Sorry it’s been so long since my last update. While life is always hectic, things have been especially so over the last few months. I’ll give you the short version, but let me start with some mental_floss linkage…

5 Alternative World Cup Tournaments: This was posted the Monday after the 2010 World Cup ended. My editor and I both thought it might be good timing as a sort of exhale from World Cup fever. Apparently we were way off base, because the story was probably my worst flop yet. It registered a whopping two comments, one of which was “You forgot about…”. I think the most frustrating part was that I remember staying up until the crack of dawn that Monday morning to make sure I got it done on time to still be relevant. However, when it hit, I found out just how irrelevant it really was.

12 Essential Facts About the Folks Who Race Horses: This was a reprint on Neatorama from my last mental_floss Magazine article. It’s always nice to be reprinted by the fine folks over there.

The Ultimate Superfans: Tribute Bands That Really Rock: This was such a fun one to write. And it wound up being a fairly nice hit, garnering plenty of good comments from readers. I even sort of became friends with some of the guys from Rad Bromance, an all-male Lady Gaga cover band, as I was the first “big” media outlet to cover them. They’re a cool group and I wish them the best in the years to come.

7 Bits of Movie Magic That Disappeared: Much to my surprise, a story I wrote back in June wound up on CNN.com on August 8. I didn’t even know it was on the radar until my editor sent me the notification that it was online. I remember it was a nice way to end the weekend.

Public Transportation is for the Birds (And Dogs and Goats): Now this was a fun one to write! It was inspired by an article on the stray dogs that use the subways of Moscow to get around the city, but it just expanded from there to some really fun stories of animals riding buses, subway cars, and trains. It didn’t take the internet by storm, but it was such a fun one for me to work on that I’m ok with that.

The Stories Behind 8 Back-to-School Essentials: I remember when I was researching this story, I dug through mentalfloss.com for at least 30 minutes to make sure it hadn’t been done before. I just couldn’t believe someone hadn’t thought of it already. Admittedly, my initial thought was to do office supplies (Post-It Notes, fax machines, etc.), but it was my editor who finely-tuned it to school supplies to fit in with the week most students were coming back from summer vacation. The narrowing down was a good thing, because the story has been very popular, reaching #2 on mentalfloss.com for the week. I’m still getting the occasional comment notification almost a week later.

That about wraps up my mental_floss news for now. Some exciting stories, a few flops, and a few “meh”. But that’s the way it goes online. That’s something I have to often remind myself of, but it is such a valuable thing to learn if you’re going to stay in this business.

As for the rest of my life, well, frankly, it’s a wet, soggy mess. Since late July, we have been battling a water leak coming from the condo upstairs. This leak has been an occasional problem since we bought the condo back in 2006, but it always went away after a day or two, would stay dry for a few weeks, and then rear its ugly head again for a day or two, then go away again. So it was really hard to nail down to any particular cause. Back then it wasn’t really creating any major problems – we’d put a bucket under the leak in the basement to catch what little dripped out and we’d be fine.

But Summer 2010 has been different. It’s been so stinking hot here in lovely Missouri that our upstairs neighbors have had their air conditioning running constantly. This has helped us pinpoint the source of the leak, but it’s also meant a steady of stream of water droplets cascading down the inside of our bedroom closet and into our basement. Now, instead of a day or two here and there, it’s been more and more water every hour of every day, going on since July.

For potentially legal reasons, I don’t want to describe, in my unprofessional opinion, what type of damage we’re looking at here, but know that it is severe. When repairs are finally done, there’s a very good chance we’ll be moving out of our condo during that time since it will be quite uninhabitable. We’re not looking forward to the massive inconvenience this will be, but we’ll do what we have to do to get the problem fixed and our condo repaired. Still, just the prospect of packing things up, moving them to storage, and then living either in a hotel or at a relative’s house for a few weeks or a month, is not a fun one by any means. It has been causing a lot of stress on my wife and me and we haven’t even started doing the actual packing yet. I can’t even imagine what life will be like during that time, though I hope to blog about it throughout to give you some idea of the hell our lives will become.

Well, I really don’t have much more to say at the moment. I’m getting pretty tired from a full week of mental_floss, my day job, and stressing out about the leak, that I should probably hit the sack pretty soon. Maybe dreaming for a few hours will help me adequately escape reality for long enough to temporarily forget.

Until next time, folks, thanks for reading!

I have other things to update my three readers about, but for right now, please give me a moment to just sort of sulk, if you will.

Recently, I applied for two jobs at my current employer. As if to punctuate my schizophrenic resume, I applied for a job as a GIS Technician and another as a Techinal Writer.

You might ask why I applied for other positions and the answer is simple – I’m off my career path.  For about the last 18 months, I have been one of three, and then later one of two, primary contacts to support our outage management software. To know our outage software requires zero knowledge of GIS.  I fought tooth and nail to land a GIS job at the City of O’Fallon, and now I have been away from GIS for about half as long as I was ever in GIS. I’ve lost track and I’d like to get back on.

But what about the writing job? Well, if I can’t make GIS work, why not try to segue my writing for mental_floss into something new, ya know?  I’d love to take my career in that direction, so if I’m going to get off the GIS track, I’d at least like it to be towards something I enjoy.

The thing is, my co-worker that also supports our outage software is himself a writer. More specifically, a tech writer who used to work in the department I was applying to work in. He was forced to change departments years ago after a corporate shuffle took place, so he left under good terms with the department head and employees.  So since he left when he didn’t really want to in the first place, of course he applied for this latest tech writing position, just as I did.

Today it was announced that he had received the job. I wasn’t surprised whatsoever – logically it makes perfect sense for that department as he can simply step into the role without much fuss, plus he’s a good writer, so it’s a total win-win for them. I knew all along, honestly, that he would get the job.  That’s not the part that necessarily bums me out.

The part that sucks is that now I am the only person in my department who will be full-time outage management support. This means I have to take on the support calls, all the training, all the conference calls, and all the meetings by myself…for a job I no longer wanted to do so much that I tried to get out twice.

And because I’m now suddenly the go-to guy, that means I’m automatically taken out of the running for the GIS job.  I mean, it makes sense, of course, because the department can’t be left without someone to support the software, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t suck any less.

Long story short, I lost two jobs today at the same company. How’s that for impressive? I wonder if I can put that down as a skill on my resume? Don’t get me wrong, folks – I’m thankful that I have a job. And I’m going to do my best after I’m thrown to the wolves once my soon-to-be-former co-worker has officially made the move to the other department. But at the same time…damn.

So now my options are: Stay where I am and accept the fact that I’m probably stuck in this role for the next year or two until I find someone to replace me so I can transfer to another department; or find another job outside the company. Neither are especially appealing to me tonight. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll feel differently, but for tonight, after this just happened, I’m pretty well down in the dumps. I’ve found myself in some dead-end jobs before, but never have I been so utterly pigeon-holed as this; absolutely stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

But for right now, all I can do is accept it and move on. Unfortunately, I’m not independently wealthy, so I have to have a job. Nor do I have the background, skillset, experience, and the personal contacts to just be able to find a new, better job tomorrow in a field I want to be in. I’m just a working stiff who has to do what he has to do.

Maybe someday I’ll get my career back on the GIS track. Or maybe I’ll find a whole new track to lay with my writing experience. Who knows what the future brings? But at the very least I can tell people I lost two jobs on the same day at the same company. That seems like a rather fun topic for a cocktail party, huh?

No? No, it doesn’t? Hmmm…well, then I guess it just plain sucks.

Tonight’s the night when it all ends. It’s the final episode of Lost – a show that I have been in love with since I watched the very first episode the night it aired. Andrea and I weren’t like so many people who became obsessed once they watched it on DVD; we were there from the beginning. There’s no question the show has had its ups (“The Constant”) and its downs (most of the third season), but through it all, it’s kept us wanting more. There haven’t been too many shows that have captured our imaginations and our excitement quite like Lost has over the last six years.

As I go into this evening, I know one thing – We’re not going to get all the answers. There’s no way we’re going to learn everything. And that’s ok. We may never find out why Walt was so special. We may never find out where the Egyptian influence on the Island comes from. We will surely never know the entire story of The Others. These are mysteries we’ll simply have to accept, just as our characters have had to. Maybe one day there will be a book written by the producers that will fill in these gaps. But if not, that’s ok. Maybe it’s better if we leave a lot to wonder.

The only thing I hope for tonight is some sense of closure. Not everything has to wrapped up with a tight little bow, but I want to know where these beloved characters stand at the end of their journey. We don’t have to know if they’ll live happily ever after, we just need to know that their ordeal with the Island is over; that they have found some sense of peace.

So here’s hoping we get a satisfying ending. With so many TV finales that have gone down as less-than (Seinfeld, The Sopranos, L.A. Law, etc.), it would be a real shame to add Lost to that list of great shows with incredible runs that petered out in the end. I guess we’ll just have to see.

I’m writing this post from the bathroom at work. No, seriously. My new Android-based cell phone has a WordPress app. Ain’t technology grand? Who needs a flying car when you can blog from the can?

Man, I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last updated. Life has simply gotten in the way around here. Busy, busy, busy as always.

I’ll start with my mentalfloss.com updates. It’s been a good couple of weeks – some good, solid stories – but nothing that has taken the internet by storm.

First up was Pet Sounds: 4 Animals That Could Really Talk. It was a really fun one to write, it received a good number of retweets, and CNN.com was interested in it, but (so far anyway), hasn’t actually reprinted it. I still have my fingers crossed that they’ll come through, but we’ll see.

Next up was Not Your Father’s Lodge: 5 Charities That Make Giving Fun, a look at some non-traditional charities like St. Louis’ own Zombie Squad and American Mustache Institute. I actually wrote this one a while back, but it didn’t fit into the publishing schedule until this week. The story sort of bombed, unfortunately, at least by my standards. It did get some solid retweets and, perhaps most importantly, I got some kind words from the St. Louis charities through Facebook. The guys from the Mustache Institute even sent me a personal email saying thank you for including them. The story was also mentioned in one of mental_floss’ daily Watercooler Ammo emails, which was really great of them to lend it a hand. So I have a feeling that as much as could be done to promote the story has been done, but for whatever reason it just didn’t connect with as many readers as I would have liked. I have a feeling it was a little too long. Hindsight being 20/20, I think I would have trimmed things down quite a bit. I’ll definitely keep that in mind for future stories.

For a little personal news, it’s been kind of a rough week in the Lammle household. As many of you know, I’m adopted and, thanks to a story that would make one hell of a screenplay, tracked down my biological parents a few years ago. This week, my paternal biological grandfather passed away after suffering a stroke a few weeks ago. I didn’t know him all that well, but the few times my wife, daughter, and I visited him, I got the impression he was quite a character. So we’ll be visiting the family to pay our respects and give some of them the opportunity to meet our daughter for the first time. As usual, the visitation will be a sad, yet joyous event. A true celebration of life in all its stages.

Well, it’s almost 3:00am, so I should probably hit the sack. Thanks again to all my friends and family for following me and supporting me over the years. I’ll try to keep things updated a little more often around here, so check back again soon.