Evening of February 13th

Introduction to

October 13, 2004

A Night in Jail: The unique experience of spending time in jail briefly.

An Evening At Probation: What life is like being under probation.

At Age 22: Life beyond the troubled juncture of 21 years of age.

Can I Keep Working So Hard?: I can work hard and avoid burnout.

Changing Times: The death of my grandfather, and an insitution.

Finally Graduating: Some things I learned from my six years in college.

First Day of College: My experiences during my first day of college.

First Ten Miler: Remembering my first long-distance Boy Scout hike.

First Year in Scouts: Remembering the first year I spent in boy scouts.

Getting Older and Changing: Some thoughts as I get older and experience more of life.

Graduation: It's great to be done.

Happy Birthday !: Some thoughts on my 24th birthday.

Living Away: First Time: Some experiences moving away for the first time.

My Legally Blind Scoutmaster: Some thoughts on blindness from a first hand experience.

My Non-Run for County Democratic Committee: Why I chose not to run for an office that would be relatively easy to get.

Romeo and the Cowboy: Debating My Roomate: Some of the exciting debate between me and my roomate.

The Past Four Years: Some thoughts on the past four years and my fight for freedom of speech.

The Ramblin' Around Year: I spent much of 2004 wandering the back roads by my parents farm.

Walking in the Pouring Rain: A short story about an individual trying to find himself...

What Does It Mean to Be An Eagle Scout?: Thoughts on becoming an Eagle Scout.

Evening of February 13th

The night was February 13, 2004, the day before Valentines Day. I had spent about 2 hours over at my girlfriend's house after school, and was amazed at the beautiful red and orange sunset that we saw from the steps of her house. It had been a long and stressful week for me, but it had seemingly come to a peaceful end. Little did I know that this peaceful sunset would foreshadow events that would forever change my life. I returned home around 6:00 PM. I had left my girl friend's house early, so there would be enough light to avoid driving on slippery roads after dark. I sat down and eat with my parents, and then watched ABC's World News Tonight to catch up with the current events of the day. After that, I retired to my room and took a nap.

Around 8:30 PM I awoke, and decided to go to the computer and catch up on the discussions for my State and Local Government class, and my Caribbean Culture class. It had been over two weeks since I had any participation in the Caribbean Culture class so I figured I had a lot of catching up. I normally would not have done schoolwork on a Friday evening like this one, but these discussion forums were informal and generally not academic. The Caribbean Culture class discussion board dealt largely with the issue of Academic Freedom and was only extra-credit, and as such could only have a positive impact on your grades. It was dangerously casual.

The atmosphere in my parent's computer room was delightlyfully playful. I was tuned in to WAMC's Capitol Connection and Alan Chartock was interviewing the hilarious Senator Frank Padavan who was comparing the State's lottery to the Mafia lotteries of yesteryear, noting that the state used to prosecute those who played the numbers under Governor Dewey�s administration. While I was listening to this program, I was banging away at the keyboard, replying to several of the ten web messages I would reply to this evening. I type at over 100 words per minute and often with my eyes closed to the stimuli around me, so I can find my true self in my writing. I love to let my imagination run freely on all the experiences I have captured in the past couple of days. All of these things would lead to me making the most difficult decision of my life and a fight for free speech that I would ultimately lose at.

Subsiquent story to be added over the next few days.