. . . . . . . The Daily Blarf

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

Wow it worked! I just posted. Amazing. No dates yet, though.

So why am I here. Who am I. Why are you reading this. What the hell is CJ-8. I guess some background is necessary.

I live and work in Syracuse, NY. Not anything at all what I'd planned in life, but not a bad start. I work for a company called XXXXX XXXXX, which is a pretty big car wash/detail chain XX XX XXXX XXX XXXXXXX. (I'd link it if they had a damn website, but they don't, and I've got plenty of links here already. The novelty of linking something has yet to wear off. It's just as well I don't link it, I'll no doubt be bitching about work as it is and they don't need to know about it.) I am a senior detail shop manager for their first location here. I've been detailing since I graduated, having put my Ivy League diploma to good use by taking a $10 per hour job at Pritchard Dodge in Ithaca detailing their new and used cars. I did that for a year and a half. Careerwise, not a good move, although it was experience for the job I now have. Socially, it was a great move to stay in Ithaca. I lived for free at my frat (working as facility manager) and had a hell of a time.

I had always planned on moving back home to the family dairy/beef farm, like my brothers all did, after college. I started out at SUNY Morrisville as an Automotive Technology major, not knowing what else to do. Working on cars was the only thing I didn't hate in high school. After that, I followed my destiny and attended Cornell University for...geez, I don't know what I did. They called it General Agriculture. Or I can call it General Studies if I don't want to sound like a farmer. My destiny, because I was the 8th person in my family to go there, including my three older brothers. If Cornell was my destiny, Alpha Zeta was my freaking birthright, as all but one of those relatives were members there. AZ was the thing that made Cornell tolerable at all. It's also a co-ed frat, which I have mixed feelings about, but since all three of my girlfriends came from within, I can't complain too much. This leads me to my current situation with girls. Or the lack of any I should say. More in a bit.

So now I'm blogging. Three hours ago I didn't even know what blogging meant. My buddy Mark set this up for me; not really sure why. He made it sound like some miracle cure for introverts--"meet girls online..." Hell, I don't even know what other reasons he had to do it. For me, it's another reason to spend even more of my time online instead of actually getting out there and having a real life interacting with real humans. I should really start doing that someday. Being on vacation this week has really made me realize how dependent I am on work for my social life. Tonight I'm making the weekly pilgrimage to Applebee's with some of my coworkers for broccoli & cheeze soup. Other than that, I don't do much. I blame it on my schedule, which is typically 1pm to 10pm. My free time is in the mornings (I HATE mornings) and late late at night--not exactly the best times for socializing with those real life flesh and blood people. Perfect time for blogging, I guess.

This is the first post from Ben.

Thanks to Mark for setting this up!