So my first tag experiment was an utter failure — I guess folks don’t want to look for raunchy, sleazy, on-the-fringe stuff.  I’ve had exactly zero hits on this blog since that post.

So for this post, I’m going to use as many “softcore” tags as I can think of, to see if people are looking more to *almost* see something “bad.”

Well, my tag experiment was an utter failure.  After 24 hours, my last post has received exactly zero looks.  I guess people aren’t looking for outright, utter filthy sleaze.

Maybe I should load the next one with softcore tags — I actually have long thought that Americans are constantly on the hunt to *almost* see something racy — thus all of the bikinis and behind-the-shower-curtain stuff on TV, but as soon as a nipple actually slips (Janet Jackson, I’m talking to YOU) the American populace is outraged.

My blog (this blog) is not very heavily traveled.  That’s okay…while I’d love for thousands to hang on my every word, I really just have this here for some occasional venting where my family and co-workers aren’t going to see it.

I started this blog in May 2008, I think, and I’ve had 566 total views.  I’ve only had 59 people look at this in 2009 to date. (and it’s November)

My busiest day saw 14 people look at my blog — woo.  I’ve averaged 2 views per day in 2008, and, um, 0 per day in 2009.

So my experiment is this:

I have loaded this entry with every lewd, crude, disgusting, adult tag I can think of, and I want to see how many hits this post gets.  I apologize to my viewer, if they are offended.  If I have a viewer.  The average says I don’t.

Special gift for her – your firmness — WAY better than a tennis bracelet.

Good idea for lazy ones — Get a job?

You’re a klepto, bastard — Wha?  Buh?  Me?

And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks – …and this message WAS trying to sell me Viagra!

This message sucks — YES!!  The first spam message EVER that is COMPLETELY, 100% CORRECT!!

They gave thee love who measured out thy skies — Herman 3:72

“MAKE WILD THINGS IN BEDROOM!” — I made a puma…what’d you make?

Drilling and drilling more, all night long. — Because I’m a dentist, and I’m really tired now.

I dont know if youll be able to do anything with her — But here she is anyway, good luck, call me.

Nosing along at night down some safe vat — Oh, I’m so ashamed.  My nighttime vat-nosing has been uncovered >blush<

Have a concrete thing in pants! — No thanks, already got one. (?)

Become the web-rapist — Oh no…not again!

Your 9 inch worm will amaze her — Yeah — way more than if I showed her my penis!

Do I need to go really? — well, I did drink all that Kool-Ade.

Colleagues! Non-flushing is terrorism! — At least the day after taco-day it is!

Give her your manhood! — a) But it’s attached!  –or– b) I did…it was called “marriage.”

As I sit here it is ten minutes after midnight — ten minutes into the first day of fall, 2009.  I should be going to bed, but I find myself awake after finishing my Managerial Accounting homework.  I know that I’m going to pay for this time spent blogging in about six hours when I need to be awake for another workday.

I am starting to settle into the routine of my MBA program now.  The berserk craziness of the initial one-week residency is now a warm, fuzzy, “yeah, we did it” memory.  In four days I will make the three-hour drive to Lansing for my third class weekend — I have 35 more to go.  Yes, I’m settling into the every-other-weekend class routine, with a couple of hours of homework most weeknights, and at least one day of the weekend spent studying.  I’m trying to keep one weekend day open each week to just spend time with my family.

As it stands right now, I think I have all of my “deliverables” done for class this weekend.  I have to read the abominable Strategic Management book.  It’s really bad, sprinkled liberally with nickel-words like they loaded ‘em into a blunderbuss and fired it at the page.  And I have some statistics to have done by Friday…but I now have Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights to work on this stuff, and whatever time on Friday in the hotel room after I arrive.

As a side effect of school, our old Volvo is being rehabbed pretty thoroughly. I’ve spent about $400 on brakes, $600 on wheels and tires, another $500 on front-end work, and tomorrow I’ll go spend another $85 or so on an alignment.  What’s that come to?  $1,585?  I guess that’s cheaper than a new car, and I fully realize that the car’s 10 years old and has 186,000 miles on it.  It is, actually, the highest-mileage car I have ever owned, and I’m counting on it to soldier on for another two years.  I think I figured out that it’ll be crossing 200,000 miles right about the time I graduate.

I was looking through my Spam mailbox on Gmail, and some of the titles on the spam mails are hilarious… The bad English, the creative references to my manhood that I’ve never heard before…truly classic!

As follows:

“Everyone is enthusiastic about you! You is enthusiastic about Viagra” — I is?  I is!!

“Screw her up” — Yeah, bet she’ll be into that.

“Your excitement is not transmitted to your love-tool? We know what can establish a connection.” — Yeah, somebody set up us the bomb.

“Your manliness will never die as long as you are with us.” — Well, that’s one part down…

“Your love torch won’t blow out” — The tribe has spoken.

“She bitches about your flaccidity?” — well, yes but ironically, she’s not talking about my penis.

“Make your King-Kong twice larger.”  – RRrrargh!

“Be a love rhino.” — Uh…ouch?

“Tune your shaft well.” — we talking about my golf clubs here?

“More moans, more peaks” — no errors!

“Do you want that she loved you yet more?” — Ay, yet but I not thought as of the Tuesday. (?)

“Shoot your gin into her vagina.”  — My gin?  Where would I put the tonic?  I can’t picture getting it from there into my glass, either.  It just doesn’t seem like this would work.

“Extra pleasure is always appropriate: Give it to your couple!” — Could I keep a little for myself, too?

“You will always be able to put a rocket in her shaft, when you ant it!” — HER shaft?  Hey, now, buddy, you’ve got me all wrong!

“Lost the charge of male strength? Return it right now!” — Um.  Yeah.

“Have hard erection and sleep quietly. Viagra rebates!” — So I’ll be sleeping…with an erection?  What fun is that?

“Nail her like a youngster.” — end up on “To Catch a Predator”

“Make your lovestick your wife’s favorite toy.” — Honey, can you please quit playing Jenga with my lovestick?  Please?

“Potion for heroic banging” — that’s ‘potion for heroic banging’ +3 against dragon breath, thank you!

“Get smashing love power.” – Smashing?  Love?  Power?

“Want your meaty lever to go up and forward all night?” – meaty lever?  Okay, that one’s creative.

“Deeper in her entrails” – Why do I get a mental picture of someone screwing a gut-pile out in the woods during deer season?

“Make your boner so iron in could pierce a hole in ceiling.” — So iron.

“Make your weenie resolute.” — Because that’s what men want.  Resolute weenies.  “Garth, did you say ‘weiner’!?”

“Create storm in your couple’s bedroom” – With my spear and magic helmet?  West winds bwow…east winds bwow….Wain, Wightning…SMOG!!!

“Catch rapturous girls’ looks on your zipper protuberance.”  — zipper protuberance?  Another good one!

Well, I just finished an incredible, week-long experience.  My MBA program kicked off with an intensive one-week residency…and by “intensive” I mean I started and completed three full, 800-level college courses in seven days.  I never never went to bed before 1am, and I never got more than five hours of sleep per night.  A typical day started with the alarm clock at 6am; up, shower, dress, leave the hotel, breakfast at 7 or 7:30am; class from 8am until 1pm; lunch; class from 2pm to 5pm; a half-hour of optimistically-named “open time,”; dinner; another class or event of some sort from 7pm to 9pm or so; studying for the next days tests, quizzes, presentations, briefs and/or papers until 1am or later.

In the midst of this madness, I found a minute here or there to jump on Facebook and send up a flare, mostly to let my wife know I was still alive.  some of them were at 1am, some were in the middle of class.  I think they point to the sleep-deprived, caffeine-laden, uber-stressed condition I found myself in.  Enjoy!

Nick Shadoff has to dumb it down again for work. Good-bye residency, hello reality.

25 seconds ago · Comment · Like / Unlike

Nick Shadoff doesn’t know what to do if there aren’t any more case briefs, quizzes or papers due. I hear rumors that there’s something else people do at night besides study!

Sat at 7:41pm · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (2)Hide Feedback (2)

Roberta Sterzik LaMont

Ummm… really??? What???

Sat at 7:58pm · Delete

Jeff Provost

I’m lost without a book in my hands now.

Sat at 9:09pm · Delete

Nick Shadoff — last test done…remaining: one case brief, watch presentations, eat lunch, 3-hour drive HOME!!!

Sat at 10:11am · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (1)Hide Feedback (1)

Laura Bishop Pavelko likes this.

Nick Shadoff — another Accounting exam down…I feel much better about this one.

Fri at 8:58am · Comment · Like / Unlike

Nick Shadoff found out why he bombed the last Accounting exam… I WAS STUDYING AN OUTDATED PRACTICE EXAM!! $&*#@!!!

August 13 at 11:54pm · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (1)Hide Feedback (1)

Chara ‘Mcclure’ Blaszkowski

Man, thats rough!

Fri at 8:12am · Delete

Nick Shadoff — wow, class was done at 5pm. All I have to do is write up a Supply Chain project, study for a Managerial quiz, read a Managerial case and prepare a problem statement, and study for my next Accounting exam! Will tonight be the night I’m in bed by midnight???

August 13 at 5:56pm · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (3)Hide Feedback (3)

Madison Anne Dusome

Yes. Because you are obviously super speedy!!!

August 13 at 6:21pm · Delete

Jeff Provost

That’s only about a half hours worth of work you described. No reason you can’t be done by 7:00

August 13 at 6:24pm · Delete

Madison Anne Dusome

Also, it’s not even five yet, so maybe this post just makes you INSANE, which probably means that you CAN finish by 7:00 for sure – or at least deceive yourself into believing you’ve finished…

August 13 at 6:27pm · Delete

Nick Shadoff — aagh…accounting….sleepy…must fight eyelids…must warn…others!

August 13 at 10:09am · Comment · Like / Unlike

Nick Shadoff just now, not more than 23 seconds ago, aced another Managerial Skills quiz. Yes!

August 12 at 2:08pm · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (4)Hide Feedback (4)

Laura Bishop Pavelko, Angel Abshire Shadoff and 2 others like this.

Nick Shadoff — was today only Tuesday? This week is lo-ong…yet…I’m actually having fun! And I haven’t turned on a TV since Saturday…

August 11 at 9:25pm · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (1)Hide Feedback (1)

Angel Abshire Shadoff likes this.

Nick Shadoff — Huge presentation done today. (sigh of relief)

August 10 at 8:32pm · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (2)Hide Feedback (2)

Lewis Shadoff and Roberta Sterzik LaMont like this.

Nick Shadoff — one down, six to go.

August 9 at 11:08pm · Comment · Like / Unlike

Nick Shadoff — my brain hurts.

August 9 at 4:41pm · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (1)Hide Feedback (1)

Roberta Sterzik LaMont

I sympathize.

August 9 at 5:42pm · Delete

WMBA Residency

Initial one-week residency for the WMBA program, Class of ‘11. Sort of a test event…

Host:Team State — Eli Broad WMBA, Class of ‘11

Time:9:00AM Sunday, August 9th

Well, here I am at the end of July and the beginning of my MBA program — the real, honest-to-God, nuts-and-bolts, sitting-in-a-classroom work — is bearing down on me like an ocean liner towering over a canoe.  I last wrote at the start of June… and I have done virtually nothing since then but work during the day, and do homework at night.  I have waded through the majority of the pre-work that was assigned — 11 chapters of Accounting with associated questions has kept me up until 1:00 a.m. almost every night in July.  A Statistical Analysis on-line course kept me up late for most of June.  Fifteen chapters of Managerial Practices reading got squeezed into lunchtimes at work, and various late nights when I couldn’t take any more stats.  But I have, so far, done it.  I’m in the home stretch…but a home stretch that stops at the real beginning of my journey

This is Tuesday. (an hour from Wednesday, actually)  On Friday I will get in my 10-year-old Volvo at six in the morning and make the three-hour drive to Lansing for my official orientation.  From 9:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m., my Friday is tightly scheduled, and likewise my Saturday from 7:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.  I will meet my study team, the four other people who will travel with me for the next two years; whose academic future is enwined with mine; who are destined to become my friends for life…and I haven’t even met them yet.  Orientation is an intensive team-building, bond-forming machine that looks to throw individuals into the hopper, and squeeze cohesive teams out of the nozzle.

After I return on Saturday evening, I get a week at home, then I will climb back into the Volvo early Sunday, August 9th, and return to Lansing, where I will stay for the next week.  The thought of completing three full college courses in seven days (instead of 16 weeks) isn’t actually so intimidating now — miraculously, a lot of the material I’ve been cramming into my head has actually stuck there.

What’s hard for me to believe, is that this is in 12 days.  Twelve days…it’s surreal to realize that I am down to days…not weeks, months, or “someday.”  I have been wanting, wishing, hoping to go back to school for what seems like forever — for most of the 14 years since I graduated with my bachelor’s degree, honestly.  All of my research is over.  All of my surfing of university websites, of graduate school advice forums, of school rankings, and program rankings, and compiling spreadsheet after spreadsheet of comparative advantages of different schools, classes, degrees…and so on, and so on, and so on…

Now, it almost seems like I snapped my fingers and “poof,” I’m standing at the door to a Big 10 university’s graduate school, class list in hand, laptop under my arm, thinking “wha’happened?”  All the research, the studying for the GMAT exam, the grey day in November when I drove two hours to take the exam despite gruesome intestinal goings-on, the information session in Grand Rapids, the applications, the forms, the waiting — it’s all kind of compressed into one composite memory.

And here I am.  In a little over 48 hours I will be at my Orientation.  In 12 days I will start my first classes.  In a little over a month I will be settled into my new routine of every-other-weekend classes, and the gruesome spectre of a one-week, 5.5 credit madness will just be a “yeah, we did it” memory.   I find that I’ve been focused on what happens after I finish this program more than on getting through the next two years of school, and I have an uneasy feeling that I’m about to have an abrupt awakening.

Yet, despite all of my forebodings and uneasinesses and trepidations…I’m wholeheartedly looking forward to the start of this thing; heck, I’m practically giddy with excitement.  I actually have two overwhelming thoughts….one is “I can do this,” and the other is “bring it on!”

I’m excited.

I just attended the “Admitted Students Dinner” for my Weekend MBA program, and it has put a real and sudden feeling of reality into what I’m doing.  Up until now, I’ve been doing everything via the web and e-mail — my application, acceptance letter, financial aid preparations…everything has been cyber-this and virtual that.

But having dinner in a room at the Henry Center in Lansing with 160 of my future best friends is a very grounding experience.  Listening to a panel of alumni tell me just how much work they went through is a very grounding experience.  Listening to professors say how much they expect to be done before class even starts is a very grounding experience.  Getting a bag full of books, and a stack of syllabi and assignments due before my first class is a very grounding experience.

So to backtrack…I’m excited, with a large dash of terror-sauce.

In one 7-day residency session, I am going to complete three full college couses — 5.5 credit hours in seven days — and not fru-fru courses, no.  Financial Accounting, Managerial Principles and Supply Chain Principles.  I think I — right now — have a total of 26 chapters and nearly 50 questions/quizzes/exercises to complete in the next 2-1/2 months, not including the three on-line pre-courses in Statistics and Accounting.

Whew.  Excited, with a large dash of terror-sauce, topped with “what-the-hell-did-I-get-myself-into?”

But I can do this.  Other people have done this.  Other people have done this around marriages and childbirth, and I have to go through neither.  My wife is behind me on this, and says she’s excited for me…at least right now.  We’ll see how excited she is after a year of dad-who’s-no-help-with-the-kids and husband-who-does-no-housework.

This program will last until March 2011.  Two years; maybe a bit less.  I survived five years in Indiana.  I lived through six years of hellacious help desk duty.  I can do two years of school — especially if I keep my eyes on the prize at the end: an expected doubling of my salary and a hope for more than that.  Those other things — Indiana and help desk — had nothing at the end to look forward to other than just the cessation of hostilities.  No prize for completion…nothing.  “It’ll feel better when it stops hurting.”  You get the idea.

This program?  Two years of grueling school and 3-hour drives, and at the end of it I have an M.B.A. degree from a program ranked 18th among public universities and 40th overall?  A program rated #1 for return on investment?  A program with a career services department ranked #3 (IIRC) in the nation?  Well, hell!  I can do this!

I’m excited!

So, Earth Day was yesterday.  To celebrate, I took a picture and uploaded it to Earth Mosaic.  I also commuted 20 miles by myself in a car, and ate my lunch with disposable plastic silverware.  Yay!

I took a walk at lunchtime today.  My job is almost exactly one mile from Lake Michigan, and I can walk to the beach and back in just over a half-hour…35-40 minutes, say.  I leave my desk, hoof it to the water, grab a rock as a totem and hoof it back.

I realized just how much a walk like that signifies one’s basic trust in the world around them.  There I am, a mile from anything that belongs to me; a mile from any shelter that will accept me; a mile from any sustenance that’s available to me.  I just trust that when I return, it’ll all be there…that I won’t need anything to survive while I am walking.   I trust that no cataclysmic events will occur while I am out; that I will not need to kill zombies or grizzly bears; that I will not need to evade guerrillas.

As I was walking, I heard a large airplane, and turned to see a fairly big turboprop circling over town.  Shortly, I heard a helicopter and all I thought was, “Hm, must be the Coast Guard.”  Sure enough, the familiar orange Aérospatiale appeared overhead.  Then it struck me how the exact same sounds would provoke much different behavior in the different war-torn areas of this world.  I’m sure that right now in Iraq or Afghanistan, the sound of an approaching helicopter inspires people to scream and dive for cover so as to avoid being a target.  The sound of an approaching airplane indicates that something nearby is about to explode.  To me…it just inspires a “hmph.”

I leave my home every day with nothing more than a lunch in a bag and the clothes on my back.  In days gone by, leaving one’s home involved much more.  One could not trust that the means of survival would be available where they went — there were no Burger Kings, no K-Marts and no Shell stations.  One took what one needed with them, and and hoped to procure more along the way but did not count in it.

Think “Oregon Trail” here — the early settlers did not expect to refill their supplies along the way.  They filled a wagon with all the salt pork, gunpowder and bacon grease that it could carry, and set off on a journey.  Today?  I throw an egg-salad sandwich and some pudding in a bag and head out for the day, 20 miles from home, and just trust that I can get gasoline if I need it and something to drink if I’m thirsty.  It implies a level of comfort and trust in what’s around me, really.

The average American, I’d wager, leaves for work with no means of protecting themselves, no means of procuring food or shelter (other than a credit card and a cell phone) and no way of treating themselves if they become injured or sick.  We toddle off, naked to the realities of the world that are always hiding just behind the veneer of our society.  We are really just that close to being an active participant in a struggle for survival.  One terrorist, one natural disaster, one anything could disrupt everything.

Wow, listen to me…all doomsday-theory and all.  I really didn’t mean to go this way when I started.   I think I started on this train of thought when we visited Colonial Williamsburg earlier this month, and I read a plaque that said the average limit to a day’s travel in 1799 or so was 80 miles.  Mind you, we had just driven 900 miles in two days in order to read that plaque….and had averaged almost 80 miles per each hour that we were on the road.  Not to mention that we set off with the clear expectation that food would be available on the road whenever we needed it, as would shelter for the night.

What kind of leap of faith is that, really?  Get in your car, drive for 8, maybe 10 hours.  Find yourself 400-500 miles from your home.  Then simply pull into a hotel, get a room and sleep for the night.  We, as a nation of people, simply expect that wherever we are we will be able to find a place to sleep. (in exchange for some money, of course)  In the vast majority of the cases…our expectations are met.  And it’s really not that big a deal; there are hotels everywhere!  Somerset, Pennsylvania.  Canfield, Ohio.  Mesick, Michigan.  Marinette, Wisconsin.  Rolla, Missouri.  Everywhere — and lots of everywhere is nowheresville…yet there are hotels.  And usually at least one Chinese restaurant.