Did Ya?

Journalism class, sophomore year of high school. Danny Roy is in the back, his infectious laughter overpowering the suffocating presence of Jim Brown. I'm to his right, near Paul Duval and Ricky Medina. Ryan Paxton's girlfriend is there, along with many other faces, each faded into the oblivion of memories long forgotten.

Class was highly collaborative, and over the course of the year many of us became quite good friends, if only in-class friends. There were both more athletes and more free time in J-1 than in most of my other courses, and with the first ten minutes devoted to reading the newspaper we obviously got caught up in many discussions involving sports. I recall one of these more vividly than the rest.

Ricky Medina and I were talking about baseball, or more accurately, home runs. I was about 5'4" at the time and tipped the scales somewhere just south of 110 lbs, so I had yet to hit a ball out of the ballpark, even in batting practice. But I was starting to grow and had just begun to hit the gym, and in my mind the dinger was imminent. I promised to let him know as soon as I went deep in a ballgame.

Well Rickey Medina, I did it. I hit a two-out, three-run, game winning home run on Sunday to give the Boars a 7-4 win. And although we lost touch long ago I'm here fulfilling my promise. Let's just hope this blog pops up the next time you're bored enough to Google yourself.


Oh, and I'm currently on a mini Euro-Trip with my cousin Marissa. She will be guest posting on my blog for the duration of our trip, and I on hers. Come check out my version of our adventures at www.futurerissstar.blogspot.com. And of course don't forget to enjoy her less skewed, less interesting version right here.

Bumper Cars

I went on the bumper cars today and it was INCREDIBLE.

That could have been a little twitterish had I only posted one sentence, but I hate twitter more than I hate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and I hate that bitch, so let me give you a little bit more of a post.

There is one thing here in Germany that I think is absolutely ridiculous and bothers me incredibly:

They don't have air conditioning here, and that's okay, because it rarely gets above 80 degrees. Because of this people need to keep their windows open, which is also fine. This is not the problem. The problem is that despite having an abnormal amount of bugs and insects flying around, THEY DON'T HAVE SCREENS. I don't even understand it. It's completely nonsensical and pisses me off.

Anyway, look forward to something a little longer and more creative in the next week or so and an interesting look at my upcoming mini Euro-trip.

A Minyan of Gentiles

I promised you a few stories about Jason's stay in Germany. Here goes:

Jason arrived on a Thursday evening, a few days before the Boars were set to play an away doubleheader on Sunday. That night we wandered around Munich and stumbled upon the Hofbrauhaus, where we dined. Since I had Saturday off, and because I'm a baller, I already had a date for Jason on Friday night. The plan was to meet up at 11 PM with some nice young ladies at the Americanos Bar, home of Picture Book Style II.

Two stops before we were to get off the train, Jason and I were confronted by the train police, who really aren't police at all. Neither of us had tickets, of course, and we did a pretty good job of playing ignorant. I had alerted Jason to the possibility of being stopped and had prepared him for the proper course of action, but when the train police took us to the real police I almost lost him. Usually the train police simply input your false information into a little machine. These train police did not have a little machine, and therefore had to take us to the real police, who apparently did. I told Jason to stay calm, and after about 45 minutes of the German Police trying to scare us by talking amongst themselves in German, we were let go, our only fine being that we had to buy the ticket we should theoretically have purchased in the first place. We left the station and asked for directions to the bar, only to find out we got off at the wrong stop. Our real stop had been 4 stops earlier, and had we gotten off at Ostbanoff instead of Hauptbanoff we never would have run into the fake police.

We had a good time at the bar and expected a ride home, but when it was time to go at 4 AM we were left to get home by our own devices. Usually this wouldn't be a problem, as I would simply drive. But this is Germany, I don't have a car, the train stops running at 2:30, and we were out of money for a cab. So we hitchhiked.

Ha! Gotcha Mom! We didn't hitchhike, although I wish we had. Instead, we spent an hour and a half falling asleep at the train station while waiting for the 5:30 AM train home.

Over the course of the next week or so Jason and I had several mini adventures. We went to the English Garden and saw the river surfers. We visited the Dauchau Memorial and wrote a script for a short sketch comedy film. I put two completely opposite things in one sentence and attached them with an and. We watched You Don't Mess With The Zohan. Allow me to expound upon one of our other adventures.

One night - I believe it was Wednesday night - Jason, Kacee and I went out into Munich to really do up the Hofbrauhaus. Jason and I had merely stumbled upon it the first time and were without cameras, so he desperately wanted to go back. Within 20 minutes of our arrival we had made about 13 new friends. There was the father and son from Buffalo, the three buddies from Ireland, and the eight college exchange students from various parts of the U.S. We had a phenomenal time, and when the Hofbrauhaus closed at midnight we had a minyan of gentiles following us to Max and Moritz, a bar we were not allowed into even though we had spent 30 minutes looking for it. After Captain Steroid refused us admission to the worst club in Munich and our followers began to dissipate, Jason and I followed a few of the exchange students back to their hostel bar where we stayed for a little while before catching the last train home.

The next day my coach was fired, and while I went into the city to support him and Kacee in their attempt to forget, Jason met up with one of our friends from the night before. I had a good time in my role as adult supervisor, but I had to leave early to meet up with Jason, who was leaving early the next morning and needed to get home at a reasonable hour. At the appropriate time, I called Jason and planned to meet him at the train station to catch the next train home. 3 minutes before said train was set to arrive I called him again, and 3 seconds before said train was set to depart I saw him sprinting down the corridor, yelling at me to "GET ON THE TRAIN!" I did and he did and we were both ecstatic that we didn't have to spend another evening at the station.

On our way home he taught me the Johnnie Walker, which I will not explain except to say that it is probably the coolest thing ever.

Sorry for the delay, the length of the post, and its general lack of focus. I promise better next time.