This was the "theme" for my oldest son's most recent birthday. Can someone tell me when this started happening? You have to come up with a theme for the kids and each year it has to be bigger and better. I remember my 9th birthday, I think, I received a Nerf football and when my friends came over to the party my Mom said go outside. Not go outside and do this or do that, just go outside. We could have been playing with fireworks or shooting guns as long as we were outside, no themes.
Fortunately and unfortunately I married the most creative person I know. My wife comes up with great ideas and insists that we can make it happen. We have to build things and bake things not sold in stores. I figure if you can't buy it in a store then it must not be that great an idea. Wrong, it can be done in our basement, garage, or kitchen.
This year I was informed that I needed to come up with a treasure hunt that included the Staff of Ra, Sankara Stones, the Holy Grail, and the Well of Souls from the Indy movies. What!? My wife informed me that that part was up to me because she was busy finishing up the 10 fake Grails and touching up the Ark of the Covenant. (We tag teamed building the Staff of Ra.) This all probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense to you if you haven't seen all the Indy movies at least 30 times as we have in this house. Finding out I was on my own I quickly phoned my sister, (creative also), for some help. She came up with some beauties that were used in the hunt.
All party invitees show up and it's time to hunt. There are six participants all together so not crazy but enough. The first clue requires them to take the 'Leap of Faith' from the first movie so they climb hay bales to get onto the fence and jump into the backyard where they find the next clue floating in a bottle in our water feature. They follow this clue to the 'Map Room' also from the first movie, which is in our basement. Here they find the Staff of Ra and a clue leading them into the garage where they find the Sankara Stones and another clue. This takes them upstairs to a small treasure chest filled with 'jewels' and the final clue. They hurriedly come downstairs and piece together the clues that reveal the location of the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark is hidden in the back of my pick-up, we have taken a picture of it, printed it onto an old piece of paper and cut it up so they can piece it together. It actually stumps them for a few minutes, then they realize what they are looking for and sprint out the door to the truck where they find the Ark filled with candy and toys, not a Nerf football.
We take a break from the action at this point to open presents and eat cupcakes. One of the guests decided to bring a homemade card but no gift. Really? My son doesn't even notice being filled with the joy of finding the Ark of the Covenant. The boys all go downstairs to play some video games for awhile, I am not invited and hurt but try not to show it. My wife decides it's time to get dinner ready and I find out that we are all ordering our own 10" pizza. We start to take orders and a couple of the guests say that aren't that hungry. Are you kidding me, your own pizza and you aren't that hungry? What other party do you get to do this at? We make them order so in case they get hungry later they will have something. I go pick up the pizzas and when I get back, sure enough, everyone is hungry. Root Beer and pizza for everyone! I'm starting to get into this.
After pizza and an Indy movie, I am invited downstairs to join in the pillow fight. Now we are talking, they come looking for me like the neighborhood kids all banding together to take out the bully on the block. Be careful what you wish for kids. It is an all out brawl and my wife comes downstairs to watch and encourage the kids, probably to make sure I don't get carried away and knock someone out also. The battle rages and they keep coming in waves but I am like a man among boys, wait, bad analogy. I mow them down like wheat in front of the blade. They are a game bunch, there is always one dragging another injured friend out of the fray while the others keep me engaged. Finally, as we all knew it would, we break a light fixture and glass goes every where. The boys love it and my wife isn't mad so it all ends well in a shower of sparks and glass.
They watch another Indy movie and get their camp set up in the living room for the night. I go to bed at midnight, and they are still awake. Two o'clock rolls around and one of the guests has to call his mother to come get him. The others say he doesn't have a great track record at sleep overs but is getting better. They are up at six thirty and watching more Indy. I am required to make pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and bacon. I'm OK with this, what a great breakfast. The boys hork down everything in front of them and go back to Indy. I take this lull in the action to jump in the shower. When I get back downstairs my wife informs me that one of the guests has thrown up on the kitchen floor, thank God for being in the shower.
She tells me the guest informed her he wasn't used to that kind of bacon, they usually get a better kind of bacon so when his body got rid of the bad food he felt better. This is also the no gift guest, strike two buddy.
I have condensed this version but am left wondering is this how everyone else does it too? I hope I find out soon, my other two sons have birthdays in April and I'm sure we are on the hook for something magical. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Terror on the School Bus
This doozy took place last Friday night as I returned home from an out of town basketball game with my team. It truly was a surreal experience, one of those that you couldn't make up if you tried.
I would like to preface the story with the fact that it was indeed a dangerous situation and I am in no way trying to make a joke out of it, only passing on what was going through my mind, as small as it may be. There were many witnesses/participants on this ride with me and some of the account may be embellished, for this I apologize, but again it is how I processed the situation as the events unfolded. The names of towns and individuals will remain undisclosed to protect the innocent.
It all started as we loaded up the bus, as we have done countless times in the last three years, to go on the road and stomp the guts out of our opponent. Not bragging here, that is just our frame of mind, why get on the bus or take the floor if you don't expect to neutralize the competition? It just so happens that this game would take place in my hometown, where I grew up playing basketball, so it always has a little extra oompf for me. It is also about a two hour and fifteen minute drive.
We headed out to the eastern plains around two o'clock in the afternoon, plenty of sunlight and a gloriously warm winter day. That removes two very large obstacles that confront a driver in Colorado in the winter. Good roads and plenty of daylight to get there, things are looking up. Both the JV and Varsity boast records with only one loss and the bus, coaches included, are brimming with confidence. Designated parents have brought sack lunches for everyone to tide us over for the long haul into the sand dunes. As we board the bus I notice we have a driver that I am unfamiliar with but don't give it a second thought, he appears to be at an age that he could probably drive this bus in his sleep from the thousands of miles he has logged in his career, ironic huh? We were soon to find out different.
Everybody on, roll call taken, because it really is about the kids right: their commitment to the team, their school, their friends, and themselves. I always tell the girls that basketball is a microcosm of life. You can't win them all, you can't do it all yourself, you need help and must help others. I don't know if they believe me but I find it to be true. Now as coaches we are entrusted with teaching things like this along with a good old pick and roll, and with that comes the trust that we will have other people's children in our care. Something you take for granted and don't really think will ever be challenged.
We are casually on our way and have touched the rumble strips on the side of the road a couple times but who doesn't, and the bus is huge. We are sixty miles in and the tires actually leave the pavement and we are on the gravel shoulder, just for a few seconds but long enough for everyone to think is it just me or was that a little scary. No one really says anything, a few nervous laughs, but no one wants to be the person who yells fire. We touch the rumble strips a few more times and there is an anxious moment when we share a narrow bridge with an oncoming semi. More glances and jokes, but a little perspiration is added.
We arrive at the game site and are roughly pulled into a parking spot, everyone debarks, glad to be off the bus and ready for a game. My team plays first, we stomps guts, and as the varsity is warming up I notice our driver in the stands sneaking in a cat nap, good, better now than later right? The varsity gets a great win and we are ready to go. Some kids ride home with their parents, others get on the doomsday bus.
We are now headed back home and on the ride of our life. We are no more than three miles out of town and start to gradually drift in and out of our lane. I am starting to get a little nervous and try to get an angle to see if the driver is 'napping' again. The girls on the bus are squirming and screeching with every movement that might be considered out of the norm. They are fueling each others fear and it is on a steady rise, jumping by leaps and bounds. The head coach and I talk and decide we will move up by the driver and start a conversation, one that will keep him engaged and more importantly alert. It works to some degree, but if the conversation lags for a minute or two we start to drift one way or another. We reach the first small town and see the only stoplight in town is red, for some reason we stop a block away.
The coaches again start their incessant chatter with said driver but find that silence, even a minute is directly proportional to our drift factor. Now it's getting a little freaky and the girls are really amped up, some have called their parents to pull over and pick them up. the coaches decide we should tell the driver to stop at a town half way home to help with the attention problem and we do. Five or six girls get off to ride with their parents and the others are left feeling like human sacrifices. As the driver turns the bus around he swipes the mirror against a no parking sign and parks to wait. We can't believe it. We wait for the girls to come out of the convenience store, many of us needed a bathroom break, and I notice the driver dozing in his seat. What the? The girls file on after hugging the 'lucky' ones who are riding with parents, it looks like a parade down the green mile as they find their seats and brace for the worst.
We are on the interstate for a few miles and things are better, we have parents following us now to document exactly where we exited the road as the bus drove into the ditch. Just kidding but at least we now have someone who knows where we are. We leave the safety of the four lane and it's back into Dantes Inferno. Driver is confused by all turn lanes, we ride half way in and half way out. I notice driver get out a flashlight and start to check the dashboard, I can see the dash fine from where I am and wonder what we did wrong to get Mr. Magoo as a driver tonight. We are still trying to talk to him but the drifting is back. I try to draw attention to the fact and ask if the bus is a little light in the front end and he replies that sometimes it's kind of hard to see at night. WHAT? You have your brights on and haven't dimmed them for anyone no matter how many times they flash you. They paint a white line along the road that goes from here to where ever you are trying to get, it's like a safety precaution so stay beside it, not over. How much help do you need?
At this point we round a gradual curve and see a semi coming our way, we have again drifted and the girls actually dive from one side of the bus to the other and the head coach starts screaming over, over, over. This is the final straw. Head coach tells him pull over, we are going to have a different driver or we are getting off. Driver says you can get off but no one else is driving, so we get all the girls off the bus and watch him drive into the night as we stand along side the road. Eventually we have parents that were called show up and we pile everyone into cars and head for the school.
The next day when I see the girls again one player asks if I have heard the ending and I ask what it is. Apparently the driver got to the bus barn fine and as he is navigating into the garage manages to side swipe the diving coaches car for his finale. A perfect ending to a nightmarish trip.
Fortunately no one is hurt on our bus nor any other drivers on the road that night. It just goes to show you you can plan for a lot of things, but you can't plan for everything. We leave again on Tuesday to play ball out of town and you can bet the driver is in for the third degree, even Otto from the Simpson's would make me feel better. I will let you know how it goes.
Sorry this one is so long.
I would like to preface the story with the fact that it was indeed a dangerous situation and I am in no way trying to make a joke out of it, only passing on what was going through my mind, as small as it may be. There were many witnesses/participants on this ride with me and some of the account may be embellished, for this I apologize, but again it is how I processed the situation as the events unfolded. The names of towns and individuals will remain undisclosed to protect the innocent.
It all started as we loaded up the bus, as we have done countless times in the last three years, to go on the road and stomp the guts out of our opponent. Not bragging here, that is just our frame of mind, why get on the bus or take the floor if you don't expect to neutralize the competition? It just so happens that this game would take place in my hometown, where I grew up playing basketball, so it always has a little extra oompf for me. It is also about a two hour and fifteen minute drive.
We headed out to the eastern plains around two o'clock in the afternoon, plenty of sunlight and a gloriously warm winter day. That removes two very large obstacles that confront a driver in Colorado in the winter. Good roads and plenty of daylight to get there, things are looking up. Both the JV and Varsity boast records with only one loss and the bus, coaches included, are brimming with confidence. Designated parents have brought sack lunches for everyone to tide us over for the long haul into the sand dunes. As we board the bus I notice we have a driver that I am unfamiliar with but don't give it a second thought, he appears to be at an age that he could probably drive this bus in his sleep from the thousands of miles he has logged in his career, ironic huh? We were soon to find out different.
Everybody on, roll call taken, because it really is about the kids right: their commitment to the team, their school, their friends, and themselves. I always tell the girls that basketball is a microcosm of life. You can't win them all, you can't do it all yourself, you need help and must help others. I don't know if they believe me but I find it to be true. Now as coaches we are entrusted with teaching things like this along with a good old pick and roll, and with that comes the trust that we will have other people's children in our care. Something you take for granted and don't really think will ever be challenged.
We are casually on our way and have touched the rumble strips on the side of the road a couple times but who doesn't, and the bus is huge. We are sixty miles in and the tires actually leave the pavement and we are on the gravel shoulder, just for a few seconds but long enough for everyone to think is it just me or was that a little scary. No one really says anything, a few nervous laughs, but no one wants to be the person who yells fire. We touch the rumble strips a few more times and there is an anxious moment when we share a narrow bridge with an oncoming semi. More glances and jokes, but a little perspiration is added.
We arrive at the game site and are roughly pulled into a parking spot, everyone debarks, glad to be off the bus and ready for a game. My team plays first, we stomps guts, and as the varsity is warming up I notice our driver in the stands sneaking in a cat nap, good, better now than later right? The varsity gets a great win and we are ready to go. Some kids ride home with their parents, others get on the doomsday bus.
We are now headed back home and on the ride of our life. We are no more than three miles out of town and start to gradually drift in and out of our lane. I am starting to get a little nervous and try to get an angle to see if the driver is 'napping' again. The girls on the bus are squirming and screeching with every movement that might be considered out of the norm. They are fueling each others fear and it is on a steady rise, jumping by leaps and bounds. The head coach and I talk and decide we will move up by the driver and start a conversation, one that will keep him engaged and more importantly alert. It works to some degree, but if the conversation lags for a minute or two we start to drift one way or another. We reach the first small town and see the only stoplight in town is red, for some reason we stop a block away.
The coaches again start their incessant chatter with said driver but find that silence, even a minute is directly proportional to our drift factor. Now it's getting a little freaky and the girls are really amped up, some have called their parents to pull over and pick them up. the coaches decide we should tell the driver to stop at a town half way home to help with the attention problem and we do. Five or six girls get off to ride with their parents and the others are left feeling like human sacrifices. As the driver turns the bus around he swipes the mirror against a no parking sign and parks to wait. We can't believe it. We wait for the girls to come out of the convenience store, many of us needed a bathroom break, and I notice the driver dozing in his seat. What the? The girls file on after hugging the 'lucky' ones who are riding with parents, it looks like a parade down the green mile as they find their seats and brace for the worst.
We are on the interstate for a few miles and things are better, we have parents following us now to document exactly where we exited the road as the bus drove into the ditch. Just kidding but at least we now have someone who knows where we are. We leave the safety of the four lane and it's back into Dantes Inferno. Driver is confused by all turn lanes, we ride half way in and half way out. I notice driver get out a flashlight and start to check the dashboard, I can see the dash fine from where I am and wonder what we did wrong to get Mr. Magoo as a driver tonight. We are still trying to talk to him but the drifting is back. I try to draw attention to the fact and ask if the bus is a little light in the front end and he replies that sometimes it's kind of hard to see at night. WHAT? You have your brights on and haven't dimmed them for anyone no matter how many times they flash you. They paint a white line along the road that goes from here to where ever you are trying to get, it's like a safety precaution so stay beside it, not over. How much help do you need?
At this point we round a gradual curve and see a semi coming our way, we have again drifted and the girls actually dive from one side of the bus to the other and the head coach starts screaming over, over, over. This is the final straw. Head coach tells him pull over, we are going to have a different driver or we are getting off. Driver says you can get off but no one else is driving, so we get all the girls off the bus and watch him drive into the night as we stand along side the road. Eventually we have parents that were called show up and we pile everyone into cars and head for the school.
The next day when I see the girls again one player asks if I have heard the ending and I ask what it is. Apparently the driver got to the bus barn fine and as he is navigating into the garage manages to side swipe the diving coaches car for his finale. A perfect ending to a nightmarish trip.
Fortunately no one is hurt on our bus nor any other drivers on the road that night. It just goes to show you you can plan for a lot of things, but you can't plan for everything. We leave again on Tuesday to play ball out of town and you can bet the driver is in for the third degree, even Otto from the Simpson's would make me feel better. I will let you know how it goes.
Sorry this one is so long.
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