I get so MAD!

Has my luck run out?

I haven’t won anything in a while. I used to win things all the time. It was mostly call-in radio contests, but I would occasionally win other big contests as well.

Through my employer, I won a ride on the final visit to Portland of the tank landing ship USS Frederick before it was decommissioned. We boarded at Longview, were fed a standard Navy lunch in the mess hall, and cruised to Portland as part of the 2002 Rose Festival fleet week. That was an incredible experience, and security was extremely tight, being the first such event after 9/11.

But most of my winnings have been from radio contests. Here is a list of some of the things I have won from various radio stations:

From KXL:

T-shirt
Long since relegated to car waxing duty.

Coffee mug
No idea where this is.

$25 restaurant gift certificate
We still haven’t used this yet, it’s been like seven years. I don’t even know if the restaurant still exists.

Blazers tickets
I don’t remember a single thing about the game.

From KUFO:

KUFO “Shooting Stars week-end” package
Alice in Chains box set
Stone Temple Pilots CD
Inkpen that looks like a hypodermic needle
(”Shooting stars”, featuring bands known for IV drug use, plus a fake needle, get it, huh, nudge, nudge, get it?)

Megadeth CD
Currently in the garage somewhere.

Porn
Some cheap “Hustler” knock-off. I felt really weird about claiming this prize at KUFO’s office. I tried to be all smooth and comical, and said something to the receptionist like “I’m here to claim a prize, the guys on the radio said I won a book or something.” She looked kind of horrified and said “You really don’t know what you’ve won?” I don’t know where this is anymore. I swear it was lost when we moved out of our old house. I swear.

Rockfest 6 concert, featuring:
From Zero
Stereomud
Puddle Of Mud
Craving Theo
Saliva (I got to the show in time to see about 10 minutes of them.)
System Of A Down (They were incredible.)
Deftones (I went off to watch the mechanical bull throw some guy while they were playing. I later heard on the radio that he was the concert’s only injury, and needed eight stitches to close the gash in his forehead. It was awesome.)
Godsmack (They totally rocked.)

Rockfest 7 concert, featuring:
Seven Thirty Seven
Rob Zombie (I was really looking forward to seeing Rob Zombie. We were going to be out of town, though, so I gave the tickets to a friend.)
Down
Adema
Ill Nino
Switched
Mindcell
Shifft
Dirty Lowdowns
Hotboxed
Western Aerial

Craving Theo CD and concert
I took brother Gabe to see them at the Roseland during a snow storm. It was a pretty good show. Kinda weird, though, being an all age show and seeing eight and ten year olds wandering around near the mosh pit, while the DJ announcer came on stage saying that the band would only start to play once they saw enough bare female chests (he used a different vernacular, of course.)

Creed concert
The show was later cancelled (whew, close one, was almost obligated to actually watch Creed live) after singer Scott Stapp’s car tapped another car’s bumper while parallel parking, or something. I don’t know, it might have been a little more serious than that, but he’s still a weenie.

Pint glass
I use this to keep my Diet Pepsi frosty cold.

7 comments April 4th, 2005

Random old memory #3

In a comment to one of my recent posts, Tabitha reminded me of something that happened to us several years ago.

About 10 years ago, we were renting a pretty big old house in the heart of the ‘hood, on NE Fremont right down the street from MLK. We had just put the boys to bed (this was of course before we had Lexi), and Kathy and I hopped in the upstairs shower before going to bed. While we were in there, we heard kind of a “plink” sound, and thought that maybe one of the boys had gotten out of bed and were in the bathroom. They were sound asleep, however, and while checking out the source of the sound a bit later, we noticed flashing red and blue lights outside.

I went outside to talk to the police and see what was going on. Apparently a drug deal about 1/2 block away had gone bad, and someone took several shots at someone else with some sort of handgun. They missed the person, but at least one of the shots went wild.

The next morning, I saw a clean bullet hole in the 1st floor rain gutter. The bullet had been stopped by an old cast iron pipe that was capped off, but had been left in the wall of the old house. If the cast iron pipe had not been there, the trajectory was such that the bullet could have continued throught the wall and hit me or Kathy in the ankle or leg.

We moved about a month later.

1 comment April 4th, 2005