It's a Blustery Day In the Neighborhood

Remember that crazy wind we had a few days ago? If you don't, you must not be from NorCal. However, I am proud to say that all of us here at UH... are not biased against anybody except those we choose to be biased against, so you can still read this post. Back to the relevant details:

The 22nd of May here in NorCal, it was a very windy day. Many people decided to stay indoors during the wind storm, thus missing out on all the fun one can have with wind. I was not one of those people. I decided to get my skateboard and go wind sailing down a smooth road. So I loaded up a couple PVC pipes, a large sheet and my skateboard and drove to the nearest smooth road I knew of: Interstate 5.

I parked on the side of the road and began setting up my equipment. Within minutes I was standing on my board sailing along with about a quarter sail in the wind. Apparently some people did not like my pioneering of this new sport; I could deduce as much from the honking, gesturing and yelling of most of the cars that passed me. Suddenly I heard sirens, so I naturally turned my head to see who the cop was after. This caused me to swerve across two lanes and into the fast lane with the cop car coming on at a furious pace. I knew I needed lots of speed really soon to avoid a collision with the cop, so I opened up full sail. I shot forward with a lunge and was quickly gaining on and passing many of the cars that had passed me before. Luckily the cop car stayed pretty close behind me, so the traffic parted before me like the red sea before Moses.

I continued like this for a few miles, when suddenly the road pitched upwards and I realized I was on one of the exits that go from the fast lane into a three way intersection in the sky. I was on a death path straight through the intersection and into a 6 foot wall on the other side. I knew what I needed to do, so I did it. I held my sail with one hand, held onto my board with the other hand, and jumped as high as I could. The sail lifted me over the wall safely, then slowly lowered me towards the ground. When I say slowly, I mean I was falling slowly, but I was still being propelled at over 100mph. When I touched down, I was jerked forward and then I felt like I was in a giant tumble dryer on its highest setting.

When my kinetic energy was finally exhausted, I looked behind me. About 40 feet above and 1000 feet behind me I saw an overpass with a gaping hole in its wall. 10 feet behind me I saw the burning remains of a dodge charger with blinking lights on its roof. I struggled to my hands and knees and crawled over to the wreckage. Inside was an unconscious middle-aged man. I pulled him out of the vehicle and had barely drug him 5 feet when the entire car blew up into a million pieces and everything went black.

The next thing I remember is waking up in an uncomfortable bed with a thousand bright flashes going off in my face. When the flashing calmed down I saw hundreds of photographers and reporters yelling questions at me. At that point I remembered nothing, so somebody told everyone to be quiet and told me that a witness had seen me pull a man out of his burning car just before it blew up. Was this true? I said yes, even though I had no clue if it was or not. Then a doctor told me I had pieces of shrapnel all in my back, so I couldn't leave the hospital for a few weeks. Then the reporters started screaming again, the room started spinning and everything went black. The next morning I awoke in time to have somebody shove a newspaper in my face. The front page was all about me and how I was the greatest hero of all time! The man I saved from the car said he didn't remember anything that had happened or why he was in a burning car, and I wasn't about to enlighten him.

Life in the Spotligh, part four

When Gore started yelling we finally woke up. He was walking calmly around the room, smashing pitchers, throwing chairs, kicking mirrors; he was amazing. I have never seen such professional fit throwing in my life! We all retreated to the bathroom and locked ourselves in. After an emergency consultation (and placing a poll on the web), we decided to come out fighting.
We threw open the door and charged out yelling with all our might. Gore glared at us and suddenly we found ourselves retreating again. Al made a pounce in our direction and then Brock whispered, "Why did you wake us up!?"



Encouraged by this, Josh yelled "WE QUIT!! HA! HA! HA! NOW WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?" Gore lunged at us, grabbed us by the back of our necks and dumped us in a pile in the gutter. He then climbed into his tiny green tricycle car and proceeded to putt-putt down the road. 10 minutes and 3 feet later, I saw Al get out of the car, pick it up, and slam it repeatedly against a wall. Then I blacked out.


When I woke up, I was lying on the cement floor of a jail cell. Apparently the Vegas police system thought Josh, Brock and I were just a few wednesday morning drunks. After being released, we were hauled off to the Las Vegas Sanitary Facility, otherwise known as the dump. Soon all three of us had collected a few instruments and we decided to put on a show for those dull Waste Management workers.


This time, Josh had an old ukulele, Brock was on a broken piano, and I had a broom for a mic. Under the circumstances, I thought it sounded pretty good. Some guy started playing this cool beat behind us. It sounded like "beep, beep, beep, beep..." Maybe we should have got the hint, but we didn't, and the truck ran us over.


Now we are all home, separated forever. We decided being around each other gave us all bad luck. So much for my band.

Over waxed plank + skinny long rail = hilarious jibulation comedy!!!

That is a pretty interesting combination isn't it?? Well, you are about to read a story about the inspiration to this title. First let me define some of the supo - wiry terms used above.

Over waxed - Excess wax on object causing the sliding action to be very out of control.

Plank - A board of some sort used for sliding, spanking, building and many other things.

Skinny - Not much width (hmm)

Long rail - a slippery length of steel usually used for support but many times used for sliding over.

Hilarious - funny

Jibulation - extreme tricks for one to show off their style!

Now for the story:

The other day I was Snowboarding at a ski resort in the Central Sierra Nevadas. While there I decide to test my limits in the park; I was hoping to jib the kinked rail (a rail that abruptly changes directions from up to down to left to right and so on). As I passed over the park while riding the lift I was amused by watching people attempt the kinked rail. Some were amazing and some were lame. I was especially impressed by a skier who landed with his skis split parallel to the rail. He rode it like that the whole way!! I wished that I was flexible like him...although I'm pretty sure that it had an effect on someone's destiny.

All of a sudden I heard yelling and other unmentionables!! I soon realized that while watching the people below I had passed the lift exit zone and was now on my way back down the hill! When I came around again I made sure to exit at the right time but I still ended up leaving a part of me behind (I really need to work on exiting the chair).

Soon I was on the path toward the kinky, butterflies building, and as I zoned in on my mission time sloooowwed doooowwn. Wooooshhh! I flowed onto the rail and then time sped up and I was sliding on my bottom all the way down. Ouch! I've never had such a sore bum!! You might be thinking that it was the impact that really hurt but actually it was two laws of physics that came into play.

Let me explain. First, metal hitting metal can cause sparks and this happened when the metal edge of my board shot across the rail. When two surfaces scrape together, friction comes into play and when conditions and length of time are right, heat can be released in large amounts. So, first there was a spark, then there was my rear causing friction with the rail, and the next thing I felt was intense heat and a burning sensation under me as I slid more and more.

The next day I was in the hospital with a 2nd degree burn and a tip of the tailbone fracture. The doctor told me to always wear bottom pads from now on so now when I snowboard people tease me about being poofy.