The Story of a Lifetime

So my local newspaper has been notorious for it's crazy headline stories. Living on an Island, not much happens, so some pretty silly stuff can make the front page. My personal favorite used to be "Lawnmower Man disrupts free concert," followed a year later by "Noisy concert foe arrested." Same guy. Same file photo used on the front page. I loved it, even making a photocopy and bringing it with me to BC to post up on the wall of my dorm room. But the Lawnmower series may have finally gotten a serious contender. I picked up the local Whidbey News Times yesterday and read the front page headline... "Man sans pants steals dog, truck, wreaks havoc." Seriously. Read the article, it's classic. Especially the part about stealing the truck:

"Next, Hooper and the dog, which he apparently renamed 'Ruff Ruff,' drove over to Golf Course Road and stole a dump truck."

Now, just imagine yourself as that dog for a while. I don't know about you, but growing up with two dogs, I always did want to trade places with them for a day. So imagine becoming this dog for this one day. For the sake of the story, let's pretend the dog's name is Griffey, which I think would be an awesome name for a dog and tops the list of names I want to give my first dog.

Griffey's Adventure:

So I woke up today, just like every day. Thought I'd be doing the same old stuff, you know? As soon as the sun rises and the birds start chirping, I stroll around my kennel a bit until the master comes and feeds me, takes me out for a walk around the neighborhood. I saw Fido as usual. Sparky was licking his balls on the front porch as usual. That dog needs a bitch. Seriously needs to get laid. I don't think I've ever walked by his house without seeing him licking his own balls. Anyway, the rest of the walk went as usual. Chased a few birds, a squirrel. Some cat even tried to act all tough around me so I yelled at it, and the thing ran away. I can't stand cats. They're worse than small dogs like Sparky.

Anyway, I got back home and took a nap, and then all of a sudden, there's this crazy guy who has pulled into the driveway and is walking towards my kennel. I mean WTF is this stumbling guy doing? But he's got this aura about him, seems like he's ready for adventure. He opens my cage up and picks me up. I'm totally digging this guy. I don't know where he's taking me, but I like the way it sounds.

So we're driving down the road, and this guy is just rambling on and on about being fired from the Navy. I'm like, dude, relax, roll a J and forget about it. He looked at me and yells, "WHAT? YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?" It's about time somebody starts to understand me. Then all of a sudden, this dude drives off the road and into a fence. What is this guy thinking? He's just yelling and cursing about how he couldn't bust through the fence, so he backs up and we take off again. Pretty soon we pull into a construction site. Then my day gets REALLY wild.

This dude takes his pants off. Off. Takes. The pants. Off. Boxers too. This guy is just standing there in all his glory from the waist down, drops his pants into the front seat, and grabs me. I'm thinking, what is this sicko going to do to me? I ask him, "Why the hell did you take your pants off, dude?" "Oh," he replied, "I got hot. But don't worry about them. They were on sale."

Next thing I know, this guy has hoisted me into this freakin' huge rig. Master rolls in his F250, which I used to think was a beast of a truck. But this thing was freakin' huge. And what do you know, dude is going to let me drive! I somehow manage to get my paws down on the gas, but I can barely steer. I plow through a rock wall on to the road, and immediately run into two cars. "RUFF RUFF WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE?" I replied the obvious, "I'm a freakin' dog, dude. What do you expect?" The police showed up a little while later, and this dude got hauled off in an ambulance. But the K9 unit came, and this hot little German Shepard asked for my number. Score. Griffey's back on top, baby!

An Introduction

So they call me "Big B." It was a nicknamed coined my freshman year at BC, after two Brians emerged in our group of friends. One was short, while the other (me) was 6'7". Makes sense. So it should also make sense that "Big B" has decided to move to the Big Apple. This should be interesting.

I was born in Seattle, but moved to the tiny town of Coupeville, WA (pop. 1813) before I started gradeschool. Throughout my childhood I had my eyes set on bigger and better things than Coupeville. Don't get me wrong, I love my hometown. My core group of friends are great, and it's beautiful. But I had to get out, do new things, experience a new city, a new way of life. 2,492 miles later, I enrolled at Boston College. This has turned out to be the best decision of my life. I fell in love with Boston. Just a great city. And, after graduation, I wanted to be close enough to Boston to be able to see my friends who still remained and catch the occasional BC game. But, as the great decision I made earlier in my life, I decided to take the opportunity to experience something new. So, where was I to decide to move?

The Criteria

1. Close proximity to Boston. This means the ability to drive or take a reasonable bus ride to get back. In other words, nothing on the West Coast or deep south.
2. A city that I would have a lot of college friends around, because by being on the East Coast, I have eliminated being close to my friends from home.
3. A good job market for Sports Media, PR, and Broadcasting.

Cities of interest eliminated: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Washington DC, Philadelphia.

New York City is a short enough bus ride from Boston. There is a great network of my BC friends throughout the greater NYC area. And if you want to talk Sports Media, PR, and Broadcasting, the Big Apple has to be tops on the list.

So this is how it's going to go down. My first time really living away from home. My blood relatives are all on the West Coast, spreading from Seattle to LA. Then I've got the uncle in central Mexico. But I'll make it work. I've got my Jewish mother and sister in the City. And I"ve got my brothers and sisters from BC from Boston down to Jersey. I have a lot of love in the Northeast. And it's gonna be a heck of a ride. I might as well keep you posted.