OT: Best spontaneous thing you've ever done?

house at U of M circa 1999.  Can't remember the name of the frat but a bunch of cool laid back guys who just wanted to drink & have a good time.  I wasn't in the frat system but beame friends with a lot of these guys.  Anyway, they had a party and I stopped by; long story short, ending up getting completely hammered, feel asleep on the roof of the frat house with a girls head on my shoulder (nothing more than that happend on the roof that night, unfortunately!!!).

Woke up the next morning about 6 feet from the edge, could've easily fallen off the roof while I was asleep.  Needless to say, I've avoided sleeping on rooftops ever since. 

Three of us went on spontanious trip down to Miami. Was one of the best times I ever had.  Meeting a Canadian boy band and Pauli Shore. Trying to get into a bunch of clubs and bars when two of us were 20.

Not one bad memory from that week, and lots of great stories. I've found that the less planned the vacation or trip, the better overall it will be.  

A few friends and I decided it might be fun to go to the Goose Lake Music Festival. We each grabbed a sleeping bag, rolled up a few clothes in it and headed out hitching rides. Woodstock without the rain and no brown acid. We stayed pretty much stoned, swam naked with girls and hustled a lot for food as most of our money went to drugs and alchohol. They had a rotating stage and the music was nearly non-stop. I only wish I could remember more and was young again.

So this one time....

I'm at the Field Artillery Officer Basic Course (OBC) after graduation and commissioning in April.  Some instructor Captain says, "who wants to go to Airborne school?".  I say 'sure'. Never had any desire to jump out of an airplane and still really didn't after I signed up.

After OBC, I was at the Benning School for Boys for 3 weeks, probably did 7,500 push-ups those 3 weeks, but I did complete the course and exited the aircraft 5 fimes without mishap.

No greater adrenaline rush (for me) than jumping out of an airplane.

This past May in Croatia, went midnight skinny dipping with friends in the freezing Mediterranean! One I'll for sure always remember

Free climbed the Shanghai Tower.

Kind of a cheat because I had to buy the plane ticket, but decided I was going to do the super-cliche thing and tell my wife's parents I was going to ask her to marry me in like 2 days.  So I lied to them that I had an interview in Boston, flew in that morning, told them on the way back from the airport, went out to lunch with her parents and her sister, got their "blessing" (not that it mattered), then flew back on the redeye to Michigan.  Asked her two days later, and we've been married for 7 years now.  

Looking back it was a bit over-the-top, but it was still pretty exhilirating and not something I was really planning on doing until about 15 minutes before I got the ticket.  

Went from sitting in a bar in Brooklyn, to running with the bulls in Pamplona about 96 hours later.

 

Long version.

Went to drinks at the bar with a friend and her boyfriend. She mentioned her job was sending her to Spain for work. I said, funny, the Running with the Bulls starts this week.

A couple drinks later, I'm slurringly telling them that I'm going home now to book my flight, and they PROMISE that if i fly out, we'll go.

Well, they kept their promise. We ran with the bulls and I survived.

I'm depressed. My most spontaneous thing was ALMOST going to California to spend a week with a girl that was 10 years my senior and not a long term option. I'm boring.

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name.

Over the summer one year, I got engaged to my girlfriend.    While we both were bornand raised in Ann Arbor, and spent pretty much every vacation or break together, we were both still in college in different states (Michigan/Arizona), so I should have known better.  

The first week back at school after that summer, I knew it wasn't going to be possible to be that far apart for so long.  So, I told my mom I was dropping out that semester, and within a few days I had moved across the country to be with my fiance.  That was almost 9 years ago, and now we've been married for 6 years and have a kid.  Spontaneous and extremely risky, but it worked out fantastically.

1989- Michigan BBall just won to advance to the Elite 8. Drove down to Lexington with a bunch of friends and scalped tickets. Watched UM shoot the lights out winning big. Stood by the tunnel in my Michigan gear and high fives the entire team as they came off the floor after celebrating the big win. Very fun day.

Up until very recently the company I worked for hired extra staff to work in the summer.  It was mainly college students but it wasn't an internship program.  Summer staff would perform the least technical functions of the area where they worked.  It's how I wound up here with a degree applicable only through some mental gymnastics.

The last summer they ran the program somehow a single dad raising his two sons came through the door.  In the process of him working with me I found out he had never married the kids' mother,  she was boning the mailman (for real!), and she had left him to move in with the mailman.  This guy, while nice, was in his 30's and more suited to live in his parents' basement than be a father figure.

He was a good and diligent worker that we tried to keep but when the program ended in November he was shown the door.  By rule a temp couldn't work more than 6 months in a year.  We kept in touch and all of us tried to get him back.

While Christmas shopping for my kids in December I bought his kids $100 worth of giftcards at various stores in the mall.  I mailed them to his address with no return address.  He called me after they were opened (I was glad to know they weren't lost) but I denied that I had sent them.

He was nearly in tears because the boys would be able to get nonessentials instead of things they needed for Christmas.  It was a lot of money to my family at the time but it's one of the best feelings I've ever had.  I don't think it would have felt as good if they knew it was me.

Got my wife pregnant.

At a bar in Philly on Saturday night around 10pm.  Michigan had won their opening round game in the NCAA tournament the day before.  After about 2 hours of trying, I convinced my girlfriend to drive with me (in her car) from Philly to Atlanta to catch Michigan's second round game against UCLA.  We left Philly around midnight, drove through the night to Atlanta.  got there around 1:30pm.  Scalped upper deck tickets to the two games at the Georgia Dome. First game was Kentucky vs. St. Louis.  Game ends, Kentucky flans are flooding out of the place. We run to the lower level concourse, convince an older UK couple to give us their lower deck ticket stubs.  Seats end up being 7 rows from the floor even with the three point line.  Ashley Judd was two rows directly in front of us.  Awesome seats. Game ended around 7:30, we left and were back in Philly around 6am Monday morning.  I showered and went straight to work. Ride home was rough after the loss, but still a great memory of times when I had no one to worry about except me.

Did a solo-road trip to Arches national park on a whim- had no hotel/motel, drove 5 hours through the night and slept in the car.  I was only there for the day and had to drive 5 hours back to catch a flight, but it was exhilirating.  

Since, I've done 3 solo trips to National Parks.  A lot of people seem averse to travelling solo, but you get to do what you want, when you want, where you want and you can meet some friends along the way.

Last minute road trip to Colorado with friends to climb some mountains.  While out there we found out the Tigers (119 loss season) were playing @ the Rockies.  We decided to go to the game after hiking.  

For some reason I had my ball glove with me, so I brought it to the game.  My friends were making fun of me for bringing my glove to a game, saying only little kids do that.  Needless to say, top of the first inning we are sitting in the first row of the upper deck at Coors and Bobby Higginson hits a HR  out to me and I catch it on the fly.  To this day my friends are still in awe of that moment.

To top the trip off, on the way back we stopped in Omaha to catch game 2 of the College World Series between Stanford and Rice.  It was a wild week and looking back at it now it was one of the best spontaneous things I ever did.

While in line at a store once near Christmas, a woman was with her son, placing toys on the belt to be rung up, then looking at her money, adding the next toy, until she hit what she could afford. My wife and I handed her the cash in our wallet outside of the store. I don't recall the amount, it was just heartbreaking to watch someone so close to broke spending their last of their money on their children's Christmas.

Was in Providence RI for work in the spring, had nothing going on, walked around town, fraternized in the quad at Brown a couple times, etc. Coworker and I noticed it was St Patricks Day  the next day so we hopped a train and went to Boston, hit up the liquor stores whe they opened, emptied our huge bottles into the largest 7-11 cups we could buy, and joined the party. Decided to fake an accent for some reason, but it got quite a few drinks bought for me and a few kisses from random girls. Was a good day 

Thirty years ago in grad school, I got into a huge argument with this girl I had known and dated less than a month.  We had just come back from a party and were both drunk.  In my drunken state, I decided I had two options:  tell her to F off, I never wanted to see her again, or  ask her to marry me.  I chose the latter.  We're still married.  I have no idea today what the fight was about but she seems to remember every detail.

Still alive.  Allegedly.