Since I Found The Fray

Since I Found The Fray
by Schadenfreude
08/08/2011, 11:10 AM #

1.I have lived in three different countries.
2.I have changed jobs six times and been fired twice
3.I have tripled my income*
4.I have had a shot at winning $2 million (not much of one)
5.My kids have gone from diapers to teenagaers
6.I have changed my mind on several things (gay marriage for one)
7.I have made more enemies than friends

* Apparently, the key to success is to ignore work.

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Since I Found The Fray
by Archaeopteryx
08/08/2011, 11:49 AM #

1. I finished graduate school.

2. Found my job, received tenure, published 6 papers.

3. Actually began earning an income.

4. I had a shot at winning 210 million dollars, but some asshole at a convenience store in Ohio bought the winning ticket.

5. My marriage managed to survive, but it was touch-and-go for a while. This was unrelated to the Fray...I think.

6. I have changed my mind on several things because of things I've read on the Fray--thanks to TK, ZB, DC, TG, Hipparchia, Daveto, Ghost, and others. I've thought about things in ways I never would have, thanks to those named, plus Inkberrow, Schmutzie, Catnapping, Schad, Ender, Keifus, John McG, and countless others. I've lost faith in humanity after reading posts by...well, you know...

7. I have made more friends than enemies, if you can count people you've never laid eyes on as "friends."

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by Schmutzie
08/08/2011, 12:23 PM #

Same apartment, same job, no jackpot, no kids, I changed my mind on capital punishment, Way more friends than enemies. I posted once from the parking lot near Mather Point on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and twice from a hotel in Joplin, MO.

A BotF post you made triggered the Geezer Experiment.

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Since I Found The Fray
by skitch
08/08/2011, 12:25 PM #

1. I've put on a few more pounds than I'd like.
2. My feet hurt more.

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Since I Met You Baby, or Since I Fell For You?
by Inkberrow
08/08/2011, 1:15 PM #

Take that as meaning the Fray or yourself, Schad, as you prefer.

1. I've lived in one country, but set foot in eight

2. I've had the same job

3. I've doubled my income

4. No prospects of a windfall

5. I've gone from boxers to diapers

6. I've changed my mind on several thing (Al Jazeera for one)

7. I don't know if I've made more enemies than friends

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by RonB52
08/08/2011, 1:43 PM #

1. I've lived in the same townhouse.

2. I have the same day job.

3. I added a second teaching job and turned down a third.

4. I won the "Whad'ya Know" quiz.

5. My kids have become vegetarians.

6. I have become in general less homophobic.

7. I have had more friends than enemas.

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by DrNo
08/08/2011, 2:01 PM #

1: My son got cancer

2: My son underwent multiple sugeries, chemo and radiation treatments.

3: My son has been cancer-free for two years.

4: Nothing else matters.

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Since I Found The Fray
by daveto
08/08/2011, 2:19 PM #

I once lived in the same town as Schadenfreude. (I didn't fire or hire him -- knowingly.)

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by yastfort
08/08/2011, 2:25 PM #

I'm happily married

I'm a better cook

My teeth are whiter

My c___'s bigger

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Since I Found The Fray
by greeneggsnham
08/08/2011, 8:06 PM #

I've had my fingerprints altered several times.

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by TenaciousK
08/08/2011, 11:09 PM #

1. I have lived in five different houses.
2. I have changed jobs twice.
3. I quadrupled my income, then halved it.
4. One of my parents died.
5. I have gotten divorced and remarried.
6. I have successfully navigated US immigration.
7. One child went from middle school to college, the other from elementary school to senior HS year.
8. I've changed my mind about many things.
9. I've learned some important things about myself.
10. I've made many friends, and lost a few, and switched from dogs to cats.
11. I quit smoking. Twice. And it's stuck.
12. I'm very happy.

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by meridiantoo
08/09/2011, 12:56 PM #

- I have lived in two houses
- I have changed jobs once
- I have shared God's Holy word in Zambia, Zinbabwe, South Africa, China, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras and six states in the USA.
- I have seen both of my sons impress me in ways I never thought would happen.
- I have thanked the Lord for my Wife (MHNBPF) thousands of times.
- I have received an artificial heart valve, two stints, two bypasses, a loop recorder and pacemaker.
- I have purchased one new truck
- I have stood less that twenty feet from a live rhino in the brush of Africa with nothing between me and him, except open air. I have scaled mountains swam in rivers with crocodiles and hippos and looked across a hundred thousand acres of wilderness.
- I have repared my Husqvarna more times than I can count.
- I have made more friends around the world than are countable. And a few here.

- Oh, I built a barn - a pretty good barn

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Since I found the Fray,
by Fritz Gerlich
08/09/2011, 1:16 PM #

I've kept it in a sealed compartment. It has nothing else to do with the rest of my life. This is true not only physically and socially but emotionally. I've never assumed any of you is anything but pixels on a screen. It's like a go game--you put down your pixels, I put down mine. Over time, patterns are formed. There's a certain pleasure in it. But at the end of the day, we pack up the game and go home.

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by Keifus
08/10/2011, 6:26 PM #

1.I haven't even left the country.
2.The same crappy job got worse, better, and then absolutely horrible.
3.I've increased my income by almost 12%.
4.The journey from diapers to teenagers happened to my kids too. Well, one of them so far.
5.I stayed saner (and slightly more sober) than expected for all those years while I stayed up by myself.
6.Made a couple dozen friends I've never met. (Want a hug, Schad? I'll have to spell it with parentheses.) I found a point to Facebook.
7.I've watched the place die three or four times, and then get weakly resurrected, like a crappy photocopy of itself.
8.I've become a completely different person. Who is somehow more like myself.

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by newrundeep
08/11/2011, 8:04 AM #

1. Same country, same city, same house. 2. Third job. 3. Income has gone way up and way down and will be about 1.5 times where it was when I started here. 4. Kid went from elementary school to high school. 5. I made a few genuine friends, discovered that people I thought I liked were not all friends, and discovered I really genuinely disliked a number of others. 6. Marriage survived. 7. I too have changed my mind about a lot of things. To my shock, I'm getting more liberal as I conclude that the Tea Party is an incipient fascist movement and I truly believe we could see unrest near the scale of the French Revolution as the class wars escalate. 8. I don't make enemies, I just allow people to fall into the darkness where they dare not speak to me. 9. Mom got cancer, I've been the caretaker. Surgery, chemo, and now radiation. It's a frigging haul, let me tell you. 10. I've seriously improved my tennis.

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my stomach aches today.
by Snolly G
08/11/2011, 9:14 AM #

since i found the fray,

1.i have lived in one country
2.i have not changed jobs
3.i have multiplied my income by -3.0
4.i have had a miniscule shot at winning some hundred million dollars
5.the twinkle in my eye now has mass
6.i have changed my mind on several things (gays, for one)
7.i have made more friends than enemies

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by dumb_blonde
08/11/2011, 9:18 AM #

1. Both kids graduated & we became empty nesters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. One kid married

3. Two grandkids born.

4. Bought a house, planted a bunch of trees in the yards & now they are HUGE.

5. My income has stayed about the same, health insurance pretty much cancels out the raises I've received. Hubby's income has at least doubled.

6. Gone through several severe health issues with family members

7. Got my own motorcycle

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by Ted Burke
08/12/2011, 11:39 AM #

1.Sober for 24 years.

2. 24 years beyond my life expectancy.

3. Have had my poems published in various small magazines.

4.Was laid off by a management company because they were in financial trouble.

5. Was rehired for the same job when the business owners fired the management company and offered me my job back.

6.Appreciate the wealth of friends and family in my life.

7. Write better than I ever have.

8. Still a jerk

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by SouthernGal
08/15/2011, 1:37 AM #

1. I've lived in only one country but that could change [see # 4]
2. I had a stroke and could no longer work
3. My income is nonexistent
4. I have a chance at winning untold millions every Tue. and Fri,
5. My kids have grown into adulthood and I could not be happier or prouder
6. I've continued to have an open mind about most things
7. I've made enemies and some good friends and one very good friend
8. I realized certain posters would always ignore me but I learned to live with it
9. I had no idea pixels on a screen could make me cry or laugh out loud
10. I learned not to let pixels on a screen make me cry [with exceptions]

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by NickD
08/15/2011, 9:51 PM #

1. I have refinanced my home, twice, to help pay expenses and provide quality of life for disabled and dying family members.

2. I have lost my mother.

3. I have lost my brother.

4. I lost the woman I loved.

5. I lost my sister in law.

6. I lost my best friend.

7. I suffered a minor stroke.

8. I gained about 20 pounds.

9. I almost think I can't wait for the fray to go away.

However:

I have become un-afraid to write. And I now realize just how badly I detest the right wing and the extremes of the left. I have learned that intellegence does not always denote ability, nor does it always equal empiricle knowledge, and that there are no prospects for fixing stupid. I quit smoking and stayed quit.

One obviously cannot blame the Fray for the physical things that happen in the world, but I can give this place at least partial credit for my newly rediscovered desire to write. Should this place still be alive when I get published I am going dedicate my first book to this place and to my deceased family members but not in that order.

Note to Schad: If you are true to yourself and what you believe, if you are honest in your dealings with people you will always have enemys. There was a book written during the early eighties or late seventies called Winning Through Intimidation. I haven't seen my copy in about twenty years but the author broke people down into three basic groups with sub groups. While he got somethings wrong he was basically accurate in his description of the three major catagories. We all pretty much fall into one of them.

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by SamIamNot
08/17/2011, 4:41 PM #

1. I have maintained a very low key on the few boards I read. I am guessing DB and LI (if he is still here) are the only ones here who remember me from more than a year or so ago.
2. I have remained married to the same woman
3. I have watched my kids grow up to be very nice young adults and start college
4. I have lived in the same house
5. I have worked at the same company but have switched jobs a few times.
6. I have only left the country once to go to Isreal which I would never have thought was a likely place to visit
7. I have visited many places in the US. Some while on business others on persnal travel
8. I have stayed above (mostly) the squabbles on the Fray (see #1)
9. Have had my opinions swayed here an there by those on the fray
10. Have never met anyone face-to-face from the fray but know a few by their real names

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by adorablepuppyofwar
08/28/2011, 9:03 PM #


1. a loved one committed suicide [and i didn't even see it coming]

2. a loved one died of cancer [and i was glad when the end finally came]

3. the cat who was my soulmate and defender-from-burglars got old and died [i still miss him]

4. the dog who was my jogging partner [and soulmate] got old and is lingering at death's doorstep

5. i accidentally adopted 11 more cats and suddenly became a crazy cat lady

6. i really would have turned into a crazy, 'you kids get off my lawn' kind of hermit if i hadn't met a bunch of interesting and engaging and [sometimes] sane people on the internet, starting with the fray and extending to blogs and twitter and even into rl. many thanks to all y'all [and that includes you, schad].

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by Luo_Yi
08/29/2011, 2:59 AM #
Favorites Reply
At the risk of appearing to copy your points verbatum...

1.I have lived in three different countries
2.I have changed jobs 7 times and been retrenched once
3.I have quadrupled my income (must consider taxes in this figure)
4.I have met/married a great lady who "cured me of my wickedness"
5.I have had my opinion changed several times
6.I have learned some very valuable lessons (mostly investment/economic)
7.I have followed the lives of many people who I would be happy to know IRL. (I was going to say chatted with many people, but I mostly lurk on slate now rather than posting/exchanging)

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by catnapping
08/29/2011, 3:35 PM #

1. I have lost my husband.
2. I have lost all my hair, and grown it back again.
3. I have gained 40 pounds, lost 60, and then gained 4.
4. I have taught myself to draw little birds.
5. I have dabbled in poetry and prose.
6. I have learned how to write HTML only after CSS became the accepted language.
7. I have learned to walk with a walker, and then learned to walk without one again.
8. I have formed a friendship every bit as strong as any I'd ever formed in the meat world. (I love you, SouthernGal.)
9. I have gotten crushes on 5 different men on the fray, some of them married, one of them gay. But I don't care - my heart beats faster just reading their names.

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Re: Since I Found The Fray
by Rat
09/02/2011, 11:53 PM #

1. George Bush was elected president by the Supreme Court
2. George Bush re-started my career in writing song parodies
3. My father died
4. I celebrated 10 of my 34 wedding anniversaries
5. I met a few Fraysters
6. I bought a house
7. There is no 11