After being turned down for countless jobs, learning far too much bad news, and being stricken by what medical professionals can only describe as Bubonic Plague, Ms. Luck decided to part the dark clouds of gloom and smile down upon me.

Last week, the November edition of ShopSmart magazine hit newsstands (yeah, I know November is two months away) and Hey, It’s Free was surprisingly mentioned as one of it’s top seven money saving sites on the Internet. (page 34!) For those of you who don’t keep up to date with the Freebie World, this is akin to an athlete being profiled in Sports Illustrated. The only way this could have been better is had they done a full page spread on HIF.

Words can’t express the amount of pride and validation that has bubbled up within me thanks to this surprise of surprises. My first national print mention! I’ve sunk more blood, sweat, and tears into that site than any other project in my life – including most relationships. At the very least, the bump in ad revenue and countless local news mentions was a lovely bonus.

And yet on the grand scale of awesome news learned during the month of September, that ranks a distant second. You might be wondering what possibly could top such a wondrous occasions? Did the Seattle Mariners offer me a job? Did Barack Obama ask me to join his foreign policy team? Even better.

Try finding out that I’m back on my mom’s free airline passes. For a year. Minimum.

Let that sink in for a moment.

I CAN FLY FOR FREE TO PRACTICALLY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD FOR ANOTHER YEAR!

I really don’t know how to put this to people. I’m a traveler at heart. I’ve spent the last three years of my life helping out my family and there’s no better thing in this world that I could be doing. But I can’t wait to get back out there on the open road. I’m at my best when I’m moving with the tide, flowing from here to there with no regard for the unforeseen.

World, here I come. But first I need to hit up New York. And Spartanburg. And Louisville. And Orlando. There are a few people I need to visit.

Nope, for making fun of idiots on Facebook Talk.

I think it’s official, I need to update my resume to reflect my superior verbal bitchslapping skill.

I also need to clear up this whole Ryan Shyzer thing too. It’s the last thing on my massive list of cleaning up all my websites.

I’ve always loved stop motion videos. The only problem is 90% of the ones you find are beyond crap because the creators were too busy to take enough photos to make the video look realistic. You can’t have a stop motion chase scene with ten freaking photos, people!

I shit you not. He called me Mister. Goob. Shyzer.

The conversation didn’t last long, as he didn’t appreciate the fact that I wouldn’t give him my correct info after telling him the info he had for me was incorrect. Apparently I was “struggling a old man who is dying and it’s not nice or kind.” Darn it, I hate to “struggle” senior citizens. It’s always hard to look yourself in the mirror after doing so.

I’m assuming he simply pulled my info from one of my domain WhoIs listings, which have my cell phone number and last name as Shyzer. I’m not sure if he sincerely believed my name was Goob Shyzer, but it took everything in me not to burst out laughing when I heard it come out of his mouth. If you’ve never heard a scammer call you by such a name with the seriousness of a doctor telling you a loved one has just died, then you haven’t lived.

I really hope he passes my number around to his buddies and I start getting more phone calls, because this could easily become my biggest source of entertainment.

—

While drinking my daily dose of one barrel of coffee this morning, I was perusing digg for some interesting reading material when I came across a link that read “US Soldier throws puppy off cliff (video).” I clicked it thinking it would be some humorous play on words or satirical video and…oh, oh…no. It’s a clip of some scumbag, named David Motari, launching a puppy off a cliff.

I’m not even going to link to the video from here, just trust me that you don’t want to see it. I sure wish I hadn’t. However, the video’s not why the Internet still rocks. What I love about this global mess of nothingness we’ve created is how everybody has reacted to said indefensible video! Within 12 hours, people on digg have found the guy’s myspace page, his wife’s page, their home phone number & address, his bebo page, copies of his marriage license, and more. They’ve started letter campaigns to his Senator and Representative, have secured copies of the video and stashed them all across the web for proof, (since he is now franctically trying to take it down), and contacted just about anybody with a higher rank than his.

It would suck if the video was instead some horribly twisted joke with computer animation and whatnot. But let this be a lesson – if you piss off nerds on the Internet, they not only won’t care if the infractions were legitimate or not, but they’ll make your life a bitch and a half. Vigilante justice for the win!

I don’t get much quality time with you and your computer screen, therefore I can’t re-teach all of History to you. No, I must focus on only the greatest parts that you may have missed. Scratch that. I’m talking about the most awesome, existence-shattering, mind-blowing, not quite sure if you’ll be able to scoop your jaw off the floor types stories out there.

Enter Voytek.

Honour Sought for ‘Soldier Bear’

A campaign has been launched to build a permanent memorial to a bear which spent much of its life in Scotland – after fighting in World War II. The bear – named Voytek – was adopted in the Middle East by Polish troops in 1943, becoming much more than a mascot. The large animal even helped their armed forces to carry ammunition at the Battle of Monte Cassino.

Voytek – known as the Soldier Bear – later lived near Hutton in the Borders and ended his days at Edinburgh Zoo. He was found wandering in the hills of Iran by Polish soldiers in 1943. They adopted him and as he grew he was trained to carry heavy mortar rounds. When Polish forces were deployed to Europe the only way to take the bear with them was to “enlist” him. So he was given a name, rank and number and took part in the Italian campaign. He saw action at Monte Cassino before being billeted – along with about 3,000 other Polish troops – at the army camp in the Scottish Borders. The soldiers who were stationed with him say that he was easy to get along with.

“He was just like a dog – nobody was scared of him,” said Polish veteran Augustyn Karolewski, who still lives near the site of the camp. “He liked a cigarette, he liked a bottle of beer – he drank a bottle of beer like any man.”

When the troops were demobilised, Voytek spent his last days at Edinburgh Zoo. Mr Karolewski went back to see him on a couple of occasions and found he still responded to the Polish language.

“I went to Edinburgh Zoo once or twice when Voytek was there,” he said. “And as soon as I mentioned his name he would sit on his backside and shake his head wanting a cigarette. It wasn’t easy to throw a cigarette to him – all the attempts I made until he eventually got one.”

Voytek was a major attraction at the zoo until his death in 1963. Eyemouth High School teacher Garry Paulin is now writing a new book, telling the bear’s remarkable story.

‘Totally amazing’

Local campaigner Aileen Orr would like to see a memorial created at Holyrood to the bear she says was part of both the community and the area’s history. She first heard about Voytek as a child from her grandfather, who served with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

“I thought he had made it up to be quite honest but it was only when I got married and came here that I knew in fact he was here, Voytek was here,” she said. “When I heard from the community that so few people knew about him I began to actually research the facts. It is just amazing, the story is totally amazing.”

Holy. Christ.

So a group of Polish soldiers, after recuperating from their captivity in Russian, finds an Iranian bear and takes it with them through Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Italy to help them kill German Nazis before finally letting the bear live out his days in a Scottish zoo.

And people say History is boring.

But the story doesn’t just end at “OMG! A crazy bear killed Germans!” Oh no, there’s an even more in depth story about Voytek and his crazy-ass owners, which has some tidbits about this seemingly mythical beast that frankly I wish I had been able to make up myself.

During the most crucial phase of the battle, when pockets of men were cut off on the mountainside desperately in need of supplies, Voytek, who all this time had been watching his comrades frantically loading heavy boxes of ammunition, came over to the trucks, stood on his hind legs in front of the supervising officer and stretched out his paws toward him. It was as if he was saying: “I can do this. Let me help you”. The officer handed the animal the heavy box and watched in wonder as Voytek loaded it effortlessly onto the truck.

Backwards and forwards he continued, time and time again, carrying heavy shells, artillery boxes and food sacks from truck to truck, from one waiting man to another, effortlessly. The deafening noise of the explosions and gunfire did not seem to worry him. Each artillery box held four 23 lbs live shells; some even weighed more than a hundred. He never dropped a single one. And still he went on repeatedly, all day and every day until the monastery was finally taken.

—

Although he was world-famous, the bear of Monte Cassino was forced to spent his last years behind bars in Edinburgh’s Zoological gardens. Artists came to sketch him and sculptors to make statues of him. Sometimes his old army friends arrived to visit him, leaping over the barriers to wrestle and play with him in the bear enclosure (to the utter horror of all the visitors and zoo officials).

The farthest I’ve gotten my dogs to helping me in a real battle is when they’ll lick Colton’s face as I hold him down and tickle him for hours on end.

Oh screw it, there’s not a single thing I could write that would make this story any more awesome or entertaining, so I’ll just stop trying. I should be referencing Stephen Colbert or the hilarity of men having enough confidence to get a wild bear drunk in their midst, yet I’m still stuck on the fact that A FUCKING BEAR HELPED BEAT THE NAZIS. Eat it, Hitler.

All in all, a hell of a time

Hey Favre and Ichiro, make room. This guy is joining you in the Goob Parthenon of Awesomeness.

But this post isn’t meant to bask in the glow of the awesomeness that is the Internet grassroots campaign that saved one of my favorite shows. No, wait…yeah. Yeah, it is. But because I love you, I’ll just keep this short and funny. So, you can either click the more link below or go directly to the source in order to read two of the best “could have happened” conversations ever.

MAY 15TH-ish

1: I gotta say, guys, I’m loving the schedule. We got Cane, Moonlight, and Kid Nation — it’s looking sexy. Very sexy.

2: I’m getting off just thinking about it.

3: Remind me, what’s Moonlight again?

1: Dude gets bitten by his vampire bride, uses his powers for good, and falls in love with a mortal.

3: Oh, right. Right, the “Angel Becomes a P.I.” thing.

2: Yeah, but it takes place in New York, so it’s totally different.

1: Totally.

Grunt: Sorry to interrupt, but, um…

1: Yeah? What’s up?

Grunt: There’s another bag of peanuts for you guys.

1, 2, and 3: …

Grunt: From the Jericho fans.

2: Oh, right. Okay, just dump ‘em in the breakroom.

1: What’s the deal with the peanuts again?

3: Because of the whole “nuts” thing in the finale? Stanley and getting the war story wrong, and then Skeet saying “nuts” over the walkie-talkie, remember?

1: Vaguely.

4: I really like peanuts.

1: Anyway, we’re thinking that with the schedule set to have–

Grunt: Um…

1: What?

Grunt: There’s another bag.

2: So?

Grunt: Well, it’s bigger.

4: Dude, can we get some of that in here? Thanks.

2: Can we get back on task, please? Now, we want to leverage –

Grunt: Look, uh…

1: WHAT?!

2: Another bag?

Grunt: Sort of “another bags.” Bags. Plural.

3: You know what? For any and all future bags of peanuts from distraught fans, family, and Skeet, put them the breakroom — ALL of them. Got it?

1: Do you think a little Lord Of The Flies-like brutality around sweeps is too much to hope for on Kid Nation?

THREE WEEKS LATER

1: Thanks for coming in, people. I know it’s been a rough couple of weeks.

3: No more peanuts, please? No more!

1: Shhhhh. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.

4: I like putting peanuts on ice cream. Just vanilla ice cream and peanuts. No frills, you know? Just the sweet and the salty to satisfy all cravings.

2: Last night, my wife said she could smell them on me. I had to take three scalding showers before I felt clean. Then she told me I smelled roasted.

1: Yeah, well, I’m definitely having a nervous breakdown. A few nights ago, I dreamed that Mr. Peanut was riding a bomb over Kansas and screaming.

2: That’s nothing. I went to my kid’s birthday party at the Ground Round and had a panic attack. Why the HELL are peanut shells considered acceptable décor for a restaurant?

4: I had homemade peanut butter once. You have to keep it in the fridge and mix it up before you eat it, but it was good.

1: How’s Bill doing?

2: Well, he’s off the respirator and responding to visual cues.

1: Yeah, we probably should have quarantined everyone with peanut allergies before one of them went into anaphylactic shock.

2: I’m just glad we found a hermetic sealer who could work on the weekend.

4: Do you think it’s hard to make homemade peanut butter?

3: They’re salty and stringy and they dry out your fingers and they’re not even nuts!

4: Oh, I’ll bet I could make some bad-ass peanut butter cookies. With the forking and shit?

1: So, we’re agreed, then? Jericho has to come back?

2: Yes, yes, we have to stop them before they move on to [choke] Circus Peanuts.

3: They’re NOT even NUTS, people! NOT NUTS! NOT NUTS!

1: I don’t see any other way. We’re all cracki–

2: Don’t go there, man. Just…don’t.

3: They’re LEGUUUUUMES!

1: Right — let’s just swear we won’t make a practice of this, okay?

2: Agreed — and also, from here on out, no more significant mentions of food of any sort in any script ever again.

1: And forget that George Washington Carver biopic Spike Lee’s been trying to push.

2: The wounds are just too raw.

4: Kung Pao chicken has peanuts in it. They’re all spicy but kind of nutty, you know?

1: Oh god.

2: What now?

1: What if we cancel Moonlight and they send blood?

Which leads to the obvious question. There’s a British search engine dedicated just to sexual fetishes?! Is there really that big of a market of people out there who are unable to find a proper smack around that a search engine has to be created for them? Seriously?

You know, I’m not even surprised such a site exists, which I think is an even bigger issue. Hell, I bet this post is just gonna keep ‘em coming now. Well, I might as well welcome you crazy Brits! The tea and crumpets are over in the corner and I’ve got old reruns of The Office on the telly. Oh, and there are plenty iPods around here to be spanked if the mood feels so.

The next time Microsoft decides to film another round of these commercials, they need to call me up.

There’s not many times my breath has truly been stolen away from me. We’re talking maybe five times in my entire life and that one time I fell from the monkey bars as a kid and had the wind knocked out of me doesn’t count. But this past week, when I strolled up to the Coliseum in Rome, Italy added a tick mark to the tally.

United recently added a direct route from D.C. to Rome and after a little persuasion on my part, my mom picked up a trip to work the flight and we headed over…for a day. It’s funny when I tell people this, because no matter how many times I explain it to them, they still can’t seem to grasp that I fly all around the world for a grand total of one day, if even that. You almost spend more time on the plane (17 hours round trip to Rome) than you do at the destination (a hair over 27 hours). But trust me, there’s no better way to see a city then to simply hit the ground running full speed for just a short period of time.

We landed around 8:30AM local time and the first thing that grabbed my attention was how easy it was to clear customs. Two jumbo jets had landed at the same time and yet all of us were through customs in about 15 minutes, whereas had we all been in Sydney, it would have taken closer to an hour and a half. The “inspection” involved A) Asking if we had anything to declare and then B) Looking at our passport. Not scanning it. Not making sure it was even a real passport. All I had to do was walk past the agent and flash him my passport. He probably saw it for a grand total of one second.

I loved it.

It was also my first inclination that maybe this old Europe and Italians video might contain more truth than I first suspected.

I decided to take the train into the city on my own since I love trying to navigate my way around new places. If you thought most guys hate asking for directions, then you’ll really feel sorry for my future wife. I find it funny that people get so nervous when they don’t know where to go or think they’re lost. With me, it’s the exact opposite. I know in the end I’ll wind up in the right place and once I finally get there, there’s no other feeling of accomplishment quite like it. So why not just hunker down and figure it out for your damn self?

On the ride into the city, I sat in a room with six other people. The man across from me was clearly Italian, as were most of the other folks riding with us. However, when it came time for him to ask if he had gotten on the right train, he glanced at everybody in a clear effort to see who might best look like a local before settling on me and blurting a long string of sounds I can only guess to be Italian or noise dolphins use to communicate. I’m still not sure which it was.

I really don’t get it. In Argentina, cab drivers would eye my mom and Jeff before looking at me and asking in Spanish how I got stuck with the Americans. The same thing happened in Australia, Germany, and basically everywhere else I’ve ever been. Locals will just start talking to me, asking for directions or if I know the time or whatever and then they stare at me in amazement when I respond with, “Uhhh…yeah, I got no idea what you just said, pal.” And again, here I was in Italy, being mistaken for a local, all the while having no idea what exactly made me look like I fit in more than any of the other yahoos around me. It’s a phenomenon I’ve yet to figure out, albeit one I’m not too keen on trying to correct. Let’s just say it comes in handy from time to time.

After making my way to the hotel, hooking up with my mom, and sneaking into the hotel room to drop off my bags (Italian law requires all hotel guests to drop off their passport at the front desk and pay a fee to stay there…yeah, like that was actually gonna happen), it was close to 10:00. We grabbed our cameras, a few bottles of water, and we were off. We stopped at a little cafe for some Iced Coffee, which I think I enjoyed way more than my mom did. Apparently ice cubes and the strongest pure coffee you’ve ever let flow past your lips is an acquired taste I somehow ended up with. She, however, made a great call by buying two tickets for a tour bus company where they have 12 stops or so throughout the city and run umpteen buses, so that you can basically get off at any stop, stay for as long as you want, and then hop on the next one that passes through.

Of course, when my mom left it up to me to pick our first destination, it took all of 3 nanoseconds for me to say “The Coliseum.”

There aren’t many items in the world that are of “historical” significance that I actually give a rat’s ass about. I mean, seeing the Declaration of Independence was cool and all, but my initial thought upon setting eyes on it wasn’t about how old or important the document was, but of how the room smelled. To me, something that’s only a few hundred years old isn’t that big of a deal. There are trees out there older than that and you don’t see me gawking at them.

But the Coliseum…man. I kinda just stared at it for a while before finally moving to head inside. To say it’s old and has withstood the test of time is like saying I’m devilishly handsome. It’s just an understood given that doesn’t even need to be talked about.

Once inside, I took what amounted to forty-eight million photos. I was rattling off the story behind everything I saw to my mom (hey, that’s the first time my History degree’s come in handy!) before I think I finally talked even her ears off. I can’t even put into words what it felt like to stand in the middle of a structure that’s been around longer than the legacy of Christ. You can have your Eiffle Tower, your Statue of Liberty, and your Taj Mahal. I’ll take my Pyramids of Giza, my Tombs of Petra, my Acropolis. And my Coliseum, no doubt.

We tried to squeeze in the Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, but realized we weren’t gonna have much time to see the castle I wanted to check out next if we stayed there too long. Some people might scoff at the thought of skipping over the Vatican for a castle. But giant, old fortresses beat churches in my book any day of the week. No surprise there, really.

I will say this though. The inside of the Basilica itself was like one giant color buffet. You could spend three weeks inside of there and I still don’t think your eyes would have adjusted to the vividness of it all. Everything – the walls, the floor, the ceiling, everything looked like a million dollars. You’d glance down at the floor and not help but wonder how much the one small foot of black marble you were standing on cost. It was quite an experience to say the least.

Anyway, after catching one of the last buses to the castle, we ended up taking our time hiking all the way to the top (for which my mom complained after every 10th set of stairs we took ) while taking in all the art that’s littered throughout the building. Massive portraits painted by Rafael himself adorn the walls as if they were nothing more than a window shade. It was almost as if there was so much history in the place, they didn’t know what to do with it all. After a while though, we finally reaching the peak of the fortress and could see over the entire city.

I’ve always had a thing both for skyline views and castles. I love looking out over a city sprawl just to try and swallow how massive the area actually is and I love walking through old castles trying to recreate in my head what it must have been like for soldiers way back when. But to combine the two…well, I can’t say I’ve ever done that before. Though trying to get a photo of us up there was a bit hard, what with my mom trying to communicate in English and probably offensive sign language what we wanted and me trying to explain that we’re actually mother and son, not boyfriend and girlfriend. After a few photographed thumbs and one what I believe to be an zoomed in show of my nose, we got a pretty good picture.

Not long after that, we were back on a bus headed for our hotel. It was actually just fun riding around on the open aired bus, as the weather could not have been any more gorgeous. We’re talking sunny, 70 degrees, light breeze here. In fact, my mom’s been back since and happily reported that on her second trip, her and a bunch of other flight attendants just bought a few bottles of wine, crackers, and cheese and then rode around on a single bus all day long. You get to see some pretty funny things while riding around, like businessmen in suits flying past you on what looks like a hyped up Moped. Or how there are so many fountains and statues around the city, you stop noticing them after only a few minutes. Or even how there might be two painted lanes on the road, six actual lanes of cars, and yet not a single wreck let alone fender bender in sight. I tell ya, if you were to airdrop a bunch of Americans and their SUVs in the middle of Rome, they’d survive for a maximum of 14 minutes.

Before long, we were standing outside the hotel and since our last decent meal had been two giant Starbucks coffees back stateside, we figured it was time to eat. Almost three hours, two real pizzas, and a few dozen Peronas (they taste even better than their similar sounding, Mexican counterpart) later, we were back in the hotel ready for bed. Well, actually I was ready for bed, but my mom was keen on watching Italian Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, which apparently takes a break after every three or four questions so that, and I shit you not, the host can appear in an infomercial that I suspect is used to help raise the prize money.

See? These are the kind of things you need to travel for.

One night’s sleep and a Business class seat later, I was back in Virginia teaching a bunch of 3rd graders the differences between topsoil and clay. Hell, had I not made this post, you and even the people I work with would have never even known I’d gone.

I wouldn’t travel any other way.

He told him he wasn’t gonna slide!

I didn’t realize Willie Mays Hays actually existed in real life. I also didn’t realize that high school baseball was so pathetic that they’d call this kid out over breaking some asinine rule about momentarily breaking free of the Earth’s gravitational pull or something.

And with that, today is King Felix day. If you own mlb.tv or Extra Innings on Direct TV, tune in to Seattle’s game tonight and prepare to be impressed.

You might have seen some of his other work without even knowing it (much can be found on his main site), but for the past 11~ months, Frank has been writing, editing, and staring in his own three to five minute videos which he creates and uploads every weekday. Each episode is tight, fast paced, up close, and personal as he covers anything that tickles his fancy at the moment – news, politics, culture, sports, whatever. But he does so in a Jon Stewart/The Daily Show-esque manner with a dash of raunchiness, a heaping of absurdity and cooked at the speed of a TV lawyer announcing all rules and regulations to a contest.

Every week he seems to come up with a new idea or theme and from there, he lets his audience run with it and shape it into it’s future form. This isn’t some giant community we’re talking about here, but instead a relatively close (and fairly large) group of fans with similar viewpoints and even more similar absurd thinking. Besides the aforementioned recurring themes in the first paragraph, one great example is where a college student from his forums had nothing to do over Christmas holidays, so long story short he became a human baton, driven cross country from New England to California by follow Sports Racers (translation: fans of Frank’s show) before returning all the way home the via the exact same method.

It might sound stupid, but trust me, after you watch a few episodes, you realize Frank is not only capable, but is fully pulling it off.

If you happen to live anywhere other than New York City or near any major media outlets, you might not have heard to story of Wesley Autrey. Earlier this week, a normal weekday morning in a NY subway station suddenly transformed into a scene rarely spotted outside of movies or mythical lores. Cameron Hollopeter, a student and total stranger to Autrey, began having a seizure before falling down onto the subway tracks, where a train quickly raced towards him with the full intention of occupying the same space as his flailing body. What happened next is something many say they would do, but few ever follow through with. Autrey, sizing up the situation, knew Hollopeter’s only chance at survival was to lie between the two rails, so he jumped down, pinned the young man beneath him, and comfortably lied as a NY city subway train screeched to a halt a full two inches above his head.

Autrey might not seem like your everyday hero. He certainly isn’t somebody who gives good interviews, as you can see for yourself in the David Letterman clip below, but that’s what makes his actions even better. This wasn’t a man out looking for fame and glory. He had no grand visions of accolades or rewards dancing through his mind that morning. He simply saw a man in trouble, knew he was the only person who could help, and acted.

Of course, since doing so, he’s not only been giving the highest award a citizen can earn from the city, but has received a free trip to Disney World, a $10,000 check from Donald Trump, a free lifetime subscription to Playboy (since his favorite Playboy hat was destroyed by the train), and a promise by the New York Film Academy (where Hollopeter is a student) of scholarships for his daughters when they’re older, among many other rewards. Let’s just hope he doesn’t end up like some of the other national hero sensations in recent memory.

The last thing we need to do is find yet another reason to discourage the average citizen from helping those in need.

This is one such song.

I’m not sure why the audio and video get out of sync in that version, but it’s not like you need to watch him play in order to listen to the music. This second version is a bit longer and takes a while to get into, but it’s well worth it.

John Butler Trio – Ocean

Last night, I was performing one of my hourly rituals of transferring laundry from the washer to the dryer. This lucky batch included bed sheets, socks, and a rug Koral had peed on, among other things. Juls was watching television in the next room and Clay was playing on the computer, so the only person upstairs was Colton, who was supposed to be in bed falling asleep. It was right around the point where I was pulling out the rug when I froze dead in my tracks and my heart stopped. The entire house, not just the laundry room, shook with a violent force and my chest literally vibrated for a second. The deep boom that filled the air lingered in my ears for what seemed like minutes and before my brain even had time to compute what was happening, my legs were in Emergency Mode and carrying my body upstairs.

I’ve never moved as quickly in my life as I did during those few seconds.

I was upstairs and in Colton’s room before Clay or Juls were even out of their seats. The rumble was so heavy, so consuming, that I knew it wasn’t just Colton tripping and falling down. Something else far more massive had succumbed to the force of gravity with him and my mind was racing with visions of him trapped under a bulking set of chester drawers or a massive armoire or even a collapsed roof.

You can imagine my surprise when I burst into his room and was greeted by Colton, sitting up in bed with a giant grin spread across his face, and telling my, “WHOA! That was a big explosion! It woke me up!” Clay and Juls spilled into the room moments later and we all stood there for a second looking around before my mind finally caught up with the situation again. I barked out a few orders to the kids and went to look around the rest of the house. Something, somewhere, had to be wrong in the house. The noise had sounded as if it came from upstairs, as if the entire roof was trying it’s hardest to come crashing down upon us.

And yet not a thing was amiss. None of the large object in the house had fallen to create the shudder. A few small things here and there had been knocked over due to the shock, but for the most part, everything was fine. Having made sure the kids were safe and the house wasn’t falling apart on my watch – because I’ll be damned if I’m blamed for it! – I decided to venture outside and see if maybe a car had rammed the house or something. As I stepped outside, I noticed I wasn’t the only one out searching for answers and finally I realized it wasn’t just confined to our house. Just about every single person in the neighborhood was outside, trying to figure out what had just disturbed them as well. We all stood around with a queer look on our face for a while, trying to guess what had happened. Someone thought a plane might have crashed, but I ruled that out because with most plane crashes come fires that light up the nearby night sky. Others thought maybe there had been some explosion at one of the nearby factories, but again, I figured we’d at least see a fire if that had happened. My money was on a gas explosion somewhere and literally right as the words tumbled out of my mouth, Clay got off the phone with his friend and burst with the news.

Clay: “Ryan, a house blew up down by Matt’s! It just….exploded!”
Ryan: “By Matt’s? That’s only two hundred yards away! How come we don’t see a fire?”

Around this time an entire brigade of rescue vehicles came screaming down the road and swerving around the corner. In fact, I had enough time to go get Colton out of bed and over to the window to watch them since the stream of sirens and flashing lights was almost endless. Before long, the vultures started coming in full force and by vultures I mean curious people who are only getting in the fucking way and who should have just stayed home. I can understand slowing down to look at an insane car wreck, but people who go out of their ways just to drive by the car wreck get on my nerves to no end. A cop finally pulled up alongside our house and started turning people around. Clay, Juls, and I sat on the steps listening to what he was telling people and we learned that there had been a gas leak in a nearby house for what must have been house. It built up in the garage and when the father went outside to start up his car, a spark from the engine ignited the entire place. He managed to crawl out of his car and into the street, where he was airlifted to a nearby hospital and luckily, nobody else was home at the time.

Needless to say, Clay and I were glued to the late night evening news and finally, we were able to see some pictures of the destruction. One of the first answers we got was why there was no fire blazing in the night sky – there was nothing to burn. The entire house was virtually vaporized and in its place was a pile of rubble and twigs of lumber that were smoldering with small fires. Debris was actually scattered across a few miles radii and they still won’t let us down there to take a look at it. I wanted to include some pictures along with this post, but the local news in this town makes the Spartanburg Herald Journal look like the New York Times, so I guess I’ll have to wait until they let us down there in a few days.

But don’t ever let me say again that nothing interesting happens up here.