Millions of Peaches

In 1998, I started high school, that lovable time when everything sucks and the world is stupid and you hate everyone and everyone's stupid and you're stupid and everything's so important because it's like the end of the world if x, y, and z happens but it's okay because if it does, you'll just play it off like you don't care and all.

Anyway, I took the bus to school. It was a fairly long ride. Sometimes I'd sit next to the girl I liked whom I had met in grade school, but was a year ahead of me.

She and I were contentious at times, but again I liked her and she didn't like me that way so on it went. One day after a tiff or whatever, she ended a conversation as the bus pulled into the school by saying, "You know, you remind me of a peach."

I spent the rest of the day baffled, wondering what the Hell she meant. That was ... more than a decade ago. Yeah, still not sure there.

A Pound of Flesh

I liked Fridays in grade school. We had specials like PE and Music and Art and often did funner things in regular classes.

One Friday in 1st grade, we had a competition. It was the great showdown of 1991, a chance for academic prowess to reign supreme. The class was divided into two teams: one was comprised of the boys and the other the girls.

We had a variety of fields, with questions ranging from 10 to 50 points. Titan that I was, I was confident in team XY's chances. We were lined up in single file and each side alternated taking choosing questions and values to answer. Whoever was at the front got to pick and had to answer alone, so teamwork wasn't an issue. When it got to my turn, I asked for a 50 point math question.

"Which weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?"

"Uh ... bricks?"

I walked back to the end of the line in shame, mostly at having failed myself, really. The next girl took my question and answered, "Bricks?"

The next few girls answered, "Bricks?" as well. Then a few of them answered, "Feathers?" I snickered since I had figured it out after a few more seconds of rational thought and here they were still tossing out bricks and feathers. I got my chance at redemption and finally answered correctly.

It was a good feeling this redemption. It beat the Hell out of being wrong; that's for damn sure.

Truth in Advertising

Teacher knickknacks are a good way to quickly communicate one's views to the children they have to instruct. A student spends a fair amount of time looking around the room they have to learn in. These can range from motivational posters to state mandated things. Then, there's some teachers who put other things up.

1995-1996.

Mrs. McLaughlin was a tough teacher. She was a force to be feared. She taught math and theology. She also yelled, a lot, often, and loudly. Get something wrong? That's a shout. Speak out of turn? That's a shout. Do anything you're not supposed to be doing and she'd let you and the neighboring classes know about it.

I liked her a lot. That's probably because I excelled in math and didn't get yelled at, but it definitely helped me with rote memorization that's key for early math concepts like fractions, percentages, and decimals. Whenever I think of fraction values I see the white chart she had hanging in her room. 1/3? That's 33 1/3% or .333. 1/12? 8 1/3% or .0833. It was all on the chart.

She had a variety of other things hanging around. I can only think of one other thing. It was a simple saying on her desk.

"Life is hard, then you die."

Well, we couldn't argue with that, could we?

Chair, Desk, Floor

At Saint Gabriel's my grade was a small grade, it was eventually consolidated into just one class. But before that happened we went through the years as two small classes. We graduated as a grade of 33, or thereabouts.

In 6th grade I was in Honors Math with two others, one Gaetano Castiglioni, the other Gabriella Costello. I'm possibly mangling the former's name, but it's a hard name.

Gaetan was short and very athletic, a hockey nut. He was always a bit of a clown, but at least he was bright about it. That made him especially entertaining. One day he derived a new routine. He didn't tell us the names of these things, but I'm going to go ahead and name it "Chair, Desk, Floor."

It consisted of him jumping onto his chair, saying, "Chair," then jumping onto his desk, saying, "desk," followed by jumping back onto the floor. He would do this in sets of 3 when he could get away with it. It was hilarious to us. He never got caught doing it by the teacher since he'd have the sense to wait until the teacher had made the mistake of leaving us unattended for longer than a second.

After we graduated from 8th grade, I saw him once more: playing hockey for Cardinal O'Hara against Monsignor Bonner at the Skatium.

I later heard he was injured and couldn't play hockey anymore. That's a shame. I hope he never lost the ability to entertain and his sense of humor.

Skins

Eating and conversating with friends and family is amongst my favorite things to do. I believe I may have mentioned this before.

In 2004 I was in an ensemble with Brandon and Robby. We went to lunch together afterwards. We added a fourth, Candi.

One day, the lot of us went to lunch at the BBQ place at the University Center. Candi mentioned that she really wanted a baked potato. Both she and Robby ordered one. We ate a decent meal and had an excellent time hanging out together. At one point, Candi said something along the lines of she hadn't thought she could finish the whole thing. Robby pointed out that she still didn't.

"If you don't eat the skin, it doesn't count."

It was a contest, you see. Candi didn't know that in the baked potato eating contest that the skins are part of the potato and she therefore lost. She argued, futilely, and thought that it was a stupid rule.

Hey, it's not like we invented it.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: The Time I Almost Got Kicked Out of Band

A little backstory for this one: our band director was on the warpath around October of 2003. Saturday was game day, baby, and we had important practices on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The Friday before this game, Herr Direktor kicked someone out of band. This poor soul "talked back" to the director, a mortal sin. The director responded by telling him to get off the field and not to come back. The band was either a majority music major or just about music major majority by this point. This day was pivotal since the non-majors really felt as if we were no longer needed.

The day of the game it was rainy. Not raining, per se, but rainy. We were given our water ponchos, a bright yellow, monstrous affair, to protect our wool uniforms. When we started on our traditional parade to the stadium it was rainy. At the completion of the parade, I think less than 1% of the band had brought their ponchos. The director was irate. When the director yelled at us, "Why did you think we gave them out today!?"

What happened next was mostly reflex, honestly. I was a smartass and saying things as a flippant and humorous response was natural. So I said, too loud, much louder than I had intended, "Because I paid for it last year."

The director barked out, "WHO SAID THAT!?"

I did the only responsible thing: hide. I didn't want to get kicked out of band, after all. After about 5 seconds of uncomfortable silence and trying to make it look like I was apalled at the gall of an individual to make such a comment. The director then moved on. I'm pretty sure he never found out it was me and if he had, that would've been the end of my band career.

Good times.

Things Ain't Going Well

In my musician days, prior to my imbuement as a composer, I used to be a pit musician, from time to time. Ah, those were simpler days.

2000. There was not blood this year.

I did my time in the trenches, working my way through Andrew Lloyd Weber and all. I signed on to do a gig for St. Andrew's, I believe. It was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The show was held at Archbishop Prendergast, on their main stage.

There's a few memories to be had from that show, but the first and most salient occurred one night where everything was a little off. The star came in late a few times, the narrator missed a note or two. This was a parish show, after all, but it had very good standards since Prendie's Choral Director (a South African man named Mr. Mayes, was it?) was the musical director of the show. A few minor errors were bound to happen but didn't really ruin the show. But this show had a few minor errors clustered together. The musical director was visibly frustrated but soldiered on.

About halfway through the show, when Joseph is imprisoned, we had a heavy set of bars set off the the side. Well, the stage crew must've slacked or something, but during the chorus' part, that set of bars fell, taking out Mr. Mayes' music stand and narrowly missing him. He had shrieked, the flautists screamed a little too, and so did some of the cast.

After everyone recomposed themselves the narrator picked up where she left off. "Poor, poor Joseph, things ain't going well ..." which got a pretty big pop from the crowd. I couldn't help but laugh, and so did Doug and the flautists.

Clarinet Trio

Writing music is not easy. It's easier when you have an expensive program that handles must of the scut work, though.

2001, or so it says on the music file.

I don't know why I first sat down at the Band Hall's Music Library's computer. The Music Library was a small office that had (probably) thousands of pieces of music. There was also enough room to hold private lessons comfortably but that's about it. There was also an old computer there. It had Warcraft and a few other old games on it as well, or it did from time to time. It also had Finale.

One day, I was waiting for something or other and my friends were hanging around the band hall as well. We ended up at the music library and passed the time. For some reason, I opened Finale. I tried to see what I could do at first, but it wasn't much.

The next day, or thereabouts, I sat at the computer again. I started a new piece with a clarinet, tenor sax, and trumpet. I think I was trying to remember the blues scales I had learned at my old school and wanted to use all Bb instruments to make it easier on me. It was pretty bad.

Some time later, I started a new file with three clarinets. Instead of trying to do blues scales, I just tried to write. And write I did. I learned how to better use the program as time went on and I spent a few weeks adding to it, saving my work to a floppy disk. Eventually, I was done. I knew I was done because I showed my private lesson teacher it and he suggested an ending. I took his advice and lo and behold I was done. During one session, he and I played through the melody of my piece. It was excellent.

The piece is a baroque-esque piece. It is not that way by design, but somehow, I slopped together enough notes to make a 2 and a half minute plus song that sounded decent. Doing that really helped me feel happy about things again.

I've retouched the piece only slightly since I finished it in 2001, only to add dynamic changes really, to make it more palatable to the ear from newer versions of Finale. To this day, however, I still don't have a name for it; it's just Clarinet Trio.

The Spirit of Houston Cougar Marching Band: I Never Learned the Damn Fight Song

I think one of my crowning achievements throughout UH was that I never did once learn the school's fight song. It wasn't the hardest thing, but it was not the easiest either.

My second year of band they instituted a squad system that had every member under a squad, each squad under a the section leader (equipped with XO), under a particular drum major. The band director issued an order that everyone was to play off the fight song. My squad would play it as a section, which was easy to fake my way through. The section leader or the assistant would break us into smaller groups and play off individually. I'd pass off any errors as reed troubles or horn malfunction. I'd say I'd fix it and try again later. I never did.

One day, the drum major in charge of the clarinets pulled us aside, gathered us into a circle and pointed to us one by one to do a final play off. She never picked me. She then sent us back to our sections to continue practice as per usual.

I ended up learning the trumpet part throughout my tour at UH. During games, I'd sing the song rather than play anyway.

Good times.

I Don't Shave My Hands

2001, May or thereabouts.

Junior year was a time of great upheaval and change. In Algebra II, a rehash of Algebra at my old school, I met a more diverse group of people than what I was used to in a math class. I was no longer with the best and the brightest, because my Pennsylvania and Texas differed on what to call certain mathematical concepts.

I met a girl there that I thought I loved. The meeting is its own memory, but one that's far lighter is that once we did get to talking, we'd have this thing of taking turns asking random questions via AIM. (I would pour over these in the Library for further obsession.)

One day, at a particular timestamp I used to think was important, she asked, "Do you shave your hands?" I was surprised and wondered what prompted the question. When I was 16, I had a lot of arm hair that for some reason just stopped after my wrist. She thought it was because I shaved them and that she did too, because she used to play piano.

My hands remained free of hair until around 18. At 24, I still have a section on each hand that's uncovered. And no, I don't shave my hands.

The Power Outage Ending

I like Matrix Reloaded. It wasn't a great movie, but I liked it. (Just ask Laurence Fishburne how "awesome" he thought it was, though.)

I ended up seeing Matrix Reloaded a total of 3 times in theater. This is the memory of the first time.

The movie opened May 15, 2003. We saw it at midnight, opening day, a thing we used to do back in those days. I'm less sure who exactly "we" were at this point. It was at least myself, Sentell, J., Lehman. Brandon was probably there, but I'm not sure. Robby probably wasn't, though.

We liked the flashes and the pretty action sequences and the music and the whole Neo being unstoppable and Agent Elrond kicking ass and all that jazz. We were less jazzed about the pointless twins, the keymaker, the Merovingian, and the ending.

A word about the ending ... around 2:15 AM, or thereabouts, the Southeastern power grid of Texas failed. Hospitals and businesses were on emergency power only. What did this mean to the AMC 30 Gulf Pointe? Lighting to get people out and no movie projection or air conditioning.

The Power(s?) That Is (Be?) chose this power failure to happen when Neo jumps into the Source. All we saw was white screen followed by the emergency lights coming on. I laughed. I applauded. Who would have the audacity to have an ending like that? It was brilliant. I told my friends that it was like those old movies: a gimmick and it worked so well. We sat in our chairs chatting about the movie excitedly. The majority of my friends (I think all) thought that this was a malfunction of some kind. They were right and an employee came in and told us to come out with our ticket stubs to get a free pass to come back another day to watch the movie. We had to go all the way back to the customer service desk, aided by power of flashlight and limited lighting. By the time my group neared the front of the line for passes, we heard the power had come back and the movie was restarting.

We rushed back to our seats and watched as the Architect explained everything and Trinity took forever to die for the first time.

In our post-movie mandatory Denny's discussion, the "Power Outtage Ending" was vastly superior to the actual ending.

I saw Reloaded twice more, in theater. It was possible that the ending was so bad because the flow of the experience was interrupted. This was not the case.

Pennywise, the Dancing Clown

November, 1990. This was when the world went from being a wonderful, exciting and new place to that of a sheer terror in every waking moment and sleep brings no respite.

I saw IT. IT was terrifying. IT doesn't stand up well to the test of time, and leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but when you're 6, IT's the stuff to traumatize you.

I am afraid of clowns, to this day, because of Tim Curry's top-notch and pants-wettingly scary portrayal.

Sure, Bob Gray, Pennywise, is just a fictional creation (albeit created by the best horror writer of the modern era), but I was 6! I didn't really know better. Here was this clown that ate children ... that was ... later a spider? Is there a turtle involved? I don't remember.

I ended up trying to read the book later and ... I think I might have to reread it. There's points that still don't make sense to me.

Yes, they ALL float down here!

Ted

Ted, the unbeatable billiards game.

No one really knows the origin of Ted, a most insidiously designed malady of a game. Carlos and Terrence were playing it one day when I tagged along with them after Fencing practice.

Carlos was a character, and a I'll have a full memory of him later. Terrence was also a character. Terrence also wasn't his real name, it's just what we called him. They were both fencers, a unique subculture that stands out as being the most unique one I was ever a part of. Fencers, by and large, are interesting and fascinating people.

2005. Spring.

So, this is the story of Ted. Ted is a simple and evil game. Simply evil. The objective? Sink all 15 balls without missing. The player's only opponent is Ted. Ted has an intrinsic turn limit on it of 15 shots. Every shot must sink at least one ball. With me so far? Good.

The position of the balls is key. There are two balls, touching, next to each pocket, both side and corner. The remaining 3 balls are put into a triangle where the balls are usually racked in a more standard and less evil billiards game.

Now, I may have mentioned that I have played some pool. I was never able to beat Ted. Later on in the semester I had heard that Carlos and Terrence managed to conquer Ted, but I had never seen it myself.

Perhaps, one day, I shall conquer Ted myself.

Egyptian Rat Fink

Or ERS. Or Egyptian Rat Screw. Or Egyptian War. Or what have you.

Egyptian Rat Fink is a simple game. The deck is dealt face down to the players and at no time is the player supposed to look at their cards. Play goes clockwise until a face card is played... and so on and so forth. It's an easy game requiring a decent amount of luck. What makes this game unique was that you could slap doubles and collect the cards. That makes it a fun, fast-paced, sometimes painful game.

2001, I think early May.

I was stuck in Algebra II, a class that was actually a slower-paced repeat of my Algebra I class. One day we essentially had a free day. I broke out my trusty deck of cards. I also had my trusty class ring by this point. Normally, we had a rule that for slap games rings weren't to be worn. That day, we decided to go ahead and ignore that rule.

My reflexes are typically fast, faster than the next person's. This is useful in a variety of ways but especially useful in a card slapping game. First to slap the pile gets the cards, true. That also means that he who gets the cards has become a target for the others.

I think there were two upperclassmen and two others in this particular game. I backed off slapping first. One particular salvo, I nailed someone's hand with my ring peridot side down, I think her name was Jamie. She got a welt in her hand. I got a chip in my semi-precious stone.

The important part was that I won that hand; I s'pose in more way than one.

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Every year for St. Patrick's Day my mom makes corned beef and cabbage. As far as Irish food goes, it's not so bad.

The first year of this traditional took some getting used to. Corned beef can be tough if not properly prepared. It can also be bland if not properly seasoned. My brother used to say that the Irish people ate this because they were too drunk to cook anything that tastes good.

Little by little I came to look forward to corned beef and cabbage. Such a simple dish, but comforting at the same time.

Of course, this pales in comparison to the only other thing the Irish gave the culinary world: Guinness.

Old Man Sayings.doc

I used to keep a list of quotes in a large text document. This file was created on 09/01/98 or thereabouts. I last updated about two years ago.

"You must be flexible like Silly Putty, yet hard like a frozen bagel."

That's the first entry. It was from the Game Revolution website, a site I still trust for honest game reviews going on 10+ years. That was from their Tenchu: Stealth Assassins review. While describing the game it infused silly quotes as section breaks. It was quite humorous at the time. So I wrote the best of them down. I then started gathering quotes from my favorite movies, shows, songs, and the ilk. I kept no citations so I'd have to rely on my impressive memory to recall all of them. As of today, there are 1549 quotes. I can still identify most of them, but yeah. If it was important to me at the time, it went into the file.

“Every second not getting your beanbag tortured is a worthwhile second.”

That's the second to last quote I have. That was from Robby in a conversation we had about the 2006 remake of Casino Royale. Even if you haven't seen the movie, that's pretty sagacious.

When the Nixon-esque library went the way of the dodo, I saw less and less point to the Old Man Sayings File. I still sign emails with a quote. I usually pulled them from this file. At one point I just used one that was in my head at the time.

Now the title... that was something a bit different. My brother and I had created a character called the Old Man. He would be a stereotypical old Asian man who would dispense wisdom whether wanted or not. It seemed natural to keep a file for his sayings to dispense inopportune sayings. Sometime later, my friend Bob and I thought up a backstory for him: back in the day he was just The Man. But, the ravages of time are cruel.

I will depart with the final quote: “There should be an ‘I’m glad you’re not dead’ Hallmark card.” A different memory for a different day.

Hannibal

While I'm a cat person, I'm not overly fond of other animals. They're useful, yes, but still, they're not my favorite things. I enjoy going to the zoo as much as the next person, but I prefer going to a steakhouse or seafood restaurant for animal contact.

However, in 2007, I went to the Texas Renaissance Festival. This was a yearly tradition but this year was special. My wife-to-be and I rode an elephant. We paid our money and hopped on. The poor creature took a few slow laps around the little designated area with us on top.

I had never ridden an elephant. And while riding an elephant was on the big life to-do list, I never especially set out to do so. So ... I had my excuse. The ride was short and slow, yes, but it was an elephant, a powerful, mighty elephant. At this point I had ridden a horse (also, a slow, few laps around designated area affair) but this was different.

Horses have been used for a wide variety of uses by humans for a very long time. Elephants too. But oh what would have it been like to ride an elephant into battle? Trampling foes, shattering lines, and crushing hope. That wonderful beast could let me do such magnificent things. Hannibal crossed the Alps with 37 of these beasts. He had maybe 20 for the Battle of River Trebia and used them to crush the greatest military of the ancient world. His further victories against Rome, ironically and eventually, also caused the Roman Empire to rise up and conquer almost all of the then known world.

Power.

This moment made real for me the battles I've played in games and watched on TV and in movies. Of course, it wasn't entirely real. I wasn't in battle and wouldn't ever want to be personally, but that's why its escapism.

I do know one thing: my elephant won't be named Stampy.

The Sleep of the Dead

Back in the dark ages of 2002, again first semester at UH, I witnessed a supernatural event before my very eyes.

To give the proper context, I must mention my fascination of the walking dead. I've read The Complete Zombie Survival Handbook and World War Z. If a movie has zombies, I'm obliged to watch it. If a game has zombies, I'm inclined to give it a shot. I used to have conversations with my wife prior to our marriage of why I wanted to do a particularly goofy thing. She'd ask why I would ever think of that. I'd respond, "But, honey, what if the dead rise?" She was never satisfied with this answer but let it go. I do think it's necessary to be prepared if the dead rise. I'm less sure that it will occur (in my lifetime).

Brandon and I were in Intro to Psychology in 2002. When finals came rolling round the bend, he and I needed to study. We picked a time to study and we had a plan: grab some dinner at the dorm cafeteria and then study. He had told me to stop by his dorm at the appointed time and make sure he's up. He was in the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps over at Rice and he was often tired after NROTC obligations. So, 7:00p, I showed up at his dorm. I knocked and got no answer. I tried the door knob and it was unlocked so I let myself in. And there was Brandon asleep on his bed. His roommate wasn't there, but he often wasn't anyway. I started kicking his bed and shouting his name, telling him to get up. He looked up at me and said, "Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes." I waited 15 minutes as he slept and kicked his bed again. "Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes." I waited. I started kicking again, but this time I was kicking him. Gently, at first. Finally, he said, "Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes." And again he slept.

Around this point, I picked up a book and started reading. It was The Republic and I read it aloud, taking breaks at 15 minutes to kick and shout at Brandon and he'd say, "Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes."

Eventually, around 11:30p, I was reading aloud still and Brandon shot up, looked at the time and said, "Why didn't you wake me up!?" "WHAT!? I DID!" "I said, 'Yeah, it'll be another 15 minutes.'" "THAT WAS ALMOST 4 hours ago!" "... oh."

We hurriedly ran down to catch last call for food at the cafeteria and then finally started on Psych around midnight.

Perhaps I should have ... kicked harder?

Relativist

College was an interesting time. So, back to the past of 2002.

In English Composition II, I met a ... let's call her relativist because that's what she called herself. I was freshman and in my first semester, I was just getting used to non-high school classes and classmates.

Her name was Reesa. I could take a stab at her last name, but I don't think I'm remembering it right. She was an interesting person. She never wore shoes and worked as a Celtic dancer. She had a very offbeat way of viewing things. I liked it. As did our professor. We quickly rose to the top of the class with our incisive and distinctive writing styles.

Everything is relative. Of course, that's an absolute statement and therefore false; however, it worked for her. And I knew it would never work for me. Reesa was one person I didn't really compete with in a class which was small and somewhat competitive at least in terms of the paper writing. After class, we would sometimes catch some lunch together and talk about stuff in our weird ways. One day walking through the UC, she cut her foot. That also sealed the deal for me on always wearing shoes.

She taught me a toast I use to this day:

Here's a health to the company
And one to my lass
Let us drink and be merry
All out of one glass
Let us drink and be merry
All grief to refrain
For we shall or shall never
All be here again

After English Comp, I lost track of her. I wonder what she's up to.

Can You Hear the Drums, Fernando?

Humanities. My favorite definition is that humanities is the study of what it is to be human. There are things universal to all people, regardless of language, credo, nationality, and parentage. What changes really are the specifics.

Humanity has been around for oh, what, 200,000 years? Longer? Shorter? Still, that's an extremely long time. How we made it that long without coffee percolators is beyond mortal comprehension. Still, though, man has lasted a damn long time on this planet. Regardless of what impact we have on our place, we haven't really changed the fact that we are animals with the same basic needs. Sure, the specifics have changed. Hunting involves modern man going to the supermarket or drive-thru. Shelter of today required the advent of economics and bad mortgages to acquire and then have it foreclosed away from him.

2005 was a scary time. The housing bubble was going to burst and the world economy melt but people kept on living beyond their means anyway. Of course, that didn't affect everyday life then, nor was anyone really worried about it. So it wasn't really scary times. They were the best of times. In those best of times I was a new student at UHCL. I was focusing on my remaining core classes.

I had Humanities I. I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of reading a bunch of old books for a weekly 3-hour lecture class. My professor was Dr. Fernando Casas, recently of famed Rice University. Dr. Casas was originally from Spain. He spoke about 4 languages fluently and understood a handful more. He had an impressive knowledge of literature. He was also insane.

His English turned out to be very good. The first day we were less sure. He was stop mid-sentence ... AND SCREAM! BANGING on the board when necessary. He was a very passionate man and he managed to inspire the class to give a damn about a book written by someone who died about 3000 years ago.

The Greeks didn't have convection ovens but went through all the stupid crap that we whinge about on a daily basis. They just did so in a low-tech world and spoke Greek. He also stressed that we are not unique in our feelings. It was strangely comforting, that. Not my insignificance, no, but that things worked out well for those Greeks, at least for a little while. He also used the Romans as examples a lot, a group of people I like to identify with anyway. He would tell us personal stories of when he visited different cities and told of meeting the people there, seeing the ancient landmarks.

I took him again for Humanities II. It was an excellent class that really helped my writing and my worldview.

He told us he was working on a book on time. I keep looking for it. I would like to read it some day.

This is not a blog.

I don't often share my feelings. With friends, family, foes, and minions, or anyone really. My poker face used to hold up pretty well. These days, it's not so good. And either way, that poker face cracks when I get angry. And you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

I don't keep journals. I don't keep a diary. I don't tend to open up to people who aren't married to me. Being a guy, that's somewhat common.

In high school, my best friend Tan was my best friend because we had a lot of similar interests (in one very ironic way in particular) but also because he could tolerate my ranting. All in all I didn't have a lot to rant about in essence. But I did so anyway. It was the thing to do. We were both 16 and the world was a big, scary place that was unfair and the girls we liked didn't like us. Blah, blah, blah and all that cal. I didn't really know how to deal with it. He didn't either. None of my other friends did either. But, every Wednesday we'd say oh well what the Hell and have fun and play some poker or whatnot. But when I didn't have that best friend to listen to me rant anymore ... well, I was kinda lost.

2001. Early November.

State Marching Band competition. We were in Waco, on the way, rather. I was no longer on speaking terms with my best friend, the drum major. As much as I hated the guy, I didn't have an escape. And my band friends were also his band friends because we had similar non-band cliques. So ... rock and a hard place. I didn't want to talk to my band friends since Tan's and I falling out wasn't formalized. I had to keep appearances up for sake of my own sanity and because at some level, I had hoped to deceive myself too. State Marching is a tense and emotional enough time for some people. That was when I turned to writing down what was going through my head.

I had brought along some schoolbooks to do my homework. When I was done, I held onto my math notebook. Unlike most kids in Texas, I used composition books instead of notepaper or spirals or whatnot. I grabbed a red pen and started on the composition book. I wrote my general experiences and my thoughts and my feelings. It was about 13 pages front and back in scrunched handwriting.

When I reread that journal I saw how emotion looked on the page. I was not happy with it. It made me look weak and I had a record of it. The red ink and the frantic writing at the end was pathetic. I decided to never do it again.

When I tried it again in college for the Oklahoma trip, I didn't get more than 3 or so lines done, but I didn't have that burning emotion inside me anymore. Back then, I was tense and was without anyone to really rant to anymore. So, I just kept it to myself.

And when dealing with my friends afterward, I hid my animosity when I could. I failed, often, since I lose my poker face when I get angry. However, I tried to manipulate people when I could. Successful manipulation requires low vulnerability and control of information. If I never let them know where I was weak, I could get further in my plans. That sort of thing. And it's harder to get hurt when I'm in control.

I'm not that high school senior anymore, angry about losing his sphere of friends and not getting the girl and otherwise feeling powerless. But, I still cannot keep a regular blog. The audience would dictate content rather than my emotions and experiences. How could I keep a record of what I'm doing and what I'm feeling when it's crucial to a plot of mine for that to be hidden?

And yes, the statute of limitations for some things has expired so stuff like this has recently been declassified.

Wisdom

2001.

The human body is a funny thing. It has a funny bone that burns like liquid hot magma when you hurt it; it has an organ whose very name speaks to its superfluous nature until it bursts and tries to kill one of my friends; it has teeth that don't fit in the skull. At least most people's skulls these days.

I had to get my wisdom teeth out when I was 17. I had it scheduled for Christmas break so I wouldn't miss class as I recovered.

I went to the office early for my appointment. I was nervous. I had never been put under before and it was sort of unknown and scary. When I was set in the chair ready to be operated on, the doctor had to put the anesthesia to put me under in my arm. He looked around for my vein. He said, "Hmm." That was not comforting. He eventually found a vein and stuck me. He then told me to count backwards from 100.

"Okay. 100. 99. 9-"

I woke up some time later. I shot up out of the chair and started walking to the exit so I could get in the car and be shuttled home. All the while I thought I was walking straight. This was not the case. A nurse had been assisting me in not falling over. My mom took over and placed me in the car. I went home, and with aid, made it to bed. I slept. Slept hard.

I awoke in pain. But that's why God invented painkillers.

Poker Night

2000-2001.

At the end of Junior Year I started a weekly institution: poker night. It was fun: my closest friends would come over Wednesday nights and we'd sometimes play cards. My mom would have snacks for us and we would have a grand ol' time.

My regulars were Tan, Hai, and Lehman, all band friends. If no one else, at least my best friend Tan would make it every Wednesday. We wouldn't play poker, but we'd watch a movie or some TV or throwdown in some other game. It was a fun routine that was nice and stable, which is something I desperately needed after having to leave everything I knew back at Pennsylvania.

When we had enough for poker, we did usually play poker. We only played 5 and 7 card draw and stud as well as Texas Hold 'Em, but I usually won by the end of the night. I hardly needed to bluff, as my luck tended to catch good cards for me. Also, I could read my foes. Friends, rather. I'm not the best player, but I'm good enough at odds and lucky enough at beating them.

Poker night, as with all good things, came to an end. Alas.

Oh right, my poker chips. Actually, my chips came from my friend Bob (technically, his dad I think). And they weren't so much donated insomuch as Bob left them at my house one night and I moved to Texas a few months later and that's what I used to use on poker nights.

So ... uh ... thanks, Bob. You were instrumental in a favorite tradition of mine even if you were 1500 miles away at the time.

Snowball Fight

2000.

Pennsylvania. Was it Sharon Hill where this apocalyptic showdown occurred? It might have been.

I went with some friends to hang around on a snowy weekend day. What was significant was that it wasn't with my usual friends. (Perhaps one of my crew was there. I'm less sure now.) I went with guys I had met in high school and hung around with for a brief while. There maybe 6 of us in all, but I only recall 2 guys by name: EJ and Schwenke.

I recall we were in a parking lot of a shopping center where I had only really gone with my folks before. But we didn't go to a lot of stores. It was cold but I can't recall how it started, but we ran into some other guys we both knew from high school. The other group of people had maybe 8 or so similarly aged kids. There were some jokes, some ribbing, some light insults exchanged.

And then commenced the throwing. Who knows who threw the first ball? Snowballs came hurling from the other side. Retaliation came from my side. We broke for cover, throwing snowballs back. Getting hit with a single snowball does not hurt very much. Getting hit with a single ball of ice with some snow packed around it hurt a good deal. Getting hit with many of either can result in some serious hurt over time. So, the battle was on. Their side was largely throwing some pretty tightly packed snowballs. Getting hit with those from someone with a good arm stung a lot, especially if caught in the face. Despite presenting a large target when I aimed and threw, I didn't get hit in the face a lot. My large brown leather coat did an excellent job of protecting me and keeping me warm throughout the encounter.

This would be a good time to point out that throughout my entire life in Pennsylvania I had never learned to make a snowball. Ammo wouldn't have been an issue since there were still about 5-6 inches on the ground. They tried to show me how, but I couldn't quite get the feel through my heavy gloves. But even if I could form the plentiful snow into projectiles, I was pretty severely outclassed.

EJ was a pitcher for the high school's baseball team and some of the guys on the other side were also ball players. Schwenke, I recall, was a catcher. The other guys were fit and thin. Schwenke was bigger, but also fit. Anyways, for some reason, he ended up throwing a couple of snowballs at me. I was running out of small chunks of ice to throw at people. I had seen a small boulder of ice by me. I tried chipping some pieces off to throw at people but found it too slow a process. I decided it was then a good idea to pick up that boulder and charge Schwenke with it. He pegged me with a couple of snowballs before bracing for impact when I stood over him with my boulder. As I smashed it down on his back I cried out in victory. He cried out in pain. He then found a similarly sized ice boulder and smashed it down onto my back. We both collapsed right there.

The encounter continued. I'd see a snowball land around my general area now and again, but I just laid on my back for awhile. After maybe 15 minutes, the last ball was thrown. EJ came by and helped Schwenke and me up.

It was fun. This was just about the only real snowball fight I have ever been in. This was also just about the last time I hung out with that group of people from high school.

To have it to do over again, I'd have learned how to make a snowball before that fight.

Jessica

2006. And on and on and on and on.

The measurement of friendship is a hard thing to objectify. Does one friend have more utility than another sure? Robby's my offline Wikipedia, but if I ever needed an illogical paradox that is humanity's only hope to stave off the rise of the machines by causing their circuits to short, then Sentell's my man. However, at the end of 2006 Robby gave us all a new way to codify friendship. It wasn't a theory he espoused but it came to be as a direct result of him.

The measure of friendship is how much money you're willing to shell out to do stuff with them. Sounds simple, almost dumb, eh? Well, so's strumming on a small plastic guitar with 5 brightly colored buttons.

One night, Robby brought over his Guitar Hero 2 disc and his guitar and we proceeded to rock out and have the most fun brought to us via videogame format as well. With this rockening in mind, I couldn't wait until my next hit for very long. The week-long wait when Robby would bring his kit became unbearable. By Christmas I bought my own set. Freebird remains one of the top boss fights of all time.

Regardless of skill level, we always had a blast playing Guitar Hero. Cooperatively, competively (which is redundant to say because of Contest Theory), and just watching, good times were had by the lots of us. We learned key concepts such as "Yellow is not blue" and sometimes not even star power can save you.

Robby remains the best guitarist out of the lot of us, but I can give him a run for his money time and again. It's okay, though, because he's a robot and he's programmed that way.

The Vacation

1992.

Coldness, thy name is Canada. I have relatives that live in Montreal. For Christmas that year my family decided to visit them. We also had family in Kanata, we also visited them.

It took 10 hours to get there by car. This is the only real trip out of the country I can remember. (I went to El Salvador to visit my grandfather when I was 5, I'm told. I have no recollection.) The car trip wasn't so bad. Mo and I were switching off on the Gameboy and books and stuff. I recall passing the border pretty late, but making sure to stay awake so I knew what it felt like the leave the greatest country on earth (again).

I recall the cold, cold weather. We spent maybe two weeks in Canada total. We spent one day sledding down a giant hill and almost freezing. We went to our relatives' house and warmed ourselves by the fire.

For Christmas, we drove around for awhile and Santa brought some SNES games that I had wanted: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and UN Squadron. Both games rocked at the time. Neither hold up well to time, but I was young and got what I wanted for Christmas and it was awesome.

When we finally returned home, I enjoyed being in our own snow, not the unforgiving Canadian Wildness.

15-Ball

2002. UH.

Brandon and I spent a lot of time playing pool. We played more pool than we attended our psychology lecture. Around this time I was playing a lot of an online pool game called Carom 3D, which was programmed by Koreans. It was fun enough and did a decent job of pool physics. I played a lot with Sentell and Hai since we didn't live anywhere nearby at that point.

One day at the UC games room, I thought up a new pool game. I dubbed it 15-ball. It was simple: it was 9-ball, only played with all 15 balls and was for points, not sinking just the 9. The 1 ball was worth 1 point, the 2 was worth 2, and so on to 15. A full rack had 120 points in all. The object ball was always the lowest numbered ball and had to be struck first. But if, say, the 1 was struck first by the cue ball, and then that 1 ball hits the 15 and the 15 sinks, it was worth 15 points for sinking that ball.

We usually played to 500 or 1000 points. This would take hours. It was a lot of fun. Of course, I found out this variation of pool already existed, but I had thought of it prior to that. Oh, but we forbade the use of the bridge, just because.

Perhaps my time at college could have been spent more productively. Perhaps.

Warsong Gulch

2005.

I used to play WoW. I beta-tested it back in the day but decided that no game was worth paying a monthly fee to play.

I played one character, the leader class of the Horde, the Shaman. I was a Troll on a RP server. My name was Nomadis, a handle I use from time to time when Nomandy isn't appropriate. This memory focuses on a very fun stretch of time when I used to play WoW's sole battleground at the time: Warsong Gulch, often abbreviated WSG.

The Shaman was an extremely versatile class. A Shaman could do massive amounts of melee damage, cast spells at range, could heal, and had just enough survivability to be a major threat. The Shaman also had totems to help fight against all other classes. So a duel was usually a matter of knowing what spells to use and what totems to lay down when.

Warsong Gulch was a battleground where the righteous Warsong Outriders and the treacherous Silvermoon Sentinels vied for control over a valuable patch of woods. The Outriders need it to expand industry and create jobs for the struggling Horde economy. The Sentinels are just using it for staging grounds for their good-for-nothing, murderous army. So, naturally, these two factions play a 10v10 Capture the Flag game for dominance. First to 3 caps won.

Shaman had an ability to turn into ghost wolves to run faster but fight less effectively. This was useful in the flagrunning aspect of the game. So, this position was naturally suited to the Shaman (and Druid) class. I was pretty good at it. I played a lot of Warsong Gulch and made a name for myself on my server. I singlehandedly won games by getting all three requisite flag captures on myself. And on several occasions I returned the Horde flag so that I could capture the Alliance flag to win. On the server forums, I was even called out by someone on the opposing faction. And I still won.

I had but one nemesis, a gnome mage named Stimblefaud. He turned out to be a good guy but he was pretty good at killing me. (He was pretty difficult to kill, but I sometimes did.) I eventually got on a PVP "team" of sorts, where the most dedicated PVPers worked together to get honor and move up the PVP ladder, cooperatively. I accidentally entered their instance of WSG where 9 of the 10 team members were in. They politely asked me to leave. By the time I had responded, I had captured the flag. They were impressed. And thus I became part of their team.

Power.

It was good to be an unstoppable duelist in WoW. But, things changed. I changed. And to be honest, maybe here's another I'd like have back.

Juan, the Really, Really Evil Guy

1998.

In 8th grade we had to keep a journal. This didn't involve writing down our feelings or what we did that day, but it was a writing journal to get us to write on an almost daily basis. Now, my writing has always been a bit off-kilter. Vivid, strange, and well-written, despite being rife with stream of consciousness and run-ons and fragments. Yup, that's me.

I went a bit overboard now and again. While that's a common theme in my life, there were two particularly long stories I wrote from an extremely simple prompt. The first involved writing a story on what if I ended up on my favorite show. A paradox is that I'm extremely open about myself (just check my openness score on my psychological profiles) but I hardly ever tell anyone my feelings. So, in 8th grade, I didn't reveal more personal details than I had to. Such a silly thing, neh? I ended up writing a very long story that involved various shows and movies but at no point did I identify my favorite show. It wasn't great, but it was fun.

I don't recall the prompt for this story.

What I ended up writing was 21 pages (in my handwriting, so double that for normal people figures) about this post-apocalyptic wasteland of a world. I hadn't played Fallout by this point, but it's a similar world to that. I wrote it in the first person and the narrator was essentially a middle-aged version of me that had all the answers for questions no one bothered to asked him. A despot rose to power and his name was Juan, and he was really, really evil. That's all I ever elaborated about that. Life sucked but the narrator had a little niche carved out for him. In one of the many chapters, I had ridiculous titles to keep it somewhat amusing, there was a preacher that passed by the narrator's town. He preached and got people to follow him in a crusade to demand justice from Juan. He preaches and the narrator holds town meetings afterward, trying to dissuade people. Before the preacherman left, the narrator spoke to the preacherman for the first time in the story. He calls him by his real name, Parsons, the name of my best friend at the time, also playing a middle-aged version of himself. And they marched off to do the right thing and demand justice. All but 3 others run off, and Juan kills the preacherman as an example and lets the others go to tell others of the preacher's fate.

Finally, things come to a head ... somehow. There's an air combat scene for some reason, and the narrator had been a combat pilot at one point, like I had wanted to be at one point. Juan is defeated and the narrator takes strides in ridding the world of his influence.

The epilogue is short. A farmer begs the narrator for fairer taxes, that his children are starving, and he cannot continue. The narrator mocks the man and then dispatches him in the same way Juan killed the Preacher. A new reign of terror had begun. Bwahaha.

Yeah, that was my happy ending even in 8th grade. I ended up losing that journal and with it, the story. Alas.

Feste Romane

Feste Romane is a symphony piece composed by Ottorini Respighi in 1926. It's a truly beautiful work that's inspired me and a lot of other people.

The piece has four movements, which is something I modeled my own symphony after. The first movement is called Circus Maximus and is meant to represent the Flavian Amphitheater. The second movement is called the Jubilee and represents the pilgrims flocking to Rome and seeing it from the mountaintop for the first time. The third movement is the fall festival. The fourth is The Epiphany.

The second movement is the one that most affected me.

2002.

We were playing Feste Romane for the State Honor Band competition. The Dickinson Band was one of the best bands in the state of Texas, which makes it automatically in the running for nationwide. Now, Feste Romane is an extremely difficult piece, but it's sounds excellent. We did not do the song justice. However, we tried. And in the second movement we started to actually make it sound good. The Jubilee has a very special part, 4 minutes and 23 seconds into it. The band comes together to build to a section where everyone starts playing such joyous music. The first time we nailed that section our assistant band director, one Roman Jakubis, said that that very section was what made him get into music as a profession, playing that very piece, that very movement, that very section, as a member that very Dickinson Gator Band in that very band hall decades before.

It was a powerful moment. It made me want to stop sucking at composing and outdo Respighi.

My Cat Skinny

1990-2000.

I am a cat person. Cats were once revered as deities by the Egyptians. This is obvious in modern day descendants' behavior. Whereas a dog is brought food by a person, he would think, "Oh, he must be a god!" a cat, on the other hand is brought food and thinks, "Oh, I must be a god!"

My first pet was a shorthaired gray and black tabby we named Skinny. This was not an ironic name to start but as with the other members of the household, his belly grew to fit in.

Skinny and I didn't always get along. We had an understanding that while we didn't like each other, we'd stay out of each other's way. When I was at school he would sleep on my bed. When I got in he would leave.

We didn't always have such civility. When I was around 5, I decided he needed a haircut. I grabbed my safety scissors and started trimming. I told my mom that his white hairs on his face were too long. She got upset at me. But how was I to know he needed his whiskers to ... sense stuff?

I'm still a cat person, but pets generally don't like me. Dogs smell my evil and try to warn others. Cats see me as competition because of my ego. Yet, we still have 4.