Thursday, September 18, 2008

Kid Invents New Solar Cell

This kid William Yuan, has invented an all-new solar cell. Something PhD's and eggheads are no doubt working on.

Read the article here.


What I was doing at 12:

-raiding Peabo's Mom's cabinet for Dr. Pepper and Teddy Grahams
-Reading Batman and X-Men
-Sitting second chair tuba (in a section of 2)
-worrying about if Sophia Chiang "liked" me
-Growing twice as fast as the other kids (6'3" by 8th grade, suckahs!)
-Working on my free throws
-watching "Aliens" for, literally, the 23rd time
-getting lectured by The Admiral about my most recent infraction
-getting a black eye at the bus stop from Steanso laying me out with a single punch
-Social Studies homework
-Getting a "C" in Talented and Gifted math and getting booted down to plain 'ol "honors" math because of a ScanTron mishap

I was not:
-revolutionizing energy collection

20 comments:

J.S. said...

The claim that you were doing your social studies homework is a blatant lie.

The League said...

No, I liked social studies. It was mostly coloring in maps.

Anonymous said...

What did you do to make Steanso punch you?

J.S. said...

Asked me questions about why I kept punching him.

The League said...

I honestly have no recollection. I recall being pretty hysterical and yelling at Jason, and the next thing I knew, I was laying on my back on the street. I eventually had to tell my folks where the black eye came from, but I made it pretty clear it was all water under the bridge. But, no, I have no idea what I was mad about.

Michael Corley said...

No doubt, in a butterfly effect manner, that punch led to this child inventing cheap, clean fuel.

J.S. said...

Wait. I don't remember actually giving you a real black eye (well, there was the one time with the lacrosse stick, but that was more or less an accident), and somehow I doubt that's the sort of thing Mom and Dad would have let slide with a "water under the bridge" explanation. I was actually pretty careful about laying hands on the League as a kid, cause he tended to bruise more easily than ripe fruit, even when grabbed or poked (as opposed to punched), and then I used to catch hell when the parents saw a mark (plus, he was pretty quick to scream for help- quickly and loudly). Also, before these little anecdotes from our youth spin to wildly out of control, keep in mind that the League was playing football (which I never did) and already bench pressed more than I did by the time he was in the 6th or 7th grade.

Anonymous said...

Nice spin there, Steanso.

J.S. said...

Try to suck up some more, Randy.

The League said...

No, I had a black eye. And I do remember the conversation with mom and dad because they were so cool about it when I insisted it was okay. I am sure that's why I remember the black eye, but not what prompted the incident.

For those of you who don't know, I often did yell for help, because I never, ever won a fight. The worst were when Mom and Dad weren't home and I couldn't escape. Which led to sneak strangulation attacks, etc... in retaliation.

And the Lacrosse stick incident? That sucked.

That was "This is poke check!" right in the face.

Believe it or not, Jason, Shivan was responsible for my third black eye. For some reason when we were playing B-ball, he shoved a finger into my eye socket.

J.S. said...

So I gave you a black eye by punching you in the face, but neither of us remember the incident that caused it? Maybe Sophia Chiang did it. Or that kid that you used to call Froggy and then knock off his bike. I can't remember his real name... maybe Charlie?

Anonymous said...

why would I suck up to the league?

Anonymous said...

Awesome. THe long list of distinguished League tormentors is as follows:

Jason
Shivan
A stick

How did I not make it onto this list ? Oh yeah, in 8th grade I had all the muscle girth of a spaghetti strand. I have since upgraded to Fettucini. Beware. Peabo

The League said...

I think you have to give Shivan props, because the guy felt really bad about the pointy-ness of his fingers and the squishiness of my eyeball.

I am sure we got into some scrapes, Peabo, but I really don't remember why. Probably one of us was hording Teddy Grahams or something...

To Peabo's credit, he grew at a sudden and freakish rate about a week after I moved to Houston. I must have been using up whatever energy had been on our street that allowed kids to grow.

The League said...

Oh, and the Froggy kid was named Charlie. And I never pushed him off his bike. He was the kid who came over with the kid from the next street over, and asked if we wanted to "rumble". Which caused me to laugh, which, apparently, made him angry, so he started swinging.

I got in a couple lucky swings and got him in the face, so he started crying and ran off. I freaked out because I thought I was going to get in trouble for fighting, but found out that day (and this is why I remember) Dad said it was okay if we fought if someone else started it.

The End.

J.S. said...

I saw you push him off his bike and distinctly remember it. I also saw you whipping up on some kid in front of a set of lockers not too far from the pinciples office at Canyon Vista (I'm not sure, but I think Peabo mighta been there for that). You have a strongly revisionist history of your own childhood.

The Epilogue

The League said...

I actually know what you're talking about with Charlie now 9I haven;t thought about this in 20 years). It was AFTER the infamous "rumble", and he was riding around telling me he had kicked my ass, and I decided to demonstrate he had not kicked my ass.

As per just beating up some kid by the lockers... Oh, yeah... me and the Junior Birdmen were a real bunch of toughs. Kids were terrified of me, Matt, Dave, Chandler and Henry Yu.

It's possible I was breaking up a fight that Peabo was involved with, because that happened a lot. But I've been in two or three fights (not with you or some goofy friend misunderstanding) in my life. I assure you, we were not trolling the hallways of Canyon Vista picking on kids and taking their lunch money.

I was so much bigger than other kids, I do remember stepping in and ending fights between friends of mine (even when Peabo started it). Often, Criag Wheeler or Brian James were invovled, for some reason. So, technically, yes, me pinning someone against the lockers until they cooled down was a "fight", but I never saw it that way.

And, yeah, when some shrimpy kid would decide he was going to show everyone he was super tough by getting in a fight with me, I'd pin them, too, until they cooled off. That happened occasionally. But no out-and-out fights.

All that said, who knows...? Maybe I've just erased the Ryan Steans: Bully aspect out of memory. But I certainly was never the one to start anything.

J.S. said...

I'm not saying you were a bully, e but those incidents of Peabo shooting off his mouth while the rest of the gang snickered, and then The League stepping in when someone decided to take exception to Peabo's frivolity.

J.S. said...

Anyway, the League was not a bully. Neither, however, was he a shrinking violet. And your class year was always known, far and wide, as one of the worst classes to go through Canyon Vista Middle School and Westwood High. Bunch of punks, I tell ya.

Anonymous said...

Whoa, I step away from the League for a few days and next thing I know I am being remembered as some kind of gang leader ? I was only in one fight that I can remember that actually occurred on the campus of CVMS and that was with a girl. I was being obnoxious and probably making fun of her, and she tried to kick me in the Jimmy. I grabbed her and pushed her (might of got a little hair, I'm fuzzy on that part) to avoid further damage to the boys.

I got in one other fight at Longhorn Basketball camp, when somebody made a mom joke at this kid (and for the first time in my life probably it wasn't actually me making the joke) but this big gangly dude thought it was me, took exception to it and came charging at innocent ol' me. And what I believe to be the first punch I ever threw in my life, I sort of swung as a defensive reaction, landed the punch square on the dude's eye, he tackled me, and it was broken up, much to the chagrin of Paul Celik.

Honestly, that's the only fights I can remember being an active part in.

The only real time the League and I tangled was also at Longhorn Basketball camp (apparently a breeding ground of violence) and the league was laying down on his bed and took exception that I kept jumping on the end of it, he asked me to stop or he would pound me or something, I did it one more time and so he got up and picked me up by my neck like some kind of freakish wookie and slammed me against the wall. He called my bluff and ended the whole thing quite abruptly. No fist-a-cuffs or anything (what little brains I had did recognize the futility in fighting a man-child twice my size).

But I honestly can't remember the League of stepping in to break up a fight I started. The League was actually pretty much a pacifist as I recall. He more like Dr. David Banner, who knew that if you made him angry was capable of much devastation so went to great lengths to unleash the Krackin.

Peabo "Fists of Fury" Peek