My 10-year high school reunion took place last weekend. I was hesitant to go at first, but eventually decided that it would be silly if I didn’t. I’m really happy that I did. It was great to catch up with some folks that I haven’t seen in well over a decade (having spent the last year and half of high school in home or at the hospital), and just being in the same room with so many people that I grew up with.

Tanya and Dee did a great job planning everything, and I was more than happy to be able to help out where I could. I ended up designing the graphic that was used on several items, including etched glasses that were given to everyone. I also made a package of 10 marshmallows for each table setting, plus a few extra – a total of 48 packages! Everyone loved them! There were a couple of close calls during the night, but everything ended just fine.

A bunch of us got together immediately after the reunion ended, and continued the festivities.  Things didn’t end until around 3am Saturday night, at which point most of us admitted that was the latest we’ve been up in a while. If nothing else during the night made me feel old, it was that one comment. It really was hard to believe it had been over a decade since I had seen most of these people, and am not going to loose touch this time around.

Streetlight Manifesto played at a bar right in my neighborhood last Sunday. Their performance was amazing – much better than their performance at Roseland back in January, even with some technical difficulties. Being in a small venue, placing me less than 15 feet away from the stage even while being in the back of the performance area, made for a great view of the stage. I managed to get a few great clips to share with the World Wide Internets:

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 The snow always makes my neighborhood look like it’s in the middle of nowhere, or maybe a Chrismas card. Oh wait, I am in the middle of nowhere…

I think back to my childhood every time it snows. I used to live in a neighborhood filled with children my age and there was an elderly woman who lived across the street. She had a really large yard – it stretched from one street to another. Once in a while, if there was rain after the snowfall, her entire yard would freeze over. It wouldn’t be frozen enough for ice skates or anything, but we’d all lie on our backs and use our legs to push ourselves away from her fence to see how far we could glide across the smooth, cold ground.

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I recently received a message from a classmate asking for a hand with some projects related to our 10 year high school reunion. You know, I think it just hit me that is has been nearly a decade since I was in high school. It’s scary; I tried thinking about some of the time I spent in that cold, white building and really can’t come up with much. Granted, I didn’t really show up to school all that often, but a memory or two would be nice.

Ok, that was a bit of an exaggeration. I do have memories of my time there. They just aren’t the kind that you see on those commercials for teen dramas that are on TV these days. So, let’s see what I remember:

I wore way too many t-shirts with aliens on them.

Debating whether I needed a 28.8 or 33.6Kbps modem for my new computer while in Spanish class. Navegar mas rápido en Internet!

A classmate of mine ran out of global studies class to vomit after eating 4 slices of pizza and a pinwheel, bacon egg and cheese on a roll, some chocolate chip cookies and a quart of milk. I’ll never forget to look of relief on his face when I went looking to make sure he was still alive.

The same classmate threw a pencil at our 9th grade bio teacher’s head and was suspended for a couple of days. She used to give him a hard time and was overly nice to me, in a creepy way. I don’t know how, but she managed to go from an old beaten up LeMans to a beautifully restored 70′s Firebird. I swear she must have been making meth in the office behind our classroom or something…

Watching Reel Big Fish videos at the local pizzeria.

A lot of things are said in locker rooms that wouldn’t be any where else, but I think I heard the strangest reply to a comment back in 11th grade gym class. This kid went up to a friend and said “Wow, you have really hairy legs.” My friend instantly replied, “If you think my legs are hairy, you should see my balls!” I think he was serious. He’s a lawyer now.

I have one last memory in mind, and this is a really good one. I’m not even withholding names this time.

There was this guy named Adam that I went to school with. I’m sure he’s OK now, but he was a real dick back then. One day, before out computer programming class began, he clotheslined me by my locker. It was one of those “what the fuck!?” moments and I didn’t even know how to react at the time. My locker happened to be in the hall just outside of the classroom, so most of my classmates saw what happened. None of them were amused and a few seemed to have plans for Adam.

Our teacher, who was honestly my favorite teacher ever and got me doing what I ended up turning in to a career, left us alone for a few minutes so that he could use the rest room. As soon as he was down the hall, this kid David jumped over a row of tables and somehow managed to get Adam’s neck under his knee while sitting in the chair next to him. I have no clue exactly how he managed to make it happen, but it totally justified our calling him “The Afro-American Ninja.” Anyway, David starts slapping Adam around a bit and another kid, Ryan, joins in. I’m just sitting at my station laughing while all of this is happening. I’m sure it was expected that I’d join in, but I was having a great time watching the show. This went on for several minutes, until another classmate heard our teacher coming back to the classroom. Dave slid under the row of tables he jumped over earlier and Ryan returned to his seat. Our teacher walked back in and saw Adam, his face red with anger, and asked what was going on. Adam immediately jumped towards Ryan, so I decided to get in the middle to break things up and gave him a good punch in the process. Our teacher, who was truly oblivious of the entire incident, thanked me for preventing a senseless fight between Adam and Ryan and continued with the day’s lesson. I think that day’s lesson was “don’t be a dick.”

Despite all of these strange memories and the lack of others over those 4 years, I really am excited to be able to catch up with all of the people that I lost touch with and hope that it all goes well. It looks like I’ll be putting a site together for the reunion, so it looks like my recent interest in WordPress will pay off after all.

Until next time, remember; Don’t be a dick.