I took Spanish I again. This time I even managed to pass the class, although, it was a close thing and I did not enjoy the class.
In fact, not surprisingly, I didn’t like a lot of my classes. A lot of them were jokes. There was Mr. Carey’s geometry class, wherein I just ignored him all day and did the work out the book, and he basically made sure no one could fail because half the soccer team was in the class. Then there was Ms. Richard’s computer ops class. It was here that we were taught about Microsoft word and excel. For someone like me, who already knew more about the two programs than we learned in the entire year long class, it was excruciating.

As for my elective, first semester I took computer graphics, which was an alright class, but annoyed me because the teacher wanted me to do work instead of play computer games all period. Second semester I asked to be transferred to a different class and ended up stuck into Virtual Enterprise Survey, which was a sort of strange not-real class that the councilor made up in order to get people interested in virtual enterprise class. It was a good class though because we actually did get to play computer games all period for most of it (until the principle got mad). So between playing tetris, figuring out prices for things, other random things, and listening to Mr. Dobreski (who was an otherwise awesome teacher) tell us about his amazingly depressing personal life, it was an alright class.

I did really enjoy history class, wherein for the first semester, we had a student teacher teaching us. His name was Mr. Suber, and he was really cool, and didn’t mind that I would do the homework right in front of him while he was collecting it (yeah it was easy homework). I also took choir, which was fun because I love to sing. The only problem with that being that Mrs. Unruh the choir teacher wanted us to sing at pep rallies, which were already bad enough without us having to sing a song about doing things “gaily.”

Basically, sophomore year was just more of the same after freshman year, with only my classes changing. Something was building though, something that would change my life forever (I may be being a bit over-dramatic here, but it’s my story so everyone just shut up.)

Yes it’s the big one eight. I am now a legal adult, with all of the great things that come with that. For example, I can now legally view internet porn (Don’t lie, you’re totally jealous). Ok just kidding. (well, I mean, not kidding kidding. I can do that, but I mean, that’s not really… um, you get the point.) Ok, but seriously; I can do lots of cool things. For one thing, I can get my driver’s license now (I could, have gotten it earlier of course, if I’d got my permit sooner, but oh well, you can’t change the past. And I have a car to drive as soon as I get it.)

Anyway though, excessive use of parenthesis aside, this is really cool, and while I can’t say that I suddenly felt a change come over me as I sat on my uncle’s couch and played videogames past the stroke of midnight, my life is definitely different now. If we compare today, to July 22nd last year, it looks pretty good. I have more friends, a better love life, more money, my own car, the laptop I’m writing this on, more things on top of that, and I haven’t even gotten any of my presents yet. So basically what I’m saying here, is that life is great (especially when you compare it to the last post I put up). Oh and there i go with the parenthesis again. Oh well.

What I’m saying is: I’m 18 and life is awesome. And thank you to everyone who’s been a part of my life, and continues to make it even more awesome every day. (You know who you are). So until Monday, that’s it for this post. I’m Dan Gold, birthday boy blogger extraordinaire hoping your day turns out to be as good as I hope mine will be. Bye!

One of my very first challenges in high school was freshman biology. I had always been apt in areas of science before, but not so now. I was put into a class who’s teacher droned on, and on, all period, with absolutely nothing interesting ever happening in the class (except for the time that I used a little universal remote to switch the TV on an off all period). I had heard, however, that the other biology teacher, Mr. Lindsey, was a fantastic teacher and that all his students loved the class.

I knew that I would never be able get through two semesters of my current teacher, and my grades were already just above the D level, so I went to my councilor and asked her to switch me into Mr. Lindsey’s class. She told me that students could not transfer to another class simply because they didn’t like the teacher, to which I responded that I would not be able to pass my current class and so the need to transfer was for academic reasons, but to no avail. I was also told that the class was full anyways, so there would be no way for me to get in.

Upon hearing the terrible news from me, my mother wrote an angry letter to the school demanding that I be transferred, sending one copy to my councilor and the other to the principal. This resulted in me being immediately transferred into Mr. Lindsey’s class wherein I did so well that he graded me against the honors class. I also had no trouble in obtaining an empty seat to sit in.

There was also Mr. Olmstead(a.k.a. Mr. Old-stead, or Mr. Almost-dead)’s health class, which was not hard at all. Unfortunately, it was also very, very, very, boring, and for this reason I usually didn’t pay attention. Furthermore, not only did I not pay attention to what Mr. Olmstead was trying to teach us, I didn’t pay attention to what he assigned for homework either. This resulted in me passing the class with a low C, rather than the A which I probably could have gotten.

This became somewhat of a theme for me. I also had trouble with doing my homework in math class, as well as in English class. In math the reason being that I didn’t want to do the work, and in English, the reason being that I just read all period and basically ignored everything. In both cases however, I managed to pass the class in the end.

Then there was Spanish I. This was the one class that required actual study and could not simply be wrangled on wits alone, so for a guy like me, who usually substitutes brains for actual work in areas academic, it was extremely difficult, and in the end I actually did fail the class. It was the first class that I had ever failed in my entire life, although it would not be the last.

All in all, freshman year proved to be an upgrade from middle school, but it was still not a great year for me, and I was still stuck being a nerdy and unpopular kid.

The day began like most others with me waking up around noon and lazing around for an hour or two. After a while my friend Scott texted me, and a half hour later I was at the fair with him, as well as Charlie and Megan. The plan was to meet up with Sydney at the fair, but after we’d been there for a while we received word that she actually couldn’t get there for another half hour or so.

In order to pass the time until Sydney arrived (and not wanting to spend all of our money at the fair) we went back to Scott’s house to wait. Once there, it came up that his wireless internet router needed something fixed on it, and so I ended fixing it. There’s random thing number one.

Then Sydney arrived wherein we went back to the fair and went on the one ride that Scott wanted to go on. Then Scott won a bunch of plates and bowls at one of the coin toss games. After that Scott had to leave to go to his cousin’s birthday party, and Charlie had to go take Megan home. That left just Sydney and I back at my house.

We needed something to do, and out of all the possibilities, (TV, movies, video games, the park) we somehow decided that we would make a marble bundt cake from scratch. And that’s what we did. About an hour after we decided to make said cake, Charlie arrived back, and we pulled the cake out of the oven. We then proceeded to eat a couple slices of said cake. It was delicious.

After we finished eating however, we were again at loose ends, and again, instead of doing something normal to pass the time, we somehow came to the decision that we would drive to the next town over in order to get chicken strips (despite the fact that they were readily available in the town which we currently occupied). Right before we left, David, who we all thought was supposed to be out of town untill Tuesday, showed up, and came with us.

Forty-five minutes later we were on the our way back to Carpinteria with chicken nuggets from Wendy’s. We dropped Sydney off at her house, and then proceeded to the fair where we met up with Scott again, as well as Coby, Travis, Antony, and Jay. After going on a spinny ride, which we spun to the point of ridiculousness, we were joined  Gabe and a friend of his named Ali.

After eating some churros and whatnot, we then all (minus Jay) headed over the the high school in order to play hide-and-go-seek tag. Although we ended up playing sardines instead (which is like hide-and-go-seek, except that one person hides, and everyone else looks for them, and then whenever anyone finds the hider, they have to hid with them until everyone is there.)

After a very long first round, wherein David picked a very, very, good spot to hide, I then became it. I decided that I didn’t want to torture everyone, so I would pick a spot that wasn’t too hard to find. This led me to basically just hide in a corner. Albeit a very dark corner, at the end a small alleyway-type-thing that people weren’t likely to look to hard into.

I though that I would be pretty easy to find and the game would progress quickly, however, as it turned out, my small form, curled and contorted to be as small as possible, and clad in a black shirt, was mistaken for a hole. I shit you not, people looked directly at me, and then walked away, thinking that I was a hole in the ground. I was eventually found, but the game lasted a lot longer that I expected.

So far the day had already been very random. I’d fixed a router, baked a cake, driven a town over for chicken strips, and been mistaken for a hole, but the day wasn’t over yet. (Well actually it was, since it was midnight, but I’m counting it as the same day because I wasn’t asleep yet.)

Anyway, we all headed back to my house, but not before stopping at 7-11 for sodas and snacks. There we found a bunch of cops standing around, and buying lunchables, as well as realizing that it was free slurpee day, and getting free slurpees. Also, we rand into the friends of Gabe’s that he had apparently ditched to hang out with us, and he ditched us to go hang out with them (before meeting up with us later. Presumably having re-ditched them? I don’t know.)

Moving on however, we got back to my house, wherein it was decided that we would build a fort. After playing a game of “never have I ever” we build said fort, and then proceeded to cram ourselves into its small interior. The fort was working out great until Gabe showed back up, but then I couldn’t help but make fun of him, and the ensuing revenge that he visited upon me destroyed the fort. And just to complete the randomness of the day, I somehow ended up giving Ali a hand massage.

In conclusion, it was a really, really, really random day.

It was a Thursday about 12:15pm when we finally left Carpinteria. We’d planned to leave at 11:30, but after stopping for gas, and then getting lunch, time stretched a bit. Finally though, we hit the road. Coby Bryant drove one car, accompanied by Scott Buffon; Charlie drove another, carrying Sydney, and Christian; while David drove another car which held Leah, Cheyenne and myself.

And let me tell you, it was definitely one of the most fun car rides I’ve ever had. The three cars hurtled down the freeway unfettered by such petty concerns as traffic jams or … um … other… bad freeway things… Ahem, anyhow, we flew down the highway at very gratifying speeds, the windows down and the wind whipping at our hair. It was a warm day, we were able leave the aforementioned windows down for the entirety of the the trip as we blasted our favorite music at volumes that are probably illegal.

Frequently the cars would draw along side of each other and their respective occupants would attempt to convey some sort of message via mouthing and sign language (almost always in vain). Only one thing marred the awesome car ride was when I leaned too far out the window and the wind whipped off my brand new sunglasses (which were then promptly run over by Coby). Other than that however, the car ride was completely awesome.

But of course this is a blog post about Magic Mountain, so I guess I should actually talk about going to the park now. When we got to the park, everyone  quickly came to the consensus that we had to go on X2. Almost two friggen hours of waiting in line later we were treated to a rollercoaster ride that, while very fun, lasted less than thirty seconds, leaving me feeling kinda jipped. (I do have to admit that it was a very fast and cool fifteen or whatever seconds though. In fact, the G forces on the ride were so great that David’s glasses broke in half right on his face. It was not a good day to be pair of glasses.)

However, X2 was the far and away the longest line in the park, so after that is was all gravy. Now I’d been to Magic Mountain before, but only to the one up in the Bay Area (which it turns out is much smaller and less awesome), so I was unprepared for the extremely large amount of awesome rides to go on. Now I don’t think that Six Flags needs any help with marketing, so I won’t prattle on too much.

Seriously though Tatsu. You’re like flying! I mean come on!! And Super Man, yeah, I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to have kids after, what with a T bar between my legs on a ride who’s stated purpose is just to go really god damn fast, but it turns out that it manages to do so without making one sound like Michael Jackson.

If I had to pick a favorite ride though it would have to be the new Terminator Salvation ride. The fact that you have to wait through five or ten minutes of video and flashy lights before getting on the ride gets annoying after the first time, but damn is that ride fun (especially if you go on the back). I’d gone on the rollercoaster of the same name up in the Northern California Six Flags and it had been relatively tame, so I figured this one would be too. How wrong I was. Seriously, next time you’re there, go on it. It’s awesome.

And now, before I wrap up this post, a piece of advice: don’t duck. Seriously, don’t do it. I did, on Goliath and it wasn’t fun. You see, there was this huge drop and I raised my arms up like you do on rollercoaster, but then we went into a tunnel, and even though I realized that there is no way that I would be able to touch the top, since they design them to not kill you, I still instinctively ducked, and bent over like I was, the G forces produced when we flattened out crushed my spine in a very painful way.

Anyways though, it was really fun, and I can’t wait to go back. And I could probably go on more, but I’m stopping here. The end.

Howard didn’t actually have it’s own campus, so when I rode my bike to school in the morning, I headed over to the local Girls Inc. and then went to a portable classroom at the back end of the compound. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was a tad humiliating, as a boy, to be going to school at Girls Inc.

That minor humiliation was nothing compared with my teacher however. I attended Howard for three years (3rd, 4th, and 5th grades) and the way it was set up, I had the same teacher for all three of those years. That teacher was one Mr. Perez. He was big guy, blonde hair, blue eyes, looked like he probably played football in high school, and he was a bully.

A lot of people hate their teachers when they are in school, but realized later in life that the teachers were good, and it was they themselves that caused the trouble. It was kind of the opposite with me. I definitely hated Mr. Perez at the time, but I sort of just assumed that that was how teachers were. I now realize that Mr. Perez was a bully, who took advantage of his position of power.

To give some examples, Mr. Perez would frequently confiscate items from us that we played with in class, and then give them back later. If he got one of our prized possessions however, he would keep it for the entire year, and only return it on the last day of school. He would also frequently threaten physical violence upon his students, which while obviously in jest, seems kind of messed up when concerning ten year olds.

Mainly though, he made fun of his students. Now I don’t mind a couple jokes at my expense, but really, we were insecure little ten year olds, and our teacher was making mean jibes at us all day every day, I mean come on.

On the bright side of all this, I’m pretty sure I got a good education. Howard Carden curriculum was much higher level than it’s public school counterparts, and when I finally convinced my parents to send me back to public school in sixth grade, I was quite a bit ahead of my peers academically.

Unfortunately, my three years of going to a school who’s total population was about 100 kids, left me quite sheltered from popular culture. When I did return to public school in 6ht grade this caused me to be the subject of ridicule and harassment.

In the end, there’s one thing I’d like to think that I learned from my, experience, and I hope that parents take this into account when they decide where to send their kids: There’s more to learn at school than what the teacher teach. In other words, if you send your kid to a small private school, or, god forbid, homes-school him/her, you are preventing them from getting the social education that they need to function best in society.

I used to be the weird kid, and I think that if I hadn’t gone to public school for as long as I did, I would have just kept on being that person, and being the weird kid would not have served me well in life.

So parents, think twice before you send your kids to small schools.

Thanks, the end.

It began as just another day of first grade, unless it was second grade, I don’t remember it very well… Anyway, the school part of the day went pretty much like any other. Then, after school, I went to the after school program (it being a program that I would go to after school). Once there I set to playing around with my best friend Casey Tolivar.

Now there was one thing about Casey that should be mentioned here; he liked to screw up public bathrooms. I don’t know why, but he just got a really big kick out of making it gross for other people. For my part, I went along with it and, I must admit, enjoyed it too. With me however, I think it was more about the danger of not getting caught than the schadenfreude (look it up).

Having explained this, you, the reader, will hopefully now understand what possessed Casey and I to sneak away from the other kids of the after school program during recess, and over to the bathrooms that we were forbidden from going into. We were forbidden from going into them because they were far away from, and out of sight of, the recess monitors. This trait however, made them perfect for what we had in mind, even if we weren’t totally sure what that was (we didn’t plan it out or anything).

When we got to the bathrooms, the first thing that we did was use them. I went over to the urinal trough and started peeing while Casey went and used the toilet. I do believe I peed on the wall or some such. Meanwhile, Casey was dropping deuce, that he declined to flush. Now at this point I’m a bit hazy, but one of us got a stick from somewhere.

What happened next was thoroughly disgusting, and I will spare you the worst of the fecal details. Suffice to say, when we left the bathroom some ten or fifteen minutes later a very large portion of its walls were smeared with Mr. Tolivar’s gift to the world.

When we finally emerged from the now thoroughly disgusting bathroom, the teachers had already noticed our absence and begun looking for us. So, as we attempted to sneak back into the ranks of out classmates, we were spotted. When the teachers found what had happened to the bathroom, they knew it was us, and we were thoroughly punished by our respective parents, although neither expelled nor suspended.

And that my dear readers, is the end of this tale. I do hope that I induced mirth and not nausea. See you next time.

With this in mind, I have decided to institute a schedule. From now on, I will update the blog with a new post twice a week. New posts will appear on Mondays and Thursdays each week. I promise will try very, very hard to keep up and not miss my own deadlines. I hope this is appreciated, and thanks to everyone who has kept on reading this blog even though I’ve been so sporadic in my posts.

See you tomorrow,

~Dan
PS: While I’m making addressing my readers, I would just like to say that I really wanna hear from all you guys. Judging from how many hits this site has I know there are a good number of people reading it, but I never get to hear from any of you. So please, leave comments. Tell me what you think of my stories. What do you want to hear more about; what do you want to hear less about? If there is anything you want to say, please say it. I’d really love to hear from all of you. Thanks.

Anyway though, we all sat around Scott’s house until about midnight, waiting to leave. To keep awake and energetic, we all (except for Sydney) drank 5 hour energies. Let me tell you, they don’t work at all. None of us felt any different at all after drinking them, but I digress. So, as I was saying… I mean, writing… I don’t know, but we left sometime after midnight and embarked for Santa Barbara in Travis’s van. Unfortunately, Jay did not accompany us, due to a foot injury.

When we got into Santa Barbara we headed over to 7-11 and got a block of ice for each of us. Then we parked down a side street and hoofed it over through an elementary school, over a fence, and onto the Santa Barbara Municipal Golf Course. Once there we walked over to the top of the tallest hill and got down to the business of actually iceblocking. At first we slid down one at a time, but then we started to make shapes. First we all went in a line, each person holding onto his rear pal’s legs. That one actually worked quite well untill Scott, up front, make us all fall over on purpose. The we tried going three at a time in a triangle. This resulted in extremely high speeds, zero control, and amazing amount of fun.  At one point all six of us formed a pyramid and slid down together, all holding on to each other and creating one solid mass. The first time we did it, we actually made it all the way to the bottom of the hill intact, but the other three or four times that we attempted the maneuver it ended in wipe-outs and pile-ups.

Luckily no one was seriously injured (not that iceblocking is very dangerous), but there was definitely some pain for David. First, as David was sliding down the hill on his block, Scott slid his block at David, which ended up hitting David’s own block dead into his balls. Then, as Scott and David were doing a tandem run, Scott somehow accidentally hit David in the balls with his hand. After that, during one the the pyramid runs that we wiped out on, I ended up falling on top of David. Elbow first. Into his balls. In fact, I’m pretty sure that David got hit in the balls a fourth time somehow, but I can’t recall how.

And David’s ball weren’t the only things to take a beating that night (no innuendo intended). Scott’s pants, which already had a hole in them, covered by duct tape, quickly lost that silvery sticky patch, and for a while, he thought he was going to lose the entire leg of his pants. In the end though, the pants survived, and it didn’t matter too much anyways, since we all had a change of cloths.

As things began to wind down, people began to be afraid that we’d be caught (we were technically trespassing and breaking curfew). There was a house of some sort at the top of the hill opposite ours, and thought the lights had been on all night, with no indication that we’d been notices, various people began to say things like “I think I saw someone moving in the window.” Everyone was further spooked when we heard a small commotion from over in the adjacent Earl Warren show grounds. We all agreed that it was nothing to worry about, especially since the sound came from outside the golf course, but I think some people were still spooked.

Then, a rooster called (Again from the neighboring Earl Warren Show Grounds). Everyone was surprised.

“It’s a security rooster!” joked Scott.

“A security rooster!?” Asked Sydney, genuinely afraid.

A few seconds later she realized that Scott had been joking, and we all had a good laugh at her expense. The group’s fear of being discovered continued to grow however, and we soon left. All told, we’d spent at least two hours sliding around, and having a grand old time. It was a night I shan’t soon forget, and I can’t wait to do it again.

The end.

PS: It should be noted that after getting back home at about 4am and getting what little sleep we could, David and I woke up the next morning at the ungodly hour of seven am, in order to go and work for his dad installing dryers in a laundromat.