A Random Shot in the Dark

So I’ve decided to start making my documentation of my life public. I’ve been keeping a journal all this year anyway so that I can record all of my adventures for future reference. But I decided that I’m just selfish enough to want the spotlight and fame of broadcasting my life all over the internets for people to scrutinize for ages to come, and later use to bring me down in a pile of smoldering metal as they pick through the wreckage.

What I mean to say is this: I really enjoy reading my friend’s blog, and thought that others might like to read mine as well (especially considering that I’ve had people specifically ask me to start writing in a public venue so they can read my mad ravings. What? Is it so hard to believe I have friends? No, it isn’t. I’m a nice guy; why wouldn’t I?)

I like writing anyway and I thought it would be fun to see what people, and by people I mean people other than myself, think of my writings and musings. In order for one to grow, one would do well to have criticisms and comments from one’s peers.

At this point in time, I do not, as of yet, have a direction for this blog; hence the title. I’m guessing some sort of evolution will progress as I start to realize what I like talking about and what I don’t. For now it would suffice to say that this will be the day to day life of me, in the present age, throughout my summer adventures, work and amusements, and bashes with friends.

With all that being said, lets start this directionless blog thing that I’ve been introducing for the last hour!

I think I’ve told about 437 of my friends that I’m interning at a church in Long Valley NJ called Valley View Chapel, for the summer. There I open and run a skate park ministry that we call Revelation Skate Park. It’s open for free for kids of all ages, genders, sects and creeds to come hang out in a relatively safe environment on the days that I so choose to open it. Those days happen to be every Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from 4:00-6:30. It’s been going for about two weeks now and so far nothing horrifically dreadful has happened. On the contrary, the kids are having fun and so am I! I’ve even taken this opportunity to start learning to skate board myself. It’s pretty fun when you get past the visions of yourself lying covered in blood, limbless; brains splattered across the pavement, your body in the middle of the road; skate board wheels rolling away from a devastatingly shredded and cracked board… Ok it’s a little scary I’ll admit it; not really as scary as you might think. It’s certainly a lot easier to motivate yourself to do it when 6th graders are urging you to do it, haha.

The Skate Park:

My vantage point under the tent, next to the snacks; prime real-estate.




Not a bad little park, eh?

That’s my day to day right now. A major event that just took place in the “Something-Rather” household though, was the wedding of my father. It was a bit of a weird experience. Mom is still more than just a memory to me, and seeing my Dad get married before me was a little shocking. Nevertheless, it is a fountain of life that has been fed to our family and I can already see the new vitality it has brought to my 58-year-old father; if he’s happy, I’m happy.

My sister Grace is also very excited about the new “mom,” as she calls her. She’s not mom to me, and it disconcerts me to hear my sister call her that, but it’s not that big a deal. Besides having the new “mom” (or Angie, as I call her) in the family, we also have a new step sister that came along with her, as sort of a “two for one” deal! Her name is Daisy and she’s 7. It’s interesting to have a new kid in the family again, and to have another sister. Grace is really excited about it, but is also having a bit of a culture shock with the new position this puts her in. Grace has been the youngest in the family for 10 years and she has never had to share a room. Now she’s suddenly not the baby anymore and she has to share her bed with the new kid. It’s sometimes weird for her, I’ve noticed. For the most part though, I think she’s really enjoying it. I’ll have to keep tabs on that for the future…



A barely audible (like how I’m using sound words for visuals?) picture of Grace in the background, and Daisy in the fore.

The Bro’s in Wedding Attire as the groomsmenDaniel



Evan



Forrest



A very unfortunate picture of Padre, and me on the right. I wouldn’t have included such a bad picture of Dad, except that it was the only one I had.

Padre and Angie went to Anchorage Alaska on their honeymoon; a pretty sweet choice, if I might say. The fun part about their honeymoon though, was the mystery of where they were going. Dad kept asking Angie where she wanted to go on their honeymoon and she told him to surprise her several times. Dad specializes in surprises and our whole family enjoys a good surprise, so he was more than up to the challenge. He picked a place that he knew they would both love, and then told no one where they were going; this way the secret wouldn’t slip out and get back to Angie; clever father! It was practically the local gossip, or the big question, at the wedding. Everybody wanted to know because nobody knew! I loved it. Later as Dad and Angie were flying out to the mystery location, he texted me saying they landed in Austin Texas and that their next, but not their last, stop would be in Portland Oregon. I was trying to figure out where they were going, and Dad had mentioned something about the west coast to me days before…

When I heard Portland I ruled out California and Hawaii. Those were the only logical options on the West coast. A few seconds after that conclusion I knew it was Alaska. Dad loves this show called Northern Exposure, so I had to conclude, with all of the clues, that he was going to Alaska. Later, I confirmed this theory when I got a call from him asking me to find a number for a bed and breakfast in Anchorage. It was a fun game he set up for all of us, and a smashing location; I want to go there!!!

With Dad and Angie at the other end of the country, I was sort of in charge of the house and the family. The girls were staying with some different families during the week though, so it wasn’t so bad. On Monday and Tuesday we went to visit family, though, and I had to coordinate those trips and get all of us together for an hour long drive to PA on Monday, and then Freehold area on Tuesday. Monday we visited Dad’s family: our Grandma, some Aunts and an Uncle and our cousin and Aunt from Michigan, who we hadn’t seen in about a year. Tuesday we saw Uncles and an Aunt from Texas and Virginia. It was a fun couple of days, but rather exhausting for me. By Thursday I felt like a blown light bulb after driving all over and then running the skate park for two days.

Friday was my day. That was the day I had basically no responsibility and it was my first chance to have fun however I wanted. My friend David and I had planned to hang out on Friday in advance because he’s about an hour and a half away in PA and we don’t get to hang out as often as we’d like. Anytime we hang out is a big event anyway, but when we haven’t gotten to for a while, as is the norm lately, we really try to make the most of it.

Thursday night I stayed up late, like I usually do, and then I really took my time getting started on the drive to Dave’s house. It was almost 3:00 by the time I was on my way, and I was hitting 4th of July weekend traffic. I had been beating myself up for my poor strategy, but then I realized a very simple solution. I called up David, while driving of course (gotta break all the laws; I’m a rebel!) and invited myself over his house for the night. He was down, so we excitedly delved into our hang out day when I got there around 4:45.

It was a proper welcome he gave me: Grilled steak? Yes please!!! Pretty epic. After that we hung out and talked for a while in his awesome room. It’s about the size of mine, if not smaller, and yet, so much cooler, haha. We also went to his state park and hung out there while there was still daylight. I love summer; late afternoon sunlight = awesome! Here are some pics of his sweet little state park with a lake and everything:



This one’s a pond


There’s the lake!




That was happy fun times.

After that we made a random stop at a playground. I was too busy jabberwocking my head off to really pay attention to what was going on at the time. I think I was trying to unwind from a stressful wedding and week. Thankfully David is a tolerant and patient listener. But the playground was fun, nevertheless. We road on a spinny carousel thing, and then went on those animals on springs. Technical terms don’t apply on playgrounds.



Good ol’ Dave, proudly doing his civic playground duty, leading the springy animal charge!



Perhaps it looks fun, and it was, but those things were very dangerous, and uncomfortable, for grown men…yeah, I’ll leave it at that.

I did end up sleeping over his house, which was awesome. When we got back from our outdoor tour I introduced David to Phineas and Ferb, an animated show on Disney channel. It’s one of my favorite shows of all time for sure, and probably the best thing on Disney Channel. It’s very well thought out, original writing, and it is very carefree, which gets me out of the world when I watch it. The show probably got me through community college. If you don’t believe me, you try going to community college.
Phineas and Ferb (And their pet platypus Perry)

Before bed we watched There Will Be Blood. I really enjoyed the movie; it was rather disturbing at times, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it while I was watching it. More recently I’ve had an insatiable hunger to watch it again; I really, really like it. It also reminds me of David’s house now, so that whenever I think of his house I think of cowboys, or oil men, from the turn of the century, wearing their hats and walking around covered in oil and dirt; real men. That was an intriguing, puzzling story of crazy, crazy people. How I hunger to watch it again.

The next day we watched more Phineas and Ferb and then I was off to the ol’ homestead again. I spent Saturday resting, and at the end of the day was confident I was fully recovered from the wedding and the crazy week I had.

And that brings me to today: Independence day, the 4th of July. I spent today resting, watching cartoons with sisters, and reading speeches and quotes by great men of honor, who uphold freedom and morality. I read speeches from Men like Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, Winston Churchill, and Thomas Jefferson. They gave me hope and courage for the future. When the time comes perhaps I can be half so honorable as they are.

Late in the day Dad and Angie came back from the honeymoon and all of us except for Daniel and Forrest piled into the van for a trip to North Branch for the best fireworks in the state. I was happy to see our friends Gabe, Chandler, Brenady and Anthony join us, as well as Daniel and his friends David and Derek later in the evening. Once again the fireworks did not disappoint, being better than I remember from last year, and fooling us into thinking they were over several times, before another huge bout of colorful explosions lit the sky. The finale was something I tried very hard to soak in. It was probably the most brilliant display I’ve ever seen. Lighting up every part of the sky we could see, wider than wide screen, thrilling our senses of touch, smell, sight and hearing without letting up. The whole sky was lit up with a back drop of smoke, the explosions rang in our ears without letting up, and they pounded in our chests in sync with our racing hearts. At the same time ash was raining on us and sulfur and smoke could be smelled in the air. It was a night to remember; a night that hopefully adequately reflected that original night over 200 years ago.



These fireworks were new ones I’d never seen before. They had more colors than most fireworks, like they finally switched from the old system of 16 colors to 256.

This post was impossibly long, but if you read it all, you win, sir!