Many of you already know this story, but I haven’t documented it here before. You know those inflatable boxing rings? I know them. I know them well. There’s a story there.

My sophomore year of college had just started, so there was the usual reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones. For some reason (I can’t remember exactly why), they had a bunch of inflatable carnival games on the main lawn one evening, so some friends and I decided to go check them out. They had the usual bouncy castles and bungee runs, but what immediately caught our eyes was the inflatable boxing ring. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s like a bouncy castle where you put on giant, inflatable boxing gloves and punch the crap out of each other. This is the sort of thing college was all about.

My friend Kyle and I immediately decided this was something we had to do. Kyle and I were famous not only for being hippies, but also for an unusually large repertoire of Your Mom jokes. (My favorite: Your mom is so fat she was recently overthrown by a small militia group and is now known as the Republic of Your Mom.) So, of course, the boxing ring inspired both of us to pull out our best Your Mom jokes, and accentuate them with some good, old-fashioned threats as well. By the time we got to the front of the line, there was an awful lot of pride riding on this match.

“Okay, climb in the ring and put your gloves on,” the ref said. (I like to call him a ref, even though he was just a minimum-wage junior carnie.)

Kyle walked around to the far side to climb in the ring. This was my first chance to come through on all of those slanderous statements I had made, so I had to make an entrance—a good one. I grabbed the ropes surrounding the ring, mustered all of my strength and agility, and flipped over the rope and into the ring. BOOM! I’m a little hazy on the details, but apparently, my feet hit the bouncy ground and bounced back while the rest of me kept going, causing my right knee to connect hard with my jaw. (I would later discover I had teeth marks on my knee.)

So Kyle climbs into the ring, and I’m on the floor, bleeding profusely from the mouth and basically being incoherent. (Again, I’m a little hazy on the details here.) I found out the next day upon a doctor visit that I had managed to give myself a concussion whilst climbing into an inflatable boxing ring.

I mentioned I was hazy on the details. Here’s why: I had total amnesia for about fifteen minutes. Apparently, I never actually lost consciousness, but there’s a span of about five minutes that I don’t remember, and a span of about ten minutes that I remember not remembering anything. The first thing I remember is holding a flavorless snow cone to my lip while a guy mopped up blood behind me. I had another classic Brandon reaction. Here’s my thought process upon regaining my senses:

Where am I? Am I eating a snow cone? Why doesn’t this snow cone have any flavor? Wait a second, who am I? What have I lived up to this point? Do I have amnesia? How utterly fascinating!

I found out later that week that I had met a number of people for the first time while I had amnesia. While I certainly made quite the first impression, I had to explain to them later that I didn’t actually remember meeting them.

It wasn’t long before I decided to go back to my room to recover. When you get a concussion, you get really, really, really tired afterwards, so all I wanted to do was go to sleep. That’s when I remembered my Calculus homework. Calculus was the bane of my existence that semester, and it all really started with this. Calculus homework is hard. Calculus homework with a concussion is impossible.

As I mentioned, I went to the doctor the next day because my head was still pounding. That’s when I found out I had a concussion. That’s also when I found out that if you go to sleep right after you get a concussion, you can slip into a coma! So, while I was angry about the Calculus homework, I actually owe it my life, as I would most certainly be a vegetable today had I not completed it.

So the next time you hear a teenager complain that Calculus won’t ever do them any good, you tell them: Calculus saved Brandon’s life!

To this day, I still have a large mass of scar tissue on the inside of my lower lip, which serves as a constant reminder of the hidden dangers of inflatable boxing.

So… Tired…

I thought running at night was supposed to keep you up. Hmm. I can’t tell how I’m doing on my fitness goals, either. I’m losing fat, but gaining muscle, since strength training is a part of it, so I’m actually gaining weight. I hope this is a good thing.

These days, when I’m not working out, playing music, or working, I’m frequently writing. I’m working on several related short stories with the hope of digitally publishing them later in one joint volume—maybe several. I don’t want to post them here yet, but feel free to message me if you want to read them. I’m somewhat ashamed to say that they would be in the same section as Lord of the Rings. I’ve got two stories completed, and I have two in progress. And if you’re wondering, my favorite redhead alter-ego Lenus is a character.

That’s all I’ve got in me tonight. Good night, folks!

After a long hiatus, I’m back. Between work, the record label, recording some songs, and what may have been mono, I was too exhausted to blog. I’m hoping to get back into it now. Here’s a little catch-up on what’s been going on the past few weeks:

Music

As I said, Vibe has recorded its first three songs, two of which I’m playing bass on. Rez (our youth band) has also recorded five songs, and Cutter Gage is working on a full album. I’m figuring out a lot of things with the label, with Cory’s help, and I feel like we’re getting to a point where we can start really moving. We had our first artist demo, and the guy sounds awesome. We’re not at a point right now where we can take on new artists, but I’m hoping we can work together in the future.

I’m also trying to get some musicians together regularly at my house again, but I can’t find a lot of them with free time at the same time that I have it. It’d be great to be playing with musicians more than twice a week.

Writing

I finished a short story and am working on another related one. I’m hoping to do a series of short stories in the same world, as this will be much more manageable than my past attempts at a full-length novel. I’m thinking about setting up another blog to house these.

Big News

We’re starting to tell people now, but Janelle and I are moving toward adopting some kids through the foster system. We don’t have any romantic notions that it will be easy, as many of these kids were pulled out of horrible situations that have left some scars, but we’re looking forward to it. We’re shooting for next summer.

Health News

I have a vitamin D deficiency. I know, it’s shocking that I don’t get enough sunlight, but it’s the truth. The really surprising part, though is that, while I’m low on vitamin D, Janelle is deathly low. Like, we’re talking vampire levels of vitamin D, here. She’s on a prescription strength supplement that’s several thousand percent of the daily recommended allowance.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to walk around my neighborhoodnow that the sun’s down.

You know how you have to be careful on Facebook because your employer can see what you post? It works both ways.

So I’ve been giving some thought lately to commitment. Here are some phrases I’ve actually uttered today:

“I like it when the donuts are cut into quarters. That way, I don’t have to commit to a whole doughnut.”

“Inu Yasha has 170 episodes? I can’t commit to that!”

So that got me thinking: Why can’t I commit to a whole doughnut? Why can’t I commit to watching all 170 episodes of Inu Yasha? I must have a serious problem. And you know what? It’s time to change that.

I’m happy to say I picked four doughnut quarters this morning equaling a half glazed and half blueberry doughnut. (I like glazed, but they also had blueberry!) And I am committing, right here and right now, to watching all episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist. (Yeah, it turns out 170 episodes was still too much. 51 is much more manageable.)

Never let it be said that I have a problem with commitment.

Exiting the supermarket today, I spied a license plate that simply said, “TOO GOD.” Let me use that in a sentence for you.

“Was that God? I don’t know… It was a little too God.”

That’s right. God is an adjective.

Last week, I went to the dentist and found out I have two cavities. I went in on Tuesday to get them filled. They were, unfortunately, between my molars, so they had to wedge a piece of metal between them to work on them. Pretty serious stuff. I brought my Zune, though, and listened to Owl City’s “Dental Care” while I was worked on. I found this amusing.

Anyway, that story is boring. What’s fun is that Zoey also had some dental work done this week. He had one tooth pulled entirely, and we found out we’re going to have to brush his teeth once a day for the rest of his life.

Exciting. Expect a video.

Anyway, we were surprised when we took him out of the crate to find that the vet’s office had dressed him up a bit. He’s still kind of drugged, so I don’t think he’s even noticed that it’s there. We’ll see how long that lasts.

It’s been a few days since I got it, but I have my new car. It’s time for the big reveal on the color. Are you ready? Drum roll please…

Click here for the results!

Most of you probably knew that I’ve been trying to sell my old car. It was a bit of a fiasco (which involved, in part, driving over to our state capitol one morning), but I’ve finally done it. This leaves me carless. I’ve picked out a new car: a newer-model Chevy Malibu. I also narrowed it down to three colors: Franny-colored, Zoey-colored, and Sherlock-colored. I’ve already made my choice, but what do you, loyal readers, think I should get?

Disclaimer: The Zoey-colored car will not try to break into my room at night, and there’s no guarantee that I will write more funny blog posts about that than any of the other cars.

Yes, the results are in. I have pertussis. I also just found out that a positive test for pertussis requires the doctor to notify the state of Kansas of my misfortune, so I’m going on record somewhere as being very, very sick.

The good news is, there have been no further complications. Read my last post if you don’t know what I’m talking about.