Thursday, March 05, 2015

How to Lose a College Scholarship in Ten Days (The Lost Entries)

I used to tell myself that I could never regret anything in life as long as I learned a lesson from it, (of course, I also used to tell myself that I could fly, which is how I ended up in traction for eight weeks, but I digress). My belief in that was sorely tested the day I was kicked out of college (for the second time no less.)

College certainly isn’t for everybody and that’s something I proved quite well with my 0.0 GPA (did you know that college has these things called “classes”? and in these classes people “study” from “books”? I was completely flabbergasted to learn that. What’s next, scores and grades based on merit and skill? That’s crazy!)

The first time I was kicked out of college made my parents furious. They tore their hair, ripped their clothes, gnashed their teeth and wailed to the heavens. Which is all bad, but it could have been worse.

The second time I was kicked out of college, it was worse.

There was no wailing, no gnashing, to tearing or ripping, simply a sad look and a light declaration of disappointment. Ah yes, the disappointment, always a million times worse than a slap in the face. It doesn’t bruise you physically, just mentally. You know that you’ve exasperated somebody to the point of frustration and resignation when they say they’re “disappointed.” I’d rather my parents kick me out of the house.
           
But they didn’t kick me out of the house, so I had to do it myself. With two suitcases and $200 in my pocket, I left my home to make my way in the world, thereby demonstrating to my family once and for all that I was somebody and I would make something of myself!
           
Didn’t really work that way though. Within a week I was broke and homeless. I lived in the stone cellar at the house of a friend of mine. My friend didn’t actually live in the house, see, he had neglected to pay his electricity bill for about, oh, four months, which means that he spent all of his time enjoying the air-conditioning at his girlfriend’s apartment two towns away, while I suffered through one of the hottest summers I’d ever known, trapped in a dead house with no food. Good times!
           
Finally, I could take no more. So, I went to the local Army recruiter station. One thing led to another and within a few months I found myself in boot camp at Fort Knox.
           
Because I do have (at least some) skill in writing, because I was an English major and because I didn’t know any better. I joined the Army as a journalist. For five years, (including two tours in Iraq, motto: Come to Iraq, you might not die!) I wrote hundreds of news, feature and personality stories, as well as movie reviews, restaurant reviews and vacation spot reviews. I learned a great many things and got oodles of real world experience that I never would have had if I had stayed as an English major in college. Like how to shoot a gun with one hand while shooting with a camera in the other one (a very valuable skill that has served me well since I left and became a marketing director). Or, more practically, how to interview people, talk to them and ask good questions. I honed my (limited) writing skills. I made important contacts in the newspaper world and I got my stuff published in newspapers, magazines, websites and blogs all over the world. I was translated into a dozen languages and even had some of my pictures featured on CNN and Fox News, (though bragging that I got something on Fox really isn’t a good thing.)
            
Getting kicked out of college was what started the chain of events that lead to me becoming a well-respected war correspondent (get a load of the ego on me!) who had his two minutes of fame, (which means I still got 13 more to go.) What I lost by not finishing my education, I more than made of for with experience, knowledge and a whole slew of adventures. So, in the end, I don’t really regret leaving school, because it led to so much more.

Besides, I’m no fool. I signed up for the Montgomery G.I. Bill., meaning I get to go to school for much cheaper, whenever I feel like it. Look out college, I’m gonna get that English degree! Or at least teach all those young whippersnappers the proper way to do a keg stand.

Sunday, March 01, 2015

The Language of Love


What happens when you take a short story and run it through both Google and Bing translators a dozen times? You get a story that has traveled the length of English, Spanish, German, Arabic, Greek, Klingon --seriously, why that even a legit option?-- Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Latin and finally English again. 
You get THIS:

It is love at first sight.

When they first met Gregg Francis down. It ended suddenly, his arrival, and was successful. His duties from his exile home in 10 years, his wife's car and he was hiding under the mattress of angry 20 year old porn, dirty garage next door was stolen. 

As a busy masturbation Cough changes from the worst, he lost his right hand and draw your imagination despair recommends car. Gregg saw anger and resignation as dark tail lights has melted, still around his ankles, he ran out of the room on the second floor in pants and a brick.

When Gregg returned to the room, he saw. If you've seen the original masturbation room, or how much you are thinking. When he came into the room, so that further deterioration of attention. The door behind him, he's the best smile closed.

This is a six months ago. Gregg Bullock as two inseparable. Gregg has done it all. Watch movies, eat,Barnes Noble Bookstore & super. We should not close the position.

When possible, Gregg secretly watch the audience, still alone in a small apartment in rent Gregg in his audience. Please enjoy the beautiful curves of the body. Vision, cannot calm thinking outside touch her, really happy.

Gregg decided to Toledo, take the time to prepare. Cities, work and life, and you always want, all new life, Brooke knew found it to be rich! Got power and respect! And his team made by Brooke together.

Even in the Dim light of a summer evening, Gregg Avenue block, the Navy, banking system, he was on his way home. It is to get money, your life, as long as the Gregg plan, the unknown aspects of love and leave in the evening in Toledo.

Depart from several corners of the contact section, bare brick walls and fly to another block to the South.

Hi,» said the shadow. white meat, which stopped the steps to do it. "
Gregg looks very nice person to block off the road. Summer sun and Gregg young latin it looks a Glock 9 mm semiautomatic hand dryer with stand, I think fall. Gregg as bathrooms, drinking wine do not know the final product, you know, the usual signs of drug use. In his spirit and Bay Park Community Hospital, a few blocks away, perhaps the only escaped narkomanka Hospital program.

"You are what you want in an American just bad," said Gregg.

Gregg depending caused panic eyebrows and looked at me. "We'll talk to people. Close to hell and give me the money! "

"I will listen to you my wallet, but nothing. Gregg said, but you should be able to leave the woman alone!. "

What is it? Shut up and give me your wallet! "the response and drug addicts.

Gregg in the Pocket, slowly moving his left hand pulled back his wallet as well. I think he only depends on the maintenance of peace and peace go hard and Brock Lesnar would go ahead. "It's all over in a matter of minutes, and we will make the child quietly," she whispered.

Preparing to gently pull my wallet and took it to Gregg addicts, it happened. his eyes Gregg addiction, you are mistress no pressure. Street. Life. Brook jumped in after cooked my hands, and then he was shot in the lane. Fan-shot echo brick wall, everything seems to be, but in fact started taking a few seconds.

Gregg bow. Interest is addictive, signed in front of the hole in the Penumbra only bloody thing wrong.In the foot, a man near and Gregg. Head and a variety of drugs. Only produced softball size coarse or crude oil, about a big hole. Brain, even in the whole body of land who knows what. Gregg noted the women to abhor. Shake. See her suck.

"Love you Brooke", he said. "He saved our lives. Thank You. "

The only answer is still smoking pipe.


ORIGINAL VERSION

It was love at first sight.
Gregg Francis was down and out when he first met her. His life had come to an abrupt and complete halt. He had been fired from his job, kicked out of the house by his wife of ten years and his car had been stolen from the motel parking lot while he was busy inside his dingy room, furiously masturbating to the 20-year-old porno mag he found underneath the mattress.
He was lost in his fantasies and working the desperate motions of his right hand when the familiar throaty cough of his car’s engine caught his attention. Gregg ran out of his second-floor room with his pants still around his ankles, staring in anger and resignation as the tail lights melted away into the darkness.
When Gregg walked back into the room he saw her. He had no idea how long she’d been in the room or if she saw him in his earlier onanistic activities. But his concerns melted away when he entered the room. A smile appeared on his lip as he shut the door behind him.
That had been six months ago. Since then, Gregg and Brooke were inseparable. In everything that Gregg did, he took Brooke with him. To the movies, dinner, the local Barnes and Noble mega bookstore. She never left his side.
Whenever possible, Gregg would sneak looks at her in public, and when they were alone together in the small studio apartment that Gregg rented, he stared at her openly. Admiring her curves, her body, her beauty. His heartbeats would falter at the sight of her and at the thought that she was truly his. He couldn’t have been happier.
Gregg decided that he had spent enough time in Toledo and he was ready to move on. Find a new city, job and life, and he knew that with Brooke his new life would be everything he had always hoped for. He would be rich! He would gain power and respect! All because of what he felt he could accomplish with Brooke by his side.
So in the gloaming one summer night, Gregg and Brooke made their way down Navarre Ave. to the bank machine nearest his apartment. Gregg’s plan was to get out as much money as he could and leave Toledo that night for parts unknown, with the love of his life.
 As the couple turned the corner on South  Coy Rd., a shadow detached itself from a brick wall and bared their way.
“Hey whitemeat, not another step,” the shadow said, “you’re just gonna stop right there.”
Gregg took a good look at the person blocking their path. In the sinking summer sun Gregg could see that he was a young Latino with a visible twitch and a 9mm semi-automatic Glock in his hand. Though Gregg wasn’t familiar with drugs past the alcohol he didn’t drink so much as bathe in, he recognized the signs of a habitual drug user. It made sense, Bay Park Community Hospital was just a few blocks away and this junky had probably just escaped from a treatment program at the hospital.
“We’ll do whatever you want man, just don’t hurt us,” Gregg said.
The junkie just stared at Gregg, his eyebrows dipped in consternation. “You don’t need to talk man. Just shut the hell up and give me your money!”
“Listen, I’ll give you my wallet, but there’s nothing in there. But please just leave the woman alone!” Gregg said.
“What? Shut up and give me your wallet!” the junkie replied.
Gregg slowly moved his left hand to his back pocket to pull out his wallet. He just wanted to keep the junky calm and get the ordeal over with so that he and Brooke could go in peace. “Keep quiet baby and this will all be over in a minute,” he whispered to her.
Cautiously, Gregg pulled the wallet out and brought it in front of him and got ready to give it to the junkie when it happened. Gregg looked into the junkie’s eyes and could just see that he and his lady weren’t going to make it off of S. Coy Rd. alive. The next thing he knew Brooke had leapt into his hands. Then a shot rang out in the alley. The echo from the gunshot reverberated on the brick walls for what seemed like an eternity, but was really just a few seconds.
Gregg looked down. At his feet lay the junkie, a small hole in his forehead and a light trickle of blood were the only signs that there was something wrong. With his foot, Gregg turned the guy over. The back of the junkie’s head no longer existed. All that was left was a large hole, about the size of a softball, which was ragged and raw. Brain matter and who knew what else, littered the ground underneath the body. Gregg turned away, disgusted, to focus his attention on his lady. She was shaking. He sighed contently.
“I love you Brooke,” he said. “You saved our lives. Thank you.”
Silence was the only reply from the still smoking barrel.