June 2006 Archives

From Joshua's blog entry where he tagged me.

1. My middle name, Garrison, is my father's first name (though he goes by his middle name Michael) and he hates it. My grandfather, a military man, was convinced he would have a stocky, strong son so he came up with Garrison as a garrison is a permanent, military fort. As it stands, my dad weighs in around 160lbs. at 6'1" and has for most of his life. Not exactly the idea my grandfather had in mind, I'm sure. However, my mother loved the name. After months of my father protesting, my mom made my middle name my father's first though she wanted me to be Garrison Matthew.


2. I have been told I am a dichotomy. Those of you who know me (and by "know me" I mean "have talked to me for more than 15 minutes") know that I do what I can to defy categories, rules or laws of any kind. Some of you even call me heretical. At the same time I have a deep love of process at work and make my living as a computer programmer. My daytime, weekday life is spent making rules and loving every minute of it. The nighttime, weekend life is spent doing the opposite and loving every minute of it.


3. I have travelled this country exstensively via train and have visited the following states:
   • Alabama
   • Arizona
   • Arkansas
   • California
   • Colorado
   • Connecticut
   • Hawaii
   • Idaho
   • Illinois
   • Indiana
   • Iowa
   • Kansas
   • Kentucky
   • Maryland
   • Massachusetts
   • Michigan
   • Minnesota
   • Mississippi
   • Missouri
   • Montana
   • Nebraska
   • Nevada
   • New Mexico
   • New York
   • North Carolina
   • North Dakota
   • Ohio
   • Oklahoma
   • Oregon
   • Pennsylvania
   • South Dakota
   • Tennessee
   • Texas
   • Utah
   • Virginia
   • Washington
   • West Virginia
   • Wisconsin
   • Wyoming
   
   I have also been to the District of Columbia. I have never been to another country.


4. I used to have a mullet from about 2^nd grade until the beginning of 8^th grade. I thought it rocked, but the Catholic school I attended didn't. In the 57 years prior to my tenure there the school did not have any rules regarding the hair length of boys. Upon starting my 8^th grade year the school had revised their student handbook to limit boys' hair length to "just above the collar," a rule in place to this day.


5. Speaking of Catholic school, I attended Catholic school from kindergarten through 12^th grade and am even a Confirmed Catholic, but never really bought into any of it. I understood the morals behind everything, but never really believed the stories, that transubstantiation actually happened, and never really understood the holy trinity. I have described myself as somewhat Agnostic since 8^th grade.


6. I am almost obsessively interested in abandoned buildings. If I find one, I generally make a mental note of it's location so I can return and explore it later. Often, though, I don't research what it might have been or how long it's been abandoned until several months after exploring it and, even then, it generally happens on accident that I discover any of the history of the building. This has resulted, once to date, in me writing an article.


7. It's important for me to have companions (friends, girlfriends, etc...) that are intelligent. So much so that when I bought a dog I did specific research to find a very intelligent breed then narrowed it down from there.


8. I am genetically predisposed to creating kidney stones. I had one when I was 20 and another at 23. The first was incredibly painful when moving from my kidney to me ureter. The second wasn't nearly as painful and only hurt when it made it to my bladder. Neither caused me any discomfort when passing them (the second, in fact, I didn't even realize I had passed until I went to flush the toilet).

I tag Augie, Nate, and Steph.

To those of you checking daily for an entry, my apologies for my lack of updates (and Imperdivel) as of late, but when life gets hectic, I tend to turn inside, sort my stuff out, then relay it to the world. And while I don't really have anything to relay right now, I do have an update. Moving on...

It's always amazing to me how the faintest of smells can invoke the most vivid of memories. For example, I read on Justin's blog about the most recent Time magazine cover and it raised a bunch of issues for me. I started to get worked up about the divide I see not only in this nation, but the world. About how some people are choosing to indentify themselves as strictly A or strictly B and how, even more than that, they categorize others as being either in their camp or in the enemy camp (and I do believe they think it's an enemy camp). I was thinking how that doesn't leave a lot of gray area and how sad all that makes me because life is about gray area. About 150 years ago people made the same distinctions and started shooting their brothers with cannons.

And then I caught the scent of something. Something that smelled enough like the body lotion a girl I once loved used to wear. In those 3 seconds I relived almost 2 years of my life and missed her again.

I'm not worked up any more and I don't miss her but, still, it's funny how I came across those memories and memories of feelings. I think I need that kind of reminder once in a while. I think we all do.

...been so confounded by a situation that you have no idea what to do? You don't know if you should run or stay and work it out or even if it is worth working out?

All you do know is that you're tired and after thinking about it for over an hour the only conclusion that you've come to is that you're still tired.

That's right! There's nothing in my life worth mentioning outside of a spastic lawn gnome and talking crap! A new strip of the further adventures of Imperdivel and Little Dumpy is now available.

Every 6 months or so I tell myself I'm going to get back into doing my web comic. And every 6 months I don't do it. Well, I was recently exposed to some really creative stuff and it got me back in the mindset to do what I've been putting off all these years. I'm bring back Imperdivel and Little Dumpy.

Some history for those not in-the-know. About three years ago I created a web comic based entirely on one horribly misspelled spam email. I read it, thought "Hey! Those sound like really lame superhero names," and created a comic strip. It centered on Imperdivel, a lawn gnome, and his sidekick Little Dumpy, a pile of poo, and their adventures which were to be thwarted, however inffectually, by their archnemesis, Meket Direto, a robopharaoh, and his legion of Phobots. I created a strip every day for a week then stopped.

Without further ado, I'd like you all to welcome Imperdivel and Little Dumpy back to the world.