Tonight

Well Grandpa Charles, I did it for you. I finally made you proud. I gave you cause to smile.

I gave 120% tonight, just for you.
I skated my heart out tonight, just for you.
I scored tonight, just for you. All six goals.

And when I did, I pointed up to the sky, to thank you.
Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for watching me play.
Thank you for making me play my heart out for you, tonight.
I hope I made you smile from wherever you were watching in Heaven tonight.
I hope I made you proud of me, tonight.

To be honest, I was grinning like a madman when I realized that you probably were smiling in Heaven. Because I knew that no matter what, you always were proud of me, and you always will be.

I know that I sure was proud of being able to call you my grandfather tonight,
I hope you were proud of me.

I love you Grandpa Charles.

This is for you, Grandpa Charles!

Okay, so I'm a bad grandson. I lied.

I haven't yet played my heart out for you and given you a game that you would be proud of.
I haven't scored one for you. I haven't blocked a shot for you.
In other words, I've failed to make you smile, and I'm sorry for that.

But you know what? I will.
I will give 210% for you. I will out skate, out play, out hustle the opposition.
I will play my heart out for you. You will never see me more determined in my 18 years.
And if I so happen to score, I will point up to the sky and dedicated that goal to you.
Maybe, just maybe, I will be able to see your smiling face in Heaven smiling brighter than the sun.
Maybe I will score a goal, however monumental it may turn out to be, from a heart so big that God would not let it live.
You are my hero, Grandpa Charles, and I love you!

I never said thank you for what you meant to me, but
Think of this of as my little way of saying "thank you".
Thank you Grandpa Charles, thank you one million times over!

I'm really pumped up, actually

So I'll just say something right now-I'm pumped up. Like, it's the kind where you feel like running miles and miles with that energy, or the kind where you want to play hockey and nail the crap out of everybody in sight. Why am I this pumped up, you might ask? Well I'll tell you: I've been listening to "Here You Me" by Jimmy Eat World and two songs from the Lake Braddock band's concerts in China.

Listening to Here You Me, I've been thinking of my recently deceased grandfather who I dearly loved. I'm ashamed to say that so far, I have not lived up to my promise of "making him proud" of my play in hockey, which I aim to correct that. On Friday, I'm going to play pickup hockey, and I aim to FINALLY make him proud. Yes, it's pickup hockey, but I SWEAR that I will out hustle everybody there and never, EVER give up on each shift I'm out there, and give 150% effort out on the ice; my goal is to make him have the biggest smile in the world after he sees me play.

"I thought I might get one more chance.
What would you think of me now,
so lucky, so strong, so proud?
I never said thank you for that,
now I'll never have a chance."

Surprisingly, listening to the band has motivated me. I know that they went off and got an opportunity of a lifetime to play in China (while I went on an arguably better trip to Europe, but who's counting?) and it made me realize that I want to carve a niche out for myself. They honestly put together a spectacular (understatement) bunch of performances, based on what I've been listening to! If I can't go to something that was amazing, hell, I want to create a reputation for myself. When you couple this with wanting to play my heart out for my deceased grandpa in Heaven, I'm gonna give 210% on the ice, and anything less will be a disappointment! They have basically inspired me to leave it all on the ice on Friday night, and any and all other games that I will have, as I want to be known as the guy who gives his heart and soul for something that he loves. Thank you all of the members of the Lake Braddock China Band for inspiring me, whether you all realized it or not!!!

Saw this fan page on FB and just thought I should write these down

Okay, so before anybody questions me about this, I just saw these tips on how to make a girl smile and thought I should write these tips down for future reference. So without further ado, here we go:
When she walks away from you mad [ Follow her ]

When she walks away from you mad [ Follow her ]

When she stare's at your mouth [ Kiss her ]... See More

When she pushes you away [ Grab her and dont let go ]

When she start's shouting at you [ Kiss her and tell her you love her ]

When she's quiet [ Ask her whats wrong ]

When she ignore's you [ Give her your attention ]

When she pull's away [ Pull her back ]

When you see her at her worst [ Tell her she's beautiful ]

When you see her start crying [Just hold her and dont say a word ]

When you see her walking [ Sneak up and hug her waist from behind ]

When she's scared [ Protect her ]

When she lay's her head on your shoulder [ Tilt her head up and kiss her ]

When she steal's your favorite hat [ Let her keep it and sleep with it for a night]

When she tease's you [ Tease her back and make her laugh ]

When she doesnt answer for a long time [ reassure her that everything is okay ]

When she look's at you with doubt [ Back yourself up always tell the truth no matter what]

When she say's that she like's you [ she really does more than you could understand ]

When she grab's at your hands [ Hold her's and play with her fingers ]

When she bump's into you [ bump into her back and make her laugh ]

When she tell's you a secret [ keep it safe and untold ]

When she looks at you in your eyes [ dont look away until she does ]

When she misses you [ she's hurting inside ]

When you break her heart [ the pain never really goes away ]

When she says its over [ she still wants you to be hers ]

-When You Say The Same Thing At The Same Time, Then They Say "I Love You "

- Stay on the phone with her even if shes not saying anything.

- When she's mad hug her tight and don't let go

- When she says she's ok, don't believe it, talk with her

- because 10 yrs later she'll remember you

- Call her at 12:00am on her birthday to tell her you love her

- Call her before you sleep and after you wake up

- Treat her like she's all that matters to you.

- Tease her and let her tease you back.

- Stay up all night with her when she's sick.

- Watch her favorite movie with her or her favorite show even if you think its stupid.

- Give her the world.

- Let her wear your clothes.

- When she's bored and sad, hang out with her.

- Let her know she's important.

- Kiss her in the pouring rain.

Weird dream last night, part 2

This is the second part of my weird dream that I had last night, which more or less was a continuation of the previous posting here on my blog. So basically, the scene is this movie theater in an undisclosed location. The doors close so that the movie can start. The lights dim, and everything is going like a normal routine...until an evil voice booms out through the theater saying, "Do not move, I have just taken a hostage and if you don't meet my demands, she will be executed. You have [undisclosed amount of time due to my faulty memory of this dream] to give me [can't remember the thing this evil dude wanted]. Anybody who wants to be the hero will bring their musical instrument to the helicopter pad and challenge me to a duel (yeah, I dunno why I happened to dream about this, but don't tase me man)." So after he made that ominous announcement, the predictable bit where all hell broke loose happened and so, all hell broke loose there. People were screaming whilst making a beeline to the exits. And of all people, Mr. Luley was running around with a megaphone shouting "it's okay people, just stay calm". Being the specially trained, special forces guy I was, I had to run in a semi circle to the top of the theater, as I was at the bottom when the announcement was made, and rushed up to grab my bass trombone case. The rest of it is sketchy, but all I remember was that I beat this evil bald guy's ass in a bass trombone-off to save the life of this hostage and the rest of the people in the theater. Then I woke up for school. As a hero. In my dreams. Good stuff there.

Weird dream last night, part 1

This is the first part of one of two dreams I had last night, both of which were really, really weird. Okay, so for the first one, I was an operative, dropped off at a foreign airport, which oddly enough resembled something in Germany, maybe Frankfurt. My mission was to rendezvous with my contact, which somehow involved having to walk all the way out of the airport in question and out onto the unspecified country's highway, which somehow got transformed in my dream here to the German autobahn...with houses on the side of the road like the Fairfax County Parkway. What...the...heck? Oh well, it was interesting, let's just put it at that. So basically, I made my way out of the airport, and the "entrance" strongly resembled the Home Depot parking lot in Springfield. Despite that never being humanly possible, I made my way out. Details are a little blurry here, but some part along the way, I met up with my brother, who was also a secret agent. We then proceeded to make our way to our contact, where he was waiting for us. Seth Drum, a kid who I never talked to when he was in my Algebra 2 honors class in sophomore year. In his minivan, of all things. Facing the opposite direction. On the German Autobahn, of all places. . But before I could question my sanity, I woke up. Then went back to bed cause it was 1:15 A.M.Cue the next part of my dream.

To go to Prom, or not to go to Prom, that is the question

Decision time is fairly approaching (cause I'd have to potentially make arrangements), and by that I mean it's whether or not to go to prom. Note that if this was anybody else, it'd be a definite "hell yes". However, the only person I ever even considered asking said no, but to be fair, I'm not sure that she was in the best frame of mind at the time. Should I ask her again, or should I just not go? Yeah, it's a senior memory, and she argued that I should experience it (but I want to share it with her as well, as she is only a sophomore). And yes, the girl in question is the most recent former girlfriend who is quite over me, and has long since been. But getting back on track, I seriously feel that prom is overrated; it's just music and dancing, and I know from what I've heard from the last few homecomings was that "dancing" meant "let's grind on each other and violate everybody else's personal bubble". I don't buy the "it's a special moment in each senior's high school experience". Heck, that's what they say about homecoming but I honestly haven't cared enough to go to a homecoming dance all four years of high school. I played pickup hockey this year, and I'm planning to do that this year on prom night. Will I regret seeing all the pictures of people dressed up and looking stunning? Yeah, I probably will. Will I miss the experience of prom? Yeah, maybe. Now, the deciding factor is, will I miss being able to play pickup hockey more than missing out on prom? HELL YES I WILL. Hockey means more to me than one night of an overrated dance that is blown way out of proportion; I don't even know how much I will be able to play hockey in college, and for me, I'm sure as heck planning on playing as much as I can and savoring the experiences.

I know I sound like some moron who hates prom, but I'm not. I just don't have anybody whom I plan on sharing/asking to go with me. I know, I know, there are a ton of people out there to ask, but I just have my own special standards in which I want to ask somebody. Now, I'll go if there is one person whom I know I want to go with, but honestly, I'm Conan Smeeth, it doesn't happen to me. I'd be touched if somebody actually said they would go with me, and I sincerely appreciate that gesture, if it happened, but I don't want to force anybody to go with me just out of pity; you don't deserve to go if we both aren't consensually enjoying it.

That's all folks. I hope somebody can read this and (try) to slap some sense into me. Good luck with that, though.

Mary Washington visit

Today I visited the University of Mary Washington (and got to miss school!)...and I'm gonna be going there as a member of the class of 2014! They have all that I want in a college and I'm thrilled that I'm going to be able to call it my home for the next four years!

Sadly, I know about this horror

Today in band, we sightread a song about the massacre of 20,000 Jews in Kiev back during World War 2, which the song was called "Babi Yar". When Mr. Holder was talking about how the Jews were systematically lined up to be shot in pits, everybody was deadly quiet; sadly, as I've been to Auschwitz just over a week ago, I'm (unfortunately) conditioned to these horrors. Literally, it was extremely quiet with some people just shocked into silence. He said that these people were housed until there was enough space in the ditches to shoot them. Why must people be that bad to fellow humans? Simple-some are crueler than others, some just want to blend in and survive. Anyways, I feel that it was an eye opener to some people, cause there's no way we can fathom the horrors that went on during the Holocaust; even to this day, I still cannot believe the realities of what I saw at Auschwitz. Just playing this song Babi Yar, I feel connected to the one and a half million souls staring down at me as I took every step through Auschwitz and Birkenau. I feel that I NEED to play my heart out to emote the feeling of what the prisoners felt.

Uncertainty of the Future

What happens knowing that after this year, your world as you know it will change?
What happens knowing that every note you play could be your last?
What happens knowing that every shift you're on the ice, at the arena, could be your last?

Do you run away from the truth or do you welcome the time you have left?

I plan on savoring it. Knowing that never again will I ever have this much fun.
With the amazing people that I play with.
With the amazing people that I shed blood with, played our hearts out with.
All of the times that we laughed. Cried. Smiled. All of those times.
They are why I will savor the time left; they were some of the best times of my life.
Those are the times that I will forever and always hold in my heart.
Knowing that sooner or later, I'll be on my own
And that all the times in the past will never be duplicated in the same way in the future.

Well you know what? Whatever happens, it will be a new chapter in my life

Just that I don't want to give up on the past

In Tribute

Before my hockey game last night, I pledged that I would play for my Grandpa, who passed away last Friday. I wanted to make him proud of how I played, as I knew he'd be watching in Heaven. Even though I didn't play my best by far, and we lost 7-2, I felt that he would be proud of me anyways; I got an assist and I helped make some defensive plays. Regardless of the outcome for the next 7, hopefully another one or two games as well, I will be playing the rest of the season in honor of you Grandpa! You are my inspiration, and I will play for you all the way, and hopefully you're going to proud of me up there!