2000
At the end of 1999 i was started to know the burgers... at the start of the new mellinium it was DEAD as a dodo for half an hour.... then it went NUTS!! This was by far the most busiest shift i had at maccas... this was wild but it was fun too as it was a party sorta atmosphere and everyone was happy cos it was the year 2000! haha stoked.
But before long reality set in and life was normal. My cousin Eddie married his long time girlfriend Tina in Feb of that year. I wasn't feeling too good... quite knackered, edgy etc. Within a few days THING II was in session and basically the same crap that happened as in 1999. Of course i knew what it was but you still have the panic attacks. This time round it was mostly anxiety and tenseness as opposed to full blooded panic attacks and yep the weight went down again. It had risen slightly since i started at maccas... got up to about 78kgs... but now it was plummeting again and bottomed out at 67kgs... i was totally unrecogniseable. I have never been "skinny" before this so this was totally new and i kid you not i looked weedy and quite scrawny... i felt it too. quite weak and sick.
I would take several trips out to Whatipu on the Manukau Heads to get some peace and quiet... and got more than i had bargained for when i got lost on that HUGE beach haha. Now in 1999 i set up my very first website... now i had changed its name to swamprat cos of this incident (was wading through swamps just to find the path back to the carpark lmao) and was sorta building up my website which of course focussed on watersports like surfing and windsurfing.
Maccas was a hard work but the hours were sweet. It suited my lifestyle perfectly and you could work 50 hours and not notice it cos i could still surf etc during the day. Windsurfing was my main focus this year but it was SURFING that actually shined for me. Winter was EPIC for surfing in 2000 thanx to heaps of Easterlies. It was also good for windsurfing too at eastern beach. I would get home from work at 7am... crash on my bed.... out like a light strait away only to be woken up 2 hours later by Stipe asking me if i wanted to go up north for a surf..... i has dazed and my body was still shock from being woken up but of course i wanted to go up and surf haha. So he would pick me up and i'd chillax in the car on the way up... and of course we would play heavy metal on da stereo... cos that's what us crazy mofos did. We caught some good waves... mostly on the bodyboard but i even got some rides on a surfboard.... omg haha shock horror. Orewa was turning it on too..... had so many surf session at Orewa... that winter totally OWNED.
The ppl at maccas were great on da graveyard shift.... haha we had lots of fun. Graveyhard crew are sooooo cool. We need to be to work those sorta hours haha but we would never work during the day cos of the stress etc and strictness of those shifts. However it wasn't allways a bed of roses..... bad shit did happen, either from ppl from other shifts not turning up or from abusive customers... and believe me we got all sorts coming through the drivethrough. And i once again was quickly establishing myself as a naughty boy and once i had a bit of experience under my belt i quickly took a major dislike from ppl half my experience and 5 years younger than me telling me what to do just because the they had been promoted to management before me... it was the whole prefect bullshit from skool all other again.... gay.
At the end of the year i was promoted to crew trainer and some even sed i should become a manager but i didn't like the idea of dealing with all those shitty customers lol... and besides the pay rise wasn't enuf. This would be the first of several promorions and demotions that i would experience in my 9 year maccas career... but most would occur at Pakuranga... NOT greenlane which was much harder than Pakuranga to hold a postition of authority.
2000 sorta sigalled the end of the EGS... we stopped hanging around as a unit and this ofr me was mostly due to me becoming focussed on my surfing, bodyboarding, windsurfing and at the end of the year..... KITEsurfing.
In 1998 i couldn't afford a windsurfer so wondered how one of the those buggy kites would work on a surfboard. I had a surfboard but couldn't afford a buggykite... so i made one... well sorta. I had an old rubbishbag that i made into a kite and expected that to tow me on a surfboard haha. But i had never heard of anyone "kitesurfing" before.... so i thought i had invented a new sport! haha
I later found out that it was quite big in Hawaii and in 1999 was just starting to appear. Back then ppl would use buggy kites and surfboards. Alan got into it in late 1999 and in late 2000 he took me up to Mangawhai to see the Redbull Skyride... i was now hooked... but wouldn't get my first gear until 2001.
Another thing that was starting up was my interest in politics.... of course i had a strong religious background. Even though i had stopped going to church i was still a conservative christian and of course right winger too. I didn't have much time for liberals and lefties back then. My upbringing just screamed out right winger despite the fact that i worked a minimum wage job. I hated criminals, i hated the "lazy poor" and this was of course my upbringing in a white middle class family... although i was never a racist. I also hated social liberals and loose moral values... this of course was cos i was a single virgin and frowned upon things i didn't do like sex, drugs alcohol etc. I won't say rock n roll cos i was fully into heavy metal. That year Bush won the US elections and i thought he was the best thing since sliced bread...oh wow shit how things have changed!!!! I would gradually get more and more conservative over the next few years until it reached a peak in mid 2004 when religion would fully take over. The events of 9/11 in 2001 would also stoke the religious fires in my soul.
But before long reality set in and life was normal. My cousin Eddie married his long time girlfriend Tina in Feb of that year. I wasn't feeling too good... quite knackered, edgy etc. Within a few days THING II was in session and basically the same crap that happened as in 1999. Of course i knew what it was but you still have the panic attacks. This time round it was mostly anxiety and tenseness as opposed to full blooded panic attacks and yep the weight went down again. It had risen slightly since i started at maccas... got up to about 78kgs... but now it was plummeting again and bottomed out at 67kgs... i was totally unrecogniseable. I have never been "skinny" before this so this was totally new and i kid you not i looked weedy and quite scrawny... i felt it too. quite weak and sick.
I would take several trips out to Whatipu on the Manukau Heads to get some peace and quiet... and got more than i had bargained for when i got lost on that HUGE beach haha. Now in 1999 i set up my very first website... now i had changed its name to swamprat cos of this incident (was wading through swamps just to find the path back to the carpark lmao) and was sorta building up my website which of course focussed on watersports like surfing and windsurfing.
Maccas was a hard work but the hours were sweet. It suited my lifestyle perfectly and you could work 50 hours and not notice it cos i could still surf etc during the day. Windsurfing was my main focus this year but it was SURFING that actually shined for me. Winter was EPIC for surfing in 2000 thanx to heaps of Easterlies. It was also good for windsurfing too at eastern beach. I would get home from work at 7am... crash on my bed.... out like a light strait away only to be woken up 2 hours later by Stipe asking me if i wanted to go up north for a surf..... i has dazed and my body was still shock from being woken up but of course i wanted to go up and surf haha. So he would pick me up and i'd chillax in the car on the way up... and of course we would play heavy metal on da stereo... cos that's what us crazy mofos did. We caught some good waves... mostly on the bodyboard but i even got some rides on a surfboard.... omg haha shock horror. Orewa was turning it on too..... had so many surf session at Orewa... that winter totally OWNED.
The ppl at maccas were great on da graveyard shift.... haha we had lots of fun. Graveyhard crew are sooooo cool. We need to be to work those sorta hours haha but we would never work during the day cos of the stress etc and strictness of those shifts. However it wasn't allways a bed of roses..... bad shit did happen, either from ppl from other shifts not turning up or from abusive customers... and believe me we got all sorts coming through the drivethrough. And i once again was quickly establishing myself as a naughty boy and once i had a bit of experience under my belt i quickly took a major dislike from ppl half my experience and 5 years younger than me telling me what to do just because the they had been promoted to management before me... it was the whole prefect bullshit from skool all other again.... gay.
At the end of the year i was promoted to crew trainer and some even sed i should become a manager but i didn't like the idea of dealing with all those shitty customers lol... and besides the pay rise wasn't enuf. This would be the first of several promorions and demotions that i would experience in my 9 year maccas career... but most would occur at Pakuranga... NOT greenlane which was much harder than Pakuranga to hold a postition of authority.
2000 sorta sigalled the end of the EGS... we stopped hanging around as a unit and this ofr me was mostly due to me becoming focussed on my surfing, bodyboarding, windsurfing and at the end of the year..... KITEsurfing.
In 1998 i couldn't afford a windsurfer so wondered how one of the those buggy kites would work on a surfboard. I had a surfboard but couldn't afford a buggykite... so i made one... well sorta. I had an old rubbishbag that i made into a kite and expected that to tow me on a surfboard haha. But i had never heard of anyone "kitesurfing" before.... so i thought i had invented a new sport! haha
I later found out that it was quite big in Hawaii and in 1999 was just starting to appear. Back then ppl would use buggy kites and surfboards. Alan got into it in late 1999 and in late 2000 he took me up to Mangawhai to see the Redbull Skyride... i was now hooked... but wouldn't get my first gear until 2001.
Another thing that was starting up was my interest in politics.... of course i had a strong religious background. Even though i had stopped going to church i was still a conservative christian and of course right winger too. I didn't have much time for liberals and lefties back then. My upbringing just screamed out right winger despite the fact that i worked a minimum wage job. I hated criminals, i hated the "lazy poor" and this was of course my upbringing in a white middle class family... although i was never a racist. I also hated social liberals and loose moral values... this of course was cos i was a single virgin and frowned upon things i didn't do like sex, drugs alcohol etc. I won't say rock n roll cos i was fully into heavy metal. That year Bush won the US elections and i thought he was the best thing since sliced bread...oh wow shit how things have changed!!!! I would gradually get more and more conservative over the next few years until it reached a peak in mid 2004 when religion would fully take over. The events of 9/11 in 2001 would also stoke the religious fires in my soul.
Comments