Thursday, September 15, 1994

Junior Year

I am a junior already? Wow! Amazing! As I start my junior year, things are getting more interesting on the career. I am joinging an after school program this year, Careers In Aviation, to hopefully excel my pilot requirements for entry into a flight school. I am also taking less classes this year, since I loaded up on class in my first two years of high school. Not long before graduation. Its great! Smoky Hill class of 1996, here I come!

Thursday, September 08, 1994

First Band

Today I hooked up with Adam Calhoun, in high school math, to start a band. This is my first band, and we will see just how far it takes me. He has a name already, called Jonestown Punch, kinda creepy if you know your history. We are a grunge band, kinda like Nirvana, Green Day, etc. So anyway, we will be practicing in my mothers basement. Should be great. I am nervous though, this is my first band!! The audition/jam went well though this afternoon, and I am thrilled to finally persue my musical interests. There is also another band that wants me to jam with them, called The Bloated Dogs out of Aurora, CO. They are very heavily influenced by the punk scene of the 80's.

Tuesday, April 05, 1994

Kurt Cobain

I have been so heavily influenced by this man in my music, that it came as a real shock to hear he is gone. Amazing how fragile life is. Although I didnt know him personally, I will miss his influence on the music community. Nirvana will go down in history as one of the biggest bands of the last 30 years. I can see it. But in any case, this is a sad day for me personally. Just shocking. Damn Kurt, I wish your life was not full of so much pain - I can relate. RIP.

Thursday, February 10, 1994

Car Accident

On February 4th, I was involved in a car accident. I lost most of my front teeth, hit my head on a steel dash board (later found out this caused a brain injury), and died for a few minutes. Let me explain....

We bought this old 1963 VW bug from a crook (later we found out he was a crook). We also bought a dog from him, Keystone. I drove the VW all over town for a few days, it was neat. My mother decided to take it out on the highway, to see how it performs, to make sure it was safe. Well, thats when all hell broke loose. We were doing about 70, keeping up with traffic, when the damn thing started fishtailing all over the highway. Cars backed off, and let us fishtail, at about 70MPH. My mother screamed out "we are going to hit, I have no brakes". The tie rod broke, so she had no steering, the brakes failed, so she had no brakes. We hit a concrete median at around 70MPH, and stopped immediately. I remember feeling no pain. Weightless. Paramedic's were there in seconds it seemed. I ran from one of them, across I-70, up a bank, and back, in the blink of an eye without getting hit by any cars. Again, weightless and free feeling. The next thing I remember was being in front of the ambulance, hearing the sirens. I remember asking the man "are we okay? Is my mother okay? Where are we going? What hospital?" I found it bizarre that he never answered my questions, so I rested my head on the window. We arrived at the hospital, and thats the last I remember, until I woke up from a damn near coma. My mother was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, staring at me until I woke up.

Later that evening, I was telling my mother how exciting it was to ride in front of the ambulance, watching how fast we were going. She looked at me in amazement, and said something I will never forget "Joshua, you were in back with me, the doctors were struggling to get you conscious and everything. I was fine, you were the one that had the most head damage." I told her I was up front, and she said "you were in back, with 2 paramedics trying to save you."

We won the lawsuit, and things are fine today. I have some side effects of things, like a slow reaction to stimulation, headaches, eye twitches, among other things that make the world seem like it is playing in slow motion. I have a brain injury, to the left front. Docs said I will probably always be 16 years old, God I hope not!!