I spent Christmas 1998 with a huge welt on my forehead. One of my roommates that year got mad at me and threw a Nintendo game — Ikari Warriors to be exact — at me. Scary Gary was pretty well known on campus. He was easily recognizable, wearing a black hunting vest (the kind with all the pockets for ammo and knives and whatnot) over his worn out leather coat, he would run everywhere he went. One time I saw him trip, fall and roll all the way down a hill. It was horrifying, sad and hilarious. Kind of like watching a clown car lose control after slipping on a banana peel and crash into a pie stand. Gary was a year older than me and the year I lived with him was his second year in that room. He was very attached to that room, so much so that he lived there for at least three more years afterward. It didn't take long for us to realize that Gary was, well, unique. Of course, there was move-in day, when he screamed at me for stealing his bed. You see, I moved in first and took the bed furthest away from the door and bathroom. ...

As someone who enjoys things like, well, civilization, the thought of spending three weeks in rural Oklahoma wasn't the most thrilling proposition. Then again, I go where the work is, so off to the Will Rogers' homeland I went. While not working, I got a chance to explore the sites and smells of this fine state. Ponca City Now, to be fair, when I say "rural Oklahoma" I mean by the standards of any of us who don't live in a town whose tallest building is a grain elevator. By Oklahoma standards, however, Ponca City (pop. 25k) is downright cosmopolitan. They've got a daily newspaper, a Wal Mart and two Sonic drive-ins. There's not much more to be said about the town except that apparently, it used to be kind of a big deal. That, of course, was after they literally stole the railroad from a rival town. Ponca, as they call it here (because saying those extra two syllables is just too too much,) was a major player in the early days of the oil industry in Oklahoma, and corporate headquarters to Conoco for many years. Because of that, this town is rife with huge homes, many of which are rightfully called mansions. ...

Portland, Oregon is an interesting town. I spent the day there with a few friends and here's what happened: We went to the Portland Beer Fest, which was pretty great. The highlight, of course, was my brush with Jimi Hendrix On the way down there, we were almost accosted by Pete the Ginger, who was standing on a street corner trying to talk to people about green jobs. I told him that I was from Detroit and don't care about green jobs. I just want my manufacturing jobs back. EG told me I was likely to get stoned for saying that in Portland. On the way back, we were accosted again, this time by a woman from Children International trying to get us to sponsor poor children overseas. Our conversation went on for nearly 30 minutes with her starting out trying to talk to us about dinosaurs holding laser guns and whatnot. It really made no sense, and it went on forever, until she got to her point that by donating $22 a month would allow a kid to be a kid, thinking about things like who would win in a fight, a monkey with a samurai sword or a raptor with a ...

Have I ever told you this one? Last summer, I took Kristin to a resort in Pennsylvania for her birthday. The trip was fun, blah blah blah. Anyway, on Sunday I was scheduled to fly out for work and couldn't make it back to Detroit in time for my flight, so I caught one out of Pittsburgh, via Chicago, to Seattle. As is so often the case, horrible summer storms over Chicago delayed our flights for hours, so a bunch of us retired to the bar across from our gate to kill some time. As I recall, there were four of us, all older business travelers, heading out or going home. We shared a few laughs, a few stories about the road and about our families. After a few minutes, another group from our plane rolled into the bar. The group, lead by a tall, blond, frat boy-type was heading out on a business trip. For them, time on the road meant an opportunity to party, and a delayed flight wasn't going to delay the celebration. These guys were pounding beers and buying shots, it wasn't long before we were all drunk courtesy of whatever accounting firm or marketing company they worked for. Of course, because I'm ...