It's On

When I was in high school some friends decided to ditch me at a Sizzler. Thus began the whip cream incidents. There are all kinds of hazing in this world, most of it in good fun. This is just that.

While my friends ditched me, I ran back inside and grabbed a handful of whip cream (OK, I used a spoon, but it doesn't sound as cool to say I spooned a proper cup full of whipped cream into my palm) and when they came back around I took all the whipped cream and slammed it all over the windshield.

I was always the instigator. There were 5 friends at the time. We were all band geeks which explains why this whole story is rated G. Not even PG. I decided we should whip every one of the guys in the group.

The first victim was a guy named Philip. We were down in National City. Our hotel was across the parking lot from a Ralph's grocery store. We bought about 5 cans. We hung out in the room invited some girls that would provide the embarrassment gossip to the rest of the group and poor Phil came in and was being his normal self. (he always thought he was cooler than an ice sculptor, the guy played the French Horn, cool was not in the description) He was leaning against the wall and we creamed him. He got 4 cans of cream all over him. Ahhh nerdy fun. Nerdy, tasty fun.

We all took turns getting creamed. One night we raced through the back streets and alleys of our home town as one car had a couple of guys with the cream and one had me (uncreamed at the time) and Phil. I eventually took a little.

The best event was getting a guy in our group named Mark. We started at Sizzler again for old time sakes. We had the cans under the drivers seat and as we were getting out of the car, Mark looked at me in the back seat. I was reaching down for the cans and he bolted. What insued was a two hour chase through a very busy intersection which had a mall on one side some strip mall shops on the other side and an Albertsons shopping center on the other. Mark was great game. He was not going to go down easily. Once when we had him cornered in front of a car he screamed at a guy in a car, "stop that man" pointing at one of us with a can. The guy was not quite sure what was going on, and we were stunned at his defensive play. We ran back and forth those four corners for a long time. We lost him a few times. I went into the donut shop and asked if they had seen a guy acting very paranoid and scared around. They pointed through the back door and let us out the back of the shop. We eventually caught him, but since we had been chasing him and shooting of our cans we were mostly out by the time we got him.

So here is the point of the whole story. I love a little challenge, and I like to get even.

Here is the issue: today on the way home. I was "racing" the boys and Wifey in the other mini-van (yes we have two, oh the shame) when I looked in my rear view mirror to see how far ahead I was. I looked in the mirror and saw this:

Now anybody that knows anything about me knows that I am a Lakers Fan. Now we don't have the rivalry of say the Red Sox and the Yankee's but we had a few years that you would not really want to put fans from these two teams in the same room alone, at least without some sort of sedation. I loved beating the Kings every year. It was to me the true Finals.

Since there is only ten King's fans left in the world and 9 of them live in the Bay area. I knew the Walker was responsible. I called him, told him he scrapbooks well (notice the handiwork in the picture) and that there would be vengeance. He said there was no need for that. Well I refer you to the line from Admiral Yamamoto in Tora Tora Tora (although considered a misquote by many historians) " "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

I will put it in movie terms a Queen can understand: From Bring it on: "Oh, I'll bring it."

Good job Walker, it was fun, just sleep with one eye open buddy. Until then, enjoy this little diddy : 05ItsGoodToBeKing.m4a

Linky Stories

Ease into this one, it's gonna be a long road. . .Somewhere over the rainbow by brother IZ. 10OvertheRainbow.m4a

As many of you know we have a tradition every night before the boys go to bed called "Linky Stories"

The seed for Linky stories was planted years ago when I found out that Winnie the Pooh stories originated from the father creating the characters to tell his son stories. I thought, man I am not cool. I could never think up those amazing characters.

One night the boys wanted a book and I was lying in their bed with them and I had already turned out the lights. So I suggested that we have a story about Linky. . .that is how it all started.

Every Linky story starts the same, "Last night while you boys where sleeping, Linky got up out of bed. . ."

Now I can't get the boys to go to bed until they have heard one. Some are funny, some are really lame. I can always tell if they are good if Liam laughs really hard. No matter the result, they are always outrageous.

When we first started they were just about Linky and his adventures. He had gone to the Moon to get some Cheese, got stuck in Uncle Timmy's AWAC radar detecter spinning and spinning until he was sick. He likes to ride Monkeys bike with a helmet of course. . .on his bum.

With time the story evolved into more characters and added a villan. Linky now goes out on adventures with his buddy Paul and baby Ivy. (Last night they had a rootbeer drinking contest, with baby Ivy finishing the whole can while the other two quit and said it burned! (Of course there was a fantastic belch at the end, way to go baby Ivy) There is also a villan. (surprised myself right now by realizing I have completely missed the opportunity to cast any of my sister-in-laws in this role, still time) The villan goes by "The Walker" (currently working on bad guy theme music) Poor guy has suffered at the hands of Linky and his friends. Their favorite is a wet willie while he is sleeping or putting salt in his sugar jar. (Linky likes to mess with The Walker's ears becuase The Walker is training to be an audiologist and if you went to an audiologist who was wearing hearing aides would you buy?)

Occasionally one surprises me. Here is a recent favorite. It involves sports. (side note entry: I have always been amazed how sports always seem to be so close to tied when it comes to the last minutes of the game, the Lakers can be up by 23 points in the beginning of the 4th and then be down by one in the last seconds, drives me crazy! ) Well we had just got an inflatable ball the size of a beach ball. The boys had been playing with it all day so it had lost some of its air. When the boys were laying down I grabbed the ball and since Linky was bouncing up and down in his crib, decided to play a version of volleyball. Of course we had to use The Walker. He was the opponent. It started by us traveling back into the night when The Walker came over and challenged the Linky to a game. We threw the ball into Linky's crib and explained all it took was Linky to throw the beach ball which is about 3/4 his size over his crib. If Linky could get the ball over, it was a point for him, if not the point went to the Walker. I thought for sure the Walker was going to win this round.

Linky had a hard time getting the ball out of the crib as he picked it up and tried to throw it out and he would end up just knocking himself down because he would hit the rim of the crib. He dug himself quite the hole, down 0-7. Walker was beside himself. He thought his plan of playing with a bigger ball was working in his favor. Baby Ivy called time-out, gave the kid some Vitamin D milk to get some vital fluids in him. (is it in you? Yes, I know it should be Got Milk, but it's a play on the sport thing with a kid, ah nevermind)

Linky came back strong! (do realize, this is Linky really playing the game, I am just calling them as they happen) Linky finally got one over the net. The boys went nuts. Jumping up and down on their bed in laughter. The rally was on, Linky scored 12 consecutive points to take the lead, 12-7. In this sport you need 15 to win, at this point we thought for sure it was a lock, being a seasoned sportscaster, I knew better. I had played many a sport against the Walker and despite his size and stature (small and round in the middle, dramatized a little for effect) he could play a mean game. On the next serve Linky hit the rim of the crib and the ball bounced back and hit him in the face, knocking his pacifier out, just visulize Rocky taking a punch from Appollo in slow motion and losing his mouth guard. Linky picked him self with a little help from Baby Ivy and a pep talk from Paul, but Linky was obviously rattled. He let the Walker get back in the game. By the time Baby called time-out, the score was 12-14. (seriously here, this is how the game went down. You could just see the excitement in the Walker's eyes.)

Linky picked up the ball slowly approached the rim of the crib and . . . cue the tense movie music and slammed it over the rim. 13-14, by this time the boys were on the edge of the bed, I am sure Sqwaks pull-up was full from laughing so much. Linky looked at the ball, handled it and tossed it over the rim again. Tie Score! We all went nuts including this sportscaster, yelling this is what dreams are made of and all the rest of the Bob Costa's junk you get sick of every Olympics.

This is it folks, the final serve, when this ball touches the ground, one of these men who has spent the last 15 minutes of his life preparing for this game will walk home a champion holding the flag of victory while another the socks of defeet. (hey, it is a kids story). I could not believe the score was tied at 14, it was like watching a game I really cared about. Linky took a couple of extra sucks of the pacifier he tossed it up. . . The Walker bounced anxious to see where it would land. . .slow motion starts here, music stops. . .the ball is up. . . it is all on the line, will it clear, or will it fall back into the crib? It sores through the air hits the rim and . . .

. . .bounces over the edge onto the floor. LINKY WINS, LINKY WINS, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT LINKY WINS!!!

The boys went nuts, heck I went nuts it was the greatest sports victory in the history of the Deanery.

Anyway, most of the time the stories are much more subdued, but I think this one gave Pooh a run for his money.

Roll credits and the boys favorite movie music: 02AgustusGloop.m4a