HOW GOOD IS YOUR LOCKSMITH?

i was about 10 years old when my grandparents came from pocatello, idaho to our seattle home. the purpose of their trip was that my dad needed some help turning our garage into a nice family room. my grandpa loves that kind of stuff so naturally he wanted to help.

my dad is very busy with his clinic and such, so my grandpa would do as much as he could by himself while my dad was at work. and when my dad returned he would help with the hard stuff. for this project my dad bought a brand new table saw. it was nice, but it had one of those pesky safety flaps to keep you from touching the moving blade with your hand. but that didnt stop ol' grandpa.

i was in the other room watching tv when grandpa came in with a towel around his hand. "hey kids come look at this!" he had nicked his pinky finger. it took off all of the skin and most of the muscle to the bone. it was just gross enough to instantly impress a ten year old boy.

well, my mom heard the commotion and made grandpa come to the kitchen and clean up while she called my dad (who happened to be at a medical conference a couple hours away). he determined it wasnt bad enough to justify a trip to the emergency room and he would stitch it up when he got home.

it took him longer to get home than expected and my grandparents had already gone to bed. they were planning on leaving at 6am to return to idaho. so my dad had to get up early to make sure he took a look at the finger.

my grandpa is not fond of doctors. in fact, he hates them. my dad always said that his profession was a form of teenage rebellion. i have heard a few explanations but im still not sure i know exactly why he hates them so much. so, my dad had a heck of a time trying to get grandpa to stop loading to car long enough for him to have a look. and when he did, he had an even harder time convincing him that he needed stitches. "oh, i'll be ok. just give me an ice pack."

i think my dad threatened to slash his tires.

so, my dad starts sewing up grandpa's finger and grandpa is fuming. then enters grandma.

"charlie, i think...i locked the car with the keys in the ignition..."

it is a good thing the kids were still asleep. my grandpa was a sailor in ww2.

grandpa runs outside, pulling the threaded needle out of my dad's hand. my dad follows him, trying to calm him down. and my grandmother was probably being comforted by my mother.

there it was. a brand new white four-door sedan. engine running like a dream with a full tank of gas. the doors had auto-locked. after a couple minutes of further hot-headedness, my dad convinces grandpa to let him at least finish sewing up the finger and then they will call a locksmith.

it takes a long time to find a locksmith at 6am sunday morning.

after calling up several locksmiths in the area, they finally get ahold of one. a very small asian man. according to my dad the locksmith walked around the car once, noticed that the door key was dangling from the key ring, climbed on top of the car armed with a blank key and scissors, peered through the windshield at the dangling key and cut out a copy, jumped down and opened the door.

in related news, i am sitting 20 feet away from a guy who made his own 'bump key.' believe me, you want to look this up. you are no longer safe in your home.

FOR CEREAL

so as i stood in line at subway i overheard the server talking with the guy in front of me. their conversation went something like this: "so besides sofia, where did you serve?" "oh, ummm, plovdiv." at which point i said, "bulgaria?" and then they were all like "yah." and i was all "pshaw, no way!" then they were like "waaay!" "are you for cereal?" "we are totally for cereal."

or something like that.

it turns out that they both served in bulgaria (after i did, of course). the server even said he recognized me, which was kinda creepy.

the weird part is that i havent seen anyone else that served there for so long i had trouble remember the guys from my group. in fact, they remembered the guys from my group better than i did.

speaking of nostalgic crap, i have recently posted some stuff on youtube.com that i think my regular readers will appreciate. i have never posted anything on youtube or tried to embed anything from it on a blog before. so dont be surprised if your computer explodes or something.

some of you may remember a certain fhe video starring zack, matt, moydie and the shredder!



some of you may also remember a certain 'educational' video about living at the villa. this is one that every one can appreciate.



this is another fhe video. i dont like it quite as much as some of the others, but it is still pretty funny.




this one is my most recent and one of my favorites. it was a project i did for my orthopedics class. it is an informational video about the achilles tendon, brought to you by the international ninja federation. muahahahaha!

THE LITTLE PEOPLE

i remember when i was a kid. no really, i do. some times we would even go outside and play. i know, amazing isnt it? you are probably wondering how we possibly found a break from the rain long enough to actually go outside and play (i grew up in seattle, by the way). well, we actually didnt care if it was raining. we had some great raining day activities. we would ride our bikes off plywood jumps and see who could make the biggest splash. we would collect worms by the handful and throw them at girls. would play badminton with slugs. we would jump off a ten foot cliff and see who could get the closest to the creek without actually landing in it. we would blaze trails through the brier patches and stinging nettle using sticks and machetes.


but my personal favorite was when i was 10 and my brother was 12 we would go out to the trampoline (very similar to the word "trampling" hmmm...) with dirty towels. we would jump around until the towels had absorbed plenty of rain water. then we would take the towels and try to whip them around the other person's feet and pull them out from under them. it was a hoot. that is, until i fell off the trampoline.



i remember when we would find a couple of sticks about 2-3 feet in length and start sword fighting with each other. but that would eventually get boring. so we would find a good sturdy tree and swing the sticks at it and see how many pieces we could break them into. then we would would find more sticks and see who could get their broken pieces to fly the farthest.


have you ever looked at an extremely skinny person and wanted to walk up to them and put your right hand on the side of their face and with your other hand slap them as hard as you can? ya know, just cuz you are curious?

have you ever looked at an extremely small person and wanted to grab them by their ankles, spin around a few times and let go? ya know, just to see how far they would go?

i dont really like it when people cut and paste song lyrics and call it a blog. this is usually because i rarely relate to the songs they quote. with that in mind, i present to you my favorite line from a song by they might be giants:

A man came up to me and said

"I'd like to change your mind

By hitting it with a rock," he said,

"Though I am not unkind."

We laughed at his little joke

And then I happily walked away

And hit my head on the wall of the jail

Where the two of us live today.

ILLUSIONY OPTI-WHAT-ICAL?

i have seen dozens and dozens of optical illusions. most of them are really cool. but so far i have to say that julian beever is the best at it. he does 3d perspective illustrations ... on the sidewalk with chalk. enjoy!

this next one shows just how big these are. julian is the guy on the bottle cap.

ok, this one has a side view as well.

this one just gets bigger and bigger.

here is another one with an alternate view.

i like this one a lot. the perspective is actually upside down.

if you want more check out his homepage. http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm

PURPLEY HAZING

they say that everyone has a different experience in high school. sure, why not? every state and county and neighborhood has its own culture and sub-cultures. some areas have more whites than blacks and in some areas the opposite is true. this influences the culture of the school.

story: one of my friends just started an assistant coaching job at a local high school. she helps with the freshmen girls basketball team. at this high school there are very few blacks. in fact, there are very few black people in the state of utah.

the other night the team had a retreat of sorts and played halo for a while. somehow the subject came up that when my friend was in high school her team was mostly black girls (california). they were amazed. so much so that they started asking questions about them like "were they nice?'" and "were they all athletic?"

they dont mean to be ignorant. they have just never met a black person.

now, it is common for high school kids to find silly or weird ways of entertaining each other. there are a few ways of doing this. lets look at the local high school basketball team again. when riding to and from games they sing church songs and kids songs rather than listen to the radio. on my high school road trips we had people getting drunk, looking at porn and hazing freshmen.

oh, there is a great subject. hazing. let's see... high school girls: dress up like steve urkel (together). my high school experience was quite different.

ok, i was on the wrestling team. we had some very large card board tubes that we would use to roll up the mats. the longer ones were about 12 feet. one day the seniors (i was a freshman, i think) grabbed a really annoying sophomore in the middle of practice. they wrapped his arms and legs around the tube and tied them together on the other side using jump ropes. then they picked up the tube and carried it to the main gym where the girls basketball team was practicing. while he was dangling and pleading for his dignity, some one pantsed him. he was left on the sidelines of the court where the basketball coaches promptly came to his rescue. the weirdest part tho, was that no one was punished. sure the head basketball coach came in and yelled at us for a few minutes. but that was it.

we got away with all kinds of stuff. most of which i prolly shouldnt tell you. like the time a couple guys peed on a mop and started hitting freshmen with it in the locker room. or the time someone photo-shopped the principle's head over a very nude centerfold and put on a very high window in the middle of the school.

but my favorite prank related story was never to be.

my high school was extremely ... liberal. annoyingly so, actually. the most controversial thing my school ever did was to participate in the "national day of silence." it was such a big deal. it was so big that we actually made the news as the only school in the state of washington to do it. "what is it" you ask? well, it is a day when participants wear pink, upside-down triangles and do not speak for the entire day to symbolize being "in the closet" about your sexual orientation. sort of a "gay-pride" party, if you will.

the first year, many parents didnt allow their kids to go to school. they didnt feel it was an appropriate topic for teenagers. then, as the initial tension faded slightly, the pranksters came out to play.

most of the pranks were inappropriate. but since mine never actually happened, i can tell it.

one day during lunch i was sitting with some football buddies (i never played football, but since i was a wrestler and could whoop any one of them they tried to stay on my good side) and we were discussing our feelings about the next day of silence. so i told them my grand idea. they go to such-and-such street and steal the yield sign (the entire yield sign--post and all). then they flip the sign around, spray paint it pink and put the letters "no gay zone" on it. then on the eve of the day of silence they pull up to the school entrance with shovels and picks, make a hole, put the post inside and cement it with quick-dry cement and be out in 10 minutes flat.

it was fool proof. it was genius. even if they did it, i would get "credit" for the idea but not the accusation. if they didnt do it, well, then no harm done.

they were chased off by a night-watch cop.