“The Best and Stupidest Thing We’ve Ever Done”

In college I had the distinct privilege of living at a place called “The Overlook”.  In form, the Overlook was a sort of duplex-townhouse complex composed of eight 6 bedroom units which were side by side.  In function, the Overlook turned into an unofficial, quasi-fraternity brotherhood.  You see, junior year I lived at the Overlook with 7 other guys and right next door was a house of 8 guys who were one year older.  We were all good friends and rolled in the same broader group of friends.  So “The Overlook” became a go-to place to watch games, hang out, and come up with crazy ideas for fun that only college students with nary a worry and plenty of time on their hands can come up with. 

On the list of most memorable events from the Overlook days was the time when a subset of us rafted the Mighty Bolin Creek.  Or, as it’s sometimes know, the Day that Fulton Almost Died.

The Bolin Creek was a very calm little creek behind our house that ran for several miles through Chapel Hill.  On normal days, the Bolin is a sleepy little creek, as its name suggests.  Yet, every so often, when there was a large amount of rain in a short period of time, the Bolin would rise and turn into the mighty Bolin, complete with fairly substantial rapids.

We encountered one such day on a random Friday in 2003.  We awoke to a downpour and some of the guys from 230 Overlook decided it was time to try and tame the Bolin.  So they went out and got some intertubes from the tire center across the street, a cheap raft from Wal-Mart, and secured some life jackets.  They they came to round up some others who were willing to try and raft the Bolin.

To this day, I’m not sure why I jumped at the opportunity.  Given my tendency to be risk-averse, its a shock that I took part.  But I’m so glad I did.  It was perhaps one of the scarier things I’ve ever done, as we soon found out that we were no match for certain parts of the Bolin.  But after surviving some scares, we ended up rafting more than 1.5 miles through Chapel Hill, from our house all the way to the lower part of Franklin Street where the old El Rodeo mexican restaurant used to be.

To this day we tell people about how scary the Bolin was.  We talk about the rapids and how the pipe that ran across the creek near our eventual exit point.  Most of us made it out before the pipe but our buddy Fulton lost his raft and ended up holding on for dear life to a tree limb for several minutes as we lived our a Rescue 911 moment.  He ended up letting go and taking his chances with the pipe - luckily, he was able to go under unscathed and we had a story to tell for ages.

The best part of the whole ordeal is the fact that a random acquaintance who was shooting some video for a journalism class happened to stumble upon us and documented a lot of our ride.  This long lost video recently made it’s way to YouTube.  Thus, you can all now enjoy and see for yourself the moments which were proclaimed by our buddy Curtis as “the best and stupidest thing we’ve ever done”.

Part I

Part II

Some of the best scenes (in case you don’t want to spend 20 minutes watching the whole masterpiece)

A sense for the rapids

The cops stopping us and my imitation of our conversation

Fulton letting go and heading for the pipe

Evan’s old Buick with all our rafts on it going back home

Curtis explaining how it’s the best and stupidest thing ever

Fulton’s explanation of the near death experience

Happy New Year!

There was no crazy party for us this year as we celebrated the turn of 2011 into 2012.  Instead, we got together with some friends for an “early” New Years Eve party.  We had pizza and kids were there and we had our own countdown sometime around 8:00pm so we could make loud noises, blow those little kazoo things and ring in the New Year.

While it was different than years past, it was a ton of fun.  And Tracy and I were able to get home and see the ball drop from the comfort of our couch.  We’re not too old yet…we made it to midnight!  Although truth be told, Tracy was out like a light about 12:02.

Happy New Year to you and yours.  And remember, make those resolutions and post them here:

Resolve 2012

We’ve just rung in 2012 and it’s time to set some resolutions for the year.  A couple years back I shared my resolutions using a theme of “Running and Reading”.  It was probably the first and only time that I’ve ever come up with a defined set of resolutions that I actually kept - I did meet my goal of reading 25 books that year and ended up running a ton of miles and did the NYC Marathon that year.

What I’ve realized over the years is that I am able to best meet goals when there is a defined goal and also when I’m part of a team.  The team part is the problem with most resolutions - they are solitary pursuits, so we end up giving up without much of a fight.

This year, I’m motivated again to accomplish a couple goals but, even moreso, I hope that I’ll be able to share the journey with others.  So I created a little site tonight to try and get people to share their resolutions for 2012.

Check out the new site and, if you’re up for it, take a moment over the next few days and let me know what you’re hoping to achieve in the New Year.  Let’s do this together - it will feel so good to ring in 2013, knowing we’ve accomplished something together!

New Toy

Miller is loving his new garbage truck

Christmas Rewind

We enjoyed a lovely Christmas, spending time with both families, and taking in all the fun that is Christmas-time with little ones.  This was really Miller’s first Christmas to understand enough to get jazzed about what was going on.  He was VERY into opening the gifts (both his and anyone else’s who would let him) - though he cared much less about what was inside the package as he did ripping off the paper.  Yet, in the days since Christmas Day, Miller has done an excellent job of playing with a great number of his new toys which is so fun. 

Miss Charlotte was a doll and though she couldn’t take in too much of the festivities, it was wonderful having her there and dreaming of what next Christmas will be like!  Life will be crazier, for sure, but so fun too.

One of our favorite gifts was a new fixed lens for our camera which we hope will lead to many cool pics in the months ahead (a couple of the below were snapped with the new lens).  Rather than recap with too many words our Christmas, I thought I’d share some pics from the events to give a little flavor.