Got a call from my good friend in California the other night. The good news, I will get to see him again soon. The bad, our relationship revolves (and I do mean revolves) around one thing, torture! Lets jump back in history, insert wavy lines:
I met my friend John in my third year of college. It was an odd meeting, he happened to be in my statistics class and just so happened to write the course packet for the make you or break you computer science class. I wasn't grasping what was going on in my computer science class and finally decided to approach John and ask if he could help me. At the time, I had the second highest grade in the statistics class, I could only assume John had the highest score, after all he did make the course pack for my other class! I don't remember how it came about, but after asking if he'd help me in my CS class, his question to me was how was I doing in the stat class. Turns out he was struggling in the stat class, so a bond instantly formed. I doubt I taught John much more then the bare minimum to get through the stat class. John taught me more about computer science then any professor ever did. It was hardly a fair trade. If I can look back on one person, other then my parents, that has had the biggest impact on my life, it's John. The concepts he taught me, literally made me who I am. I owe him a lot.
We are almost opposites, I like math, he hates it, republican vs. democrat, the list goes on and on right down the line. This is where the torture of our relationship starts. In our teaching, studying, debating sessions our conversations would always drift to ways to annoy the other person with our views. One day it drifted to biking vs. running for the best exercise. Okay, so we'd come up with anything to avoid the real task at hand! From that debate came a bet. John being the avid biker was planning a 40 mile bike trip soon. Because I felt like it was my duty to disagree with him as much as possible, I told him how I hadn't been biking in years, but I could ride 40 miles. I don't remember the specifics of the bet, but the bet took place playing a computer game that I was very good at. I had to kill John's character twenty or so times in a row, if I did, then I won the bet. If John killed me once, then I'd have to join him for the 40 mile bike trip. It wasn't a fair fight at all, there was no way that I could possibly lose. To this day, nothing makes me smile more then how the game played out. John killed me with the first kill of the game in such an embarrassing way that it's hard to explain. It was his only chance, I made such a bone head mistake, I can only laugh at it now.
40 miles later, I was almost dead! By some miracle, I survived paying off that bet. I don't think I could sit on anything that resembled a bike seat for a month afterward. When I think of John, I always think back to this bet, it makes me laugh, but it was also pure torture! This is how it goes with us, one of us has a really great time, the other gets dragged along kicking and screaming.
Fast forward 10 years, John called me last year and said he was coming back for a visit and wanted to do some crazy 100+ mile bike trip. Luckily, the weather didn't cooperate with us last year, so our bike trip was limited to a 35 mile Kal-Haven Trail trip. As it turned out, last year was my year. I thought John was sandbagging me, but I really did ride circles around him. He was the one trying to keep pace with me, how's that for payback? I figured if I tortured him enough he'd forget about this silly, lets bike to kill ourselves, every time we meet adventure. Wrong again!
Wavy lines out of dream sequence.
You know how I say we are opposites? Well, I'm going on record and saying I'm the smart one! I'd be more then happy to pick an easier activity when we get together for a visit. John rides the special bus! His goal for us when he comes to visit next month is doing the Kal-Haven Trail there and back, so 70 miles. Silly! Our relationship completely revolves around a bicycle tire. Being that I still feel like I owe John so much, I'll indulge his request to do this, but I really hope I'm the one dishing out the torture this year and it isn't my year to receive it.
My evenings are currently being spent training for our bike trip now, thanks to my good friend John. Can sarcasm be felt in a blog?
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