Bikes on Christmas

I think, or at least hope, everyone has a story of when they were a little kid and they got something really cool as a gift. I remember when I was growing up, it took me a really long time to learn to ride a bike. My Dad always got frustrated trying to teach me, since I was too scared to stay on and not crash, he didn't have much patience for it. My sister ended up teaching me (thanks Steph!) but I remember it not being until around 2nd grade I think. The bike I learned on was not very impressive. It was a little red huffy with Batman stickers that I don't think I personally put on. Huffys weren't exactly the talk of the town when I was growing up, and I was quickly outgrowing the bike. That year was one of the few times a video game didn't top my Christmas list; I wanted a new bike.

I remember that morning. Being the youngest child, my job was "Santa." This didn't mean I had to give people gifts while they slept, but rather that I had the job of passing out everyone's gifts to them. I'm blessed with a great family. My parents didn't do too much on birthdays, but they really went all out on Christmas. With six people in the house and a set of higher ups that loved the holiday, the space under the tree was overflowing. I had to sort through every gift one by one and pass them out to the people, who added them to their pile. Once the gifts were passed out, we all started our flurry of opening. Often times things would get lost in the shuffle of joy, and I was guilty too. I blitzed through the boxes of clothes, ravaged through cards, etc. I wanted that bike. When I got to the end of the gifts, they were all nice, but there was no bike.

I didn't know what to feel. Why didn't I get the bike? Why couldn't these gifts have been conglomerated into the bike? What the heck, Mom and Dad? This was ridiculous. There was no excuse. I think I was so flabbergasted I didn't know what to think. My Dad had the audacity to tell me to pass out gifts when he knew I wouldn't get what I wanted. What a jerk.

"Andy, could you go turn off the coffee maker?"

Oh geez, now he wants me to turn off the coffee maker. Its not enough that I spent all morning slaving away passing out happiness to others, now I had to run errands for him. Nice Christmas. My Dad barely drank coffee anyway, why did he turn on the maker now, and why couldn't he do it himself? This was the worst Christmas ever. Begrudgingly, I got up and walked towards the kitchen, past the couch my Dad sat on.

There it was. It was a Swish Shimano, if I remember correctly. It had six speeds, and felt like a dream. My Dad somehow had sneaked it behind the couch; maybe it had been there the whole time, maybe it hadn't. I don't know. I reveled in the moment; my parents hadn't abandoned me to despair. I didn't have to ride the junky huffy through the streets anymore. I could ride my bike to school with pride. Then I realized what I had to do. I had to turn off the coffee maker for my Dad. My Dad came through for me, so I had to come through for him. When I arrived though, I found the coffee maker had never been turned on in the first place.

"Dad, the coffee maker isn't on."

With a face I'll remember the rest of my life, my Dad seemed to both smirk and sigh at my total ignorance at the same time.

"Yes, I know son."

Diablo II and My First All-Nighter

I didn't play a lot of PC games when I was a kid. We always had consoles, and even offbeat stuff like The Sega Channel (Shoutouts to TCI Cable.) The few games I did play on PC were too slow for my young mind. That all changed when Diablo II came out. Diablo II's gameplay is the epitome of "simple, yet effective." Your goal is to kill the big bad demon at the end of the game, and en route you kill a bunch of smaller demons. You do this by left clicking your man around the world with the mouse, and right clicking on enemies to use a certain skill. Its really not that much more advanced than that. When we got Diablo II, I was hooked pretty fast.

Diablo II came out in the summer going into my Freshman year of High School. I had recently become re-acquainted with two of my best friends, Joe and Kevin, and we all decided to play the game "together." I quote this word because online play back then was somewhat primitive, and so most of the game was actually done in single player sessions, which would be verbally explained whenever we got together (which was almost every day that summer.) When we did decide to play online, it was often buggy, and we wouldn't always be at the same point in the game, so if you were more advanced in the game, then you spent your time helping the others along.

I distinctly remember the first time we decided to play at night. My parents had forbid me from playing video games past 10 PM, so I had to use alternate means. I went to sleep at 9:30 or so, and lied in my bed waiting for the right time. My parents went to sleep around 10:45 or so, and I was ready. I had kept the door cracked the entire night waiting for the light to turn off. I knew I had to wait until they finished brushing their teeth and all that, so it was all a very tense affair. Eventually I felt confident enough sneaking downstairs, where the computer was, and getting it going. I had to remain basically silent the entire night. I couldn't even chance wearing headphones, as it would mean I wouldn't be able to hear my parents waking up unexpectedly. I played in near silence that whole night. I think the biggest struggle was containing my giggling. I was on an adrenaline high that whole night, and Joe and Kevin are funny guys even in text, so playing the entire night like that was quite possibly the thrill of my life. Like all good things, it had to end. At 4 AM or so, I called it quits. When my friends asked me why, I told them that my Dad was going to wake up soon (he's an early riser) and I was supposed to be asleep 6 hours ago. I sneaked back up to my room, put the covers over, and went to sleep without anyone the wiser.

The next morning, I was rudely awakened by Kevin. The three of us had sort of an unspoken rule to not initiate contact before at least 10 AM so that we could sleep in/etc. Nonetheless, bright and early at 7 AM, a mere three hours later, Kevin arrived. I was pretty angry. Did he not remember the night of glee we'd just had? Why violate this law on this day, of all days? It turned out Kevin hadn't broken any creeds. It was 2 PM. I was so tired from my first all nighter I could barely see straight. I knew I had to wake up though; sleeping in any longer would be even more suspicious. I zombie'd myself down the stairs only to be greeted by my Mom happily wondering why I was so tired. I calmly explained to her that the rigors of being a 13 year old in the Foster City Summer are very stressful, and this had been a long week. Amazingly, no more questions were asked. I left the house with the hopes of rejuvenating myself by the sun, and reveling in my accomplishment.

I tried the same thing a couple weeks later and got caught. I think I tried too many things; I left a light on, I used a little sound, I giggled a lot. My Mom caught me, sent me immediately to bed, and I don't think I ever tried it again. Some people ask how one can stay up all night playing video games, and the fact of the matter is that I might as well have been playing tiddlywinks all night; I was having an adventure, and I was doing it with my friends. The simplistic game of Diablo II was just a medium. Even though the punishment I received later scared me away for a long time of doing it again, at least I got a story out of it.

Another Reason I'm Weird: Shoeless Running

I've talked a lot about my old playin days. Like any good grizzled veteran (or someone who likes to think of themselves as such) I've got my war stories. Few, if any, are better than the day I ran the 2 mile championship at League Finals. Let's recap.

At this point I already didn't really like running, and the 2 mile wasn't my best race. Running the 2 mile was the safety school for competitive running for me; if I didn't make it to the sectional meet in the 1 mile, I would at least make it in the 2 mile. The meet that day was at Sequoia High School if I remember correctly. The track was nice; brand new I believe. The 2 mile doesn't start the same as sprint races. In a sprint, the runners are in what's called a "Staggered Start" where each runner takes their own lane and their starting point is slightly adjusted to compensate for the longer curves they may have to run. Distance runs on the track use a "Waterfall Start" or what I like to call a "Ghetto Stagger." Instead of running in heats of 8 with everyone in their own lane, they just smush everyone into the same race and have them stagger as best they can. The formation ends up just being sort of an upward slope, or a waterfall formation, as being on the outside only gets you maybe a step or two in front of the inside lane.

I was somewhat in the middle of the pack. There was a tier of runners that were flat out better than me; two guys from Menlo Atherton and two twin brothers from Carlmont were in that tier, but I think I had a chance to beat anyone else in that race. As the whistle blew in that race there was a lot of jockeying for position. You start out on a curve, so everyone is breaking inwards to lessen the distance on the curve. You're supposed to wait until you have a full stride on the gentleman next to you before you broke in, but this rule gets violated in the beginning. Everyone is so desperate to get away from the outside but not be boxed in by slower runners in the inside that there ends up being a lot of elbowing and such. This isn't intentional for the most part, but it happens. As I come around the turn, someone near me stepped on the back of my foot, flat tiring me. This isn't normally a huge deal; with all the bodies flying around I've had my shoe stepped on before. Unfortunately this flat tire was so severe that it caused my foot to come right out of my shoe.

This wasn't good. As my family can attest to, I wasn't the best about tying my shoes growing up; heck, I didn't even learn to tie my shoe until I was in second grade. I remedied this in sports though, and danged if that shoe wasn't a full triple knot with authority. That knot was specifically designed to not be undone by mortal hands. You ever fear you stepped in something en route to the office, and you spend the rest of the walk there scraping your foot on the ground in the hopes of getting whatever it is off? I basically did a more pronounced version of that maneuver the rest of the first lap. I probably looked like I had no business running in that race with such bad form, and it didn't help. I came around for the end of lap 1 in just as sorry of a state as I was in earlier. The shoe was a nuisance at this point. I couldn't let it just hang there for the remaining seven laps. I had two options.

1) Stop. Untie the shoe (maybe with a needle or something?) Put the foot back in. Re-tie the shoe. Keep going.

As we've discussed, this would take a very long amount of time. There's no way I'm getting that shoe untied in less than a minute, much less putting my foot in and re-tying it aptly (I'm still not great at tying shoes.) This just wasn't viable. I had to go with option 2:

2) Forget the dang shoe. I have races to run.

As I came around to the last straight of the first lap, my coach was equally as confused as I was. I pointed to the shoe, used my AYSO training to kick that shoe into the infield at my poor, beleaguered mentor, and kept running. I figured I've got soul; I didn't need sole! I ran that race with one shoe. Boy, let me tell you, I looked as stupid as you think I did. I could visibly see laughs from the side, and couldn't get my mind off of how dumb I looked. You know what the nutty thing about it was?

I ran my best two mile that day.

Call it nerves; call it undue stress from past experiences; call it whatever you want. The fact of the matter is that I ran my best race that day, and I've never run two miles that fast since. My foot finished the race looking like Mr. Deeds', and my coach used that tale as an inspirational/motivational story for a while afterwards when people complained of soreness. In the midst of all the intense competition, that moment will always stay with me. It may have been the stupidest I've ever felt in a race, but at least I got a story out of it.

Another Reason I'm Weird: Ted Lilly

I've met a fair amount of celebrities in my life. I worked my way through college waiting tables, and occasionally we would get someone of note coming in to eat. I've met athletes, musicians, dignitaries, actors, and thoroughly embarrassed myself around at least 80% of them. I don't think any such encounter was more awkward though than when I met Ted Lilly.

I was living in Davis. I went out to have breakfast with a good friend of mine named Jordan; I think it was on a weekday in October or November. As we walked to our table at the Davis IHOP, I passed by a man and got that jolt inside my head. You know that feeling when you recognize something, but you can't put your finger on where its from? This hit me hard. As we sat down, I asked my friend a question and didn't listen to the response unfortunately (I apologize, by the way, Jordan.) As he talked, I began rummaging through my mental archives to try and figure out from where I knew that face, but I couldn't figure it out. To my great benefit, Jordan suddenly had to take a call, so I was free to ponder without interruption.

There isn't a good way to creepily keep sneaking looks at the guy two tables down in an empty IHOP, but I did it anyway. My nature often compels me to figure such things out before I can go on, so I was determined to figure it out. I went through my mental processes. I figured it had to be someone whose face I saw on a daily basis that I could recognize him out of context at a moment's glance. Was he a friend of the family? No, that wasn't it. Was he a musician? No, I don't look at album covers enough. Was he an actor? No. He was a baseball player! He was Ted Lilly!

I imagine most of you don't know who Ted Lilly is, so let me give you some background. Lilly was a late round draft pick by the Dodgers in 1996, who started with the Expos in 1999, and played for the Expos, Yankees, Blue Jays, Cubs, and most importantly, the A's. Lilly was a member of the starting rotation when the A's made the playoffs in 2002 and 2003, and I was a big fan. Lilly is somewhat the epitome of "Solid but unspectacular." He'll probably never win the Cy Young, but he's a good #2 starter, or a great #3 starter. Every winning team needs a Ted Lilly to be a rock of consistency when the team scuffles. Combine my love of the A's with a recent pension for picking him up in my Fantasy Baseball leagues, and I knew it was him. I quickly looked him up on what primitive version of the internet my Motorola RAZR phone had, and confirmed my suspicions.

Just then, Jordan came back in, and I told him what I had figured out. Jordan, not being much of a baseball fan, thought it was neat, but didn't really care. I, on the other hand, was somewhat freaking out. As you can see from the picture, Ted Lilly is a normal looking guy. He's also a normal acting guy, as I'm not sure how many pro athletes would eat at the IHOP in the offseason. As I pondered these things, he got up to leave with his friends. I jolted myself to an alert status as I had to figure out what to do. Would I introduce myself? Would I simply allow him to go about his day? No, I had to talk to him. I had to absolutely confirm my suspicions. So with a mix of resolve and nerves, I sauntered up to him in the otherwise empty IHOP, and asked him:

Me: Excuse me?

He turned around slowly, with a plain face. "Yes?"

Me: Hi. Umm. This might sound strange, but...are you Ted Lilly?

Him: "Yeah, how's it going."

It wasn't so much of a question as it was a statement. How's it going. He didn't think it was special, even if I did. Unfortunately, I hadn't really thought my cunning plan through past the first step. To use the South Park model, my plan went something like: 1) Inquire about Ted Lilly's Reality. 2) ??? 3) Profit. It wasn't foolproof, but regardless, I had to improvise step 2. There are a number of acceptable follow ups here. "I'm a big fan!" "I followed you when you were on the A's!" "You pitched great this year for the Cubs!" Any of these things are fine. To expect anything of such normality from me, though, is folly. I went with something unique:

"You're on my fantasy baseball team!"

Think about that. The reason I admired him was because his digital presence inflated the numbers of my virtual fake baseball game. To speak nothing of his actual baseball ability, which was good, I instead pointed out how his digital presence was to my profit. It wasn't until a few minutes later, after he quickly excused himself, that I realized how weird that was. You, Ted Lilly, are a great asset. May I shake your hand? Oh, you don't want to join me at my table and enjoy Belgian Waffles? I don't understand, but wish you well anyway.

I don't think a lot of people would recognize Ted Lilly at the Davis IHOP, but leave it to the one guy who does to totally make it a laughable experience. Oh well, at least I got a story out of it.