I remember:

Age 3-5, watching a lot of Nickolodean with my sister, disney movies, ninja turtles, hanging out with James. I got my first crush on some girl. The beach behind my house, my dog being a puppy.

Age 6, moving to Saudi Arabia, I met Matt somewhere in there and we played a lot of Super Nintendo and jumped on his trampoline.

Someday in first or 2nd grade they brought the fire department who made a bunch of foam outside and everyone got to play in it. It was the closest thing to snow you could get in the Middle East.

Sometimes my sister, my mom, and I would hang out in the living room and me and Maris would just run around and play with the dog. We played a lot of War too.

In 2nd grade Matt moved up to Dhahran and I would sometimes take the bus up there on the weekends and we'd play with Zbots, make movies, run around town and just generally be kids. It was a gang of us: Brad, Steve, Guini, Madi, Morgan, Payton, Matt and I. This went on until I moved there in 5th grade.

A few times I went up there with my mother when she had softball tournaments, and I'd run around with Ryan and Casaan Phelps. There were these big cement ditches that we'd ride our bikes in.

We had these bike "trails" that we made up that consisted of riding really cool paths through neighborhoods and alleys and a little bit of desert and people's backyards. I still remember the way we used to go.

Matt's mom would make these big elaborate halloween parties, and she'd make the big yarn mazes (nobody will understand this but I'll remember it if I read this). We'd ride around on the golf cart and go trick or treating. In school, they'd have a big assembly where everyone would sing halloween songs and all of us kids would parade around in our costumes.

Dylan had a 3D0. The first time I ever went to his house we played Road Rash on that, and it was sweet. Also, we'd play a bunch of Warcraft 2 at matt's house, which led to diablo later, starcraft, command and conquer. Many hours spent playing video games.

the knight game.

in 6th grade I was part of the play "Oliver". Aaron Bartee and I would just fuck around backstage in the green room most of the time because we didn't have important roles (even though they wanted me to audition for the part of Oliver). We hung out with Mary a lot too, and I had a big crush on her.

I smoked my first cigarette with dylan, doug, and andrew behind the boy scout house. we all felt like we were being really rebellious and could take on the world.

Bryan and I would get food from Schlotzkey's and watch movies and swim around in his pool. He had a hot tub that used to shock people if you tried to turn on the jets.

A lot of girls had a lot of partys, and pretty much our entire grade would go. I particularly remember Aurora's because it was a lot of fun for some reason. I think I took some ritalin or something beforehand. Oh, and people would actually go to the school dances. I remember feeling like hot shit because I danced with Erin Lunsford, and everyone liked her.

On the weekends, everyone would go to 3rd street and various shenanigans would occur. There was always something going on, and it was always a good time. We did a lot of drugs. That's where everyone would go to get messed up.

We bladed a lot at the skate park. I learned most of the grinds in a matter of weeks, but I was never very good. We tried a lot though.

We rode around in the big grassy fields behind Matt's house on the golf cart a lot. Matt Hart fell off once when he was wearing a pillowcase over his head that looked like a KKK hood, and it was fucking hilarious.

I won my first kiss as a reward for beating Rachel at pool. She smoked a lot and it tasted like ciggarettes, but it was exciting and felt good. I was shaking like a crack addict.

We had beach day in 9th grade right before our "graduation" (before everyone had to go off to boarding school and leave Saudi Arabia). It was pretty much the last time everyone got to just goof around at the beach before we all got split up. Looking back on it, our grade was pretty small and it was a pretty tight knit group of people. Everyone knew everyone, at least. Matt Hart spent most of the day taking pictures of all the girls in their bikinis. He swore he caught a picture of Courtney's nipple falling out, but it just looked like a freckle to me.

We used to get high in Dana's backyard a lot, and then we'd listen to music or go out to 3rd street or the hills and meet up with people.

I would eat lunch at Doug's a lot. We'd go to his house and make pizzas and then catch the bus back to school.

In 10th grade I was at cranbrook and it was mostly bad, but I skated a lot with tyler, noah, eben, and terry. There was a new little gang, ryan, evan, amadeus, eric, renee, jackie, justine, michelle, etc. that I spent most of my time with. Renee once told me she would've dated me if it wasn't for Ryan. I once had a dream about her.

Jesse and I would go to birmingham every week, and eventually we pretty much knew everyone there. for some reason, people thought we were drug dealers. We'd go and smoke cigarettes in the alley behind Caribou Coffee. One night, we ran into a cute blonde girl wearing bunny ears and her friend. That was Lyndsey and Brittany. Brittany was my first real girlfriend. The day after we met we went to a movie and made out in the front row. We dated for 2 months until she cheated on me with Jesse in the woods. Jesse and I used to wander around in the woods and smoke cigarettes and talk and get away from the campus. I gave him a lot of shit, but he was probably one of my few close friends.

that summer I went to visit Matt in texas. I met Moff and Chuck and a few other people. We went to go see Hemlock at the Mac Stack, and nothing remains at this local venue that everyone used to go to. I met Jamie and stephanie rougier there. While nothing remains was playing I sat outside and talked to Jamie, and Matt and Moff were pissed that I missed them, but in the long run it was worth it. There was a claw machine at the mall in Wichita Falls that actually worked, and me and moff won a whole bunch of stupid bullshit. Me, Chuck, and matt went out to see this show with these 3 girls, I think their names were Savannah, Lacey, and Heather or courtney or something (she didn't talk much). Chuck had his eye on one of them and years later they ended up getting together. Matt and I went to disney land in california for a week. We met a couple of girls from Utah who went on a bunch of rides with us. We went on the white water raft one a few times, and it got cold. The cute one got pretty cuddly with me. We were supposed to meet them there the next day but Matt's dad didn't want to go to the park that day and we never met up with them.

when I was in saudi that summer we spent a lot of time in the Jebels at night and going to the beach in Ras Tanura. We'd go over to Celeste and Kris's house a lot too, and play drinking games in the back yard. I made up a lot of really ridiculous songs, but everyone thought they were pretty funny, so it was amusing for a while.

I started hanging out a lot more with Tyler Quinn when I got back to school. We made a skate video called Epilogue that I never got to see the finished version of because I left. I met Jeff sometime that year and we'd go to his house on the weekends and be free from campus while they would practice for their band Mobility. They were a pretty damn good band, and Jeff was a goofy guy.

I left cranbrook and came back to saudi. I met stephanie and liz one night after I left a party that turned out to be hosted by a 42 year old gay man who was kind of creepy. Steph and Liz somehow ended up both liking me, but I chose steph because I already was interested in her.

We would hang out a lot with Jesse and Liz and Hani, and sometimes sterling and others would come too. Jesse and I invented "Dare or Dare". Steph used to come over without any warning and I'd just be hanging out on my back porch with jesse and hani, and she'd surprise me and come jump into my lap. She always had a big smile on her face, and I was always happy to see her. Once, when I was sick, she left school at lunch and came over and climbed in bed with me and kept me company. I was asleep and I felt someone getting into my bed and I turned over and there she was. It was just about the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.

She left to go on vacation once for a month and we were hanging out the day before she left. Eventually I had to take her home so we got my mom's car and I took her to the little area near her house. We held each other for 20 minutes, and then she tried to go because she had to, but she got back in the car because she didn't want to leave. Later she tried to go again but this time I wouldn't let her. It was an hour before she actually went home. Once, she told me she needed me.

I lived with Matt to finish highschool in Iowa Park, Texas. He and his girlfriend Liz and I would hang out a lot. He worked at Sonic and I actually had a job there for about 3 weeks, but then I quit because I didn't like it. He'd come home from work and we'd play Xbox for a bit until we had to sleep. I'd hang out with Zane or Wes or Moff or Nate or Chuck or Nic or Mike D when matt was at work. I dated a girl named Shannon Rogers for about a week because she was interested in me. We broke up because I was still in love with Stephanie, and soon after that me and Steph started talking a lot again anyways. In hindsight, it might have been better if I had given it a better try because she was pretty and really smart, and she was alright to hang out with. I wonder what she's up to these days. Probably something successful.

Once Wes and Matt told me we were going to go to Six Flags, so we drove down to Dallas one afternoon. I had never been there so I didn't know where the place actually was. I started getting pretty suspicious when we were in the actual city and it was starting to get dark. As it turned out, we were on our way to an MSI show, which was quite a pleasant surprise for me. I don't like them quite so much anymore, but they sure put on a hell of a show.

I'd play poker over at Jay Coleman's house. They taught me about Texas Hold-Em, and they were all really good. On my first hand ever I got a straight-flush. Most of the time they beat me, but I got in 2nd place once and ended up making 20 bucks. I think it was Nic that beat me. He and I used to go play disc golf over in Lucy Park in Wichita Falls. Him and Doug were really good, I pretty much blew. But it was fun.

Doug took us out to our first strip club for Matt's birthday. Doug was a veteran of sorts so he showed us all the ropes. He stopped me from spending 60 bucks, in singles, in an hour. Instead, I spent 60 bucks, in singles, in about 4. The first stripper looked a lot like Tamara. I told her that at school the next day.

I lived in Michigan with Jesse after I graduated. The day he showed up, which was also the 4th of July, we ran into Dana in birmingham. We had actually met Dana a couple years before when we both went to cranbrook, so it was a hell of a coincidence. We bought fireworks and set them off in the middle of some street. We wanted to go to the top of the parking structure, but we figured the cops would give us shit. He ended up dating her for a while.

Once when I was working at 7/11, Jesse, Dana, and Andrea randomly showed up to say hi. It was unexpected and nice of them, because I was bored out of my mind. I think we went out and did something after I got off.

Jesse and I had a lot of adventures. We met Danielle one night (he met her online I think) and we ended up both liking her. We drove down to Colombus, Ohio and picked up Preston for the weekend. Once, we went back to cranbrook to visit during the school day and within 5 minutes of being there everybody knew we were there. The lady in the girl's dorm office actually thought Jesse wasn't allowed on campus and tried to make him leave. This was ridiculous because we had just finished talking to one of the Deans, Mr.Winter.

There were a lot of parties at my house. Justine video taped a lot of them. Once, a girl I had met the day or so before showed up with Will and Dan Valbracht. Her name was Jess Kopitz, and I thought she was pretty cute. I think we hit it off somehow, she has the kind of personality where its very easy to do so. A couple days later I met up with her and we went out and got some coffee and talked. We ended up making out in the grass of one of the fields at cranbrook. I actually had to leave for summer break to Saudi Arabia that day.

Jeff and I got pretty high one night and ended up writing a song that sounded like a mixture of Ghosts and mario. We thought it was absolutely hilarious and were laughing about it for probably 2 hours. As it turns out, we wrote a lot more songs than that, and they got more serious. We played our first show as a full band, along with Tyler and Jen, with Chiodos and the Fall of Troy, which I hear is a notable feat. There were about 150 people there and it was very scary. I think we played pretty terribly, but I've heard even now people refer to that show and say that they were pretty impressed.


The reason I'm writing this all is for the pleasure of reliving some of these events, but also to make sure I have a place to go to remind me of them. Lately, I've felt like I haven't had any particularly good moments in a long while, but in doing this I found that there were periods where I've felt that way before, which were shortly followed by some of my favorite times.

Note: My apologies if I listed or referred to any events that people would've preferred not repeated.