Minotaurman

A day in the park

On May the 22nd, 2010 Taizo, my father and I were going around the city to all of the thrift shops. Being late in the weekend all the good stuff was cleared out already, so we did not end up finding anything to interesting.
The last thrift shop we went to was Value Village on Capitol Hill, which is near Molly Moons and Cal Anderson park. We decided that ice cream would be a good idea and went to obtain some. When we arrived at Molly Moons the line went down to the corner, so we decided to wait. We headed into Cal Anderson park and were just starting to walk into the larger field portion of it when I said "there is a guy slacklining of there".
Of course no one was listening to me so I decided to walk over, people followed. On approaching I noticed a pile of juggling props including: a hat, golf club, golf ball, five clubs, a large amount of balls, and some other objects I don't care to mention. This got me excited and I went over to talk to the man. His name was Ryan and he had just recently moved to Seattle from California. He had run a smaller circus down in California and was a very good juggler. We talked about all the different groups and jugglers we knew of and then started to juggle and slackline together. 
It was fun juggling with someone much more experienced than me for once because I got to learn new stuff from him instead of me teaching others, which is also very fun.
That day I learned to pass six clubs, do some five ball tricks, and three ball tricks, as well as other diabolo and slackline things. I am now trying to plan a meeting with Ryan at Folklife so we can juggle and possibly slackline if space permits.

Dream - Sometime between January 1st and March 28th, 2010

I am with my friend Toby and one other kid who's identity I am not sure of, although in the dream I am sure I know him.
It all started on a farm that was pretty run down. At this farm there is a hay pile and some rotting, wooden bookshelves. Up near the main house that is on the farm there is a guy who is very gross, he is pretty old, very fat, and sweaty beyond belief. He is sitting in a rocking chair watching us.
It turns out that we are at the farm to find some unknown beings child that has been lost. We are having an extraordinarily hard time finding this child for he is only two inches tall and could be anywhere. All we know for sure is that he is on the farm somewhere. We decide to take a break from looking for the child and head to the house, where the man has now disappeared. Inside the house there is a professional kitchen and a teacher from Garfield is in there cleaning dishes. The teachers name is Ms. Martin, who is the technology teacher. She is cleaning the dishes and we ask her what she is doing away from Garfield. She responds that she is in fact at Garfield and we shouldn't be in the kitchen, students aren't allowed. To this we respond that we are not at Garfield but on a farm. She leads us through a door and we come out inside Garfield near the entrance to the technology room.
The dream suddenly turns to a later point in time and everyone is getting prepared to go to an assembly. Of course it being a Garfield assembly I think "We must skip it!" Toby, the other kid, and I run as fast as we can out the doors on the side of the building and come out on Alki beach. We don't take any notice that we suddenly were on Alki and we keep running before noticing that there are hundreds and hundreds of other kids also trying to skip the assembly. With all the kids running away it looked very similar to a scary war scene from some movie. We decide it would be best to just keep running so we do. 
I look down and realize that the whole time I had been running I had had I giant hunk of meet that was still on the bone. Now when I say giant, I really mean giant, it was the size of a shorter person, maybe about 5' in length and weighing around 60 pounds. It was truly giant. Anyway, I was running with it and every now and then I would take a huge bite out of it. It was bizarre. 
All of a sudden Mr. Howard is chasing us with all of the other administrators and school officials, they are in shiny black escalades with tinted windows, they looked like a government fleet of cars. They quickly catch up to use and Mr. Howard gets out and starts to chase us on foot. He chases us all the way to the Statue of Liberty and almost snags us but we all go separate ways and he falls over. We then start to run back to school with all of the other kids. As we were running I noticed that Toby, the other kid, and I were passing everyone else, I looked down to see the each of our strides took us about 20 feet and we were going unrealistically fast. Again the Garfield staff was chasing us in cars and not even we could out run a speeding car, so we dived into a bush to wait until they left.
After about half an hour of sitting in the bush waiting and nearly getting my head stepped on multiple times I say, "I wonder if their gone?" Right as I am saying that some Latino man steps on my head. He leans down and says "Oh sorry…by the way they are all gone." We get up and say thank you and turn to leave. We are at the farm again and the moldy wooden bookcases are still there as well as the hay piles but there are more things there this time. There is a giant owl, and an enormous teapot. We look at these objects strangely before turning to look for the kid again. We are looking all over and about to give up when all of a sudden BOOM! And he is standing right in front of us. It turns out he was in a tiny pile of hay underneath the owl.

Yet another whacky thing at Garfield

Today, the 20th of May, 2010 I was given a ride to school by my mother for I had woken up slightly later than I should have and she was already heading out into the world. When we arrived at the school I had my head down and was in a sort of coma, when all of a sudden my mother exclaims "Uh oh! There are two cop cars here today!" To this I respond that there are usually at least two cop cars around the school, one in the main parking lot and one up in the drive way sort of thing for drop offs. To this I get the response, "Well look, there are two right next to each other." As I look up to see what she is going on about I see the two cop cars that she is talking about as well as a third one driving up to the two of them and not to far down the road a cop car with its sirens on coming towards the school. We pull in about 20 feet from the one of the cop cars and we are sitting there trying to see what is going on. As I exclaim that I have to get to class and start to get out of the car two cops come out of the front doors with who I think is a student or just some kid handcuffed behind his back. I get back in the car and start to watch intently to see what this situation is about. As the two cops with the kid get closer to all of the other cop cars all the cops get out, they push him roughly down on the back of the car, spread his legs, and do a full body search. From his pockets they pull a huge wad of bills, some coins, a lighter or two, and some other objects I could not make out without looking to suspicious (like I'm watching). I then watch as the cops roughly push the kid into the car still handcuffed and begin to count his money.
Because the situation had died down slightly I got out of the car and headed to class. As I was going up the third floor staircase I looked out the window to see all of the cops talking and laughing.
In my opinion, if the cops and the school district are going to take this business of busting dealers and random kids who really don't have anything to do with drugs and other illegal activities, then they should in no way be laughing about it after they get someone arrested. It's immature and just shows that they think that teenagers are just objects that they can practice their catching techniques on.

Dream - 10/25/09

I was in Garfield high school but there was something strange about it. It was a much, much larger building, so large in fact that it had a restaurant in the bottom floor. Another highly odd thing is that the floors were carpeted like old castles with red carpet edged with gold lines running through the center of the hallways. The only light came from torches and candles hanging from the ceiling and walls.

There were a lot of kids there, though there were no typical Garfield kids. No gangsters and such, it was only nice and respectable people.

I was in Mr. Spangs room (a Garfield teacher) and we were doing nothing so I went to the bathroom. I started to run around all the hallways and I kept noticing pool tables off to the sides of the hallways, and rooms full of them. I stopped at one of the pool tables and knocked on it to see if it was a slate table. I kept running. I ran until I noticed I was in a restaurant on the first floor, even though I had not gone down any stairs (I started on the third floor). I ran straight through it and into the common room, which was decorated like an old castle. It had a very large flight of wooden steps going up. I ran up them and back to the third floor. When on the third floor I ran into some kids I knew from kindergarten and elementary school. I said hi and talked to them for a bit, but I cannot remember what they said.

I ran back into Spangs room after skidding around a corner and realized that there was a pool table in his room to, but it was not a nice one like the others. It had cracked queue sticks and balls and no chalk. The surface of it was wooden. I challenged Spang to a pool game and he said okay. When we were setting up the table I noticed a strange door. I went through it and came out on the other side, where two castles were attacking each other. I went back into the room and asked Spang what the room is. He replied that it was an all Seattle schools fight.

We organized an army and went through the door. It was are little army of about twenty people against thousands of other people. There was nothing we could do to win so I jumped down the ledges of the castle wall and into the river between the two castles; I was with two other people. I reappeared in Spangs room and woke up.

Dream - Sometime during 2009

My mother and me are at a strange hotel. We hear of a festival that is happening down at the beach. We decide to walk to the beach, which turns out to be very similar looking to Coleman Beach and close to the bottom of Jacobson Hill.

We end up walking through a whole country to get to the beach because it was so far away from where the hotel was. When we get to the festival it is dark out and there’s a truck down on the beach selling tacos and ice cream. There are all sorts of lights hung on lines between trees and other things, they are mostly red, orange, blue, and yellow.

I suddenly hear “Hey Gabe!” and turn to find Mattie Curry who is standing on a ledge waving at me. She then yells, “Check this out!” and tries to do a back flip off the wall. She lands straight on her head, but just gets up. I then turn and see Taizo Curry sitting on the beach wall with a Polaroid camera around his neck starting off into space. He won’t talk to anyone.

Me, Taizo and my mother start to walk down the beach and we see whales and dolphins swimming all over the water. All the beaches we come to are very familiar but still very different. There are all sorts of people out in boats, but I can’t remember what they are doing.

We started to head back to the hotel and decided to take a bus. We ask Taizo how he is getting home because he lives so far away and he says that he is busing…

Dream - Sometime before 2010

My father and me are downtown, but downtown is very strange and very different.

There is a monorail track running all through the city. All of the cars are gone and replaced by people. People are parking in spots and getting out of something you cannot see.

There are fire escapes running down the track to the ground and there are hundreds of them, all facing each other as they come down to the ground. There are no monorail cars, just a lot of people walking on the tracks and they are all over grown with grass and moss.

My dad is walking up there and I am running up and down the fire escapes, faster than any human ever could run. I kept running past all these weird shadows of people wearing fedoras and trench coats.

I come to a large opening that leads to an underground tunnel, which people are speeding past in (running). I hop into the tunnel and start running super fast with all of the other people. The tunnel is brightly lit.

I come out into a very bright field. The sun is shining very bright and people are having picnics all over the field, it resembles Telly Tubby Land.

I run out and stop in the field. When I turn to my right there is a giant mountain of carpet. It really is the size of Mount Rainier but it goes straight up with a curve at the top. There is a guy climbing it with ropes and ice picks. I run straight up the side of the carpet mountain and hang from the curve at the top. I stay hanging there for a little bit before I drop… 

Fever Dreams

These are the three dreams that I seem to have whenever I have a really bad fever. They have always been the same without any detail changing for as long as I can remember. They will switch between themselves every so often.

1. I am walking though the woods and come to a large badly welded together metal wall. I keep hearing growling and very loud roaring and banging on the other side of the wall. I come to a crack in the wall and look through and there is a giant yellow eye staring back at me and everything is very eerie and quiet.
2. I am walking through the woods, but all the trees are made out of un-cooked spaghetti and they keep cracking and breaking whenever I touch them. All of a sudden my legs run out of energy and I can’t support myself. I crawl to the base of a stone temple and just a few feet into the temple is a kid sitting on a chair eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This is one of the scariest dreams I have ever had.
3. I am on a plane and everything is very eerie, quiet, and very scary.The only noise on the whole plain is coming from people quietly coughing and some rustling paper.

Seattle schools are doing good things in horrible ways!

It happened Monday the 17th of May, 2010. I was sitting in my 3rd period class doing my assignment on photoshop. All of a sudden the phone rang in the room but my teacher was busy helping a student with a vital project so one of the TA's answered the phone. She as quiet for a moment then yelled out "Is there a Gabriel in here?" I being the only Gabriel in the room at the time said "Here" She hung up the phone and said that one of the school administrators wants to see me immediately with all of my stuff. I gather my stuff which is spread out across the room and sprint down to the office. When I finally reach the office I realize I went to the wrong administrators office and had to sprint all the way back across the building. Arriving at the correct office this time, out of breath, I knock, then enter. I walk in to a smaller room with a round table in the middle. At this table I find one of the school security guards sitting there talking to the administrator who wanted to see me. They sat me down and the administrator immediately said "Do you know why you are here?" Seeing as I had no ideas other than that I had gotten after school detention for being late, I said that I had no idea whatsoever. She scribbles on a paper that I notice is my school schedule with my picture. I think to myself "oh no, what happened?" She turns to me again and says "We have some information that you have been selling marijuana brownies at school." Knowing for a fact that I never have and never will I am caught totally by surprise and my mouth hangs open. 

For security and personal reasons I will be leaving out the rest of the conversation.

However I will tell you in my own words what happened leaving out names, quotes, and events.

Towards the end of the conversation I notice that they have become less demanding and hostile. I believe this is because they have no reason to think that I was doing anything wrong. And that they have no evidence against me, after searching me and my backpack, I hope they would agree. They say that if I ever want to tell a name or if I ever find out a name that I can either tell one of them personally, which would be totally anonymous or I could leave a piece of paper under the administrators door with the bit of information I wanted to tell them.

I stand up to leave after I make sure we are all on good terms and the administrator says that she will be calling my mother to tell her of the conversation that we had just had. I say that I would be happier than hell if she did (without the "Hell") and I depart.

I have now missed the rest of my 3rd period and go to my 4th period fuming from the nostrils in anger that I have been accused of such a dastardly crime. I make it through 4th period without a problem from any higher authority and head out to lunch.

At lunch I call my mother countless times to tell her of the madness going on at this school. Of course I forget that she had a meeting with someone and will not be answering the phone for a little bit. I go through lunch without blabbing about how I think what the school is doing is stupid and go to math.

There I get a short leave of absents from my teacher to make a phone call to my mother. She answers and I tell her everything word for word. I then go down to the administrators office and say that I had talked to my mother about what has happened and that she would like to talk to both of us. The admin tells me to come back in 15 minutes and we can call her. 15 minutes later on the dot I am in the office and we call my mother. It turns out that she wanted to talk in person so she is outside the school. She comes up to the room and we all sit down to talk. We talk about how I don't sell or do drugs and that what they were trying to do was a good thing for the schools, but how they were doing it, by searching random kids on the fact that they dress different, or hangout with kids who may or may not do drugs.

We clear things up and leave on a good note. No ones name was mentioned thankfully. 

I am leaving most of the details out for again personal and privacy issues.

My mother and I then go around the corner and have a short talk about what we think is going on and 

we agree that this is happening because they had made a mistake about me and that we won't hold a grudge against what they did.

Later that day when I get home my mother tells me that she has talked to my school councilor about what had happened and he had suggested I get a drug test. Of course I am pissed off at this but I agree to do it. My mother agrees that I shouldn't have to do it because we all agree on the situation. She then tells me that the councilor was hinting that he thought I was a dealer because of how I dressed and who I hangout with. I have to agree with him there though, its a fact, I dress funny and I'm proud of it!

Hypothermia

On Sunday, April 5th. I did something incredibly stupid!

Taizo, Yohji (my friends), and I we down at Lake Washington at around 4:30 PM, it was about 45 degrees with heavy wind. We got sodas, but we only had enough for two so Yohji and I decided to share one. We kept drinking some and passing it off, until near the end of the bottle. I was standing on the edge of a dock down there and Yohji was on the land. I drank a few more sips so there was still a bit more for Yohji. He yelled at me "Throw it!" so I did. I threw it up as high as I could. Of course I had forgotten that whenever I throw things straight up they go backwards, so it landed out in the lake. Yohji wanted the soda and I of course didn't want to pollute the environment and neither did Taizo or for that matter Yohji. We tried to get it with a stick from multiple docks but it just floated out into the lake. "This couldn't be!" I said and decided to jump into the lake. I took off my socks, shoes, sweater, and coat and jumped in after a few minutes of thinking of the downsides to it. When I hit the water I immediately realized how foolish I was being jumping into the freezing water. I also couldn't breath and all of my muscles had cramped up from the cold.

I thought of just climbing back onto the dock, but that wouldn't have been manly, so I slowly and breathlessly swam out to the soda bottle, grabbed it, and swam back to the dock, stopping to almost drown twice! When I got back to the dock Taizo and Yohji pulled me up. When I got out of the water I was so freezing and the sudden warmness of my jacket and the fact that I was standing up made me so light headed I couldn't stand up and had to lye there for a while.

I then went to Taizos house and took a warm shower. That night back at my house my mother and I decided I had hypothermia, because my temperature was way cold and I had about 25 blankets on my and I was dressed in my thick wool pants, a thick shirt, a sweater, a bathrobe, big wool slippers and a wool hat, and the heat was blasting, and I was still shivering uncontrollably. This lasted about two days.

Broken!

My pink fixie has sadly broken. For a period of time that is.

While I was going down Jacobson Hill in West Seattle I tried to skid to slow down. While trying to pedal backwards to achieve a satisfying skid the lockring came off, allowing the cog to come off, allowing the chain to come off, making it impossible to stop with the pedals. I have to say my shoe soles are now scraped down to hardly nothing.

When I got off my fixie I noticed a wire coming out of the hub. I didn't think twice of this and put the wire in my pocket.

When I got home I took my bike to Aarons Bike Shop and ask them to take a look at it. They basically said that the hub was done for and that wire that came out was one of the threads. Making it impossible to reattach my cog.

I will hopefully have a new and better wheel soon!