Gregory Koger

Finally met up with my old friend Peter after… oh, 15 years or so He’s a doctor now - M.D. - and a fantastic guy. We had a great day together. I met his wife (!!!) Ariadne, along with his sister Maria, her husband, four kids, his mom and dad.

We met up at our old school, Brentwood, and were fortunate enough to meet a cool guy that worked there who lets us go inside and see all the old classrooms. I took a bunch of pics, naturally.

Here is the infamous science lab where we had our science classes in junior high:

And it still has the same green metal chairs that made it infamous in the first place One day I locked our teacher Mr. Varghese in the closet in the back that had cool stuff like dead pigs in jars by shoving one of the green metal chairs up under the door handle while he was inside the closet. Peter said it was because he made us eat chalk, but I always remembered that it was because we wanted to see the baby pigs in a jar and he wouldn’t let us. Well, I was the one who put the chair under the door in the first place (and eventually took it away), but they suspended us all - me, Peter, and Tim I believe.

The following is a recreation of the incident at the actual location

And here I am halfway-seriously trying to slip the doorbolt - another of our youthful pastimes - with an implement from a disection kit to try to get in to see the famed dead pigs in a jar

We tried to do bunny ears on each other, but you can’t see mine on him because he’s taller than me

And here is Peter with his wife Ariadne! She’s from South Africa, but Greek too. She was really nice.

This is an awesome picture from their wedding in front of the Acropolis in Greece:

And this is Peter’s sister Maria with her husband and kids:

Man - and don’t everyone laugh all at once - I even went to a church with them, though I only stayed for like 20 or 30 minutes because it was just disturbing to me to be in a church with my views and experience.

Peter and I actually had a great discussion on all of that earlier over brunch, about the existence or non-existence of “god”, good and evil, free will, and numerous other topics. But we generally know each other’s thoughts on the issue and deeply respect one another. I didn’t want to leave and stop hanging out with them, so I went to the church with them My friend Amy is hopefully counterbalancing my foray into two churches today for me at a BDSM fetish club right now…

It was a great day and wonderful to get to see one of my most significant friends (like I had many…) from childhood.

And on the topic of school, I got some honors thingie from my college in the mail the other day:

And today I got some letter about being an “outstanding student” with eligibility to join some Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society.

But the fine print on the application says:

 A person currently incarcerated is ineligible for membership. An individual convicted of a felony, or any crime whose potential sentence is greater than one year, may be considered for membership three years following completion of all conditions of sentencing, including probation.

So presumably even though this paper says that you can be member as long as you meet the eligibility requirements - and that you’d only be sent this letter and application if you met the requirements - the fine print probably means that since I just got out of prison a bit over a year ago I’m not eligible. And then the application has some little boilerplate on the very bottom that says:

  Phi Theta Kappa is committed to the elimination of discrimination based on gender, race, class, economic status, ethnic background, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, and cultural and religious backgrounds.

Apparently the interrelation between class/economic status, not to mention race and ethnic background, and the probability and actuality of being convicted of a felony is irrelevant…