it starts....

so, after many years of being encouraged to write down some of my adventures/ mishaps from friends, i have finally found the motivation to do so.  these are not intended to be in chronological order, you get them as i get around to it.  i will try and add dates if i can remember them, if any of you happen to be apart of the story, feel free to add any info to the comments.  i am in no way a proffessional writer of any sort, so what ever punctuation or grammer mistakes i make, are what you end up with.

"Tennessee Plates"

"highway star"

After one stretch of summer block leave, I decided that I wanted to take Daisy back up to washington so that I could do some off roading in my free time. After some of my other driving experiences, I decided It would be a good idea to leave my self some extra time just in case something bad happened during the drive, so I left a couple days before I had to be back. For the first couple hundred miles, everything went well, or at least as well as can be expected when driving Daisy. For those of you who have never had the priveldge of riding daisy, its an adventure to say the least! She constantly wants to change lanes on her own, and its not so much that you steer her down the road, but more like your playing pong inside the lines of your lane, constantly bouncing back and forth correcting the wheel each time you hit the line in order to prevent yourself from leaving the road (so for those of you who ever wondered why I dont let you drive her, now you know). I was doing really well at guiding her down the highway swaying back and forth and managing to stay in my own lane, though I am pretty certain that the other drivers on the road were expecting me to leave the road at any moment. I figured my best option was to just take it slow and easy. All was going well till I crossed into oregon. At around 2330, I was somewhere in the mountains, going up a rather steep stretch of road, when all of a sudden the jeep started to sputter and lose power. I glanced down at my oil pressure gauge ( the only working gauge on the dash) and saw that I still had plenty of oil pressure, which meant that I was almost out of fuel. Because I dont have a working odometer, or fuel gauge this is not an unexpected occurance. I pulled off to the side of the road, and used once of the five gallon fuel cans I carry to fill the tank back up enough to continue on down the road to the next gas station. Once the can was empty and secured in the back, I hopped in and was back on the road. After about 10 miles, i came across a small town. I figured it was as good a spot at any to stop and fill up. After getting gas, I hopped back on the highway and continued on with my trip. After going about 2 miles, I heard a loud bang, and saw liquid shoot out several spots around the edge of the hood. From all of my previous experience, I have learned that this is never a good sign. I immediately pulled off to the side of the road again, and opened the hood so as to assess the situation. When I opened the hood, water was still spraying all over the place. At first glance I thought I had broken one of the radiator hoses, which is no big deal, since I carry spares for just an occasion. After careful inspection, I couldnt find any breaks in either hose. My next thought was that maybe it was just the pressure cap on the radiator releasing steam/water. So I shut the hood, climbed back in and decided to ease it up the road a ways and see if it happened again. After a couple miles, I started to see water shooting out again. Since I happened to be coming up on an exit, I waited till then, and then once I was off the highway I pulled off the side into a dirt lot for further diagnosis. This time I decided to grab my headlamp, since I was still convinced there was a hole in one of the hoses and that I had just missed it in the dark. After searching for a good ten minutes and not finding anything broken or torn, I decided it would be best to head back to the gas station where I had filled up, and wait till morning when I could better determine exactly what was wrong. When I got to the Cheveron, I picked a spot in the parking lot, turned off the jeep and attempted to sleep. When the sun finally came up, I noticed the gas station had a water spicket. I pulled over in front of it and started to refill my radiator. Once the radiator was full, I turned off the water, and started the motor. Almost instantly I saw water shooting up. Instead of coming from one of the hoses, I noticed it was coming from right behind the fan out of the motor, and at a very rapid rate. I hop in the jeep, and head across the street , where luckily there happens to be an Oriely's auto pars. I then sat there waiting for them to open so that I could see if they had a water pump for an older chevy motor. Luckily for me, auto parts stores tend to still be open on memorial day. When the store opened, my luck held out, and they had the water pump that I needed. I took my newly aquired water pump out side, and after emptying all the tools out of the back of the jeep, I proceeded to remove the old water pump and replace it with the new one right there in the parking lot. As I was working on it, every time an old man walked by on their way into the store, they all paused, looked at me, and said “ looks like the old change the water pump in the parking lot trick”. Apparently this was something all of them had done at one point or another. After about an hour, I had the old pump off and the new one on. I then fired the engine up to test out my handy work. Immediately water started covering the ground! I quickly looked into the engine bay with hopes of discovering where the water was coming from. As I looked, to my horror I saw that the water was pouring out of the middle of the radiator. I quickly shut the engine off, and went back inside the store. After searching the isles, and asking a few questions, I came back outside with a bottle of copper stop leak. For those of you not familiar with this product, its sole purpose is to stop radiators from leaking, so you dont have to use egg whites. For those of you wondering why I didnt just get a new radiator, the one I have is not an original from a jeep, and for the last 5 years I have not been able to find another one that is the same. I then headed back over to the gas station to use their water spicket. I filled the radiator with water, only to see the water start pouring out faster than I could put it in once it got about half full. I then quickly added the bottle of stop leak and fired up the motor. The radiator continued leaking, and the stop leak never acomplished its task. I then made a judgement call, and decided I would fill as many containers as I could with water and then try and drive anyway and see how far I could make it. After heading back onto the highway, leaving a nice trail of water the whole way, I made it less than ten miles before the motor started to over heat. I then took the next exit I came to, and pulled off so that I could let the motor cool down and evaluate my situation. I made a phone call to my dad so that he could jump on the internet and look for the nearest u-haul store. As it turns out almost all of them are closed on memorial day. After several minutes of searching he was able to give me the number to several dealers that were anywhere from 14 to 60 miles away. After giving them all a call, I was lucky enough to find only one of them was open, and that one happened to be the one that was closest to my location. It was in Weed, oregon. The guy who was running it told me he had one truck, and one tow dolly left. I told hime to hold them for me cause I was on my way and then quickly I jumped back on the highway, and gradually limped the jeep to their location, stopping every 4 miles or so to let the engine cool off and add more water. After about an hour I managed to make it to the dealer, which turned out to be a one stop shop. It was a liquor store/mini mart/pawn shop/ gun store/ bait and tackle shop/ u-haul dealer. After filling out all the proper paperwork, I hooked the tow dolly up to the truck, then hooked the jeep up to the tow dolly, and disconected the transfer case. After making sure the jeep was secure, I jumped in the truck and began the rest of my journey back to Ft Lewis. It was a very different and pleasing experience finishing off the trip with climate controls and a radio. I pulled into the batallion parking lot just a little under 2 days after I head left on what should have been a quick 16 hour drive. Once again, another adventure from behind the wheel!

"Man on Fire"

One day many many years ago, I received a call from Tom. He inquired as to what plans I might have later on that evening. Other than an indoor soccer game at 2200, I didn’t have anything else planned. He then informed me that several of his coworkers were going out to eat and most likely get drunk, and asked if I would like to join them since he knew that none of that would offend me. After agreeing to come along, he informed me that they were going to a sushi place called “big tuna”. Now anyone who knows me, is aware that I am not a fan of seafood, whether its cooked or not, but being the fan of adventure that I am, I am willing to try just about anything at least once I decided I would still go. When we got there, his coworkers had been there for a little while, and several of them had a healthy start on their liquid spirits. After some brief introductions, we grabbed some seats next to them at the counter and started looking through the menu. As I was scanning the menu for anything that might appear edible, tom asked me what kind of sushi I liked. It was at this time I informed him that I had never had it before, and that I didn’t like seafood. At this time he gave me a look as if to say “why in the world did you come then?”. He then took the menu from me, and told me that we should get the all you could eat special. For about 24$ we could eat pretty much anything on the menu for as long as our stomachs could go. Not being one to back away, I agreed. For the most part, we started at the top of the menu and just worked our way down, sampling everything they had, like eel, crab, and many many others. After about an hour we had worked our way through most the list, when we got to uni. For those of you not familiar with sushi, uni is another word for sea urchin. It has the texture of mashed up rotten bananas. I don’t remember the taste, because the texture was enough to prevent me from swallowing it, sending my body into convulsions in an attempt to expel the substance from my body. After several attempts to swallow it, I ended up spitting it out in my napkin, so as to avoid having anything else I had eaten try to make an unwanted escape from my stomach. After recovering from the unexpected ambush by the uni, we proceeded through the menu. By this time, everyone at the bar was having what appeared to be a great time. Every couple minutes there were repeated shouts of “saki bomb!”, at which all those drinking would take a shot of saki, including the chefs. At some point during all of this, either tom put in a request for something different, or one of the chefs who had been helping us work our way through the menu asked tom and I if we would be willing to try something. The chef asked tom what he wanted, to which tom replied “surprise me”. The chef then got a large grin on his face, and with a loud scratchy voice and a thick Japanese accent he yelled “good choice!!!”. The chef then asked us if we like spicy, to which we responded in the affirmative. Then smiling the chef asked us how spicy on a scale of 1-10, to which tom again said “surprise me”. With a gleam in his eye, the chef again yelled out “good choice!!!”. After several minutes, the chef appeared with a small dish, which he handed to tom. Tom put a small amount of the mystery food in his mouth, and instantly sweat appeared on his forehead, and tears formed in his eyes! Of course my first thought is that tom is a pansy and there is no way this can be that spicy. So I confidently take a scoop, making sure that I take more than tom did. Instantly my mouth feels like its on fire! I swallow the food in hopes that it will provide my mouth with relief. To my dismay, my mouth continues to burn, and the sensation starts to spread down my throat and into my stomach following the food as it makes its way through my system. It felt like my insides were on fire! Immediately we flagged down a waitress to restock now empty water glasses. We drank glass after glass of cold water, the intense fiery effect never losing any of its intensity. After several minutes of this, we decided our next best option was to order something with rice in it, which would hopefully quench the fire. It takes a good fifteen minutes of suffering before we are able to gain some sort of control over ourselves. At this point, we both are curious as to what we just ate. We ask the nearest chef to tell us what this fiery dish is. He just looks at us with a blank face as he says he doesn’t know what it is, the only way to find out is to ask the guy who made it. After waiting for a while, we see the chef who prepared our special dish. He asks us if we liked it, to which we replied that it was hot. He then shouts out “good choice!!” again. At this time we ask him what was in in, and in the same excited voice he yells out “FISH!!!!  and SPICE!!!”, followed almost immediately with another “good choice!!” The whole afternoon was a great time. After we had been there for a couple hours, we all said good bye to each other and headed off on our separate ways.

"Mercy Mercy me"

So, I find out that summer leave is coming up and that I will have 2 weeks of free time away from Ft. Lewis. For leave I decide to head back home to Palmdale, and that I should drive the truck (1960 Chevy pickup) home and drop it off, and bring Daisy (197five cj five) back up to WA.

The day for we sign out for leave arrives. After final formation, we all sign out. I then change out of uniform as quickly as possible and enlist the help of some friends (it takes several people to push a kayak out the window of a room on the 3^rd floor and lower it somewhat safely to the ground) to start loading the kayak and several tough boxes into the back of the truck. Once everything is loaded I do a few last minute checks and then hit the road on my way. Normally the first leg of the journey goes pretty smoothly and is the easiest since its daylight and im still wide awake (not that I ever really get tired while driving). I should have realized this trip would be different when I found myself in traffic before I even got off post, but I just chalked it up to typical Friday traffic. Six hours later and I had only made it about 130 miles!!! I should have already been almost half way home by now, but instead I had not even made it out of Washington yet. At this time I decide it is less effective to try and fight the stop and go traffic, and that it would be better to pull off and get something to eat in the hopes that once I was done eating the traffic would have dissipated. As I pull into the Wendy’s parking lot, I notice that several other cars seem to have the same plan. In talking to the other folks getting food, I am informed that there were five car accidents all within about a 30 mile stretch of the highway, and that is why traffic has been backed up for so long.

After taking plenty of time enjoying my frosty and fries, I decide things should be cleared up by now and that I should get back on the road. I’m on the road for about a half hour before I start to notice a fair amount of blue smoke pouring out from the back of the truck as I drive down the road. My first thought is that this is not good, since blue smoke is a good indication of burning oil. I glanced down at my trusty oil pressure gauge (the only gauge in the truck that works) and see that I still have plenty of pressure, so I figure things cant be that bad. I start to go over in my head all the reasons that I could be burning oil (bad piston rings, blown gaskets, cracked block, and so on). During this process I decide to call my dad and have him use the magic of the internet to double check my suspicions. After a little research, I figure it is most likely that the piston rings are ruined, and the oil is burning because its leaking through into the combustion chamber. So, one of my favorite shows is called roadkill. It is about 2 guys who drive junk cars long distances for different reasons and have to stop and fix horrible problems on the vehicles every episode. Since I watched an episode where they successfully drove an el camino from LA to Reno with bad piston rings, I figure I should be able to make it the rest of the way as well.

After driving for a couple more hours, it is now dark and the oil pressure gauge is starting to drop a lot quicker than I would like. I decide to pull off on the next exit and see if I cant figure out exactly what is going on. The next exit turns out to be one of those ranch exits, that has no services, no lights. Its sole purpose is to provide some rancher access to his land. As I pull off the road into a dirt lot, I grab my headlamp and hop out to see if I can see why im losing oil pressure. By the time I get out and walk around to the other side of the truck where the engine will be most visible from underneath, the truck has had enough time to drop a small lake of oil on the ground and continue emptying what is left from the oil pan into the dirt which the light from my headlamp gladly reflects off of. I decide that time is short, so I hurry up and dump a gallon of oil in the engine (doesn’t everyone carry an extra gallon of oil everywhere they go?) and head off in search of a truck stop before I run out of oil and get stranded. About 10 miles down the road I come across a “Loves” truck stop and decide to pull in. I find a parking spot, and immediately start making a new lake of oil under the truck. I do my best to try and see where the oil is coming from, but am unsuccessful. I then head into the store in search of more oil, and a mirror on a stick. Once inside I find the oil rather quickly, but spend the next twenty minutes looking for the mirror. I figure since this is a truck stop they are bound to have one, and I am just not seeing it. After repeated failure I finally resort to asking the cashier where it is, and she just gives me a confused look since she has no idea what I’m talking about. I quickly describe to her what it looks like, to which she replies “we don’t carry anything like that here”. I buy about 2 gallons of oil, and head back out to my new man made lake. I do a little more peering and straining in an attempt to find where the oil is leaking from, and come to the conclusion that the rear main seal is probably broken and that it would be best to try and find an auto parts store. I top off the oil and quickly get back on the highway and head on down the road. After about a little over an hour (about 3 am) of driving, I notice the oil pressure start to drop again. Luckily I am coming up on a rest stop. I pull off, and decide that instead of topping off the oil, that it would be better to stop until daylight and then continue on when it would be easier to find. Once I pull into a parking spot, I get out and put my oil drain pan under the leak so that I can capture as much of the oil leaking out as I can. I figure since I have a limited amount with me, I will need to reuse any that I can manage to prevent from becoming a dark lake under the truck. I then get back in the truck and attempt to get some sleep. I spent the rest of the night waking up about every half hour convinced I had heard someone trying to take stuff out of the bed of the truck. Some time a little before sun up I decided attempting to sleep was a lost cause. I got out and grabbed the extra bottles of oil I had and pulled the drain plan out from under the truck. I quickly dumped the contents of the pan along with 3 quarts of oil into the engine, and then was on my way.

At about the same time that the sun was starting to rise, I found a small town ( I don’t remember the name of it) that looked promising. Upon exiting the freeway, I immediately happen across a small chevron station. Once I am inside I locate the oil and start grabbing every bottle they have. The cashier gives me a funny look and informs me that the oil is expensive. I then fill her in on my situation, and that I need the oil no matter what the cost is to make it farther. She then informs me that there is a Walmart, and an O'Reilly's auto parts store in town, and gives me directions on how to get there so that I can get cheaper oil. Gotta love small towns! After driving around for about fifteen minutes, I was able to find both of them right next to each other. Since it was still rather early, I had to sit around for about an hour for the auto parts store to open. I got out and put my drain pan under the truck, and then used this time to call my brother Jake and see what he was up to for the day. Once the store opened, I went in and made my way straight to the section with the mirror on a sticks and bought one. Since it was now light outside, I decided this would be a good opportunity to further diagnose the issue. I took a good look underneath using my newly acquired tool. Because the starter was blocking my view, I was still not able to see what was causing the problem for certain. It still looked like it was leaking from the rear main seal. So I went back in the store and bought several five quart jugs of cheap oil. Once I had filled the motor back up I was quickly on my way again. Since I was not completely sure what the problem was, I opted to keep driving and just stop every fifty miles or so and add more oil. This plan worked alright, all the way till I got to the foot of the grapevine.

I had decided it would be a good idea to stop one last time to get more oil before heading up the pass. I tried paying Credit, and when that didn’t work, tried ATM. That failed also! (turns out when you drive a thousand miles stopping every fifty miles to get stuff, the bank thinks its suspicions activity and puts a hold on your card) Luckily I had enough cash for 2 quarts of oil. After topping it off, I preceded up the pass and was able to make it the rest of the way without incident. Once I arrived home and had access to the necessary tools, upon removing the starter I discovered that the cause of all my troubles was an 8 inch crack along the side of my oil pan. I went to the parts store in an attempt to buy another one, which turned into its own mini adventure. In the end I wound up just taking the pan off and welding up the crack on my own. A trip that normally takes between 16 and 20 hours ended up taking 2 days.

Adventures in geocaching!

lets see, where to start? we ( me, cynicalifornia, ccwrestlechick, and another one of our first time friends) started the night at our east side caching headquarters. after grouping up we headed off into the night. as we got close to the coordinates we found ourselves on top of a bridge, when all of a sudden the gps said 40 ft to the south (once again, our habit of not reading the info on the cash, or the previous logs came into play) so we continued over the bridge and went into the neighborhood. under the bridge we crossed earlier there was some railroad tracks, so of course we thought the cache was under the bridge possibly by the tracks. we pulled off into the dirt, and noticed several bars from the fence by the tracks were missing. so of course we went in. we searched all over under the tracks, and i decided to climb to the top and check on top of the bridge to look, while the others where still down below. im not on the roadside by the bridge for not more than 3 min when all of a sudden a squad car pulls up and blocks of the road, then another one pulls up and blocks the other side, and then another. the first cop gets out of his car, and asks me where im goin, i look at all the squad cars and officers, and say "im not goin anywhere". he then tells me to put my hands up where he can see them. as soon as i do, all the cops rush over to me, grab my arms, put them behind my back, and continue to put me in handcuffs. he then asks me if i have anything illegal, as he begins to search my pockets and pat me down. i tell him i have a pocket knife in my right pocket. after that he starts to ask me what is in each of my many pockets before he goes through them. got a weird look when i told him one of my pockets had a camera and oreos. after he goes through all my pockets, he askes me who is down below, so i tell him its my buddies, and they are actually on there way up here, he then says no they arnt, as a squad car pulls up beside them. he then asks me what i am doin out here, and in my most serious voice i tell them that i am geocaching, which of course they have never heard of. i am met with blank stares, so i tell him it is like treasure hunting with gps. now they give me a funny look as if to say , what is a grown man doin treasure hunting in the middle of the night. then they ask me what im looking for, and i look like a bigger fool, when i say i dont know what im looking for. i then try to explain that it could be any number of things. all of a sudden i hear over the radio, "yeah it looks like these guys are doin some sort of treasure hunting thing". after that (its been about 15 min) they take the handcuffs off and let me go. apparently someone called the cops cause they thought we were taggers. one of them sticks around for a couple min. helping me look in the bushes cause he is curious to see what i am trying to find. after a few min of no success he takes off to. after a min or to i am reunited with the rest of the group. we search all over, up down and on both sides, eventuallyl cynicalifornia goes back to his vehicle and gets online to read more about the cache. after that it is an easy find. we log and then continue on with the rest of the nights adventures!

"right turn clyde..."

One friday morning in july, (might have been the 7^th) in 2007 or so I get up early, with my house mate chris and we head off on an early morning training ride before work. For several years, some friends and I have made it a goal to try and ride (on bicycles/road bikes) from my parents house in palmdale, to ventura beach on labor day. Its about a hundred mile ride give or take, depending on what roads we use. In anticipation of this ride, chris and I had been getting up early in the mornings and riding about 20 miles or so everyday to make sure we were in shape. On this particular day, we were on the home stetch, only a couple miles away from the house. We were riding pretty close together, to utilize the draft. I was right behind chris, my front tire over lapping his rear tire about half an inch just to the right side. We came up to an intersection, and I thought we were going to go straight, instead chris made a right turn. Because I was not expecting the turn, our tires rubbed and as I tried to jump off my bike to avoid injury, I couldnt get my feet unclipped from the pedals. I ended up going over the handle bars, and of course the first thing I did was to put my arms out to break the fall. When I finally stopped rolling and got seperated from my bike I began to feel the pain in my left arm. As I look down at my arm I notice that it is slightly bent in an unatural way. While chris is helping me up and making sure I am ok, a guy (the grout dr...he gave me his business card) pulls up to the intersection and checks to see if we are alright. When he sees what has happened, he offers to help us out. He throws my bike in the back seat of his car and gives me a ride to the house while chris rides his bike back. When I get to the house, I thank the guy for the ride. I put my bike away and change clothes as quickly as I can. When chris gets back, he does the same, then gives me a ride to the urgent care ( garrison family medical group). After I fill out the paper work, we take a seat and begin the wait. To pass the time I start examining my arm a little closer. I lean over and put my fist down on the carpet, and then try and bend my arm. It bends, but not at the wrist where it should, instead it bends near the forearm. I immediately decide I need pictures of this awesomeness. I pull out my phone and start taking pictures, about this time I notice the rest of the folks are watching me with horror in their eyes. As I put my phone away they call my name. Shortest wait ever! I head to the back, im sure to the relief of the folks still waiting. They sit me down in one of those small rooms and then dissapear for a while as usual, except this time I got to keep my clothes on! When the nurse, or assistant, or whatever the person who is not the doctor is called comes in to take a look, I explain what happened and immediately tell them ( just like I told the lady at the front) that I dont have insurance and will be paying in cash. (meaning dont do anything more than you need to!) the lady immediately says I will need to get x rays. So they take me into the little x ray room. Since I have been moving my arm around, and it has not been more than an hour or so since the crash I can still move my arm fairly easily to the positions they need for the x rays. I am then taken back to my little room. After a little while the doctor lady comes in. she is holding the x rays up to the light as she asks me what happened. After I recount my tale, she looks as my and smiles as she says “your not the brightest, but at least your kinda cute”. She then tells me I will most likely have to have my arm set. They dont do it here, so I will have to go to some other place. As she is telling me the name of the place, her assistant comes up and tells her I dont have insurance. The Doctor lady, pauses and then says “nevermind, the only people we send there are the ones with insurance, and the ones that are independantly wealthy”. She then gives me the name of a county hospital that I need to go to that is on the way to L.A., its called olive veiw. They put my arm in a sling, I pay my bill, which seems really low especially for having x rays taken, they hand me the x rays and send me on my way. We head back to the house, and then chris heads off to work, while I start looking for another ride. I call kim (she was the relief society pres of the singles ward at the time), I can tell by the way she answers that I have just woken her up. I ask if she has anything planned for the day, she answers with a weary no. so I ask her “if she minds if I ruing the beginning of her weekend”? She laughs a little and asks what I need. I explain the situation to her, and she replies that she would gladly give me a ride, she just needs an hour or so to get ready and head over. After hanging up with her, I call my boss Clay over at the tanker base and let him know that I will not make it into work today because I have to go in to get my arm set. He gives a short chuckle and tells me to let him know when I can come back to work. Soon kim arrives at the house, I grab my x rays and off we head. Olive veiw is roughly a little over fifty miles away, luckily traffic on the freeway is relatively light. After about an hour we finally arrive. We get out of the car and head inside to discover that the place is under renovation. There is plastic sheets and cones laid out all over the place. Since neither of us has ever been here, we talk to the guy at the info counter and he gives us some crazy directions (over the river and thru the woods type of stuff) so that we can navigate around all the construction. After about 20 min we make it up a couple floors and down several dark hallways to a small counter in the back of what looks like a storage room. Despite how difficult it was to find, there is a line! When I finally make it to the front, and tell the lady why I am here, she looks at my arm and tells me that they only set broken bones in the hand. For anything above the wrist I will have to go to USC -L.A. County General. Great, another place that I have no idea where it is! The lady at the desk was kind enough to give us a map. As we try and navigate our way back, I realize we should have left a trail of cookie crumbs to help us out. When we get back to the car, I ask kim if she can take me to this new destination, being the kind person she is, she says yes. We then hop back on the freeway and head deeper into L.A.. after about 30 min, my stomach reminds me that I have not yet eaten today. I thank kim again for wasting her day and helping me out, and tell her that I will take her out to eat after we finish at this next place. It takes a while, but we finally get there. There are so many buildings and so little parking! This makes the last place look like a piece of cake to navigate. After some searching by trial and error, we find where I need to be. Luckily they have the routes painted in different colors on the floor which makes the indoor navigation rather pleasant. We make it to the waiting room, grab a seat, and you guessed it.... we wait, and wait, and wait, and then wait some more. After several hours of waiting in a room where only a handfull of us speak english, they call my name and direct me to a back room. I start to get a little excited, cause this means progress. In this back room they ask me what happened, where do I live, work and tons of other basic questions. The lady asking me all the questions diligently fills out several forms at the same time. After about an hour, she sends me back to the waiting room. By this time, my arm hurts a lot, even the slightest movement sends pain screaming up my arm, and I have yet to be given any sort of pain meds. After a couple more hours, they call my name again. This time they direct me around the corner to a line in front of a small counter next to one of those doors that only opens if someone on the other side lets you in. this line moves relatively fast, and after about 20 min I make it inside the magic door (kim is forced to stay behind and wait) which contains a long hallway littered with gurneys, and a large semi open space that has been sectioned off in many places by curtains hanging from the ceiling. There are also several small cubicles set up. At last something that resembles the workings of a hospital instead of a gloomy waiting room!

Once thru the door, I am asked several questions and then one of those fancy medical bracelets gets attatched to my wrist. They sit me on a gurney in the hall way, and I begin another session of lets see who can wait the longest. As I am sitting there, I lean back against the wall and close my eyes in an attempt to sleep. I am exhausted, and am not sure what time it is since there are no clocks on the walls. After about forty five minutes, someone wearing scrubs leads me to a back room where there is a short asian man waiting. The first words out of his mouth are “we need to take some x rays”, to which I reply, I already got some today, they are right here. I then hand him the envelope with the x rays from that morning. To which he replies, we still need to take more, we dont use any x rays that are not ours. Of course my first thought is yea right, you just want to make more money! He then leads me to the xray machine and directs me to place my arm on the table. As I place my arm on the table in the only position it will go, he informs me that he needs it turned a certain way in order to get the view he needs, and procedes to grab my arm and attempt to turn it the desired direction. Immediately intense pain shoots through my arm and I grab the edge of the plastic chair I was sitting on. The xray tech flinches and backs away when he notices I have bent the chair. He then runs out of the room, when he returns he has a doctor with him, and I can hear him tell the doctor that he will not try to take the x rays again until I have been shot full of pain killers. Of course upon hearing this, the doctor thinks he knows best and tells the x ray tech that he was doing it wrong. So next the doctor tries, and of course gets the same results. I am then led out of the room and back down the hallway where I am told to sit on a gurney. A couple minutes later the doctor comes by and injects me full of morphine. I am then left to myself for about ten minutes before the doctor returns and escorts me back to the xray room. After several tries, they realise the morphine was not strong enough. At this point, wanting to just get it over with, I ask them to show me what position they want my arm in, and then tell them they better be ready to take the x ray. I give them a 3 count, and then grit my teeth and yell out as I use my good arm to bend the broken one and force it into the desired position. The doctor watches for a couple seconds and then leaves the room. A few moments later the xray tech comes back and asks where the doctor went, I tell him im not sure. I never saw that doctor again. I was then led down a different hallway by some nurse that I had not seen before. She took me to a large room that was partitioned off by curtains, although all the curtains where pushed aside so you could see everything going on. There were several people in their own area either lying or sitting on gurneys. I was pointed towards an open one and told to lay down. After what felt like forever, another nurse came by and asked me if I had someone I could call for transportation when they were done with me. Feeling like I had been here for way to long, I inquired of the time, and was informed that it was 7pm. I told her about kim who was still in the waiting room. The nurse then told me to send her home since I would be here for several days. “several days! Why does it take several days to get a broken bone set and a cast put on!”. At the time I was informed that I was going to need a steel plate and some screws put in. of course they wouldnt let me walk back out to tell her, so I wrote a note and attatched it to the useless xrays I had been holding on to all day, so that the nurse could give them to kim to hold onto for me. The nurse then left, and I was back to laying there watching and listening to what was going on around me. Apparently one of the nurses was upset that she got called back into work, and several of the nurses were feuding with one of the doctors. There was a girl that looked like she was about 16 sitting on the gurney straight across from me. She had a bruise on her face. All the other people in the area were non english speakers. The nurse that was pissed off was the one assigned to keep track of me, so everytime she came by to check on how I was doing, I made sure I was really nice to her, so as to avoid any wrath she might be ready to inflict. After the nurse had come by several times and I was certain she was not going to drug me and harvest my organs if I made her mad, I asked her if I could get something to eat, since I had not eaten all day. She told me I had to wait for the doctor to check me out first. After another couple hours, the doctor finally came by. He was quite upset to find that my arm was still in a sling. Apparently it was suppose to be fully extended and splinted to make sure I did not do any more damage to it. So he called the upset nurse over to help him remove the sling and straighten out my arm. And can you guess what position he wanted my arm in..... thats right, the same position that was needed for the xray! As the doctor starts to maneuver my arm, the nurse notices the scoul on my face and the deathgrip I have on the edge of the gurney, so she yells at the doctor to stop. The doctor of course ignores her and continues on. At this point I happened to look across to the girl sitting across from me, who after watching my ordeal is now freaking out. Another nurse comes and escorts her away, and I dont see her again either. After a few more seconds of useless effort the nurse tells the doctor that she will refuse to help him if he does not get me painkillers first, pointing out my facial expression and grip on the gurney. So the doctor gives in and soon I am injected with more morphine (definitely good that I was nice to the nurse from the beginning) and left to sit for a while to give it a change to kick in. eventually the doctor comes back, and successfully gets my arm splinted into the desired position. I am then wheeled down the hall and into an elevator. I am taken several floors up and wheeled into a giant room with no dividers. There are 4 other people on gurneys in the room. One old guy, 2 guys that look like they are in their 20's and a girl also in her 20's who barely speaks any english. Its not long before I realise the 2 younger guys are handcuffed to their beds. After talking to one of them for a little while, I find out the floor above us is for the prison, and they are the overflow. When the next nurse comes in I try and get some food, but she tells me I am scheduled for surgery on sunday and that I cant eat for at least 24 hours before surgery. Since it is now 2 am on saturday she cant give me any food! She then gives me another shot of morphine before leaving. Eventually I pass out. When I wake up I find that cell reception in the hospital sucks. I manage to call my boss and tell him where im at so that he doesnt expect me to show up for work for a while. At the time my parents and brother were in hawaii with some friends on vacation ( a vacation I passed up cause I couldnt miss work) so I sent them a text letting them know I broke my arm and was at the hospital. I dont remember who, but someone called my cousin josh and let him know of my perdicament, he was able to come by and give me a blessing. All day saturday I waited with anticipation for the surgery to be done with so I could get some food!. I killed time by texting friends and slipping in and out of morphine induced sleep. One of the times I awoke, I found that one of the guys had slipped his cuffs and was having sex with the girl on the other side of the room, I just closed my eyes and drifted off back to sleep.

Eventually sunday came, and everytime a nurse came in the room I was expecting to be wheeled off to surgery. The nurses came in a dropped off food for the other people in the room, and gave out medication, and of course more morphine, and then they would leave, with me still sitting there waiting. Sometime around 11 pm the nurse finally came in to get me for surgery. This was met with cheers and applause by the others in the room, as everyone had began to wonder if it was really gonna happen. The nurse wheeled me back to the elevator and took me up to the top floor. I was then placed in a large room filled with papers and machines that I didnt recognize. This place was run by a couple of korean ladies, who preferred not to speak english. After waiting for a while they brought me consent forms to sign and gave me a run down of what was suppose to happen. After a couple hours they gave me more morphine and then started to wheel me to the operating room. When we reached the operating room, I was parked outside in the hallway and told to wait for some one to get me. After about a half hour a nurse came and started to wheel me back to the room I had just come from! She told me that the hospital had just received several gunshot victims, and since they take priority I would have to wait till another day. After several handoffs by different nurses I eventually made it back down to my room with the room with inmates. They were all surprised to see me back so soon, and even more surprised when I told them what happened. The one that had slipped his cuffs earlier flagged down a nurse and talked her into bringing me some food from the cafeteria. It was now early monday morning and it was the first time I had eaten since thursday night. After eating what little food the nurse could scrounge up, I got my much needed dose of morphine and went to sleep. I woke up several hours later with a regular tray of foot on the table next to me! Finally back to a normal eating schedule. Later on that day I was moved down the hallway to another room, where I had a different nurse who was in charge of me. The room was petitioned off with sheets every 6 feet. After laying in my sheeted off section and listening for several minutes it became very apparent that I was the only english speaking person in the room. I split the majority of my time between eating, morphine and sleep, and the occasional text when I could get reception. Tuesday morning I awoke with the great expectation of food, only to be informed that I was scheduled for surgery on wednesday, and since there was a no food for 24 hours prior policy I would not be getting any food for a while :( tuesday was filled with more morphine and sleeping. Wednesday arrived, and I waited and waited and waited, got some morphine and then waited some more. Sometime late in the afternoon I was wheeled back up to the korean fortress in the top floor. After a repeat of the signing of paperwork and waiting forever to move to the operating room, a group of nurses finally came in and took me away. On the way they asked if I had any questions or concerns for them or the doctor. I wasnt really worried about the surgery, my only request was that I could stay awak and watch, which of course they said no to. On the way to the operating room they injected some magic sleep potion into my I.V. And I was out. I woke up what seemed like only moments later being wheeled down a hallway. I could hear the nursed commenting that I had woken up much sooner than expected. They told me the surgery was over and that it went well. I was taken back to the korean fortress and parked on the other side of the room next to several other beds. Shortly after being parked I began to feel excrutiating pain in my arm. I asked the lady in charge of the area for some painkillers, and she told me she was not authorized to give me any, which I found irritating since she had already given me morphine on 2 other occasions. So I waited for a few minutes, and the pain continued to get worse, so I asked again. Of course she told me again that she could not give my any. Through clenched teeth I told her if she wasnt gonna give me any then she better hurry up and find someone who could she was gonna start hating her shift. After about a half hour of her sitting at her desk doing nothing I started to yell for some one to get me some painkillers. The lady was not happy with this course of action. She told me I needed to be quiet. I refused and told her she had her chance but since she didnt act she was stuck with me. After a few minutes of this, she decided she couldnt handle it and left to find some one who was authorized to give me painkillers. Several minutes later a doctor came in to find out what the problem was. When the lady told the doctor was was going on he gave her a look like she was retarded and told her if I needed some painkillers to give me some. So they gave me a shot of morphine, and nothing happened. The pain stayed. Shortly after they came and wheeled me away towards my room. I kept telling them something was wrong with arm, and that the pain was getting worse. When we got to the elevator they gave me another shot. Which also had no effect. When they got me back to the room I was practically screaming for them to get the doctor and find out what was wrong. At this time they gave me another shot with still no effect. I continued to tell them they needed to find out what was wrong, and that if necessary they needed to cut my arm off if it would make the pain go away. All the other patients and there visitors looked terrified. Around this time the doctor showed up, and like all the others gave me another shot as he asked me what was wrong. I told him it felt like someone was trying to cut my arm off. So he looked at the bandage and discovered it was put on to tight and was cutting off all the curculation. As soon as he noticed this he undid it. Instantly I felt a huge rush go to my head and it felt like I was falling into a sea of clouds! I later found out that the bandage had prevented the morphine from flowing through me, and so when it was undone all 4 shots hit me at once ( which was amazing by the way. I can now see how people get hooked on that stuff). I woke up many hours later, and noticed a tray of food on the table next to me. I ate several bites before I fell back into my sea of clouds. Over the next day I would wake up long enough to eat a few bites and then pass back out still feeling the effects of the morphine. Later on that night, 2 hot chicks came in to check on me. They informed me that they were the surgeons who did the work on my arm and that they just wanted to make sure I was doing alright. I talked to them for a few minutes, long enough to find out they were both married. I asked them if I could take their picture since none of my friends would believe that 2 hot doctors were the ones that had stitched me up. They were nice enough to oblige. (if I can find the photo I will post it at the bottom of the story). Thursday was mostly uneventful, until about mid day when they told me I was gonna be able to go home if I could find a ride. I sent out a couple texts and a few hours later I was signed out of the hospital and on my way home! I’m pretty sure it was Melissa who gave me a ride home.