Why is my testimonial featured on this page? And what am I doing squatting in shallow water with ducks? I’m afraid I can’t offer an explanation for the latter but I can for the former: because it was my idea. Well, I actually had proposed the idea for Gmail, but they ended up going in a different direction (which I also had to help out with). So the Reader folks snagged it and modified it slightly.

I’m also responsible for a large portion of the stupid “fine print” at the bottom, which I wrote up very very late at night when I obviously think about Sasquatch more than usual.

Props to the Google Reader team for turning my stupid idea into something fun!

Oh, and don’t forget about that disclaimer link that’s always on the bottom of this site.

Do they think I’m going to buy a package of Oreos just for the recipe, throw them out and then buy the store brand “Chocolate cream sandwich cookies” to make the recipe?

Your mother taught you that it’s polite to hold the door for someone walking behind you, right?

But what’s the cutoff distance? At what length of separation do you pretend that you don’t notice the person walking behind you? 25 feet? Does that sound right?

I know it’s the polite thing to do if someone is walking close behind you, but it’s always a little bit awkward when there’s a significant amount of separation. The person will start walking faster or even jog to catch up so that you don’t have to hold the door too long. I know when someone holds a door for me, and I still have some distance to cover, I certainly pick up the pace as I think to myself “gahhh, appreciated, but you should have just ignored me.”

Obviously if someone has a physical impairment then there’s no awkwardness involved for any distance, but for all other situations I think there should be a universally accepted cutoff distance.

25 feet.

So I’ll just put this out there now: If you’re more 25 feet behind me as I’m entering a building, I’m sorry. It’s nothing against you. You’re just beyond the unofficial official cutoff distance.

Maybe I overthink things. Or maybe I’m just a jerk.

1. I’m already stuck on #1 of this list.
2. During the course of my life I’ve sustained several joint injuries, all of which occurred on only the left side of my body.
3. I like making big life changes every couple of years. I’m due for another.
4. My first job was at McDonald’s. I’ve seen things that to this day keep me awake at night.
5. When I was 6, I spit on a woman’s head from the very top inside the Statue of Liberty, causing a huge commotion throughout the entire inside of the statue. I didn’t get caught. I wasn’t aiming for anyone, but it was still awesome.
6. I used to keep track of how many times I dislocated my left shoulder. I lost count around 40.
7. I drove across the US in under four days, by myself, in the middle of winter, dodging three major winter storms. I would totally do it again.
8. I didn’t show up for my first scheduled day of work at Google. Although it wasn’t my fault. HR emailed me with the wrong start date.
9. I used to be an extremely picky eater, excessively picky in fact. However, after one semester of college I miraculously saw the light and started eating everything. Everything except beets. I do not understand beets.
10. One of my favorite things to do is to wander with no direction in a big city for hours or days.
11. I once opened a bottle of seltzer water for Sergey Brin. He was having trouble with the twist-off cap, and I had just come out of the gym.
12. I like to think that I’ve made it through life so far without making a single enemy, although I’m sure someone out there probably dislikes me.
13. I grew up in one of the snowiest cities in the U.S (Fulton, NY). I now live in California where when on rare occasions when it actually rains, people completely freak out on the roads.
14. I can think of two separate occasions where I had to use quick snow-driving maneuvers to save myself and others from a serious automobile accident. (Here’s a tip to remember when you’re sliding full speed towards another car, one second to impact: Don’t use your brakes. Seriously.)
15. I’ve slid down a homemade 200 ft. slip and slide into a giant mud pit.
16. I did a lot of stupid things with my friends in high school. I’m amazed that all of us turned out okay.
17. I fully expected to be living in Boston after graduating from college. The California/Google thing just sort of happened.
18. If I could have any superpower it would be the ability to teleport myself.
19. I wore a full duct tape suit (hat and shoes included) for an entire day in high school.
20. I get very uncomfortable when staff at a restaurant treat me excessively nicely. I understand it’s part of their job, but I just want to communicate at an even level. Is that so wrong?
21. I have only two memories of my paternal grandfather. One is what he smelled like — a mixture of pipe tobacco and wood. The other is his thumb-less hand. He lost the thumb in a farming accident. The story, as I’ve been told, is that immediately after it happened, he paused, calmly examined the injury and proclaimed, “Well, that’s the end of that.”
22. In college I once drank an entire bottle of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce for $26. My night was ruined, but I was $26 richer.
23. I’m always listening to music, but I always draw a blank when someone asks me “What music are you listening to lately?”
24. Career paths that I considered at various points in my life, mostly in order: ghostbuster, movie star, professional hockey player, musician, meteorologist, doctor, physicist, network administrator, web designer, marketer, search quality strategist, webmaster, entrepreneur, homeless, professional solver-of-world-problems.  I’m still not ruling any of them out.
25. I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am today, but still consider myself extremely lucky. At the same time, I believe there is much more to life and I’m continuously searching for what my purpose is.

This one took me back to high school. I believe sophomore year chemistry. Mr. McKewen was lecturing on some wacky chemistry concept. My friend Mark had a question, so he raised his hand.

Upon noticing Mark’s hand in the air, Mr. McKewen calmly asked, “Question, Mark?”

I burst out laughing. Question, Mark? Question mark! Ha! He said a punctuation!

Yes I know, it’s not funny. It’s not even close to being funny. But at the time I sure thought I was. And of course, no one knew what the hell I was laughing at. Slouching low in my chair, I let the awkward moment run its course.

I told Mark after class why I was laughing. He was actually more amused than I thought he would be and decided that if it ever occurred again, he would promptly jump to his feet and yell out “exclamation point!” It sure would have been awesome for him and I. Alas, the situation never came up again, which is probably a good thing.

I also worked with Mark at McDonald’s for a while during high school. I once convinced him to say to every customer coming through the drive-thru speaker during his shift, “Hi welcome to McDonald’s! My favorite band is Van Halen! What’s yours?”

He was later fired for a different, non-related infraction that I would prefer not to disclose here.

The end.

Normally I wouldn’t be all that excited about taking a red eye flight across the country only to turn around and fly back less than three days later, but as you may have noticed, I’ve been missing the east coast quite a bit lately.

It rained the entire weekend. I didn’t see the sun once. It was cold and damp. And I loved it.

I also got to spend some quality time with the Irish half of my family in combination with an open bar at a wedding. Needless to say, it was a good time.

My mom switched over to extreme cooking and baking mode the following day. She does that a lot. The level of extremity increases exponentially with the number of sons she has in the house. All three of us were home this time. As much as I love her food, I’d love to see her relax for once.

I’m already looking forward to my next voyage to the east coast, which will last an entire week and begin in New York City.

I like California, I swear, I really do. I just happen to like other parts of the US a little more.

Either way, the reason why I haven’t posted anything is because I’ve been working on a new website!

Does that mean MikeLeotta.com will cease to exist? No, of course not! This new website is more of a side project…kinda like onlinehaircuts.com, but without any sort of online haircuts.

Stay tuned!

Stairs erase my memory at least once a day.

You’re downstairs in the living room and you say to yourself “oh yeah, I need X from upstairs.” By all means, this is a simple task that you’ve given yourself.  There’s no reason for you to think that you could possibly let yourself down. Your goal is still fresh in your mind when you hit that first step.  Things are looking up. Onward!

But then you hit the second floor. Something isn’t quite right. You know where you are, but why are you there?  You know there was a reason you made this voyage, but you’ve lost it.

You’ve let yourself down once again. No reason stay where you are. Defeated, you turn around and go back downstairs. That creaking noise the stairs make is their way of laughing at your failure.

Four minutes later you remember. Sigh…

It works both ways of course.  You could be upstairs and need X from downstairs.  Even worse, your house could have a basement (you probably don’t live in California) and you could be all the way on the top floor. You don’t stand a chance now. It’s not even worth it to make the trip. X isn’t that important anyway.

I’m not sure what it is.  Maybe it’s the change in air pressure?

Maybe I’m just an idiot.

1. More random pencil scribbles.  Separators, bullet points, etc.
2. Recent blog posts are now being displayed on the sticky note on all non-blog pages.  Some character escaping still needed.
3. Somewhat renders ok in IE.  But then again, what sites ever really render properly in IE?

All this time spend and still no real content on my site…