Mad World

My childhood is coming to an abrupt end next weekend.

I ship for the United States Marine Corps on November 27th. I've gotta say... I'm scared shitless. I know that I won't fail boot camp, I just don't think I'm ready to stop being a kid. Next thing I know, I'll still be a kid... but I'll have a gun. So much has changed in my life within the last few months. It's pretty incredible to think about what I've accomplished. I've seen the Eifel Tower, I've eaten Pizza at the Tower of Pisa, I've drank 3.5 litres of Beer at Oktoberfest, I've gone to a disco in Barcelona, I've drank beer at a McDonalds in France, and I've fallen in love.

The Eurotrip was INCREDIBLE!!! It was really everything I had imagined it would be and a shitload better.


As I said, I also fell in love, and unfortunately, had my heart broken. The day I returned from Europe we started dating. Her name is Kinsey. It hurts, I really wanted to be with her. Honestly.. I think that I could have spent a long time with that girl.

EuroTrip... Gamertag.com style!

It's happening.. It's actually fuckin happening. I really can't believe it. For about the past two months I've been having major doubts that we could actually pull this shit off. Through months of planning and just going through the shit you have to do... Numbur One and I are going to Europe.

I am leaving for Toronto on Sept 2 to meet up with him and romp around canada for a few days. Which is awesome cause I turn 19 on Sept 3 and that means I can go to a bar there and grab a bear. Just because I can! We will spend like 3 days there and then board a flight to Frankfurt Germany.

From Frankfurt.. Niether one of us have any clue where we will be going.

I plan on bringing pen and paper along the road with us to record our happenings, and will post those happenings here on my blog whenever I get the chance.

This here is where we start Eurotrip: Gamertag.com

My Last Week In Washington

Well, here I am. Anchorage Alaska. It's a wonderful place.. even though it's now midnight and it's still bright outside. Thats going to mess with my head.. a lot. This is the story of my last week or so in Kelso Washington. I'm going to miss that place, even though I always told myself that I wouldn't.

I spent my last week hanging out with various friends for what little time they could spare me. I got to hang out with Chelsea, Kinsey, Dolan, Amy, Phuong-Chi, Courtney, Amber, Jessica, and a few other friends. I'm really going to miss all of them.

The person I got to hang out with the most is definately Kinsey. I love that girl. She's so very awesome. I loved every minute of my time with her. Unfortunately, she was led to believe that she was doing something wrong by hanging out with me. Appearantly one of her friends thinks that she was cheating on her boyfriend with me. Thats not fun...

**NOTE**

I started this blog way back right when I got here in Alaska. I don't remember where I was going with it, so I'm just going to post as is.

Senior Presentation

Today was my senior presentation. I'm not one to normally brag, but I looked good. REAL good. I bought a lavender shirt and a deep purple tie to go with my all black blazer and pants. It was pretty much the coolest suit I've ever seen, and it was on me.

All my life, I've grown up thinking that the Senior Project is supposed to be the hardest thing you do your entire career as a student in the public school system. I was wrong. My brothers and sister lied to me, probably just to get thier laughes. Well, it was possibly the easiest thing that I've ever done in my life. I had to do a bit of paperworks, a few different papers to write... I did them all in under an hour. I had to have 20 hours of community service... I had well over 50 and am still counting.

The presentation itself was a lot of fun. I just had to throw some pictures into a powerpoint and ramble about them for 10 minutes. I had to talk for a minimum of 10 minutes about the Special Olympics... without offending anyone. That was a feat in itself. I somehow managed to finish without saying the word Tard! We were required to give the audience (mine was 4 evaluators) biographical letters before the presentation and thank you notes afterward. I gave them the bio-letters and gave them my speech. I went well over 10 minutes just talking myself, and then they started with the questions. Overall, I went about 15 minutes, and got perfect scores across the board... except for one evaluator. This is where the thank you notes came into play!

Most people I saw had gotten onto ms word, thrown some word art onto a page saying thank you, signed it, and gave it as perfect. I decided to take it to the next level. I went to the store, bought them cards, wrote in them, and signed them myself. I thought they would appreciate this since they normally only get pieces of white printer paper. I got them "Happy Birthday, Congratulations on the Baby, and Get Well Soon" cards. Unfortunately, the one teacher doesn't have a sense of humor, so she marked my score down... a lot. Instead of all perfects, from her only, I got intermediate and poor. Perftec! Perfect! Perfect! Poor!? Bitch. I can see why she might be offended by it though. The card had a picture of a monkey and said, "I miss Monkeying Around With You! Get Well Soon!" and I wrote below it, "Thank you for viewing my presentation! Casey." The bitch went as far as going to the career center to complain about the cards. My 4th period is in the career center. Molly came up to me, "I didn't know that you were going to give Get Well Soon cards to them! I think it's funny! But one of your evaluators didn't!" The lady was outright pissed, a quote told to me, "This is serious! the senior project is not something that can just be blown off as some kind of joke!" IT IS A JOKE! THE CARDS WERE A JOKE! THE ENTIRE PROJECT IS A JOKE!

I was told that I should probably go and appologize to the teacher... fuck that, she took away from my score because I gave her a fucking get well soon card. She should appologize to me for being such a presumptuous whore and thinking that I didn't put any effort into the project. I did put effort into the project! just not very much. For all I care, she can choke on a fucking chicken bone. I hope she rots in hell. I'm going to skip her hand when I'm walking down the line of teachers for graduation. I told some friends of mine what she did and none of them were surprised.

Anyway, I love the fact that she was offended by a get well soon card. What do I care? I looked damn good. I'm going to have to find a picture and post it on here. I don't think I've ever looked better in all honesty. It was incredible. I even went longboarding in the suit. It was pretty funny to see. A man dressed up in a full 3 piece suit, riding a longboard down the sidewalk. Good day.

Little Folk

Work was pretty interesting today. We had a heard of midgets come in. I'm not talking like 2 or 3. I'm talking about 15 midgets in my work at one time. It honestly made my day one of the greatest days of my entire life. Everywhere I looked, I just started smiling. I have nothing against the dwarfs of our world... I just think they're funny! I smiled and smiled... my mouth started to hurt, it was a good day.

Tool

I saw Tool last tuesday. It was by far, the most amazing experience I've ever been a part of. I took pictures, and since words alone cannot describe the show, I will just post all of the pictures and caption them.

The Outside of the Paramount Theatre in downtown Seattle

The stage before lights out.

Not a single empty seat

Lights Out. Rock 'n' Roll

First Song: Rosetta Stoned

My Favorite Pic, you can see all band member clearly

The Lights, The Sound, The FEEL!

My Ticket. This will always be with me.

The Most interesting story of the night. I was at an AMPM on my way home when I came across some Canadians. I started up a conversation with them and showed them my Tool ticket. I found out that most of them were in the 2nd row and that one of them had actually caught Danny Carey's drum stick. Alex would kill just to get his hands on it for only a moment.

Tard

Author's Note: This is probably going to be my most offensive blog ever, and probably the funniest as well. I am ashamed at some of the things I was able to write. I wrote all of this at intervals where I was very tired so my concience wasn't working.

Saturday was the regional Special Olympics Championchips at my high school. If you read my last blog, you would understand that I'm a coach and what happens on almost a daily basis dealing with Special Athletes. Well, I witnessed some things that can't really be unseen, and I've decided to write them down in hopes that they won't be stuck in my head forever. I took pictures, 'cause it's for my senior project and I have to, so I'll share some of those with you too!

Well, my day started off slow enough. I arrived at the games late, but that didn't matter, cause I had nothing to do... all day. I got there at 9:30 am. None of you have any idea how agonizingly slow these games go. I mean it's rediculous. I took a short video to document how bad it really is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQY_QGEkUNE

Now you see how agonizingly slow this thing can be. It's incredible. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that it was going to be like this. That race... to swim one length of the pool... took THREE FUCKING MINUTES! At the practices that I coach at, none of my special athletes swim that slow. All of them can swim the 25 (one length of the pool) in under 40 seconds. Even the slowest of them is under 40 seconds. I mean, I realize that they are retarded, but COME ON! If you look closely, you can see that the swimmer is wearing a life jacket... therefore stripping him of the title of swimmer, and replacing it with the tag of "floater." The way I see it, if they can't actually swim on their own, they are too retarded to be in the pool.

So, a few other things boggled my mind and altered my perception about the whole thing. I always thought that the swimming competition would requare.. you know... SWIMMING! Turns out, you don't even have to fucking swim to win a GOLD FUCKING MEDAL!

Behold! the heated competition of aquatic WALKING!

I've also solved the age old question of what do they do about handicapped parking at the Special Olympics. It's simple. You just park wherever you can! there's no rules either! Can't find an actual space close enough to make you feel special? Follow in this guys foot steps and park wherever you damn well please!

The sheer number of retards there just astounded me. I mean, it's simply incredible! I didn't know that it was really this wide spread! The meet wasn't only for swimming, there was track and field as well as a soccer tournament going on. There were 250+ retarded swimmers and a little over 1200 tards total. Looking out over the fields, it was pretty incredible the amound of tard in the air. It was almost tangible. I got a few pictures of the sheer number of tards in the pool area from a number of angles. Here they are in all their special glory!

As I said, I arrived there at 9:30 in the morning. I didn't get home until near 6:00 that afternoon. I had to swim in the last event of the meet. The Coach Athlete Relay. A 4 x 100 Medly Relay that pits tard and coach against other tards and coaches. Another coach on our team was supposed to swim the 100 fly portion of the race, but she had to get ready to go to "Prom" so I got stuck with the hardest part. I had to give up the easiest leg, the breast stroke, to another coach that should be considered an athlete. She's just.... retarded. I hate her. Anyway, I ended up having to swim the 100 meter fly in a relay. We would have had a fighting chance had the person replacing me actually known how do to a proper breast stroke, but no, she's sped. (SpEd = Special Education). We lost the race... horribly. Everyone had already left so it wasn't too embarrasing. I still get to attend the state meet even though we didn't win. A few of our teams tards won their events against no one else. So they qualified to compete at the state level and have to drag their coaches along with them.

After the meet, I got to help clean up. YAY! We had a whole army of tards, you think they could have trained a few of them to put chairs on the racks, but no. It was me, and 3 other lifeguards. We put approximately 300 chairs away in under 20 minutes, I say we should call Guiness Book of World Records. Not only for chairs, but for the sheer number of tards in an area at once. Unfortunately, nobody died, that would have been cool to see. Just the relief on a parents face when they see that their burden has been killed, the world is now a better place.

The Olympics didn't occupy my entire day. After the meet, I hung out with David and we went to Taco Bell to grab some grub. We saw some people from my schools prom all dressed up getting food there... Classy. I made fun of them under my breath and hoped for them to die. I didn't go to my senior prom because I had to save money to buy a Tool ticket... But that's another blog in progress. We actually hung out at Taco Bell for quite some time because the staff there is awesome. If no one is around, they will go out in the lobby and just chill with us. I actually kinda want to work there just because of the chill environment.

After Taco Bell, Dave and I decided it was time to go antique-ing. We had picked up a 5 pound bag at the store earlier in the day so that my mom could make some cookies, but we had leftovers. So, naturally, we dicided to throw it at statues and things around town. We did so, but that couldn't quell our new lust for making things white and old looking! NO! We called more friends and bought more flour! We spend a total of $9.00 on flour, that gave us 55lbs of flour to just throw at eachother (thank you winco). We went to R.A. Long and had our first flour war, ran out, and bought more. The second flour fight was in the Kelso High parking lot. Even to this day (a week later) the flour is still visible in the area that we fought in. I bet R.A LONG SUCKS is still in their parking lot. The second battle was immense and there were no unwounded. I got a pic of me and Carol after the fight.>>>


Well, there you have it. My most offensive blog yet and the reason why I missed my senior prom. I do have a little regret over not going, simply because it was the last one. But you know what, I still had a great night, even though most of the day was extremely RETARDED.

Special Olympics. I Am A Coach, Not A Competitor.

Well, as some of you may know, I am a coach/assistant for a Special Olympics swim team this year. I catch some flak from friends when I say, "Hey guys, I have to go to Special Olympics practice now." I can deal with that, but Special Olympics hasn't turned out to be what I expected at all.

When I first heard about it I thought it would be good for my senior project so I signed up. I really didn't think it would be much fun. I just thought I would stand on the pool deck and tell some special education students what to do, to keep going and whatnot. I was wrong, really wrong. I found out the first day of practice that I wouldn't be just standing on the deck telling them what to do, I was going to swim every last yard they did with them. I haven't swam competitavely in a few years so I am admitantly out of shape. I also thought that I would just be in there with high school special students. Again I was wrong. The ages ranged from about 15 years old all the way up to 32. Well, as luck would have it, the best swimmer on the team, James, chose me to be his coach and to swim every yard he did. James is also the oldest person on the team, at 32.

Well, on a normal swim team, the athletes try to get out of as much work as possible. When I swam, we went as far as getting out of the water, walking over to the workout board and physically changing the amount of laps we had to swim. Either that, or we would just lie to the coach and tell her that we had already finished that step of the workout. This appearantly was not so with my tard. I use the word "tard" lightly because James uses the term to describe himself along with the rest of his teamates. He knows that he's mentally retarded, and almost takes a sense of pride in it. Anyway, James likes... no.. LOVES to challenge himself. One day, we had a pretty easy workout of about 1200 yards and we finished it in under 45 minutes. He decided that we simply hadn't swam for nearly long enough, so he asked the head coach, Mary, if we could do more. Mary happily obliged and told us to simply start over. I tried to get out of it, by telling him that he could go on without me... but no... James won't fall for something so simple. I ended up starting over with him and we did an extra 600 yards. That makes it just over the one mile mark.

Over the last couple weeks, James and I have become pretty good friends, not to the point that we're hanging out after practice or anything, but our conversations in the pool are pretty relaxed and we can talk about life in general now. I think that James believes that we are closer than we reall are. As of late, he's tried to pull me under water quite a few times which are always unsuccessful. I'm really not one to like boasting, but I'm a really, really strong swimmer. I've swam up rivers that have tipped every last one of my friends that were tubing.

Last thursday he tried really hard to get me under. Over and over, every time we passed one another, he would try to grab a leg or arm and pull my down. I'm a lifeguard, I've been trained on how to get out of people's grasps when under water. If I have to rescue someone and they panic, that person will grab onto the nearest floating thing they see... most likely my head. There are a few different ways to get out of a death hold like that. 1: Just dive under, if a person is holding onto something and it goes under, they don't want to go under with it. 2: Pressure point, there is a pressure point just inside a persons elbows that if pressed on, will force them to open their arms. 3: Twist out, simply twist around to loosen their grip and swim away. Since he was trying to pull me under, diving down would just help his cause. It is the special olympics, so I can't really use pressure points and harm him in anyway even though he is 32 and twice my size. I had to twist out of his grip. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but tards are exceptionally strong. A good friend of mine had an autistic brother and I watched that 12 year old punch 3 holes in his bedroom wall. James had a pretty good grip but I somehow managed to get away without going under water. He did this so many times that I just started to swim underneath the lane lines to go around him. No way in hell could he catch up to me in the water. Very few people that I know can, special or not. I can swim 25 yards in 11 seconds. I would either swim around him by a few lanes or, if we were in the deap end, I would swim to the bottom and just go under him. It was annoying but actually made the practice somewhat interesting.

This Saturday is the Regional swim meet. I will be competing on a partner relay. 2 special athletes and 2 coaches swim together. It should prove to be interesting in the least.

Ultimate Frisbee and My Life Plan

Sunday I played Ultimate Frisbee for 3 hours. We had the entire football stadium to play on and we did, there were SO MANY PEOPLE! I think the final count was 28. Well, I've played Ultimate Frisbee before, but never on this level. It was so organized and the gameplay was so fast and fun! I felt really sore the day after but I think it's totally worth it. Next weekend there is supposed to be a rather large game of paintball, so I should have a blast with that.

I've been a lot more active recently. I had been going through a stage that I was home constantly. If I wasn't at school or work, I was at home playing video games. My social life is getting a lot better. I've been hanging out with Amber a lot more, which is a lot of fun, she's great. I can feel that I'm getting a lot more energy and I can't wait to graduate and for life to begin for me. All of my friends seem to be going off to college or staying home to save money for college and just delaying the real start to life. I feel like I'm running toward it full speed. I'm getting everything out of the way these last couple months of school and just living life to the fullest. As soon as I graduate, I'm out of this town forever. I'm moving to Alaska for the summer, then I'm taking my last care free step in life and visiting Europe.

Once I get back, I will join the United States Marine Corps. A few people have asked me why and criticized my decision, but I know it is what I should do, it's the jump start to my life. All I have to do is Graduate and my life is paved for me. The only thing I can think of that would stop me is when I get to Europe. I decided that if I love it there enough, I'm not coming back at all. I will try and find opportunity in Europe and if it arises, I will take it. I really do want to become a Marine, but Europe and other cultures has fascinated my all my life. I really want to travel the world. I'm not meant to live life in a small town such as Kelso, I have to get out of here. My mom expects me to come back to Kelso after summer and the Europe trip, but that's just not going to happen. I love the people of this town, but it's not big enough. I know just about everyone I see. I want to meet new people.

On my last blog I wrote about the plan to have Galen come to Washington so we could go watch Tool together. Well, that didn't pan out. I had planned on getting tickets Saturday morning when they went on sale. My brother told me that they could sell out in under an hour, so I thought I would be alright showing up to Ticket Master a few minutes late. I got there five after 10 and much to my dismay, was told that they sold out in about 3o seconds. My brother bid on and won two tickets off e-bay, so there's still a chance I could see the show, but at a really, really steep price. The price for a ticket at Ticketmaster = $66. The price for two tickets via e-bay = $700. WAY TOO MUCH TO SEE ANYONE! I don't care if Gandhi came back to life and was having seminars, no person should have to pay $700 for two tickets. I mean good lord! how can someone even have the heart to sell them for that much? c'mon! that's a $580 profit! It pisses me off to no extent, Tool is my favorite band, I would pay $120 to see them, but $350 is way too much. Something has to be done about this. People had auctions up on e-bay for seats before they even went on sale. How is it possible to get the exact seats to sell before the tickets even go on sale? There is corruption in the ticketing business and whoever is responsible should be publicly hung and disemboweled.

My Brother In-Law Called Me Today

My Brother In-Law called me today and told me that Tool tickets went on sale this saturday and that their first show for the tour is in fact in Seattle Washington on May 2nd, the same day that their album comes out. KICK ASS! I'm going to see Tool! I don't care how much it costs. I will pay upwards of $100 to see this band play. Good thing I only have to pay $66.66. Well, as soon as I got home, I called my friend Galen in Canada and told him. He told me that he wanted to go to it, and I planted the idea that he should fly here to see it. Short pause, and he said ok. He's flying to Washington State from Ontario Canada to see a Tool concert. I had to ask him how that conversation went and here's what he told me:

Galen says:
I need to go to seattle at the beginning of next month
Galen says:
"why?"
Galen says:
uh, theres a tool concert
Galen says:
"seattle as in washington state?"
Galen says:
yea
Galen says:
"are you going with whats his name... casey?"
Galen says:
yea
Galen says:
yada yada
Galen says:
"well this'll be a good chance to get to know him before you spend a month with him in a foreign continent"

I think that is the greatest conversation of all time. So truthful but to the point. Anyway, this means that I'm going to be skipping a few days of school to hang out with a Canadian and to see the greatest band that ever walked the face of this planet. I'm really really excited for this. You have no idea how much I love this band and now that a good friend of mine from afar is going to join me... All the better.

Another New Sport Is Invented!

Since I decided against writing my sunday blog, since I really can't remember much of it and not that much actually was very exciting. I'll tell you one thing though, David invented a new sport on Saturday which we played on Sunday. Urban Golfing. It's pretty simple and the name pretty much tells all. Set up a put put set somewhere in a parking lot and play. We played only one game from about 15 yards away, interesting, but I wasn't in the mood to play.

Anywho, today I invented a new sport... kinda. I got in a bit of trouble for it, but it was fun. I call it Longboard Bowling. It was just after school, I took my backpack out to my car and picked up my longboard. I rode it back to the school and walked inside. I went to the cafeteria where a bunch of my friends were chatting it up. I was there not even 3o seconds when Hillary asked to ride my longboard. I looked past her and told her no... like I normally do... and saw this gem: My mind INSTANTLY went to destructo mode. I HAD to knock it over. How you may ask? Just so happens I still had my longboard in my hand. I set it down, dropped my knee on it and pushed... really hard. I zoomed along and could feel the air rushing though my hair. It was one of my most glorious longboard rides of all time. I had an audience, I had a goal, and I had something on the line. I went headlong into the garbage cans. Once I hit, it took a second for them to teeter and fall over... on top of me. I was sitting in the middle of the demolished battlefield the victor, when suddenly an unforseen adversary approached. Twas the Dreaded Mr. Frank. He hit me with something that is impossible to come back from. The move took 75% damage from my hp. I was already weakened from the baddle with the Garbage Can Pyramid From Hell about 35%. I was done for. The move was the incredible "I'll Take That." He motioned toward my longboard and I was forced to surrender. He finished me by saying, "You can get this back from Mrs. Spear later" and walked off with my only weapon. He left me weak and unarmed in the middle of the devastated battle land. After I took my regeneration potion and regained my health to 95%. The only 5% that didn't heal was my left knee:

Battered and bleeding, I cleaned the battlefield. I then approached my adversary. He had fled in false victory, for I had RETURNED to continue the fight. I threw the first blow, "Can you give my longboard to Mrs. Spear now so I can get it back from her?" Mr. Frank was stunned but not yet defeated. He countered with, "Why do you have to do stuff like that and make me act like a teacher?" To which I replied, "Sorry for making you do your job." His turn... "I think I'll take this up to Seattle with me." It was a formidable attack, but he didn't know that I had a secret move up my sleeve, I knew where the longboard was sold and availible, "You can buy one just like it up there! They only cost $300!" I saw the blow hit him. Such amazing force behind it. Even I didn't know I had that kind of power. He handed me my longboard in defeat. His final words were, "Don't do it again." I strutted away in triumph and and held my prize high. Not a single panty was dry... not even mine.