Mike's Woodwork

Mike’s Eulogy: It’s been a wonderful life! I served 11 years in the US Army National Guard and Reserves. I've completed 5 marathons, 7 sprint-distance triathlons, one Olympic Distance Triathlon and completed my second ironman triathlon in 14 hrs and 37 minutes. I graduated college and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University. I've spent the night in jail in Louisiana, Kansas, Alabama, Ohio and South Korea. I’ve been SCUBA diving in the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. I worked on the International Space Station program for 12 years. I volunteered for active duty deployment during the first Gulf War but only served stateside during the war. I looked for a monster on Loch Ness and rode on the Marrakech Express in North Africa though Casablanca. I've seen the USS Arizona Memorial, the Coliseum in Rome and sat inside a Japanese WWII bunkers on Kwajalein and Roi-Namur islands in the Pacific. I walked up the Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy. I've seen Mt McKinley, stood on a glacier, hiked to the top of Mt Vesuvius, Diamond Head and Kilauea volcanoes and panned for gold on an icy creek in Alaska. I've been to Mammoth Cave, Diamond Cave and Cave of the Winds. I've hiked to the top of Pike's Peak and have been on 13 cruises on Disney Cruises. I’ve been snorkeling at Molokina crater, went to a luau on Maui, toured the Dole Pineapple Plantation on Oahu and went kayaking in the rainforest on Kauai. I’ve been to Edinburgh Castle, Sterling Castle, Eilean Donan Castle, Leeds Castle, Dover Castle, Rosenborg Slot Castle and Akershus Castle. I've ridden a train across America and crossed the Straight of Gibraltar on a ferry. I've made furniture and flooring out of trees I fell myself on my own property and built my own workshop. I've biked 122 miles on my bike, once swam 3 miles non-stop and have a urinal in my bathroom at home. I've broken my leg, my arm, my nose and my jaw in bar fights but have only been KO'd once. I broke a bouncer's leg and got sued for a million dollars. I rode bikes downhill for 15 miles with my wife and kids in Denali National Park and took a spin on the Millennium Wheel in London, England. I've been to Mexico, England, Scotland, France, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Monaco, Vatican City, Spain, Liechtenstein, Morocco, South Korea, Canada, Japan, Bahamas, British West Indies, Norway, Sweden, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Russia, Denmark, Finland, Belize, Honduras, China, United States of America and Singapore. I’ve seen dead people in a monastery in Palermo, Sicily. I completed Army basic training, Advance Individual Training, Officer Candidate School and am an honor graduate of the Ordnance Officer Basic Course. I helped raise two children and love my wife. I was the third-shift test conductor for the US Lab module at Kennedy Space Center. I’ve had my rental car stolen and almost got ran over walking on the causeway at 4 in the morning. I've seen and felt the Space Shuttle launch and land at KSC. I was t-boned by a Cadillac while on my brand new Felt B12 triathlon bike while 60 miles into a training ride. I spent three days in ICU after flipping my Z-28 Camaro and getting ejected through the tee-tops. I parachuted out of a Cessna 180 airplane at 3,000 feet. I’ve looked down the barrel of loaded guns pointed at me in anger on more than one occasion. I capsized my boat on the Tennessee River in the winter time and nearly downed. I’ve worked two full-time jobs in college and still managed to find time for school and partying. I've lived with no electricity for over 6 months and rode a motorcycle for a couple of years. I once spent the night in the Mohave Desert. I got stranded in Germany, hitch-hiked from Canns to Nice, France and woke up on a topless beach on the French Riviera. I was on the Speech and Debate Team in college and won numerous competitions in public speaking around the country. I've seen Old Faithful erupt at Yellowstone, felt the spray of Niagara Falls and toured Arlington Cemetery, the Smithsonian and Washington, DC. I’ve tried to straighten the Leaning Tower of Pisa and have been to Bush Gardens, Florida and Dogpatch, Arkansas. I've spent some time in a condo on Gulf Shores and have been to Disney World more than a dozen times. I went snorkeling with whale sharks in the Sea of Cortez. I've been to Sea Word, Universal Studios, Opryland and rode the General Jackson paddlewheel down the Cumberland River. I have snow skied in Colorado, California, Lake Tahoe, the Pocono's and Snowshoe, West Virginia. I went parasailing in Houston over Clear Lake and can water ski but not very well. I’ve been to the Arctic Circle, the Tropic of Capricorn and the Southern Most Point in the US in Key West. I almost got knifed in Morocco and was beaten up pretty bad by 12 fraternity guys in college and spent the evening in a whorehouse in Cologne, Germany. I've worked in a grocery store sacking groceries, a department store as a cashier, a golf course driving a tractor, as a roofer with one leg in a cast, in a drug store mopping floors, a Dominos Pizza delivery driver and an engineer for the Boeing Company. I've been to Dollywood in Gatlinburg, TN and have biked the Cades Cove loop in the Smokey Mountains a few times and once found $450 in one dollar bills in a suitcase in the middle of the interstate and tracked down the owners and returned the money. I've been a Boy Scout leader and spent the night in a Chattanooga Choo-choo sleeper car. I've have seen sea otters, sea lions and whales in the wild in the North Pacific and I've chased dolphins in a boat in the South Pacific. I have been SCUBA diving with dozens of sharks. I’ve made numerous SCUBA dives on the German battleship, Prinz Eugon in the Kwajalein Atoll and found a loaded 3” Japanese artillery shell on the bottom of the ocean floor. I have played 18 holes of golf only once but have been to St. Andrews, Scotland. I've picked up a dead body from the hospital in Seoul, South Korea following an autopsy and took it to the morgue and helped embalm it. I've been riding in the back of a pick-up truck when it flipped over. I've written some poetry that doesn't rhyme and some that does and have been to the home of the Poet Laureate Robert Burns in Scotland. I drank too much booze and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for nearly 20 years and quit both cold-turkey when I was 33 years old. I've been to Six Flags over Georgia and Underground Atlanta. I spent the night in the back end of a pick-up truck on the streets in Monterey, Mexico and danced with a Mexican gal and sang "Hotel California" in her ear as if it were a love song. I've been to the Sear's Tower in Chicago and have jogged across the Golden Gate Bridge and a few miles down the Alaskan Pipeline. I've hiked the Muir Forrest and sat in Al Capone’s cell in Alcatraz Prison as a tourist and was a real inmate in jail for the first time when I was 17. I played the slots and blackjack in Las Vegas when I was 17 years old and have played roulette in Atlantic City. I drove from Wichita, Kansas to Seattle, Washington in a rented station wagon and lost $300 paying cards in Montana. I spent a few days in Ogden, Utah, Cleveland, Ohio, Barcelona, Spain and Baltimore's Inner Harbor and have been to Chinatown in San Francisco. I've been hit by a car on a motorcycle, been thrown from a horse and been snow-bound in Albuquerque, NM. I've had fist-fights with my father, my brother and a countless men in bars around the country but have never won a fight in my life. I’ve walked the streets of Pompeii and ate pizza in Naples, Italy. I've been to Wittier, Alaska and Stone Mountain, Georgia. I’ve take horse-drawn carriage rides down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans and around Central Park in Manhattan. I've seen Riverdance and Beauty and the Beast at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on Broadway in NYC and Oliver at a London playhouse. I've been Convoy Commander and got an entire convoy lost in the mountains of Colorado. I've toured the USS Alabama in Mobile, the USS Missouri in Honolulu, the USS Constitution in Boston and the USS Constellation in Baltimore. I've toured Mayan ruins in Cozumel, Coba and Chichen Itza and I stood in St Peter's and St Paul's basilicas in Rome, Italy and flew over the North Pole. I’ve been whitewater rafting in Tennessee and Alaska and hiked to the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail in north Georgia. I’ve marveled at Michael Angelo’s paintings in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican and I logged over 1,000 miles jogging in 2001. I’ve seen the Kon Tiki boat and Viking ships in Oslo. I’ve ridden the ski lift in Lillehammer, ate reindeer steak and whale meat in Norway and dinned on Swedish meatballs in Sweden. I’ve stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria in mid-town Manhattan, been to the top of the Empire State Building, went up in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and cried when I found where my grandfather emigrated from Italy through Ellis Island. I have seen the WTC Ground Zero site and roamed the streets of Little Italy, Soho, Wall Street, China Town and rode a bus through Harlem. I stood in the middle of Tiananmen Square, toured the Forbidden City in Beijing and hiked a few miles on the Great Wall of China. I’ve loved and lost the best dog a man could ever have, Jake the Wonder Dawg, head of Ranch Security at the Rogillio Ranch. I’ve climbed the lighthouses of Door County and look over Lake Michigan and swam in chilly waters of Green Bay. I’ve cruised the North Sea and the Baltic Sea and ended up in Russia. I’ve been snorkeling in Honduras, spelunking and zip-lining in Belize. I’ve been to the Hermitage, Peterhof Palace, Catherine’s Palace and the Church of Spilled Blood in St Petersburg Russia and stood beside the Vasa Ship in Stockholm, Sweden. I’ve been to Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen and been inside the great Helsinki cathedrals. I’ve flown first class to Honolulu and to Tokyo and to London and been to the Tower of London, Tower Bridge. I drove on the wrong side of the road from London to Dover. I’ve ridden hop/on hop/off buses in NYC, Chicago, Boston, Copenhagen, Lubeck Germany and Stockholm, Sweden. I’ve seen the Red Sox play at Fenway and sang “Sweet Caroline” during the 7th inning stretch. I traced my Rogillio heritage back 7 generations to a Spaniard named Policarpo Rogillio who established Rogillioville in West Feliciana Parish in the 1780s. I cruised from Boston to Nova Scotia and down the St Lawrence Seaway to Montreal on a cruise ship.

Day 1

Today I became a blogger.