BEATRIX! Tell the story of how..

[Matt]

Ask any member a question on how they met their spouse or future spouse, where they went to school and why , why they chose their career , or whatever you'd like to know about them. The person answering is encouraged to answer the question in great detail.

I shall start by asking Wiggum... how did you meet your fiancee?

After Wiggum finishes answering it, he may now ask anyone a question.

[Wiggum]

I actually met her playing softball, I think it was my second year with the team. My friend Sara told me that she wanted to hook the two of us up, but she was in a weird place with her ex, and was just kind of overall grumpy so I ended up dating a girl named Carrie from the team for the next couple of years.

The summer after Carrie and I broke up, Kelli and I hit it off on our groups annual tubing trip, but for some reason never called eachother after.

The next summer, at softball we started dating.

Tay, tell us about how you socially fit in as a teenager.

We're you a jock, a dweeb, popular, etc.?

[Matt]

Come on Tay!

[crappertay]

During my teenage years I was a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus. :lol

My fit as a teenager was dynamically linked to my grades. They progressively got worse as I went through high school and my popularity increased from the weird dorky kid who only hung out with the other dorky kids to the weird dorky dude who wasn't quite as dorky as we thought he was and hey he's pretty funny too, so lets invite him along to parties, if all else fails he can be our "funny" wingman for dealing with the hot babes annoying friends. :lol

http://file016a.bebo.com/10/large/2007/06/13/22/3584022523a4675138979l.jpg

This is not the picture of the team QB in the making, so I think we can safely discount jock. :lol

Then of course I left for uni and was able to start a-fresh as a regular and up front member of the class party scene. Alcohol, alcohol, nightclubs, random apartment after-parties, more alcohol. Still the "funny" wingman though, goddammit. :mad

I'm such an old man now compared to back then though, those were crazy days. :lol

[Wiggum]

Awwwwwww, it's lil' Tay.

Your turn to ask someone something.

I think it should be Mack and the story of how he lost his virginity.

But that's just my opinion.

[crappertay]

I'm willing to bet that's not a story that can be completed in less than 2000 words. :lol

Actually I want to ask Captain Murphy IF he's lost his virginity yet, and if so, the disgusting circumstances (and possibly farmyard livestock) involved in the process.

[Svoboda]

Back in the day, Murphy got the babes and sexxed often. I don't know what his problem is now though.

[Captain Murphy]

Actually I want to ask Captain Murphy IF he's lost his virginity yet, and if so, the disgusting circumstances (and possibly farmyard livestock) involved in the process. I have a lower purity score than you, wuss.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b281/kaygee123/_MG_5681.jpg
When you look this good you really don't have to worry about finding babes. They come to you.


The first time I actually entered a woman I was 13, and it was more of just experimenting than actual sex. I was at film camp and I hooked up with one of the actresses downstairs. The second time was the real thing. I was 16 at Nathan Dixon's party high/drunk but I still managed to work things out. I also lasted about 15 minutes longer than I should have, so I think the drunk/high part was the right idea. She wasn't ugz either, she was actually pretty cute.

2 weeks ago I scored with one of my good friends little 19 year old sister. It's been about 6 months since I've gotten any action, so I figured I'd share. :thumbsup

Matt, I would like to know how you and Bethany met.

[Bethany]

Matt, I would like to know how you and Bethany met.

Matt assured me that he will answer this when he gets a second. Work is keeping him tied up for a bit. ;)

[Matt]

Okay here it goes...

I guess it was in what year... 2005? Yeah.. Fall 2005. She was a new teacher at my school. She swears I ignored her the first time she spoke with me. :lol Something about Harry Potter. :lol Well, one day I was staying late and she walked by my room and I could tell she was about to cry. So I asked her what was wrong. She then started to tear up because she was getting no help from her curriculum partners and she was just struggling to get everything under control. So I talked to her for awhile and she seemed to at least feel better after we talked. Bethany is a brilliant person and teacher. She just didn't give herself enough credit sometimes in regards to teaching. Her school ideas were great but being that she was new, she didn't have the confidence yet.

A few weeks later, a student knocked a desk over in her room and it broke her toe. She was trying to hop down to the nurse and I saw her struggling. This was the first time I noticed her determination streak. Later I realize how she always wanted to do things herself. Well, I helped her to the nurse and then on the way back the male art teacher walked up to her. I had assumed they were dating so I left them alone. Ha ha it turns out they werent.

As the school year went on we became pretty good friends. And we stayed just friends. She was dating some jerk (:lol sorry for the editorializing :lol) and I was, unbeknownst to most people, going through a divorce. Now, I am not editorializing when I say that most everybody at my work hated my ex-wife. And the ones who didn't , did not know her. :lol Well I was bitter and angry. I felt I had wasted too many years and was frankly just happy to have another friend.

At the end of the 2005-06 school year, she decided to return to college to finish her master's degree. I was happy for her. But I also felt horrible. I was losing my best friend. We kept in touch a little bit over the summer as my life started to turn brighter (FREEDOM FROM THE WICKED WITCH OF THE GREAT LAKES) :lol
As Fall 2006 rolled around, I still had no interest in dating really. I was truly scarred. I just thought I was doomed to never love anybody and for anybody to love me. I had my two daughters to focus on too. Bethany came back to town to visit people and I ran into her. She had always been really good with Allie when she came to my school but I noticed how well she was with both girls. Both girls really needed a positive female role model and I was glad she was so accepting. Since I had known her prior to the divorce (or reclamation as I like to call it) I was hesitant to ask her out. A mutual friend of mine told me that Bethany had been single for a month. I was also hesitant to risk losing my friend. As many people kept mentioning here, I always thought she was out of my league. So I used that as an excuse too.

I think it was November of 2006 when I finally started dating again. I went on three first dates and they all sucked mutual arse. A girl couldn't just date me, she had to date me and my daughters. I was not going to be some guy who pushed his kids to a side for a girl. Our mutual friend, Jina, came to see me one day and I told her about how dating sucked. She asked "What about Bethany?" I gave her all my excuses and she said "Whether you two know it or not, you both really care about the other. I see it in both your eyes when I talk to you about the other. The hell with anybody who wants to gossip about you dating. Go for it" So I sucked up more nerve than I ever had and I called her. We talked about it and she said yes. A few months later, Bethany admitted to dancing in her apartment in excitement after I called. That always makes me feel special! After that first date, we've been inseparable. We knew we were meant to be together. I would have married her many times before our actual wedding date. :) Everybody who sees us says it is ridiculous how much we love the other. My mom told me one day that she would always be thankful for Bethany because she finally made her oldest son happy and because her granddaugters finally had a mom.

Sorry for the length but I can't write a smizzle version on how much I love my wife!


Question for Absy: Tell me the story of how you met your husband and how were your parents about it? Did they immediately love him? or what?

[Wiggum]

Good story Matt :thumbsup

And I think you should change your name to Mattrosexual.

[Matt]

:lol that is quality. You should be "Big Wiggy Style"

[Captain Murphy]

Good story, Matt. :)

By the way, you two make me sick. :lol

Sometimes I feel like I don't need a woman, then I read stories like yours and I get all choked up and need a female to hold on to.

[Darth Tater]

Great story Matt! I'm happy you two found each other - sounds like soul mates to me. Awesome.

[Abscynthe]

That was a good story, Matt. Very sweet :)

Ok, mine will be another long one. At the beginning of the 8th grade, my teachers felt very strongly that I should test for Probe, which was the class for gifted students. I went through the test and passed, so I was able every Monday to skip my math class and go to the "smart kids" class. Basically, all we did was hang out and sometimes do projects. The first day I went to this class was several weeks after it had started, so everyone in there had already known each other and been friends.

I was terribly shy when I was younger. I had a blood disease when I was about 8, and the pills they'd given me to help me out made my appetite increase to where no matter how much I ate, I was always hungry. I gained a bunch of weight in a very short period of time, and became the fat kid in class. I was always horribly picked on, for years, and because of this didn't really talk to anyone or open myself up to anyone. Chris was in the Probe class with me, and he was the first person to come up and say hi and welcome me to the class. He'd always talk to me and try to get me involved in conversations. I'd contribute, but still remained very quiet. Over the weeks, he invited me to hang out with his group of friends, and we'd meet up in the halls and talk or just hang out. We exchanged numbers, and he started calling me and we'd talk for hours. I had no feelings other than friendship for him at this point, and I was unaware of his feelings for me. He later said that it was my eyes that drew him to me that first day in Probe. :D

In December of our 8th grade year, Chris was transferred into my English class. On his first day of being in that class, I happened to notice him in a new light and realized I wanted to be more than friends with him. He jokes now that I noticed him for his earning potential :). One day, we were sitting in English class with a couple we were friends with. They said that we'd make a good couple, so he turned to me and asked me out. I said sure, why not. So, we became a couple, and set up a date to the movies.

I finally got up the courage to tell my parents I had a boyfriend (I was 14 here, and they'd said I couldn't date until I was 16). They relented and let me go the movies after finding out his parents would also be going (same theater, different movie). My dad, being a father, wanted to meet the boy his daughter was going out with. At this time, Chris was about an inch or two shorter than I was. When you were at the front door of the house, you had to step up a few inches to enter the house, so he was pretty short when my dad opened the door. My dad is 6', so he towered over Chris. I think he liked having that affect :lol Chris had shown up wearing a Georgia Tech t-shirt. They went through the normal interview (where are you going, when are you coming home, all that jazz). At the end of the interview, my dad said "Well, I can't find fault with what you are doing, and you seem like a good guy. However, you did make the mistake of wearing a Georgia Tech shirt in my house, and I can't forgive you that." :lol My dad is a staunch anti-Tech fan. It's been almost 16 years, and he'll still bring that up every so often! :lol

My parents love Chris now; they've seen that he has really taken care of their daughter. My dad once said something about me not dating "All-American guys" (Chris and I broke up once and I went on a few dates with other guys). I think he wanted to see me with a jock, classically good looks, not a brain in his head. Instead, I got the guy who'd been held back his 6th grade year, was failing all his classes, was insanely smart, and had no interest in sports :lol

I'll think of a question for someone shortly.

[Abscynthe]

Ok, my question goes to Moviegirl:

When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up? Have you reached that goal? If not, what changed about the goal?

[Matt]

Great story Absy. That's so cool!

[crappertay]

Matt made Murph cry? :lol

[Matt]

It ain't the first time.

[moviegirl11]

Ok, my question goes to Moviegirl:

When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up? Have you reached that goal? If not, what changed about the goal?

I think at one point I wanted to be a psychiatrist because I liked the idea of helping people with their problems. I also wanted to be a teacher at one time. There was too much school involved in being a pyschiatrist and I decided long ago that I wouldn't be cut out to be a teacher and the profession would probably make me not want to have kids of my own. That leads me to my last "profession." I've pretty much always wanted to be a mom. I haven't achieved that goal just yet but hopefully I will someday. Sorry my answer's not more interesting. Professionally I've been in a rut for a while now. I like writing though.

Smiz, where do you see yourself in 5 years?

[Bethany]

whew! This is the fifth time I have tried to respond. The internet hamsters are not working out for me today.

I loved your telling of the story of how we met Matt! Good on you for mentioning the loser I was dating as he was. No offense to those of you from the midwest because I have NO problem with you and my mom is from Michigan, but neither Matt nor I had any business dating the loser ass midwestern Yankees that we were with for WAY too long! LOL

Absy, I love the story of how you and Chris met. I can totally relate to being the chubby girl in school. I went through a phase where I gained a lot of weight in 8th grade and had gotten really fat by my junior year in high school. Being the fat kid in school is terrible, especially if you had braces and glasses like I did! If someone had told me in high school that I would be with someone as hot and sweet as Matt I would have laughed in their face!

[Abscynthe]

Seeing pictures of you now, Bethany, makes me question you EVER being fat :)

MG, I think it's neat that both professions you thought about were helping people. Being a psychiatrist or being a teacher is something I could never be, as I really am not a fan of people, so I admire those who can really make a difference in someone's life.

[Bethany]

Well it took me a few years to work it off but I promise I did lose a great deal of weight. I eventually ended up losing almost 100 pounds. I did a lot of aerobics listening to Blink 182 and European techno! :rofl

[Dohm]

http://boards.altgn.com/imagedump/9647b3506b1b6fb.jpg

[Dohm]

http://boards.altgn.com/imagedump/9647b3506ae7fe7.jpg

[crappertay]

Photoshop Skillz 5/10
Improvement of my crappy shirt 10/10
Funny 2/10

[Bethany]

I think there is some behind the bar grab action going on for that girl on the right. She looks WAY too happy in that picture!

[Matt]

Goddamn macros. :lol

[Svoboda]

Thats why smizzle isn't posting his story.

[garfield hates mondays]

Smiz, where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I'd like to still be at my job I have now although hopefully in a position with more responsibility. Ideally I would like to see the creative artist position return to our branch and work doing that. I'm a desktop artist now which means I get to do some work creating original ads but for the most art I only get to modify and update the stuff the Creative Artists already made. A few years ago when my work was still ADVO they shipped most of the work over to India and consolidated all of the Creative Artists in Connecticut. Now that we've been bought by Valassis supposedly we will be getting a lot more work back and so they might even bring that position back here.

I'd really like to see that happen because right now I feel like I've kind of settled for a job that was beneath me because it was convenient. Don't get me wrong, I think I turned out with one of the best jobs anyone got in my graduating class, it just isn't the kind of work I like doing.

Relationship wise I'm pretty certain that I will be married within the next 2-3 years. Possibly we will be ready to have a kid by the time 2013 rolls around. Also I will hopefully own a house and a dog by then. And Sydney will still be the same I guess.

[garfield hates mondays]

<strike>Movie Girl</strike> PHENOTYPE if you could go back in time and change one thing you did what would it be and why.

[Matt]

Smiz, don't turn this into an episode of the office. :lol share the wealth.

[garfield hates mondays]

ok I changed it just for you

[Matt]

much better. :lol

[Matt]

Bump for Pheno.

[moviegirl11]

this is steve:

I honestly can't think of anything. Everything I did was because it's what I decided to do at the time, even if it was wrong. Should I have held that kid down on the train tracks? No. Was he an asshole and deserved it? Yes. I wouldn't change it though. I was 15 at the time after all. In other words...stupid.

I guess if I had to choose something it would be finishing college. Out of all the things in my life that's the one that comes back to me on occasion. I don't know that it would have changed much. But perhaps it would have given me more confidence in myself, even if I'd never use the degree. Ironically I was in school as an english major with the intention of being a teacher. If I knew I'd write someday I might have stayed in a little longer. :lol

Not that this was one thing. All I did was decide to party, have sex and not go to many classes after awhile. It took months for it to culminate in my walking away from college. And I don't exactly blame my parents, but I did at the time. I was told I could come back if I formally asked the dean, but my dad said he refused to pay a dime to my education any more. I spent about 2 weeks being a pissy little bitch about it and then moved on.

since then I've often wondered if that decision has kept me back. I do great work in whatever I try. Not all the time, but quite often. :lol But I guess the fact that I'm someone who doesnt' like to keep the same job longer than a few years is problematic in me getting that big promotion. I have no desire to go back and get a degree...but now and then I think about just grabbing a few credits in web design or creative writing or biology. Just for the hell of it.

Dayoos: Has your faith ever been tested? If so, how did it happen and what was it like when you came out the other side?

[Witch King]

I just noticed this thread existed. I'm glad I didn't ignore something.

[Deus Ex Machina]

I think my faith is tested just about everyday. :lol


I've been through a lot of things that have challenged my faith, made me wonder it there really was a God, or if there was a God whether he really cares.

But, of all those things, one of the toughest for me personally was the death of my grandparents. They lived almost 2000 miles away so I didn't get to see them very often when I was growing up. When they reached the point where they couldn't take care of themselves my parents made the difficult decision to move them to our hometown so they could take care of them.

My grandfather's mind was sharp as a tack, but he had trouble getting around and had a lot of health problems. Despite a stroke that left her right side paralyzed my grandmother was still reasonably strong and healthy, but her mind was going. For the last several years of her life I don't think she really knew who I was.

One New Year's Eve my grandfather went into the hospital for an emergency surgery. While he was there he caught a staph infection that would keep him in that hospital and slowly kill him for the next five months. After he died my grandmother was to the point where she couldn't remember things from day to day. For a few months she relived the news of my grandfather's death every single day. You think it's rough watching someone find out that their husband of over fifty years has died. Try watching them relive it every day for months.

I was there with her the night she died. She was a sweet lady who gave so much to others and I always thought she deserved to die the way she might have wanted: in her own bed in her own home with her friends and family nearby and with a clear mind to say goodbye to them before she passed. Instead she died in a care facility bed 2000 miles from her home with people she couldn't recognize as family because her mind was so far gone.

I was angry for a lot of that time. I still get sad and angry thinking about it. But a lot of good things happened because of what my grandmother and grandfather went through.
For one thing, I learned a lot about love. It's one thing to love your grandmother when she makes you pancakes, takes you for walks and makes the world seem like a wonderful place. It's another to love her when a disease has eaten at her brain and she doesn't remember you, gets angry at you for something you didn't do, and then needs your help to get to the bathroom and back. Love isn't what you do when times are easy. Love is what you do when times are hard.

For another, their faith strengthened mine. They lived their lives with the hope that no matter how bad life got here, they were going to something better when they left. Not because of how good they were, but because of their faith.

God is in control. God loves us. But shit still happens. That's hard to reconcile. But reconciling it isn't the point. God has it all figured out. We just have to trust Him and figure out what he's trying to teach us. I think my grandparents knew that. I'm still learning it. But I've experienced too much to believe that there isn't a God, and learned that saying he doesn't exist doesn't make him go away.

[Deus Ex Machina]

Josh, tell the story on how you figured out the site could become a way to make money and how you decided to quit your engineering job to devote to the site full time.

[Wiggum]

Great answer Deus. :salute

[Darth Tater]

Great answer Deus. :salute
Seconded. :salute

[Captain Murphy]

<3 Deus <3

[Svoboda]

Deus deserves mad props yo :D

[Josh]

Josh, tell the story on how you figured out the site could become a way to make money and how you decided to quit your engineering job to devote to the site full time.
The year was 2005 and the site had been around for awhile. It never really made much money, but by the end of 2005 traffic was definitely on an upswing.

Still, I really didn't ever think I could earn a living from it. At the same time I hated engineering and was never any good at it. Those of you who were around back then probably remember my daily bitching about the awfulness of my job. I basically worked in a Dilbert comic strip... except the jokes aren't funny when they're actually happening to you.

So I hated engineering, knew I had no future in it because eventually, even though it might take them years, they were going to fire me and I'd never get another job in it because, well, I'd wasted 5 years working in the industry and learning NOTHING because my boss had never given me any training or any work to do. I wanted to write.

So in mid-2005 I started getting serious about getting a writing career going. I didn't think Cinema Blend was every going to bring in enough money to support my wife and I, so I took other employment, writing for the movies section of a site called Monsters & Critics while at the same time making one last-ditch effort to kickstart CB and see if I could make it go somewhere.
By the beginning of 2006, CB's traffic was up and doing better than expected. At the same time, M&C offered to buy CB from me and hire me on to run their movies section exclusively for them. Unfortunately they wouldn't be paying me enough to quit my engineering job, though they would be paying me more than I'd ever made writing before.

Yet after all the years of very slow building (Cinema Blend always grows... we just don't grow fast) there seemed to be more potential in CB than ever. I could go work for M&C, but that wouldn't get me out of my awful dayjob any time soon. So, I quit M&C entirely and went back to devoting all of my energy to CB, except instead of just spending 2 or 3 hours a day working on it I started spending 8 - 10. Sometimes that mean no sleep, a lot of the time it meant sneaking around at work doing CB stuff from my cubicle (which was easy since they'd long since forgotten I existed).

In mid-2006 my boss at the Engineering company where I worked committed suicide. He killed himself because of the job. The stress had basically killed him. The last thing he did before he offed himself was to log in remotely over the weekend and start a job running at work. He had a wife and a beautiful daughter, who were out of town. Not long thereafter, one of HIS managers in France also committed suicide. Same reason.

At my boss's funeral, more than half the people there were my co-workers. The only person who spoke was one of my boss's managers (who soon became our manager) , and the only thing he could think to say about my boss was how hard he worked. I think he meant it as a compliment, but in light of what happened... I don't think it was.

Things got even worse at the Engineering company after that, before that every day was a misery of waiting to get fired, after that every day was a misery of sitting and waiting to get fired, being screamed at, and being forced to work 90 hour weeks at doing absolutely nothing of consequence.

A few weeks after my boss's suicide my wife and I decided to take a weekend, do something romantic, and go stay at a hotel downtown. While in the hotel my phone started ringing. It was work. I didn't answer. They started leaving messages. "You need to come in right now! We're all here! We have to work triple time to make up for the XXX (RIP boss) absence!" The irony being of course, that overworking him is what caused my boss to kill himself. But they didn't care about that. They didn't give a shit about him or anyone else. They called and called and texted and texted. I sat there on the bed for a couple of hours not answering and talking to my wife.

We decided that I was done there. I would rather have worked at McDonalds than spend another day at that place. I hated the work, and even if I hadn't hated the work I hated the place. Nothing was worth that. Money isn't everything. I'd been raised poor, been poor my entire life until getting that job, and I was fine with being poor again. I knew how to use foodstamps.

Cinema Blend had started to make a little money, not enough to live on, but at least something, and I had a saving account which I could live off of for a couple of months if I had to, supplementing my wife's income from her job. So Monday morning, I walked in and turned in my notice. By Wednesday of that week, I decided I didn't give a shit if they got 2 weeks notice, sent them an email telling them to screw off, grabbed my stuff, and raced out the front door. Never looked back.

I guess the answer was I didn't know, I'd just worked my ass off for years and years and when I couldn't take my day job anymore I took a leap and hoped that by working my ass off even harder it finally would. It did. Thanks to you fine folks and millions more. :)

<B>Svoboda: Tell us about how you met Captain Murphy</B>

[Deus Ex Machina]

I basically worked in a Dilbert comic strip... except the jokes aren't funny when they're actually happening to you.

Sad, but true.

Nice to hear that in one piece after hearing bits here and there for the last couple of years!

Congratulations, man. The title of full time head honcho suits you. :)

[crappertay]

:salute Josh

[Abscynthe]

I think this whole thread was a really great idea. It's neat to hear these stories, like Deus said, all in one spot.

[Into]

Really great stories, Deus and Josh.

As Deus said, it was great to get that whole career changing time in one post, Josh. We're all really happy with what you've done with this site.:salute

[Svoboda]

How I met Captain Murphy-

The time: 1999
The place: West Cary Middle School

It was the beginning of the school year, seventh grade. I had just exited the lunch line when I noticed some uproarious laughter emanating from the table nearby. Curious as to what the fuss was about I approched the table and noticed a kid with chocolate snack-pack all over his face. His mannerisms and apparent ticks led me to believe he was mentally deficient and having an autistic brother of my own, it always got my goat when people made fun of retards. So, I stepped in and scolded everyone for accosting this poor guy. I really let em have it too. Well, turns out this "handicapped" fella was actually Captain Murphy (ensign at the time) just putting on a show. Kyle was so touched that I would defend someone that I didn't even know, that we became best friends and have been acting like retards together ever since.

True Story

THE END.

Into: Tell us about the best damned day of your life. I mean the greatest most memorable 24 hours evar!

[Matt]

I agree. Great stories Josh and Deus. I like hearing all this stuff about everybody. Josh, I was around that entire time and man I was happy for you when you got out of there. Good for you.

Great story too Deus. I can imagine how you were affected and I'm proud of how you made it through a tough time.

[Phantasm]

Some great stories here guys! Keep 'em coming!

[Into]

Josh, I was around that entire time and man I was happy for you when you got out of there. Good for you.

Yeah, I was around then too and definitely remember the days when we'd see Josh online here all day long doing CB stuff instead of his job :lol The thread he made the day he quit was a relief for everybody I think.:)



Into: Tell us about the best damned day of your life. I mean the greatest most memorable 24 hours evar!

I saw this last night, and I've been thinking on it.. and I'm going to have to think some more..:rofl Nothing is jumping out at me as far as a full day of greatness that happened to me. It's sad, but one of the first things that comes to mind is being the roller coaster freak I am, I was able to visit Cedar Point for the first time as an adult, last year. Had not been there since I was a kid, back in the early 90's. That place is one of my favorite places in this world. Not to mention that they built like 5 of their best roller coasters now, since I had last been there.:headbang

I'll keep thinking a bit more for something a bit more profound, but I don't know that it's coming.:lol Seeing TOOL live for the first time maybe, but thats not 24 hours.;) Although I did see them back to back nights last summer..hm.

[Svoboda]

Come on Into. Are you telling me you can't pluck a day from your life that you will cherish and remember the rest of your life? I've got one, 2 chicks, same time.

[garfield hates mondays]

I don't think I would have been able to answer that one either. It's a tough question.

[Svoboda]

I tried to think of a cool question and thats all I could come up with :(

[Abscynthe]

I think it was a cool question, but the 24-hours is probably the sticking point. You might have phrased it the best day / time of your life, or something like that. I've had some pretty cool 12-ish hours, but I don't know if I could recount an entire 24 hours! :D

[Svoboda]

Good idea. Ok Into, tell us about the best day of your life.

[Wiggum]

Alright, this has died, and I'm taking over.

Volante, tell us how you ended up where you currently live.

[Volante]

...what, it's already dead? And I was having fun lurking here.

Well, I'll give the GHM version...

Til 2000, I lived in North OC with my parents when I left to go to UC, Berkeley.

Left Berkeley at the end of 2001 (the original plan was to come back the following semester, as I was just finishing up my second FULL year there, and that's including summer, which left my brain a pile of mush.) and stayed with my parents, who had moved to Nowhere, Wisconsin.

Unfortunatly, issues arose in the return to Berkeley area, and I ended up being stuck there for a year, and in late 2002, my former UCB roommate found a place for me to stay in S. OC which is where I am to this day.

~

I dunno, there's nothing I want to know...any question I try to come up with would be forced and lame as a result.

[Abscynthe]

Make it a fun question, then.

You know, ones like "If you could have dinner with any person living or dead, who would it be and why?"

[Wiggum]

Just ask a damn question. :)

[Deus Ex Machina]

Make it a fun question, then.

You know, ones like "If you could have dinner with any person living or dead, who would it be and why?"

Ooh. Dinner with dead people.

[Into]

Good to know I wasn't the only one thinking my question was kind of difficult to answer.:lol

You made me kill the thread, Svoboda.:lol ;)

[Abscynthe]

Ooh. Dinner with dead people.

You'd have the restaurant to yourselves, I'm sure!

[Svoboda]

Good to know I wasn't the only one thinking my question was kind of difficult to answer.:lol

You made me kill the thread, Svoboda.:lol ;)
:lol sorry! I figured you'd be able to tell 100's of stories.

[Wiggum]

godamnit

Redundo, how or why did you choose your field of study?

[Bethany]

Wiggum is the man, maybe he ought to be the one to pick the questions for people to answer.

[Matt]

WWWD is my mantra.

[redundo]

Redundo, how or why did you choose your field of study?

I'll get back to this one in just a little while....

[Wiggum]

godamnit

[Evil Dead Junkie]

Sniff.

C'mon you're in a rut and don't call on me?!?! You know I'll post whatever doesn't literally incriminate me, and even then it'd have to be a felony.

[redundo]

Ok, the story begins way back when, before the turn of the last millennium. The year was 1999, Oasis was beginning to fade away as a musical force and the horrors of pop-act talent shows, Simon Cowell and Big Brother were just round the corner. I was about to sit my final state exams at 18 that would choose what college i could go to and i hated my town. Growing up in a small irish town is no fun place if you don't like either cars (townies) or tractors (farmers).

I wanted to get out, get away, make a clean break for it. So being the smart ambitious little snot i was i chose to study architecture in college. There are so few places to study it in Ireland that it meant i would have to take the course at an english college. This suited me to the ground as all i wanted was out, and ireland being as small as it was usually meant going home at the weekends. The UK meant long months away from home and i was looking forward to it.

Except that architecture was entirely the wrong course for me and it only took a couple of months for me to realize this. I had never studied art, so when one of our very first tasks was to 'Draw the way the music makes you feel' my heart sank, while my head asked 'whats this shit all about'? Anyway, a couple weeks and a disastrous relationship later i was in crisis. I had to do something so i changed course to another degree at Liverpool out of stubbornness, rather then call it quits. It didn't suit me either, but hey, it was better then admitting defeat. I got through to the final year but it was a stretch too far, i wasn't interested and it all fell apart. Somehow i managed to scrape a minimum pass degree in a construction industry i never wanted to work for.

Without money, without a plan, without any ideas whatsoever, I had to return home. After vowing i wouldn't go back thats exactly what i ended up doing. So I started at scratch again, i decided to work to build up enough money to return to college. I got a place at a local factory and thats where i came across fittering as a job for the first time. That put me thinking about engineering as my new subject, i was and am genuinely interested in how stuff works so why not? (And it would be proper engineering, with machines, not like the 7 Cubicles of Hell Josh was subjected to). the factory job lasted a year until I got fed up with not being allowed mess with the machines at work. So i took a job as a stationary manager at local bookstore, that lasted another year until the workaholic asshole owner pissed me off.

And then it was back to the student life. Being 5 years older then everyone there, it took me a little while to settle in. But my grades went from bare minimum pass in Liverpool, all the way up to 90+ in quite a few of my subjects. It's amazing what a bit of interest in a subject will do for you. I have good friends out of the course now and i am studying a subject i can actually see myself working in for the future. Long term though, i think i may do a masters and try getting a job as lecturer in one of the colleges.

So ends my long rambling tale about something not so interesting, at least it has a happy ending.

EDJ, Tell us the story of - This is a two parter question: What was the most embarrassing thing you ever got caught doing? And what was the most embarrassing thing you got away with?

[Evil Dead Junkie]

Can't answer the second one so I'll give you two of the first.

Note this is a true story.

Story 1

So as some of you used to know I used to work at a camp. Now most nights after the kids where in bed we'd go out to some house party, or Cleveland Bar and get all kinds of ****ed up. The only problem was at the time I was morning cook meaning I had to get up and thus in early. So I go out with some buds to a house party, get six different kinds of ****ed up, get a ride back go into my quarters, and promptly fall into my bed and pass out. Now this happened to be a week where my buddy Nameless was rooming with me. Nameless used to date Nameless and everyonce in awhile I'd bounce on out of the cabin so they could ****. Well Nameless's girlfriend had just spent the night smoking about a gram of weed in the woods with her friend and decided she was really horny. She stumbles into the cabin so stoned that she forget which bed her boyfriend sleeps in sees a warm body in the room and decides that I've left them alone for some privacy.

I'm so ****ed up that when I wake up I don't know why someone is sucking my dick it's just good fortune. Rest of the night is kind of a blur, all I know is that I wake up to some whispering oh shit shit oh shit oh shit, and I turn around to see my friend's girlfriend looking down at me shocked. I can't figure out what's happened until I see the used condom by the foot of my bed.

We talk as quickly and as quietly as we can and have just decided not to mention anything to nameless until we figure it all out. When bam my alarm clock rings, and wakes up my friend, who had stumbled in the night before presumably after we finished.

It was very very awkward in that room for a long long time.

...

Story 2

Another camp story. Every season we got a group of exchange counselors from Spain.

For those of you who don't know the spanish like to drink. Well we had a drinking game called Thunder, where you would drink a sip of your beer everytime someone screamed Thunder or Thunderstuck in the ACDC song Thunderstruck.

To refresh your memory of how many times that is ****ing said in that ****ing song.

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/X80Qjh9Yivs&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/X80Qjh9Yivs&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Anyway The Spanish charming people that they are decided they wanted to up the anti and play using shots. Well you can't challenge an 18 year old Irishman on his drinking, so being young and stupid I joined in.

Cut to me projectile vomiting in my friends Dan's car, all over me all over the backseat of the car, all over the unfortunate people in the back of the car. All over the parking lot, the path up to living quarters, all over the garbage can in the living quarters all over the path of to the bathroom, until I was woken up by my two (girl) friends an unspecified amount of time later rocking back and forth naked in the corner of the shower. Most likely with a mean case of whiskey dick.

Good times.

Wiggum: Tell us about your most serious altercation with the police.

[redundo]

Yeah, your stories were way better then mine...

:lol

[Mack]

EDJ, both those stories are hysterical.

[Wiggum]

Wiggum: Tell us about your most serious altercation with the police.

I've never had an altercation with the police, I'm not that stupid. :lol

And it's probably been close to 15 years since my last involuntary run in with the law, which resulted in a DUI. I was sitting in the drunk tank for a couple hours, dreading the call to my folks in the morning, when low and behold my best friend gets thrown into the same holding cell as me. DUI for him too, and we hadn't gone out together that night.

Anyway, I was over the limit, but not by all that much, my buddy on the other hand was hammied, and starting raising a ruckus. So he gets put into a different cell from the rest of us. After awhile I can her him yelling about how he wants his phone call, and how he needs a phone book. So eventually I hear one of the cops say, "You want a phone book, here you go.". And then my friend starts yellling "They threw the book at me, they threw the book at me." :lol

But probably the most interesting cop story was with the same friend, while we we're still 20, about 6 months before our mutual DUIs. At that time pretty much my whole group of friends were pretty big pot heads. Then again, living in Southern California, pretty much everyone we knew like to take a toke every now and again.

Well, he and I were out late on night, and decided to stop for a nightcap bowl. We pulled in across the street from a lookout point over the Pacific Ocean, well out of the way of carlights from the street, and behind some tall prairie grass.

So we smoke one bowl, and since we were in a deep LoTR discussion decided to light up another. We both take a hit or two, and then all of a sudden there's a maglite shining in my drivers side window, so I just hand the pipe and my bag of weed to the cop. He has us get out of the car, searches us both (we thankfully both only had under an 1/8 on us, I had bought a qp earlier that day, and had almost not remembered to take it out of my car). He asks us what we were talking about, we tell him, and then he starts asking us questions about LoTR because one of his kids was really into it. So we talk fantasy for about 15 minutes, he writes us citations and leaves.

I ask my friend if it was normal for a cop to see you smoke weed, and not say anything about you driving home. So we wait 10 minutes, and head the other way home.

We didn't know at the time that if you were busted under 21 years of age with pot you automatically loose your liscense for a year. So we were nervous as hell going into court for the ticket. We got a mutual public defender, and she brought us into her office to review the police file. The cop had filled out his report on a 4x6 note card written in pencil. It pretty much said "I saw Crandall and Alvarez both get out of the car and urinate. I then observed them smoking something out of a pipe that smelled of marijuana. I approached the men, took their marijuana, and cited them for it." Nice work Chief Wiggum :lol

So thankfully we didn't loose our licenses, and had to pay 100 bucks each.

You know, he and I almost got busted for disorderly and vandalism about 2 months after our DUIs. I think he's a bad influence on me.

Pwalex, how did you become interested in making film, and what was your first experience of it?

[Matt]

:lol Nice.

[GodNnelg]

I just discovered this thread. Good stories here! ^B

[Pwalex]

Pwalex, how did you become interested in making film, and what was your first experience of it?

Well, the origins of that go back to grade 10. A friend of mine who was going to a different high school than me had been talking up this focus program at his school for a while, and suggesting that we both try and get in. For those of you who don't know (as I believe it's a fairly local thing) a focus program is a semester-long program in high schools in my hometown that you can do in grade 11 or 12. You basically spend the whole semester focusing on one specific topic, with classes taylored to the subject. There are all sorts, but the one we wanted to do was a video/media course, and also happened to be one of the most well-known/popular ones to get in to.

I really didn't have all that much interrest in it at the time, but focus programs are known for being fairly laid-back and not at all work intensive. Plus my good friend was really excited about it which got me excited. Well in the end, I got in and he didn't. It was a stupid scenario, because he really deserved to get in, but the teacher in charge of the program knew him (since he already went to that school) and she really didn't like him (I know this sounds like a typical thing to say, but I mean it. This teacher was a bitch and openely talked about this guy behind his back to our whole class :argh).

So anyway, I eventually decided to go for it anyway, even though my friend didn't get in. Best choice I ever made. Not only did I get my first taste of movie-making, but the program really got me to broaden my horizons, and just become more mature all around. My parents tell me that they really really noticed my maturity level go up a ton after I did that program. So I had a lot of fun in the program. Not always doing work, mind you. As I said, these programs were known for being easy, and more often than not, the afternoons were just spent sitting around and talking with friends. But when work actually did come along, I ate it up.

I really got into editing throught that program. I was known for locking myself away in the editing suites for weeks at a time, while most of the people in the class just dicked around. The moment that I knew where I wanted to go was actually right near the end of the program. I had made the year-end video for the program, which they do every year, and when I showed one teacher she was really blown away. The video wasn't that great when I look back now, but it was a lot better than a lot of the other stuff coming out of that class, and it was th best year end video that had been done in years. When she finished watching it she said "that's good. That's Ryerson good." (Ryerson being the university I'm currently at, and is considered the best film program in Canada).

Before that I don't think I would have even thought I was close to good enough for Ryerson (a program that only accepts 60 people per year out of around 1500 that apply), but she gave me the confidence to persue it. I was really lucky to figure out whatI wanted to do in grade 11 already. I spent grade 12 just working on my portfolio and taking extra courses in the fields I would need (I even took a night course in photography at the local college). And now I'm here in 2nd year at Ryerson, still chugging away.


Mack: When was the most guilt you've ever felt, and what did you do to cause it?

[Wiggum]

Good answer Pwalex :salute

[Mack]

Mack: When was the most guilt you've ever felt, and what did you do to cause it?

My freshman year of college I had this really boring Enviornmental Class. Thankfully, one of my best friends was suffering with me. One day, we would passing notes (how gay is that), and he brought up this chick who sat in the front row and laughed at all the teacher's jokes. On complete impulse, I bet him six dollars (all the money in my pocket) that I could get a blowjob from her by the time the course ended. Keep in mind, I'd never even talked to this chick before. He instantly took my offer.

A few days later, I friended her on Facebook and began saying 'Hi' in class. We had an upcoming fieldtrip; so, I figured I'd try and seperate myself with her from the pack and get to know her a bit. Well, she had other plans and sent me a message on like Tuesday, saying she wanted me to show her a 'Mack Daddy' good time on Friday Night and that we could go to the field trip together the next day.

I went and picked her up on Friday and took her to Coldstone with my roommate and his skanky girlfriend. On the way home, she accidentally spilled icecream on my lap and had no problem cleaning my shit off with her hands. I knew I was in.

We came back to my house, played one game of beer pong and started making out. A few minutes later, I had her top off and the aforementioned skanky girlfriend walked in. She started laughing her ass off (she knew the bet), and I headed to my room with teacher's pet. She seemed really innocent; so, I was completely shocked I'd even gotten that far. Within ten minutes, I was having sex with her. She ended up staying the night, and we went to the field trip the next day. Unfortuantely, she kept trying to hold my hand and whisper pleasant musings into my ear. She also told me repeatedly that she couldn't believe what she'd done the night before but she just thought I was so funny.

I had no idea what to do. I didn't want to just bail on her immediately. So, I just let things go on for a few months. She started sleeping over like every night, and I couldn't deal with it. I told her I'd never date her, and she said she understood and it was okay. Then she just kept coming over, and I would let her. She was getting more and more attached, and I was getting more and more irritated.

Well, after a little while longer, I couldn't even deal with her coming over anymore; so, I broke it off, told her I didn't have any interest in seeing her again. The next week she shaved her head....completely off. A week later, she got hammered and drove to the psychiatric hospital. She got a DUI, had her license suspended, and was put on probation and forced to attend counseling. I bumped into her like six months later, and she was an absolute mess....told me she didn't even go to class anymore, just hung out and drank all the time. She told me she really missed me, and I promised to call her. She still calls every few months, and I sideclick her.

I literally drove this woman over the edge of a cliff, and by all reports, she's still broken and bleeding at the bottom of the hill. But what the **** was I suppossed to do? Still, I feel really bad about it.

[Mack]

Absy, tell us about the best date you've ever been on.

[Pwalex]

:bwhat

[GodNnelg]

Mack, has anyone declared you to be a major force of corruption yet?

[crappertay]

Most people here who know him :lol

[Matt]

I've just caught up on Redundo's, Pwalex's, and Mack's stories. I'd already heard Mack's before, :lol but kudos to the other two! Nice job.

[Abscynthe]

Absy, tell us about the best date you've ever been on.

I will have to give this one a little thought. It won't be long, but I have 16 years' worth of dating to think about!

[legna]

Wow great stories here.

[Abscynthe]

Ok, so best date I've been on (in recent history):

Last year marked eight years of marriage. Chris surprised me with tickets to the symphony and reservations at Table 1280, a pretty extravagant restaurant right next to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra hall. We got all dressed up (which is rare, unfortunately; I like to look pretty :))We ate dinner first, and I had to laugh at how we must have looked to the other patrons: Chris was well dressed in a nice fitting suit, with hair most of the way down his back, and I was in a nice dress and heels, with my tattoos on display :) We wandered around until the hall opened up, looking at pieces from the Louvre on display at the High Museum of Art. The orchestra played pieces from the Russian ballet of Romeo and Juliet, and some Brahms. It felt like a very nice, adult thing to do. I'd been to the orchestra once, when I was in elementary school, but that's not something you pay attention to when you're 8.

Later, we stopped at The Varsity for slaw dogs, onion rings, and Frosted Oranges afterwards :lol

I'm sure I could have come up with something more, but we don't go on "dates" as much anymore. Usually it's just to a restaurant, perhaps to a movie.


Legna: Tell us about your decision to move to America, and how you felt when you got here.

[legna]

It wasn't so much a decision to move to America as it was one to get as far away from my parents as possible.

At the beginning of the 11th grade my boyfriend Chris broke it off with me. We'd been together over a year and I was pretty devastated. But to make matters worse, we were still sleeping together. Of course when he started dating someone else no one would believe me that he was cheating on her with me. My insistence lost me a lot of good friends and I decided I needed to get away for a while. So I went the the US to live with my grandparents for a year. Of course being the teenager I was, my grandparents couldn't handle me, and I ended up living with my boyfriend at the ripe old age of 17. That pretty much changed me.
When I came home again, I was used to running my own house, cleaning, shopping etc. Now living in my parents house became oppressive. While I love my mother to death, she is a whiner (about EVERYTHING) and can grate on a saints nerves.
I was part of a great group of friends in an old yahoo chat room. There was someone there that I ended up developing more than a friendship with. A year and a half after we met I finally moved in with him in California. I don't think I honestly loved him, I loved the fact that he loved me, and he was an escape from the life I hated.
As to how I felt when I got to the US..... I remember being very lonely. It was just Glenn and I, and I didn't know anyone and not being in school meant that it was harder to make friends. Life with Glenn was difficult. But while I missed some things about home, I've never really regretted the choice I made.

[legna]

Tay..... tell us how you met your girlfriend.

[crappertay]

I was the unsuspecting victim of a scheming best friend and the whole thing nearly blew up in my face because of my own damn stupidity.

I think it was around September 2005 and I was going to the movies with a couple who are my best friends to see Dukes of Hazzard (yee haw :blat). Now for a few weeks before hand, the lady friend had been dropping several massive hints about how she had a friend from teacher training who she thought I should meet, you know the drill. I had waved it away because as with all potential blind dates I was more than a little suspicious and after a couple of bad past experiences I had convinced myself not to bother with such things as actively pursuing woman for a bit. However, this night I got caught out because when I went to the bathroom, the sneaky woman grabbed the phone and invited this girl Isabel over to make a cute little foursome for the evening.

As it turned out, the mysterious blind date wasn't some nightmare issue I had been fearing. Turns out this girl was actually cute and funny. Of course naturally I assumed this meant things were doomed but I pushed that to the back of my mind.

This process repeated itself a couple of times and we started to get to know each other more and more. Things still weren't going wrong. This continued to worry me. It was unusual. :lol

Anyway, around comes New Year and as as anyone knows, New Year is a big deal in Scotland, so naturally we all arranged a night out with six of us, two couples and shock, horror us two.

It was also when it went horribly, horribly wrong. It had to come.

The night went really really well, with a great night of food, music, alcohol and much flirtage. I will skip some of the details of what happened next as a family crisis on her part arose on New Years Day which helped complicate matters, but long story short, I bottled out of what should've been as easy as some cheesy John Hughes ending. It wasn't that I did anything wrong, it's just that I never took that next stop when I shoud've.

Quite what was going through my mind that prevented me from just going for it when all signs said if I made a move it would've worked out I don't know but I guess it was still the hangover from my past bad experiences or the pressure of knowing four other people were constantly hiding around the corner spying on what was happening and thus piling on the pressure. I guess I got caught off guard that things were working out, who knows.

She went off to see her family over the other side of the country to deal with the crisis and I was left alone, quite literally. Due to my complete man-card invalidating ineptitude my friends promptly disowned me in a very real show of disappointment. I was persona non grata and spent the next week in the wilderness pondering the royal **** up I had made of things and how was I going to salvage the mess I had created between the girl and me and my friends. I had never felt so low.

The following Saturday I get a text message from my female friend, the only contact I'd had from them all week. It said something to the effect of simply, "Don't say I never do anything for you. Here's her cellphone number, go do something with it or I really will never talk to you again."

Having been taught my harsh lesson and given my final chance I resolved not to completely screw up my life for once and bit the bullet, I called her from work to see how she was doing and finally plucked up the courage to ask her if she was busy later and wanted to meet up. This time without our chaparones. She agreed and as it turned out had been excitedly waiting my phonecall and things finally took off properly from there. Now a little over 2 years later we're living together, I don't think I've ever been happier and we're stuck dodging endless questions about that damn 'm' word.

And I guess that's it.


smizzle hates garfield... tell the story of how you went from a young ms paint pup to a goddamn modern day digital mozart.

[garfield hates mondays]

you realize that Mozart made music right? Ok I will answer this tomorrow.

[Matt]

:rofl Let's pretend he said Rembrandt.

[crappertay]

I stand by my statement. :rofl

It was late and I used all my brain power answering the question. :p

[Matt]

Okay Smizzle has abandoned us and we need to share the love so how about....


DARTH TATER...Tell me a significant pre-adult experience (before 18). It could be a happy or sad story.

[Darth Tater]

Geez, I'm old and barely remember last week - you want me to remember something from over half my life ago? :lol

That's a pretty wide open question....

OK, here it goes.

Call this my Favorite Family Vacation story. I was 12, it was summer, and we were going on our annual 2 week vacation. Generally we drove somewhere and spent some time touring around. My parents announces we were going to South Dakota. South Dakota?!? :lol

There are five of us in the family station wagon - brown wood panel sides and no AC! My parents, me (I'm the oldest), my brother who was 10 and my sister who was 7. This was probably the ONLY car trip we ever really didn't fight or get on each other's nerves (much). The drive with my family was great, but the sights in SD were even better! Mount Rushmore, The Black Hills (awesome), Badlands National Park, Deadwood (an old Western town)...at age 12 my eyes were opened to the beauty of nature and the history that existed almost right next door to where I lived. I probably had one of my happiest summer's that year (1983).

Next up: Bethany, tell me the story of your great weight loss.

[Bethany]

Darth Tater, I wish I could have gone on that family vacation!

Ok, here is my story. When we moved to Germany we were supposed to be there for four years which meant I would graduate from my high school in the Netherlands. I threw myself into the school getting involved in Varsity softball and many different clubs and activities. I was incredibly active and fit.

When I was a sophomore my dad got promoted two years before he was up for promotion which meant he got a new assignment. I was incredibly upset about moving back to the states in the middle of high school, but was even more upset when I found out that it was going to be to a very small, rural town in the middle of Alabama and only for a year. That meant that I was going to three high schools. When we moved to Alabama I was a complete outcast for my European clothing instead of Wrangler, my love for British pop music instead of country and my non-Souther accent. They actually made fun of me to my face and were pretty hateful to me. I got incredibly depressed about my life and turned to food. I went from a size 4 to a size 18/20 in a matter of months.

After months of dealing with it I decided that I was letting something bother me instead of trying to make the best of the situation. So I completely changed the way I ate. I used my money from my job and went grocery shopping to make my own meals with food I only found on the outside of the store instead of the inner processed food. I also made mixed tapes (this was before cd burners were so widely available) of some of my favorite techno songs and did free style aerobics and went on half hour walks. After a few months I had dropped down to a size 14 and I was so excited to be able to buy new clothes in smaller sizes. I kept the lifestyle in college, although then I had a gym to go to, and by the end of my freshman year I was a size 6.

So there is the story of how I lost all of the weight. There were times when it was hard and I wanted nothing more than to eat milkshakes and waffles for dinner but seeing the progress and knowing that if I was not careful I would go back to when I was afraid to wear shorts or tank tops, I went for the healthy alternative instead. This ended up being a lot longer than I thought, so I apologize if it seemed long winded.

Witchking: If you could go anywhere in your area for a weekend where would you go and what activities would you want to experience? (Hiking, camping, etc).

[Darth Tater]

Bethany, that is a great story, and for me right now, also a great motivator!

The story wasn't long winded. I think it's great you set the context for the initial weight gain as well.

[Witch King]

That's a tough question. There's so much about this state I've never done that I want to.

Seattle is actually a terrific place to visit and while I'd never want to live there, I never get tired of stopping by. That said, I've already seen most of Seattle.

If I could do absolutely anything, I would do Rainier. I have no experience with technical climbs, but, given the choice, I would learn how and take it on. I want to do it before it explodes and isn't so tall. I feel like sitting at more than 14,000 feet, conquering maybe the most difficult peak in the lower 48 and being able to look down on my whole state and the Pacific would be incredible. I've never climbed anything higher than a thirteener, and those all started several thousand feet up, not at near sea level like Rainier. Even with those, the feeling of looking down on creation is incredible. I can't fathom what it must be like from the top of Rainier.

Once I got down I'd have to go eat at either the original Ivar's or Red Robin in Seattle. And get Krispy Kremes in Issaquah.

If you want something more realistic, I would probably find a trail in North Cascade NP to do, maybe shoot for 50 miles in a weekend. Something challenging, but with a lot to see.

There's also a trail in the mountains near the Snoqualmie Pass that runs along an old railroad that is apparently incredible. Off the top of my head I can't remember how long it was, but I could probably work out a way to head partway down it and then come back on a different trail (I hate backtracking).


The thing those options give me that Rainier doesn't is getting to do something by myself. I love being able to just take a map and my gear and go out by myself, only deciding where I'm going when I hit a fork in the road. Because I'm so busy with school and gone every summer, I've never had the chance to explore the incredible wilderness we have out here and I hope to correct that before it's too late.


There are tons of options. I wish I could give you something more specific, but even if I was planning my weekend I couldn't give you much. I tend to be someone who likes to plan, but when it comes to adventures and freedom I drop all that and go where my heart (and occassionally my head) takes me. Even if you were with me I probably couldn't tell you what we were doing for the next 10 minutes.

Matt UGA: Tell the story of your most cherished memory as a father.