The Boy in the Bubble

After going to high school for the past three years, I've met many different individuals; from the 'jocks' to the 'nerds' to the try-hards and the potheads, you have to form your own squad. This group of people is known as your "friends".
Every person you ever meet (EVER) has made some type of impact on you. Whether they're a coach, a friend, a coworker, a teammate, or an acquaintance, everyone makes a difference. Each time you interact with someone, your mood changes, you provoke new ideas, share knowledge and create long or short lasting relationships with others.
This last year, I had taken a welding course at Capital High School. I was switched into the class last minute, however learned more new skills than I ever thought possible. I also met someone new, someone who I still call an acquaintance, however made an extremely large impact on my life.
I will call this guy Jake, as to not point any figures at who this is about.

Every time Jake walked into that welding classroom, he had a smile on his face. He was always extremely excited to learn, and always ready to venture new ideas. The one disadvantage Jake had, very uniquely from everyone else, was that he was slightly autistic. This was interesting to me, as I have Tourette Syndrome. Playing with 7000 degree flames wouldn't be the first choice you'd think a kid of this nature would try out.

But he did.
He burned himself.
He broke equipment.
He forgot the rules.
But he never wasn't smiling.

This kid was the most hard working young man I'd ever met. He had more perseverance than a pack of beavers building a dam during a flood.
Unfortunately, he ended up not taking the class the second semester.
I would eventually see him again in passing hallway periods, as well as riding his five-spoke BMX bike around town. Every time I saw this kid, something good happened. He was always uplifting and nourishing, regardless of what dirty task he was assigned or whatever life threw at him.

Jake was pure love in its finest form.

Public Nudity & The Rodeo

5/12/13

This last week was a good one, involving lots of bike riding and other mischievous fun. After not racing since the Olympic View Road Race (2 weeks ago), this weekend was a good one to get back into that racing grind!

So, here's how this whole bike racing stuff went down:

The local Cat 2-3s have these Tuesday/Thursday rides/races every week from each daylight savings time to daylight savings time. The team that puts these rides on is the Olympic Orthopedic Associates team (OOA for short). Luckily, being good enough friends with these dudes [and gals], us rad guys are able to sneak into a few of these rides.
This is great, because while everyone else is throwing away their money at Seward Park and PIR every week, we get the same mid-week race pace workout at 0 charge! ... and the rides will always go on a lot longer than those silly criteriums.
In order to shorten a novel I could write, Nolan (my teammate) ended up getting in a breakaway with another dude and won the whole thing!!!

                        ....Alright, so one con of these rides is that there's no prize purse, but the winner of each ride gets a cool burger king crown to show off their glory (not really, but that'd be pretty cool...).

look at how happy people with burger king crowns look!

                                     Enough of all that bologna             

Saturday rolls around and it's a hot one. Almost as hot as Beyonce in her Single Ladies video. If you don't know I'm talking about, here ya go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY 

Where was I? Oh yeah, bike racing. The whole crew came out: Avi, Tyler, Ayden, Nolan (who is still a cat 4), and me. 

The race went okay, and we ended up placing Tyler in 5th place. We will get a win soon. 

The race was 54 miles.

Anyways, to the best part of the whole trip up to the little town of Ravensdale. 

It was hot.   .... oh wait, I already said that. It was hot. It was hot. It was hot. 

That fact was the exact one that motivated us to go down to a little creek after the race and take a dip in the ice cold water. 

It actually was a raging river, not a creek

 I got really excited, as I was in my boxers and a few cute girls were checking me out as I waded around. My interest quickly fell when one of them started smoking a cigarette a mere 30 feet from me.

 *****

Sunday! Nolan decided to take me out on some back roads near Fort Lewis. Apparently, active tanks sometimes drive on the same roads were were riding carbon on. Nolan failed to tell me this until the last minute. Fortunately, none were there when we went. 

All of the ride, he kept talking about this cowboy town he was going to show me. I wasn't sure if he was getting hillbilly/redneck confused with cowboy or not. Apparently, he knew what he was talking about! 

The town's name was Roy.

 The next couple of weeks have a lot in store, including the Mutual of Enumclaw and the 24 hour mountain bike race! These are both some of my favorites. 

Here's a picture of some muck water to finish up this whole Sha-Bang. Enjoy. 

The smell was that of  rotten milk and cow dung. 

The Secret to Eternal Happiness

5/1/13

Hello. 

My name is David O'Brien, and if you are reading this, you are probably an acquaintance of mine, a friend, or  a mere strange with nothing else to do on your boring Saturday morning. 

The point of this blog will be to perform one of a few mere tasks:

1.) Intrigue and spark the individual minds of the readers. 

2.) Talk about bicycle racing (the pedal kind, without a motor).

3.) Give me something to do on my boring Saturday mornings.

4.) Humor myself, or (hopefully) YOU. 

Here's a picture of an orange shaped like a banana...
or a banana with an orange inside it.

Alright, enough of the jibber-jabber. The real question you are asking yourself is "What is 'The Secret to Eternal Happiness' David? " 

Well here it goes. 

I live in an area that is highly hippy populated, specifically right next to the Evergreen State College campus. The school, however quite prestigious for it's art programs, has a lot of pot-smokin' , life-lovin', grateful-dead-listenin'-to hippies. 

After roaming around these parts for a while, I decided to try and figure out what made these individuals so motivated and happy all the time (besides all the THC running through their bloodstream 24/7). 

So I decided to ask one of them one day. His/her name was Matt or Jon or Hillary or something, but all I remember is that they gave me the answer. They told me about how Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, used to go to this specific college.

No really, he used to go there, check it out!

I think the B.A. stands for Bad-Ass.

The ancient spiritual guru dude/chick told me how Groening was in a very exclusive frat while attending Evergreen. While there, he and his possy developed a pamphlet known as the "Secret to Eternal Happiness." In it lied the greatest truth of all time, the one desire that every human being wanted: Eternal Happiness. 

Ah I remember their name! It was Lonph (the 'p' is silent). 

So Lonph showed me back to their buddy's apartment where this pamphlet actually was. When I walked into the small musk-filled room,  I saw it sitting on a counter close by.

On the paper lied a potion full of herbs and spices that one must drink in order to receive never-ending blissfulness. 

Here's the list: 

-1 leaf (doesn't matter what kind, what color, or where you got it from)

-17 gallons of water

-3 rat tails

-2 tsp. cumin

-a go-gurt (fully packed, and frozen)

-1 pint of human blood

and...

-a dash of salt

Alright, all of that was fake. Matt Groening did go to Evergreen State College though!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here's the real truth behind Eternal Happiness, written by yours truly:

1.) Look for the best in others. No one is exactly what they appear on the outside. Doing this will open up new friendships you never thought could exist. 

2.) Smile. Even when you're sad. You have no idea how much a simple smile can improve someone's day. 

3.) Get sleep. When you don't get enough sleep, you are not allowing your body to fully recover from all of the work it gets done during the day. This is very important for long term memory, as well as muscle recovery.

4.) Get outside and work out. Whether that means going on a small walk everyday or working in a field hours on end. The human being, as well as all other animals were designed to live outdoors. One large problem, especially with Americans, is their constant need to sit inside and not get much work done. When you go outside and get your blood pumping, your heart rate rises, motivation strikes, and voila! Happiness.

5.) Don't spike your blood pressure too often. Doing this makes you feel really really really really good, and then really really really really bad. 

6.) Think happy, be happy. It's as simple as that. 

7.) Go into each day knowing that you can accomplish literally **anything** you want to. There are no boundaries for what you can do! I mean, unless you're scared... 

That brings up another point...

8.) Expand your own limits. In aerobic sports, we can reference the 'zone'. (i.e. zone 1, zone 2, etc.). Without pushing these limits, you will never will reach your full potential. 

9.) Have a hobby. I like to play piano and sing. 

10.) Never be afraid to talk to strangers. This is how new relationships form, some good and some not so good. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it was also the same intellectual force that created the light bulb. 

☮Deuces☮

-DOB