The Snow Buffet

The legend of the snow buffet began as best as I can remember about five years ago in a small town called Norfolk. Norfolk, was the home to a small private college and was notorious for it's harsh winters. It seemed as though all of the major winter storms which often steered clear of the big cities of Omaha and Lincoln (hey it's big for Nebraska), always seemed to find Norfolk. Now there wasn't a whole lot to do in Norfolk when everyone wasn't buried up to their necks in snow, so when the harsh blizzards forced everyone inside for extended periods of time, the cabin fever soon followed. People with cabin fever tend to do some things that no amount of logic or reason can explain and out of that madness, the snow buffet was born.

On one fateful winter night, late in the year 2005, I got my introduction to the snow buffet. It is unclear how exactly it began, but sometimes the girls of that small private school decide to mouth off to the guys. Their comments likely were not even remotely bad, they were in fact just jokes. However the mix of being barely disrespected and being trapped inside for days on end, sent the male population right over the proverbial edge. They picked up the mouthiest of the girls, took her outside and threw them into the snow drifts. Afterward these girls were aggressively encouraged to enjoy the taste of some of that snow while they were there. I was merely a witness at this point, but the snow buffet would change my life forever.

Since that inaugural snow buffet, it has been a rite of passage for many of those girls who decide to associate themselves with me and my group of friends. There is absolutely no mean spirited intent in the performing of a snow buffet, rather it is just some good natured fun. That being said, the snow buffet's most epic execution to date occurred about two years ago here in Omaha at the relocated campus of that small private school. There was a group of four girls (containing our informant who was promised immunity which she did not receive) who were coming back to the school sometime around 11 pm. We found out about this some time earlier, and had decided to act. We outfitted ourselves in the proper attire and began to head outside. We built a trench behind a small hill just in front of the parking lot and laid in it so that we could see when the girls arrived, but we were not visible to anyone in the parking lot. We laid in that trench for over 20 minutes as we awaited their arrival. Finally a large red Dodge Durango pulled slowly into the parking lot. The stars must have been aligned because they chose the open parking space directly in front of us. We laid motionless in our trench, waiting for them all to get out of the car and proceed up the sidewalk. Once they arrived next to an area where all the snow from the sidewalks had been piled up, we went to work. There were probably six of us in all, and we sprung into action like lions hunting a pack of gazelles. If you have ever watched Animal Planet, you know how this ends. The four girls were thrown in the snow, tabled top in enormous drifts, tackled into snow banks, and of course aggressively encouraged to eat some delicious snow for the better part of 2o minutes. When it was all over, they were exhausted and their spirit to fight back had been broken. We all walked back into the school, our arms raised in triumph. We had just been part of snow buffet history.

This year, the snow buffet-ing is on a record pace. The weather has cooperated nicely, after getting off to a slow start, the snow has come in a plentiful manner. The tradition of the snow buffet is being passed on to the younger generations in hopes that the legacy will continue long after my friends and I have left that small private college. Perhaps one day when I am old, I will see children playing outside in the snow, and they will forsake the building of snowmen, or riding of sleds, in favor of snow buffeting each other until their little frozen noses turn red. This is my dream.

As someone who does not appreciate most things involved with winter, this can sometimes be a miserable time of year for me. A lot of people tend to get a little depressed in the winter and I was certainly one of them, not anymore though. Since the invention of the snow buffet, I have had that glorious tradition to look forward to every year. The difference between the snow buffet and say Christmas, is that Christmas is just one day of fun in the middle of a frozen desert, but the snow buffet is an oasis that can last me through until the spring time. Is it too much to say that the snow buffet alone keeps me from being depressed in the winter? I don't think it is . . . I don't think it is.

I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again

After reading the title of this blog you are probably expecting some inspirational words about perseverance and not getting discouraged by your failures and setbacks. Fear not, no such cheesy encouragement will be provided here, that's not how I roll.

This post is actually about literally falling down, getting back up, and falling again. Now most people would not consider the act of falling down a talent, but those people have never met Beth Cavender. Beth is well known, some might same even famous, for her lack of grace (read: clumsiness) and just general awkward essence, however yesterday she took things to a whole knew level. It was reported that yesterday Ms. Cavender managed to fall down a staggering eight times in what is believed to be a new world record for failing to stay vertical. Just for giggles, lets do a little bit of math on this. Let's say that Beth slept for 8 hours yesterday, and was in class for about 4 hours. That leaves only 12 hours to get all of her falling down accomplished. But she likely was not spending all of her day walking around outside as it was rather cold. So let's figure she spent a maximum of an hour outside, walking from place to place. This means that Beth Cavender managed to fall down a staggering once every 7.5 minutes that she was attempting to walk upright.

Now everyone falls down from time to time. When you live in Omaha in the winter, there will be ice and when there is ice sometimes you slip, no big deal. Most people usually learn after a couple falls to tread a bit more carefully, however, as an art major, Beth has managed to make a masterpiece of falling on her gluteus maximus. This is why I believe Beth's ability to fall down with such frequency is a talent, perhaps even a gift. Beth Cavender, I hope we can all be as awkward and clumsy as you someday.

No Habla Ingles

First off, a couple random things. Number 1, I realized that if I blog from my phone at work then technically I am getting paid to blog. Life long dream (that I've only actually had for like a month) finally realized. And second, I decided that instead of waiting for something interesting to happen and deprive you all of my blog until that happens (unlike Beth Cavender, I don't have amazing things like STD googlers waiting for me around every corner), that I would give you stories from the archive (aka my life prior to today) to keep you entertained. I assure you that all of these stories are true and exagerrated as little as possible. Here is the first of such stories.

When I was in high school, I was not the biggest fan of studying or doing my homework. Now that surely comes as a shock to all of you who know me as an extremely studious and hard working scholar today, however it is true. It isn't that I didn't like school, its that I felt as though many of my assignments were in fact a waste of time and that my life would be more productive playing NCAA football on the Xbox in my friends basement (Buske shoutout!). I still maintain that if I were to be hired as a football coach that I would be 100% capable because of the time I spent playing that game. Anyway, the point is I didn't like doing homework. The problem was, I couldn't just not do my homework otherwise I wouldn't get credit for the assignment and I would get in trouble with my parents. This was a lot more drama then I was looking for. So it became a little game of mine to try and get out of doing as much homework as possible while convincing my teacher to still give me credit for it. It is a rather challenging game, but lucky for me, I'm a rather clever fellow.

In my world geography class as a sophomore, we had to do these study guides every week over the section we were studying. I hated those things. They were long and time consuming and all around just pointless. Well I was sitting in class one day about a month into the semester when an idea came to me. After class I went up to my teacher and told him I had really been struggling to complete the weekly study guides. Knowing I was a bright kid, he asked me what I was talking about. I went on to explain to him that English was actually my second language and that for some reason the length and style of the readings were just overwhelming to me. I explained that I was very embarrassed about this and I had gone as far as to learn an American accent to cover up the fact that my native tongue was actually Hindi as learned from my father who was born and raised in India. I could tell that my teacher was having a hard time buying this, so I acted as though I was getting very upset and started mixing the three phrases of Hindi I know into my desperate pleas that he not tell anyone about my situation. I then apologized for my broken English, explaining I slip into it sometimes when I am rattled. I believe he thought I was about to cry when he finally told me that it was alright and that he wouldn't tell anyone and most importantly that I no longer would be required to complete the weekly study guides. Victory was mine.

I went the rest of the semester without doing a single study guide and received an A in the course. The teacher never spoke a word to me about what we talked about that day after class. Just for the record, the three phrases I know in Hindi are roughly translated, "You are a donkey" and "You are a dog" and "Your mother is a cow." I learned them when I was visiting my dad's family in India when I was six years old. The best part about the whole situation? There actually was a student who legitimately had English as their second language and when that student asked the teacher for the same treatment I had gotten, the teacher refused to believe him, and even chastised him because he thought the student was making fun of me. I would have felt bad for this kid but he knew English just fine and was just trying to get a free ride through class. Who does that?

No Shave November Update

Pictures from the 1/3 of the way point (taken yesterday)

The Breakup

One of the most distinct memories I have from high school occurred on some random day as my friend and I were walking to her truck in the parking lot after school to go hang out at my house. As we climbed into the vehicle, I noticed something spectacular happening right before my very eyes. In the row of cars directly in front of my friend's truck we witnessed a real life, soap opera style collapse of a love triangle. There was the guy who was old news, the girl, and the new guy. The whole thing was like a solar eclipse and car wreck all rolled into one and I simply could not take my eyes off of it. My friend quickly noticed the spectacle as well and neither of us even budged a we stared at the trio for several minutes. As the old guy shamefully begged the girl to take him back, the new guy stepped in between them with the girl eventually walking away emotionlessly. The old guy did not let up, now shouting at both the new guy and the girl, and my friend and I found ourselves rooting for him to break down into tears. As the new guy and the girl got in the car and drove off together, leaving the old guy standing in an empty parking space, our wishes were granted as he began weeping like a small child. My friend and I both cheered before quickly deciding to leave in case he saw us.

I stopped by Jimmy John's today to enjoy a quick Gargantuan before work. I got my pop and sandwich and sat down in a booth by myself, directly behind a guy and a girl. Since I was alone, I ended up partaking in some people watching with the guy and girl in front of me being the easiest targets. At first I could not really tell if these two were just friends having lunch, whether they were on a lunch date, or what exactly was going on. Their calm and quiet discussion fooled me for quite some time. Finally as they continued talking, I realized what this was. They were having Breakup Lunch. I tried not to make it too obvious that I was monitoring their situation, but make no mistake, I was fully tuned in. The girl, who was wearing scrubs so I assume she was a nurse or something similar, very calmly explained that she was not going to support him or drag him around with her anymore. From what I heard, it seemed as though this guy was some kind of jobless, lazy tool and in the girl's defense, he was taking her on a date to Jimmy John's so she probably wasn't terribly far off the mark. I have to give the girl credit, she was unbelievably calm and resolved through the entire encounter, almost shockingly so. She challenged everything I ever thought I knew about girls and their crazed, irrational, and emotionally charged ways (kidding ladies . . . kind of). She seemed so detached from the whole thing that I briefly wondered if they were breaking up because the guy found out that his girlfriend used to be a dude. The guy on the other hand was extremely defensive and kept rambling on and on about how she didn't respect him and how she never gave him any credit for anything. He appeared to have some sort of sense of entitlement that left me with the impression that he had to be a trust fund baby. I could not help but wonder though if the guy knew he was going to get dumped and that is the reason why he chose to have the date at Jimmy John's. Every guy knows what I'm talking about. Your girlfriend says we need to talk, let's go get something to eat. That is basically code for, I'm going to squeeze one last free dinner out of you before I break your heart. So kudos to this guy for sticking it to her by taking the cheap way out.

As the situation wound down, the girl claimed she had to get back to work (probably lying) and coolly got up and left by herself. The guy stayed only for a moment longer before also departing. The whole thing absolutely made my day. At the risk of sounding like a terrible person (and by that I mean, with the absolute certainty of sounding like a terrible person), public breakups are probably one of my favorite things to watch from a distance. You just know that they decided to do it in public to avoid a scene and usually they fail miserably. The best part about this breakup though was the completely lack of an explosion that I felt was certain to come. This girl let the guy go as if she were firing a secretary. Cold, calculated, and distant. She was basically the breakup version of a sniper. It was breathtaking and fantastic. If anyone who is reading this is planning on ending it with their significant other sometime in the near future, please, do it in public, for the sake of everyone who might be there to enjoy it. If you are two are going to be miserable, at least make everyone else happy.

No Shave November

I'm not exactly a big fan of the winter. The cold weather really just isn't my cup of tea. I mean look at me, clearly I was built for the tropics. Now with that being said, there are not a whole lot of things that make the transition into winter an enjoyable time for me. Of the limited number of items I like about this particular season, most of them are sports related, go figure. The college football season picking up steam. The Major League playoffs, except this year, stupid Yankees. The beginning of the college basketball season, especially the seemingly annual occurrence of a Division II team knocking off a national power in a meaningless exhibition which the D-2 guys will undoubtedly tell their grandchildren about like it was played at the end of March instead of the beginning of November. Thank you to the Le Moyne Dolphins for this year's edition. Aside from the holidays, which are obvious, there are only two non sports related events that make the shorter days and frigid temperatures bearable for me, the Snow Buffet, and No Shave November. Today's topic is the latter, so you will have to wait to learn more about the Snow Buffet and all of its glory.

No Shave November is a rather simple concept, you and your closest guy friends just do not shave for the entire month of November to see how much facial hair you can grow in that amount of time. When I put it like that, it sounds like a long, drawn out version of a pissing contest, but I'd like to think it is much more than that. To me, it is really more of a tribute to all bearded men everywhere, a visual shout out to lumberjacks, mountain men, and anyone else who wears flannel. It could be called the National Tribute to Bearded Men Month (like Black History Month for white guys), except that's quite a mouthful and No Shave November just has a nice ring to it. Not to mention that this is a real test of a man's resolve. As ridiculous as it sounds, not shaving for an entire month is a pretty trying ordeal, there is the constant itching until your beard gets long enough, the potential to look like a creeper if your face doesn't wear a beard well, and on a personal note, when I grow out my beard people think I am expressing my allegiance to Al Qaeda. In my most recent attempt at No Shave November two years ago, I caved and shaved just halfway through, it remains one of my deepest regrets. Not many people finish the race. It is basically the Iditarod of facial hair.

In order to appreciate the importance of this month, it is necessary to understand the significance of a beard that is allowed to grow without hindrance. There are many different types of beards and reasons for growing them. There is the "My Face is Ugly so I Grew a Beard to Cover it Up" beard, also known as the Abe Lincoln. This may be the most practical reason for growing a beard. There's the, "I Want to Be a Member of a Boy Band" chinstrap style beard, also known as the Joey Fatone (or for those that know him, the Justin Chitwood). There is the, "This Guy is Completely Unstable" beard, think the Unibomber. There is also the "Eff You" beard, which often occurs after difficult break ups, whether it be with a girl or with your employer. The Eff You beard is a constant reminder to whoever it is that you are directing it toward that they have no say in your appearance anymore and no matter how terrible, creepy, unprofessional, or ridiculous the beard looks, no one can do anything to stop you from growing it. Finally there is the "I'm a Man" beard. The "I'm a Man" beard is the kind worn by the kinds of men who are too busy being manly to bother with shaving. The most famous example of this beard is the NHL playoff beard. Now I am not a huge hockey fan, although I do find it entertaining, but it does two things it does better than any other sports. It's championship trophy (seriously the Stanley Cup is sweet looking) and the playoff beard. The "I'm a Man" beard is the purest and most honorable form of facial hair and it is this type of beard which I seek to honor in No Shave November.

You see, I have been blessed, or cursed depending on how you look at it, with the formidable ability to grow facial hair at ridiculously fast rates. However, the one time I used this skill to its full ability was in the process of growing an "Eff You" beard during my senior year in high school. Not to be overly dramatic or anything, but this would be like if Superman decided to use his powers to play professional football instead of saving the world. Would it absolutely be impressive to watch? Of course. Would it be the best use of his abilities? Not even close. This is what happened when I was 17. I was very upset about a girl breaking up with me, and proceeded to grow and "Eff You" beard for the next two and a half months, it was glorious in appearance but not in motive. I have no inherent opposition to the "Eff You" beard, in fact I feel it is a helpful and sometimes necessary coping mechanism. It just somehow seems tainted to have my only magnificent beard grown to spite someone else, rather than for my own personal enjoyment. So this November, I will be growing it out, in all of its hairy splendor, who knows if it goes really well I might even let it go into December too. I will almost certainly look like the Indian Kimbo Slice, what could be better?

There is also the distinct possibility that everything I have just written is complete gibberish and No Shave November is just a thing college guys do because they aren't married and don't have real jobs. It's hard to say, but I'd like to think it's more. Much, much more.

My Close Call

Yesterday I was making my way from Omaha (the greatest place ever) to Los Angeles (let's just say its no Omaha), in order to help my sister move halfway across the country to Houston with my other sister and her family. Of course, I couldn't just fly from Omaha to Los Angeles, no that would make too much sense. First I had to fly to Chicago and then go to Los Angeles. For those of you who are geographically challenged (read: retarded), Chicago would be approximately an hour and a half flight in the complete opposite direction of where I needed to go. Anyway, I make it to Chicago despite some moments of pretty severe turbulence where my destination suddenly seemed much less certain, but once I get there my flight is promptly delayed by 35 minutes. The 35 minutes grew to 45 which threw me into some Vietnam like flashbacks of last Christmas when I was flying from Chicago to Houston and had my flight delayed almost 16 hours (in reality I believe the delay was actually 11 hours, but the grandeur of my ordeal grows with each telling of the story). Luckily this delay never stretched to much more than an hour (a real hour, not a making it a better story hour). This single hour though was more than enough time to identify two Arab looking, heavily bearded men who I was hoping beyond hope were not on my flight.

Now let me just say that I am in no way a racist and do my best not to racially profile people. That being on the table, if you see two Arab looking men, with Osama beards and there is a chance that they might be on your flight from one major city to another, some less than utopic scenarios start flying through your head. I started having a debate with myself about whether or not these men were actually a threat, thinking things like, well they aren't wearing turbans or anything like that, but they do have some bandannas tied around their heads . . . maybe that's the modern, less conspicuous version of the turban? Just a little glimpse into how my mind works. Ironically, I'm sure many paranoid white folks have had this same inner struggle when noticing that I was going to be sharing an aircraft with them. I just didn't want you to think this fact was lost on me.

A long time ago, I decided nothing unsavory would ever go down on a plane that I was on. I figured that security at airports is to the point that whatever anyone could sneak onto a plane would not be fatal to me in a single strike and that I could overpower them and avoid catastrophe before they could do much damage to me. I mean these guys aren't exactly Navy SEALS, they train on monkey bars in the desert. I like my chances. Now I'm kind of a pansy in a lot of areas of life. I would never become a cop because I'm afraid of getting shot. I don't ride roller coasters because I'm afraid of heights. I prefer the shallow end of the pool due to my fear of drowning. I don't like to take chances because of my fear of failure. I know these things about myself so it is not like I have some sort of delusions about my inherent level of bravery and heroism. However, believe me when I say, I would single handedly take down the entire Taliban if they tried anything shady on my airplane.

With this in mind, I chose my seat (thank you Southwest's open seating) directly behind the two gentlemen in question so that I could keep tabs on them. Yes I know I'm ridiculous. For a while the flight was fairly uneventful, save for the moment when, after feeling like I'd already been on the plane for an insufferable amount of time, the pilot happily announced that we were now passing Omaha, Nebraska. My reaction, which was only audible in my own head, was a sailor-friendly tirade which can most cleanly and accurately be summed up by simply saying, FML. Probably an hour or two after this announcement, I noticed one of the men I was sitting behind had been looking around nervously for some time and then all of a sudden I saw him remove his head phones, motion to his friend who then removed his own headphones as they made eye contact and nodded to each other, as if to say "it's time". They then both bowed their heads and began conducting what I believed was, for lack of a better term, a pregame prayer. Now I do not know much about Jihadists, but I assume before they head off to collect their 72 virgins, they toss one up to Allah to bless their mission. Like I said, I do not know these things, but I was convinced that these two guys on my flight were absolutely in the market for some virgins. This is when I started formulating my plan.

I decided that if I saw both of them head toward the cockpit, I had to take action. My plan was to punch one of them in the back of the head (figuring that since it is illegal to do this in boxing, it must be rather harmful and hopefully debilitating) and put the other in a choke hold, squeezing the life out of him with my considerable bicep. I'm convinced this would have worked and if a problem arose, I trusted that someone else on the plane would jump up and help out. However as I was finishing formulating my plan, both men had put their headphones back on and returned to what they were doing before the interruption. Crisis averted. Perhaps I wildly misjudged the situation. And it is possible that this makes me borderline racist. Maybe my perceived threat level of the situation was blown completely out of proportion. We will never know. Let this be a warning to anyone in the Middle East who has plans of doing something unsavory though. I travel a lot, and I may end up on your flight. And if I do, you better believe I will go all sorts of Rambo on you.