Sejje.net

Sorry, this place isn't what it used to be.

There's a few true stories below that I wrote, which are available to read.

Photoblog - I decided to start a photoblog in March. It's my goal to post a photo a day, but also not to post junk. Motivation to shoot.

So in 11th grade, I was in a class called "life science" or something similar. Mr. Rossheim was my instructor, and on this day we had to do a dissection. A worm dissection.

Rossheim was strict and so my partner was the person who sat next to me, which was structured alphabetically. So Amanda Arvidson and I prepared to dissect our worm.

But not before Rossheim gave us a lecture. This was our first dissection and he wanted to be very clear: we were to treat all of the specimens with the utmost respect. They were once living animals, and if not for our education, they would probably still be living animals. We were not to do anything we wouldn't do to a real living animal. Or rather, anything Rossheim wouldn't do.

That's all fine by me, as that's my attitude about it anyway. And it doesn't really matter to Amanda, because she's all "OMG NO WAY I'M TOUCHING THAT THING!"

So I do all the work, dissecting the worm, pinning it open, identifying parts. There's not much to a worm. All I really remember is the crop, which is like an intestine where the worm processes the dirt it eats. So it's full of worm poop, which is like mud.

Anyway, we had to do some worksheet or whatever, and then we're sitting there waiting. We're done, but other people are still working. Rossheim is walking around helping some other tables.

Amanda picks up a scalpel, and I watch--fascinated--as she takes the scalpel and starts poking stuff. Clearly against the rules presented by the lecture.

She soon grows tired of that, and apparently wants to move on to better things. She re-grips the scalpel and begins wielding it like a machete. On maybe the second or third chop, she connects with the crop.

In one of the most magic moments of my entire life, I watch in amazement as the crop explodes, sending a portion of its poo flying into the air, in a parabola my Calculus teacher would have been proud of, which lands directly on Amanda's bottom lip.

Oh, there is a God!

Amanda went screaming into the bathroom while I tried to contain my laughter.

This (entirely true) story is about a summer camp I worked at a YMCA in 2002.

Summer camp in the sports department was about to undergo a radical change. Coach Bob, the new director, had an idea for camp that was a huge change from any previous camp. Basically, that the kids would be on one team for each week of camp--led by one or more coaches--and the teams would compete in athletic events. The week would end with a victorious team. Motivation? Winning team gets Papa John's pizza for lunch on Friday. And no more little kids: this camp was strictly eight years and up.

The other coaches and I met on Sunday afternoon before the first day of camp. We pulled out the enrollment roster and had a draft. I was lucky enough to know some kids ahead of time, but it didn't really afford me much advantage. Besides, I wasn't going for brawn: I wanted a team I would enjoy, and one that had a little brains. I only had one pick cemented before I came into the office, and it was a little eight-year-old girl named Lynsey. She was the aquatic director's daughter, and easily my most favorite kid in the whole world.

Camp began Monday morning better than anyone could have hoped. Coach Bob was amazing--within two hours, every single kid in camp was playing like it was for a Superbowl Ring. And every coach, too. Coaches were allowed to play--in games where the rounds were short (30 seconds to 2 minutes, say), we would have a couple of coaches-only rounds, which were a lot of fun, and every bit as intense as you could imagine some kickball or four-handed floor hockey being. In large-team games like capture the flag, dodgeball, or soccer, we played alongside our kids. It was not a rule, but generally practiced that coaches would do the "dirty work"--guarding the flag, playing defense, etc. In every event, the winning team would receive five points. Sometimes it was two teams versus the other two teams, so there was also some inter-team camaraderie now and then.

Each team selected a name for the week. I'm from Indiana, and so my team was coerced into being the Hoosiers.

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On August the 5th (2006), my girlfriend Alicia and I were on a vacation at Ginnie Springs. It’s about twenty minutes north of Gainesville, Florida. It’s a place where there’s several natural springs flowing up out of the ground, and they run into the Santa Fe river. Scuba divers come from all over to dive into the caverns there.

We had spent the previous night in our tent, and on this day we were enjoying the water. We had rented two tubes to float down the river. You walk through the park to the spring, where you climb into the icy cold water and then the spring feeds into the river and you can float down for thirty minutes or so and get out in the last spring on the property. The distance is not that far, but the river current is slow and so it takes a while.

Alicia and I were climbing into the cold spring water for our second float down the river. We both jumped on the top of our tubes so as not to be submerged in the (icy) water, and only my butt was wet. We used our hands to do little scoops and propel ourselves down the spring towards the river.

Approaching us, walking up the spring, were two girls, probably 24 or 25, Indian girls. There was some kind of reunion or get-together for them (Indians), and we had seen many groups. These girls were calling to someone…they were looking over our heads towards the bank and shouting. Neither of us could understand them; Alicia asked me what they were saying. It sounded like they were not speaking English. We floated closer and closer to them, and I thought I made out the word “help” at the end of one shout. When we got very close, they asked us:

“Do you know swimming?”

“Yes,” we both replied.

“Someone needs help.” One girl gestured towards the river.

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In middle school (at Milwee Middle School in Orlando) I was in gifted classes, and all the gifted kids had the same classes (with each other, I mean). There was this one girl who was sorta good looking, but really prim and proper. She didn't fit in in Orlando, she was kind of snobbish. Rich. Her name was Holly, and she owned horses. She loved horses. Lived and breathed them. All of her essays, conversations, shirt logos were about horses. She had a huge red backpack with a little horse keychain dangling on it. She doodled horses. They probably ate at her dinner table. And so, being kids, everyone started calling her Holly the Horse.

For a couple of years it went on relentlessly, she would occasionally be reduced to tears. And then out of the blue she told or english teacher, Mrs. Oswald that she was moving to another school. This day would be her last. Mrs. Oswald asked why, and Holly told her: she couldn't deal with being harassed about horses anymore.

Mrs. Oswald flipped, as any good teacher would. Totally freaked out on the whole class. Went into a tirade five, maybe ten minutes long. I can remember it vividly, we were working in the dark on the overhead projector. Mrs. Oswald pointed out a couple of individuals in particular, one being another girl named Holly who was head horse-girl-hater--apparently Mrs. Oswald wasn't totally in the dark.

Finally, she started to calm down some, and said "I mean, come on guys. You're really beating a dead horse here." The class ERUPTED. EVERYONE laughed, me included (and I was nice to Holly).

Holly cried profusely. Mrs Oswald tried (and failed) to quiet down the class.

Slip of the tongue, what can you do?

Growing up on Snow Lake, Indiana, bass fishing is more than a hobby. It’s a more like a way of life I knew how to fish by the time I was two, using a 3-foot spin-cast rod & reel combination. At that age I caught mostly bluegill and perch, but within a few years I was ready to move up to the big-leagues.

One warm summer night, my dad shook me awake. It was midnight; time to get out on the lake. At night, there's no speedboats or jet-skis churning up the water--and everyone knows the fish bite better at night. For a minute I wasn’t sure I wanted to move, but the thought of my first night trip on the lake spurred me out of bed and before I knew it I was dressed, standing on the dock with my rod and tackle box in hand. We headed out to a favorite, “secret-spot” that I thought only my father and I were privy to. I couldn’t see, but I could easily work the rod in the dark; years of casting every day had ingrained the process in my mind. It was second nature.

We caught a few “little guys,” bass weighing one and a half pounds or less, and decided to move on to the next spot. We headed to a spot off the shore of a public beach in Pokagon State Park. There was a large grass flat on the bottom, with five or six feet from the top of the grass to the surface of the water. Out in this open area, the lure of choice is a black spinner bait; a quickly-retrieved, flashy, vibrating bait. My dad told me how to fish it: let it hit the water, count to three, and begin reeling it back. The key is to have the bait skim the surface of the weeds, now and then pausing a little so the bait drops a foot or two.

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