What are the odds?

I was thinking about it a little bit earlier today and I came to two conclusions - one, I really need to post another blog, and two, quite a few very random events have occurred in the past couple weeks. One of these events was very tragic, another very stressful, and the third almost unbelievable (to me at least). Here they all are, brief as can be and hopefully interesting to my readers.

Second Suicide Witnessed in 2 Week Span

Many of you that talk to me with any regularity or read this blog at all have obviously heard about how a young man leapt to his death off of the parking structure located directly behind where I work. What some of you may not have heard was that a second suicide occurred just about 2 weeks later, and once again I was witness to the aftermath. In respect to my readers who do not wish to read of such things, let me avoid the details of the crime scene. It turns out that the victim was a sophomore at the University that suffered from extreme depression and some form of condition that caused him continual pain. The only aspect of the victim that I will elaborate on was his choice of clothes. While the first chose to dress rather nicely, the second was wearing what appeared to be red and blue flip flops. What a strange choice - hence a detail I am sure I will never forget.

Seeing as to how this entry was introduced for its randomness, I must comment on how truly rare it must be not only for two people to jump from the same building in such a short span (no doubt the second was influenced by reports of the first), but how much stranger it is to myself and my fellow employees to have witnessed something like that twice in a lifetime, let alone in a fortnight. Many people have asked me if it was strange to have experienced death in such close quarters (and for those questions I feel stupid as I'm sure there are many soldiers out there who would find this situation to be a walk in the park), but I must answer honestly that it has not been at all hard or strange. Once you realize that people make their own decisions and the pastis behind you, you can only look at such an occurrence for what it is - a suicide by somebody I've surely never met.

Random Gymnastics Party Breaks Out at Seaman House

Without entering into the confusing details, an old friend of mine who competes for the Eastern Michigan Club Gymnastics team (Cara, as previously mentioned in some much older blogs) asked me to host a party at my house this past Saturday as there was apparently nowhere else for it to be held. I reluctantly agreed, and before I knew it I was in way over my head trying to arrange the whole ordeal in a span of about 5 hours. At this juncture I must make a sincere shoutout to my dear friends Brynne and Julie, who not only assisted in the cleaning chores, but offered insightful ideas both before and during the party. In the end members of club teams from Penn State, Michigan, and EMU were there representing.

Nobody partied harder than the PSU girls though, who not only showed up wasted, but were so enthusiastic in their drinking that they beer bonged out of a funnel and hose so dirty I swear to God there were literally dust-bunnies laying in it. With my roommate Jesse's wonderfully hand-crafted Michigan Basketball court themed beer pong table (lots of adverbs and adjectives strung together there) on hand, myself and friend Mario managed to hold home field advantage for about 4-5 rounds, leaving me completely obliterated. I had some interesting exchanges with some PSU fans (often involving the last play of a certain game), but everybody came together for a pretty damn good time. In the end though I managed to meet some new girls from the UofM, and even got a phone number out of the exchange. One last tidbit - roughly 5 girls came up to me to tell me that they assumed girls lived in the house prior to meeting me as they thought it was so clean and well organized. You may read this and call me a fag, but I gotta admit that that may have made my night, cause I worked pretty fucking hard to clean the son of a bitch.

Hometown of Lyons, OH Makes National News With 267 Million Lotto Ticket

I walked into work this morning and made a comment about our office pool not winning the lottery. Somebody else chimed in with how somebody from my home town did though, and I certainly didn't believe it. I called my dad and sure enough it was true - the same place I filled my gas tank every friday after school and also where I bought my very first lotto ticket had sold one of the biggest jackpots ever. My dad said that the town was swarming with reporters and it ended up being the top story on the news.

For anyone out there who doesn't know anything about my home town, it's home to only about 550-600 people, making it most likely one of the most remote locations to ever pay out such a large sum as well. This is without question the first time Lyons has ever been mentioned in the national news also. Some of you out there may not find the whole thing to be so amazing, but believe me, if you grew up in a place like Lyons, you probably would, especially if you consider the fact that between my dad and I there's a better chance than not that the winner was somebody we knew. How crazy would that be? Will I have to become some deadbeat friend who returns to the guy/girl he hasn't talked to in years to get a piece of the pie? Of course I'd never do that, but there are a couple people I would definately try to contact if they had won for sure...