25 Random Things [-facebook, +blog]

Doing the trendy Facebook “25 random things” thing on my blog instead of Facebook because blogs are a better medium. Also, Facebook is dumb, and my blog is cool.

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.

3 Comments / Posted in: pointless

Spontaneous memory recovery

I often have spontaneous memory recoveries from many years ago that pop into my head for no apparent reason. I had one today.

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.

1 Comment / Posted in: pointless

East coast visit

After a crazy couple of weeks at work, I was lucky enough to have a short trip planned to head back to the east coast for my cousin’s wedding.

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.

2 Comments / Posted in: pointless

Where’s Mike?

You may be wondering why I haven’t written anything on here in a while. Or, you might not be wondering because you hardly ever visit my site.

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!

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Your house may contain a memory erasing vortex

Ever noticed how a flight of stairs acts as a really good memory eraser? I completely forgot about this fact, since I’ve been living in a one floor apartment for the past year and a half. But now I live in a house again, like I have most of my life.

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 Comment / Posted in: pointless