My fellow americans,

I had a good story lined up for today about an incident during karate practice in my young impressionable years, but I think something far more important out weighs this silly anecdote of my life. Today they lifted the 32 year old handgun ban in Washington D.C. or as I like to call it, home.

I have bragged and ranted over the fact that I believe I need a gun to ward off urban predators from my residence, but secretly deep inside this rugged, handsome exterior, their lies a scared little boy hiding underneath of the bed waiting for something terrible to come looking for him. I am pretty good at hide and go seek. Now its not that I think that guns are evil, or that I don’t believe in the right to bear arms. I am just scared that now there might be more guns in the hands of the ignorant.

Now there is a point to be made that now I have the right to own a weapon. If you know me this is a bad idea. Let’s just say for example that it wasn’t a bad idea for me to own a gun. What would I do with one, have a showdown in the middle of Florida Avenue with some crazy? I mean if someone pulls a gun on me, am I going to pull a gun out and say, “Sorry buddy, maybe next time”?

I guess what I am really saying is that I don’t know how safe I feel now that I know every man woman and child is going out to buy firearms, especially since I will not be a part of this whole fad. Or will I?

Now I can commence in story time.

It’s funny what you can remember. (sorry Forrest) Growing up, I played sports like most youth and I had kind support and enthusiasm from my parents. My mother would buy me the equipment and my father would take me to the games and yell the same three to five letter word depending on the sport. For example if I was playing soccer he would yell, “shoot!” over and over again. Sometimes he would yell “run!” If I was lucky he would yell back and forth between “shoot!” and “run!” This was the man that raised me. I could probably write ten stories about him, and I probably will. Getting back to the point, he would always tell me, like all good parents should, “never quit.” No matter how much I hated what I was doing, he would never let me quit. Ah yes that is until I found my sac and told him to stop running my life (I have been an asshole since 5).

I can remember the first thing I quit, karate. Ah yes, Tae Kwon Doe, the Korean sensation that swept the nation. Think early 90s. Bright colors, parachute pants, bugle boys, MC Hammer were all in style. Apparently so was karate.

There I was, stretching in a large group of young and old wearing my clean freshly bleached white gee adorned by a belt depicting my rank. I was a purple belt three belts below the sacred black belt and I could do a flying side kick. I remember looking at the instructor mid butterfly stretch and thinking, “my does he have impressive facial hair.” About a second later he was looking at me shaking his head and I knew why. I had just done the most embarrassing thing a young boy could do in a room full of silent people. Farted.

I think the sound bounced around the room a couple of times which gave me just enough time to run crying from the cafeteria in which the karate lessons were held. My mother was there and she comforted me and told me it was alright and even bought me a late night grape soda, unthinkable. Stupid Chuck Norris looking instructor ruined my career as the greatest karate champion ever.

First Official Blog...Ever

Hello world,

This is pretty intimidating when I think about it. It's like walking around in that hospital gown with your ass hanging out; I feel exposed. Although I know only five people might read this unedited version of my life, I don't know how I feel about random people getting a good look into my personal life. Therefore, I have tried to be as anonymous as possible, and with luck I will slowly expose myself to my readers.

I guess I should start with some background. I live in DC actually in lovely Bloomingdale, an up and coming neighborhood next to Howard University. I moved to DC from the University of Maryland, where I attend graduate school for mechanical engineering. Unfortunately for me, I had to stay at the same university I did my undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering. I guess you could call me a rocket scientist, but I'm no brain surgeon. Little engineering humor. I grew up like most children do, in a small town in Howard County, Maryland where I learned that small towns breed boredom, intolerance, and an affection for farming equipment. Not that I am saying anything bad about my town, but the best thing we have is a 24 hr McDonalds. So for right now I am trying to do the grown up thing. Pay my rent, buy my own groceries, not ask mom and dad for money, drink heavily. It's hard trying to be independent as a student making 40K less that what you could be making in the real world, but I guess that's the story of my life.

I guess the next logical step is to to tell you readers why I am blogging. My girlfriend blogs and she is pretty good at it, shes got a great sense of humor. Check it out at brokeindc.blogspot.com. I think I am featured in a few of them. I want to share the subtle humor, anger, terror, and occasional love that I feel on a regular basis. I would say the first three emotions are the ones I jump to first, love, well that only really strikes me when I am not feeling the other three.

Now that that (is two thats' correct english) is over with I will start kick off this blog with one of my infamous story. I like to call this story the "Sandblaster." It probably isn't the best story to begin with and it is vulgar and disgusting so if you are at work and don't want someone going "What Are You Reading!" I would close the page now and pick it up at home.

During my time as an undergraduate I had a plethora of adventures filled with humor, and terror, but one that is memorable just for shear vulgarity is my "sandblaster" story. Let me begin, it was a warm day, the kind that you wake up to at 5 pm and go "yes, I am going to happy hour." I put on my shorts, flip flops, trendy shirt and started to make that quarter mile journey to one of the 3 University of Maryland Bars (yes at this time there was no Thirsty Turtle). I can remember feeling good and unattached to any work because I had made sure I didn't have anything to do on this day.
About half way into my journey, I felt the smallest stomach contraction. The kind you get when you just drank too much coffee, only I didn't have any coffee at 5 pm. I mean I was rested from the 12 hours of sleep I had just got. I thought to myself, meh, its nothing. Then about a minute later and 3 blocks away from my destination, it happened again. Only it wasn't a small gurgle anymore it was the kind where you knew that if you didn't find a toilet in 30 seconds it was bad news bears. I instantly grab my butt, like that will do anything, and begin to run. Not a normal run, but the kind where you are running on your toes and you are hunched over almost in a sitting position. I began thinking at lightning speed, where can I diarrhea in peace and cleanliness. So my obvious decision was to go to California Tortilla, I mean no one ever goes there right (except for me secretly). I bust into the restaurant like I was about to case the joint and blew past the cashier and burrito artists to the men's room. I remember thinking I almost didn't make it as I rushed to take off my shorts.
I probably missed the waistband of my sexy boxers by a half an inch when all of a sudden my sphincter said, "I can't take this anymore" and I released my BM into what I thought was the toilet with shotgun like power. Unfortunately, for me I have a phobia of sitting on strange toilets without any kind of seat cover. I turn back to see the damage and low and behold I have completely missed the boat. I like to compare the color and texture to raw ground beef and it was all over the back of the seat, floor, wall and I managed to get a tiny amount into the toilet.
Looking back, I guess my trajectory was wrong. Aerospace/Physice humor. I managed to clean up most of it, but I definitely left a mess for the janitor. The best part of this story was that there was no need for wipeage. I guess all is well that ends well. At least for me, not the poor minimum wage worker that had to clean that up, my bad. So I guess if you have any experience with power washing, or sand blasting, the visual image for the story I just told is probably ten fold on the gross factor. That's why I have entitled it the "Sandblaster."