comic book festivals and a close call for the blogmaster

as usual, this past weekend was a busy one. friday night consisted of me watching the g.i. joe movie with the boys. having grown up fully planning on being a joe myself someday, i was disappointed in the movie. but that's water under the bridge. saturday was where all the action was at as the boys and i headed down to the clark county library for a comic book festival which was part of literary week here in nevada. it was free and full of comic books and geeks... what more could a bunch of wannabe superheroes ask for? i can't imagine why mrs. blogmaster didn't want to join us.

we get there and of course the boys want to buy and touch everything. i get a little worried that some vendor might pull a vulcan grip on me if the kids get a smudge on one of the graphic novels. all in all, we had a good time. the boys got some comic books and we met one of the artists for some of the batman comics who drew pictures of superheroes for the boys and took some pics with us. i was so impressed by how friendly he was that i bought some of the comics he drew but won't let the boys touch them now.

i don't know what it is about comics, but i could waste a lot of time reading them if i weren't such a disciplined man. instead i waste a lot of time typing up blog posts... but that's for posterity's sake (and for my zombies, of course). i'm pleasantly pleased that my boys are comic book fans and, as such, i treated saturday's activities as a perfect opportunity to bond as men and boys or at least boys and one man who sometime acts like a boy.

given the special nature of our outing i took a stroll down memory lane with my sons and we drove down flamingo crossing rainbow where i pointed to the 7-11 on the corner there. i explained with nostalgia that that was the spot to where i used to ride my bike and purchase my comic books as a kid. it reminded me of the time that i rode my bike to a baseball card shop not far from the 7-11 and almost lost my life on the way home.

i remember that night fairly well as it was my 14th birthday and it was a saturday night... meaning it was the first time in my life that i could attend a church dance (in those days you had to be 14 years old to go to a church dance and here in vegas the dances were actually pretty happening events so it was something i was looking forward to). in fact, the 20th anniversary of that night is less than a month away. it was december in vegas, so of course it was dark outside early in the day and as i made my way home in the thick of the night i came to the spot on rainbow blvd where i had to cross the street without a light.

the cars went whizzing by as i waited for a break in the steady procession and finally i saw a gap and made my way out to the middle median to wait for the other half of the road to clear up. i did walk my bike like good law abiding citizens are supposed to do; however, i walked it by straddling it and scooting along rather than actually getting off the bike and walking on the side of it which may or may not have contributed to the following event. you decide.

there is was, waiting at the median waiting impatiently and wanting to get home and open up the packs of baseball cards that i'd bought. no breaks in traffic were coming so i thought that maybe if i started to make my way out onto the road, the cars would slowdown and let me pass like they sometimes did during the day. of course, that was always during the day in broad daylight when pedestrians are easier to see, but that interjection of thought and reason didn't stop me from trying to force my way across at night. thus, i engaged in the aggressive course of action i'd decided upon and really only had to worry about a red truck that was steaming along in the middle lane of the three lane half of southbound rainbow.

i could tell the truck wasn't slowing down so i figured i might be able to outride him across the crosswalk if i just stood up on my pedals and pedalled for my life. i was sure if i demonstrated my intent to cross, in spite of the truck's failure to heed to a pedestrian, that the driver would in fact be forced to slow down and let me pass as i assumed he didn't want to have a vehicular homicide on his record. you know what they say about assumptions. apparently, the driver wasn't any more concerned about following the law than he was about my life because said driver didn't slow down, in fact he may have enven sped up in an attempt to out-chicken me.

at that point, i had a choice to make: start pedaling really, really, really fast, pull back or die an ignominious death and miss the saturday dance. i chose the second option since i valued life and the opportunity to shake it up at the dance that night and immediately commenced back pedaling as the truck continued to approach at a speed that made me uncomfortable.

the truck was coming so fast, i wondered if i was going to make it if the truck didn't slow down... and as it turns out, i didn't make it and ended up making it 14 years even on that day. as a result, i have obviously fooled you all with my existential existence; but, hey, so did bruce willis in the sixth sense. that's right, you see dead people... actually, you read the blog of a dead person... actually, you are the dead ones since that's what zombies are. actually, that's enough of that charade.

as i was saying, the truck didn't slow down, but, luckily, i did make it back in time to spare my young and impressionable life. i also made it to my first church dance that night, but by the skin of my knuckles and a broken toe. unfortunately, my bike didn't make it... actually, it was really just the front tire of my bike that didn't make it. it was bent pretty badly just in front of the front set of forks. but that's just my bike (actually, i think it was my brother's bike: sorry, jeff)... more importantly, i nearly lost my precious fingers as a result of this whole ordeal... that's right, the very tools i use to make my living as a semi-professional blogger. what a tragedy that would have been for the world.

but back to the crash, i still remember vividly the truck slamming on its brakes and coming to a screeching stop after the driver finally decided he better stop the vehicle afer he'd hit a pedestrian on his bike. more chilling is the fact that i remember the feeling of the truck literally grazing along my knuckles which were clenched tightly to the bike's handle bars and the popping feeling i experienced in my big left toe upon contact from the truck. that's how close it was. luckily i had the wherewithal to not try and outrun the truck or else you probably wouldn't be reading this post right now. and luckily the shock and adrenaline from the whole incident dampened what must have been excruciating pain, but i most likely wouldn't have noticed that anyway.

the driver and his girlfriend/wife/sister (not sure which one) were nice and apologetic enough given that they had just about ended my life and, as such, they gave me a ride home since the bike was rendered inoperable. by the time i got home i was fine and after they talked to my dad for a minute, we all parted ways on good terms but only because the heavy hitter wouldn't come around for another 15 years. i was over it before i finished flipping through my first pack of cards and the next thing i knew i was throwing on a white t-shirt and some black pants and then headed over to the old south stake center for my first church dance ever.

it was beautiful. actually, i don't remember much about it other than a few slow dances i must have been a part of and using lots of hairspray to try and get my hair to look like johnny depp's back in the days of 21 jump street. not a pretty image. these images are much prettier. enjoy.