Growing up Calvin: The Hot Tub

One thing to know about me… I LOVE hot water, always have! For me, it is the ultimate of relaxation, to just sit back, chill out, and just melt into a large tank of hot water. I seriously think it triggers creativity in my brain as I tend to get some of my best, most creative solutions to things while taking a long soak. A few years back, while doing a video shoot down in Orlando, I remember pacing back and forth in my hotel room, trying to come up with an idea that would connect my whole project together, and nothing was coming to my brain. Finally I gave up and decided to head to the hotel's hot tub for a soak. As soon as I hit that water, it was as if all my creative answers suddenly awakened in my mind and I had new direction.

Even as a kid, a hot tub was the ultimate thing for me… but finding one to get in was quite the challenge. And let me clarify here.. when I say "hot tub" I don't mean a bath tub filled with hot water. Sure, that can be a nice way to relax, but I am talking about full fledged big tubs of hot water, with room to maneuver, with lots of air jets to relax your muscles, sitting outside in the cold, giving you that perfect balance of melting hot in the water, and freezing cold outside for anything not wet. Some friends of ours, a 45 minute drive away, had a hot tub that we'd go to on occasion, and we'd take family trips to Glenwood Springs from time to time. But other than that, I was "hot tub" deprived. I finally decided that when I grew up and became successful, I would know that I had achieved greatness when I had my own deck and my own large hot tub sitting outside of my home. I have yet to get there.. but I can keep dreaming, right?

Glenwood Springs Hot Spring, Colorado, 1985

And so, what does a deprived, creative Calvin-like child do, when he is forced to go without his precious hot tub time that he is oh so craving? Simple.. he looks around, and finds a simple solution.

This takes me back to one spring Saturday morning, somewhere in my middle school years of life. As always.. I was bored, my parents were gone to the temple for the day, and my sister and I were home alone (dangerous combination). Suddenly I decided that what we really needed was a hot tub and I was in the mood for a good soak. Sure, there was the whole issue of us not having one, but that didn't stop me. First I needed a list of what a hot tub was, and what its requirements would be. A. It had to be a large body of water, that I could submerge myself in. B. It had to be hot of course, and C. It had to be outside. Sure, I could have just gone and filled up my tub in the bathroom, but that didn't really count. That wasn't a true hot tub. Then there was the matter of the bubble jets, but coming up with a solution for that seemed secondary to just getting a hot tub built.

So, first I needed a container: A big container, capable of holding large amounts of water. I searched the house and only could find one possible solution: my dad had these huge metal barrels out in the drive way that were used to store the family's trash. Yup.. the trash can. Upon opening up the heavy metal lid, there was a horrid odor that hit my nose, but that was just a detail. I carefully removed all the trash from the can, and then grabbed the dish soap and hose and preceded to carefully scrub the can out. Not an easy job, what with years of trash scum coating the sides and bottom of the can, but with some scrubbing with my mom's dish scrubber, it all seemed to come off, at least enough anyway.

After a few minutes of tough scrubbing (I don't remember it taking too long) I maneuvered the can into a flat, level part of the dirt driveway. Now, it just needed water, and HOT water. And so the long tedious process began. I would go into the house, and put every pot I could find on the stove and fill all of them with hot water, heating the water to a boil. In addition, I had cups of water heating in the microwave, and then I'd also start lugging the hot water from the water tap inside in buckets, out to the my barrel in the drive way.

As you can imagine, this took awhile. The biggest challenge was keeping the water hot when it was sitting in the outside Colorado air. So maybe this wouldn't be a "hot" tub by the time it was done, but a warm tub. But still a good endeavor.

At last, my hot tub was complete. All that was left was to hop in my swimming suit, and hoist myself into my hot tub (My sister declined the invitation… go figure). Sure, it took some work, getting into the barrel, there was no ladder, or anything else for that matter that could be rigged up to help me, but I wasn't going to let this stop me. And eventually, there I was, sitting in my hot tub. Mission Accomplished.  Sure, it stunk to high heaven.. years worth of trash build up could not be totally washed off the sides. And then when heated up with lots of hot water… there was a certain odor to it (I wont mention all the "floaties". But I actually made a hot tub for myself!

Now, what goes through your parent's mind when they have just spent a nice morning at the temple, drive home only to find their son sitting in the drive way, soaking in their large trash can, now filled with steaming water (Let alone all the pots and pans in the kitchen from boiling water, and buckets strewn about). Somehow I don't remember them being too pleased that I had pulled this off, and not nearly as enthusiastic about my creative problem solving as I seemed to be. All I remember is once they drove by me, with their collective looks of shock and horror, they didn't let me stay in there very long (maybe 10 seconds). But to me, I had pulled off a great feat. I decided I wanted a hot tub, had none, but came up with a creative solution that gave me the desired end result, without the cost involved.

Interesting to me side note: I found it incredibly frustrating that my folks waited until AFTER I grew up, moved out and moved across the country to then put in a hot tub…. Grrrrrrrr.

Although I look back on that story, (being able to see things from my parents point of view) I can get just a bit disgusted (I was sitting in trash water.. what they heck was I thinking!!!!!) that skill that I practiced that day, has served me very well over the years as a media producer. How many times have I looked at camera shots on tv, said to myself "Ohhh… I have to do something like that", looked at the technology only to discover that it would costs tens of thousands of dollars to buy the camera rigs, then figured out how to pull it off, with the same results using parts obtained from perusing garage sales and thrift stores and a little engineering. I even did a blog post on this art back in 2008, read it here.

So while the story is admittedly gross (and totally Calvin-like), this one I can at least pull the life lesson from. Now off to find a hot tub.. I could use a good soak!

Growing Up Calvin: The Fireball

It's time for another episode of "Growing Up Calvin", although this time, I am fast forwarding through time, when I was a bit older. Lets just say I was in high school. (If you are wondering what this "growing up" thing is all about, click here to read what this whole series is about, so you'll be up to speed.)

Like always, the story begins with "One day when I was bored..." This particular story takes place at a time of celebration. My friends and I had just finished our final day of school before spring break was to begin. I was very happy to have time away from home as we were getting ready to spend spring break driving over to Utah to spend time with my Grandmother and Aunt in Provo. But there was a small gap of time in between when the bus dropped us off and when my mom would be home to make us start packing to leave the following morning. What to do... what to do... Sadly, the solution came with one of my secret favorite activities: lighting things on fire. I was a huge pyromaniac, legend for what I was crazy enough to do with fire and explosives. Good thing I grew up back in the 80's where none of this stuff was considered a "warning sign". In today's world I would have been arrested long before this little episode.

My friend Alan was visiting and it didn't take us long to come up with an evil plan. It all started out so simply.. We decided we wanted to play with fire... you know, like when you take a little black powder, scoop it into a pile and light it up so you can see that little fireball jump into the air. We wanted to do that... just bigger.

We began by digging a hole in the driveway. Yes, you read the correctly. Back in these days, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, we didn't yet have paved roads or driveways. So it was nice and easy to dig holes, and just make sure they were filled in by the time my Dad got home, so as not to raise questions. It didn't have to be deep, just a few inches down to be safe (safety... ha ha!), and to make room for our... ingredients.

With that done, it was time to raid my Dad's explosives storage, the one he never dreamed would be used this way. First things first, we filled the hole with, not one, but two full cans of gun powder, the more the merrier, right? But that didn't seem like a lot, so suddenly our brains vanished. We added everything we could find that had the potential of burning... Anything that had the "WARNING: FLAMABLE" label on it was fair game from the garage.. paint remover, paint thinner, flares from the back of the car, fireworks from my secret stash in my bedroom, a few bullets from my Dad's ammo case (that one really gets me today.. man, were we stupid). All of this stuff went into the hole, all mixed up like a giant stew. Then to top it all off, we grabbed the spare gas can, and added enough gasoline to the hole to turn this whole concoction into thin mud. Yes, a black powder, gasoline, bullet mud.

Now we had to have a way to ignite this thing and turned to the gasoline as the simple solution. We just drew a line with the gas from the hole, back into the garage, so that we could hide out behind the car. (Yet another thing in retrospect that makes me shake my head... It never dawned on me that the line of gasoline burning INSDIE the garage, next to a vehicle could be an issue.. luckily this wasn't an issue that day)

The plan was now all in place, 20 yards away was our mud pit, and there we were, matches in hand ready to light off our little explosion to revel in the wall of flames. I struck the match, set it to the ground and watched in awe as things were about to get really exciting. The end result? Let me just say...

It was amazing! Wall of fire to the sky!!!! Fireworks erupting, noises everywhere from the fireworks.. flames in different colors thanks to things like the flares.. it was brilliant.

Now to a few other.. issues we had not even considered. First, we had just finished a rather dry winter. Not much snow and things were nice and dry.. key word there, dry. Second, this was not a calm day, it was actually rather gusty outside. So there we were for that split second rejoicing that our plan had worked, our fire ball reaching to the sky. But that excitement turned quickly to panic, as a wind gust picked up that wall of fire, and set it back down just over the driveways edge, into the dry brush of the yard. As you can imagine, it quickly ignited, spreading fire all over the place. It became instantly obvious that if we didn't put this out, the fire would quickly spread.. up the giant trees, to neighboring homes... this could get bad.

I lunged for the fire extinguisher, as Alan ran for the hose. Meanwhile, all my poor sister could hear as she was down in her room packing, was the two of us running around upstairs in a panic. I am sure she was rolling her eyes as she came up the stairs to see what the commotion was about. At this point we had used up the extinguisher, the hose wasn't long enough to reach around the house, and so we were lugging tubs of water in and out of the kitchen at a high rate of speed.

She immediately joined the fire fighting effort, and eventually (thank goodness before we had to call the fire department) we got the fire out, just was it was reaching the tree bases. Upon surveying the scene, a nice portion of my Dad's precious land, was black and torched.. and I knew that I was dead meat, yet very lucky as it could have been so much worse.

Amazing for me, a little ray of light shown down on me that day, or rather... dark. By the time my folks got home that night, it had already gotten dark, therefor no need to confess anything... heck, what they couldn't see couldn't hurt them, right. And we (My Mom, sister and I) left early the next morning for Utah, before it was light. And as my Dad was working long hours that year, he left in the wee hours of the morning for his job, and got home late at night. It wasn't until 6 days later that I saw my mom, talking on the phone to my Dad, get a puzzled look on her face, suddenly look at me, and said "Ummmm, your Father has a question for you..."

Gulp.

Amazingly all I heard was "would you like to explain to me why my yard is all black?" To which I simply replied "No... I'd rather not.. trust me, you probably don't want to know." He agreed he didn't want to know. I think it helped that we were a state away for several more days, so that by the time we got home, he no longer had the urge to kill me.

Now.. to the part of the story where I tend to get the hardest time from people: Most people hear this and say "so what.. you were in 7th, or 8th grade? A Freshman?" Nope.... I was a senior." Yup, I lit my little fireball 2 months prior to graduation.

Sadly, this was not the last of my pyromaniac experiences, they do continue on, but those are stories for different times. But, this is one I especially shake my head on now that I have learned better. We were so stupid.. it could have been so much worse... I guess it's all a part of growing up Calvin.

By the way.. the bullets in our little mixture.... we never found a single trace of them. They vanished, not even the casings to be found. Yikes!

Growing up Calvin: Want a Dollar?

In my last post, I hinted at a new feature coming to my blog. Now, it's time to get started and reveal my intentions. But before I jump right in, let me give you some background as to what it's all about.

One of my kids favorite times seems to be "Dad story time" where I go into one of my crazy stories from my growing up years. Sometimes this happens in the car on long drives, sometimes at the dinner table. But quite often I get the "Come on Dad, tell us another story" pleading and I have to comply, assuming I can think of one on demand. I begin (typically with "One time when I was bored") and the kids grin and get enthralled. Then the story ends (typically with me saying something like "but now that I have told you that, don't EVER repeat that yourselves!!!!") and inevitably my daughter asks "Why don't you write these down?!". I have never had a good answer. And so, this year I am going to start to chronicle my crazy, very "Calvin like" stories from throughout my life. Yes, I still manage to have Calvin Stories as an adult.. some things you just don't outgrow... And I'll put them here, on my blog, for the world to see. These may be embarrassing, or just quite wacky, but at least it will be written down somewhere, for future generations to look back at me and say "Man, that guy was nuts!" Each time I post one of these stories, I'll post it under the feature name of "Growing Up Calvin" so you'll know what you are about to get into.

Now... a bit of a disclaimer here.. these stories are from my life. As such, they are entertaining to me and to my kids. To the rest of the world these stories may be a bit.. tame. I mean, I grew up in a very conservative, religious home. I never drank, or went to wild crazy parties. So none of these stories are about that kind of thing. Instead, like Calvin, I grew up as an awkward kid with a vivid imagination. I did things that made perfect sense to me in my own little world. But looking back on them as an adult, I just hang my head and think "What a goofy kid I was!" So these are my stories, entertaining to me, and possibly bland in comparison to most.

Sooo.. what to admit to first? It's an easy one for me. It's the story that seems to come out of my mother's mouth the most. I swear, you get a bunch of people together in a room and it takes my Mom about 30 seconds before she starts into one of my stories. And she normally starts with this one. And so I'll start my blogging confessions with this one as well. Here we go...

This story begins back when I was in first grade.. a little kid trying to make sense of the new big school and how to interact with others. At this point in my life I was going through a phase where one of my highest priorities in life was not my school work. It was not reading, or math (it never was math!!!). No, my goals were simple: Trying to see what secrets were held, underneath the little girls clothes.

Now this was not an easy goal. Most first grade girls don't just undress on command. Yes, even in the 70's, the girls in my class stayed very clothed. And so my friends and I had to come up with.. shall we say, a more creative approach to accomplish our mission. We tried hiding out in the bathrooms (And whoever in my school thought that co-ed bathrooms was a good idea was nuts... I don't know what they were thinking) but we always got caught. (The principle knew me QUITE well.) We tried all kinds of tricks, and never succeeded.

One day, one of my friends came up with a crazy plan: "We offer them money and a creative line and maybe they'll go for it." He had the perfect line. We'd just go up to the girls and say "Want a dollar? Pull down your pants and holler!". It was catchy. It was clever! But would it work?

And so we started our quest, going up to each of the girl's in our class and asking our question. We got a lot of disgusted looks. Shockingly, no one seemed interested. It was yet another great plan, destined to fail.

Now, a little side note: As much as I strived to make my goal, to get one of my class mates out of their clothes, I think I always considered it a mission impossible.. something that I could try, but in the back of my mind I knew I would never succeed at. It was just something fun to do. That's why I really had no clue what was happening, or how to react when I walked up to one of my classmates one day after reading class and popped off the line. "Want a Dollar? Pull down your pants and holler!" She thought for a second and then replied with the answer I wasn't expecting.. "Ok!" She then proceeded to whip off her pants.. (and underwear) right there in the hall, and start to scream.. just as I had asked for.

Suddenly this whole "little plan" seemed to not be such a good idea, as I can remember the experience as an almost out-of-body experience where I could see myself standing there in shock while a pantless girl stood next to me screaming. Suddenly she was done, and the next part of my little predicament came to light. She wanted her dollar. And I didn't have it, and she was miffed. This is when the teacher came to the scene. Yes, this became another "principal's office" day as I was dragged down and had to explain all of this: our goal, our little line, and the fact that someone actually did it and I couldn't pay up.

And so kids, please never use this line. Trust me.. it's not worth it. It causes lots of trouble at school, your Mom gets disturbing phone calls and it creates some very awkward moments in class the next day (although strangely enough, I don't ever remember the girl mad about her pants.. just mad about not getting her money...)

And THAT is the famous "dollar story", the first of long line of stories to come this year. And until next time.. DON'T EVER DO THAT YOURSELVES!!!