Reflection, My Era Of Hype. Part 2.
I remember this time when I was at my buddy Mike’s house. It was in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the winter so there was a bunch of snow and was quite cold out.
Mike and I decided to go build a fire… and make some marshmallows. So we decided to start the fire with gasoline… Terrible idea for a fire intended for marshmallows. Mike poured some gasoline on the wood we placed on the snow and lit it on fire. We decided to add more gasoline… of course. At that point the flame had ignited the tip of the gasoline can. This was not a modern gas can. It did not have the safety features that we have today.
Mike started yelling, and was flailing the gas can around in attempt to put out the flame… This caused the gasoline to fly all around him. The tip ignited the gasoline and it was shooting around him like a flamethrower. Gas was on the ground and there were flames everywhere.
While this was happening I was laughing so hard I barely could breathe. I said to Mike, broken with laughter. “you’re going to die!”
I at one point thought the gas can was going to legitimately explode and ran into the back door of his garage.
I forget if I told him to, or if he did it on his own, but mike shoved the tip of the gas can into a snowbank and that stopped the carnage. I remember the gas burning past the time the can was put out. We used our feet to stomp it out.
Mike and I did so many things together. I believe the first time we ever hung out he came over to my house on Ki Sawyer. I had a paintball gun and we wanted to have some fun. We went on the hill behind my house near some woods and brush, a playground very near. Mike took his shirt off and was running around while I unloaded a lot of paintballs. He ended up with so many welts. When his mom came to pick him up, she was not surprised… It was mike.
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We have done so many random, crazy things together that I don’t think I could legitimately recall all of them.
The first time I ever tried dip it was with Mike, he had been doing it for a while and I finally wanted to see what it was all about. He only chewed Grizzly Wintergreen. I was in a break between my morning Class in Marquette doing Heath Occupations and my afternoon regular High School classes. We met up and I took what I would say now as an admirable size dip. I felt horrid, I am pretty sure I puked. I drove woozy to Gwinn high School for my classes and when I arrived, I felt very sick. I ended up going home.
80’s Day at Gwinn High School
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We also were in a Metal band together called Ash Season. Originally my buddy Billy was the bassist, but he moved to a town in Wisconsin. So, Mike took his spot. I think Mike actually used his Bass for a while until he got his own. We played some pretty sweet shows at the cornerstone. It was a building literally right on Marquette Senior High School. This place would get packed. At that point in time the emo, hardcore scene was poppin.
Ash Season at Corner Stone.
One time we were at the church helping with some type of massive sale of people’s belongings. It was like a massive garage sale. There was a bowling ball… So, we decided to play catch with it. Mike and I threw it up and towards each other. We did it until the bowling ball came directly down and onto my face. That wasn’t very intelligent.
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When we were in high school, I started seeing this girl “S” after we had gone to Prom together. She was the sister of “C” one of my friends in my high school class. I had set up Mike with C as an out-of-town Prom date.
After that it was amazing, for a while. C and S’s family has a beautiful home on a lake which also had Jet Ski’s. The ladies would relax and sunbathe on the dock while Mike and I would go out with the Jet Ski and Innertube and launch each other high into the air attempting to cause as much destruction as possible… as always. It was literally another excuse to have so much fun together.
Hawt pose on C & S’s Jetski.
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I do miss all of my friends from those years. Those days were probably some of the best I’ve ever had. I had found myself forgetting them for many years. Distracted by the new objective Infront of me. But those were the days with a very different type of hype.
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Reflection, my era of hype. Part 1.
Bathroom at a Dance Club. I was alone.
Part 1.
Thinking back at the times that I was feeling at my highest, i was also pretty dang low. I lived a very chaotic and random on the spur life. I was in the middle of… multiple potential relationships and was dancing every weekend, as well as some of the days through the week. If my bro’s did not want to come with me I went all alone. I’ve always enjoyed the experience of going somewhere new solo. I’ve been to underground raves, a lot of metal shows, many many dance clubs of all varieties… My favorite was Sharky’s or their neighbor club Secrets.
There were times that I wanted to go home so bad to marquette, mi but i was in myrtle beach… I had a 3 day weekend so I immediately started driving up with only stopping for gasoline. A couple of times I did this, i would not want to be seen and would only share with very few people that I was in the area. Sometimes I would just go sleep in the woods, or on the beach along Lake Superior.
One thing that I was doing for sure, was going down-town. Washington Street. Remies has always been my first spot that I head to. I usually ended up there towards the end of the night if the dance clubs “Skeet Skeet” we will call it… and the irish pub across the street were closed.
No-matter what I also had to go to my favorite brewery. Black Rocks. I was there within the first day or two of them opening since I lived 1 block over. I purchased a hand crafted mug there that they store in-house. This was a very limited time period, and it was difficult to find mugs. I picked mine out of a cluster of just a couple of mugs. Best $40 I’ve ever spent. I would tend to see people there, I especially enjoyed when I would bump into the german mother of one of my friends.
I would show up randomly at my parents door sometimes and surprise them. One time I found my ex-wife with the dude she cheated on me with at a local brewery. I never knew what was going down randomly in marquette, mi. It was always a new, refreshing, experience when I took those trips. I took one of my army buddies up with me once and he did not like the experience… I was all about minimalist camping, and he preferred a bed. [He was not an Infantryman]
I’ve been told by a couple of my friends in my army friend group that they had to take turns partying with me cause I was so constant. I was usually somewhere else, If I was at home, I was playing my favorite PC game Insurgency.
Thinking farther back, even when I was in high school I would be either doing something somewhere, or I was at home. Taking care of my siblings, cooking them brownies or ramen noodles 80% of the time. My Dad was deployed to Iraq and my mother was very on edge and sometimes not there when I would return from school. I don’t mean writing this as a stab at anyone, it’s just how it was.
I was a wrestler, they called me gumby because I was so flexible. I wasn’t the best wrestler, but I made sure that I was not pinned. I found how to channel my motivation through wrestling. This became beneficial in moments where during extreme physical exhaustion I was able to push on and accomplish my goal. One being my first 20 mile trail run. I had never competed in a long distance run before and out of the entire battalion and more that wanted to join. I finished 7th place.
One time I decided to follow the advice of my bro “Delta” and get a pedicure. A couple of weeks later I did a 20 mile ruckmarch. At mile 11 I felt a lot of pain.. Even after consistantly rotating socks (combo of thin and wool socks) and powdering my feet, by mile 20 I had ripped the skin off the ball of my feet off. [HERE IS THE PHOTO] I returned after the ruckmarch and spoke to the medic about my feet. I went by the CP and one of the Squad Leaders asked “why did you keep going?” I replied, “Because I don’t stop.”
I would pre-game every 20 miler (run or ruck) with a 12 pack of Guiness stout and a large bowl of some type of pasta. Before the run I would drink half of my large Bolt House chocolate drink that had 65g of Protein and a high amount of potassium per bottle. When I returned I would finish my drink, and the unit FRG would have pasta and fruit for us. We would stop by the CP and grab a beer from our command as well. The medic would pass out a pill form muscle relaxer to us and we would clean our weapons until the most of us passed out then we would be eventually released to go home after we turned in all of our “clean” equipment.
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Introduction
Hello,
I thought I would write an introduction to this blog.
The things I do tend to change and modify as time goes on, so at this moment this is what I plan to do.
I would like to express experiences I’ve had and my personal thoughts on them.
I do not claim to be good or bad, but some of these experiences I’ve had may be shocking to some, but to me it is part of my life. I do not wish to offend.
I also want to allow others to be more aware of their surroundings.
I will post my personal resume on the “links” page if anyone wants to know more in-depth professional information about me. A couple of jobs aren’t in it currently, I may need to update it in the near future.
-Josh