Sitting at home watching pro football with my wife. Honda ad comes on TV. Girl in ad is girl I dated for a year or so in high school and first year of college is in the ad. I knew she moved to California to pursue acting...but hadn't seen her in a long time. Now she's on ads all the freaking time. My wife jokes about seeing my ex-girlfriend all day long. But she's added her own twist....like some fat guy or something will be on a commercial and my wife will say, "hey, didn't you date him, too?"
A buddy of mine from high school played "Adam the Cyborg" (or something like that) on Buffy the vampire slayer.
Back in 86 or 87, my buddy and me went to my house to play pool one night, when we got there, we saw that my brother had some of his friends over. We talked to them a little whileand we knew that they had played HS baseball in town and they both played in the minors for the Braves. Well one of them ended hitting over 300 homeruns in the majors and play in two world series, his name was Ron Gant.
Went to high school with a this weird guy. He looked like the stereotypical computer geek. One day, I see him on America's Most Wanted. He had become infatuated with this woman he met in law school, and killed her and her boyfriend. They never found the guy, as far as I know.
At SWT, I lived in the same dorm as this one kid. Really quiet, but when he opened his mouth, it always seemed like something bizarre came out of it. Always said he wanted to be an actor, but didn't really fit the part. Now, he's always in these 20-something movies in the background somewhere. I've seen him in Van Wilder, Goldmember, and others. His most memorable scene was in The Rules of Attraction. He was the chubby redhead kid who was getting a woody while two hot chicks were dancing with him. Weird.
Obvoisuly I am bored at work: Jesse Heiman Lived in Newton, Massachusetts for 11 years from 1978-1989. In 1989 he moved to Austin, Texas with his family. Remained in and around Austin for almost another 11 yrs from 1989-2000. Moved out to Los Angeles in the fall of 2000. Went to Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. Graduated in 1996. Went to Southwest Texas State University (now known as Texas State University) in San Marcos, Texas. Graduated from there in May of 2000 with a bachelor's degree in English and Mass Communications. First job in Los Angeles: office assistant at a video duplication business.
The guy who owns Churrascos is related to my mom. My uncle, who married into my mom's family, participated in Iran/Contra. He has pictures of him with Ollie North. It's my understanding that he would sneak into Nicaragua to meet with Contras. His brother was shot down in a single engine plane while trying to sneak into the country.
A girl I was in the 2nd grade with went on to become one of those actresses who gets one line on shows like 90210. She's more recently become a casting director, though. No one who comes out of my hometown ever amounts to much of anything, though, at least since Carolyn Jones and Ron Ely... (and Art Bell was stationed at the Amarillo Air Force Base at one point). Speaking of extras in television, it's not the same kind of thing, but I keep spotting the guy who starred in my first movie in the background on various TV shows. It's weird to watching something and then all of a sudden see one of your friends. But since he was an aspiring actor when I met him, it's not really all that surprising to know he's still an aspiring actor. I was surprised to hear one of my Arkansas cousins was working as an editor for The New York Times.
a good friend of mine from high school...is on the US olympic volleyball team playing in Athens right now. Her name is Ogunna Namani...we used to cheat on math homework together.
I just had a WTF monent last night. I found out one of my high school classmates is in the Olympics doing the triple jump for Trinidad.
Let me preface this by saying I am a fool: About a year and a half ago, I received an email from this student at Wharton Business School. She was studying finance and had a 3.8 GPA. She was inquiring about an internship at our fund. At first I was kind of put off by her high GPA. In my line of work(stock market) we tend to shy away from "academics." Anyways, I agreed to meet with her for an interview. Since we get alot of internship requests we thought this would just be another interview with an eager kid. She agrees to fly in from NYC. The day of meeting she arrives early and meets with my boss. After that the boss brings her into my office...In walks the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in person. Well I try to compose myself, and proceed to ask her questions. I ask her about her background in finance, and stock trading. She says she is very interested in the field, but had limited practical experience. At this point I am willing to accept her into an internship position just by her looks even though she has no trading experience at all. She seems to be very interested and genuinely excited to be talking to us. We get to talking more about the specifics of the internship, and when she can start. We were thinking more in lines of a summer internship or something. She says she is more interested in just a few days each month. At this point I am puzzled, because who would move to Houston for just a few days a month of work. Then she says she would fly into Houston, twice a month from NYC/Penn and work here. I guess she might just be some wealthy girl from New York, who thinks she can push her way around due to her looks.( It kinda worked already) Anyways, I tell her I have to ask my boss about it. I leave the room, and talk to my boss. My boss is strongly against this plan. He percieves this as a lack of effort, passion about work... We argue the merits of this for another 10 minutes or so. I'm for hiring her(mainly cause she was so gorgeous) but since he is a more level headed person he decides to not accept her into an internship position. Remember we get alot of internship requests from alot of kids who have alot more passion and experience with the stock market. So I go back to tell her the bad news. She seems surprisingly upbeat about the news, and says maybe when she has more experience she can re-apply again. I said that sounds like a good plan, and she leaves graciously. All this time, I am thinking she has done some modeling work or something like that. I didnt think it was proper to ask her about that since we are professionals over here. Anyways I type in her name in Google: Ivanka Trump At this point my jaw has dropped to the floor. It is like the final scene of the Usual Suspects. For those of you who don't know she is the daughter of the Donald, himself. I run into my bosses office and tell him what I just learned. At this point I am stuttering like a madman, trying to tell him what we just passed up on. He to is speechless, and we just realize we might have passed up on helping a girl who's father might have become the largest single investor in our fund. Anyways, we are too sheepish (and embarressed for not knowing who she was) to contact her again about the post. We are waiting to see if she will contact us again, but it seems very unlikely at this point.
i got a new one. found out recently that one of my old freshman year floormates is gonna be on the next apprentice. keeping in line with the trump theme here.
How can someone from New York come into your office with the last name "Trump" and you not at least think she might have a connection to Donald Trump?
The Sultan of Brunei? Ewwww. I have one. When I was a senior in high school at little podunk Manchester Central High School (now known as Coffee County High School), this real skinny little kid with glasses came from Nashville (which is about an hour from Manchester) to Manchester. He was a junior and I didn't really know him other than that he was a new kid and he looked like a complete nerd. Then a couple of years ago, our local paper had an article on him and talked about how he had become an actor and was going to be in this movie, "Road Trip". My mouth just dropped open as I sat there and thought to myself, "Well, I'll be damned. D.J. Qualls is an actor??!! WTF!!" The funny thing is for the longest time, the Internet Movie Database site said his DOB was 1-1-79 but now checking it, it says 6-12-78. Which I find that curious, considering that I graduated high school in '91 and he was a grade behind me. Maybe he was a gifted student but I can't see him being that brilliant to graduate HS at the age of 14. Me thinks that Hollywood is doing the age-old practice of lying about our ages to try to make ourselves younger.
