I met John Hawkins 4 years ago when I arrived at his office for a job interview. At the time, he was the Director ofTechnical Services for a small startup I was pursuing a management position for. You know how most management level folks dress up to conduct interviews? Not John. From what I recall, he was wearing a polo like he often wears,jeans, and some casual footwear. Oh, and I definitely did not miss seeing the big, multi-colored "GEEK" tattoo on his arm that stretches from wrist to elbow, and the peculiar tattoos on his knuckles (I learned in time that they symbolized one of his favorite hobbies). Talk about first impressions! His appearance scared me a bit - he looked like a cross between a gangster straight outta prison and a super-nerd.
Fortunately, I landed the job, and ended up working with John for a couple of years. Lo and behold, he turned out to be a really cool guy. From a business perspective, I learned a lot from him about web development and technology. I have many fond memories of the meetings John held in his office that frequently led into different conversations that had us laughing our behinds off - sometimes nearly "piddling" in our pants.
It was a sad day when John accepted a position to oversee a different division of the company, and he moved to another building. But like with many other folks in the office, John and I built a friendship that we continue to maintain outside of work. He and his wife Chris are like family to me, and I'm glad that we get to see eachother often.
For those of you who already know him, John is an incredibly bright, talented individual, so it was no surprise that he's finally branching off to do his own work. I thought it would be fun to write a brief tribute to John, in honor of today being his last day at a conventional job. I decided instead to share one of my favorite memories of him that I captured on my blog a little over a year ago. It describes one of the many funny moments that John and I still laugh about to this day! The video, by the way, is quite entertaining, too. Enjoy!
Originally posted December 30, 2008. To check out the video John had produced as a result of this prank, click on this link.
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Fortunately, I landed the job, and ended up working with John for a couple of years. Lo and behold, he turned out to be a really cool guy. From a business perspective, I learned a lot from him about web development and technology. I have many fond memories of the meetings John held in his office that frequently led into different conversations that had us laughing our behinds off - sometimes nearly "piddling" in our pants.
It was a sad day when John accepted a position to oversee a different division of the company, and he moved to another building. But like with many other folks in the office, John and I built a friendship that we continue to maintain outside of work. He and his wife Chris are like family to me, and I'm glad that we get to see eachother often.
For those of you who already know him, John is an incredibly bright, talented individual, so it was no surprise that he's finally branching off to do his own work. I thought it would be fun to write a brief tribute to John, in honor of today being his last day at a conventional job. I decided instead to share one of my favorite memories of him that I captured on my blog a little over a year ago. It describes one of the many funny moments that John and I still laugh about to this day! The video, by the way, is quite entertaining, too. Enjoy!
Originally posted December 30, 2008. To check out the video John had produced as a result of this prank, click on this link.
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Upon my return from Mexico in late November, I got wind of the fact that Rick Astley himself had Rickrolled the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and I felt motivated to continue promoting the cause. I randomly Rickrolled a few people in the past month for the sheer joy of doing so. John was the one person who fell victim to my Rickrolling schemes more than once. It was only natural that he seek revenge.This morning I receive this IM from John:9:04 AM John Hawkins: Hey, so, I get home last night and I'm totally stuck on the bacon website... I spent about an hour looking for themes for it. Haven't found one just yet. But, I was talking to Jason and told him about the Patron Saint of Bacon and he laughed and then showed me another bacon link... So, I had to post about them both. Go check out http://baconfan.com/ - too F'n funny!Amused by the fact that John was so entertained by my finding the Patron Saint of Bacon, I obliged by visiting his bacon blog site. At first glance, there he was: Saint Anthony, Patron Saint of Bacon in all his pork glory. The post starts with praise for friends sending him bacon-related products, then describes my find and that of fellow blogger and friend, Jason. Jason's product was unsuspectingly presented as a link, preceded by "I tried 3 times to explain it, but this guy described it better than I ever could." John heralded it as "the weirdest bacon product EVER," so how could I not have clicked on the link?Well, I clicked. My browser shrank into a smaller version of itself, and danced around on my desktop. When I attempted to use Task Manager to close Firefox, a pop-up appeared announcing that the fun wasn't over. Try to close the pop-up, and it encouraged me to sing along, displaying the beloved lyrics to "Never Gonna Give You Up." That's right...I got RickRolled.John showed up in my office minutes later with a smile of satisfaction on his face. He turned to my colleague's desk, reached down to pull up a gadget, pointed it at me, and said "You just got RickRolled." We laughed.
It gets funnier.
His accomplice (another employee who had to stand in for my colleague who was his original partner-in-crime) planted the hidden video camera on my colleague's desk without actually pointing the camera in my direction. Instead of capturing my reaction to getting RickRolled, the video camera recorded about 30 minutes of wall. There was audio, however, and it did manage to capture over 4 minutes of my laughter and frantic clicking of the mouse while the RickRoll music played in the background.
Kudos to John for setting up this elaborate prank. You may have won this battle, my friend - but I'm still winning the war.
2 comments:
You're both really awesome people to know.
I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed our time together on "Team Cubsis." More than that, I'm so glad to call you my friend.
Your post absolutely made my entire day. Thank you.
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