Stop, Drop, and Roll

Just yesterday, I wrote about riding my bike again. Today, that new fad's glamour quickly faded. I went to pickle ball this morning, and had a great idea about how to get home. I would ride my bike home. So my father gave me a ride to pickle ball and dropped me and my bike off. Pickle ball was fun today, and I was really excited to ride my bike home. I was about halfway home when it happened.

Most of the ride had been uphill, I had just gotten to the flat stretch and decided to go semi-fast. I was going with traffic because there were no sidewalks. My pickle ball paddle was in a bag on my handlebars. When I had started to peddle harder, the bag was swinging and getting in my way. As I tried to grab the bag, it somehow jammed into the handlebar and tire. Simultaneously, my bike stopped moving, but I didn't. I flew over the handlebars, did a sideways flip, hit the pavement and rolled. Basically, my bike stopped, I dropped and then rolled. It must have looked bad because traffic stopped on both sides, or maybe they stopped so they wouldn't run me over. I was very appreciative of the lady who stopped her car and made sure I was okay, and that I could get home.

Thankfully, I only had a scrape on the knee, and a sore wrist. I was able to bend the bike back to where I was able to ride it home. It could have been a lot worse. I didn't get hurt too bad, my bike is fixable, and best of all, my pickle ball paddle didn't even get a scratch. Hopefully, the wreck didn't wreck my new found habit of bike riding.

Bike Rides Revisted

I remember a couple summers ago when my siblings and I would ride our bikes everywhere. It was great times, and good exercise. After my brother flew off the bike and broke his arm, and one of the bikes stopped working, the bike trips were a mere memory. A few days ago, my parents bought a nice bike at a garage sale. The garage sellers said my parents could have two other bikes if they didn't sell. They didn't sell, so we got them for free. So today, my sister and I decided to bring back the ancient tradition of bike riding. We rode a total of 12 miles to a house my father was painting. It was a blast, and hopefully it will start a new summer of bike rides rolling.

Driving Rage

I finally got to try out my new golf club today. About three weeks ago, my Dad bought me a brand new driver. We've been busy, so I haven't been able to try it out. Today, we had some time, so we went to the driving range. I was really exited to try it out, maybe too excited. Every swing, I would swing as hard as I could. Once in a while I would get a good, straight drive, but most of them sliced viciously into the woods, or barely dribbled a few feet in front of me. The more this happened, the more frustrated I got. I kept swinging harder and harder, the golf balls kept veering into the woods. When I ran out of golf balls, even though most of my shots weren't that good, I still was glad I went. I finally got to try out my new club. I believe I learned a good lesson out on the driving range today, sometimes when you try too hard, you fail. Sometimes it is better to step back and relax. Getting mad and frustrated doesn't help in any situation, especially golf.

Garage No Sales

Our local neighborhood garage sales were today. My sister wanted me to take her to the sales, so we went around to all of them. When I got home, I had a great idea. I'll throw together some stuff I don't want, and sell them. So I rummaged through my room and the garage and got some stuff to sell. My parents got home and they too got into the garage sale mood. We had a love seat with an ottoman, a Nintendo 64, books, paintings, teapots, vases, some yard machines, sport cards, and other stuff. Around 12, I put out all the stuff and waited. I continued to wait. I sat in a chair and watched as people would pass by and not even stop. The occasional person would stop by and take a quick look around.

I could hardly take it. Dozens of people would do a drive-by, and none of them would stop. How can a person drive by and know whether the sale is good or not? And if you are not going to stop, don't make it quite so obvious. Don't pull into the driveway, look at the sale, and then leave without even getting out of the car. And then proceed down the street and stop at the neighbor's sale. It's demoralizing.

After three hours of the sale I had made $3.25. The neighborhood sales had ended. I was so tired, I didn't even want to bring the stuff in. 30 minutes after the sale, one last person stopped by. He tested out a edger on our grass, and decided to buy it. This brought the total day's sales to 10.75. I was happy until my dad looked up the price of the edger we had been given, but didn't need. They cost $100. Oh well.

I learned a good life lesson today. One, I hate garage sales. And two, you shouldn't be too quick to judge. It is easy to stereotype people and things, but with just a quick glance, what do you really know? They may be hidden treasures.

Fair- More Than Fair

Today, I went to the local fair. I had the preconceived notion that I wasn't going to enjoy it. My enjoyment of the fair has exponentially decayed the past couple years. It feels like you pay money to get inside to pay more money. This year, I was contemplating not going, but then I found out that being 17, I could get in today for one dollar.

Brief side note, 17 has been a good age. You are now old enough to get most jobs, and in general be treated more like an adult. But at the same time, you still can get reduced prices on things, you still qualify for the "kid price".

The first 100 "kids" not only cost a dollar, but they also got a goody bag. So we decided to get there right when it opened. At 10 am we started our adventure at the fair. My youngest sister got one of the goody bags, I didn't really want one. We then saw that my Grandpa got two first place ribbons for his watercolor paintings. Way to go G-pops. Next, we went over to the baked goods. My Mom got second in a muffin contest, and second or third (long story) in an apple pie contest. Gabby and Grandma entered a bar cookie competition together, theirs was the best by far in my unbiased opinion.

Next, we toured the rest of the fair. I looked at the pictures and decided to enter some next year. We stopped by the petting zoo. Good times. I didn't know there was such as thing as a zebra-donkey mix. Next was the highlight of the entire day. I saw a big monster truck and was delighted to find out it was free to ride on it. Grandpa was just as excited as we were to ride on it. We waited in line, it could take 9 passengers at a time. When it was our turn, the driver asked Grandpa if he wanted to go slow. Gramps said no, he wanted to go fast. It was a great ride. We did doughnuts, and even Gabby went on it. It was a fairly long ride, but best of all, it was completely free! After that, we went to a few other booths. We left the fair at 3 pm. It was a long, but surprisingly fun day.

One Uppity

Yesterday, my sister got home from a mission trip to Mexico. I was glad she was home, she had been gone for two weeks. I must admit though, I got a little bit jealous. All her stories were way better than mine. (Actual conversation) "So Sarah, I went on a fishing trip in Oregon while you were gone." Her reply, "Danny, I was here for that." Later, "Me and Harrison saw a live cockroach today." Reply, "In Mexico I held a large tarantula... you knew when it was going to bite you because it would raise up its front legs." On and on this went. She even has a great story about being attacked by cacti, lots of cacti. For a while, I was rather tired of her one uppity, but then it struck me that I should be glad she had such a great experience and made it home safely.

Trigger Happy Honker

Today as I was driving home, I learned a good lesson. I was waiting at a red light. The car behind me was waiting too, but with a lot less patience. They honked that I should go. If I had gone at the time they wanted me to, I would have been hit by an SUV. It just goes to show that you can't listen to every honking person.

Today: a day of firsts

Today was a glorious day. It all started with pickle ball with gramps this morning. I played the best I have ever played, and had a great time. Gramps and I had one game where the other team didn't even score or get a chance to serve the ball. It was the first day I felt I had the skills to battle any of the old men, and win.

The next first came when I was cleaning out the backyard of a house. I saw a live cockroach, a big one. It was right here in Washington. I feared for my life in that backyard. It reminded me of a fair (Da Vinci Days in Corvallis, OR) where I held a foot-long African hissing centipede. Its legs, lots of them, felt like velcro crawling across my arm. It was a rather unique feeling. I was having a good time but I decided to stop when its master told me, "if Joey gets scared he will excrete a yellow fluid on your arm." Thankfully, there was no excreting of yellow fluids, but I decided I had held Joey for long enough.

Finally, the last first of the day was when I decided to try out a local gym. I signed up for a free one week trial. We shall see how it goes.

mow, mow, mow your grass

Today I mowed our lawn, and two of our neighbor's lawns. For our yard, I decided to have a little bit of fun as you can see. I was mowing our luscious lawn, and because of all the rain we have been having, it was quite tall. I had a little patch left, so I decided to write "hi" in the grass. If I had more grass to work with, I could have done something more clever, such as "mow me" or something. To achieve this affect, I mowed everywhere except for the letters. Once I had the letters, I raised the mower level to the highest setting and mowed over the letters. It has a neat look to it.

Cheap Entertainment

This day and age it is hard for most people my age to be entertained. They need to be plugged into their xbox or playstation, while listing to an iPod, and texting on a phone. My brother and I have found a much cheaper and more rewarding form of entertainment. It involves aluminum foil, lots of it. We are making a large solid ball of foil. It currently is the size of a volleyball.

A brief side note: aluminum foil is the technical name, it used to be called tin foil, but in the 1910's they switched to aluminum foil because tin altered the foods flavor.

I've never had the newest video game console, all I have is a Nintendo 64, and I play it once a year when my cousin comes to town. Yet, I don't feel like I am missing out. I would much rather make a large aluminum ball.

Costco Food Court Etiquette

Today while at the Costco food court, my pops and I were discussing proper food court etiquette. He said there weren't any rules, so I decided to come up with my own. It is my theory that:

-you shouldn't send one member of a group to "stake out" a table for the group.

What about all the people in front of you? Where will they sit? It also is rather annoying when you are looking for a table and there is one person "reserving" a table for other people. So basically they aren't eating, are no way close to leaving, and are taking up an entire table. This reminds me of traffic jams. A lot of them are caused by people who won't merge until the last second, and make the person behind them slow down. This braking ripples all the way back and causes the back up in the first place. So, they are causing what they are trying to avoid.

In situations such as these, I wonder if people don't think about how their actions affect others, or if they don't care. I would like to try to think of others more than myself.

the first posting

Well, here it is. I have finally decided to create my own blog. As for the name, it is my name scrambled. and=dan and flushot=lofthus. That's me, a scrambled individual. I also created a myspace last night, we'll see how this blogging and myspace thing works out.