Picture from here

I was King of the Circus.  Seriously.   When I was somewhere between four and six my mother won a radio contest where we got free tickets to see Barnum and Bailey’s Circus at the Richfield Coliseum.  Part of this prize pack included the child being crowned King or the Circus – I also had a  Queen of the Circus whose parental unit must have also won a contest.   I don’t know where my queen is, we haven’t kept in touch.

The memory is fuzzy, but I remember being taken down and sitting at the sidelines for a little bit with the circus performers.  I was then put on a little train (next to the queen) and taken on a circle of the Coliseum and waving to the whole crowd of thousands.   At the time it was the greatest day of my life (the worst day was finding out I was no longer going to be an only child).   They cheered and I got to take home my cape (I told you I had thing with capes) and a crown.

I was as high as a kite and bragged to all of my friends over the next year that I was king of the circus – at the time I even had pictures to prove that – so take that disbelievers (for all modern disbelievers the pictures are now lost so please suspend your disbelief, thank you).  Life was good and I was king.  Nothing could knock me off my thrown until the following summer.

The following summer the news announced it was going to do a little piece on the Barnum and Bailey circus coming back to town.  I thought “great I’ll go back and ride on my throne again”.   However, during the piece the newscasters showed another kid wearing the crown and taking the tour.  HOW COULD THEY?  USURPER TO THE THRONE PREPARE TO MEET STEEL!!!  I went to the back room of my grandmothers house and put on my crown and cried.   I think I through away that crown that day too.

The situation had to then be explained to me – I was not happy.

I don’t hold a grudge though.

I haven’t been to the Barnum and Bailey’s Circus since.

But I don’t hold a grudge.

Bastards.

Picture from here

Picture from here

I would write about the first day of kindergarten, except I don’t remember that.  I’m assuming on the first day of kindergarten I cam home and didn’t like it very much.   On the second day however it was a different story.   I remember my mother driving me to school and parking up near the door.   For some reason I was late to school (on my second day ever – thanks mom), and I didn’t want to go in.   I was kicking and screaming and refusing to leave the car.

Eventually my mother went in to get the teacher (who this was her second day ever of teaching anyone mind you) for help removing me from the car.   Even my five year old mind realized that though our house was only a half mile up the road I couldn’t walk it by myself because of traffic (I rationalized this at 5 yet didn’t know my address until fifth grade – go figure).  Since I couldn’t walk home and I didn’t want ot go into the school what was I going to do.   I decided hiding was the best scenario (I’ve always been excellent at hiding).   First I looked at the bushes and realized they wouldn’t provide adequate cover.  Then my eye glanced towards the double doors.  They were propped open to gain the benefit of the warm outdoors.  I dove quickly out of hte car and rushed behind the double doors.

A few seconds later the teacher and my mother come outside to remove me from the family car.  At first my mother freaked out since I wasn’t in the car, then they started to look for me.   I seem to remember them taking a couple minutes looking for me, and eventually they found me.   They attempted to drag me out from behind the door, but I grabbed the door and they pulled me vertical.  Eventually they got me free and dragged me to the door of the classroom.  I was screaming, crying, and clawing to get away the whole way there.  I walked in all stoic and straight faced, though I’m sure my face was tear stained and flushed.

It seems that even at that young age, after one day I realized how messed up our education system was and didn’t want to go back.  I think if it hadn’t been so exposed and out of the open I may have made the break for the half mile walk home.  I obviously had some strange and much older rational then my years at such a young age.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when my wife still thinks I can be a sneaky bastard sometimes.

Located here the new Life Notes section is going to be kin.. http://tinyurl.com/3dx2wh

Located here the new Life Notes section is going to be kind of a reverse personal diary. It’s more accurate to describe it as my psuedo autobiography. If I ever become famous I’ll be able to use these as footnotes if I write a real one. The rules are as follows for posts that fall under this section.

1. There will be at least a year gap between the event and the actual post that gets switched to this category. This allows me to gain a more objective idea of the event instead of getting pulled into the emotion of the moment.

2. Some items maybe actual posts or text from that time period – if that’s the case I will do modern observations in italics.

3. I will do my best to get it accurate to the day – if not I will do a monthly or seasonal or yearly summary depending on the year and event. This allows me to keep it as accurate of a journal as I can with some posts going to be decades in the past.

4. Since I’m doing the summaries as dated in part 3 that means it will seem that my blog existed pre-internet time. I just want the timeline to be accurate. The downside of this is it means that the RSS readers will more then likely not get these feed items.

Hopefully since I can control and export this data from wordpress I can pass this down in my family. I will do my best to record family member perspectives, and would love it if the participants of any actual event would comment. Since I have constant backups and spread my data far and wide across the internet hopefully this data will never be lost.

I will be recording the good and the bad, the inane and poignant. I hope to express my soul and gives those who know me a greater understanding. Allowing my thoughts and feelings to intersect in ways that gives my readers a glimpse of the real me.

Even if the readers could care less I’m doing this as a control of my memories while I’m still somewhat young and the memories are somewhat fresh. This is who I am. I hope I’m at least interesting to myself a few decades from now.

This was my first Woolybear Festival since the year 2000, before I moved to Oregon.  It was an experience and the first time that I ever heard of where the local band festival was on a different weekend then  the Woolybear.

It was entertaining riding on the alumni float and playing away.  I did manage to see an old friend from high school in the crowd.  Ironically my ex-girlfriend was standing next to him trying not to be seen (she wasn’t hiding from me per say but the entire alumni band since I heard she had a falling out a few years earlier).

I did manage to yell at a few people who I knew in the crowd for not coming up and joining the band, since they had marched in high school.

All in all it was good to be back and playing.

This was my first chance back to march with the alumni band since 2000. I felt honored to march under David Henry – the band director I marched under in High School. I was in his final class before retirement.  It was good to march in the Vermilion High School Marching Band Festival again.

The craziest thing was when we were during the pre-show getting ready to play the Star Spangled Banner with all the assembled bands, Dick Goddard started singing the Star Spangled Banner himself.   Now we just stood at attention while this was going on and listened through his rendition.   He had sounded drunk or heavily medicated during his performance.  I can’t say that authoritatively though.

At the end of his “singing” Mr. Joseph Price the current band director who was leading his last festival as the band director before retirement started off all the bands playing the star-spangled banner.   Out of all the Band Festivals I’ve marched in Vermilion (10 I think in total) this year was the strangest.

Looking back at my 30th birthday almost 18 months after the fact gives me a bit of perspective.   I’m not over the hill.   It’s not the end of the world.

I had a party where the family came over and had food and the whole nine yards.   By the end of the night I was hammered though.  I rarely drink, but this is one of those occasions.   I expect my wife to go through a similar thing when she turns 30.  Halfway through the night I hardly remembered my name let alone anything else.

I do remember I wandered out the back patio doors and let loose the contents of my stomach on the ground.   After sitting out there for a while I managed to wander back in and then head up to bed.  My wife and our friend Brian both watched me – stone sober mind you – and just kind of shook their heads.

I can leave you with this thought – I wouldn’t want to turn 30 again.

I managed to score my first gmail account.  This was back when gmail invites were selling on e-bay still.   Granted they weren’t going to hundreds of dollars anymore but they were going to tens of dollars.    Ever since migrating everything over to gmail I haven’t looked back.

I now have 4 years worth of email stored and have deleted very little.  I use gmail as a reference center for many things that I’ve done and e-mail that has passed across my eyes.   I think it’s one of the greatest historical artifacts of my life when I need to know where I was and what I was doing.

Granted this was all pre active blogging and that is now becoming a more precise record of who, what, when, where, and how for me, but some times the imprecise records can help you flush out the details.   I love gmail and though I wonder how much more we feed the google monster all the time I’m not sure I could ever use another mail service.

The marcondrinkers group grew out of a group of us that were close friends around this time.  We all attended an annual sci-fi convention called Marcon.  Originally it was a convention done in March so hence Marcon – since then it has changed it’s named to Multiple Alternate Realities Convention.   Nice save there.

The whole year before Marcondrinkers there was a yahoo group called Marcon Memories, the reason it went away is that one of my friends had a power struggle over different users.    Now I’m known to have my fair share of issues with people but I do not believe in censorship, his banning users and deleting posts was pure censorship.   Ironically I really wasn’t one of the ones being censored.    I started a new board and it survived for a few years.

As of 2008 the group is pretty much dead I go through every once in a while and clean out the members who have bouncing e-mail addresses.    For it’s time it was a good run, now it is time to say goodbye.

My first post:

from what I understand is we have more capabilities than the other board but I don’t see any yet….oh well…if anyone actually shows up welcome one and all.

Though I’m writing this 9 years and 8 days after the actual event. Most of it still sticks out on my mind.

I had purchased a second-hand suit and she wore a simple dress (she rarely wears dresses). We had arranged a few weeks before to go down to the Elyria City Offices for our marriage certificate and managed to get up and around to go to the mayor’s office. Ironically getting married by the mayor had its unique appeal, few people did it, we managed to keep our ceremony private, and it’s gives it the old-time feel of years gone past.

A snow storm had just managed to roll into town the wind was piercing through our clothes, but we persevered in the journey. I make it seem like it was far, but it was a 5 minute drive. Mayor Davis of Vermilion did the honors. The one thing we didn’t know before hand is that the mayor was blind as a bat. We manage to get to the office and his secretary shows us in, it seems the mayor hadn’t done too many weddings.

He put on glasses that were about a half an inch thick and read the ceremony from preprinted pages. While I’m sure most mayor’s would read from a book, most books don’t have lettering that was almost an inch in height. At the end of the ceremony we kissed, paid our fee to the mayor and thanked him for his time.

We went over to my parents to announce that we were official and then off to her parents to do the same. Some of our friends thought she was pregnant, but those are the type of rumors that generate when you grow up in a small town. I was 22 years old and she was 19 so by modern standards we were both married young. We were married happy though.

I did manage to carry her across the threshold of the door. Which that night we left on a piss poor honeymoon. I was solely to blame, but we were broke and managed the best we could.

Every day of my life I would do this again.

Spent the evening at Bear’s House For New Year’s Eve – went over there with Kenn and Terri.

My sister Branda is born.   She has been a boon and a pain to my life, just like my other siblings.  I can’t say at this point which is more so.  I love her just the same though.

The US celebrates its bicentennial, marking the 200th anniversary of its independence

The Viking II sets down on Mars’ Utopia Plains

Promising, “I will never lie to you,” Jimmy Carter is elected president of the United States

Israeli commandos rescue hostages from Entebbe, Uganda

The Concorde begins flights from New York to Europe

George W. Bush is arrested and fined for driving under the influence of alcohol

Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, is invented by Seymour Cray

Freddie Prinze Jr., Reese Witherspoon, Colin Farrell, 50 Cent, Fred Savage, and Shannon Elizabeth are born

Cincinnati Reds win the World Series

Pittsburgh Steelers win Superbowl X

Montreal Canadians win the Stanley Cup

Rocky is the top grossing film

Filming begins on George Lucas’ Star Wars

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is published

The Eagles Their Greatest Hits compilation becomes the first album in history to be certified platinum

“Tonight’s The Night” by Rod Stewart spends the most time at the top of the US chart

Charlie’s Angels and The Muppet Show premiered

I was an unexpected pregnancy, which in turn had two young people to get married. Though I’m sure they wouldn’t have chosen a different life if they could go back, it seems that they would be much different people today if they hadn’t. I guess deep down I’m glad things played out the way they did, since I’m here and otherwise I wouldn’t be.

My godparents are my father’s brother and my mother’s best friend. I still talk to them occasionally though it seems very occasionally.

This day was a start of the larger world