The End of Summer, or the Beginning of the Rest

I'm only good at writing about what I've done. Let me review the last few months with you.

I'll start with my most recent memory, Gay Town USA.

My dad, brother and I came to the decision a month or two ago that we needed some time together. We decided that the best place for three men to travel to was San Francisco. Without going into a sarcastic tirade full of homosexual jokes I'll outline a couple of the things we did.

We went to the greatest rivalry game on Earth. Giants versus the Dodgers. Was it really the greatest rivalry game? No. Were there more drunk people yelling at each other than any game in the history of Baseball? Probably not, but it seemed like it was.

We were in the eye of the hurricane. Half-naked girls were to our left and --I don't know how I could have seen this mom-- they had GIANTS painted across their stomachs. There were raging alcoholics to our right, a nice Hispanic family behind us (trying their best to keep their six year old daughter from being knocked out by a stray Bud Lite bottle), and most surprisingly, there was an actual baseball game being played right there in front of us.

Our seats in the death zone didn't allow us to see the game because everyone would stand up when a fight broke out. This happened every three minutes. By the eighth inning we decided to move to the SPLASH ZONE. This is in right field where a juiced Bonds would hit balls into the ocean. We sat there for two innings and luckily received the opportunity to be sprayed by the "home run spray jets." We had already been toughing out the sub 20 degree S.F. summer and a nice water jet to the body warmed us right up. The baseball game was awesome and seeing Ramirez get his two hits in was icing on the cake.

We did some other things in that crazy town such as drink beer, eat Chinese food, and sleep in rooms that were only supposed to fit two people. Somehow I got my brother to sleep on the ground the first night and we just so happened to upgrade our room the second night allowing me to sleep in my own pull out bed. You're the best Jonathan.

Boo ya! This post is dedicated to my sister Katie, my sister Sarah, my brother Jonathan, my mother Marlene, my father Steve, my sister-in-law Lesley, and my naked butt spanking new brother-in-law Mike(y).

Here's to my last semester of school and my hunt for a wife!

This Honda Civic is Making Me Civ-Sick!

Steve Miller and I drove across the entire United States of America last week and it was fun at times. 

Steve took a lot of my crap; we snipped at each other when need be and emphasized certain words when speaking to one another at various points of time, but it never got out of hand. It was just pure father-son relations at their best. 

We saw some pretty southern women (which means I saw some), heard some highly attractive accents that made me forget about the ten hours of driving I just endured (if Taylor Swift ever said something to me in person, I don't even know what would happen to me), and ate Memphis style ribs in Memphis. 

With my sister's brand new white civic loaded to the brim with plenty of expensive things, we promptly got a room four blocks from Yankee stadium in the heart of the Bronx and parked that pretty white pearl next to a stolen car lot hidden under the freeway. Completely safe. 

The Yankees have the purest fans in the USA. They are my fans. They boo anything and everything that isn't apart of the Yankees universe and they mean it. We watched as an entire section threw beer on a single Red Sox fan and actually got him kicked out of the game. You don't even joke about it. I love it. 

We made it home safe. We stopped at a gas station just before our final 17th hour of straight driving and I was not healthy. I got out of the car; my eyes were bloodshot, I noticed that I couldn't walk straight, and I headed to the bathroom. I made it back to the car. 

Speaking of bathrooms. Never turn bathtub jets on before the water is comfortably above the holes. Water shoots out very, very fast. Second thing never to do with a bathtub. DONT EVER LEAVE A CONTAINER OF BLEACH NEXT TO THE BATH SALT. I was a second away from imersing myself in an acid wash that would have changed my life forever. Luckily my nose was working and I was able to clean it out and have a relaxing bath. This all happened when we stayed at a friends house in the middle of the week. 

My tank is empty, until next time. Happy birthday Levi. 

Road Trip

Woops

Confidential, I Can't Tell You Anything About It

I got a job for the summer. Wish I could tell you about it. I signed a confidentiality agreement. 

I'll give you a broad description of what I'm doing because that's all my confidentiality agreement says I can do. 

I defend those harmed by medical accidents. Not the patients.  The doctors. I defend the ones holding the scalples and lasers. Will I tell you the firm I'm working at? Of course not. It's confidential. 

What more can I tell you about my job? I'm an assist guy. Without me passing the ball around the court to the ones that can score, our team doesn't win. When a defense attorney doesn't win, people get pissed. There could be an entire clinic resting in the hands of one of our attorneys. 

There's a difference between an assist man in basketball and an assist man at a lawfirm. The assist man at the lawfirm never shoots. If you were to look at my boxscore for a day at work, it'd look something like 0-0-16; points, rebounds, and assists respectively. 

I need to get their paper work filed, and I need to get it filed fast. 

Aside from having a pretty secret job this summer I'm going to the beach and having BBQs whenever the temperature is above 60 degrees. 

My sister is graduating from Gordon in a few weeks and I'm driving back mono y mono with my dad. There will be some blog posts that you will never forget from that trip, I can feel it. 

The Miller family is changing rapidly in the next few months and Sarah and I are more or less onlookers. Let's just say 66.6% (4 of the 6) of our family could be living in a completely new area in four months. What isn't changing about the Miller family? Let's make a list. 

1. Our love for each other.

2. Our faith.

3. Our attraction to the opposite sex.

I need to be studying. 

The Million Dollar Man

So I'm done with surgery and somehow I came out of there with a robotic leg and a gun for an arm.

Everything I liked about getting surgery from 10 years ago just about vanished today. Everything went great but it felt more like a bunch of mortitions were running the place. Zero bedside manner save a smile or two. I'm a business guy so I can handle the all business approach to a surgery that's done thousands of times a year but it was almost too business like. The moment I sat on the bed they start hooking me up to crap, taping things to my back, sticking stuff behind my ear, squeezing my bicep like they knew I'd been working out the last two weeks, and shoving IVs into my veins. All within one minute. I was expecting them to yell STAT! and give me a megawatt shock to my chest with those electro paddles.

So I get into the surgery room and they start wrapping me in blankets. I lost count of how many they were wrapping me in and they kept asking if I wanted more. I couldnt help but laugh a little bit because I had no idea what they were doing in the first place. After the burly men got done wrapping me I woke up in post op. Love how that works.

"On a 1 to 10 scale how bad does your knee hurt?" The half-kind nurse says. "Probably a 6" This is me trying to look somewhat manly. "Do you want some more pain medication?" As if she thought I wouldn't want it. "Sure why not."

I'm writing this now with my friend Vicodin just like I siad I would. It definitely makes me feel good but I think it actually improves my writing.

Mom and I are straight chillin. She picked up some liquor to dull the pain (come on). I've got my legged propped up sipping on prune juice and eating whatever mom buys me. Prune juice is not what I thought it was by the way. I thought cranberry and prune juice were one in the same, not true. Mash up one of my least favorite things, raisins, and make it into a juice. Mmmmm. I don't even know why I'm drinking it because I'm horrified to go to the bathroom while my left leg is stiff.

Well I've written enough. Nothing out of the ordinary going on here. I feel pretty good and I have a bed full of food. Life is great. Movie of the surgery coming soon.

The Spectrum

Europe = Fast
Westmont = Slow

Now I knew second semester would be different but once the whole two ends of the spectrum thing came into my head I just laughed. I think it just makes too much sense to go from such a ridiculously nuts pace on Europe Semester to a ridiculously different pace at Westmont; now with a bum knee. Some may attribute this to Karma; there was so much good stuff in Europe that I was bound to encounter the butt end of the deal back at Westmont. Some may attribute it to a sense of humor by the hands of God; "Here's four raucous months in Europe, now here's a few months of rehab so you can stop doing things and actually start thinking about Me again."

It seems like right now is a time for everyone to think about what their life is really about. My brother and his wife are struggling to get a foundation built for their future while my parents are struggling to keep the house they're living in. I hurt my knee so I'm forced to sit more (boohoo). I think it's prime time for Christians to open their Bibles and read about the One who has the grace and mercy to have even created us.

Francis Chan spoke in chapel today about a group of missionaries who were captured by the Taliban and all but a few were executed in front of their eyes. After the surviving missionaries managed to get home they had wished that they could go back to being captured because they had never been so close to God like they were in that situation of supreme anguish.

I hope we can each acknowledge the times we are in and strengthen our relationship with God before we must battle comfort once again. It's almost like God has a huge flashing neon arrow pointing to him right now and all we have to do is look away from the bank statements and up towards Him.

It's late and this post is pretty different from the others. I'm not trying to show some deep side to my thinking or share ways I think will make everyone get better. I just wanted to write and this is what came to my head.

My next post I will be accompanied by my friends Vicodin and Percocet. I'm positive it will be more fun to read.

Snap, Crackle, and oh Crap

I brought a coffee maker for our dorm room this semester. I'm roomin with my good buddies Curtis and Jake. Jake bought us a bag of Peet's Arabian Mocha Java Coffee (Caffeinated). I wouldn't be writing this if he hadn't. If you're an avid reader of this blog you would remember way back in July when I wandered to Peet's Coffee in Sacramento when I was visiting my brother and sister in-law. I ordered thier medium sized house brew and it pretty much turned my body into a cocaine indused frenzy. Let's not forget the most exciting part when I turned into Lloyd when he's at the girls house in Dumb and Dumber (explicit). I could flush the toilet though.

So here I am drinking some home brewed Peets coffee and enjoying it's sweet caffeine and Arabian mocha java with slight dark chocolate undertones. Another major reason I'm writing a new post is my knee. Picture this: It's a Wednesday night and everybody who's anybody is at the black top (Murchison Gym) ready for some hoops. Little did they know this would be the game of their lives. First to 15 with one and two point shots. We're battling back and forth and we manage to get a five point lead making it 13-8. I'm thinking to myself, "I'm playing lights out defense right now and there's no way we can let this lead slip away." We let the lead slip away. It's tied 14-14 and both teams are throwing up shots like the basket is going to move to the ball. Even more so, guys are driving through the middle attempting lay ups with quadruple teams not even getting the ball to hit the glass. It's an embarrassing picture. By this time there's at least twenty guys watching us play so they can play the winner when we finish. I'm so jacked up on this game it was like I had just drank an entire store worth of Peets Coffee.

Curtis (he's on the other team) gets the inbound pass after we miss another shot and begins his journey to our basket. Awaiting to ambush his journey is a warrior of old named Matthew. Curtis is running full speed to the basket and I'm running full speed at him so I can do a body slam and get a foul. He jumps up, I jump up, he shoots, I swat, he lands, I pop. My left knee shoots out sideways and I'm on the ground yelling language my mother would disown me for. So I'm like cool I just heard my knee pop like a flat tire on a Toyota Corolla. After I roll around a bit my friends help me up and I walk back to my room limping very nicely. The rest is history.

Monday I go in for an examination and hopefully hear it's just a strain. The olympic trainer at Westmont says I have a "60-70%" chance that my acl is either torn or completely blown up. I told my pre-med friend Jordan this and he translated it for me, "that basically means a 100% chance." I guess we'll see.

So my knee's a mess and the weather is beyond perfect here in Santa Barbara. Everything fun in the sun requires two good knees by the way. The worst thing about this is that it doesn't even hurt so I get zero pain medication to play around with.

Anyways, my left butt cheek is going numb because I have to sit sideways to write this.

Life has been beyond good back at Westmont but it's also more work than ever before. Work wise, you could say Europe semester is the complete opposite.

It's another sunny day and how could I not be happy.