January
Jan 1st I flew from Missouri back to Santa Ana, took a series of busses (had a very interesting backpack conversation with one Long Beach chap) and only upon getting to the apartment did I realize I didn’t have a key – a problem as no roommates were scheduled to return for another couple days. I hopped the fence to our back patio and after taking apart the internal frame of my backpack to use as a crude crowbar and screwdriver I was able to dismantle the door and make my way inside. At this point I realized that 2005 was going to be an interesting year.
I finally let go of the last remnant of Phariseean morality by letting the F bomb flow free. The catalyst for such freeing was Drew’s call informing me that he had procured tickets for consecutive nights at a U2 concert. F Yeah!
I started working for a certain Dilbert-esq financial institution that would have been best described as the stereotypical cubical environment had they not decided that cubicles impeded a teamwork atmosphere. Its about this time I develop stories in my head about a person who goes crazy working in a office job and starts his own paramilitary job. There were also many an afternoon contemplating how one would procure a thousand million dollars from a certain other financial institution.
A new crazy roommate moved into the apartment in Drew’s absence. I have to say Drew picked a good replacement. Steve Jones spent the first 3 weeks of the year stockpiling food in various nooks and crannies of the apartment. My favorite food item he had was the 1 gallon container of soy sauce. As our apartment was slowly smelling more and more like moldy bread he took up his place kneeling right behind the chair in the living room watching Fox News and mumbling under his breath about “those damn queers.” Thanks Drew after the silent Joel and the crazy Russian roommates I really needed something totally bizarre to finish things off.
February
Well here comes Valentines Day so we all know what that means – breakup season. February marked a complete year since I had started dating Katie exclusively. With 12 months of tears and wailing punctuated by a few new Bob-ologies (Holy Writ According to Deuchbag McBob), a bunk bed incident, complete Williams’ family acceptance, a journey back to Missouri and her disappointment with my Christmas gift (as it turns out she apparently has nothing to wear with an emerald necklace, I’m such an ass not getting her something good) it was finally time to call it quits. Calling it quits, of course, required a three hour wail-fest just a thin gypsum room away from four very angry roommates. Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I’m free at last. Now starts the countdown until I wind up involved with someone again only to date them a year or so just to leave them when I begin to think of all the freedoms I’m giving up.
March
The first weekend of March was the first annual Yeti Hunt in Ely Minnesota. Naturally I had to attend. Apparently the way one prepares for a Yeti hunt is to drink several cans of Sparks (the worst tasting malt drink ever) and passing the Ice Hole (peppermint Schnapps) around while snowshoeing and jumping off cliffs into snow banks. I am immediately challenged to a drink off with my buddy Ben. I lose. The rest of the time was spent snowshoeing. Can’t wait for the second annual Yeti hunt.
Wound up procuring a certain sum of monies from aforementioned other financial institution and then quit work and high tailed it out of southern California. I pulled into Oklahoma City just in time for Lance Oaks wedding – of which I was the best man. Being the best man I knew it was my duty to provide a bachelor party to remember. Thanks to some foresight in ordering and an unexpected upgrade I walked out of Sam’s Wholesale Liquor with a full keg (16 gallons) of Boulevard Wheat beer. With 15 people at the bachelor party I am pleased to say we didn’t run out. And despite what we experienced in September Lance woke up able to stand under his own power and ready for a wedding.
April
The April 1st light shines in the window and I wake up to the most perfect day of the year. I spent the first 6 hours of my day devising a good April fools joke and writing the script for it. Then I conscript 3 minions to pull off the second best April fools joke ever (#1 is still 2004 and Drew’s letting no less than 40 F bombs fly at work as he realized I have made a complete cockle of him). I then sit back and let the beauty of this sacred holiday go to work. In the course of the day I managed to get Sheldon to consider never talking to me again. I had Drew thinking he was talking to the FBI and without missing a beat he lied through every last tooth. I also had Bishop scared for his life as he woke up and gave his wife strict instructions to not believe a word I said on that day. Good times, good times.
Baseball season starts and I have caught the fever. I’ve never been a huge fan of any sport but I’m blindsided with the desire to have anything baseball in front of me at all times. I purchased an XM radio so that I wouldn’t miss a single game. Every single free second I had when baseball wasn’t on I would be playing EA Sports’ MVP 2005. Go cards, go baseball.
I got My ass completely rocked off at the most awesomest concert of my life when Drew took me to see U2 in San Jose. I wept I screamed I threw my panties on the stage. Bono you complete me.
May
I attended a software conference in Banff Canada. Because it was Banff Canada I had to go up a few days early for the mountain biking. I spent three days taking different biking trails and chatting it up with a French Canadian hottie at a local pro shop who gave me the inside scoop on which trails to take and which to skip. I’ve never been a fan of the French Canadians but after meeting her I am willing to be wrong on that issue. On a scale of 1-10 she was an 11 and a fellow mountain biker, Game Over.
June
Nothing, absolutely nothing happened in June!
July
The Elbrecht Men set out for Montana listening to Stephen Abrose’s book on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I spent 5 days in Glacier National Park (highest concentration of Grizzly bears in the lower 48) Kayaking a glacier lake and the North Fork of the Flathead River. On the drive back we spend a couple days retracing a portion of the Lewis and Clark trail on the Missouri River. After setting camp the first afternoon Daniel and I went out to explore the surrounding area. We came up on a jackrabbit in the shrub and I asked Daniel if he had ever brained (read kill) a rabbit. When he said no I chucked the rock I was holding. At that very second the rabbit took a leap and BLAM I hit it dead center on its head. It fell to the ground with a hind leg twitching and it was dead. I decided I had best cut off its front two feet. I didn’t take them off for good luck but just to ensure that if it ever comes back as a zombie rabbit the lack of feet will at least give me an advantage when I have to run for my life (I’m just hoping that zombie rabbits can’t throw rocks at my head). While walking back to camp I head a sound I instantly recognized as a rattlesnake and for the first time in my life I levitated straight up and then flew in the opposite direction of the rattle. Armed with only my knife and Daniel having a stick he found in the shrubs we cornered the snake. Daniel held the rattler down with the stick and I moved in and cut its head off and subsequently skinned it. Daniel tanned it and is thinking of putting it on a hat. Thank you for everything Montana.
On July 17th my grandfather went out to his garden to pick some fresh vegetables and stepped into the presence of God. When he was found he had a bag of tomatoes in his right hand and a smile on his face. With that I have lost my biggest hero and greatest mentor.
August
Camping season begins and I decide to kick it off with a bike trip up part of the Ozark Trail. I also use this as a test trip to determine how minimal I am able to equip myself for an overnight in the Mark Twain National Forrest. Having taken only a sleeping bag and tarp instead of a full tent I woke up with half a zillion ants crawling all over my body in the morning (I love camping). About 12 miles into the trip the trail disappeared and I had to use a compass and topo map to make it out to a logging road (I love mountain biking).
September
Sep 1st 1:00am – I have just pushed my car over a bridge through an intersection and then into a semi public parking lot. I’m standing on the side of Interstate 44 with a flare in one hand, a briefcase in the other and a head full of Cody’s wedding dreams. I think I am really going to like September. Ten hours later I find myself walking through security at the Tulsa airport having traveled 110 miles on a car that seems hell-bent on giving me good stories, 35 miles by the Howell County Sheriff’s deputy (we had a rousing conversation about meth), and the rest of my journey with a 19 year old truck stop waitress (I can’t say how many miles it was as I was sleeping and she was smoking a lot of pot).
Cody’s wedding was something else (and believe it or not the birthplace of the F’ing Unknown as it is today). Lets recap: moved some chairs, drew splashed water, crazy Mexican lady scared the hell out of everyone, Drew – being brown – carried a landfills worth of trash to the curb, Paul sweet talked everyone except a cal U mother f’er into staring at Cody’s giant balls, Cody passes out letters of thank you after puking 100 times, all who read Cody’s letter break into tears and wailing as if we had just had a car towed, some fat woman (not sure if she was actually fat or just annoying) decides that Drew should go pick up some water, Cody and Tara go through a socially accepted ceremony in which they pretend to marry, a rousing limo ride in which someone decided to bring the whiskey (thank you bishop for the steady pouring hand), garret marries Tara’s mom, and of course finally Cody and Tara retreat to the honeymoon suite to get married – three times in one night.
Drew and I wonder into a place we have no business being and walk out with new tattoo’s ($150 is a small price to pay to have your very own mother completely disown you). After said tattoo’s a conversation over red lobster with Jared and Jenna leads to Jared’s starting of the F’ing Unknown (F U).
October
I took a 24 hour trip to Las Vegas for a steering committee meeting for our software. The highlights include getting my resolution passed, winning $15 of which 5 went to beer and $10 went to my Nate versus Vegas account and entertaining several middle aged software and accounting gurus. One point the woman to the left of me in her late 40’s makes a reference to her touching me inappropriately. I remain scared for the next 5 hours until I board a plane back to Paradise (the Ozark Plateau).
For Halloween I dress up as a member of Devo for work. I find that I am the only one yet again over 10 who dresses up all day for this holiday.
November
Spend 12 hours with Drew driving from Tulsa to Branson (a 3 hour trip) listening to XM radio the whole way. The highlight was a live concert replay of Sister Hazel. Somehow despite Sam’s insistence that Sister Hazel’s CD Fortress was amazing I refused to appreciate it until that weekend. Now I start to weep if Your Mistake or Best I’ll Ever Be (oh I miss you / I miss being overwhelmed by you) is played within a 10 mile radius. Other highlights include walking into a strange bar with a supposed Australian theme where 3 very very unsavory females were gyrating against each other, we received an invitation to party cove from a middle aged man hiding from his mother in law and running into a girl I graduated high school with who had hit the big time by becoming a Branson bar waitress.
Thanksgiving was explosive. Since a friend from Poland came to visit we went down to the local Wal-Mart (store location #7) and loaded the cart up with several boxes of ammo, picked up some pvc pipe and headed off to our quarry with a potato gun, 30-30, SKS (Chinese AK-47), 12 Guage and a 40 caliber handgun for some good ol’ shooting.
December
Our potato gun designs were researched and perfected. On Christmas eve we (Daniel, Sam and I) added BBQ igniters to our potato guns in order to have an automatic firing mechanism. Christmas Eve was spent launching all types of projectiles down the driveway. My personal favorite was launching a broom handle 40 yards like a spear.
December 31st and the conclusion of a good year, Daniel and I went down to two rivers campground where the Current River and the Jacks Fork River flow together. We sat around a fire eating some freshly prepared hobo stew talking about the year prior and the year to come. 11:25 I start to feel sleepy. 11:32 I go get my sleeping bag and set it out in the tent to keep warm for the next 30 minutes before the changeover to the new year. 11:33 I’m sound asleep and thus ends an almost perfect year.
TV Shows
Mythbusters
I Shouldn’t Be Alive
Going Tribal
Dirty Jobs
Brainiac
My Name is Earl
The Office
Without a Trace
The Pretender
Movies
Kill Bill Vol 1&2
City of God
Sahara
About Schmidt
Before Sunset
Finding Neverland
Run Lola Run
Books
Life After God – Douglas Copeland
Blue Like Jazz – Donald Miller
The Brother’s K (oh wait I didn’t read it)
Crime and Punishment – Dostoyevsky
Mountain Bike the Ozarks – Steve Henry
The Freedom of the Hills – The Mountaineers
Morning Poems – Robert Bly
CD’s
U2 – How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Cloud Cult – Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus (most hopeful album of the year)
Halloween Alaska – Too Tall to Hide
James Blunt – Back to Bedlam
Sufjan Stevens – (Come on Feel the) Illinoise
Coldplay – X&Y
Ryan Adams – Cold Roses
Ryan Adams – Jacksonville
Hem – Eveningland
Sarah Bettens – Scream
My Morning Jacket – Z
Arcadia Fire – Funeral
Sister Hazel – Fortress
Kasey Chambers – Barricades and Brick Walls
Mindy Smith – One Moment More
Matt Peterson – Lakeside and Tipsy with Peterson (CD title I just now gave his collection of rough demos)
p.s. the greatest musical sin of 2005 is Dolly Parton’s cover of John Lennon’s song Imagine. Though I am not a huge Lennon fan I think this is possibly the worst cover possible.
Finally I want to assure you that though this year has changed me in many ways – such as me being fully business in the front – I am still fully party in the back.
