Sherb
Ban reason = Abuse of Mods
- Dec 26, 2010
- 1,968
- 18,139
WARNING: THIS IS A LONG READ, BUT MAY BE MY BEST WRITING OF 2016 THUS FAR. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
So as not to further derail the thread I posted the story about comparing and contrasting Martin with @SupremeBotBuilder, I have decided to answer the question of "What happened to Martin Small?" here in my favorite section of the forum: The Lounge.
For the backstory, please refer to this post: http://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/what-is-the-easiest-way-to-make-5-per-day-online.861281/page-3#post-9105147
That being said:
I wondered the same thing. After finishing elementary school two years later (I was in third grade, Martin was a year ahead of me, elementary school stops at fifth grade in most places here in the United States of Everything Is Amazing), my family and I moved from Florida into the mountains so my father's job at the nuclear plant wouldn't put him in an early stress-induced grave. I didn't hear from Martin Small after that, or really anyone from my Florida childhood.
We all went our separate ways, still obeying the rules that Martin Small set forth oh so long ago, D-Day (D for defecation) still fresh on our minds. In early 2006, I obtained a login for a Dartmouth email address and became one of the youngest users of Facebook. I remember when all the posts were "Sherbert Hoover is..." and when my first girlfriend, a funny Hispanic teen who is a schoolteacher in Chicago now, would send me constant messages on my wall. I felt like the coolest kid in the world.
A couple years later, as a freshman in college, I decided to look up some of my best childhood friends to see how they were doing.
Laura was in school at Florida State. She had left her leg braces behind and traded the glasses for contacts, and finally learned to straighten that kinky hair. She modeled part time, and I recall searching for pictures of her to no avail. She ended up dropping out the next year, and is now a stay-at-home mom of two children, living in Merritt Island, Florida. I have hard evidence that she is a prostitute on the side in order to assist her burger-flipping husband with paying the bills, but I'm not going to say anything.
Eagle Eye Ernest joined the Army after high school and ended up overseas in Iraq, where he did three tours and came home. He joined the police force of a small town called Dallas, and was recently one of the lucky police officers not shot and killed by that maniac a couple weeks back. I find it comical that he is an officer of the law, as he was the biggest instigator to Martin Small and the other safety patrol officers. Oh how the times they change.
Elizaboth (with an O, goddamnit) was one of my two closest friends at age ten. She was the first pair of boobs I ever saw, but that was only because her bathing suit top fell off at the pool party after elementary school graduation. I was young at the time, and the year was 2000 so the Internet wasn't a huge thing, so I didn't know what I was dealing with at the time, but I remember she and Andy and I were the only ones in the pool at the time. Anyway, Elizaboth was in college at Yale when I finally got in contact with her in '09, easily the most successful person of my childhood. She and I traded some messages, and she accidentally sent me nudes meant for her boyfriend. Nine years can change a body. I never heard from her again after that. Kept my distance, but from her LinkedIn I see she is a lawyer in San Francisco.
Andy and I were extremely close. He was my neighbor and my best friend and we spent a ridiculous amount of time together just hanging out, shooting hoops, riding bikes, and growing our collection of mailbox flags. This was suburban Gulf Coast Florida in the late 90's, so it was a far more innocent time. I had a sleepover at Andy's house the night before we moved to the mountains. We promised to write each other, but we never did. We spent that last night making smores over Andy's mom's favorite candle, watching Blair Witch Project on VHS (twice), and talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wanted to be a writer, if that's not obvious, or a meteorologist. I never dreamed I'd enter the finance game.
Andy wanted to be a garbageman. I remember being six years old and drawing pictures of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I drew myself writing on top of a stack of books bearing my name. He drew stick-Andy waving happily from the back of a garbage truck. He and his family moved to New York City on 2001. His dad was in finance, and got a high-profile job at Cantor Fitzgerald. His dad died a heroes death in 9/11, and two years later his mother took her own life by running her new Audi in the garage with the door closed. Andy found her body the next morning.
He went to live with his grandparents back in Florida, ended up back in the same town. At age 16 he dropped out of high school and started living his dream of being a garbageman. One day he posted a picture to Facebook. It was a side-by-side. One side was that drawing of stick-Andy on that garbage truck, waving and beaming with joy. He had found it in a box of his parents old belongings. The other side was grown up Andy, standing on the back of a garbage truck, waving and beaming with joy. I don't cry much, but I did when I saw my old best friend living his childhood dream. Not many of us get to do that.
On January 18th, 2016, Andy was heading home from his grandfather's funeral when a drunk driver hit him head on. He was wearing his seatbelt, but the force of the impact on his brain caused a problem similar to what happened to Dale Earnhardt. He was killed instantly, a dead garbageman at age 25. Playing Trivial Pursuit in heaven with his parents and grandfather like he used to when we were kids. I actually made http://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/life-is-fragile.816722/ a couple months after becoming active here on BHW. You guys were incredibly polite, and I thank you for that.
But this thread is not about Andy. I apologize for getting so sidetracked. It's about what happened to Martin Small. I found him on Facebook in 2012. I was 22, he was 23. He had grown into his pudgy little roly-poly body, and between Andy, Ernest, and Liz, I got the full story.
Martin went to private school from sixth grade to eighth. His dad came from old money. In eighth grade his parents went through a bitter divorce and Martin went to live with his mom in a run-down apartment on the bad side of town. At age 14 he was on a freshman class trip to Magic Kingdom and was reprimanded for exposing himself to Minnie Mouse outside Space Mountain. He switched to another school in town that week, which just so happened to be the same school Ernest attended. At age 15 he started dealing weed to make ends meet for him and his mother. Weed turned to crack, and crack turned to methamphetamine. He was arrested at 16 after beating a classmate half to death with a crowbar.
He went to "juvie", quit the drug game, and got his GED. He then went to community college and then a four-year university, studying petroleum engineering or something fancy like that. After graduating, he spent a summer at the oil fields in Alberta somewhere, making five figures a month and sending it all back to his mom in the Sunshine State. When he came back that fall (2012 at this point), he opened up his laptop to find a friend request from little ol' Sherbs.
That fall he started a petroleum engineering master's program somewhere on the west coast. Two years later he graduated with honors, spent a year at some firm making beaucoup dollarinos, and then took a job teaching introductory petroleum courses at a university in the midwest. He married a beautiful woman (no 10/10 like my wonderful wife of course) and they welcomed their first child into the world the day after Andy's accident.
It's funny. Back in 1998 when D-Day went down, I would have never thought that any of our lives would turn out this way. Laura's a whore-a, Ernie's a boy in blue, Lizzie is a lady of the law, Andy is in the ground, Martin Small is an established professor with a wonderful family, and I'm a relatively successful analyst and internet entrepreneur who occasionally enjoys writing stories about his past for complete strangers on an obscure board on the Internet.
Andy put up a bunch of pictures from the box his parents left him. One of those pictures was from a fair we had back in 1998. Andy and Ernie and I were playing with Super Soakers, all hitting Laura with our water guns as she hobbled to safety on her leg braces. She was laughing though. And in the background of that grainy picture was a small first grader hanging his head in shame as pudgy little Martin Small, the poop bandit, orange safety belt slung across his fat shoulder, wrote out a citation.
TL;DR: Professor Small.
So as not to further derail the thread I posted the story about comparing and contrasting Martin with @SupremeBotBuilder, I have decided to answer the question of "What happened to Martin Small?" here in my favorite section of the forum: The Lounge.
For the backstory, please refer to this post: http://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/what-is-the-easiest-way-to-make-5-per-day-online.861281/page-3#post-9105147
That being said:
I wondered the same thing. After finishing elementary school two years later (I was in third grade, Martin was a year ahead of me, elementary school stops at fifth grade in most places here in the United States of Everything Is Amazing), my family and I moved from Florida into the mountains so my father's job at the nuclear plant wouldn't put him in an early stress-induced grave. I didn't hear from Martin Small after that, or really anyone from my Florida childhood.
We all went our separate ways, still obeying the rules that Martin Small set forth oh so long ago, D-Day (D for defecation) still fresh on our minds. In early 2006, I obtained a login for a Dartmouth email address and became one of the youngest users of Facebook. I remember when all the posts were "Sherbert Hoover is..." and when my first girlfriend, a funny Hispanic teen who is a schoolteacher in Chicago now, would send me constant messages on my wall. I felt like the coolest kid in the world.
A couple years later, as a freshman in college, I decided to look up some of my best childhood friends to see how they were doing.
Laura was in school at Florida State. She had left her leg braces behind and traded the glasses for contacts, and finally learned to straighten that kinky hair. She modeled part time, and I recall searching for pictures of her to no avail. She ended up dropping out the next year, and is now a stay-at-home mom of two children, living in Merritt Island, Florida. I have hard evidence that she is a prostitute on the side in order to assist her burger-flipping husband with paying the bills, but I'm not going to say anything.
Eagle Eye Ernest joined the Army after high school and ended up overseas in Iraq, where he did three tours and came home. He joined the police force of a small town called Dallas, and was recently one of the lucky police officers not shot and killed by that maniac a couple weeks back. I find it comical that he is an officer of the law, as he was the biggest instigator to Martin Small and the other safety patrol officers. Oh how the times they change.
Elizaboth (with an O, goddamnit) was one of my two closest friends at age ten. She was the first pair of boobs I ever saw, but that was only because her bathing suit top fell off at the pool party after elementary school graduation. I was young at the time, and the year was 2000 so the Internet wasn't a huge thing, so I didn't know what I was dealing with at the time, but I remember she and Andy and I were the only ones in the pool at the time. Anyway, Elizaboth was in college at Yale when I finally got in contact with her in '09, easily the most successful person of my childhood. She and I traded some messages, and she accidentally sent me nudes meant for her boyfriend. Nine years can change a body. I never heard from her again after that. Kept my distance, but from her LinkedIn I see she is a lawyer in San Francisco.
Andy and I were extremely close. He was my neighbor and my best friend and we spent a ridiculous amount of time together just hanging out, shooting hoops, riding bikes, and growing our collection of mailbox flags. This was suburban Gulf Coast Florida in the late 90's, so it was a far more innocent time. I had a sleepover at Andy's house the night before we moved to the mountains. We promised to write each other, but we never did. We spent that last night making smores over Andy's mom's favorite candle, watching Blair Witch Project on VHS (twice), and talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wanted to be a writer, if that's not obvious, or a meteorologist. I never dreamed I'd enter the finance game.
Andy wanted to be a garbageman. I remember being six years old and drawing pictures of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I drew myself writing on top of a stack of books bearing my name. He drew stick-Andy waving happily from the back of a garbage truck. He and his family moved to New York City on 2001. His dad was in finance, and got a high-profile job at Cantor Fitzgerald. His dad died a heroes death in 9/11, and two years later his mother took her own life by running her new Audi in the garage with the door closed. Andy found her body the next morning.
He went to live with his grandparents back in Florida, ended up back in the same town. At age 16 he dropped out of high school and started living his dream of being a garbageman. One day he posted a picture to Facebook. It was a side-by-side. One side was that drawing of stick-Andy on that garbage truck, waving and beaming with joy. He had found it in a box of his parents old belongings. The other side was grown up Andy, standing on the back of a garbage truck, waving and beaming with joy. I don't cry much, but I did when I saw my old best friend living his childhood dream. Not many of us get to do that.
On January 18th, 2016, Andy was heading home from his grandfather's funeral when a drunk driver hit him head on. He was wearing his seatbelt, but the force of the impact on his brain caused a problem similar to what happened to Dale Earnhardt. He was killed instantly, a dead garbageman at age 25. Playing Trivial Pursuit in heaven with his parents and grandfather like he used to when we were kids. I actually made http://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/life-is-fragile.816722/ a couple months after becoming active here on BHW. You guys were incredibly polite, and I thank you for that.
But this thread is not about Andy. I apologize for getting so sidetracked. It's about what happened to Martin Small. I found him on Facebook in 2012. I was 22, he was 23. He had grown into his pudgy little roly-poly body, and between Andy, Ernest, and Liz, I got the full story.
Martin went to private school from sixth grade to eighth. His dad came from old money. In eighth grade his parents went through a bitter divorce and Martin went to live with his mom in a run-down apartment on the bad side of town. At age 14 he was on a freshman class trip to Magic Kingdom and was reprimanded for exposing himself to Minnie Mouse outside Space Mountain. He switched to another school in town that week, which just so happened to be the same school Ernest attended. At age 15 he started dealing weed to make ends meet for him and his mother. Weed turned to crack, and crack turned to methamphetamine. He was arrested at 16 after beating a classmate half to death with a crowbar.
He went to "juvie", quit the drug game, and got his GED. He then went to community college and then a four-year university, studying petroleum engineering or something fancy like that. After graduating, he spent a summer at the oil fields in Alberta somewhere, making five figures a month and sending it all back to his mom in the Sunshine State. When he came back that fall (2012 at this point), he opened up his laptop to find a friend request from little ol' Sherbs.
That fall he started a petroleum engineering master's program somewhere on the west coast. Two years later he graduated with honors, spent a year at some firm making beaucoup dollarinos, and then took a job teaching introductory petroleum courses at a university in the midwest. He married a beautiful woman (no 10/10 like my wonderful wife of course) and they welcomed their first child into the world the day after Andy's accident.
It's funny. Back in 1998 when D-Day went down, I would have never thought that any of our lives would turn out this way. Laura's a whore-a, Ernie's a boy in blue, Lizzie is a lady of the law, Andy is in the ground, Martin Small is an established professor with a wonderful family, and I'm a relatively successful analyst and internet entrepreneur who occasionally enjoys writing stories about his past for complete strangers on an obscure board on the Internet.
Andy put up a bunch of pictures from the box his parents left him. One of those pictures was from a fair we had back in 1998. Andy and Ernie and I were playing with Super Soakers, all hitting Laura with our water guns as she hobbled to safety on her leg braces. She was laughing though. And in the background of that grainy picture was a small first grader hanging his head in shame as pudgy little Martin Small, the poop bandit, orange safety belt slung across his fat shoulder, wrote out a citation.
TL;DR: Professor Small.
