John Burkholder

I have started reading a site that Mickerdoo turned me on to. Cave Canum ( cavecanum.com ) is a place where you can anonymously post and read other people's secrets. If I am absolutely bored because all of the people performing the upgrade to our system is in Russia, I will pull up the page and read the secrets. Most of them are just people dealing with love or relationships like 22856: if your goal lastnight was to make me change my mind about you and everything, i think you would be pleased to know you succeeded. Some, are people who are frustrated with politics, police, lack of toilet paper or any other problems life has thrown their way. 22847 made me laugh: i wash my comforter about once a year. i keep it quite clean. These (22818) are the ones that make me go...huh? I shave my chest and nipples and im a girl This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Go ahead. Post a secret. But when you are reading all of the other posts, don't start thinking you may kno

I think I have gained control of my life again. Granted it did take the help of some drugs, a shrink, and my family, but I think I have gained some perspective on some things. First, I am not my job title. This is actually a big turning point for me. My wife has always considered me the overacheiver. She claims that the fact I am adopted, my father committed suicide, my brother committed suicide, and lastly my first wife committed suicide, that I have abandonment issues. So, for my entire life, I have fought and pushed myself to climb to the top of the corporate ladder. What do I mean? Well, I am a Native American male without a college education that grew up in a rather poor family. Even in school, I always pushed to be the best. I was in theater as the Artful Dodger. I was in Music (Band and Chorus) and received the Illinois Outstanding Soloist award and the National Music Honor Award. After receiving scholarship opportunities for music, I determined that music was not a career and j

I woke up this morning and performed my usual ritual of peeing, showering, drying, brushing my teeth, shaving and dressing. I happen to be running a little bit late this morning because I hit the snooze bar two or three too many times. I find the best is the most comfortable when I first crawl into it...and when I first wake up in the morning and the rest of the room is a bit cool. I do my best to not wake up my "roommate" as she calls it. She is really my mother-in-law. Mother of my Queen. Closer in age to me than I am to her daughter, there doesn't seem to be any issues with this living arrangement. She arrive home from work so late, I say about 10 words to her before I retire to my room. I buy a good majority of the food in the house. I eat...she doesn't. When she does, it tends to be chips and salsa (or guac) or something I may have bought for myself knowing she would also eat it such as lunch meats or ramen noodles. One day last week, I decided to buy myself som

Last weekend, a friend of the family came over to the house and the big topic of conversation was the Bears game. She informed us that since all of the people in the bayou are doing their voodoo to win the Bears vs. Saints game, that a news station had a news story about how Chicago fans could use voodoo of their own. Apparently, we had to write "Saints" on a piece of paper and stick it in the freezer thereby "freezing" the Saints. OK. Why not? The following morning (game day) the Queen, Avery and I went out for breakfast to find snow covering the viniman. I looked at the Queen and smiled. What is it that New Orleans does NOT have? Cold...and Snow. I knew this was going to be a great advantage for Chicago. Wind, Cold, Snow, Home field...all of these are good. It paid off. Chicago Bears managed to withstand the cold and snow to beat the Saints 39-14. They are heading to the Super Bowl to play against Indianapolis. It should be an excellent game. I am sure High Priest

Off to the airport again. Tonight I fly back to Chicago to visit my family and cheer on the cheerleader. I am actually becoming old hat at flying and getting through airports. Of course, I have never taken any international flights, but you never know. I want to travel internationally, I just haven't taken the initiative to complete the process. Next question would be...where to go? Well, Europe would be nice to visit. Asia as well. The language barrier may be an issue, but I can muddle through. I love to travel. This brings me to my point (as I almost always have one). Is the toilet paper the same overseas as it is in America? Is it all bodets? I really don't want to wipe my butt with a cloth towel. That just seems wrong on so many levels. What does someone do with the towel after they have properly wiped out the Klingons? Do you zap it with your phaser? Lastly, who is the pour soul that has to wash the towels? What did people do before toilet paper? These are the questions th

Wow, that was a long break from blogging. I am not really sure what happened, but it can't be good. I came back today to find a message at the top of my dashboard. "Make the switch now." Okey dokey! I have made the switch and they managed to keep all of my pieces and parts in tact. Very refreshing considering how much time I have sunk into this blog. The only bug spotted thus far is one of my titles in my "N8ivFavorites" section seems to be messed up. But that is really no big deal. Where have I been? What have I been doing? Nothing except working. Really, my life has become rather boring. I wake at 6:00AM Monday through Friday to go to work and arrive back around 8:00PM to have dinner and go to bed. Saturdays and Sundays are often spent doing chores (laundry, truck fixes, grocery shopping) or catching a movie. Last weekend I caught "Curse of the Golden Flower" While typing this blog, I received a phone call from a recruiter for a position back in Chic

I have just been busy at work. I should be fully caught up tomorrow.

UPDATE: A young lady from Circuit City called me today to first apologize for the bad service, and second to get more details as to how my shopping experience should be improved. A ray of light. I still have not heard a word from Mr. Phil Schoonover or Circuit City so I would imagine they just don't care. Big surprise there. At that rate, they will be filing for bankruptcy within the year. I know Circuit City personnel have read my blog because my site couter saw them on the entry for 16 minutes. So the fact they have not responded is not very customer saavy. Last Saturday, I went to cash my second job paycheck for $76 and change at PNC Bank (the bank the check was written on) in Woodbridge. I walked into the bank, signed the paycheck, provided my two forms of out of state identification and asked them to cash my check. I would have deposited the check in my bank, but there aren't any within 700 miles of here. After the teller begins processing the check, he looks at me and in

The last entry left a nice residual. Did a little research on a fart competition and found nothing real. I found some funny clips but nothing about a real competition. So, in honor of National Passing Gas day on January 7 (thank you High Priestess), I hereby create the first international fart competition to be held in Chicago, Illinois, United States on January 7, 2008. I just don't have time to pull off 100,000 people in 3 days. To compete, it will cost you a meager $5.00 US per entry. Once entered, you can compete for one of the following categories per entry: Longest Fart Loudest Fart Funniest Fart Most Odiferous Fart Team Fart (Creativity included) The competition location is yet to be determined, but you can guarantee it will be in a location that contains alcohol, fire extinguishers, and good ventilation. The pot will be a 50/50. 50% to the contestants, and the other 50% for the ref, bar and whatever other expenses. Here are the rules: When called, each competitor will grip

I have been asked how I come up with the blog topics for my blog. Actually, this is fairly simple. I will either be researching something that came up in conversation, or walking my pet sheep and I will think to myself "how odd is that?" Then I take this idea and without any real direction, start writing...or typing as the case may be. Then, about 2 minutes into being seated comfortably in my chair in front of the keyboard, I realize I need to go to the bathroom. Be right back. ... OK, much better. What usually happens is I start with a small idea of what to write about and from there I end up with diarrhea of the fingers. I will sit here and write and write about absolutely nothing while at the same time try to come up with a point to the message I deliver in the form that I am currently delivering it. I will scratch my head (get your mind out of the gutter), pause for a drink of water, loosen up my fingers and begin. My topics may range from toilet paper to cell phones but

Yes, I know, I am a day late, but I do not have a computer at home (well, where I am staying right now), nor an Internet connection even if I had a computer. Happy new year to everyone. Since it is the new year, I figured I would check on how my resolutions went for last year . My first resolution was to shut down my World of Warcraft. I have. I don't even miss it now. That is one weird addiction that really needs to be researched. I am thrilled that I at least made it through that resolution. My second resolution was to become more social...and boy did I. I didn't end up joining a bowling league or a civic group (as I probably should have) but I did become more social because of my daily commute to and from work in Chicago. I made great friends. I went out to White Sox baseball outing with them and have attended a few parties. Being social has great points and also big lessons. Lessons I never realized I needed to learn. My last resolution was to travel more. Well, I am travel