Last
night I had a dream. I dreamt that I
needed to figure out how to get my health insurance to work in the United
States. It's been something that's been
on my mind, but I keep forgetting to do it.
It is a dire necessity, and I'll explain why.
I go back home in
about a week. Land of the free, home of
the brave. People ask me if I miss
home. Of course I miss my family and
friends, and I finally get to see my nephew, "The Little Lion Man" as
I call him, next week when I go back.
But one thing that I
miss is doing crazy things with my buddies.
You see, growing up, my friends and I lived in a little place called
Fargo-Moorhead. That's two towns on the
boarder of ND and MN. There's not a lot
going on there other than farming and some lakes. Those lakes provide tons of entertainment,
but we have no hills at all. People here say the Netherlands is the flattest
place in Europe. I don't have to imagine, for I come from the land of flatness.
In the winter time it gets so cold that you either have to hibernate like
bears, or you have to get creative.
Well, me and my
friends have a history of getting creative.
Here's what I miss. I miss my
buddies, Steve and Lief calling me up:
"Brian! We're going to the lake, we're going
wakeboarding!" (this call usually
comes the day of, but it has been in their head for years)
I say, "It's
February" (which in our part of the world means it's most likely -30
degrees F)
"I know
right!? It's going to be
crazy"
I respond,
"Yeah… it will be that."
"So you
in?"
Now I have to be
honest, I don't always participate, but when something this crazy is going
down, how can you say 'no'. So I
respond, "Yeah… when are we going?"
So today I woke up
to a video* from a friend of mine that I have been looking forward to for quite
some time. It's the video that I wish
had my name in the list at the end :)
This is
just the stuff that we do. Crazy creativity at its finest. Mostly involving skiing, wakeboarding, climbing, or something random. Studies
show** that boredom is good for your creativity. Well they should take
that study to Fargo-Moorhead, because I think we've already proven it.
Here's a list of some things that me and/or my friends have done.
And just for fun, I'll mention which ones were stopped by cops.
- Made a ski jump in the parking lot of Little Caesar's (little pizza joint). - stopped by police***
- Climbed churches - stopped by police
- Climbed the University buildings
- Pulled a couch behind a pick-up truck on the ice - stopped by police (probably a good call on their part)
- Random back-flips with my brother Dan
- Several times wakeboarding through ditches - often stopped by police
- Pond skimming on snow skis or wakeboard
- Wakeboarding in the winter
- Making a ski jump at the skate park - stopped by the police
- Crazy 4th of July shenanigans
- Skiing in speedos
- One of my favorites was making a ski jump in Steve's grandpa's back yard, which we did twice. To do it justice, I need to show a picture to properly appreciate the craziness.
(That
jump may or may not have involved two cracked teeth and 19 stitches). Also, remember we don't have hills, so that jump meant we had to pull behind a snowmobile at about
I also
miss driving 17 hours with my cousin Andrew to go skiing and then sleeping in a
Walmart parking lot because we were low on cash.
People
in Europe think it's crazy that we drive so far for things. And I don't disagree. But when you've driven 12 hours to go skiing
for two or three days so many times, you start to get used to it. These same guys in the winter wakeboarding
video above have driven 14 hours to Colorado to go skiing. I don't remember if it was for 1 or 2 days,
but I remember telling them they were crazy.
They responded by telling me I was crazy for not coming :)
My
brothers and I one time sat in our parents room and talked about our near death
experiences. We've all been dangerously
close… it's amazing we've all survived this long!
People
always tell me to be careful when I go out to the mountains to go skiing. "Be careful!!" What's
funny is that I probably need health insurance more for when I am in
Fargo-Moorhead. So I gotta get my health insurance figured out, because Steve and Lief still live there, and they will most likely call me up to do something crazy.
Side Stories that may or may not be relevant
to anything:
*If you
want to see more, just go to YouTube and search "Steve Ystebo." There is a lot more where that came
from.
**I
haven't read this study, nor do I know if it exists, but I heard something
along these lines one time.
***The cop was
befuddled that we would do this. He said, "Look I'm sure this is fun and shit, but just, well, do it in Fargo
next time." You can see that we
have lots of experiences
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