Escape. Evade. Vici.

It was not just another day in the City of Angels. As I sat in the back of the van being driven along a road that needed repaving, I wondered where I was. The only thing I could smell was my own sweat. At least, I thought it was my sweat. It could have been the other two captives’. There were no windows in the back where we were sitting on the floor. Looking around, the silhouette of windows in the front of the van was the only light able to protrude through the bag over my head. The bag seemed like an odd choice: the green, eco-friendly type, like you would see at Whole Foods. Naturally, I thought about removing it, but that’s not a choice when your hands are handcuffed behind your back. Even sitting still hurt, as the cuffs on my wrists dug into raw burns I obtained days earlier escaping from riot flexi-cuffs.

I sat in silence. So did the others. The only thing I could hear was the sound of the tire treads getting a beating from the unholy road.

A phone rang.

“How was Latvia?” The driver didn’t bother with a hello.

I could hear a thick eastern European accent on the other end: “I talked to Sergio, vot do you haff for us?”

I got a feeling this wasn’t a courtesy call.

“I got three with me right now, see if you can get 150 for them. All good condition, non-smokers.”

Organs on the black market make good money. I wondered which organs he was talking about. It wasn’t long ago I heard this same man saying, “Anywhere there’s a free market, there’s a black market.”

At this point, I estimated my heartbeat was racing at about 130 beats per minute. They call this the red zone. My fight or flight response was kicking in, adrenaline racing through my body. All I could do now was think. I needed an escape plan. Fortunately, I was trained for this.

Four seconds of breathing in. Four seconds of breathing out. By taking long, deep breaths, you can lower your heart rate. Control your adrenaline, they taught us. Maximize its benefits while staying short of the dreaded gray zone: 150-180 bpm. In the gray zone, you can’t think clearly. Your complex motor functions begin to deteriorate. Your dominant hand begins shaking, your mouth becomes dry, and you’re close to becoming docile and submissive. If Jason Bourne can avoid it, so can I.

Fight or flight response isn’t always a bad thing, though. When kept in a decent range, between about 80-118 bpm, it actually enhances both cognitive skills and physical strength. However, no amount of strength would help get me out of these handcuffs. Fortunately, I was trained for this.

The van suddenly halted, and the two similarly restrained bodies toppled over me. I heard the driver door open and the driver getting out. We didn’t hesitate for a second. I stood up, dragged the handcuffs down my back below my rear, fell sideways onto the van floor to get my legs through my arms and the cuffs in front of me. I then reached for a bobby pin attached to my pants. After scraping off the rubbery end of one side of the pin, I placed that side into the keyhole of the cuffs, bent it, and twisted it around to unlock. Yes, it’s that easy. We jumped out of the van and began running. A few immigrant workers were standing outside of the hardware store we were parked at. After seeing us jump out the back of an unmarked van running, they looked more worried than we were.

This was Scout Urban Escape and Evasion, a course taught by Kevin Reeve, founder of onPoint Tactical, a tracking and survival school. The course started with two days of training. This was the third day, a full-day field test, where we were could rely only on the skills we had (hopefully) learned the prior days.

“We are six meals away from total anarchy.”

Kevin repeated this on the first day of training, declaring that our society could break down after only two days without food. It was something I had never thought about, but it made sense. I become dangerous after two hours without a protein shake. After we had milk and cookies to prevent a lunchtime coup, Kevin taught us about handling stress, assessing priorities, and planning various disaster escape scenarios. I got an adrenaline rush just listening.

“Now, do not do this if you’re arrested by the police. It will only piss them off.”

Kevin was teaching us how to escape from police grade handcuffs. The title of the slide projected on the wall was “Escaping Custody,” and a table was littered with handcuffs, zip ties, duct tape and ropes. When he showed us how to escape and we practiced for a bit, I was surprised how easy it was. I wasn’t totally convinced these were the same cuffs that the police used because they were so easy to escape from, but it was interesting to know anyway. He then taught us how to escape from virtually any other type of common restraint, including riot flexi-cuffs/zip ties, telephone wire, rope, duct tape and paracord. We either needed no special tools or something as simple as a shoelace, paperclip or hair barrette. I reminded myself to go and buy some barrettes and bobby pins after my pedicure later that day.

I tested everything he showed us. When he asked who wanted to try breaking out of flexi-cuffs, the thick zip ties typically used by police in riot situations, I volunteered. He told me I’d want a hand guard if I didn’t want to hurt my wrists. But I was there for the real deal, which meant no wrist guard. He tied together two zip ties and interlocked them to my wrists. He told me to tighten them as much as I could by pulling on the ends with my teeth until blood stopped circulating to my hands. This didn’t sound like a good idea, but he had been entirely accurate and knowledgeable up to this point. I trusted him implicitly. I tightened them until my hands started going numb. Then he told me to raise my hands high and thrust my elbows back behind my ribs, allowing the sheer force to break the restraints. After three tries, the zip ties broke and I jumped up and down, giddy with my achievement.

Another student who had been in the Marine Corps and looked like he trained heavily in MMA gave it a shot. One thrust and the ties broke off his wrists. Show off. Three days later, I have rings of razor thin scars around my wrists from the divots. Battle wounds are a small price to pay for freedom.

On the second day of training, one of my classmates told us he was pulled over the night before for running a red light. The officer searched his car and found the handcuffs we had all taken home to practice getting out of. The officer excitedly shared, “That’s funny, I have the same exact cuffs!” I earned new respect for our instructor. Kevin was the real deal.

He went on to teach us a cornucopia of methods of escape and evasion. I wrote down and breathed in every last word he had to say, excited by every single topic. I felt like it should be illegal for there to even be a class on this stuff, let alone for me to repeat it.

“Everything you need to survive is in the city. It’s just usually locked up.”

I laughed in disbelief when he said this. Nervous laughter, perhaps. Some of the topics focused on getting access to supplies, food, or places in an emergency by teaching us how to pick locks with paperclips, break combo locks with a soda can, hijack cars, and hide caches or go-bags for a situation where you can’t go home. He then went over methods of evading capture in the first place, such as preventing standard optical, thermal and infrared cameras from spotting you, evading razor-wire and barbed-wire fences, defending against attack dogs, and evading motion detectors and seismic sensors. Skills spanned creating false identification, using social engineering, improvising weapons, creating makeshift anti-pursuit caltrops to puncture tires of a moving vehicle, quickly removing fingerprints, and disarming an attacker with a gun pointed at your head. He taught us how to prevent a vehicle from spinning your car out, and suggested taking an evasive driving course to really learn those skills. I reminded myself to find evasive driving courses in the area and to stop committing felonies.

The last day was the real test: we were thrown in the back of a van, had to escape handcuffs, walk or run for miles at a time, locate caches to obtain supplies and disguises, and complete various tasks. Some of the tasks involved picking a lock in a crowded park without arousing suspicion, borrowing cell phones from people on the street to make necessary calls, making money from strangers for food and water, spotting escape vehicles that we could confidently hijack, creating anti-pursuit caltrops, and improvising thrusting weapons from materials on the street.

By the time the class was over, I had a new outlook on my surroundings and environment. The world has just opened up, and it’s exhilarating. When I see a locked door, I don’t see a location I can’t access. I see an open shelter or place to obtain resources. When I see a car, I don’t see someone else’s vehicle. I see a transportation method in an emergency. When I’m handcuffed by the police or a hot girl, well…I’ll just humor them and remain cuffed. For now.

The MySpace Worm

A few months back, I decided to make a permanent myspace account so that I could easily view pictures of random, hot girls whenever I please without creating a new account each time. I also had a number of friends on there and figured I would see what all the hype was about. Myspace is a site for keeping up with friends, meeting new people, and even getting laid (sorry ladies, I’m taken.) It allows you to set up a profile/web page with a limited ability to make it look and feel how you wanted. Too limiting. I couldn’t even fit a good line into my “headline” without taking words out and sounding like G.W.B. trying to respond to an arbitrary question. Hell, I couldn’t even fit more than 12 glamour shots on my photos page. Like an illegal alien with a plan, I ventured to evade these limiting borders.

I began to examine the site some more, seeing how they restrict things, what they restrict, taking some breaks to look at profiles of really hot girls, trying to add them as friends and getting rejected, and getting back to making my profile cool so that they would add me as a friend later. Chicks dig cool profiles. After a little bit of messing around, I found that I could put in a longer headline than what they allowed. Hell, I could even get around their other restrictions and get HTML in there in order to add cool “effects” to my page that other people can’t add. Yeah, that will get me chicks. Girls want guys who have computer hacking skills.

Let’s see here…what would make my profile rock. Well, the most popular profiles on myspace pretty much consist of people with the IQ and English delivery skills of Kanye West so I don’t want to mimic those, but popularity begets popularity. I need some more friends. I need people to love me. I delved into the bug and found that I could basically control the web browsing of anyone who hit my profile. In fact, I was able to develop something that caused anyone who viewed my profile to add my name to their profile’s list of heroes. It’s villainous. I was ecstatic.

But it wasn’t enough. I needed more. So I went deeper. A Chipotle burrito and a few clicks later, anyone who viewed my profile who wasn’t already on my friends list would inadvertently add me as a friend. Without their permission. I had conquered myspace. Veni, vidi, vici.

But it wasn’t enough.

If I can become their friend…if I can become their hero…then why can’t their friends become my friend…my hero. I can propagate the program to their profile, can’t I. If someone views my profile and gets this program added to their profile, that means anyone who views THEIR profile also adds me as a friend and hero, and then anyone who hits THOSE people’s profiles add me as a friend and hero… So if 5 people viewed my profile, that’s 5 new friends. If 5 people viewed each of their profiles, that’s 25 more new friends. And after that, well, that’s when things get difficult. The math, I mean.

Some people would call this a worm. I call it popularity. Regardless, I don’t care about popularity, but it can’t hurt, right?

10/04, 12:34 pm: You have 73 friends.
I decided to release my little popularity program. I’m going to be famous…among my friends.

1 hour later, 1:30 am: You have 73 friends and 1 friend request.
One of my friends’ girlfriend looks at my profile. She’s obviously checking me out. I approve her inadvertent friend request and go to bed grinning.

7 hours later, 8:35 am: You have 74 friends and 221 friend requests.
Woah. I did not expect this much. I’m surprised it even worked.. 200 people have been infected in 8 hours. That means I’ll have 600 new friends added every day. Woah.

1 hour later, 9:30 am: You have 74 friends and 480 friend requests.
Oh wait, it’s exponential, isn’t it. Shit.

1 hour later, 10:30 am: You have 518 friends and 561 friend requests.
Oh crap. I’m getting messages from people pissed off that I’m their friend when they didn’t add me. I’m also getting emails saying “Hey, how the hell did you get onto my myspace….not that I mind, you’re hot”. From guys. But more girls than guys. This actually isn’t so bad. The girls part.

3 hours later, 1:30 pm: You have 2,503 friends and 6,373 friend requests.
I’m canceling my account. This has gotten out of control. People are messaging me saying they’ve reported me for “hacking” them due to my name being in their “heroes” list. Man, I rock. Back to my worries. People are also emailing me telling me their IM names so that I’ll chat with them. Cool. Back to my worries. Apparently people are getting pissed because they delete me from their friends list, view someone else’s page or even their own and get re-infected immediately with me. I rule. I hope no one sues me.

I haven’t been worried about anything in years, but today I was actually afraid of the unknown. Afraid of myspace? No, afraid of FOX’s legal department. If you’re not aware already, myspace was purchased by FOX only a few weeks back for 580 million dollars. Not online myspace dollars, but actual cash that can buy strippers. With all that money, Tom from myspace could basically do 2 chicks at once, 580 times. Or he could have FOX come after me. I don’t want FOX after me.

I spend the rest of the day working, trying to get the ideas of what could happen out of my head. I have my girlfriend visit me for lunch to say our goodbyes. I’m going to the big house. I could hear it then, “mr samy, you are hereby sentenced to an $800,000 fine and 3 years in jail for getting way too many friends on myspace and causing psychological damage to girls who thought they were your friends until you canceled your account.”

5 hours later, 6:20 pm: I timidly go to my profile to view the friend requests. 2,503 friends. 917,084 friend requests.
I refresh three seconds later. 918,268. I refresh three seconds later. 919,664 (screenshot below). A few minutes later, I refresh. 1,005,831.

It’s official. I’m popular.

I have hit 1,000,000+ users. In less than 20 hours, I’ve hit over 1/35th of all myspace users. Every request is from a unique, living, and logged in user. I refresh once more and now see nothing but a message that my profile is down for maintenance. I messed up, didn’t I. I’m now more afraid and decide I am never doing anything even near illegal ever again. To get my mind off of everything, I begin downloading a copy of the latest Nip/Tuck episode.

1 hour later, 7:05 pm: A friend tells me that they can’t see their profile. Or anyone else’s profile. Or any bulletin boards. Or any groups. Or their friends requests. Or their friends. Nothing on myspace works. Messages are everywhere stating that myspace is down for maintenance and that the entire myspace crew is there working on it. I ponder whether I should drive over to their office and apologize. Another attempt to free my mind of worry, I go back to watching some episodes of The OC which I downloaded a few days earlier. File sharing rocks.

2.5 hours later, 9:30 pm: I’m told that everything on myspace seems to be working again. My girlfriend’s profile, along with many, many others, still say “samy is my hero”, however the actual self-propagating program is gone. I’m relieved that it’s back up as they can’t claim damages for any downtime past this second if everything is in fact working properly.

10 minutes later, 9:40 pm: I haven’t heard from anyone at myspace or FOX. A few minutes later, my girlfriend calls, I pick up, and she says to me, “you’re my hero”. I don’t actually get it until about three hours later.

Postmortem:

I’m still waiting for myspace or FOX to contact me. I’m sorry myspace and FOX. I love you guys, all the great things myspace provides, and all the great shows FOX has, my favorite being Nip/Tuck.

Oh wait, Nip/Tuck is FX? My bad, but FOX, I’m sure you still have some good stuff. But maybe you should start picking up Nip/Tuck reruns? Just a thought. I’m kidding! Please don’t sue me.

A Ticket to Fight

On January 1st, 2005, I was pulled over for speeding. I was not happy about this. Here is my lone, attorneyless attempt at fighting it.

January 1st, 2005: I was travelling at 81 mph on the I-5. I did not see a police bike on the side of the freeway until he lit his jolly old lights up and came after me. I pulled over. He did not let me off.

Mid-January, 2005: I drive to my post office mailbox and receive a letter from the Superior Court of San Diego stating that I can pay $450 which will help fund the CHP’s luxary vehicles and avoid going to court. I can also attend traffic school. I could pay and get it all over with and suffer the cost plus a point. I could also fight it and waste lots of time in court. I could even get an attorney for $500, but then be paying more than the ticket itself just to avoid a point. I’m not sure what do, so I decide to drown the thoughts away with some vodka on the drive home.

March 2nd, 2005: I realize my court date is soon. I check. It is tomorrow. I’m 100+ miles away from the court and realize that I do not really want to drive that far to go to court. I also don’t want to pay $450. I look at my options…in a previous traffic case, I had an attorney appear for me. Too expensive. $450, also too expensive. I investigate other options. I call the court and ask for a one-time, 30-day continuance. They give me another 30 days before I have to appear. Sweet.

April 2nd, 2005: I realize my court date is soon. I check. It is tomorrow. I call the court and ask for a one-time, 30-day continuance. They tell me I have already asked for that. I yell slurs into the cell-phone. Well, I slurred into the cell-phone. I hangup and drink some more until I get distracted by the light turning green.

Later that day: I relize my court date is soon. I check. Shoot, I already did all of this. I realize I still do not want to go to court. In fact, if I go to court, I would have to wait for hours just to say “not guilty”, at which point I arrange ANOTHER date to go back and defend myself with the other officer present, and waste more time. I begin investigating other methods of not paying and not appearing in court. I would really prefer to just find a way to get paid $450 for discovering a loophole where you get paid $450. I take another sip. I search some more, ask around, and voila! I type, print and mail a Written Not Guilty Plea. No court necessary.

Mid-April, 2005: I get a letter in the mail with a Request for Trial by Written Decleration. Again, no need to appear. I am pleased. All I have to do is convince the court that it was perfectly legal for me to speed…I can have my dreams. I send my trial by written decleration. It goes a little like this:

I respectfully submit this written declaration to the Court pursuant to CVC 40902. I plead Not Guilty to the charge of violating CVC 22406(b).The facts of my case are as follows: While driving northbound on Interstate 5, just north of Poinsettia Lane, at around 10:45 AM on 1-1-05, I was stopped by CHP Officer *** (I.D.#***) and charged with violating CVC 22406(b) for traveling at a speed of 81 mph. I do not deny traveling at this speed but submit that my citation should be dismissed, as my speed was necessary in compliance with the Basic Speed Law and the Minimum Speed Law.

The traffic was light ahead of me, heavy for a short distance behind me, and moving at an average speed of 80 mph. At first, I tried to obey the posted maximum, even though the other vehicles were going 10-15 mph faster. Due to the heavy, fast moving traffic, I was constantly being tailgated and was almost rear-ended by several cars. My attempt to obey the letter of the law by maintaining a lower speed was causing a hazardous situation for myself and others.

CVC 22400, “The Minimum Speed Law,” requires that “No person shall drive upon a highway at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic….” By driving slower, I was certainly impeding the normal flow of traffic: 80 mph at the time of my stop. In this situation, it was safer to obey the Minimum Speed Law, by matching my speed to the traffic flow, then to follow the Maximum Speed Law and cause a hazard by driving at 65 mph or slower.

The Basic Speed Law, CVC 22350, states: “No person shall drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of the highway, and in no event at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property.” If traffic is moving at 81 mph, it is not safe to drive 15-20 mph slower than this speed. To match the speed of traffic in this situation does violate the Maximum Speed Law. However, my situation required me to travel above the posted maximum to obey the Basic Speed Law and to avoid being rear-ended by faster moving traffic.

Where I was stopped, Interstate 5 is a well-maintained multi-lane freeway, quite safe to travel on at a speed above the maximum limit with favorable weather and road conditions, such as on that clear, Saturday morning. Since I was required for safety to accelerate to match the speed of traffic, I contest that my speed was reasonable and prudent pursuant to the Basic Speed Law and Minimum Speed Law.

I trust in the Court’s fairness in this matter and believe that my citation should be dismissed in the interest of justice.

If the court does not find in my favor in this case, I request a fine reduction and a Court assignment to attend traffic school. I have already verified that I am eligible to receive traffic school.

Mid-June, 2005: I lost the case and paid the fine. No loss, same fine, but never had to step into court. Maybe next time.

October, 2005: So I’ve been clean (no tickets) for over 9 months. My insurance payment on my SUV is $500/mo for base coverage. Don’t ever get tickets. However, they do get removed after 3 years. My youthful years will soon be over and the points will be gone, leaving me with a mature driving record (and nothing else) and less costly insurance. And then I’ll probably do something pretty stupid.

Cry Me a River

It was the day after yesterday at a growing technology startup in sunny–no, wait–stormy Los Angeles. It was 5:00 PM, we were only in the middle of the work day, and it was gloomy, raining hard with thunder and lightning and an earthquake to shake up the evening. We look outside our window with our beautiful view to the gloomiest, grayest river on the face of the planet, contaminated with all sorts of garbage and trashier than the Spice Girls. We all stand around, looking at this river that’s been flooded from the pouring rain and wind. This is the highlight of our day, so far.

The CEO, we’ll call him “Disco”, decides it would be a good idea to offer $500 to anyone to swim across and make it. It is freezing and raining outside. The water is even colder…and wetter and sickening to even look at. The current is practically making waves. One of the sales guys (aka professional prostitutes), we’ll call him “David”, claims he will do it. I believe this is the most retarded thing he has said in at least the past few hours. Now, I wouldn’t mind watching, but that would require me to go outside and view the event. It is cold and I think being in the cold for entertainment is not worth it. For money, well, that’s a different story. No wait–keep reading, same story.

Knowing that sales people are just glorified and slightly brighter prostitutes and will do anything for money, but will take risks to gain more green, I play David’s manager to make him an overnight celebrity. I immediately claim $500 is not enough, and only $1000 is really worth it. David obviously has no way to disagree to someone standing up for him and doesn’t need to say anything. No way Disco will throw down so much for that sort of entertainment, so I decide I will help make it entertaining by participating. Hell, we’ll make it a race. First person across and alive gets $1000. Now it’s interesting, but too expensive. Disco doesn’t want to put down so much, so he tells the office bitch and finance god, we’ll call him “Babar”, to put down half. Babar is 6’3, muscular and a workout monger. However, his phobias and nervousness keep him in a constant state of fear, so being the timid and nervous person he is, he coyly agrees. The other prostitute of the office, we’ll call him “Grant”, puts in $100, so Babar and Disco only need to throw down $450 each. They are pleased with this outcome, especially knowing no one is really going to go all the way across. You’d have to be a moron to even try.

David is smart and suggests loser gets $300 assuming they cross all the way, and $700 to the winner. I boastfully state the loser should get $250, but quickly go back to $300 knowing he is bigger and stronger than me. However, the most logical person in the company, we’ll call him “Spidey”, states that the current of the river is moving way too fast for anyone to cross over it and it’s probably moving at about 9 knots. Knowing that money supersedes logic, and people pay to see and hear music by a white rapper named after a chocolaty candy and sings about Vicodin and homosexuals, we quickly put his unwanted coherence aside.

We decide we should go outside and see how bad it really is. We go outside. It is bad. David and I quickly state how ridiculous it is to go into that water with such a current. I realize I have alcohol in my car. I run to the car, grab some Grey Goose, take a few swigs and hand it to David. We quickly decide we can do it. I think back to a time I had too much alcohol and felt that I could bench press lots of weight. I think back to the time I failed miserably and how the alcohol only made me feel strong. The cold makes me quickly forget about such logic.

We jump the fence, which I have repeated trouble with, especially with the cheap sandals and very “fitted” jeans I was wearing. I blame the rain for making them tight. We get over the fence and go down towards the water. I suggest, slightly drunk from the sorry excuse for a shot I took moments earlier, that we should poll others in the building to see if they want to add to the pot. Disco looks at me as if I’m joking. Whatever, I can live with three to seven hundred. Little do I know that no one expects us to make it all the way and are here just for the free entertainment. That is, free if we don’t cross, as everyone rightfully believes. David and I look at each other for a minute deciding what to do.

We take off our shirts. We haven’t yet decided to go in, but we want to at least look good. Shoes come off. Pants come off. David and I are prancing around in our shorts in the freezing rain. We are ready to gets our hands wet, so we want to see what the water feels like and hope the oil, pollution and radiation keeps it warm. It does not. We go down into the water and place our feet in. It is cold. I am glad I have shorts on as my muscles are not the only things shriveled up at this point.

We move two feet forward and the current is thrusting against us like a giver in a jail cell. We go way back to the side. What we also notice is the current is moving about three times as fast on the other half. We look at each other in disbelief and think to ourselves, “we are not doing this.” David has his hands in the water a few moments later, the current brings something to his hand. He brings forth up a fence post with nails sticking out of it. This will be fun.

At this point I’m waiting for him to back out, so I can gracefully back out as well. He is waiting for me to back out. The water is freezing cold. He jumps into the water and starts swimming. *sigh* Using the brain I developed during puberty, I jumped in after him and began to swim. I have never been in so much filth. All sorts of garbage is just flowing right into my side and my face. What the hell am I doing? I realize I need to A) go back and suffer no injuries except ridicule, or B) get to the other side and possibly have hypothermia. I continue swimming. Next thing I know my hand gets stuck in a Cup’o’noodles cup and am swimming with it. I throw it back into the sewage and swim fast to try to catch up.

The current is strong, pushing us down the river. I am freezing. I begin to put more thought into what the coldness does but quickly realize I have to get to the other side. I swim and swim, not getting there as fast as I would like with the current. I am half way there and stop swimming. The cold has ceased my muscles from working. I look around and am floating down the river as if I were a fish speeding away. I begin to backstroke through more current, turn around and end up swallowing all sorts of this sorry excuse for water. I feel like I’m about to puke but I continue to swim. I’m getting closer and closer. I know I can make it. My muscles are getting more numb every second. I cannot see David as I don’t have my glasses, but I know he is way ahead of me. I just want to reach land. I am going the distance, but not very quickly.

I have done it. I am feet away from land. I try to stand up, but you can not stand up when a current is pushing you down a river. I make an attempt and my knee scrapes against cement and the current rolls me onto the cement. I manage to get up against the current, climb up the slanted cement wall and make it to dry land. I have done it. I have slain Goliath. I throw my hands into the air with what little energy I have left.

And I hear the sirens of my victory. Wait. These are not sirens of victory.

From a distance I hear, “GUYS, RUN! THE COPS ARE COMING!” I do not like these sirens as they are not beautiful or from the intoxicated sea. David catches up with me on the road we are on, and we make the sorriest attempt at a run that I’ve ever seen. We just sprinted our asses off and are shivering, dripping wet, half naked in the cold with no energy left. Unfortunately at this point, we were personas non grata and have little choice. We run. We stop. “RUN THE COPS ARE COMING” again. I do not like this one bit.

We run some more. We stop some more. We hear more about cops and a siren. We continue to run to the closest road which happens to be a bridge. We are close and get to it and don’t notice the men in black at the bottom combing the river with flashlights. A search and rescue team was dispatched to find us, as were the police. We get to the road and notice a familiar car. David says to me, “well we can just say we’re joggers.” We are wearing boxers, are wet and dirty, smell like an oil spill and have no shoes. The headache I have doesn’t allow me to conjure up a single coherent thought, so I agree with him. There is a big fence to jump to get to the road and we are barefoot. We are aware that police are close and jump it. We go to the familiar car, take one look back and notice two large signs on the fence: “TRESPASSERS WILL BE FINED $1000 UP TO 6 MONTHS IN JAIL”. Go figure.

We jump into the car where Spidey is readily waiting for us, and drive. Fast. We take a route I don’t know and get back to the office. In a sweat to separate us from the car, we go to the side of the building where we believe there are no cops. We run into the building half naked without shoes, get to our office, get in and lock the door. Grant and Disco are waiting for us with most of our clothes. Security questioned both of them. Four cop cars arrived while we were coming in. We never talked to any of them, and they did not find us.

I fall onto the floor with a splitting headache and am cold. David decides he needs to throw up as I point out we drank some of that water. Babar, after not answering his phone and worrying us a bit as they all split up, came back. He claims the water is diluted so it’s no big deal. This is the man that washes his hands every three minutes and keeps a wet cloth by at all times to clean his hands. Yes Babar, it was diluted with sewage and garbage.

Luckily, everyone makes it back safely. No one is questioned by the police, although Grant and Disco are questioned by security who called the police. Everyone is safe and not too sick. David and I recover from the drinking of sewage, cold water, and cement scrapes without a problem except for a few aches. Disco, Grant and Babar throw down their cash and we claim our rightful money. I get 2nd place and later find out David is a scuba diving trainer of some sort. Great.

Ugh, I’m going to puke. I drank garbage.

There are fun nights, there are crazy nights, and then there are those nights that make men legends. This all occurred before 6:00 PM so I can’t claim to have taken part in any of those.

A Ticket to Ride

I just finished showing off some pretty weak wheelies to a hottie on the road. These were 7 o’clock wheelies, I became very self-conscious. I realized that I am not going to get laid this way. It’s obvious that chicks like them to be bigger and to last longer.

I continued down San Marcos Blvd. in Carlsbad, California, slowing down every now and then and getting the front up, getting it to 9 o’clock and holding it up for maybe 3 to 5 seconds until I got close to red-line. This is not good. How am I ever going to moon people while doing a wheelie if I have to use torque to keep it up? Time to reach a balance point. I will not stop practicing wheelies today until I can stay up for 30+ seconds, even if it kills me. Famous last words.

I find a mostly empty area to practice these suckers, and I’m pulling 12 o’clock wheelies and bringing them down soft as a baby, people behind me are eating it up. An old couple in their BMW X5 gives me thumbs up. I am Maximus. The crowd loves me. Of course, I need to out-do myself. I bring it up, 12 o’clock, am riding it for 1 second…2 seconds…bike wobbles left and right, my heart skips a beat, I drop the bike down almost straight and straighten it out, no problem. I decide I’m not very good at doing 12 o’clock wheelies and the smartest thing to do would be to stop for the day. I continue practicing.

I move into a more empty area where I can ride without being judged and have to out-do myself on my excellent wheelies. It’s not easy being so awesome at everything. I find a nice stretch and stop at the beginning. Remembering the terrible, live Cake performance I saw the previous day at the Del Mar Racetracks…I reluctantly crouch at the starting line, engine pumping and thumping in time. The green light flashes, the flags go up, I twist on the throttle and drop the clutch.

I’m doing it…I’m at 8000 rpm, in the air, looking straight up at the sky. Two seconds, 8000 rpm, four seconds, 8000 rpm, 8 seconds, 9000 rpm, 50mph, I’m keeping it up…I look down and see I’m not using almost any throttle…I’ve reached a balance point, I’m flying to the sea, letting my spirits carry me…I rule the world.

After coming back to reality, it registers that I’m up too high and for too long for this to remain a good thing. I remember the dollar fifty I lost in Vegas the weekend before and how I should’ve quit while I was up. I drop the throttle, which normally brings the bike down hard on its front. I’m still in the air…why am I not dropping? I feel like the Road Runner running off of a cliff, coming to a complete stop in midair, then realizing I won’t be able to stay still in midair all day. I think what to do..what to do. My mind wanders off to the movie I watched the previous day, The Butterfly Effect, and remember Evan at age 7 speaking…”This is the very moment of your reckoning. In the next 30 seconds you’re going to open one of two doors. The first door will forever traumatize your own flesh and blood.” The bike tips to the left, I tip to the left, I am in the air, I am not so high in the air anymore, I am not so high anymore, the dopamine drains out of my hypothalamus, my helmet and head make brief contact with the cement, the rest of my body is jealous and kicks up my head, the envious side of me falls on the ground and I begin rolling on my side like a bowling ball, watching the bike slide next to me. I think to myself “man, I hope the bike doesn’t hit me.” It doesn’t. I am happy with this outcome. I’ve rolled 100 feet across the cement right next to a gutter. This will definitely not get me laid. I start going through a run down of people in my head that might be able to help me in this situation. No medical insurance, no bike insurance, no bike registration, oh my!

A van pulls up 10 seconds later next to me and a man and woman come out yelling “We don’t have a cell phone! We don’t have a cell phone!” You dolts, I just dumped my bike to go out with cement and you want to borrow a cell phone? Oh wait, they wanted to help me. I decide that I am fine, and they offer water, which I accept and knew would hit the spot while lying down with an unsure amount of injuries in the hot, San Diego sun. I tell them I am fine and I had just tripped and fell, but thanked them for their assistance. For people without cell phones, they were not as dumb as I had imagined and did not believe my fib. They brought my bike to the side of the road, put it up on its kickstand and decided that I was fine and left the scene.

Man, that was a sweet wheelie. I rule.