A few months ago I went out and purchased a new mattress, it was the first time in over a year that I had needed one. I gave away my last one when I moved onto my sailboat and then then I moved back into an apartment, it had a loft and I just bought a couple mattress pads to sleep on up there. After a few months though I was tired of climbing the stairs and wanted a nice mattress but I think box springs are a joke. I did some research on the internetz and found a few cheap solutions, namely this one from Instructables. I decided to duplicate it with a queen mattress. It’s been working great for months now!
Step 1: Buy a mattress and measure it.
Step 2: Stop by the store and buy some storage archive boxes! (I bought mostly standard but also a few extra-strength)
Step 3: Stuff the storage boxes with stuff you don’t use very often or want in your closet. Books, winter clothes, clothes that don’t fit, etc.
Step 4: Arrange the boxes so that there will be about 1in of the boxes showing around the edges.
Step 5(Optional): Put a mattress pad down on top of the boxes
Step 6: Toss your mattress on top and sleep soundly!
The whole idea of a year in review summary is a bit conceited and self-boisterous but this year has been a bit abnormal, even for me. The previous years have been a rollercoaster of one kind or another but they all seem a bit like a ferris wheel now in comparison.
January through April
The beginning of the year found me in a rather friendless place having abandoned the bar scene from boredom and being tired of the drama that accompanies those locales. I was chucking bags for US Airways and traveling a bit around the USofA. I took trips to such far off and exotic destinations as Chicago, Kansas City, Seattle, Los Angeles, the Grand Canyon, Denver, Columbus and Nashville. March came along and I found myself once again working Spring Training baseball for the best boss in the world. We all knew that this would more than likely be my final season and that I should start looking for serious work of one kind or another. Life was pretty stagnant and seemed to be going nowhere fast. To be completely honest I remember very little from those months.
May through August
In late April I started looking at overseas jobs and perused the internet on a constant basis for resort and cruise opportunities to liven up things a bit and get out of Arizona for awhile. It came down to two jobs, one working for Disney on their private island, Castaway Cay, as a lifeguard or a similar job at Pacific Islands Club resort in Guam. I chose Guam because it sounded more exotic and the flight was longer. Mid-May I quit US Airways and used my flight benefits one last time to fly my happy tush to Hawaii for a few relaxing days before reaching Guam. Hawaii felt like the most humid place I have ever been. Coming from the dry desert clime of Arizona and going into the tropical paradise of the Sandwich Islands felt like going from an oven to a sauna. It was at that point the most uncomfortable experience of the year. I ended up leaving Waikiki a day early due to the “stickiness” of the situation.
I arrived in Guam on May 19 and started my venture in the PIC world as a “Clubmate,” a glorified lifeguard. I found out quickly that I was the one and only actual certified lifeguard on property and made it my top priority to convince management to get this changed. They of course saw no need for it and I eventually lost interest in pushing the issue. My life at PIC was a never-ending cycle of work and partying and finding myself with a drink on the beach at 2am was more the norm than not. It was a crazy time of constant bars and parties kept going by, on average, 5 hours of sleep a night. I explored the island every second I had free and thoroughly enjoyed every minute and everyone while I was there, at least until July 2nd.
July 2nd was a Monday and it began like most days, with an amazing breakfast and a lot of laughs in the sunshine. It was the day I was scheduled to learn not only how to windsurf but how to teach windsurfing, with low water levels and a menacing reef always a few inches under the wave, it was a daunting task but one I took on with enthusiasm. Windsurfing has always appealed to me as had kitesurfing and I planned on mastering both during my six-month contract. Around 10am we had moved from practicing in the pool to the open water and by 11ish, Hunter, my roommate, and I had a pretty good grasp on how to move ourselves forward and were working on how to turn without eating surf. I heard my manager, who was doubling as our instructor, start fervently yelling at me to drop my sail and get to the beach where there seemed to be some sort of aquatic emergency. It took what felt like hours for me to cover the 150 yards to the beach and upon arriving my brain switched into a mode I don’t ever remember being in before and I felt like I was watching myself from some point out and above. A bit of an out-of-body experience, if you will.
What was waiting for me was an elderly Asian woman lying on her back with her head being supported by another clubmate. He was keeping her eyes on the sky as he assumed this was the best position for her to be in. Her face was covered with a thick white foam and her eyes were open and lulling about in her skull fixed on nothing in particular. Immediately taking over the situation, I rolled her on her side and attempted to clean her face off while calling for 911 and requesting a CPR mask. Her dentures were loose and I removed them while trying to clear her airway. I remember very vividly making a decision at that moment, a choice that I believed changed the outcome of the event, I decided not to give her mouth to mouth without a barrier mask. She wasn’t breathing but still had a faint pulse. Hunter finally got to the beach to assist me and I sent him running after the CPR mask that had yet to show up. I knew that with each minute I waited her chances for survival fell exponentially but I stuck to my decision and waited for the mask. What they brought me to use was not a mask I was familiar with but I made the best of the situation and after wrestling with the sub-par equipment, got a seal over her mouth and nose before beginning to give her rescue breaths, essentially breathing for the poor woman to keep her body from de-oxygenating completely. Another clubmate trained in CPR arrived and I told him to get ready to begin chest compressions as I had lost her pulse completely by this time. As his first compression began, the sound that I will never forget seemed to resonate in my head for days as her ribs cracked under the pressure of his weight. We ‘worked’ on her for a lifetime until the paramedics arrived and took over, carting her away to another plane of existence.
After a brief debriefing, the others involved in the incident went home to try and relax and recuperate from the ordeal but I made another foolhardy decision and picked up the slack from the others going home. The next morning at breakfast I was informed that the lady had been brought back to life by the paramedics in the ambulance but never woke up and died a few hours later from organ failure. Struggling through the rest of the morning, I finally collapsed in my managers office soon after lunch. They took me to the hospital where they diagnosed me with pneumonia and administered a tuberculosis skin test.
On Thursday I went back to the doctor’s office to get something to alleviate my nightmares and help me sleep. He prescribed me some valium and read my skin test informing me that I have tuberculosis before ushering me out the door without a full explanation of what that meant. Later that day I was to find out that one-third of the world’s population tests positive to the skin test and that while I don’t have an active version of it and am not contagious, I still carry the disease and there is a possibility that it might become active someday and ravage my body a bit. It was without a doubt the most stressful week of my life.
I spent the next two weeks going to various doctor’s appointments, being treated for various ailments, both physical and mental, before finally convincing the resort management to send me home.
July 19 I left Guam and spent a wonderfully relaxing day in Nagoya, Japan. My flight itinerary gave me a 10 hour layover there which was just enough time to hop a train to downtown from the airport and to spend some time walking around and absorbing the oddity that is Japanese culture. I have never seen such an alien environment before and my time there was much too short.
August found me recovering from my Guam ordeal and trying to get my US Airways job back. I ended up delivering pizzas.
September through Present Day
Somewhere between the beginning of September and Halloween, I quit the pizza shop and got a job as a waiter at an Italian bistro. I also tried, rather unsuccessfully, to date a beautiful friend of mine. After that debacle, I tried again with another girl and that too did not go so well. I did, however, spend a lot of time with my friends Lane and Peter, playing poker and going to movies. Three weeks ago in early December, one of my best friends, Kyle, told me about a career opportunity as a travel agent and we went and were hired together. This is the best office job I’ve ever had, after all what could be better than sending people on gorgeous vacations to beautiful destinations?
On Saturday, December 22nd, Kyle and I were at the theaters waiting for Sweeney Todd to begin when my phone buzzed in my pocket. The number was unfamiliar to me so I answered it in a hushed theater voice. It was Lane calling to inform me that Peter had been in a near-fatal motorcycle accident. Immediately leaving the theater and spending the next four days in the ICU waiting room was another experience that I won’t soon forget. Peter is still there in a coma and as we enter a new year, I would ask you to throw up a prayer to the heavens that things will go the the way Pete would want in this situation. He’s had some major brain damage and it’s unclear just how bad things are. It’s hard to be excited about life when a friend is lying so close to the other side.
To summarize,
Two-thousand-seven has been such a constant up and down of emotions that it rivals the best of any theme park. While at times circumstances seem difficult, I always remember that experience is what shapes us and makes us who we are. How we deal and sift through those experiences factors in on who we are becoming.
Never stop moving forward and never regret. Life is meant for living.
