Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 18 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Check it out at http://mynzadventure.wordpress.com

You won’t be disappointed!

Love always,
Mel

P.S. When this adventure is over, you can bet this will be back in action

No - not wrestling

Second order of business. At the gym this morning, I literally caught myself staring at this one gentleman with my mouth agape and a pool of drool forming at my feet. Why? Because I literally could not rip my eyes away from the absurdity that was his lifting. It reminded me of the “I lift things up and put them down” guy only seriously lacking any form of muscle. He basically wanted to be that guy without having any of the necessary bodily components to do so. Here is what I mean:

He was partaking in the bench press. Besides squatting, this is the ultimate display of manliness in the gym and/or life. The more you can bench, the more of a man you are. Don’t believe me? See how often (if the conversation of lifting comes up in a discussion between men) you notice the topic of benching or squatting come up in discussion, and aditionally if there is a numerical figure thrown in. Sometimes this will be followed by an insult if one man’s number is particularly low, i.e. “bitch”. I digress…

So, this man was benching. He was DRENCHED in sweat, and as I recall I didn’t see him involved in any serious sweat-producing cardio, nor any other rigorous lifting activities. He had far too much weight on the bar. How do I know this? Not because I can look at a person and analyze how much they should be capable of lifting, but because watching him try to raise the bar was like watching Atlas try to lift the world after binge-drinking all night at a ripper thrown by the Gods. It was a struggle, to say the least.

Not THIS bad, but point made

I watched his feeble reflection in the mirror as I held my own weight motionless in awe and, it was at that moment, I feared for his life. I quickly planned out the best route to his body incase I had to perform an emergency rescue and help lift the potentially fallen bar off of his tiny chest. I watched his last rep as it unfolded and I felt as if the entire gym was watching with me. They probably wouldn’t have been paying attention if it were not for the noises coming out of this man’s mouth. Imagine what the pipes in the boiler room of the titanic sounded like as it was breaking in half. That was this man. So, everyone watched as he lifted, and pushed, and wheezed, and pushed some more, and shook, and turned red, and finally got the bar back on the rack. Part of me wanted to throw my weights to the ground, run to him in jubilation, and give him a killer high-five. More of me wanted to take my weight and throw it at his face for scaring the crap out of me for the past 2 minutes and 33 seconds.

The rest of the workout was uneventful, but I will never forget this man and the astronomical dissappointment that was his lifting. I will give it to him though, it was extremely ballsy.

Currently sitting at work (what’s new, right?) and I realize I have mentally exhausted any further progress on my current task. Time to play with Google.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone this twice, but you’d be amazed at what you can find on the internet. I’m sure my discoverey isn’t out of the ordinary and I’m definitely not the first person to stumble upon this brilliant business (the farming world would agree — you’ll soon see why), but I was so excited about my discovery that I promptly began making outrageous plans.

Trafficking. Yep, trafficking. THE LEGAL TRAFFICKING OF CHICKS, WATERFOWL, AND OTHER RARE-BREED FOWL OF COURSE!

Guineas - I want them.

This is a simple process:

1. Type: “Order Chickens” in Google
2. Select a website of your choosing from the abundance of sites that appear
3. Saunter through your wide array of possible selections of fowl
4. Choose a breed of fowl to your liking (I want a guinea)
5. Approach the order-form with care
   1. This means keep in mind that chicks generally need to be ordered in groups of 25 or more, while mallards (ducks) need only be ordered one at a time
6. Select the date from which you would like your batch of fowl (some birds are only available during certain months)
7. Log in as a new memeber (unless you are already a member)
8. Select payment method and shipping destination (I didn’t make it this far yet, but I’m assuming)
9. Prepare for the magnificence of FOWL and ready your home for house-bird training

Nine steps to pure bird bliss. Who wants a talking parrot when you can literally order 8 peacocks for the small starting price of $380.00? Feeling cheap? Order one mallard for $5.00. The possibilities are endless. This sounds like a plug – I’m not even getting paid! I’m just THAT excited.

Quack.

I’m over it. What I’m not over is how many baby carrots I have eaten today. I’m staring at my hands in eager anticipation of a flush of orange undertone beneath my skin. This is true? Isn’t it? Fantasizing or not, I need to do something in order to keep myself sane. I have been staring at combinations of words and numbers for somewhere over 60 hours. That is pathetic. What’s also pathetic is my impending eyesight in older age thanks to all of the reading of small font I do on screens.

Anyway… I started another blog about my upcoming study abroad adventure in New Zealand. I think you can get to it somehow from this blog. If not… oops. Actually – Try This.

Besides the carrots, the orange, and the fading sanity – there isn’t much else going on. I have been moved from cubicle to cubicle a total of three times and there is now a new employee sitting in the nail clipping dungeon. I wonder if he has noticed the nail!? I wish he would, because then we’d discover that we both knew about the nail and we could bond over its grotesqueness. As if.

I hung up on a woman twice today. It was an ACCIDENT. It actually, funny story, turned out not being my fault. The phones were wicked messed up. You don’t believe me. I know you don’t. It’s fine, at least one of us here knows the truth. Sinner.

I have 26 minutes to kill before I have to go to an hour long meeting and then an hour after that to kill before I can go home. I’m bloated and sassy thanks to the carrot overload and I want to take a nap.

Okay, princess, time to go.

I digress.

Ready for the list? I warn you: It is terrifying while also absolutely significant to the wasting of your time to read about and understand my office insecurities. Here we go…

The List of Things I Don’t Know How to Deal With

1. THE FRIGGING FINGERNAIL. Yep – it’s still there. I’ve tried several indirect methods of detachment, but none have prevailed. I slammed my body “accidentally” into the wall of the cubicle to try and rouse the bastard a bit – that didn’t work. I sat in my chair about 3in away and blew on it for a while – that didn’t work. I threw an empty paper cup at it – that also did nothing. I tried to flick it off with a stirrer and that, once again, did absolutely nothing. I am convinced the man was pulled forcefully out of the cubicle and, while he was holding on for dear life, the nail snapped off and embedded itself into the fabric. The only way this thing will ever come off is if someone pulls it. It’s not going to be me.
2. I HAVE TO PEEEEE, BUT THE PHONE!!! One of my responsibilities includes answering the phone when it rings. I am the main phone person, as well as the least important person, in the office. I have to transfer all of the calls to everyone else. That being said – I am petrified to miss a phone call. I am also on the verge of dozing off quite frequently, so I drink a lot of tea to keep myself awake. My bladder handles tea like Mike Tyson handles ears. Every cup of tea equals out to about three pee trips. If I double up on tea, I double up on trips. So let’s add all of this together: (Need to answer the phone + need to drink tea)/(Need to answer the phone + need to pee) = panic. What I have resorted to, for now, is peeing VERY quickly. To date – I have only missed two calls due to urination. I guess I’m okay with that for right now, but performance failure frightens me.
3. PHONE CALL MUMBLERS. This is only stressful because it makes me look like an idiot when, in actuality, the person on the other end of the phone needs to learn how to ENUNCIATE and say their damn name clearly. When I answer the phone, all I need is the person’s first name and the company they’re calling from. That’s it. So simple. I need these two pieces of information because the person I am transferring the call to would like to know to whom they will be speaking. So, you can understand how frustrating it is for me when I ask a person what their name is, and again politely to repeat it, and each time I think I hear them say “Terrycloth Lions”. No. That is not your name. Please slow down, speak into the receiver, and stop shoving a Twix in your mouth or whatever it is you are doing. Help me help you help me not sound like a tool on the phone when I tell my superiors that Terrycloth from United Pantbrigade is on the line.

The summer before my sophomore year of college (that would be the summer of 2009) this blog began in the dregs of my father’s place of employment. I was (am) a poor college student in need of serious summer cash, and completing mindless data entry was the means to my much needed end. It was in that very remote, dark, lonesome, and temperature temperamental office that I began this blog with the story (I believe) of a woman in a bathroom stall and her heinous navy blue shoes.

This blog has come a long way since then, but today it returns to the site of its birth. Alas, this entry comes from a new cubicle (my version of hell on earth) and not from the grand ‘ol back room, but that doesn’t matter. Every time I return to this office, I am convinced I will have a story to tell.

Enter scene: I am shown where I will be working for the month. It is a cubicle. DEFINITELY a cubicle. Computer in one corner, gray rug-like walls on three sides (half of the fourth), slightly over-used desk chair, and locked cabinets. What I hear is this was the cubicle of “Ed”. He just up and left, though, so now it’s mine. Hmm, I wonder why…

Not exactly, but you get the idea

The only thing on the walls is a tacked-up “contact list” with the extensions of the people in the office I will be transferring calls to as I simultaneously enter data…again. After the initial absorption of the dull and melodramatic world I am living in, I sit down and wait for my boss to come back and fill me in on what I will be doing.

My eyes glaze over the walls again as my mind drifts off to thoughts of other things I could be doing. In an unfocused daze, I suddenly snap to attention. What, in God’s name, is stuck to this furry wall of death? As I lean in closer to get a more precise look (completely disregarding the fact my boss could walk back in at any second) horror writhes through my body and sends a tingle down my spine as I realize what it is that has latched itself onto the wall.

A fingernail. A perfectly clipped (or perfectly ripped), slightly yellowing, fingernail. I want to vomit, but I choke it back down because this cubicle is lacking a trash can. Who the hell was this Ed person? Did he fancy a fine clipping before starting his day? Or was his last testament to the company a smattering of his putrid nails? A twisted and nonsensical “F you” to the company he left behind? Perhaps he had a nail clipper made by the cannon people from the circus that projectiles your nail clippings? Whatever it was, I do not want to turn around and see little shavings of nails scampering up and down the walls of the cubicle I already hate enough by itself.

I didn't know directions were needed...

So, it is now almost 8 hours later and the nail is still attached to the wall. No way am I touching it. I don’t get grossed out easily, but for some reason nails always get me. I’ll keep you all updated on how long it manages to cling onto the wall. I’ll tell ya one thing, though. If I find any nail particles in my hair… I’m suing.

Copake Lake, NY. 80 degrees with a warm breeze and scattered white clouds of fluff. I am sitting on a beautiful wood porch high on a steep hill running directly into the lake garbed in only a bathing suite and slightly damp from a recent swim. My music is playing through the house speakers and I am looking out at a perfect view of the lake.

Pretty much my exact current view

That being said, would anyone like to join me?

I was reading a book earlier titled November Criminals. It’s a good book so far, I can’t judge it much because I’m only on chapter 3 and the chapters aren’t very long. As I was reading, I was thinking about how authors can get away with writing almost anything they want and not be called out for being strange. For example: If I were a well-known author writing a book where the main character regularly engages in acts of bestiality and the book was popular, I would never be questioned for the subject matter. People would assume I was just using creative license. Creative license or not, what if I was writing the book as an autobiography in disguise? People would never know I was a bestiality freak because they just think I’m being an author solely to entertain the public.

Contrast this against a normal person who is not currently, nor has ever been, an acclaimed author. If this person were to start up on some rant about bestiality to a small gathering of people and even one person disagreed, there would most certainly be accusations thrown around. The ranter wouldn’t be able to defend his or herself and all would be lost. Moral of this person’s story? Don’t hold public rants about subjects that can’t be backed up by your non-existent status as successful author with a boat-load of creative license.

So, what I think I’m trying to get at here, because I actually have no idea why I thought about this, is that being a decent and successful author has it’s obvious perks. It would get you money, fame, possible movie deals, and the ability to write about whatever crazy, insane, and essentially disgusting crap you want without facing ridicule from the people around you. Imagine being commended for writing the world’s most grotesque and realistic novel about a serial killer… and it was all a dream you had one night.

Kinda cool? Right?

My School. The College of Wooster.

What I have Learned So Far in College

1. Always read assignments that are specifically large amounts of reading. No matter how pointless your peers tell you it is.
2. You can create almost any meal you want in the dining hall.
3. Don’t leave your razor in the bathroom.
4. Body wash goes quickly – very quickly.
5. You can wash all of your laundry colors together using cold water.
6. You can find anything at Walmart (even though it is an evil corporation).
7. Brushing your teeth in the shower saves time.
8. Going to class in what you wore to bed is entirely acceptable.
9. Facebook is a black hole of your time and productivity – especially after the weekend.
10. The library is a second home during finals week. Make that all the time.
11. Amish people are everywhere in Ohio and they are “allowed” to do more than general folk lore would have you think.
12. Drinking tea in the morning will keep you awake in an early class after a late night as well as coffee. Be prepared to pee though.
13. Your plans at the beginning of the day to get everything done by 12am that night will usually fall through.
14. Cheating the housing system to be able to room in the same hall with your closest friends is a great idea.
15. Jersey Shore (or any themed) parties are extremely fun.
16. Hangovers are not fun.
17. People can drink improbable and obscene amounts.
18. People can also vomit just as much.
19. Doing random spontaneous things just because you can makes the best stories afterward.
20. Sometimes mental health days and skipping one class is beneficial.
21. Getting involved in school activities is fun and looks good.
22. People pour their soup out in the bathroom sinks – it looks and is gross.
23. One weekend can obliterate a normally spotless room.
24. Keeping a journal will help you remember why college is awesome.
25. Using you “freebie” absent day is okay.
26. The amount of freedom you have now takes a while to understand, notice, and appreciate.
27. School never gets “canceled”.
28. Take advantage of the optional speakers and presenters who come to talk to the student body.
29. You can never have enough school-themed attire.
30. You will most definitely learn new things every day.
31. An mp3 player shortens the walk to class.
32. A phone call also shortens the walk and is a great time to catch up with relatives who think you don’t love them anymore.
33. The busier you are in the day, the faster the week goes.
34. The weeks will fly by.

That’s what I have for now. There will definitely be more. Have any of your own? Leave them in a comment, I’d love to hear and if I totally agree I’ll add them to the list!

Currently, I am taking a break from figuring out my life this summer. It has been a tumultuous expedition. It started with having an internship, to having one but looking for others, onwards into giving up altogether, and finally deciding to go with my original plan as my backup and still search for others.

Part of this indulgent break includes watching the Band of Brothers marathon. Given the fact it is Memorial Day, this makes complete and total sense that it would be on television. One thing I cannot get over though is how, on this day, I am noticing the most support for this holiday from the television. How has a day dedicated to the women and men of our armed forces past and present become an excuse to have parties and cook out?

Granted this is not the case for everyone, but I would really like to know how this tradition evolved. The combination of commemoration and eating with family and friends is obviously acceptable, but is the commemoration aspect normally actively happening for families without ties to the armed forces? If I were to walk up to a child on the street today and ask him or her what this day was for, would he or she know? Would he or she even know today was a special day?

Modern Band of Brothers - 101st in Iraq

I think something needs to change. If people can spend weeks preparing for holidays where the main component is the giving and receiving of material goods, why can’t we spend one day celebrating the memory of people who selflessly give us all the gift of freedom by sacrificing their lives? There is nothing selfish about what these men and women have done and continue to do and I feel the least we can do is recognize what today is about and say thank you in one way or another.