Gum

As I was walking with one of my friends today, I noticed that there was something unusual about the way that my foot was sticking to the ground. I stopped, and realized that I had stepped in a massive piece of gum, not your average sized piece of gum, but a HUGE piece. I mean, this person must have wadded up almost 2 packages of Bubble Yum and then mixed it with a few of those nasty Halloween gums that no one likes, chewed on it and spit it right where I was walking.

No idea how I didn’t see it. My shoe found it though. Good shoe.

Anyway, the gum wasn’t the only thing that was stuck at the bottom of my shoe. Along with the gum I was carrying several large rocks, leaves, a foot of dental floss (no joke, dental floss), sand (I’m in Tucson, there’s a lot of sand), and hair that I can only assume was human. The floss was having fun and decided to start climbing to the top of the shoe and the gum decided to have a party and decided to move to the back of my foot. This awesome pile of nasty junk was so huge that it covered the entire bottom of my shoe, like COVERED, from front to back. I felt like the Blob had decided to take over the world and I was the first victim.

So, I stared at the huge mass of stuff on my shoe for a split second, thought about playing it cool, screamed, and then proceeded to dance around trying to get the gum off of my shoe. Luckily it was right next to a busy road in between class on campus at the UA. I think that many were trying to figure out why this weird college kid was dancing the week before finals (usually it happens the week after). I’m actually pretty sure they were impressed with my dancing skills.

Back to the horror story:

The 95 degree weather did wonders for the easiness of getting the gum off. It sort of spread like a virus and started attacking me.

After I bravely fought off the gum (I won), and got rid of the hair, floss/string stuff, and the rocks, I proceeded to walk to class, and on the way back, a grumpy golf cart driver swore at me as I walked across the street. I think he got even madder (is it more mad? Or madder? Matter? Or madderer?) when I laughed at him. I mean, I had just saved the world, and he was getting mad at me. Punk.

I hope he steps in some gum.

:)

I learned about fractions really early in my life

So, the other day in one of my English classes a girl looked over at my hand and just started staring at it. She had this look of total surprise, this look of, “How are you doing that with your fingers?” I looked down and stared too. I didn’t see anything wrong. . . . besides the fact that my fingers were missing.

I smiled. She stared.

I get those kinds of weird looks all the time, oh since I was like 9 years old when I had this tragic bowling ball incident in Winslow AZ. I went bowling and the finger holes on the ball were too small. I threw the ball and *pop* my fingers went with the ball.

Ok, so that was a complete lie, and it’s usually the first ones that I tell people when I meet them (The other one is that I don’t know how to play Starcraft). It’s actually pretty hilarious how many people actually believe that my fingers were crushed off while bowling. Everyone knows it was a tragic garbage disposal accident. . . .ew, gross.

Anyway, over the years I’ve come up with some pretty awesome stories about how I lost my fingers, and this list gets bigger every time I meet someone new. Almost every person I meet has met someone who has lost their fingers and feels it’s necessary to tell me their story (so I don’t feel bad). This is also accentuated by the fact that my grandpa had one of his fingers chopped off and told us stories of how that happened. I was scared to wash dishes, paint, or play with my belly button for years because of him.

But, you know, there are some definite advantages to having 8.5 fingers:

1. I can give high 3 and a halfs (so excited for the day I can give high fives)
2. When I was in high school, girls would ask to hold my hand just to see what it was like. Score one for Joe.
3. I never have to get my fingernails clipped.
4. I get 15% off when I get a manicure.
5. Getting your fingers cut off is a great wart remover.
6. See #2

So, you know, things aren’t that bad.

And I want to go bowling.

Maybe someday I’ll actually tell about the amazing surfing/shark accident. . . .or just tell the truth.

:)

Pictures I found on my computer

As I was looking through some old Pictures, i found some pretty awesome ones. Her we go.



So, a few years ago my dad and I went to a continuing education thing at Disneyland, (I'm the one on the right, in case you were wondering)












This one was before I turned into an evil Jedi:





Next awsome mission picture:




Yeah, the one on the right with the knife in his hand is my companion. Pretty weird. Honestly I'm not really too sure what I'm doing. I can't really tell if I'm smiling/laughing or having stomach pains. Anyway, next random picture:











Ok, so this one I actually found of Facebook. I think I'm hula dancing.

Chess

So, recently after running, my friend Paige and I have been pulling out games and playing them till I get tired of losing. Board games and card games are pretty fun. Really fun. But it would be nice to win every once in a while. Growing up, I used to think I was pretty good, but you see, Paige happens to be very good at games. And she’s really competitive. And she enjoys slaughtering me horribly.

For example, about a week ago she showed me this game called “Set”. Basically it’s this card game where you match up 3 different cards together and you call “Set!” when you find a match. Pretty easy right? A second grader could play this game and win right? Good clean fun right? Wrong. Very wrong. This is (along with Yoga) just one more way that Paige proves she is better than me. She beats me so bad in this game that I can’t figure out if she’s just really that much smarter than me, or she’s cheating.

So, we tried backgammon. I had never played it. It’s pretty much a game of luck. It couldn’t be that hard right? I mean, you roll dice and move little checker pieces across a board. Easy right? Once again, wrong. She laughed as she beat me.

That’s why I was so glad that she wanted to start playing chess. I like chess. It’s a fun game and I even know how to beat most second graders . . . depending on the second grader.

But once again, yesterday, while we were playing chess, she was in the process of beating me horribly. I, who until recently had thought I was good at chess, was getting smoked. She had my queen, my rook, knights and bishops. I had 4 pawns . . . .but somehow I put her in checkmate with a pawn. No joke. Basically it was an accident on my part, but I tried to play it off really well as if I had planned it the whole time. She couldn’t believe it. The look on her face was priceless .

I smiled. I had finally won at something more intellectually challenging than connect the dots.

Take that world.