Michael Dell

I know that this probably didn’t even get looked at, but I still thought it was worth a try.  Note that if you email Michael Dell internally, like I did, while working there, your chances of getting fired are 100%.  Also note that I sent this well after my termination.Anyone know a good lawyer?—–Original Message—–From: Mathia, Michael  – Dell TeamSent: Sat 2/13/2010 12:02 PMTo: Dell, MichaelSubject: Concern.Mr. Dell –I was recently let go from Dell due to being “overqualified”.  Before legal action is taken, I’d like to know how this happens.  The person that hired me, knew of my qualifications prior to hiring me on.  They didn’t change any between when I was hired on, and when I started.  I was at work early, every day, from a 90 minute drive away from Nashville, through blizzards even.  I have a definite appreciation for the company that you have created, but I am astonished as to this type of low level management decision.  I dedicated myself to move away from family and friends in Wichita, Kansas, for this position.  I came to work, I excelled in every aspect, and followed all P&P.  My question is simple.  Why did this happen? It’s as simple, and as complicated, as that.  Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you do.Mike MathiaPh: 316.806.7751mike.mathia@gmail.com

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The New Chapter: Nashville

Howdy.I’m writing this partially to keep everyone in the loop (that wants to be) on what’s going on with me, but also, to help me wrap my head around everything that is going on. Things are moving so fast right now.First, surgery recovery. I am recovering well from surgery. The swelling has gone down, pain is slowly going down, the tumor is obviously gone now, the jaw reconstruction is working well, and my neck is healing well from where they had to cut me open to finish the surgery. They said 4-6 weeks to recover. It’s been a little over a week. I still cannot feel anything on the bottom right lip or chin, and I never will again. I’ve been retraining myself to talk and eat correctly again, I’ve been pretty successful so far. The strangest thing is shaving my chin without feeling it. That tripped me out a lot.I haven’t needed much help in the recovery, but what little help I have needed, I’ve had all of the support I could ever ask for. And I’ve never been more thankful to friends and family. Thank you.So after my surgery, on the 16th, I came into my work at SSI and picked up my paycheck, asked them where my schedule was, so I could resume work. The said to take all of the time I need to recover, feel better, and contact them when I am ready to come back. Where as I was able to work, I was not ready to truly come back.A few days prior to that, since I was doing some job hunting during my recovery, (yes, I never give myself a break) I received a job offer in Nashville. After getting my paycheck, and not having a schedule, I contacted them and told them that I could be out by Wednesday the 18th for an interview. Late night on the 16th I packed up and left. By the evening of the 17th I was where I am now, in southern Kentucky, staying with a special friend of mine. She’s been generous enough to let me stay here until I get everything settled in. I went to the job interview, and acquired the job. Basically, what I will be doing, is high-end tech support for the military. I cannot get into any more details, except that it’s requires a top secret clearance to do the work. The pay is generous, and it’s right up my alley. I’ve been needing this change for a long time now. There was a narrow window of opportunity to grab this position, so I did, and pending paperwork, I should be starting sometime in December. I’m definitely looking forward to this. In the meantime, I have been relaxing and recovering. The pace of things out here is very laid back, and I like it a lot. It’s nice to just be able to chill once in a while, and it’s definitely something that feels new and refreshing to me. Starting next week though, things are going to start ramping back up. Later today, Holly and I are going to go into Nashville, kinda just check out the town and see what all it has to offer. Tomorrow I will be filling out the extensive paperwork for the job, maybe visit one of my old friends, that now lives in Bowling Green, KY. Monday I am going to run some errands in town here, meet up and talk with the local emergency operations center here and discuss what I could do to help out here, like I did in Wichita, get a hold of some Ham Radio operators here, get into the Skywarn stuff out here, maybe even look for a second part time job in case something falls through with the first one. Turns out, they have a news radio station in town here that has the same programming as KNSS did in Wichita, so I could do production and on-air work for them, without any training. Although the on-air part, might be a little tricky, after the surgery and all. Tuesday I have to go back down to Nashville and fill out paperwork, get fingerprinted, and all of that for the job, so I will be busy then too. Wednesday I plan on tying up any loose ends here, doing various things, and confirming dates and times on things here. Thursday I am having cable TV installed here just before I leave back for Kansas. Leaving for Kansas around 6p to be back in the Wichita area by around 6am Thanksgiving Day. I will sleep, spend time with family and friends. Then, from the 27th and the first week or so in December, I will be in town to tie up loose ends there, pick up paychecks, pack up more things, get a few doctor appointments in, say goodbye to friends and family, etc. By December 8th, I plan to be back here again in the KY/TN area. Predicted start date of this job is on or around December 11th, and if it starts later, I will want to be working another job by then anyways, to bring in more money. If you want to see me while I am in town, you should get a hold of me soon, so I can get a time slot for you. I will be very busy once I am there, but I want to see as many of you as possible. Use my links on the right side of this blog to get a hold of me. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. My phone number, most people have, but if not, it’s on my Facebook. Contact me and we’ll hook up.I also will have a few photo shoots that I will be doing when I get back into town, and have room for a few more, so look me up for that as well. So anyways, I’ll come back up here to the Nashville area, start working, start saving up for my own place, and get everything ramped up out here. Provided that finances allow, I will be trying to fly back again to the Wichita area around whatever Christmas break I can get, to spend time with family and friends for Christmas, and then be taking my Oldsmobile packed up with whatever I had forgotten or couldn’t fit into the Celica, back with me to Nashville. The Olds is in great shape, practically brand new, no miles and works perfect, and nobody seems to want to buy it from me for what it’s really worth, so I am going to just take it with me. It’ll be nice to have a backup ride in case something were to ever happen with the Celica.The goal is to then again, get back here to the Nashville area before New Years, and start 2010 here in Nashville, new chapter in my life. =]So last night I was online catching up with friends of mine and stuff and some weird shit has been going down out there in Wichita. Like, I guess one of my idiot officers at SSI (that I couldn’t stand) pulled someone else’s gun on another officer. Yeah, couldn’t believe it either. The idiot officer obviously doesn’t work there anymore. But the guy that has the business end of the gun pointed at him, disabled the idiot, and let it go. Better man than I. I would have killed him where he stood. And I would have been legally allowed to as well. There’s no way that someone is going to pull a gun on me, and live to see another day. If you plan on putting a gun into my stomach like that, you’d better make plans to pull the trigger a few times, because it’ll be the last thing that you do, if you don’t. I respect the officer that disabled the tard officer that thought that something like that would be funny, and commend him for doing nothing further. After talking to him, he basically said that his family flashed before his eyes and wasn’t worried so much that the tard would actually kill him on purpose, but more so that his stupidity would get him accidentally killed. Needless to say, the tard officer, Logan Hertel is his name, was caught on tape doing all of this, and no longer works there. But if you hear or see this stupid kid, don’t hire him, he’s just dumb enough to do this type of thing again, and it’s disgusting that he’s still alive.So the gun wasn’t Logan’s. It was someone else’s. One of the new dispatchers that works up there now actually. I guess he felt the need to bring his personal weapon up there. He’s brought it up there a few times, and there’s nothing wrong with that, until the owner of the company tells you not to bring it up there. Then you don’t. But he brought it up there anyways, Logan took it, and did the above. Jeremy, the new dispatcher, gets fired for having the gun up there, understandably. He was told not to have it up there. Simple. Logan was obviously fired too, and the officer that handled everything well, the good friend of mine, is being backed by all of his other officers, as well as the company owner 110%. Jeremy, the new dispatcher, goes home to his girlfriend, to tell her that he lost his job because of this idiot (as well as himself for having the gun up there) – his girlfriend is pissed that he lost his job (tough job market and all), Jeremy gets pissed and goes looking for Logan for like 3-4 days I guess, and doesn’t find him (which is a damn shame). After having nowhere to live, after getting fired from his job for having the gun up there, after losing his girlfriend, after looking for Logan and not finding him, Jeremy shoots himself in the chest, and dies. Yeah. Told ya I was having a hard time wrapping my head around everything that has been going on, maybe now it’s more clear as to why. So I am filing my resignation there when I get back, was going to before I found out about all of this happening, but especially now. They are missing me as a dispatcher, new guy no longer there now, Tracy is leaving, our most experienced dispatcher. That leaves one person. And me, if I were to stay there. I appreciated my job there, don’t get me wrong, but all of this shit happening, and more to probably happen, at $8 an hour, having to pick and choose which bills to pay, or come to Nashville and work for double the pay doing half as much with none of the drama.Which one would you choose?Crazy times. Tis’ the season I guess.That’s all I have for now. I would appreciate any and all comments.Thanks for listening/reading.

Jealousy. Really.

So. I’ve been thinking about this for a long while, and it still boggles the mind. I guess the more popular you become, the more people that become jealous of you. There are girls out there, that are jealous that I have a girlfriend. There are others out there that are jealous that I have a lot of neat toys. There are some out there that are jealous OF my girlfriend, wishing that they had her. But the storm chasing community? Really? I just can’t imagine that it’s true. But apparently, it is. There are a handful of chasers out there, some of who were good friends of mine at one point, that are jealous of my storm chasing. As I type this, I still cannot believe it. There are rumors and accusations going around about me “chasing with my emergency lights on”, or the latest, “that I have my truck back”, those are just a few of the many. I mean really? Do people care so much that they need to start rumors? So what if I had my truck back? Does that really matter? Well apparently to some this really does matter. I wonder, if I take a shit, before I flush, will they know what color it is? Don’t people have better things to do with their lives? Well. Apparently not. Turns out that some of these people “don’t like my style of storm chasing”. *laughs* Why? Because I’m ALWAYS on the storm? Because I am the first responder in the south central Kansas area 9 times out of 10? Because I am on the air with radio and TV stations on a normal basis? I know this sounds ridiculous to some, but all of this is happening. And then I realized why, it’s because they are jealous. I don’t understand why though. I’m just a normal everyday guy, that does a little more than average when it comes to jobs, owning my own modeling photography business, co-owning a computer repair business, working at a number of radio stations, working for a TV station, and working at a grocery store. Yeah, I stay busy. But it still doesn’t make me any different than any of you. I am in a lot of media, so I get a lot of attention. That makes me a little different, but not really. Because when it comes down to it, I’m just another guy, that’s trying to get the bills paid, that looks out for the safety of the general public. Isn’t that what every storm chaser is supposed to be all about? Truth be told, it’s not always. But it should be. I find the rumors amusing. But seriously, find something better to do. If you wanna shit talk behind my back, that’s find I suppose, but really, if you have a problem with me, grow a pair and say it to my face, and then maybe it can be addressed. But there’s only a select few people that will do this, and they are good friends of mine, rather than enemies. Storm chasing isn’t a competition, it’s a collaborative. The sooner people start to understand that, then sooner we will all start to get along. But some people are too immature to get that. And I think those people will never understand that.Regardless of the rumors, the accusations without proof, regardless of everything, I will continue to do my own thing. I’ll continue to be excellent at it, and I’ll strive every day to get better at it. I don’t need to feel special, join a group, or be in parades, to feel better about myself, like some people do. I can feel good knowing that I was able to give the advanced warning needed to save people’s lives. A lot of my close friends want me to get revenge on the people that start the shit talking, and steal from me, but I’m not like that. I know that Karma will work itself out, and that the people that have it coming to them, will get it eventually. And when it happens, as much as I would love to be there to watch it happen, I won’t have time. I have better things to do, like stab myself in the eye with a spoon. Get a life people. And stay out of mine. Sincerely, The One You Hate for No Reason

Ashley, Krissy, PETA, and Pam.

So in Bangor, Maine last week, two extremely hot girls in tiny yellow bikinis protested outside a KFC in the snow. Their names were Ashley and Krissy and, according to PETA, they’re members of the group.Right.I guarantee that if you stop by any PETA meeting, you’d be crap out of luck finding anyone remotely like Ashley or Krissy. With the exception of Pam Anderson — who, by the by, is not so much aging as she is rusting — most animal rights activists aren’t hot… or particularly social.Fact is, their connection to animals is usually based on their alienation from humans.PETA apparently was protesting KFC because — get this — when you fry chicken, it’s not good for the chickens. But the press eats this stuff up because they love anything involving half-naked chicks.And so do I.But there’s a strategy behind these stunts. PETA hopes that the press overlooks the corrupt bedrock of animal rights: That a human is worth no more than a rat — even a hot one.Which is why PETA would gladly risk a bimbo getting pneumonia for a byline. But maybe they think that’s the only way to get average guys involved in animal rights.

They’re half right. Men will always enjoy looking at a hot chick in bikini, but it’s not the stomach that’s making that decision — which is why there’s always free wings at strip clubs.