Only Me

There are many things that happen to a person, and they think, this could only happen to me. With me, it seems that not only are these things happening a lot, but there is always someone there with me to verify the story.



Seagull- When I was in San Diego, I visited Sea World. The bottom line of the story is I was leaning over into the seal tank, got attacked by a sea gull, which in turn slammed my head into the railing. Within 2 seconds, I had busted open my bottom lip with blood everywhere, and the seagull had cut open my cheek. I was cussing and yelling, then I realized there were little kids there, and all I could do was laugh. My girlfriend who was with me at the time was half scared, half laughing at me. From that point on, I am petrified of birds attacking me.

Cat in the House- About 2 months ago, our neighbor lost her cat. A week later, she came up to me and said that she saw and heard her cat in our guest bedroom(the fact that she was peeking in that room is creepy, but that is a different story). Anyway, she came over two days later and searched our house, and found her cat living in the house. The first thing that jumps out is that I have a beagle that barks at everything, and somehow this cat lived in the house for a week without my dog knowing. The other thing was I was off work all week, and I too did not see the cat living there. I am not sure how it got in or how it lived there for a week, but there is no way that could happen to anyone else.

My dad flooding the basement- This story is only great if you know me and my father and how we act around each other. I had just bought my own house, and he was over helping me with some stuff around the house. My basement was finished and had a nice leather couch set and big screen tv and all that in it. The outside hose had a little leak in it, so he was outside putting a new hose on. I was upstairs pulling up some carpet and I heard this screaming coming from downstairs, yelling at me to come down there. I get to the top of the basement stairs, and I see my dad standing there underneath a part of my ceiling with water pouring down on him. Within 20 seconds, most of my ceiling collapsed in on him, and 2 of the main water pipes busted and my basement was turning into a water park. This all came from him trying to do work to all the pipes to fix this drip outside. I ended up having to get a whole new basement, and from that point on, I still think my dad is sad and upset about the whole thing. Me and him both know, that no other person would have been able to flood a whole basement just by putting a new hose on out front.

Airbag exploding- I was driving home from college with one of my buddies in the passenger seat. It was the middle of the day on 81 north(major highway), but there was no traffic around. Out of nowhere, my airbag explodes on my face, and I slam on the brakes, and swerve all the way over and nudge the guardrail. Me and Matt are so confused and amazed at what just happened, we don't even the time to flip out. The rest of my car was fine, so after realizing what happened, we got back in and drove back to Bmore with my busted airbag hanging out of the wheel. I tried to sue Honda, and get money from them, and nothing ever happened with them.



Cops coming to Kenilworth at 1am for the flood- It was a Thursday night during the ncaa tourney and we had been out watching the games, and we got home and went to bed at around midnight. About an hour later, I hear a loud banging on the front door, and I get up and look out my window, and see 2 cops outside with their flash lites shining on the house. I get a sick feeling in my stomach, due to everything bad that goes on at that house. I go downstairs to open the door, fully expecting for them to come in, search the house and arrest me and Tommy. Instead I open the door, and the cops yell at me that we have to evacuate the house right away, because of a massive flood happening on my street. I clear my eyes, and I see that the whole block is under a foot of water and people are running down the street. Our house was right in the middle of the flood, and all the water was running down our driveway and down the side of our house. I go and wake Tommy up, and we end up never leaving the house, but just standing at the door and watching this. A pipe had busted at the top of the street, it collapsed the road, and 2 cars fell in the hole. This went on until about 4am. Tommy's car was in the driveway, so all the water was rushing under his car the whole night( he had a big truck high off the ground). My car, on the other hand, was parked on the street and was being crushed with water all night.
The next morning(at around 630 am) everyone is out on the street looking at the damage. Before we went outside, I started getting calls, bc our house and my car were on the news. News crews were only allowed to go to a certain point down the road, and the cut-off was our house.
My car had about 1.5 feet of standing water in it, and it was covered in by rocks and stones from the flood tearing up the sidewalk( imagine a car being surrounded and buried in by snow). There is no way that whole thing could have happened to anyone else except me.


There are some other things (my engagement and wedding and how that ended, my arrest, etc...) but those are for another time.

Brad Carey

I have written some opinions and thoughts on here before that have been very mean and very negative towards certain people. I am not sure why I always frown on negative people and dwell on bad influences and fake friends, when there are people like Brad that I could be writing about.

I could go on and on about the pros of him, but the bottom line is, he is one of only 3 people that I am friends with, that I consider a nice, true, honest person. He will 100 out of 100 times do the right thing, never cut a corner, never bend a rule, etc... I can't say that about most people I know, even my best friends. He is someone that if every person modeled their life after his, the world would be a better place.

New York

I went to New York last weekend and stayed with Hall, and then went to the Ravens/Giants game on Sunday. Normally, a weekend in New York is no big deal, and I have a pretty good idea of what I am getting myself into. This weekend was 100% different then any weekend I have ever had up there, and it showed me a lot about myself. It showed me that I don't need all the things that I am used to, and I can have a great time with my friends and with myself, not being crazy.



I wanted to get out of Bmore for a weekend, and even though I normally party pretty hard when I am up in NYC, I knew it was going to be good for me to get away. I had no idea it would be like this.



I arrived Friday night, and by the time I got to his apt, it was about 1130pm. In Ny, that doesn't matter, so we hung out at his apt for a little bit and then walked down the street to a local bar. This was already different then the other trips, bc we were not in the heart of the city, and we were not in a big group getting wasted. We went to this bar and stayed there until about 330, no shots, no blacking out, just a couple of drinks talking and catching up. We got late night food, and then went back to his place. The next day we woke up, and started our day. My normal Saturday consists of waking up and watching game day. I then eat and drink all day starting at 12, and watch every single football game on tv. By 4, I am normally buzzed or already drunk, and getting ready to meet a group of guys to drink more and watch more football. I then party all night, and wake up sunday hung over, and do the whole thing again.



This Saturday was 100% opposite. We woke up, and his fiance made us breakfast. We hung out for a little bit and watched some dvd's(he doesn't have cable). We then left his apt and walked around Brooklyn and the Brook. Bridge and all that. We were outside and walking around just chilling for most of the day form about 12-3. We then got back to his apt(I hadn't drank or watched any football) and we showered and changed and went and grabbed a late lunch. At the bar, we ate some lunch, but didn't even drink. We chilled in his apt(I took a nap) then at night, we went to his cousin's house for a nice, sit-down dinner party. It was about 11 of us, and there was some wine and liquor drank, but nothing crazy, and nothing in excess. It was mature grown-ups sitting around having a good time. No tv blaring, no flip cup, no gambling, etc.. After the dinner party, we went home, and didn't go out any more that night.

That was the exact weekend that I needed.

Enabler

As I reflect back on my teenage years, and how that has affected me now, I realize that a lot of the things I do, I probably wouldn't have done in such excess if it was not allowed to such a degree. We all have those people's parents who growing up let them get away with more things then others, but no one had the type of parents like our one friend. His parents were not only very laid back, but they way they encouraged us to party, drink, gamble, hook up, etc.... lead to some crazy times. Looking back on it, I can see why none of our parents wanted us over there and around that type of lifestyle.



These parents were probably the most loving set of parents towards their kids, that I have ever been around. The problem was, they let them get away with so much, that it rubbed off on us, and for that reason, we, as a group, would never leave there.

As we got older, the behavior stayed the same. Now, it was ok for us to all get hammered, have parties, bring girls over, and do all that in their house, only now we could all drive home after getting hammered all night. Again, at the time, we thought this was the best thing ever, but the more I think about it, I will never, ever want my kid to be around an environment like that.



Starting freshman year in high school, we all knew this house as the place we could go any day of the week and do whatever we wanted in the basement. We knew that no matter what, we could get away with anything, and nothing mattered. An example would be a Monday night when we would go to get all you can eat wings. We would go there after, and if we had a GF we wanted to hook up with, but we couldn't bc our parents didn't want them in the house for some reason, people would take that girl to this house, while the kids that live there were out eating, and they would just drink a beer and hook up in the basement. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but looking back, we had parents letting kids that are not their own, come over where their own kids are not home and drink and hook up in the basement. That is just one example, but over time, this started happening over and over, day after day, week after week, etc...



Then the parties started happening, and things at this house really took off. We all knew as his friends, that when Friday came, we would pretty much all be crashing at this house all weekend. We also knew that where ever the high school party was that weekend, whenever it got busted, the whole world would show up at this one house where we were. When it came out that his mom was a lawyer and she kept helping us, that is really where things got bad.



We had this women who was already encouraging 14-18 year old kids to party, drink, get high, have sex, etc. in her basement, was also going to court with us and getting us out of any trouble we were in. Speeding tickets, possession of drugs, dui's, dwi's, drunk in public, it didn't matter. She would to go court, and we would get it thrown out. Years of that, gives you this complex that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, because no matter what, you are above the law. It is because of this, that I do not judge her own kids for the decisions that they make in life, because they have lead their whole life like this, and I would act the exact same way if my parents were like that.



Over the years, these parents became so ok, with what we were doing, they started encouraging their sons to have parties, have everyone over and get as wasted as possible, gamble all night, and do whatever, as long as you didn't drive home. I understand the concept behind their thinking, but over all, the way they enabled us to do whatever we wanted, was not good for any of us in the long run.



I am not blaming my actions today on what happened in the past, I am merely saying, that it didn't help.

Love Songs

People think of love songs and they think slow and cheesy songs with a good message. Some of the best love songs I have ever heard are all hip hop and/or rap songs, and it bothers me that they don't get the credit they deserve.
I think it is impossible to find 4 better love songs then the ones listed below.
I cant wait- Akon
The Light- Common
You're all I need- Method Man and Mary J. Blige
i just called to say I love you- Stevie wonder

I know there are other good love songs, but songs like these do not get the credit that they deserve strictly because of who sings them and/or the genre of music they are.