Sure enough. Somewhere on the paper I saw the number 5, and the letter K. Unlike at the end of sesame street, I immediately hated those characters.
"That's a lot of K's." I responded.
"Not really man, it's like... 3 miles..."
"Oh. Are you going to make it?"
"Dude, I got like 14 weeks to train to run 3 miles. If I can't do that, that's pretty sad.
So here is my post conversation reflection: Should I still be impressed? Was I ever supposed to be impressed? Maybe he just... thinks people like to know when he's running? I suppose he does tell me how far he ran the previous night every day. I haven't mentioned that before I think, but for the last week or so he's been telling me "I ran (#) mile(s) last night. It was awesome." Also he's been telling me about his diet. He's on the "Special K Challenge" which doesn't actually sound too challenging, because it involves eating cereal.... and that's about it. Well, if it makes him feel better...

Monday he walks into my cube, says hello, the starts stretching his leg out in front of him and groaning, "Eeeytch..."
I chose to pretend like it wasn't happening. He stretches again.
"YYYYYeeeeeetcchhhh!"
No response.
"Sorry. I just... had to stretch."
"In my cube?"
"My leg hurts."
"Ah."
"I got up in class and went 'Yeeesch' and the guy next to me was like 'whaa?' and I was like 'sorry dude, my leg hurts.'"
"Mmmm."
"I went wakeboarding over the weekend and learned to ride switch and I was jamming this leg down really hard all day."
And then he went on about wakeboarding and I'm bored.

Dwight likes to one up me on things. Things that shouldn't be a contest, I end up losing. Example: We were talking about flying in airplanes and Dwight was complaining about flying coach because there's no leg room. He's about a half inch taller than I am, so I empathised, "Yeah, I know what you mean."
"No, when you're tall, it sucks, dude."
"You're only like half an inch taller than me."
"Yeah, but you're taller in your torso. I'm taller in my legs."
First off, how does he know that. Think about someone about your height. Do you know if their legs are longer than yours? That's weird.
Second, I lost the 'having long legs' competition.
Other contests I've lost: who lives in a city with an indoor baseball stadium; who lives in a city with nicer people; who had longer legs; who can print from more printers; who has gone speed dating; etc. Oh, and how could I forget. I lose at who likes a more realistic sci-fi entity.

I got assigned to a new project. Dwight stopped by to say he was sorry that he wasn't going to be working with me on the project. We don't usually work on the same things, but for some reason he was like, "Yeah, sorry I'm not going to be down there with you."
"Oh, yeah." I'm not sorry about it.
"Yeah... my mom asked if I could get on it too, but I guess they had enough people..."
That's cute.
"Yeah, but it sounds really boring anyways, so.. have fun with that"
Oh, another thing I lose at: Getting assigned to new projects... but they're boring... but he tries to get signed onto them... but he can't. Yeah, I lost at that too.

I guess since I drink water... he now thinks I'm a water enthusiast or something. He stopped by my desk with a bottle of water, drank some and said, "Water, dude. Did you know that water is good for you."
"Really..."
Yep. You gotta drink it every day. I drink like... 4 or 5 bottle of water every day."
I lose again.
"But too much water can be bad for you," he continues. "If you drink too much water. Then it's bad."
"Ah."
"Hey, do you like Star Wars."
"No."
"Really?"
Does he still need to ask?
"Anyways," he goes on, "You know that C-3PO guy? I found something really cool. How would you like to have a life sized rendering of him on your wall?"
"Not... really."
"Really, what about that boba fett guy, or anyone else."
"Well... no. I mean, maybe 15 years ago I would've like that, but I don't really want to start putting life sized renderings of Star Wars characters on my walls."
"Dude, 15 years ago, you were like 8."
"Yes."
"You were into Star Wars when you were 8?"
"You... didn't watch movies when you were in second grade?"
"No."
And he says it like I'm weird. Maybe I'm wrong, but last I checked, most kids watch movies from time to time.

So finally, he stops by at the end of the day, leans in, grabs my shirt pocket and says, "What's this thing?"
"...a pocket?"
"Why is it there?"
"What? So... you can... put things in it."
"Like a pocket protector?"
"If you so choose."
I think this was a vague attempt to mock me, but I'm not exactly sure.

That's all I've got for today, and I've got some other work to get done tonight, so until Thursday! Take care!

Romania, Half a Woman, SHHH!

2007-06-21T17:21:00.000-07:00

The rest of the training class on Tuesday was not much better than the first. Since Dwight has been working at this company for a while, he considered himself something of an expert on the subject matter. He'd add in little comments here and there, ask little pointless questions, and for the most part, just talk. Dwight is the type of guy who asks a lot of questions in class just to hear himself talk. Every once in a while he'd recognize a term or phrase that the instructor, Fake George Lucas, was talking about and Dwight would start bobbing his head up and down like a pidgeon. Fake George Lucas developed a good strategy for avoiding a long drawn out explanation of what he was talking about from Dwight. When Dwight started doing pidgeon head, Fake George Lucas would just say, "Dwight knows about this because he used to work on (blank)." This seemed to satisfy Dwight, and he would refrain from talking...

...To the rest of the class, at least. It seemed that nothing would keep him from talking to me through the whole thing. We broke for lunch, which is where we last met, on Tuesday. While getting lunch, there were some spanish speaking individuals in front of Dwight in line. I was a few people behind him in line, and I was trying to figure out what to order, so I didn't notice that there were any foreign languages being spoken in the cafeteria. This fact did not escape Dwight. He asked if I understood what these spanish speakers were talking about. First off, I usually don't go around listening into other people's conversations, especially if they're in another language. That's just way too much effort. Second, Dwight knows that I never took any Spanish classes. We had that conversation back when I started. I'm guesses he just wanted to impress me with his ability to eavesdrop in more than one language. I let it slip out that I took French in high school, which was a big mistake because if you let Dwight know that you do anything "out of the ordinary" (read: Different than him) he makes a point to let you know that your decision is bad and his is superior. Spanish is the better language because people speak Spanish "everywhere" while French is spoken "just in two countries: France and Canada." I informed him that that is not true. French is spoken in many countries (such as America), but as I could not cite any specific countries for sure off the top of my head, he did not accept my argument. I took a few moments during my lunch break to find this site because I knew I was right, and also because another employee told me that he once sent Dwight a website to prove him wrong and Dwight didn't talk to him for a week. Crossing my fingers, I emailed him the url.

I recieved an email back the next day of countries that spoke Spanish, and while it may be more than those that speak Friench, I don't recall saying that French was more widely spoken, just that it is spoken outside of Canada and France. Anyways, he seems to be talking to me still. Bad for me. Good for you.

The training class provided us with free warm bottled water, which was put into a bucket of ice so that perhaps it would be cold by the time the class was over. Dwight is very excitable about free things, even water, which in generally free from any public drinking fountain or restaurant. I have a pepsi bottle that I usually fill at the drinking fountain by my desk, which Dwight discovered me doing after lunch.
"Dude, there's free water down in the classroom."
"This water is free, too."
"Yeah but...! Dude. It's free."
"This is free."
"When the company gives you free stuff you gotta take it."
"But I already have a bottle and water. That's so wasteful."
"Dude.... free stuff..."
I think I broke his brain.

He made sure to get a free bottle of water and to make a big to do about him opening it up and taking a big swig and whispering to me, "Ahh, that's good." In my continuing effort not to punch him. I ignored him. He poked me, and once he had my attention, he said, "Dude, you need to smile more." Well, I do smile a lot. Mostly around people I don't hate.
"I'm trying to pay attention to the class and not your water drinking extravaganza," I said. Or something like that. I think it may have actually been more like, "I'm busy."

I finally got him to shut up after the instructor mentioned an analog to digital converter type thing that we use in our products. Knowing that I am a trained electrical engineer, Dwight whispers to me, "Do you know what that is?"
"Yes."
"What do they look like..."
"SHHHH!"
That was it for me. I was not going to strike up a converstaion about the specifics of analog to digital converters with him while Fake George Lucas is trying to teach a class not five feet away. I think Dwight finally got the hint because he stopped talking to me for the rest of the class, and that is how I made it through training.

The next day, a new intern started. I promoted "Newjack" to "New guy" in my mind, making this new intern, the new "Newjack". They decided to stick Newjack on the same project that I'm working on so I was showing what I've been doing and helping him get started. Dwight must've gotten a little jealous because he stopped by to blame some menial stuff that was wrong with the company on me such as, "It's too hot in here", "There's not enough room to stand", and "my ice cream is melting." Once he had sufficiently established himself as the Alpha male, he introduced himself to Newjack and told him, "If this guy gives you any trouble, just let me know." Then he sauntered away after giving me a fist pound. The fist pound is funny now. He offers his fist, I just kinda make a fist and hold it out in front of me, then Dwight hits my fist a few times in a manner he sees fit. He walked away and I kinda sighed to myself and then Newjack and I looked at each other for a moment before continuing on with our work. I think he understood.

Then today, I only saw Dwight once. I've been pretty busy with my projects and thus away from my desk occasionally. I think that has been helpful in avoiding him. He did catch me once though and asked me, "Have you ever been on a date with a girl that's never been on a date before."
I thought about this a little, and to be perfectly honest, I don't know. Here's a little dating advice from me: If you're on a date, don't ask your date, "Have you ever been on a date before."
Well, he told me that he has the hots for a Romainian girl that works in the building somewhere and she has not been on a date before. He also told me, "I've dated six or seven girls, seriously." This seems like an odd thing to have uncertainty about. He has seriously dated 6.5 girls with an uncertinty of plus or minus a half of a girl. Perhaps he was unsure if he was seriously dating one of them? I don't know "I mean. I've dated like 25 or 30 girls like just on a date but nothing too serious [in those cases]."
"So are you going to ask out the Romainian girl?"
"I dunno, I think I'll talk to her a few more times, get to know her, then maybe ask her out on Monday."
It just occured to me that when he said 'talk to her a few more times, get to know her' he meant that all of that will take place tomorrow. Tomorrow might be an interesting day.

Anyways, I'll let you know how that goes. No matter what happens, it's bound to be entertaining. I only feel bad for this girl. I feel like I should warn her, but then something about that doesn't feel right either. Maybe they're meant to be togther, and far be it from me to stand in the way of Cupid's arrow.

I don't think my boss put me in this class with Dwight to torture me... but if he did... genius...

2007-06-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

I'm going to have to post this one early. I'm writing during my lunch break. You see, my boss signed me up for a training class that goes all day today. It's an interesting class and I'm learning a lot about what goes on at the company and... you know... my job. The only problem is that a certain co-worker of mine was also signed up for this class. Oh, also the class is taught by this guy I've been calling "Fake George Lucas" because he looks like George Lucas. I found out his real name now, so... it's not quite the same. Oh well. Anyways, Dwight's been driving me nuts. There's only about 15 people in the class, sitting at tables arranged in a U shape while Fake George Lucas lectures. Meanwhile, Dwight is whispering stuff to me the whole time, correcting things Fake George Lucas says, even though they're not really about what Fake George Lucas is talking about... it's bad. I managed to ditch out for lunch saying that I was going to write some emails, and I suppose you could consider this an email to... anyone in the world who wants to read it.

Newjack (whose real name is Michael or something) is a new guy that started last week. I had lunch with him his first day and showed him the cafeteria. He didn't seem to concerned about making friends or being real social, so I immediately liked him. Well, Newjack is in this class as well, so after waiting for Dwight to come up to my "office" so that we could walk back downstairs to the training class, I saw Newjack sitting there in the classroom. I sat next to him, said hello, and he asked me where the Wendy's I go to for lunch is. He drove around looking for it but couldn't find it. I told him real quick but then Dwight decided it'd be a good time to explain again, extremely in depth and much more loudly, where this Wendy's is. Then he left the classroom right before the class started to get some coffee. He told me to let the instructor know he was going to get coffee, as if anyone would care he was gone. No one did.

He got some weird hazelnut coffee and I could smell it as soon as he got back. This fact did not stop him from shoving the cup into my face in the middle of class and saying "smell this". "Yeah, I could smell it fine from where it was."
"It's good stuff, eh?"
"Yeah..."
This was all whispered while Fake George Lucas is lecturing, and I'm trying to take notes.

Oh! Speaking of notes... I wish I would have published this prediction, but the other day I was thinking, "I'll bet Dwight doesn't take notes and brags about how he'll just remember everything." Sure enough, a half hour into the class he sees me writing notes and whispers to me, "All my notes are up here," while pointing at his head.
"Great," I reply.

Why hasn't he taken this class before? He's been working here how long?

So we finally get to break for lunch, which is what I'm doing now. We go to the cafeteria and I get a chicken cesar salad, which is apparently what he got. He says, "Why you copying me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Is that the chicken salad?"
"Chicken ceasar, yeah."
"That's what I got too. You're just copying me. I dunno about you sometimes."
At this point all I could do was just let out a grumbly sigh to keep myself from giving him a silver tounge lashing he wouldn't soon forget.

He tells me that... Cargo? Karnog? Some company that makes soybeans and other food products... anyways, they get discounts at our cafeteria. I had no idea what he was talking about and he got all upset that I had never heard of this company because they're the biggest producer of something and something else. I wasn't really listening. Anyways, he tells me, "You'll care when you're starving to death. Then you'll wish you knew more about (whatever)."
"Well, I don't really plan on starving to death."
"Then... don't... move to Russia."
"Wasn't really planning on that either."
"Then be careful in Chicago. They're gonna starve to death there."
"I think we'll be okay."
Seeing that he was not winning the argument he quickly changed the subject by saying that Chicago is the biggest importer of beef in the world.
"Well, all you guys do in Chicago..."
Here we go...
"...is eat meat all the time. Chicago is the biggest importer of beef in the world."
"Chicago's a pretty big city."
Then he told me something about how that was true because everyone would send beef to Chicago... well, I won't bore you with the details but it's because Chicago is the rail capital of the country so everything that travels by rail probably has to go through there. We were back near my desk at this point so I took my leave. He was upset that I wasn't going to eat lunch with him and his parents, but I reassured him that I'd see him in an hour. That's where we are right now.

As for the last couple days...

I've been pretty busy actually working, and my biggest deterrent has been Dwight stopping by to chat for like an hour at a time. So he's just bumming around my desk on Friday and he tells me that he had a really good dinner from this place called Honey Baked Ham or something like that. They make really good, you guessed it, Honey Baked Ham. When he found out I'd never heard of it he started telling me how good it is.
"Oh man... it's like... the best food in the world. That you'll ever eat."
"Really....
"Well... except... you know..."
I did not know, so I kinda shrugged and guessed, "...candy?"
"No, dude.."
At this point he leans in real close and whispers... 'Gina.
"Oooh kay... I think we're done here."
He got really worried that he had offended me, and apologized and even went so far as to make me shake his hand, which was really strange and awkward. Honestly, I wasn't offended, I just didn't really want to be talking about eating "'Gina" with him while at work... or ever... and I really needed to get back to work. Finally I convinced him that we're still friends and he left.

On Monday we walks in wearing glasses. He's a contacts kinda guy usually but I guess he was at a friend's place over the weekend and used his friend's cheap contact solution... and put his contacts in a shot glass. So when he put them back in it really irritated his eye so now he's wearing glasses for a week. This sucks because he complains about them, and since I wear glasses, clearly it's my fault. He keeps asking me like, "How do you see down?" or to the side or whatever. Try moving your goddamn head. Here's the capstone question he gives me...
"Hey, when you wear glasses, is it supposed to look all blurry down here?" indicating an area around his stomach.
"You mean... where your glasses aren't?
"Yeah."
"How do you see down there?"
"You move your head."
"I never had to do that with my contacts."
"I'm... really not going to argue with you about this."
Luckily he left after that.

He also came up and shook my hand at the beginning of the day. I hope handshakes aren't going to be a regular thing.

Heh, while he was asking me dumb questions about glasses, I see a laser pointer dot on the side of his face. He doesn't notice, but it starts dancing around his head, face, and neck and I just kinda watch and pretend like nothing's going on. After he walks away, I stand up and look around and the guy whose cube is on the other side of Dwights (so it goes [me][Dwight][aisle][this guy]) is standing there. He smiles, and waves at me with a laser pointer in his hand. That made me happy.

Well, I suppose I should finish my lunch and get back to training. No pictures or videos this time, I just don't have the time to do it. More on the second half of my training course and stories from Wednesday and Thursday in Thursday's update. Take care.

Woah, he almost caught me updating the site. Close one. He also didn't believe me when I told him that a quarter to 1 was an hour and 15 minutes after 11:30. He was sure that we're supposed to be back at 1:15. I told him to check my math.

Batteries, Modified Pants, and One Day Cancer

2007-06-14T16:05:00.001-07:00

I have to start out by saying that I almost canceled today's post due to feelings of guilt. You see, I have this unique habit of leaving my car headlights on and running the battery out about once every three months. This has been going on for the last... oh... two or three years. Anyways, my battery was dead when I tried to leave work today, and well, god dammit, I needed a jump. I'm basically an expert at jumping my car at this point, and it would be no sweat off my back at all if only for the fact that I can't jump my car on my own. I need the help of another human being, and OH how that irks me. It irks me raw. I tried calling my uncle who also works with me, but he did not answer his cell phone. So I thought to myself, "What would Jim Halpert do?" Then I sighed, and called Dwight. He drove his Jeep over to my car, popped his hood, and explained to me how jumping a car works, how I should drive the car around for a half hour to charge the battery up, and a few other fun car facts. I wanted to be mad, but hey, he was doing me a favor, so I thanked him, and drove home.

I was GOING to cancel today's post because he helped me out, but then I remembered how he was mocking my friends in some pictures I have hanging in my cube, and I realized that even if he does help me jump my car, he's still kind of a jerk. Anyways. Here's what I've got from the last two days.

I've been struggling with my policy of sitting and nodding while he rants, and as a result I've gotten into a few arguments with him. The one we had yesterday had to do with iPods. I was listening to mine, and he called into question why anyone would buy an iPod. Personally, I got mine to hold music.
"Why would I spend 400 dollars on a video iPod? Ooohh... you can put little videos on it. That's dumb."
"Well, you can watch TV shows and movies."
"Yeah... it's called a TV and a couch. You sit on it, and watch."
"Well... I could never really get my couch onto an airplane."
"You can't use an iPod on a plane anyways."
"Sure you can."
"No you can't."
"Yes... you certainly can."
"Then why do they say 'No electronic devices'?"
"That's only during takeoff and landing, the rest of the time it's fine."
Then he changed arguments, saying that for an extra 200 dollars he could get a cheap laptop and have all the same features and a bigger screen.
"Can you keep a laptop in your pocket though?"
"Can I modify my pants?"
"Uh. Sure."
"Yeah, I'd make a bid ol' pocket that I can keep my laptop in and put some battery packs on my belt...."
"Yeah okay. I think we're done."

The argument we got in today had to do with him calling me a nickname. Now, I'd like to quote The Office really quick... "I don’t want to be, like, a guy here, you know? Like, Stanley is the crossword puzzle guy, and Angela has cats. I don’t wanna have a thing here, you know, I don’t wanna be the something guy." I'm really trying to fly under the radar at this internship, just do my work, and hopefully I'll get to keep doing remote work from Chicago at the end of the summer. I'm not looking for a hopping social life, I don't want to be the something guy. Well, Dwight stopped by today to let me know, as he yelled through the glass on my cube, that I was now to be known as "sick boy". This is because I have a lingering cough from my weekend sickness and thus, I am sickboy. When Dwight gets sick, it never lasts longer than a day. Every disease, he has fought off in only one day. As an example, he says to me, "Remember that time when..."
"You had the one day cancer?"
"No."
Then he went into some stupid story about how he had some weird flu that most people had for a week but he only had for a day, but then it turns out that he didn't just have it for a day, He said he'd wake up with a fever, but then he'd take a bunch of Tylenol and be okay for the rest of the day. That sill counts as being sick! I can have a cough and still be sick but if he wakes up with a fever every day, he has kicked the disease. He's also wearing a wrist guard around work because he thinks he's getting carpal tunnel syndrome. I told him not to worry because it wouldn't last more than a day, but apparently that's not a sickness, it's an ailment, which is different.
"This is an ailment, so you can call me 'Gimpy' but you are sickboy."
"I am not going to call you... Gimpy."

Later he went into a reminicant story about how he used to play a game with his friend where they'd bare knuckle box. "That explains a lot," I said. But apparently they didn't hit each other in the head, they just punched each other's fists until they went numb. I just found that amusing.

So far I've bombarded his cube with 9 staples. Haven't heard anything yet.

Seafood, Qarantines, and Magical Elixers.

2007-06-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've been saying "Dwight's been slowing down on the ridiculousness this time" at the beginning of every post and then each post ends up being 15 pages long. So this time I will not say it, no matter how much or loudly I'm thinking it. I will just continue on and tell you in an honest fashion about what has happened between myself and my own personal Dwight these last few days.

While Dwight did not necessarily say anything too crazy on Friday, we certainly had a crazy afternoon. He somehow obtained a $20 gift certificate to Red Lobster and decided that he wanted to take me out to lunch. Well... sorta... I still had to pay for part of the food since you can't really feed two people at Red Lobster for under $20 unless you're really trying. Anyways, this on top of the fact that he was taking me to a Twins game the next week for free was all starting to feel very familiar... like I had done vaguely similar things with someone else in my past... ah yes! Every girl I've ever dated. Why is he taking me on dates? I don't know. Anyways, we go to Red Lobster, I had never been before. Gotta admit, it wasn't half bad. I don't have any notes about what we talked about but as I recall... okay time out. There are some kids hiding under the porch I'm currently sitting in. Neighbor kids, you know. Here's an excerpt of what I can hear.

"Once I see a bug I'm out of here"
*Rocks rustling*
"Ow, this rock is sharp"
"I think we're supposed to be running"
"Do you see any bugs?"
"I'm leaving"

Okay I guess they're gone. They politely asked me if they could hide under the porch before they went scurrying under there. Nice kids. Sorry for the interruption.

Where was I? Ah yes, as I recall, I just wasn't in the mood to listen to him talk, so I rambled on about my life for a while. Pretty boring stuff. That was about it for Friday. He had work to do and I ditched out early. Oh, he did stop by my desk around 4pm and stretched and said, "Ahhh... that was good."
"What did you do?"
"Lunch, dude. It was good."
"Yeah... that was like 3 hours ago."
I just didn't think that you could refer to something that happened 3 hours ago as "That" so casually and expect everyone to know what you're talking about. He could've done any number of "good" things in that time.

Over the weekend I got pretty sick. Just some freak Minnesota cold, but I ended up sleeping through most of the weekend. The point is, being the opportunist that I am, I took this plague cold as a gift from God and on Monday I coughed and sputtered out to Dwight that I was too sick to go to the Twins game with him and his parents. That is why I am currently at home writing this, and not trying to kill myself in the Metro Dome.

After he found out I was sick, he refused to fully walk into my cube. Instead he could crouch down behind the window part of it and yell at me like I was in some kind of quarantine. This was A-OK by me. I discovered that in addition to calling him out on a fact he made up, a way to get him to stop talking to you for a while was to become diseased. He perhaps has some kind of a fear of diseases. This is also something that differentiates him from Classic Dwight from NBC's the office. Classic Dwight has a perfect immune system.

In spite of his own clearly flawed immune system, he took the opportunity today to tell me to "get an immune system" because I had been "sick for 4 days". This was, of course, yelled at me through a pane of glass, so the message's effectiveness was somewhat lost upon me. He tried to make me jealous by informing me that he had another friend that he was taking to the Twins game and I couldn't even go anymore if I wanted to. That was fine by me, I told him I'd rather go home and sleep. He made some joke that I'd be falling asleep on his shoulder, perhaps to suggest that I was gay? It was more subtle than his normal approach so I couldn't tell.

Anyways, I guess this guy he's been friends with since preschool was going with him. (there's a kid hiding in the porch with me, Just sitting here, being quiet. Nice kid.) Apparently this guy just moved back to the area after college. Now, why would Dwight invite me to this game instead of his old friend from forever ago that just recently got back into town? Does he feel sorry for me? Like I don't have any friends? I sure hope not, but if he does it'll be another victory for my disinformation campaign. Well... not really since I actually don't have any friends... anyways.

Lightning round.
-Should be drinking a gallon of orange juice a day.
A gallon. Really?
-He went to lunch without me, but I can cry under my desk if I need to.

-Why am I drinking sprite? I should be drinking orange juice, which is apparently some kind of magical elixir that cures all diseases. Got a cold? Drink some orange juice. Broken leg? Drink some orange juice. Got lupus? Just have some orange juice. Suffering from scurvy? Have... well... actually then you really should have some orange juice.
sick forever
-He asks me, "Can i borrow your computer so i can have two at my desk?" No.
-My last note from today, verbatim -->"Something about vitamin C and Vietnam boats. They got their little boats like Kennedy was on and they shoot machine guns. become a doctor someday and you'll learn all about that."

And then at the end of the day I really hit the jackpot. He asks me if I had any Axe at my desk. No. I do not keep Axe at my desk. Nor do I own Axe. Well... he's freaking out for like 10 minutes because he can't find his Axe body spray. Finally he goes to his car, finds it there, and bring it back in with him. Then he shows me like I'll be excited or something.
"Found it dude."
"Cool... now you can... smell like an Axe"
Then he stopped walking by my cube, turned around real slowly and came INTO my cube PAST the quarantine zone and I'm thinking "oh shit, what have I done" but he just wants me to smell his Axe. It smelled like Axe.
"Yeah, with this stuff, the chicks will be all over me."
"So I was lead to believe by an advertisement I once saw."
"Yeah... still waiting for it to start working..."
Sad.

Shock and Awe

2007-06-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

Today Dwight threw some mayo at me.
This injustice will not stand.
Let the bombing campaign begin.

Public schools, real Italian leather, and falling off balance beams.

2007-06-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

I told Dwight that I went to Catholic school in high school and grade school. This intrigued him.
Dwight: Did the nuns whack you?
Me: No... I didn't go to Catholic school in the 1960's.
He went to public school and, like most things he does, he was very proud of it and convinced that it is the best thing ever. I made some joke about how I know how to divide now thanks to my private education, but he didn't get it.
Dwight: I know how to divide too! I learned lots of things in private school. I learned how to watch a fight.
Me: How to watch a fight? Really?
Dwight: Yeah, you just take a step back, and yell "Fight!" (Then he threw his fist in the air)
Me: Maybe you could convince some people here to fight. Then you could get a chance to make use of your education.
Dwight: In public school... I learned how to swear. I learned... what pot looks like.
Truely, I missed out on a lot of great stuff.

He somehow got free tickets to a Twins game and he wanted me to go with him. I don't like to make snap decisions about such things, so I told him I'd look into it and tell him the next day. He continued to bug me about it for the rest of the day, which was, annoying... to say the least, but I held my ground. I needed to sleep on it. He accused me of being too serious all the time, which gave me an idea, but more on that later. I told him it was too early in the morning for laughter.

The idea that popped in my head is that I've managed to create a whole new persona for myself to Dwight. He seems to think that I'm an overly serious, work-a-holic kinda guy who doesn't have any experience with dating or women. This isn't about me though, but lets just say that he's a little off. Maybe it just makes him feel good to think he's better than me. I don't know. Anyways, he's taken to giving me dating advice from time to time. He seems to think that dating and having girlfriends is the one and only measure of a person. I say this because a nice man stopped by my cube once while Dwight was there and chatted for a minute before he went to lunch. He seemed nice, but Dwight apoligized for the fact that the guy came and talked to us.
Dwight: That guy is... weird. (Irony?)
Me: Really? He seemed nice.
Dwight: I went out to lunch with him once. He was making dumb jokes and acting silly the whole time. He doesn't date many girls, you know.
Me: Mmm... yeah...
Dwight: Girlfriends are good, Mike. Remember that.
Me: I will write that down.
Dwight: Except they cost a lot of money...

So he stops by right at the end of the day. I was working on something so he knocks on my cube wall and says, "The British are coming."
Me: *Still reading something on my computer* The... British?
Dwight: Yep.
Me: That's... not so much a problem these days, is it?
Then he once again accused me of being too serious all the time. I thought that was pretty funny! He just doesn't get smart humor.

He then started complaining that his shoes were uncomfortable. He has to wear the gel inserts in the heels or else his feet really hurt. I got these really comfortable work shoes, made by Born, and I told him that. They were a little expensive, but it's like wearing slippers all day. They're really fantastic, I reccommend them to anyone. Anyways, after I told Dwight how much I paid for them he was flabbergasted.
Dwight: Is that real Italian leather?
Me: Hell... I don't know.
Dwight: There are Italian leather, and they cost just as much as yours.
Me: Yeah, but... they kill your feet. These are like slippers.
Well, he can't be wrong. So my shoes suck. What's with him and Italians?

Then today happened. I couldn't think of a good reason not to go to the game with him. I figured it'd give me a couple of good stories. So I told him I'd go. He was happy. He forwarded me an email from who he got the tickets from. It was to his dad (who also works with us) and basically, his dad got 4 tickets from a friend who wasn't going to use them, then sent Dwight an email that said "Find a guest". Dawwww! Dwight! He failed to mention that we were going to the baseball game with his parents! Geez. The things I do for my art. I told my friend Jen about it on the IM and she had the following to say...

me: man, i'm way too nice
Jennifer: yes you are
or maybe you are just really bored and unfortunately dwight has baseball tickets

He came back over and I asked him how his night was. It was... not exciting, but he did watch some scrubs.
Me: Scrubs is a great show.
Dwight: You like scrubs?
Me: Yeah, it's really funny.
Dwight: The only thing I don't like about it is how much of a girl JD is. If that were me, I wouldn't be like that. I'd be cool, and Dr. Cox and I would be buddies.
Me: I dunno. Dr. Cox kinda hates everyone.
Dwight: No, not me. We'd be buddies. He wouldn't hate me. No one hates me!
I was going to tell him about how I spent a lot of time watching scrubs the last few months, but that rant totally derailed me. I just kinda made a noise like a deflating tire and we stared at each other for a few moments. He turned and stared at the Minnesota Twins poster that was haning in my cube that he gave me. It had some of the better twins players featured on it and he points at it and says, "I don't see any White Sox players on there."
"On the Twins poster."
"Yeah."
Uhh... sure.

Lighting round!
-He was about to leave and wanted to do a fist pound. I went for the up down pound approach, but he was just going to go for the straight fist pound. He then decided this would be a good time to teach me how to fist pound. He walked me through it. He knows how to do it right. He learned how from a black man.
-I heard him walking by and telling someone about how he took gymnastics as a kid but quit really fast becasue he kept falling off the balance beam.
-He somehow got his hands on a $20 gift certificate for red lobster. So he asks me if I like sea food. It's alright. So he insists on taking me out to lunch at red lobster tomorrow. This is getting weird. Am I dating Dwight? I think after the baseball game I'm going to have a blanket, "no hanging out with Dwight outside work" rule in effect.
-Monday will be fun because it will mark the beginning of my staple bombing campaign. I share a cube wall with Dwight and I've long felt I need to capitalize on that. My plan: occasionally throw individual staples over the wall. They're small enough not to notice at any given point, but when there's 300 staples lying around your desk. You'll know.

"At that moment I was just, so happy...

2007-06-05T17:09:00.000-07:00

...I mean, everything Dwight does annoys me... and I spend hours thinking of ways to get back at him. But only in ways that would get me arrested - But then here he comes and says, he say, 'No, Jim - here is a way.'" -Jim Halpert

I can really sympathise with Jim. Dwight has taken to taunting me and calling my manhood into question. This is not to say that his old antics have gone away, it's more that he's just added some new songs to his repitoire. When this starts to get to me I just think of my new WWJD philosophy. That's right, What would Jim Halpert do? The answer is usually "Stare blankly, nod, and tell Dwight he's wrong. If he isn't wrong about anything yet, ask him to continue to expand on whatever subject he's discussing until he makes something up."

He was on vacation last Thursday and Friday and finally returned on Monday. It was a fishing trip with his uncles or cousins or both. I'm not really sure, he didn't mention too many of the specifics. Anyways, he swung by my cube to let me know that he had been drinking all weekend. I was supposed to be impressed, I think, by this fact. He informed me that while on vacation he would drink about 15 drinks each day. That's no small amount, for sure. Clearly he is quite the man. He stopped by later in the day, looking rather tired and said to me, "That trip would have destroyed you." I asked him if he was calling me out. He said no, but then he also let me know that his 15 drinks were spread out between 8am and whenever he went to bed. I usually try to let Dwight's stories speak for themselves, but at this point I'd just like to point out that as a man who spent the last 5 years living in the "drunkest city in the nation", I've seen better alcoholics than him.

I had to skip lunch because... well... I was working. Imagine that. It's not that I didn't eat lunch, I just didn't eat lunch at 11:30am. Dwight couldn't wait, so he went without me. I... wasn't too broken up. I worked probably 8 and a half hours on Monday. There was just a lot of stuff I wanted to get done and since there's not much going on at home, I wasn't in a huge rush. Dwight stopped by and asked me, "So, do you think you're better than everyone? Working so much?"
"No... I was... working."
"You know you don't get overtime right?" (I'm not sure if that's true, but I still have to check on it)
"Sure..."
"So why are you wasting time here?"
"Well, I figured I'd go home early later this week."
"You should come in late."
"Why?"
"Sleeping in is better than leaving early."
"I think I'd rather leave early."
"No. Sleeping in is better."
Apparently, sleeping in is better than going home early. This is just what I hear.

Tuesday was a doozie! I should point out that I share a cube wall with Dwight. I came in and sat down at my desk, started doing some work, then I heard some fussling from Dwight's cube. I look up at our shared wall and I see his fingers curled over the top. Then, very slowly, his thumb comes over the top and I see the top of his head start to peek over. I turn, lean back in my chair, and stare at where his eyes are sure to appear any second. I think he caught on though, because he very slowly sat back down again. That... may have been the weirdest thing I've ever seen. He waited about five minutes and came over to my cube to accuse me of not working. "You're not working, you're just staring at the screen!" I'm not sure, but he may think he's the boss of me. He may also be spying on me.

He picked up my keys... for some reason... and started playing with my C-3PO key chain. You know, making him walk across my desk and talking like C-3PO. Then he told me that Data from Star Trek would beat C-3PO in a fight. Hmm... What would Jim Halpert do?
"Yes. That's probably true"
"...Cause Data is built like a real person."
"Mmm hmm."
"...And if he's in water, he can be used as a flotation device."
"Very useful."
"Did you know that the real C-3PO was plastic?"
"I should hope so. Someone had to wear that costume all day."
"The storm trooper helmets were plastic too."
"Once again, costumes."
"Why did they make them plastic."
"Hmm... I'm not sure. I could call George Lucas for you." (Interesting aside. One of the men that works with me looks just like George Lucas. Graying beard and hair, wire frame glasses, neck that looks like toothpaste being squeezed out of the tube that is his shirt. Just like him. I'm not sure what his name is, but I've been calling him Fake George Lucas. I suppose we could've asked Fake George Lucas why storm trooper helmets were made of plastic, but I have a feeling he wouldn't know.)
Anyways, he went into another explanation of why Star Trek is better than Star Wars, and I'd like to point out that I haven't argued with him yet, so I'm not sure why he keeps feeling as though he needs to convince me. But I digress, Star Trek is apparently better.

A friend of mine sent me an article that claimed that Star Trek like "beaming" of matter could be made possible soon due to advances in quantum entanglement. The article was pretty far fetched and... well... wrong, but I shared it with Dwight cause I thought he'd enjoy it. Well, he informed me that teleportation was at least 2000 years away, but deep space travel was right around the corner. Now, I took a couple of astrophysics classes in college. I'm no expert, but I'd say I know a thing or two. Maybe a little more than the average Joe. We got into a little argument about solar radiation and how you get cancer if you're in space for too long without the protection of the Earth's magnetic field. He told me, "Nah, this space travel stuff, if you really want to know about it, you gotta go talk to (so and so) over there. He's..."
"Dude, I minored in astrophysics in college."
"Oh. Did you major in it?"
"...what? No."
"Well, that's not... a major... then."
At which point he walked away real quick. I figured out that if you can call him on something he's making up, he retreats, either physically or by changing the subject. This is great information.

I did some research on the dangers of deep space travel, in case I needed something to talk about during lunch, but there was no need. He just took the ball and friggin' ran with it. It was bad. I was getting pretty annoyed, but it was so ridiculous. Since we're running a little long here, I'll do a lighting round rendition of what we discussed at lunch.

-Dwight is Catholic, I am also Catholic, this makes us better friends...?
-Dwight would not want to be a priest or a Cardinal.
-Dwight doesn't want kids because he wants to go snowboarding. Snowboarding is dangerous and he wouldn't want to die if he has kids. Unless he took out a big life insurance plan, then he could go off and die all he wants. No problem. I pointed out to him, "But then... you'd be dead." "Oh yeah." Not such a great plan.
-He once again accused Chicago of being overrun with gangsters and Al Capone. He confessed to always wanting to join a Mob and have people fear him. He doesn't want to kill people, just rule over them. Too bad there's no more mobs around. He could join one is Sicily though. Do I know where Sicily is? Yes. I do.
-He is fond of a show on Channel 4 that plays on Saturday nights (think about why this is sad for a moment. Got it? Moving on) that's called Masterminds. It's apparently about good heists and how the heisters pulled them off. Dwight claims that they all had good plans but made simple mistakes. Mistakes that he wouldn't have made. At which point he told me the three best ways to rob a bank, what the original robbers did wrong and what he would do that would make the plan work.
-I ordered a cup of Wisconsin beer cheese soup for lunch and he accused me of drinking during lunch. I informed him that alcohol boils off at a low temperature so there was nothing to worry about. News to him! He formulated a plan to boil his tequila before the next drinking contest he got into. That way he could drink a whole bottle and not get drunk. I can only assume that he gets into a lot of drinking contests.

Finally, at the end of the day, he stopped by to make one more attempt to insult me. He told me that what I was doing was not Electrical Engineering work.
"How so?"
"It's computer science work."
"How so?"
"You're using oracle" (I'm not a big CS guy, granted, but I don't think I am using oracle, I let it slide though)
"You can't use oracle for electrical engineering?"
"How would you do that?"
"Well. Currently I'm keeping track of all of our power stations, transformers, and transmission lines."
"No.. well.."
Having been called out, he changed the subject. He pointed to a picture I had hung up in my office of my friend Jen and I in which I'm kissing the side of her head.
"Is that your first kiss?"
"Hmm... Yeah, I'm not going to discuss that with you here."
Then he left.

It was a long day.

...on baseball, boobs, and spitting in cups.

2007-05-31T08:45:00.000-07:00

Dwight is on vacation today. He went fishing up north and won't be back until next week. This is a good thing though, because I'm all Dwighted out for the week. You see, back on my first or second day here in the office, he found out that I am a white sox fan. He invited me to go to a Twins/White Sox game with him at the metro dome. Since I had never been to the metro dome and also had no other plans for the next 14 weeks, I agreed. Well, that fateful night was last Tuesday. The real shame about the night was that I couldn't take notes right in front of him and thus I have forgotten most of the things we talked about. Anyways, I had started to get used to Dwight and even warm up to him a little the week before, so when we went out to dinner at TGI Fridays, I was having an okay time. He creepily hit on the waitress who was a good sport about it. I made sure to give her a good tip. At one point, he told me his philosophy on dating which is as follows, "I am interesting in anything with boobs and a pussy... unless they're weird, or ugly... or fat." He's a classy guy. Anyways, I began to get worried because he was really really excited to be hanging out and told me that he never gets to hang out with guys. I now am his only dude friend, possibly his only friend, and he's starting to want to hang out a lot more.

We got to the metro dome and the White Sox got killed which kinda put a damper on the night for me. In addition to that, Dwight was criticizing my every move during the game. "How come you didn't stand up and clap when your team scored? Everyone who likes the twins stands up and claps when we score a run."
"Well, it just happens so often that the novelty wears off. I can understand how you would get excited if you never really see any points up on the board."
He also asked me, "Is he going to walk this guy?" Every time a pitcher threw a ball, and at one point told me "Two strikes is an out."
"No, I believe that three strikes is traditionally an out."
"Yeah, but two strikes can be an out at the next pitch."
"It can also be a hit, or a walk, or any number of things."
"Yeah... well..."

Let's see... What else can I remember? Oh! I convinced him that they were giving away free tequila at a vendor's station that was selling margaritas. That was fun. He also really wanted me to get some ice cream the whole time we were there. I dunno why. I think he wanted the tiny helmet the sundae's come in. He got one. I didn't want ice cream. It just doesn't go very well with the peanuts and beer I already had.

The rest of the night was him discussing how the metro dome was superior to outdoor parks. In any case, by the time the night was done, I had more Dwight than I knew what to do with. I was happy to get home.

Oh, I almost forgot, it was raining as we left and we got into his jeep and were leaving the parking lot when a couple of creepy looking women walk in front of the car. He says "Yeah! Wet T-shirts!" and one of the creepy looking women blows him a kiss. Seriously, she looked like one of those women who's 42 but still dresses like she's 16. It's a clever ruse, and it apparently tricked Dwight because he was beside himself for the rest of the ride home. That's when he told me his, "I'm interested in anything with boobs..." theory.

So that was my night with Dwight. Here's the rest of my notes from last week.

-Dwight claimed the title "Windy City" for Minneapolis because I informed him that it was not very windy when I went back to Chicago last weekend. Apparently it was windy here, thus our title has been rescinded.

-He told me about a show he watched where people had a contest to see who could build the best self driving car. Dwight had a much better idea than anyone who was actually on the show: use a GPS tracker. When I inquired as to how the car would actually be driven he said he would build a superintelligent robot like one that is on Star Trek (whose name I think is data? Any star trek fans out there?). This superintelligent robot would be able to drive the car, and clearly would be easier to build than any of the self driving cars on this tv show.

-Speaking of Star Trek, I got another lecture as to why it is better than Star Wars. Dwight has never seen Star Wars and doesn't understand why everyone is sneaking around and killing people. He also thinks that Star Trek is more realistic, but we've been over this before. He began a sentence with, "I think Star Trek is cooler..." to which I responded, "I don't think either of them are cool."

-He offered to show me where I can get free ice and water like it was some big deal. I asked him where such a treasure could be found. Turns out, it was from the ice machine and the water cooler.

-I managed to freak Dwight out a little for a change. He was going to the washroom, which is near my desk, which means it's also near his desk since it's right next to mine. Anyways, he stops in my cube and asks if he can leave his cup of ice on my desk while he uses the washroom. I tell him sure and he asks me not to spit in it. Seeing an opportunity for some fun I respond, "I make no guarantees." He's a little off put by this.
Dwight: Are you going to spit in it.
Me: I haven't decided yet.
Dwight: Seriously.
Me: Okay... I won't.
Dwight: Promise?
Me: Yeah
At this point he starts to walk away and I begin clearing my throat as though I'm going to generate a giant wad of spit in my mouth. He immediately comes back and takes the cup with him. That was fun.

-Finally, last Friday we went out to lunch cause that's "go out to lunch day" around here. While dining at the all you can eat pizza buffet he brought me to, he began to inquire into my personal life. "Do you have a girlfriend?" and the like. I started to go on about how I was single but perhaps when I returned to Chicago I'd meet a nice girl and take her bowling. He was pretty appalled by this A) because he doesn't like bowling and B) because there are, and this is a direct quote, "Other things you can do with a girl besides bowling." I began to suspect he was going to lecture me about dating so I decided to play dumb.
Me: Really? Like what?
Dwight: Well... you can go for a walk... hold hands... maybe you could kiss her...
Me: Woah. Woah. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here!
Dwight: Have... you ever had a girlfriend?
Now, I really should have kept the act up, but I began to worry that he would explain the birds and the bees to me and I just wasn't ready to have that kind of talk with him over lunch. So I had to concede... Yes, yes Dwight, I have dated a few girls in the past. He went on for a little while about what it's like to have a girlfriend because... I dunno, maybe he didn't believe me, but eventually he stopped and focused his efforts into making me try the dessert pizza. I just wasn't really that interested in desserts at that point in time.

So that's all for this week. I'll have some more for you next Tuesday. Have a nice weekend.

Site updates

2007-05-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

Well... my laptop has gone kaput on me and I may be without it for up to 2 weeks while it's repaired. That means that I'll only be able to update this while I'm actually at work, and generally, that's frowned upon. I'll see what I can do though.

Even before the laptop went out on me, I began to think that I should probably only update this twice a week because I'm liable to spend a couple of hours every night on it otherwise and that will take away from time I could be spending on other projects... like being a normal human being. So from now on, updates will be on Tuesday and Thursday or until I decide that I want to change the update schedule.

Finally, I turned comments to "on" so feel free to comment.

Summary
-Laptop broke, updates might be few and far between for the next two weeks or so.
-Site will ideally be updated on tuesdays and thursdays.
-Commenting is allowed now.

See you tomorrow. Hopefully.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

2007-05-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

Dwight has been busy working, which means much less time to come sit in my cube and talk. I didn't see him until almost 10am this morning, which is odd because he usually shows up somewhere between 3 and 10 minutes after I sit down. Worry not, though, dear reader, for I eventually met up with our hero and gained a few more nuggets of wisdom from him.

-He stopped just outside my cube and examined my name plate. He asked me if I go by Michael or Mike. I usually go by Mike, but I thought it'd be a good idea to give him some creative licence if he was looking for it. So far, he has not, but I like to give him some options. Anyways, as an interesting aside, Dwight's name is not actually Dwight. I have changed it in order to protect the innocent. His real name has multiple syllables and it usually shortened to a nickname, similar to how people call me Mike instead of Michael, but do not shorten his name. He hates it. He does not understand why people would want to shorten their names and finds it to be stupid.

-He gave me a Minnesota Twins poster when I started because he found my cube to be boring and decided that I needed some decoration. After a day or two, he eventually hung it up for me as well. Before lunch he was sitting in the extra chair in my cube, waxing philosophic that my buddies back home would be pretty mad if they say a Twins poster hanging in my cube.
"Mmm... probably not. I dunno."
This led into an explination of why the Twins are better than both Chicago baseball teams and also the Bears. It all boiled down to one simple factor: Indoor stadium. For it is stupid to go watch a football game in the snow. He can enjoy his football games in a comfortable heated dome. After all, even the White sox got snowed out 5 or 6... or 1 time(s) this year already.

-We stood in silence for a few moments waiting for the elevator, but not for long. Dwight soon broke said silence with this statement: You should come up sometime in the winter to see a... (and at this point I was pretty sure he'd say football game) Monster Truch Rally.
Me: A monster truch rally... really?
Dwight: They are awesome.
Me: What happens at a monster truck ralley.
Dwight: Its a bunch of big trucks, flying through the air, crushing things, and causing destruction to everything including themselves.
He then recounted a tale from the last monster truck ralley he attended in which Gravedigger (i think) landed on its back axel, flipped over, and after being righted, leaked gasoline everywhere. Truely it was the action event of the decade.

-After lunch his presence was once again scarce, and I started to worry that I had started this site prematurely. Perhaps he was not going to be ridiculously entertaining for the rest of the summer. My fears were quieted toward the end of the day when he stuck his head in my cube and asked, "Hey, are you Irish?" Oh yes, yes I am. He left, but I was quite sure that he would let me know everything that he knew about the Irish eventually. True to form, he stopped by at the end of the day and asked me, "So, do you eat a lot of cabbage?"
"No, Dwight, I'm not really a big fan of cabbage."
"Really? I thought all Irish people just ate cabbage all the time."
"No... not really."
"What about potatos?"
"Yes, I eat potatos from time to time. In various shapes and forms. They're good for you, you know."
"Except they're full of starch."
"And vitamins! My people survived off of them for a long time."
"Yeah, after they figured out what part to eat."
"They... what?"
"Have you ever heard of the potato famine?"
"...yes. I am familiar with the potato famine."
"Do you know why it happened?"
"Because... there was an outbreak of a plant disease that killed most of the crops..."
"No, because they were eating the green parts of the potato and you can't do that."
"I'm... not sure that's true..."
Hopefully, like the city of chicago, he will have some more crazy preconcieved notions about Irish people.

-So it's the end of the day, I'm happy we had our conversation about the Irish, but then he one ups himself. He tells me it's only about 57 degrees outside.
"Oh, I'm glad I bought this sweatshirt then."
"In Minnesota, this is... run around... without a shirt on kind of weather."
"You don't say..."
"Does it ever get this cold in Chicago?"
"57 Degrees? Yes. Occasionally."
So... to update on my previous post. I'm now going to have to say that his mental image of present day Chicago is more likethis.

and that was the end of another day with my own personal dwight.

Wednesday, May 23

2007-05-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

I started a summer internship last week. Upon arriving, I was introduced to a young man who was to be my co-worker. He showed me around and invited me to lunch and over the next few days would stop by to chat for a while. I immediately realized that he was weird. While initially annoyed, I quickly realized the opportunity for an experiment. He struck me as quite "Dwight-ish" (in reference to the character from NBC's The Office) and I decided to observe him and record our conversations. The details of our initial conversations are outlined elsewhere but I thought that a separate blog would be beneficial to the experiment. So, without further adieu, here are today's conversations...

Today was a pretty slow day as far as conversations with Dwight go, which is a shame because it's the debut of "My Own Personal Dwight". I think he actually had work to do today, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that today is the exception and not the rule. Anyways...

-Not two minutes after sitting down, Dwight appeared at my cube. He mocked my small cup of coffee claiming that he is unaffected by caffiene. As an example, he offered up a Dwight fun fact: He can drink an entire case of Mountain Dew and not feel any effects of the caffiene. He would also promtly throw up, but that is not the point.

-Before lunch, he criticized my choice to drive a Toyota because it is a Japanese car. He prefers cars that he can read what's written under the hood, and he can not read Japanese. I'm going to have to check on this, but I'm pretty sure that there's English writing. I'll let you know how that turns out. Anyways, he informed me that I should buy an American made truck because "what if you need to haul your boat around."
"Well, I don't have a boat."
"Really, people in Chicago don't buy boats?"
"Some people do. I do not own a boat."

-Which brings me to my next point. I didn't know that there were so many preconcieved notions about people in chicago, but I've been learning a lot about the city's public image. First off, he has asked me in the past if Al Capone is still running the city. I didn't know for sure at the time, but I checked wikipedia today and as it turns out, Al Capone died in 1947. He has also been pressuring me to buy salami sandwiches at lunch because "don't people in chicago eat a lot of salami?" He also asked if there are a lot of Italins. I'm beginning to think that his mental image of the present day city looks something like this.

-He then informed me that hemi's are the best kind of truck, and that I should get one.

-Dwight drives a jeep.

He asked if he can come visit me when I move back to Chicago. Naturally I said yes, but we'll see if it ever happens.