not that there is anything wrong with that. . .

I received a "wall message" on Facebook from Brady Kerr today. Brady is the younger brother of one of my best friends, Trevor. What did Brady write? He reminded me of one of my all-time classic quotes. In Trevor's yearbook our senior year I wrote the following, "I will always remember our long chats in bed after a long night of dancing!" Trevor took the yearbook home, his brother Brady got a hold of it and started reading through all the messages his friends wrote, then stopped dead when he read my message. "Is your friend gay?" I can only imagine the discomfort of reading that type of message in your brother's yearbook.



Point #1: During high school Trevor slept over at my house every weekend night, automatic. He had a curfew but if he slept over at somebody's house the curfew obviously didn't apply; so he slept over at my house on the weekends. I remember even multiple weekend nights where we didn't even hang out but he'd come over at the end of the night.



Point #2: I had a bigger bed in my room and nothing else to offer besides the floor, so we slept in the same bed. I was usually crushed up against the wall and he was on the other edge of the bed. Separate blankets, plenty of distance. No need for concern here.



Point #3: All of us boys often went out to whatever dances or dance clubs we could get into on the weekends. Very little "dancing" occurred, more just weak attempts in our endless quest to meet girls.



So on a usual weekend night in high school, the boys and I would head out to find some dance, try to hit on girls until the wee hours of the morning, and after we all went home for the night Trevor would obviously end up at my house, at which we'd be talking for a long time before we actually fell asleep. All innocent enough, right?



All of this defense of course brings me back to the question, "What were you thinking?" Had I maybe reread the quote or thought it through before I wrote it out, I probably wouldn't be making a public defense about it nearly 10 years later.



totally heterosexual

Awkward . . . In My Mind

Do you ever get stuck in hallways in that awkward position where you are walking right behind somebody? So close that you want to pass them, but you're close to your destination so you'd end up cutting them off after pulling the pass?

So I'm at work this week heading to the restroom. In the hall a guy and girl are talking, standing across the hall from each other. Normal move is to pass right through, correct? Well, right as I hit the "pass through" point, they break off the conversation and the girl starts walking RIGHT in front of me. The problem is, now I'm so close to the restroom (up ahead on the right-hand side of the hallway) that I can't really pull a pass because I'd either cut her off to go in or just have to let her re-pass to go in. So I'm literally right behind this girl as she takes these few steps; I'm feeling so awkward that I'm dying to duck into the restroom as soon as possible because I'm sure she can sense me hovering right behind her. One more step before I can duck into the restroom, and suddenly she banks right, turns the handle, and ducks into the men's restroom!! What. . . just. . . happened?! Now I'm in a super-awkward position! Obviously I can't follow her right in, I have to freeze right there and wait it out until she realizes what she did and comes back out with the sheepish, embarassment grin on her face, right? The thing is, there isn't another door along this hallway for a long stretch; she didn't just turn in one door too early. What was she doing?

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity (ok, it was probably just a few seconds) she just comes right back out and continues on her way down the hall. No embarassed look, just confident as could be cruising down the hall. I double check the sign on the door for "Men" and head in about my business.

Here's the kicker, what I just wrote did not happen. Ha! Nope I just made that whole thing up! Well, just the girl heading into the bathroom part. I did endure the awkward, caught-right-behind-in-the-hallway walk and the girl was walking so freaking slow and close to the wall that I couldn't help but suddenly think, "This girl is going to duck into the men's bathroom!" Then I started thinking of what I would do if she did duck into the bathroom (Answer: Stand there in awkward shock until she came out with an embarassed look on her face). Then I started thinking, "Why am I even thinking about this?" Then I was cursing myself out in the bathroom for even thinking up something so A) stupid, and B) crazy. Do other people have crazy moments like this? Or am I just a big weirdo? I hope the former.

The Road

So after grinding out John Adams for 6 months, I needed a quick weekend read to kind of straighten myself out. This has been a quality first year out of college. I'm a huge reader but I didn't read much during college since I always had to read textbooks. My goal for this year was 4 books. I'm going to finish with 7: Kite Runner, No Country For Old Men, The Pillars of the Earth, A Thousand Splendid Suns, I Love You Beth Cooper, John Adams, and The Road. I didn't write my little "review" of all of them, but there they are for what it's worth.

The Road is the same author as No Country For Old Men, and it appears it will be coming out as a movie next year. I must say it is VERY rare for me not to like a book, but I must have missed the meaning of this thing or something. Set in the future where the world is basically destroyed, this guy is on a "journey" with his son, heading South, constantly looking for food. Can I just say that that last sentence pretty much sums up the entire book! I kept reading because I was sure something was about to happen; something big. Nope, just more looking for food (and of course finding it at just the right time). I almost never think a movie is better than a book, but hopefully there is some creative liberties taken to make this a little more interesting.

So I finish the year on kind of a downer as far as books. All of the other books I read this year were fantastic. If I had to pick a "best one" I would go with The Pillars of the Earth, but it was over 1,000 pages so it's quite an undertaking. I'm looking forward to starting next year with the sequel, World Without End, also a 1,000+ page beast. Just avoid "the road".

Rambo

So I'm up in Idaho Falls with Rachel's family over Thanksgiving and Rachel's uncle Garth says, "Let's go shoot some guns on Saturday". I'm thinking shotgun, handgun, .22, etc. He says, "We can shoot my new .50 cal". "Sounds like fun" is my reply. "You don't even know what that is, do you?" he responds. No I did not.

A .50 cal, as you can see above, is a mother of a weapon. The bullet was a solid 6 inches, the gun weighed about 50 pounds; so you're definitely not shooting clay pigeons with this thing. Standing about 10 feet behind the gun when it fires you feel like you're getting punched in the face with the kickback force. Pretty awesome power.

John Adams

So after 6 months of slow progress, I've finally finished reading the biography of John Adams, our Second U.S. President! The slow progress had nothing to do with the interest level of the book, I was caught up working late (as usual) and especially cuaght up studying for tests. I bought the book mid-June in the Orlando airport and didn't finish until a couple days ago. Quite a journey indeed.

Did you know that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the same day, which happened to be July 4, 1826, our nation's 50th anniversary? Crazy, whether coincidence or not. Basically the book noted that they were both determined to stick it out that far.

John Adams lived a pretty amazing life and it makes me want to read more biographies of Presidents. He was a Harvard-educated lawyer, yet he was never super wealthy. He defended the British troops who killed the men in the Boston Massacre, he lived all over Europe as a U.S. Ambassador during the revolution, and he lived a very simple life comparatively speaking. The author made many comparisons between Adams and Jefferson; the most interesting to me was how simple and debt-free life Adams lived and how lavish and debt-ridden life Jefferson lived. Adams died with a net worth of $100k, and Jefferson died with debt of over $100k and the sale of his entire his estate did not make up the debt. I found that very interesting when contrasting the two lifestyles throughout the book. If Jefferson was the "pen" of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Adams was the "voice". So very interesting to learn about these things that I hadn't even thought of before. Adams is also the "father" of the US Navy. David McCullough did an excellent job; I would highly recommend this book to anybody interested in a very important person in US History.

I think another interesting thing to me is to see what experiences a lifetime can bring to a person. Adams was not a war hero or anything like that. Besides becoming the President of the United States, he seemingly led a life that a normal person could lead; yet looking back so many experiences add up to make him an incredible person. That probably applies to many people all over. Adding up a lifetime of experiences can lead to a pretty impressive story for just about anybody.

When I think about historical figures, for some reason I just think about that person, alone, and their context. This book reminded me that Adams, Washington, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, etc. all lived and dealt with each other. I'm sure they didn't know at the time what type of historical figures they would become, but it's amazing now to think that so many great minds with such foresight for our country came together at the same time.