jolpadgett.com  

YouTube - Ninja cat comes closer while not moving.

YouTube - Japanese Show - Cat Weight Lifting.

YouTube - HOLE IN THE WALL, FOX.

Stupid show, another import, but the “Oh Crap” woman is so so funny.

Eric challenged his friends to cast themselves in a movie–who should play me in undoubtedly the most disjointed piece of celluloid this side of a David Lynch film executively produced by Terry Gilliam.

Unfortunately Marlon Brando has left for the land of endless twinkies and bacon above, probably sitting at the right hand of that drama queen sky wizard call God. He (Marlon, not God) alone could understand the emotional anchors necessary to cover my waif to whale transformation and its impact on my daily life. That would be the heart of my movie, fattened arteries and all.

If the movie was animated, it has already been well established that I am Ralph Wiggums–poor Wiggums indeed.

Before I reveal my choice to play me, I need to help Eric find the person to play his teenage to young adult self. Hot as this actor is right now, I can’t believe Eric overlooked him.

He went from goofy playful geek

to the hot go-to geek stud

(Shia Labeouf for those not in-the-know)

Enough delays. If I was casting myself in a movie, throwing out the idea that the looks have to match, I pick:

h

Yes, that is Donnie Wahlberg. Just like me, he had major success at an early age, was full of shit most of that time, had plenty of tail but now has suffered through a humbling streak but tolls away producing quality yet uninspired work.

I think the counter girl at the cafe downstairs hates my guts. She is very polite to me, chipper even. But I know she secretly wants me to tip her.

I love to tip. I remember my days waiting tables and how much the tips do matter. A tip, however, has to have worth beyond its monetary value. They have to earn it.

Sorry, counter girl. Taking my order, then my money and occasionally walking two feet to the glass case to get me a muffin doesn’t warrant a tip.

What makes it worse, she isn’t very good at even those things.

The cafe puts your name on your tickets for food pick-up. For a week or more, she called me Chuck. No explanation.

When I do order a muffin, every time so far, she forgets to get it in the time between taking my order and taking my money. A few times she started to go do other stuff, noticed that I had not moved and realized that she needed to get my shit.

The best, though, was the day I ordered a muffin and she went to the back after taking my money. I was thinking, stupidly, “mmmm fresh muffins!” She returns about 2 minutes later, looks strangely at me and places on the counter the just-retrieved tip jar. She then got me my muffin.

[this post has been sitting around in draft for a couple of months.  If they only sold a dryer sheet that tackled static cling and laziness....] 

As I get older, the importance of pants can’t be ignored.  The wrong pair of pants, tragically protrayed by a former coworker, will highlight your poor choice of socks with each step.  Worse, his pants were dubbed “Junk Showing Pants” or JSPs.  Never has so many been so nauseated by so little.

At $3.75 a pair, dry cleaning the 30 or so pairs of work/dress pants was becoming too much to handle on a regular basis.  Assuming 8 pairs of dress pants a week between Le and me, that would be $120 a month.  Yikes.

I noticed Dryel in TV ads and at the supermarkets but discounted its worth because if it worked as advertised, wouldn’t there be more competition in the market?  If you could realistically dry clean your clothes at home cheaply, why is there only one product out there?

Still, as our dry cleaning bill rose, the risk of throwing $11 away for the Dryel starter kit seemed like a reasonable experiment.  The kit includes instructions, a reusable bag, a stain removing kit and 4 Dryel dryer sheets.  Each sheet handles 3-4 pieces of clothes.  Replacement kits, with just 6 dryer sheets and none of that other stuff runs about $10.

The instructions tell you to examine the clothes for spots first and if you find any, place the absorbent pad from the spot kit behind and rub their generic spot cleaner on the stain.  My one attempt at this was a moderate success.  The spot went away, but the spot remover formed a faint stain of its own–like a wet spot but dry.  For now, any stains will go straight to the dry cleaners.

After the spot inspection, place the clothes in the bag–up to 4 pieces.  Add one Dryel dryer sheet, zip up the bag and put it in the dryer.  Tumble dry on medium heat for 30 minutes.

When you remove the clothes, they are damp and fresh smelling.  The scent isn’t overpowering.  You must immediately hang up the clothes to reduce wrinkling and allow the pants to breathe a little while drying.  For dress pants, a quick bit of touch-up ironing is necessary.

Are the pants clean??  I think so.  Taking into account that you treat spots separately, either using the included spot kit or sending spotted clothes directly to the dry cleaner, that leaves mainly sweat and general dirt.  The steaming action, along with the refreshing scent, does a great job of giving the impression that the clothes are clean.

I recommend Dryel for anyone looking to extend time between trips to the dry cleaners.  Your clothes will look and smell clean.  We decided to use Dryel for 3 wearings before returning the clothes to the cleaners and so far that works well.  That alone saves us $170.

Recently, I unearthed video tapes from my time in the Navy. This sent me off to google a number of old friends, with one success story. Then I began to think about how people would find me via google and that lead me to this post.

Read without context, the following seems self-indulgent (a blog self-indulgent? Never!). But I figure if I list out where I lived, where I worked and other key events from my life on a single page, people searching for me online would have an easier time at it.

My name is Joel “Jol” Padgett and I was born March 10, 1969. Growing up, my friends and family called me Crickett (Cricket in case they can’t spell it my way).

I was born and spent my first few years in Galax Virginia (more specifically Hillsville and Woodlawn). I attended Kindergarten at Woodlawn Elementary, at least mostly. During that year I contracted Encephalitis and spent a few months at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

I moved to Bassett Virginia and started 1st grade at Stanleytown Elementary, in Mrs. King’s class. I stayed at that school until 6th grade and had the following teachers (2nd - 5th grades respectively): Mrs. Shockley, Miss Erin Mccallister (my favorite ever), Mrs. Shackleford and Mrs. Payne. My father briefly lived in Blackstone Virginia and I visited him there a few summers.

I moved to Rocky Mount Virginia for 6th grade and half of 7th, attending Rocky Mount Elementary and then Rocky Mount Middle School. I had Mrs. Frith for 6th grade, but 7th is when I had multiple teachers like a big boy.

I moved back to Bassett and finished 7th grade and then 8th grade at Bassett Middle School. Ninth grade brought me to Bassett High School where I stayed until the end of 10th grade.

Then I moved to Richmond Virginia and attended Marshall-Walker High School for half a year; dropping out in the middle of 11th grade (stupidly after mid-term exams, haha). During that time, I started working at DrugFair. After leaving school, I took a second job–this one at Hardees on the overnight shift. I quit Hardees because 2 full time jobs was too much to handle.

I got fired from DrugFair and went to work across the parking lot at the A&P supermarket. I quit there after a year or so and ended up working at Friendly’s until the end of 1987.  During my time in Richmond, I mostly hung out at Video Circus on southside.  Also, I was really into the BBS scene, under the handle of Kamikaze King mostly.
I joined the US Navy in February 1988, turning 19 during boot camp in San Diego California. I was in Company 908 under EMC Gregorio. After 8 weeks there, I spent the next month across the river receiving training at the Data Processing Technicians A School.

After a month home, I went to my first duty station, NSGA Misawa Japan, on Misawa Air Force Base. I worked in 50IS division and lived in barracks 544 until I left Japan at the end of 1992.

Moving to Arlington Virginia off of Columbia Pike, I started working at BTG in early 1993. Summer of that year I moved to the Del Rey section of Alexandria Virgina. I met my husband (”Le” “Lee” Hong Van Le) then, on October 29th 1993. It was only because I knew people that he knew in Asians and Friends Washington that we even spoke the first time.

I lived there for 7 years until the beginning of 2001, when we moved to Courtland Towers in the Courthouse area of Arlington. I also left BTG to work at Sandbox.com from November 2000 until November 2001. During my time at BTG, I worked at NMIC in Suiteland Maryland and at Bell Atlantic/Verizon in Arlington among other places.

I returned to BTG, which had been bought by Titan Corporation during my time away. I worked onsite for OCTO as part of the DC City Government and then joined a team developing web applications for the Administrative Offices of the US Courts where I still work. Titan was bought by L-3 Communications.

We recently bought a condo in the Ballston area of Arlington.

I have always wanted to own an empire. Now, for the small price of a decent hosting package, I claim the title of Emperor of Jol’s World.

This world includes:

• NatsAtBat.com - My blog about the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball
• TVWatcher.net - My blog about Television
• JolMedia.com - My blog about development and technology
• JolPadgett.com - this blog, just about me.