The Chronicles of John Trammell

     I woke up this morning from a bizarre dream.  It is very weird for me to remember any type of dream I have, and to wake up from a dream, but it can happen.  Here is all I remember from that dream.     I was in an empty room, and I was holding a paperclip in my right hand.  The paper clip was bend from it's normal form to being mostly straight (for those who don't know, I tend to always do that to paperclips).  The paper clip was pointed up perpendicular to the ceiling and floor.  I drop the paperclip, and it went through the middle of my right foot.  I stare at it for a few moments, and a pool of blood begins to flow out from underneath my food.  I bend down to pull out the paperclip.  No blood comes out from the small hole left behind on the top of my foot.  I begin to taste blood in my mouth, and as I open it, blood begins dripping out.  I quickly attempt to stop the blood by holding my hand over my mouth for a few moments.  Then I remove my hand to take a look at it.

     Jane always has to have a big birthday event every year.  She has had a few birthday's in Vegas with her co-worker friends.  I was never able to go do to money and/or other commitments/school.  This year, she pushed and pushed for me to go, even though I really had no money to afford a trip to Vegas.  She even threatened to not talk to me for quite awhile if I did not go.  I gave in to peer pressure, and I went for the weekend.  Of course, it is hard to predict what events can occur when going to Vegas.  I went up to Vegas for Jane's birthday from Friday, September 20 to Sunday, September 22.        I was bored, and wanted to avoid the Friday Vegas traffic, so I drove on up before the others planned to be there.  Jane has a co-worker that has access to a time share, and it was planned for us to stay at that time share.  At first, it was thought the time share was at the Tropicana Hotel on the Vegas Strip, so that was where I headed.  As I arrived at the hotel, Jane had l

     Jane, Scotty, and I had made plans to go hiking up the South Fork Trail to the South Fork "Slushy" Meadows, the headwaters of the Santa Ana River, in the San Gorgonio Wilderness.  The original plan was to hike on Thursday, August 29, but we were in the middle of monsoon season.  Massive thunderheads built up on top of Mount San Bernardino and San Gorgonio.  I knew that would be extremely unsafe, so I recommended that we postpone the hike until the next week.  Jane and Scotty tried to convince me to go on the hike anyway, for it will be a intense hike to deal with a storm, but I refused.  Instead, we hiked to Heart Rock (which was extremely disappointing because no water was flowing, and bugs everywhere) and then walked around Lake Gregory in Crestline.              A week later, on Thursday, September 5, we planned to hike if weather permitted.  We chose a Thursday because that is the only day of the week that Scotty has off from work.  The morning of the hike seemed p

     This was a day that a few of my best friends have been waiting for quite sometime.  The day that they successfully got me to go to Six Flags Magic Mountain.  For as long as I can remember, I have said that I hate roller coasters.  Why?  I am not quite sure.  Growing up, there were rides I would refuse to go on including roller coasters or high intense rides at theme parks like Disneyland.  I never was a person that searched for thrills.  I get my thrills in other ways like in public speaking.  My best friend, Scotty, is an adrenaline junky.  He enjoys thrills, and roller coasters has been one of his favorite thrill seeking things since childhood.  Ever since I first met him in 2003, he has tried to get me to go to Magic Mountain with him.  After ten years, I finally gave in.  Not quite sure what made me finally agree to going, but I figure it was one of those moments when you just say fuck it, ill do it.  Scotty had created a plan for me to ride roller coasters from the least inte

     On the morning of July 24th, I left San Francisco (see last blog post) and drove out to the University of California, Davis, outside of Sacramento, for the 2013 California 4-H State Leadership Conference (July 25-28, 2013).  California 4-H was celebrating the 100 years of the state program, and was the main theme behind the conference.  I was at the conference as a member of the California 4-H Technology Leadership Team (TLT).  I worked on a few different projects, taught an educational session, and was in charge of all logistics towards the tech team at the conference (my leadership position is the Team Logistics Leader).  It was a great conference, and I am going to share the major highlights of the event.      The tech team met on campus the day before the conference, on the 24th, to have a face to face meeting.  The major purpose of the face to face meeting was to travel to Folsom to have a tour of the innovation center at the Folsom Intel Campus.  One of the team members an

     Emily Cox, one of my most epic best friends I met through my involvement at the national level of 4-H, traveled out to San Francisco to visit her boyfriend while he was there on a work trip.  There was no way that I was going to allow her to be in California and not hang out with me.  Especially since we have not seen each other in two years.  Last time she came out to visit, we went camping in the eastern Sierras ( see blog post ).  She just happened to be in San Francisco the same week as this years 4-H State Leadership Conference (SLC), which worked out great for me.  It was planned that I would drive up to hang out with Emily a few days before SLC.  From SF, I would drive out to UC Davis for the conference.  It was one amazing small trip, and this is how the trip went.  Not only did I get to hang out with Emily, but I also got to see another awesome old time friend I met from 4-H, Jess Falkenthal, who had just recently moved to San Francisco from Indiana.  July 21: The Dri