Bowling League Awards

For several years while I lived in Calhan, Colorado, I was a member of the White Trash Wednesday Bowling League at the Calhan Bowling Center (now closed thanks to the economy). At the end of the season, we had a pot-luck awards banquet where everyone drank way too much, prizes for bowling accomplishments were awarded, and everyone who deserved one received a Very Special Certificate. This is the one I received! With the Certificate came a very special Ribbon:

On a more serious note, I did achieve several legitimate bowling accomplishments, and received the badges and pins pictured below.

Here's the funny thing about these achievements: My average was 103. I hit 75 pins over average AND my first 400 on the same night - a night I was notoriously and most uncharacteristically drunk. I mean falling-down, pass-out drunk. I had a bad day, was pissed at the world, and although I rarely drank, decided to have "just one" Long Island Ice Tea. Which became two. Then three... still not entirely sure if I had a fourth or fifth... but I do know I was completely incapable of walking the three blocks back home. Thankfully my friends got me home safely!

The post date of 5/1/2004 for this is an estimate - this definitely occurred in the late Spring of 2004, but I don't remember the exact date.  The above was written 26th December, 2011.

Phi Theta Kappa Certificate

Certificate: TekMetrics HTML/Web Programmer

I'm a self-taught website developer and programmer.  In fact, my first website (built in 1994) was entirely hand-coded using Notepad on an old 386 computer!  Anyways, while I was living in Denver, Colorado, very shortly before I moved to Calhan, Colorado, I applied for a job as a website developer and the company asked me if I had a degree in website programming.  Which, needless to say, I found hysterically funny because far as I know, no university offered degrees in website development at the time - and HTML programming classes were still fairly rare!

Well, being the early adopter of the internet lifestyle that I was, I looked online to see if there was some lame online class I could find somewhere or another to knock out real fast and get some sort of sheepskin-like document that I could show to prospective employers.  Instead, I found a company called TekMetrics which offered online certification in a variety of internet-related topics - completely for free.  You had to take an online quiz (that was surprisingly in-depth and complex, actually!) but there was nothing stopping you from searching in another browser for the answer.  If you passed the quiz, you were awarded a certificate, which they would mail to you for free.  I still don't know how they were making money - or if they even planned to make money as so many internet companies back then simply profited by IPOs - but regardless, I received the certificates for the tests I took in the mail barely a week later.  My then-prospective employers were suitably impressed by them, but I didn't get the job regardless.

TekMetrics, alas, like so many other internet companies, is now long gone.

They really were sharp-looking, professional certificates...

Above written 27th December 2011

Certificate: Stardusters / Kappa Sigma Fraternity

I attended Florida State University from 1983 to 1985, and the though of joining one of the silly sororities was absolutely abhorrent to me.  But joining the "sister" organization of one of the fraternities, Kappa Sigma, was not abhorrent - and in fact, led to a lot of good old fashioned Animal-House style parties!   My time as a Starduster did not end well, however, but that is a story for another day.  Regardless, one of the best friends I've ever made in my life I met through this organization, and remains a dear and close friend to this day.

Above written 27th December 2011.

Certificate: Orthodontic Diploma

Ok, this really is seriously lame... but when I had my braces removed when I was a teenager, the orthodontist gave me a diploma! The things we save for years!

Volunteer Service Awards - Pembroke Pines General Hospital

Commentary, 27th December 2011: In 1976, when I was 13 years old, we moved from Harrington Park, New Jersey, to Pembroke Pines, Florida, a brand-new suburb near Hollywood, Florida. Moving from a very small town where I knew everyone - and had since nearly birth! - to a relatively large community with very crowded classrooms, traffic, and hot weather I never adapted to was very challenging for me. However, one opportunity presented itself to me that I relished and enjoyed for nearly four years straight: volunteering as a "Candystriper" at the local hospital, from 1978 to 1982. I received several awards for my service, two of which are posted above, and donated more than 4,000 hours of volunteer work during that time.

I adored volunteering at Pembroke Pines General Hospital. Some of my favorite duties included delivering flowers to patients and helping patients read and write letters. One fun tidbit was the fact that all us volunteers were always "at lunch" from 3:00pm-4:00pm every day - that was the time we all gathered in the volunteer office and watched the soap opera, General Hospital, on an ancient 13" tube-based television that always took around 10 minutes to warm up enough for the picture to stop spinning vertically! I'll never forget the day Luke and Laura got married - one of the other volunteer ladies baked a wedding cake for us to all eat, and several others snuck in some champagne for us to toast their wedding with! Alas, it was sparkling apple juice for those of us under 18 years old (still the drinking age at the time).

Above and beyond everything else, though, my favorite thing about my time here was the time I spent with the other volunteers, especially the adult ones. So many of the older volunteers, especially those in their 60's, took me under their wing and mentored me in more ways than I can ever describe - many of the life lessons and sage advice I learned from them continues to affect me to this day.

Speaking of Luke and Laura's wedding...how could I resist?