Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Inspiration and the Lack There of...
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
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Untitled Pt. One
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.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Summer...It's Almost Here
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.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
I'm just vomitting a post
Friday, March 4, 2011
What Photography is to Me.
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.
Haha, uranus.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Playing In the Street
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.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Happy March
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.

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.