Guest Post.

Ok guys, so this is my first ever "Celebrity Guest Post" and in case you're wondering all that really means is that one of my friends was bored enough to write a post. The inagural guest post was written by world famous movie producer Dave. I'd love to explain more about Dave but words aren't coming to me. Dude's my best friend and through him I've met some awesome people that I hope to have around for the rest of my life. Anyways, let's get into the post.

"Guest Post: Abandonment

It's hard for me to find words that are meaningful to me. It's damn near impossible for me to find words that are beautiful. However, by chance I found a few sentences that had both, and while you may disagree, the words I read were as follows:

"People come and people go. Some people stay for a while. Most people don't."

I recently had a conversation with my friend Matt who has been one of my best friends my entire life. We went to kindergarten together, played soccer together, adventured together, lived, loved, and laughed together. We know just about everything about eachother, yet despite what he told me something has been weighing heavy on my mind ever since. "We've got to do something this summer dude, a road trip or something, because pretty soon we'll have wives and kids and see each other only a few times a year."

When he said this, it stung a little but I couldn't be upset at him; I knew that he was right. We're all getting older every day and though day to day things don't change rapidly, the truth is people come and people go. Friendships all have an experation date. Even love is fleeting, and while I am saying this as a single man with no kids, I can tell you with experience that even families grow apart. Eventually kids move out and parents move on. It's hard to swallow, and in the end it doesn't matter if you agree or not because sooner or later you'll see it for yourself.

This thought can be a dark one, and if left unchecked it can have a real negative effect. Losing friends hurts, and I know people who say it's better to have loved and lost then to have never had a cliche preached to you so you can tune it out, but we are a species that remembers pain more than pleasure. I challenge you to think about an old lover without feeling a little bit of sadness of pain. Even if your on good terms and you can force yourself to remember the good times, it comes with a bit of sadness when you realize it's over. And if you aren't on good terms, you probably hate them for how things ended. If you can remember that without feeling anything then you're either very strong or cery cold. It's how we're built, we remember pain.

So why try for any friendships? Well, I'm a romantic and an optimist (if only in my own mind) and glaringly naive but before I discredit myself entirely, I'd like to share the beauty I found in the quote that started this. Yes people come and people go. And yes, more people are transient in you life, and yes, no one is permanent.

Except, of course, for you.

You will be stuck in your own head your entire life. So help you God, no one will ever understand what goes on up there, at least not entirely. No one will walk in your shoes or see the world through your eyes. And in the end, you're going to spend alot of time with yourself. Given that, you might as well make life as enjoyable as possible.

Personally, I get a lot of enjoyment out of talking about zombie apocalypses with Wes and talking about how viruses encode themselves into our DNA with Mike. I like going for walks with Sam in the woods and letting James talk me into asking a girl to dance (and having Katherine convince me the girl was a lesbian after she refused to dance with me). I like making up games with Kelly (The This That!) and I like bowling with Leah (even if she did it knowing Mike was going to get pissed). I promise you I'll enjoy that road trip with Matt. Even if it will make me sad to see it end. I know that all of my friends now will one day move on with husbands, wives, and families. I know we'll lose touch, but one day I'll be on my death bed and I'll be able to look back and remember the good times and the hard times. And even though many people will have come and gone, I'll at least be glad that I got to know them and share a little precious time together with them. And that's the beauty of it.

Bonanno out."

There we go, end of my first guest post. I can't really think of anything else to say to close this out but I love the post Dave wrote for me and I have wanted to write a similar post. Hopefully this will make other people want to guest blog for me (you can write about anything at all) and Kelly, Friend to the Stars, is writing the next one.

Potty Talk

Okay, so I re-read this post and wanted to say something at the start. Writing this and reading the messages I got from you guys on the subject made me laugh till I cried. This was awesome, and the contributions from you guys made it what it is. Thanks for all the love, enjoy it (maybe).

So here we go, guys belly up to the bar and listen in, ladies, next door on the left please, you're time will come. Let's talk bathrooms. I just walked out of one and came back to the computer to type this blog post.

Now, the bathroom I just left is in my house, it's clean, comfortable, and has a fan.

The bathrooms I wanna talk about aren't. I wanna talk about public bathrooms. Office buildings, resturants, rest stops, and tons of other places have them, we've all used them, why not talk about the unwritten rules for each? I've contaced leading experts and you'll hear what they have to say as well as my views.

Okay so let's role play a bit here, we'll call this "Scenario #1". You're sitting at your desk reading America's Favorite Blog (The Real SamWow), sipping on some water and all the sudden your bladder is full. What do you do? You calmy rise from your seat, walk down the hall to the local bathroom, unzip, let it rip, and you're done right? Right. ("Unzip, let it rip" sounds different than it did in my head, aka it sounds kinda gross now.)

If you said "Yeah SamWow, you're right! I am done!" Well then you're wronger than all the people who think Lil Wayne is a great rapper (for you old timers, that's alot of people).

As soon as you touch that door handle there's unwritten rules that come into play and we're gonna start right about now...

Rule number one come to us from Mike (aka "Milford Swagga") who, like me, thinks when you're in the bathroom at a urinal, your eyes need to stay forward. There's nothing to your right or left that you need to see. Nothings creepier than some guy standing at a urinal looking all over the place, invading your private space, some funny look on their face (triple rhyme, come at me Weezy).

Now, the above rule segways nicely into rule number two, which Wesley (aka "The Ginga Ninja" aka "Supreme Ninja Overlord God") summed up nicely in a text saying "1, 3, 5". "Oh man, I wonder what that means?" Oh, glad you asked. Public restrooms on average have three urials and two stalls (totally made up). The "1, 3, 5 Rule" means if "Gentleman A" is at urinal #1, it automatically makes urinal #2 off limits for "Gentleman B", leaving urinal #3 the only option.

Now I know what you're thinking (I usually do), "But Sam, there's an open urinal. I need to pee, and I love how convient urinals are." We all do Bro, it's just too cramped then, you might bump your fellow bathroom patron on accident causing some embarassing stains and spillage. Don't take that risk. If you see all the urinals are full, turn to the stalls, if the stalls are full, then breifly consider the sink (don't pee in the sink), if the sink won't work, then belly up to urinal #2, eyes forwards, and do your duty.

Rule number three comes from my personal life coach Michael (aka "Mikey Dubbs" aka "The Arab"). Don't talk at the urinals. For the love of God, don't talk at a urinal. I don't know if it's cuz there's too many exposed um, body parts, or because it's just a weird place to say anything. What can you say? "How about the game?" or "How's work?" or "How's the dinnner? That girl you're with is fine."?

None of those things would sound good coming from a guy standing at a urinal. Also, I feel like if someone was going to talk to me at the urinal they'd have to be (A) right next to me which breaks the "1, 3, 5 Rule" and (B) his eyes might not be facing forwards breaking another rule. If he talks anywhere but at the sink, I'll cut him.

The number four rule I have for going "Secnario Number One" in the public bathroom is one I was reminded of by a man of great knowledge, you know who it is - Michael again. Michael texted me one final rule for his bathroom usage - "Shake twice so it doesn't look like you're playing with yourself." True dat Dubbs, true dat. I feel like that's pretty self explaintory for guys, you dont' want to walk into a bathroom and see and Bro convulsing at a urinal.

Okay now ladies, come back into the room cuz I have some advice to give from my girl Kelly (Fun fact, Kelly is a huge fan of Harriet Tubman and Samothy). I wish I had more and I'm sorry I don't but I never use women's bathrooms and didn't get too many responses (which makes Kelly a Champion) from girls I asked.

So onto Kelly's advice - "If you pee on the toilet seat clean it up." True that sister, I feel like it's more of a problem for girls but I've walked into some men's bathrooms where there's some pee-pee on the toilet seat. Lift up the damn seat guys, are you that lazy? Jeebas.

Now onto the "Scenario #2" aka "Taking a Dump". This is where stuff can really get iffy. Alot of people just flat out said "Don't do that in a public bathroom." and usually I agree until it becomes an emergency and I feel like most people agree. Now, the comments I got on this subject were pretty much the same.

Michael and Brian (aka "Brain" aka "Pass the SunChips Cracka") both agreed that if you gotta two, cover that toilet seat with double ply toliet paper before getting to work. Those little toilet seat covers they provide aren't enough. It's a piece of tissue paper, you can rip it just by picking it up. That's not enough to fight off toilet seat bacteria.

Hey science, get me a better seat cover. Balls in your court, nerds.

Okay, so my final rule I shouldn't even have to say. Always wash your hands. And wash them well. You're handling some stuff that's dirty. Some people do the "Foot Flush" and that's good, but still soap up in that sink. I'm tired of the guys who step up to the sink, look in the mirror, fix the tie and pants, and roll out. You're gross.

So that's all I got, I hope you guys like it and learn something (I spent like, five hours on it). I wanna thank all the people who helped with my "research" and tell them I love them all. Thanks for reading.

Inspiration and the Lack There of...

Disclaimer - This post is a bit dry and unwitty. It also involves some heavy beggin at the end. Hey, don't make that face. You know you love it. So post starts....now.

Inspiration. I guess I'm writing on this subject because at this moment I have none. I have zero ideas for a new post. I wrote a bunch but I wound up deleting them cuz I think they were total crap but who knows, they may have been awesome and I just hated them.

I've even been thinking what inspires me lately. Is it my family? My friends? The image of what could be my future? My camera? Quotes from favorite writers? Lessons from favorite teachers (The One and Only Mr. Sam Haller)? Truth is, I don't think I can pinpoint just one thing that inspires me to do what I'm doing and to keep living the life I live but I'll talk about one of them on this post.

What I'm going to mention with these next paragraphs is what got my quest for where my inspiration comes from and also what is a big driving force for my inspiration now. I feel like that's a pointless sentence, much like this one. Anyway...I was looking through a book a friend got me as a Christmas gift last night and noticed something. Now, I have flipped through that book thirty times studying the pictures and descriptions but it never noticed that on the cover page written in pencil was this message -

"From the moment I laid eyes on this book I thought about three things, you, your camera, and (duh) Washington. I'm sure that your pictures are better than these, but I hope they atleast inspire you to keep doing the things you love." It's signed "Customer Serivce". I'd put his real name but he doesn't read my blog so I'll leave it out.

That note now sits in a frame (replaced my Keb' Mo' & Robert Cray poster, if you know my music taste you know that's huge) and I look at it every time I walk out of the room. It's what's driving me to keep picking up my camera, writing this blog, and all the other stuff I do.

Okay, so I'm running low on ideas here people. If you have anything you want me to write about, any opinion you wanna voice, a story you want me to tell, or anything really. I'm down for your ideas, I do this for you, the people (even though you probably don't enjoy it) and I wanna keep doing it so give me some ideas! I'll leave all my contact information below.

So one more thing. If you all like reading and think I'm funny or just like laughing about how dumb I am, please tell your friends to read, comment, and send hate mail if they want too. I wanna see if the only reason people like it is cuz they see me alot and don't wanna hurt my feelings.

This post is weaksauce...

To contact me with ideas
Twitter - @therealSamWow
Facebook - Sam-Wow Carroll
E-Mail - samcarroll9@gmail.com

Untitled Pt. One

Okay, so this post is gonna be a bit lengthy and maybe off my regualr path but what's the point if I don't do that every once in a while? The following paragraphs are the set up to the post and also just some fun memories, not all of the names are accurate but if it's you, you'll know. Enjoy it.

It's 1995 or 1996 at Ascension Catholic Church's Kindergarten class, the one right next to the freaking graveyard. Creepy shit. I was there with my friends Joe, Joel, and Brian at the ripe old ages of five and six so firetrucks, playing war, and taking a hulu hoop and running around with it like it was your ship playing "spaceships". Those were the most important things to us at that time. Now, the girls in the class used to run around and try and kiss the dudes and when you're that little, you don't know that (A) girls are awesome and (B) that "Michelle" will turn into one hot piece of woman that will be talked about with your friends to this day like legend. I'll probably tell my kids about how stunningly hot "Michelle" is and they'll be all like "We know Dad, we read it on your super popular blog that made you super famous and got us all this awesome stuff from all the money you made with the radio shows, albums, televsion series, movie deal, and speaking tours. We're gonna go play with our yachts and gold plated monkeys. You're the best Dad, we love you." (Dramatization. I don't have an ego, that's super humble).

But you're in kindergarten, you still brought in show and tell and shot hoops on a Fisher Price basketball hoop that comes up to your hip today. You didn't like girls, they were just in your way on the way to your cubby to get your Color-By-Numbers and bucket of eighty year old crappy crayons (we only had black and white left) each morning.

{I really hope these two paragraphs mesh together, these things usually do but I have no real faith in my writing ability}

Now fast forward (like on a VCR, look it up if you don't know what a VCR is). It's October 2002 in Bowie, Maryland and around that time is the first school dance for the 6th & 7th graders. It was supposed to be at night, but after the tragedy that was the DC Sniper (the Benjamin Tasker shooting was maybe a half mile from our school) so the start time was moved up to right after lunch cuz as we all know, snipers don't snipe after school gets out. So we're all having a good time, dancing and eating and talking to each other in the Hall and then it happened....the "DJ" played a slow song.

What do we do? We had never danced with a girl, I mean sure Mrs Farnia probably hung her CootieZapper4000 (Patent Pending) above the doors as promised but what if there was a more dominant, maliscous, blood thirsty, version of cooties? We didn't know, we couldn't read science journals, tune into CNN, or assume a clean bill of health. For the time being, the safest move was to just steer clear, I'd try again next time. Or maybe not, we were talking Cooties after all, I was young, had my greatest years ahead of me, I didn't wanna die never having tied a tie.

So most of us sixth graders wandered off to the bathroom, to get a pretzel, or just too chairs and watch those brave seventh graders dancing with a few of our classmates with them. Scanning the room on my way back from the bathroom, I saw my best friend Andrew dancing with a, wait for it, girl. My heart stopped, I might have dropped my (generic brand) soda, I dunno. This was my best friend risking two things, cooties and feelings. I started thinking of a uluogy for him right there on the spot.

I walked over to my friends Mike and Ryan and we watched, like lions waiting to eat a gazelle (wow, that's a bad reference but I've got lions in my head for some really weird reason so eat it). The song ended and Andrew walked back over to us. I swear to God he had chest hair and a Rollie Fingers moustache (Google him) when he got close enough. Mike asked him what it was like dancing with a girl and thi smy not be the exact reply but it went something like "I feel like I just put a warm, fuzzy sweater on my insides" and from that moment, cooties died. I loved warm fuzzy sweaters, who the hell wouldn't? And to wear one on my insides? Sign me up man, I'll go take the CootieZapper4000 off the wall and then go into storage and destory last years model, then go to the manufacturer and burn the place to the ground. I wanted Cooties, cuz who doesn't love a warm, fuzzy sweater?

So since 2002 I've been hooked (on women...and meth), and that story is a good lead in to what this post is gonna be about. I also just love that story, I have alotta stories about my friends and I'd love to tell them and have them tell them to you. We're a different group but I don't want it any other way cuz if it was anyother way, I'd have no idea what a "de-gloved hand" is (don't Google it, it's really gross. Also, don't make my mistake and Google de-gloved [insert different body parts] just cuz your friend says "What about de-gloved....". It's bad, so bad.

So let's close the nostalgia book for now and get to the old meat and potatoes of this post. I want a girlfriend. Now, being single is okay to me, it's fun to be able to go out and not worry wether or not my "lady friend" is having a good time or if my friends hate her. But the single game gets kinda thin when you get into the mid-twenties and even for me today at twenty-one. One of my friends is already married, two are engaged, and a few have been in relationships for years. I still like hanging out with them and I like the significant others they bring with them, but it gets to a point where playing the third wheel is just sad.

In some cases the scariest part about relationships is the affect it has on those around you. When you get that serious girlfriend/boyfriend, your friends kinda fall to the wayside. Instead of playing dodgeball at the "Y", you're apple picking with her or holding her purse at the mall. Your friends get fed up with you and eventually there's an ultimatum handed out and you have a choice - her or your Bros. I've always chose my friends cuz they were there first and if one Crazy shakes loose of the tree again and tells me to decide, she's gone, cuz I love dodgeball.

Also, Sunday is the Holy Day and no, not for Church, but for other two things. Thing number one is sleeping in before I go to Hyattsville and goof off with my family all day. Thing number two (the more important thing) is the twenty-two weeks that the most powerful sports machine in the history of the world, say it with me, The National Football League, is dominationg television and radio. It's the music that starts every broadcast, the NFL shield, my constantly re-newed hate for Troy Aikman, the many teams and players I love to hate, the fight for the playoffs, and that gift from Heaven known as the "deep bomb". but this is gonna go way off subject with the football so I'll kill it here - moral of the story is don't mess with my Sundays.

So why do I want a girlfriend? Cuz I like playing the "boyfriend" role, doin stuff like opening doors, pulling out chairs, all that stuff. It's fun and it's nice to do nice things for people (shocker) and it's even nicer when that person is a attractive girl who likes you. It's just that feeling of being needed for something, even if it's simple. It's like when the guy kills the spider in the movies, it's a simple ass thing to do but it makes you look like a hero (for the record, I'm scared of spiders so I'll look really girly trying to kill one but he will be dead). I'm just flat out a better version of me in a relatioship. I watch what I say and do, I take better care of myself, work out more, and eat less. I guess its beacuse I need to live up to some expectations I have in my head of what type of guy I should be, the type of guy she deserves so I demand self-perfection which is good (I guess).

So I have more to say on this stuff but I don't really know how to word it right now seeing how I'm not having the best day. I sat here for forty minutes staring at the screen before deciding to cave on the rest of this post and there will probably be a follow up to it at some point. I also tried to wait till I was done to title this post, but I'm not really sure what to title it as so it will be "Untitled Pt. I". Eff it. I'm done.

Summer...It's Almost Here

May, June, July, August. When life is good again. When summer is upon us, when it's ninety degrees but feels like 98 with the sun and humidity. Where when you walk into the house, the air conditioning hits you and you walk back to the freezer for a popsicle. Or soda. Or beer, beer is always good. It's live baseball, the smell of grass, those nights during the weekend when it's seventy or eighty degrees and you're talking with your friends on the porch just enjoying another night.

If you're still in school, summer if freedom. The three months where you put away the books and backpacks and get out the bathing suits and stay up late for no reason. If you're the right age, it's a summer full of graduation parties and just plain old parties (parties for no reason are the best).

It's the time of the month where college campuses are empty, and the beaches are jam packed. When a t-shirt and mesh shorts is all you need on to go outside and do whatever the hell you want (horseshoes is gonna be the summer sport of 2011 for me). It's when you can drive whereever the hell you want (faster the better) with the windows down and music pounding out of your speakers.

And then there's the yearly Carroll Family trip to the Outer Banks. About fifty of us pack up and leave Maryland/West Virginia/Pennsilyvania before the sun onna Saturday morning and live it up for a week. It's all about the pool, go-karts, playing pool, the ocean, walking the beach after dinner, booze, hot tubbin, N-64, poker, kites, fishing, and cigars. It's going to bed at one in the morning and waking up six hours later. It's always knowing Grandmommy will be upstairs reading/playin a puzzle/playing solitare/napping cuz we don't let her out of the house. It's going to Dune Burger and Kill Devils every day for burgers and onion rings after you ate Cheetos and cake for breakfast.

It's always a good time, even if all I did was just sit up on the third floor deck and just watch the ocean crash in, it would be enjoyable. And it's the beach, so there's hot chicks. That's another part about summer that I won't dive into right now cuz some people would stop reading. But dear god, chicks are the best.

I hope this post makes sense and gets you even more excited for what's to come in summer. I don't really proofread this things, just kinda throw them out there and cross my fingers that some of the crap I throw will stick to the wall.

Also, I'm still interested in trying a "Guest Blogger" thing. If you're famous or just bored, send me your idea for a post and start writing, I'll post anything really, I'm desperate for internet fame.

And finally, I'm about to hit a major milestone. My 21st is days away and things will get crazy over the next few weeks. I have Blogger on my phone, so I can rant from the bars or you can follow me on Twitter @therealSamWow. Shit's about to get real, it's me versus my liver and that's a fight I won't lose.

I'm just vomitting a post

DISCLAIMER - I'm not really vomitting, it's just I don't have one good long post ready so this one will be a bunch of random one liners, random thoughts, my theories, and one shameless plug.

So I have a theory involving our friends from Asia - they travel in packs (atleast around College Park they do). If you start looking around, you'll rarely see just one walking around, there's always a few in a group moving together like a school of fish (maybe Koi fish?) or a (insert your own group of things here, I was gonna say "Terracotta Army" but I figured that didn't really work or make sense and also might be taken as racist). I think it's because of there size, a group makes them look bigger, fish do the same thing, we all saw it in Finding Nemo.

I've proven that theory multiple times and it always feels good. I'm sure the guy who cured Polio was like "Damn, nailed that cure. High five!" everytime he heard that someone was cured. {Editor's note, one quick Google search confirmed Polio has been cured, crisis adverted.}

Now if you know me, you know I've spent alot of time working in "Mom and Pop" hardware stores (roughly 4 years). I started America's Most Lucrative Career (haha, no way in hell) at "Hardware City" in Bowie, MD which shut down years ago so I moved up to "Clement Hardware" just outside of Annapolis, MD and spent two years at there.

They're really awesome places to work if you're around eighteen, you learn alot wether it's about tools, plumbing, electrical, paint, small engine repair, or hardware, the stuff I learned inside both stores will be with me for life. Maybe the best part about the hardware stores was all the stupid stuff you could do and get away with. At "Hardware City", me and Eileen used to race down the warehouse in office chairs, me and Jose used to build crazy shit out of the plumbing parts, and me and Cedric used to work out using the shelving and stuff.

Clement Hardware though, I took slacking at work to a whole new level. I worked with people who are still today some of my closest friends and if I had kept track of how many hours I spent doing everything but my job, I'd have an embarassingly large number. I'll tell you why, it's cuz if you get your work done and get it done right, you can mess around. Shocking I know. I would do my inventory and re-stock my departments, then I could go talk to the girls in paint, flirt with the cashier (well, only two of them really), mess around in the back room with Redneck Roskam, or goof off with Stefan, Dave, Derek, Andrew, and my man Joben. And I did that stuff, efficently.

Now I did get into trouble now and then, there may have been store wide memo that went around about keeping lunch times to only thirty minutes. Psh. Talk about a slap in the face, the "Carroll-Baker Memo" as I called it, was clearly directed at the forty to fifty minute lunches me and my friend Megan used to take but like most rules at that store, it was enforced for a day, then faded away with name tags and tucking in your shirt. SamWow 1, Clement Hardware 0.

Today I was told that if you get on Google and search "SamWow Blog" mine comes up in 4th place. 4th place, behind people who still use MySpace, for the love of God they use MySpace. So maybe if you're a teacher and give quizzes on a half sheet of looseleaf paper with five questions and one extra credit, you can work it out so the extra credit is SamWow Blog based so I can get some footsteps through here. Thanks, I'm off to be mad at stupid things like iTunes for playing my Dad's Nickleback instead of the O.A.R like I asked it too.

What Photography is to Me.

Yesterday, I told my friend Dave that photography lets you block out the good or bad around something and let's you focus on one part, let's you paint a picture that's prettier than the surroundings and what you want to be seen. Does that make sense? I can't really remember how I worded it but I understand what I meant and that's what's most important, ya dig?

Looking back in my life, I know when I got really into football, really into girls, and really into cars and stuff but I can't pin point when I got into photography, all I know is that I'm neck deep innit. I took "Introduction to Photography" sophmore year of high school where we used film. What the hell right? Film, it was a dying art then (6ish years ago) and it's just about dead today. After that I went back farther into photography's past, "Darkroom Basics". Holy shit, if film was dead, doing the work your own was died with those cavemen they keep diggin out of ice. All joking aside, those classes were fun, it was cool learning and seeing something go from a tiny piece of film and then watching it almost magically appear on a piece of paper after about two minutes and you can say "Oh that, I made that.". I still have all my proof sheets (what you get after you devlop the film but before you make pictures) in a folder on my shelf.

While film was a great way to learn, you had only twenty four chances to get "the shot" and if you screwed one up, you wouldn't know about it until you devloped the film. The camera I'm looking at right in front of me (the "cheap" Nikon D3100 DSLR, my baby) can take 2,000 pictures (on a 4gb memory card), see at them in the screen, delete what didn't work, and try again. I went from taking maybe two shots of a subject from a film camera and praying they came out okay to taking ten pictures until you got the right one. Technology is beautiful thing.

In the few months I've had my Nikon, I've taken about 4,000 shots. That equals out to about 350 shots each time I've taken the camera on a "trip". Most of those pictures are in Washignton, DC which is where I work and also home to about one million of my favorite things to photograph. It's the home of old, beautiful row homes, giant monuments, shrines, tourists, and statues - all city scape and "live action"(maybe that's not the right catagory) shots, never a dull moment if you play it with some creativity. When it comes to the momuments it's giant white landmarks striking into a blue sky. The buildings are half old throwbacks colored like the monuments or new ones with glass faces. The people that pour in all have different looks and a look of wonder and amazement in their eyes and there's enough statues with differing styles to satisfy for a long time. I'd love to get to Boston, Annapolis, San Francisco, Miami, Dallas, and New York to take a ton of pictures but Washington will always be my favorite cuz home is home.

What else could this post be about? I guess I can tell you that I think Jim Vance (NBC4 here in DC) is my favorite news reporter of all time, Will Smith is my favorite actor (Jason Segel is in 2nd), my favorite actress if Natalie Portman, my favorite singer is Sara Bareilles, favorite band is probably The Young Dubliners. There's what, two verbs in that sentence? Yeah, maybe just two, I onlt looked back through up until my first parenthese. And how great is Jim Vance? I

You can tell I walked away from the typing, got hyper, and came back. I blame (I say blame but mostly I thank) Milford Swagger and K. Trags (shout out, if they read these...) for reminding me Fun Dip still exists.

What else can I blog about? My friends? My adventures with those friends in Apartment 1615? The dumb stuff I've done? Working in a hardware store for two years? My high school? My family? My idea to get Sara Bareilles to marry me? How much I love watching Community on NBC? The Chive (if you don't know, Google "The Chive")? My ever lasting love for the Redskins? Movies? My deadly peach/fuzzed fruit allergy? "Cross-The-Line Wednesday? My attention span? (By the way, this is more a list for me so I can go through and find stuff to write about when the tank is empty)

I'll leave you with a picture - Happy Friday, now get walking.

Haha, uranus.

Playing In the Street

It seemed like every day when I got home from grade school I would get in, take off my blue pants and white shirt and put on "play clothes" and run back outside where all gaming hell would break loose.

I'm talking about playing in the street man, the proving grounds, the football field, baseball diamond, basketball court, kickball place, and hockey rink. The border line in capture the flag, guns, and sometimes, the war zone for dodgeball and smear the queer. Okay, so maybe smear the queer isn't the best game to play in the street, but I like saying "smear the queer".

Now in the hay-day of my street baller status (wow, scary to type) we played alotta football, some baseball, and alotta guns. "Hey SamWow, what's guns?" I'm glad you asked loyal reader. Guns is a game where you get guns (NERF, water guns, toy guns) and run around yards and the street shooting each other. Guns was the perfect boys game and not a game for girls, a girls simple mind couldn't possibly comprehend all the running, diving, sliding, screaming, aiming, and trigger pulling. That's an art that cannot be learned quickly. The only problem with guns is what I'm gonna write below this.

Shooter - "You're dead! I shot you!"

Dude Who Got Capped - "No I'm not, you missed!"

Shooter - "No you're dead, lie down/go back to base!"

Dude Who Got Capped - "No, you missed!"

These arguments could go on for hours, sometimes ending in fights, usually ending in either the Shooter or Dude Who Got Capped running home crying like a little bitch. It's kinda like when you play dodgeball and you throw, hit someone, but they say they weren't hit. Arguements explode, laywers are called, and then the gym teacher takes dodgeball away from the whole class. Thanks alot Un-named Freshman in my high school class...thanks alot.

Kids in Cambodia play Guns for keeps.

But out here on North Cliff Road, we were uh, innovative? We thought we had the best idea ever. Why not combine playing guns with capture the flag. Oh my god! Totally original! But probably not. I guess before we could all handle our pieces(glocks, straps, guns), we played by tagging people but come on, it was like, 2001, technology and shit led us to guns. And it led to a awesome game that pretty much turned into Guns with a insignificant objective that looked alot like a tennis ball hidden in a tree.

Now, if your Dad was born in the '50s or '60s, ask him if he remembers/owned and Johnny Seven OMA (One-Man-Army). My Pop did, and I think a few of his brothers did too and they played Guns like champions. I don't really know what words to use to describe the pure awesome firepower that the Johnny Seven OMA contained so I'll put up the picture and tell you this - I want one. Bad. Heres the commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPhZsauluXM

So now I wanna talk about my true street sport passion. Street football. What was the only place I could pretend I threw like Tom Brady, ran like Marshall Faulk, caught passes like Jerry Rice, pass rush like Lawrence Taylor, and ball hawk like Ed Reed? The street. The home of the three, five, and seven Mississippi blitz (I only put seven in there cuz I'm told in MoCo they rush after seven. Lame.), the place where saying "Shotgun" meant you take a few steps backwards before you hike it and the defense can come at you free, without using their one blitz. Street football was the home of two hand touch rules, two completions for a first down(some went by car lengths), never punting, no extra points, where running the ball was done by the quarterback, and where a recievers route was a thirty step fade route that would cut back twenty steps towards the quarterback.

You learned to talk smack, you could "Moss" people (for those of you who didn't grow up in Gorgeous Prince Georges, to "Moss" someone was to make an epic catch and burn the coverage for a touchdown), you played until dinner or until it was too dark to see the ball, the curbs were out of bounds and mailboxes, cars, and cracks in the street were the endzones. It was the sport at it's purest form, drop back and sling it. And if you were like me, you always tried to do touchdown dances like Ladanian Tomlinson, Terrell Davis, T.O., or some other superstar.

It was an amazing thing to play and still is today. On Christmas we played on my Grandmommy's street (a fine place to play) and it just gets competieve. It starts off all fun and games then you start fudging holding rules and pass intereference (looked that one up in the dictionary). This years game was a rout but it's still fun, I still picture myself as Jason Campbell, Donald Driver, Jerrod Mayo, or Champ Bailey even though I'm unathletic and white.

So that's what playing outside was to me for the most part, if you have anything awesome you used to do playing on the street when you were a kid type something up and send it to my e-mail (samcarroll9@gmail.com) or find me on facebook (SamWow Carroll) or twitter @therealSamWow.

Also, in my last post I said this was gonna be about Jim Vanve, rocks, and my future wife(maybe that'll be the next post). I got off work and stepped outside and decided this post would be more suiting to the weather seeing how it was about seventy degrees in the District.

Happy March

So here we are, March 1st and post number two. I'll let you know ahead of time this is gonna be a post spanning alotta different subjects (Maybe four, dunno, don't wanna read the draft I wrote, it's all the way over...wait, it's right in front of me. Screw it.) and some just straight up random crap and jokes. I thought of a joke last night when I was looking through a book I have and I'm not gonna lie, I cracked up, it's random crap and a joke! It's "I have three coffee table books, so you could say I have alot to bring to the table." Get it? Classic. It's random, extremely corny, and maybe slightly charming (Ladies? Charming? No, okay. You're probably a bitch anyways).

Alright, quick disclamier this first one is a sports post. If you don't like sports, I'm looking at you Dave, there's only two things I have to say to you (A) die and (B) skip down a few paragraphs and you'll be out of the woods.





So the Redskins announced on Monday that they were parting ties with Bro Sweets aka Dollamite Jenkins aka Sherrif Gonna Getcha aka Southeast Jerome aka Clinton Portis, who is owed eight million dollars next season (if there is a season). Alotta people didn't like Portis for the off-field antics or the "diva" attitude but you gotta look at the mans start in Denver and move to DC.



CP came into the league as a cut and burst back, he has a home run hitter, we got him and his first run in burgandy and gold was a sixty three yard touchdown for god's sake. Then Joe Gibbs comes back (if I had the energy right now, I'd re-write a post slamming the Redskins but that would interfere with my goal to own/coach/manage the team) and decides Clinton is a Brandon Jacobs-esque running back that can lower the shoulder and crash through the o-line dragging bodies. He's not, but all the credit in the world goes to him for not crying about having to play that way, all he wanted was the rock and when he was at his best, the Redskins made the playoffs. When he got hurt the team was garbage, the broken hand, concussion, and torn groin all took two things off the field: the teams best rusher and by far the teams best pass blocker. The District of Columbia will miss #26.

Ok, sports are over, you kids can come back inside now, but take off your shoes, I don't want you trackin mud through my man cave.

Like I said at the top of the post, it's March. Finally March. Month number three of the tweleve, the month on the calander that has Mardi Gras, St. Particks Day, Labor Day in Western Australia, and the first day of spring. I guess what I'm really talking about here is spring. Flowers blooming, leaves coming back to the trees, rabbits crapping on your lawn, and your neighbor peddling his old useless crap from his garage.

Spring also brings the start of what I call "Water Season", I'm sure other people call it that too but I wanna take credit cuz I'm vain(I have a Google Alert set up for "SamWow"). Water season is great, sailboats, motor boats, canoes, kayaks, fishing boats, jet skis, and water skis. It's epic and I love taking part whenever I can. I went sailing once and didn't really do anything except remove some velcro straps and sit next the girl who was then my best friend cuz her boyfriend refused to sit with her (awkward). But I took alot of pictures and had a blast learning about sailing, it's in my families blood(maybe I made that up) and it's always had an appeal to me and I just love it, this is really random now that I kinda read back through it but oh well, my blog, my rules. And if you didn't like this paragraph and you're a guy, read the next paragraph, girls can steer clear, I don't really care.

More importantly, spring brings one of the most lovely times of year, warm weather. We know what that means. Girls all over will be showing skin and thank god right? It's the best time to drive/walk down the route one corridor through College Park cuz it's out in full force. It's girls from all over ages eighteen to twenty two walking around in flipflops(one word or two?), sun dresses, shorts, tank tops, halter tops, and naked(that last one is a lie, this isn't Salisbury). There was that one day last month in where it was about seventy degrees in Maryland and bam, it was like Spring was in full swing man, nothing but really, really, really pale winter skin but it was a teaser, a reminder of things to come like that postcard the dentist sends you every six months with some stupid kitten on it that says "Hey, we're still here, make sure you see us soon ok?".

My next post is gonna be about throwing rocks, and maybe my future wife.