Craig Clayton

HAZMAT is visiting my “home” office today. Evidently someone set the temp a little low on the Diet Coke freezer upstairs. I decided to open a my chilled diet beverage only to begin a chemical reaction that would later cover my monitors, desk, pants, and concrete floor with delicious diet coke goodness.

Should I be drinking diet coke? Maybe this is a sign. All I know is that its completely frozen and all over the floor… and not sliding down my throat providing me with the vital caffeine I need to survive. I am so bitter right now. Maybe a trip to QT to get a rooster booster is in order…

If I scheduled a blog post, for every day – this is the number of posts you would read before you found me dead! I was just listening to a Pastor give a sermon on how we do not know how long we are to live – but that he had checked out a death clock website. In humor, i checked the site – sure enough, Aug 2029. Scary. 2029 isn’t but 19 years away. According to the site I’m going to die because of a heart attack. Evidently my BMI is a bit high.

The last few posts have probably sounded a bit morbid and pessimistic. I’m not going to lie, these are scheduled posts – I wrote them all in one night.

This blog post sponsored by people who didn’t live as long as I have lived (though they probably should have)…

Someone, quickly, save me from the self-loathing pity I have surrounded myself with lately. I am the big 3-oh. That’s 30. Thus far, 30 is a pretty horrible feeling. You wake up realizing that you’re not cool anymore. Seriously, half of the marketing professionals in the world are pretty much done with you. The only people that have interest in you anymore are:

• TV manufacturers
• Golf stores

Why? Cause your old fannie can’t do anything but watch TV and hit range balls. If your profession was related to Extreme sports, you’d be retiring at this point in life.

At least you still have your health, right?

My metabolism has completely stopped. I eat everything in sight. I’ve gained nearly 50lbs since I started dating my wife a mere 3 years ago. Folks, that’s the equivalent of carrying nearly four 12lb bowling balls on your gut every moment of your life. My blood pressure is lackluster at best. Stress? STRESS?!? Yes – stress is totally associated with age, even though scientist would tell me I am crazy. Something about turning thirty means you need to be constantly advancing your career, having a baby, and moving into a bloody new house all at the same time.

Craig, seriously, calm down. Its really not that bad…

If bad were a living in a small hut in desolate part of Africa, then yes, things could be worse — but being age 30 in desolate Africa is like being 92 years of age in the United States — I could spend my free moments carving rocks to use for my headstone.

Well — At least the Wildcats are 16-0…

Thank Bloody God or you’d be pulling the shotgun out of my mouth!

…

Please don’t read into this too much – I am just trying to have a bit of fun. I realize that I am a really fortunate person — and being 30 isn’t that bad, I just like to be negative for fun! Special thank you to everyone who showed up for the Tim Stark / Craig Clayton – 30 year old bash at Nicks the other night! I have the best wife in the world for setting that up. This week could be kinda bad on the blog — got a lot of projects to finish, then i’m heading to KY for my birthday celebration, Round 2 with the grandparents. Great, another opportunity to realize I suck …

Fact of the Day — Kurt Cobain killed himself at age 27. I thought he was a whole lot older than that… dang, that was a long time ago!

[insane rant]
Thank you AT&T for ruining my “work at home” gig. See, every time you guys decide to randomly shut off service, disconnect lines, or have “intermittent” problems – someone one pays, literally and figuratively.

Who? Me. I’m paying for your services. I’m paying for “internet access”. When you shut it off for 36 hours, for no reason – well, … I do not have “internet access”. When I don’t have internet access, I cant work effectively, communicate with my colleagues, or send out snarky emails to my staff. I can’t order stereo equipment online. I can’t check the weather to prepare for 3 to 5″ of snow. See, basically your stopping free markets. When you stop the free market, your promoting communism. Russia was a communist country once – We know what happened to Russia – you really should watch out.
[/insane rant]

Yesterday, as I was tweaking the final piece to my 2009 year in review post, I messaged bofe to comfirm something that i’ve known all along but never truely “realized”.

I have a friend, … an internet friend, that i have shared a majority of my life with – I mean, i’ve told this guy a lot of stuff over gtalk … and I’ve never actually physically met him in person.

You may say: “Well, Craig, that’s normal now-a-days …”

I say to you – no, not at all… Why?

• The guy was in a fraternity at the small college I attended in KY at the same time I was school.
• He was in IT – I am in IT
• We have a mutual good friend in Andy Hill.
• I am pretty sure I sent him an invite to my wedding, totally not even thinking “that might be awkward – not actually have met him…”
• I know him by his facebook profile picture…
• We now live in the same city.

Tim Hart – Maybe we should go to lunch sometime soon…. hahha

My friend, Andy Hill, always posts a year-end recap. Now that he’s been doing it for a few years, its fun to look back and see what all was going on at the time.

This year, in no particular order.

• I went to Las Vegas with Suzanne.
• I only got to wakeboard twice.
• I didn’t go snowboarding.
• Fourth of July sucked because it was like 50 degrees outside.
• My friend, Scott Randolph, got married.
• My friend, bofe, got engaged.
• I lived in New Jersey, then I moved to Missouri.
• I ditched shared hosting, my vps, and my box on softlayer for cloud computing.
• I found out that my wife was pregnant with a little boy.
• I went to New York to hang out with some “internet friends”.
• I got real fat (225lbs), lost 25lbs, then gained it back (230lbs).
• I developed an insane “bloodlust-like” addiction to PJ Whelihans Hot & Honey Wings (see previous weight gain line item)
• My Friend, Heath Bittel, had a baby girl – Lana.

Here is a listing of the top albums I listened to in 2009:

• Sufjan Stevens invites you to: Come on feel the Illinoise
• MGMT – Oraculary Sepectacular
• Kings of Leon – Entire Discography (renewed interest in this band)
• Manchester Orhcestra – Entire Discography
• Norma Jean – The Anti-Mother
• Scott Weiland – Happy in Galoshes
• Jay-Z – The Blue Print
• Kanye West – Entire Discography (I never listened to him until taylor swift incident)

More to come as I remember what happened. I’m feeling reflective today…

Before I begin, I want to make something very clear — I am for all intensive purposes a libertarian. Now that I have that out in the open, let me show you what I started…

First off, I was cruising around on AllianceWake.com – think of it as the US Weekly of wakeboarding news and events. I usually check out the videos section, looking at the latest uploaded films. I watched one of the new top videos and was a bit perturbed by something I saw — something I don’t see very often. Aaron Rathy wakeboarding without a life jacket.

Is he the first to do this? Nah, I’ve seen it before – but its really hit me mentally – what if he was get his breath knocked out — wonder how fast a dude like that would sink?

We could ask Raequel Hoffman… I wonder if she would stop wearing a vest…

As stated before, in my eyes Aaron Rathy can do anything he wants – wear no life jacket, crush baby rabbits with the jaws of life, porno, tattoo the word “earth” on his forehead – whatever… its a free country. However, if you do something that is against what most humans have been socialized to (ala: Wearing a CGA life vest when participanting in water sports) — expect the wrath that comes with it. Every personal decision you make has consequences and possibly unintended wrath associated to it. I, personally, felt obligated to share my opinion that wakeboarding without at least a semi decent vest was stupid and suicidal on a large forum…

All and all, i thought there was some good discussion – here is the thread if you are interested in reading what others had to say.

I’ve created this blog with the intentions of sharing bits and peices of my life with friends, family, and associates. Hopefully you will find some of my information relevant and worthwhile. If you have anything you’d like to have me discuss, feel free to hit me up and we can discuss!