Legos, Possums, and Robots, Oh My! (Reflection #6)

Back when I was young, I loved to play with Legos. I would lock myself in my room for hours and build pretty much anything I could think of. My mom would have to check up on me some times to make sure I was still in the house, because I would be so quiet and in my own little world. I can remember back to one day, back when I was going to my grandma’s house every day so she could babysit me, and the power went out due to this big rain storm that was going through Illinois. I remember thinking to myself, what am I going to do! With no power, I couldn’t watch my cartoons I have watched every single day for years! It was practically the end of the world for me at that point. But then, my grandma told me that my dad and my uncles used to play with Legos and that there had to be a box full of them somewhere. We went into her really creepy basement, and we found the Mecca of Legos. I could not believe my eyes! There were boxes and boxes of Legos in her basement, with all these new types of blocks and pieces I have never seen. So, what did my grandma and I do for the next 8 hours? You guessed it, we build an entire town out of those Legos, and yes, we did make a legitimate Krispy Kreme donuts shop out of Legos with a working conveyor belt. My papa, what I called my grandpa, came home from work and saw what we have done. He laughed and told us that we were clearly better Lego builders than my dad and his brothers! So, I guess I would say I was a pretty creative kid.

                Now, working at Menards over the summer, I fell into some really odd situations where I had to problem solve and think outside the box. But if I were to pull out a specific time when I had to be creative, it would be the one time I had to run around the garden center to catch a possum that was terrorizing our guests. I tried everything, from shooting water at it, running at it with a broom, but nothing would get it to run out of the garden center. So I devised a plan, or more so a trap. I told one of our guys to find one of the carts we throw the cardboard boxes in to get recycled and to put it in one of the isles. Well, I chased the crazy thing around for a while and eventually got him into the isle. I cornered him into the cart and we hauled out of there with a not so happy possum hissing and trying to swipe at my hands. I took the cart out back to the lumberyard and dumped him in the forest. It was an intense adrenaline rush for me because I was really trying to hurry up and get rid of this thing so I could go home! I probably should have mentioned we were trying to catch this thing all night when we were closing up the store, but the thing was more “creative” than us. All and all, that thing never came back.

                I do not know about you, but who would be able to build a robot suit out of random spare missile and weapons parts with almost no available resources. And do not forget, he was doing this while he was imprisoned. Yes, I am indeed talking about the infamous Tony Stark. The whole beginning of Iron Man is Stark being creative and building a way to break out of being imprisoned by the terrorist. It got him out of there, and it was what started Iron Man.

Reflection 5: The Great Phil Buckwinkler

I really do not let people get close to me much these days for various reasons. Only a few, besides my family, really get to that “level.” My girlfriend is one, but also my best friend and little brother in my fraternity Phil Buckwinkler are the few lucky people I consider my close friends. Honestly, I am really the lucky one to have them. I usually tell people how important they are every once in a while, but the true people that deserve it are Phil and Erin. They do truly mean a lot to me and they are always the two people I turn to when I need help or need advice. Since Erin is my girlfriend and is off limits, I obviously picked Phil.

To everyone who does not know Phil, he Is honestly the most caring person I have met at my age. He is an only child, but he does not act like a spoiled brat. He will always go out of his way to do things for his close friends. He can be stubborn at times, much like me, but he does a lot for people and I feel like they truly do not really notice it. He deserves a huge thank you and shout out, so this is one for him. Phil came into my life just last year during my second pledge class for Phi Delt as our New Member Educator. Right off the bat, I knew this kid was going to be an amazing asset to Phi Delt. But, I saw it deeper than that. I got to know Phil more and more each day, and I started to realize that we must be long lost brothers, separated at birth. I had finally met someone who was exactly like me, thought like me, acted like me; it was a miracle. I am the eldest in my family of 5, and I have two younger sisters. I never got the experience of what it is like to have a little brother, even after I joined a fraternity where I gained forty plus brothers. Phil was that little brother I was looking for. I took him under my arms as my little in the fraternity and we have been best friends ever since. I would do anything for Phil, as he would for me. Being an only child, I feel like I get to be that big brother that can boss him around, mess with him, but in the end still care for him through thick and thin.

I could not be more proud of Phil. Becoming the President of anything requires motivation and commitment to the cause. Having a VP who is your little brother, your right hand man, really helps ease the stress and anxiety of all the responsibilities that come with being a leader. I am honored to have such a supportive little brother and I will never feel like I am alone when I deal with problems that may occur in my term of office or down the road of life. Phillip Buckwinkler is my best friend, my little brother, and my right hand guy. He will forever be important to me, and I hope he knows that. 

Reflection 4

Of course, we know that my favorite super hero is Batman. So you would think that I would love to put myself in Gotham and push Robin away so I could fight crime alongside the “Dark Knight.” Actually, I would not want to even touch the Batman storyline because it means so much to me. Instead, I would rather put myself into the world of X-Men. Batman and X-Men constantly compete between my favorite childhood cartoons/comics. But the idea of being a part of the X-Men sounds so appealing to me. I would put myself amongst the X-Men to help stress and unite any disunion between the group. As we should know, the story of the X-Men revolves around the idea of the mutants being different. Mutants are being mistreated and are not given the same rights or respect humans receive. For the X-Men, they are trying to show the world that being different is good and they want to use their abilities to help keep the world safe from evil. However, some humans don’t see that and still treat them like dirt. Wolverine sometimes lets the angry get to him when the humans continue to mistreat them even though they are sacrificing so much to protect the world. I would put myself amongst the X-Men to try and deviate the angry into good. In several of the conflicts, we have seen the some X-Men go rogue and go against the morals of the group. I would try to keep those potential loose ends from lashing out. I find myself doing that now in real life, so why not do it in one of my favorite comics! I would probably have the same powers as Nightcrawler combined with Colossus’ metal skin. Who wouldn’t want to poof out and into places like that!

Now looking back at a time when I experienced nostalgia would be the time when my sister asked me if I have ever heard of Pokémon. My sister just turned eleven a few days ago, but she asked me this when she was about eight. My initial reaction was utter shock because she was talking to one of the many kids who experienced the first 150 Pokémon. I grew up on playing Pokémon games and collection cards! I had a birthday revolved around everything Pokémon! But when she asked me, I thought back to those times when I would bring my Gameboy and the battle cable to my sitter’s house and everyone would battle their Pokémon together. We traded, helped each other catch the one Pokémon they wanted; we did all of it. Those were the times of my life, where I didn’t have to worry about if my Fraternity was going to pay the bills on time or how much my next paycheck would be. All I had to do was play video games, eat, and sleep! Although the times were more relaxing then, I did not have the freedom I have today so I really cannot complain.