I remember going to the Vault every Thursday and blowing my allowance on comic books.  The Vault was a comic book store that was located in the Waterfall Plaza in Waterford.  It closed down after a few years.  Probably because me and my brother stopped shopping there.

I used to buy all the variations of the X-men and Spiderman comics and Kevin used to buy the Fantastic Four and Punisher comics.  I remember I bought all of the first issues of the Image comic books when they first came out.  Shortly after that, Kevin and I stopped collecting.

They had an extensive back issue selection that I would browse, picking up issues of the "Uncanny X-men" that I did not have.

It's a shame that a lot of small businesses like that can't stay in business.  I still have most of those comic books - some four or five boxes.  I think everyone was collecting at that time so my comics are barely worth more than I paid for them, 15 years later.

Back in the day, Chris Shea, Adam Lamb, Austin Moening and I built a 4-story tree fort in the fields by my backyard. It started as a 1-story fort but we could not resist the urge to continue to build higher on the perfectly-suited tree. It was a majestic thing with a superfluance of nails.

The first level was enclosed in plywood and the second and third levels were just floors made of 2 x 4s. The fourth floor was more like a ceiling or roof. There were no guard rails on the fourth floor and it was very high up and kind of scary. It was one of the triumphant accomplishments of my youth. Me and Shea hung out there a lot--and yet--I don't have a single picture to prove it.

Update: I found a picture of us on the fort but it is at night and all you can see is a 2x4.  I was talking with Chris the other day and he said that my aunt took a picture of us all on the fort.  I will have to search my parents' albums for that photo.  Dave, when can I borrow that document feed scanner?

A rival fort emerged near the top of the hill by the power lines in the fields.  It was probably more soundly constructed and it was completely enclosed on all four sides.  However, it did not have the height that ours had.

I remember that me and some of my high school buddies challenged the owners of the rival fort to a game of capture the flag.  The flag was a person from the other team that you had to rescue and return to your fort. 

What resulted was a fierce and no-holds-barred competition.  Not content to simply chase or out run us, the other team absconded Rick Davies and began to give him an ample beating.

That pretty much ended the game.  We treated our captives nicely though.  Despite the fact that they were forced to sit atop the fourth story where there was no guard rail, we provided them with efervescent beverages from my dad's green cooler and "gentlemen's" magazines.

In the summer of 2004 my friend Luke's family went on their annual canoeing trip and newsie682, Kate and I tagged along for all the fun. I don't know the name of the river that we went canoeing on, but it was at least two or three hours north of Grand Rapids MI. I remember first taking some pictures of newsie682 sleeping in the car and she hated the way they look (but I will put them on the internet anyway because she is so darn adorable). When we got there I also took some photos of Luke's family. You might notice a douche bag named Dave in those photos (in the reflection). He cut his own bangs just a few days before. Look how sexy they are.



Once newsie682 and I got into the water and were on our way we came into some difficult times in canoeing because we both really didn't know how to work together. We seemed to be both going the wrong way together at all times. And it didn't help at all to have all of these objects reaching out over the river where you can get . . . Read More..

Most grandparents dont have much in terms of sweets around the house. This one time my family was staying with my grandma for more than a week and my brother and I were really needing some sweets.

So we raided the closets only to find a bag of worthers originals.  They somewhat did the trick.  But eventually my grandma hid them on us. It was hilarious when we found out about it and I guess you just had to be there. Apparently my grandma never passed kintergarden where you learned to share.