The Many Adventures of Commander Awesome

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Trashy.

So CCU has this time-honored club that meets once every Tuesday to do an extremely important task. Steeped in legend and tradition, this club is named after its primary purpose - taking out the trash.

Thats right, all you UNR/Nevada-livers! I joined the Trash Club!

My first run with the TC was amazing... right up my alley. We began here in The Ghetto, with our chant - "1, 2, 3, 4, get that trash up off the floor! 5, 6, 7, 8, break that bag and separate! Trash Club! Trash Club! Traaaaash Club!" And then we began. The technique is simple: divide into three groups, each one in charge of a floor. Once you get all the trash off that floor, you call out "clear!" And then you run and slam-dunk the trash into the pickup truck. But there's more than that...

You see, the Trash Club has multiple amazing rituals. First off, every time we go to a girls' stairwell, we either sing a song or perform a skit. Here's an example of one of the skits:

It's called "Starcrossed Lovers." (The entire thing was done in beautiful, fluent Spanish.)

Two of the guys lay on the table, embracing. The rest of us stand in a line off stage. The first person walks up and calls out incredulously, "Francisco? Laurita?" The two sit up, startled, and reply, "Taco! Taco, burrito, burrito! Gato!" The intruder, horrified, yells out, "Gato? Taco taco! Quesadilla taco!" The second person (me) walks up and began yelling, "Que hay debajo del sombrero? Taco quesadilla!" The yelling match continues for several minutes until the final person walks in and calms everyone down. Once we all stop yelling, he says, "Chipotle!" And everyone laughs outrageously.

Next we arrived in front of the Junkyard, and I was told the story about The Secret: Once, there was a young man who wanted to know the secret that separates men from women. So the boy left CCU to go on his journey. He walked through the freezing north, across the blazing desert, over the highest mountains, through wide valleys, past a huge forest, and finally he came to a monstrous plateau. Once he scaled the plateau, he looked around and suddenly discovered the secret! Excited beyond belief, he sprinted back past the forest, through the valleys, over the mountains, across the desert, and was almost back to CCU when he vanished. No one has seen him since, and the secret disappeared along with him. But its said that on cold, dark nights such as this one, you can hear him whisper.

Everyone immediately froze, dead silent and listening. Then they jumped suddenly. "I heard it!" One said excitedly. We all listened again, and everyone whispered, "we've got junk." "What?" the storyteller said. And they repeated, "We've got junk, we've got junk, we've got junk, we've got junk!" They repeated over and over, slowly growing in volume. Soon they were yelling, and in between each "We've got junk!" The story teller would point to the Junkyard behind us and yell, "Yard!" Then we all yelled and did our chant again.

Yeah. Awesome. But it gets better!

After we finished the freshman dorms, we parked the truck and everyone began shouting, "To the land of milk and honey!" And leapt from the truck, running. We marched up the stairs of the first upperclassmen housing unit, La Plata, stomping as loud as we could and banging on the walls, chanting in rhythm. We reached the top story and found only one door open. Entering, we found a table full of cookies, chocolate wontons, and Kool-Aide. We the feasted, and I was told the story of the Great Wise Eagle. (It's too long and too mystical to be put in a blog.)

Lastly, we split up to cover the remaining four upperclassmen apartment complexes. I was with two guys, Eli and Chris, and upon entering the second story of Kit Carson, we were faced with virtual mountains of garbage.... it was a trashy night. On our second trip down the stairs to the dumpster, I was told the last and most amazing story of the night - the story of the Great White Wilkin.

The Great White Wilkin was the greatest trash clubber to ever pick up a leaky bag of old Chinese food. He stood 8 feet tall and had old soda cans for teeth. He could carry 50 bags of garbage on each finger, and on one blizzarding night when the temperature was -13, he cleaned out every single stairwell and upperclassmen complex alone, because everyone else was sick with pneumonia.

After this, we drove by the dumpsters and deposited all the stinking garbage, with many truck-to-dumpster leaps and pile drives. It was pretty much an amazing night, and I can't wait until next Tuesday, when I'll dawn my Mexican Luchadore mask and take ti the trash once more.

Byah!

Friday, October 3, 2008

Status Update...

So on the website Facebook, (for those of you who don't have one,) they have this little box at the top of your page where you can enter status updates. A lot of the time, the box becomes the prime example of internet illiteracy and/or "too excited to type words" syndrome. (i.e. "Katie is OMG!!1! I CATN BELEEVE HE SAYD THAT TO MEEE!!!!!1")

I thought for this blog I'd just do a boatload of updates that kinda paint a picture of what college life has been like recently;

NOTE: None of the updates are in order, I just put them down as I thought of them. They cover a time period of about three weeks.

Daniel is...

... nervous about his upcoming tests in New Testament, Biology, and Macroeconomics.

... amazed at how much you can learn with two hours, a quiet room, and three or four textbooks.

... mad that Wal-Mart is so incompetent and yet so successful.

... trying to get a job at The Olive Garden, St. Anthony's Hospital, Office Max, and pretty much anywhere else within walking distance.

... afraid that he won't have enough money to make it through next semester.

... just now remembering how much he loves classic Disney movies.

... wondering what the weather's like in Dayton.

... super disappointed at how terribly he preformed at his chapel worship team tryout.

... addicted to the TV show Scrubs.

... frustrated at the low prank potential of his stairwell.

... excited to be drumming at the first Novo service this Sunday.

... trying to get better at Foosball, longboarding, volleyball, football, and pretty much every other activity he sucked at in high school.

... psyched at the results of his New Testament, Biology, and Macroeconomics tests!

... amazed that midterms are right around the corner.

... slightly surprised that there's a homecoming week in college, too (I guess I just never really thought about it....)

... excited for "80's Not-Prom" tonight with the girls from the QuikStop.

... amazed at how easy it is to clean your room if you do it every day.

... bummed that he's finally being charged for loads of laundry.

... learning how difficult it is to play video games with a 3-liter bottle of peach soda duct taped to his right hand.

... so happy to be living in a big city.

... not able to comprehend that fact that he's had 6 flat tires since he got here.

... coming to the realization that he doesn't have enough money to safely buy a season pass.

... astounded at how stubborn the 24 Hour Fitness recruiters are (talk about not able to take a hint!)

... wanting to drop in unexpectedly at DHS for some reason.

... wondering how Sarah's liking her senior year. (It was my personal favorite.)

... getting his butt kicked by cross country practices.

... happy he doesn't have a car anymore (it makes life a lot simpler, really.)

... wanting to travel the US with nothing but his hiking backpack, a sweet knife, and a husky named Rosco.

... done writing this blog.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Citizen's Arrest!

So it's a well-established CCU tradition to play this games called "Running Man." It's quite simple and extremely run. Here's how it works: (Take notes, all you UNR-goers... maybe someday you, too can be on par with CCU!)

1. Select the 'Running Men.' There is a minimum of two, and no maximum, but the fewer the better.

2. Blindfold the 'Running Men' then drive them to some remote location off-campus.

3. Lay them down and drive away.

4. Wait five minutes, then go try and find them before they reach the dorms. (They take off their blindfolds once you drive away.)

It's pretty awesome, as you can see. Right up my alley, what with all the running and sneaking and such. So at 10pm tonight, all of the Ghetto Guys met up out front and we began. After a few rounds of "rock, paper, scissors," the four 'Running Men' were chosen. I, unfortunately, was not one of them.

So we loaded them all up and began convoying out to the location in a neighborhood about a mile from campus. There were two cars, a motorized scooter, two pedal bikes, and then me and my room mate on my motorcycle. We dropped the guys off and then left for 7-11 to wait.

After five minutes, things got interesting. Cruising through the neighborhood on the watch for people running into the shadows, we rounded a corner to see Nick, our RA, talking with some guy in the street. We rolled up and I killed the engine, wondering what was going on. The guy looked at us and said "And what the hell are you two doing?"

Wow. Nice to meet you too, Captain Douche-bag.

"We're, uhh, playing a game," I said, immediately getting a bad feeling.

"Yeah, well then tell your little buddy to come the hell out here before we call the cops," he said, gesturing down the street that one of the Running Men had apparently just sprinted down. I've never understood why people talk like you're challenging them in these type of situations. Like, we're clearly complying and talking like normal, intelligent people here... you don't have to mad dog us on every issue. Jeeze!

So it turns out that these guys' neighborhood had been tagged the week before, so every yahoo was looking to bring the vandals to justice. And here we came, driving up and down their streets looking into every shadowy crevice. It was a bad coincidence, I'll admit that. But what was really frustrating was these people's level of rational thinking.

Another neighbor came out and persisted to shine flashlight in our eyes whenever he spoke to us. Which was a lot, because the conversation kept going in circles:

"What are you guys doing out here?"

"Playing a game."

"Why are you running around?"

"It's like tag... we're trying to chase the other guys down."

"Yeah? Well, our neighborhood was vandalized last week. How do we know you're all not part of a gang?" NOTE: Nick is wearing sweatpants that read "CCU Cougars" and a tie-dye T-shirt, while I am wearing a sweater that says "North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District," and then has the seal of the NLTFPD. Real gang material there! Jeeze!

"Well we're not a gang, we can assure you that. We're out playing a game, is all."

"Yeah? Well how are we supposed to know that?" NOTE: Does it matter if you know that? We weren't breaking any laws, after all. We're old enough to be out past curfew, we weren't being loud, and we were on the streets and sidewalks, a.k.a. public property. Jeeze!

And they would basically ask the same questions only worded differently, over and over and over. It was really getting frustrating. By now, the wife of one of these guys was out too, and so SHE began asking questions, much along the same lines. It was soooooo lame.

Finally, Scott pulls up in his car with three other Ghetto guys, and the dude with the flashlight gets all up in arms again, ranting and raving about gangs and "Make My Day" laws (which is where you can shoot trespassers on your property,) and all that jazz. I was getting so frustrated I just wanted to drive away.

Which is what I did after the wife looks at us in all seriousness and says, (this was after we told them we were from CCU) "You know, my husband and I are Christians, and this is really giving off a bad image."

No, lady, a bad image would be if we were running through your neighborhood cussing or throwing things or vandalizing or beating people up or whatever. What we're doing is actually called "good, clean fun." Maybe you should try having some sometime. Jeeze!

Now, granted they were justified in asking what was going on. It is their neighborhood, and we were driving around looking suspicious. But after we explained ourselves, were completely compliant, and offered reasonable, true explanations for everything that was going on, and even agreed that it was a bad idea to be playing in a neighborhood that had been recently tagged, they really had no business threatening to call the police or questioning our relationship with our Savior. It reminds me of how up tight our society is nowadays... kinda like the time Cole couldn't go trick-or-treating with us in the 7th grade because his mom was afraid there would be Anthrax in his candy.

So we all headed back to campus, our fun thoroughly killed, and talked for a while. I decided to come upstairs and write this. Now I'm going to bed.

-Daniel K

P.S. Don't do drugs. (I dunno, I've just always wanted to work that into a blog somehow.)

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

FYI Paper.

I'll admit that from time to time, even I can be a lazy blogger (I know, I know..... hold the gasps of horror for later, please.) I only say this because I just finished writing a short essay for my Freshman Year Integration course on this prompt:

"After being at CCU for three weeks, what issues are you experiencing (roommates, academics, time management, home sickness, making friends, etc)? How have you tried to address them? How can I assist you?"

My response:

Today marks my fourth week since arriving here in Denver with Dad in that huge Budget truck and with a mind full of suppressed worries. I say ‘suppressed’ for lack of a better term, although ‘ignored’ may be equally accurate. Sitting at home before I left was a virtual breeding ground for misgivings and doubts. Would I like my roommates? Would classes be too hard? I won’t have enough money to make it. I don’t even know anyone in Colorado, much less Denver. But the minute Dad and I sped away from Carson City down Highway 50, it was like Sauron’s big flaming eye had finally looked away, causing my fears to subside... to be ignored.

Since that first Thursday here at The Ghetto, I have made friends, been challenged, felt guilt and relief, and learned more about God. I have laughed, I have grimaced, I have shook my head in astonishment. I have felt pain and joy, I have felt lonely and accepted. I have felt God’s presence and I have thought, where is He? In other words, life has continued on in much the same way as it did back home. This has been a strange realization for me, since I somehow expected life to be completely different. I thought I’d be a new person with new thoughts and new abilities. And maybe in small ways I am, but overall I’m still Daniel. I’m still me.

But I am encountering some issues, don’t get me wrong. My life back home was far from smooth sailing, and much the same is my experience here. I don’t like to admit it because I spent so much time back home convincing myself that leaving was going to be so easy, but I do have a fair amount of home sickness. It doesn’t really come from sleeping in a foreign place or seeing different scenery. It really comes from my longing to have relationships equal to what I had back in Nevada. I want to sit down with Aaron at Starbucks and tell him all these crazy experiences I’ve been having. I want to flop down on Hans’ couch and huck a pillow or two at his wall to see if his duplex partner is home. Yet I suppose that’s part of growing, isn’t it? And I’m not going to make those friendships sitting around feeling sick for Reno or Dayton or Tahoe. All I can really do is... trust in God and in others. (Funny how life works out, isn’t it?)