Rich Jandt Adventure #7

I was camping this weekend and had an adventure.

All day Tuesday and all day Wednesday I heard a noise coming from somewhere near my trailer. I don't know what the noise was, but it sounded kinda like a loud growling grumbling noise. Short, reverberating, low in tone. For two days I hear this thing and I finally had enough of it.

It's Wednesday about dusk, 9pm or so. I grab a handheld LED light, put my German Shepard on his working leash, and strap on my Walther p22. The sound was emanating from about a half mile away from where I was parked. (In the Decshutes national forest). The terrain around this part of the woods is spider-webbed with dirt bike trails, yet there are thick brambles and bushes about eye level so you can't see more than 5 feet in front of yourself.

I start working my way to the sounds, criss crossing several trails and peering around bushes before I step into the clearings behind them. I am holding the leash in one hand, and the light in the other. As I near the sound I become a little spooked. I am not sure if it is the proximity to the sound, or My own feelings that set my dog off, but I could tell he did not want to continue. He was circling me, yipping and whining.

I am not good at judging distances by sound, but I was a lot closer than I started, and had gone about half a mile. My dog finally sat down and refused to continue, so i had not choice but to return to my trailer.

Upon entering the clearing where my trailer was parked, I remembered a second forestry road that flanked the sounds position. I turned down to the other road noticing that it was full on dark now. The sounds had never stopped, and had in fact increased in number. As I walked down this second road I relied more and more on the handheld LED than before.

When I came to a spot that seemed right in front of the sound, We started to walk onto the woods. After crossing a few of the trails my dog started his yipping again, and the noise was at it's pinnacle. I could feel it reverberating in my chest.

To be honest with you, I lost my nerve at this point. I was turning around and the light in my hand shone directly at the bush in front of me and it came alive. It was shaking, and I thought something was coming out of it.

I quickly ran back to the road, the sounds of something huge crashing through the bushes following me. When I reached the road I put the light into my pocket, and drew my pistol. With a loud "ck-chink" I loaded a round into the chamber and I spun to meet the charging animal.

Nothing emerged from the bush, but I could hear it breathing and making the same low sounds. I was at least one half mile from my trailer, and it was around a corner, so I couldn't take a short cut. I moved very quickly from my position on the side of the road into the middle of it. And moved down the road. My dog suddenly found his speed and dragged me faster than I had moved in a while. Hearing crashes behind me, I looked to see the front line of bushes crashing and moving as something huge was pushing into them from the back, following me back to the trailer.

Luckily I had left the door open, and we jumped into it and I slammed the door shut, setting the lock instantly. I looked out the window and saw the wave of movement behind the bushes stop directly across from me.

Yeah, real good night sleep last night.

Rich Jandt Adventure #6

One summer I was working as an intern at a Church. But I also worked full time at a video arcade. One of our co-workers was a volunteer firefighter, and asked Tim and I if we wanted to go to an indian reservation to purchase illegal fireworks. Asking me if I want something to cause trouble is like asking an alcoholic if he (or she) wants a drink.

So we get up early one morning and pile into his car, and are joined by his son. I had met his son at the arcade, where he routinely won thousands of tickets and got some sweet prizes. The son started to play some Eminem, which I hadn’t really heard before. We all kind of talked about it, and I started to drop some hints about how lame it was. He didn’t get the hint.

After at least a 45 minute drive to the reservation, we finally arrived. My wallet was full of cash, and my mind of intention. We walked around and bought a sweet load of exploding flying and fire causing toys. On the way back home we listened again to the Eminem album, which really isn’t any better the second time in a row.

I wish the story had ended there, but since I was involved…

A few days later Tim and I were sitting on our roof. It was a beautiful day, with a fresh breeze and a town full of tourists. For some reason I thought it would be a great idea to light firecrackers and throw them at people on the street.

Once again, I thought it would be a great idea to light firecrackers and throw them at people on the street. I’m not sure exactly what is wrong with me, but it seems to happen a lot.

After a while one of our co-workers climbs the side of our building and is freaking out. Turns out the cops are waiting for us at the bottom of the building wondering why we decided to throw lit firecrackers at people on the street. I really didn’t have an answer for him.

To make matters worse, a few days after that someone else (I swear I wasn’t involved) made an explosive device and detonated it right next to the arcade where I happened to be working. On our way to church a few days later, we saw a kid detonate another one in a garbage can. Knowing we would be the prime suspects, Tim and I promptly went to the police station to tell them what we saw.

Needless to say, I don’t think they believed us.

Rich Jandt Adventure #5

Here is another older adventure of Rich Jandt. As far as I can remember, this actually happened.

Every third Thursday, we had Pork N Beans night. We would gather together, go to Winco foods, buy all of their Pork N Beans, have a super dance party, and then distribute all of the beans plus other crap we happened to have laying around.

It was the last Pork N Beans night before my best friend Tim graduated, and I knew that we had to go above and beyond. Luckily the summer before I had acquired a large assortment of fireworks. (A forth coming Rich Jandt adventure)

It started out like any other Pork N Beans night, until we came to the distribution portion of the night. Since so many people were graduating, we had a huge pile of stuff to pass out. After the Distribution the room we were celebrating in was almost completely empty. During the dance portion, a whole string of blackcats were thrown into the room scaring us and melting the carpet. At this point we all went wild. I busted out my stash of fireworks that included whistling petes, and mega smoke bombs.

We all decided to go plant a whistling firework at Doc's house. While it would have been prudent to send one or two operative over we went as a herd. The movement of 20 or so people drew the atention of the security guard who stood in the parking lot watching our actions. After planting the device we all started to run. Possibly from excitement, passably from terror Tim tripped in the parking lot and fell.

At first I considered running, for I am known as being very fast even for a fat guy. It was especially attractive because the device had gone off, and the security guard had started to move towards us. I instead decided to not leave a man behind and helped Tim back up. Then we ran like Mo's. Right past the security guard, all the way back to the dorms.

As we were recovering we got an idea. We happened to know a couple ladies who were sleeping in the field, and would love a late night visit from a smoke bomb.

We rolled over there as quite as ninjas. They did not hear us until we were opening the tent, and throwing the lit mega smoke into the tent. It was glorious, except for the fact that the tent started to melt, and all the ladies did was come outside the tent.

We re-retreated and came up with the best idea of our lives. Right across the courtyard from our staging ground was Doctor Lynn, up late working on his graduation speech we was giving the next day. We stealthy placed a whistler on the ledge outside his window and ran. Not the way we needed to, but around the corner and then we circled back. A few minutes later Dr. Lynn calmly walked into the dorm lobby and asked if we had seen the people who had put a whistling firework on his window. It was the best "what whistling firework" routine I have ever witnessed.

Rich Jandt Adventure #4

I had another run in with the girl from a week ago. You know the one who wanted adult relations with me, but I didn’t have the lobes for it.

She ran up to me in another bar, and apologized for losing me the other week. (She didn’t realize I had actually ran away) To my terror she grabbed my phone and programmed my phone for her number and then called her phone so she would have mine.

I thought she was too wasted the last time to remember me, but she actually seemed to like me. I was upfront with her this time though, and said that maybe we could see each other socially but the upfront sex thing wouldn’t work. We agreed that I would call her this week.

Also I am getting ready to cut my hair off. For those of you who do not know, I have hair to the middle of my shoulders, which I am donating to charity. I bought my last bottle of conditioner so I went big and got some really nice stuff. I was surprised to see that my full mane was thick and full of body. I even had some wavy curls going when it dried off.

Rich Jandt Adventure #2

What an exciting week I just had.

I had to use a week of vacation time or I was going to loose it. It’s tough actually finding 3 weeks a year to leave work and get paid while doing it, but this week was different.

On Tuesday I was called to the office and told I had received a customer complaint. In 4 years this was my first so I was surprised to hear that I was receiving my final written warning for it. Slightly bummed I knew I would be ok as long as I kept my head down, and worked hard.

I got home and my roommate told me that he was moving to Iowa in a week and I had a month to move out. Bummer also because I really like Pete, and I really hate moving.

I decided that I would focus on enjoying my time off, because worrying will not help anything. Besides, I have been though worse. I spent the next day eating tacos, and drinking beer, and the next day eating enchiladas and watching sci-fi movies. Friday I took a class on becoming a Certified Pool Operator. (Swimming pools, not the game of Billiards) On Saturday I played 18 holes of golf, and played wii all night. Sunday I went with a friend to Portland to work on his house. Sorry guys, I got a new phone and I don’t have any of your numbers, also I was there for less that 30 hours and had to do a lot of work. I get back home around 3am on Tuesday, thinking I would relax for the rest of my vacation.

However my roommate tells me that instead of an entire month, I had to be out of the house by Saturday, 4 days away. I have been very good about saving money, and have a couple thousand saved up for an emergency. Just like this one. I spend the next two days being told that I would not be rented to because I have an attack trained German Sheppard.

On Wednesday night I finally start to freak out about becoming homeless. I go back to work and order a beer, tell one of my great co-workers my plight, and she says, “I have a space for rent, it’s in my garage” I go look at it this morning and what she meant to say is that it was a completely finished room, wired with electricity and heat in the garage, with a huge beautiful fenced backyard, and she’s totally down with Baas. So I am moving in tonight.

Also One of my co-workers put in her notice and worked half of it, leaving a huge void to fill at work which pretty much shored up my position, taking me off the “next to go” list. Nothing better than being in trouble and someone else making a huge mistake, totally making everyone forget about you.

God's awesome providence and His love for us is amazing. Some of you might remember that this kind of thing has happened to me before, and just like last time I was taken care of.

Rich Jandt adventure 1

As promised, a current Rich Jandt Adventure.

Recently I was enjoying a beer after work. Working at a bar usually has it’s benefits, in this case, quick service even during busy times. I was enjoying this benefit when an attractive young lady asked if I worked at Mcmenamins. I said yes, and she asked if I could order her a drink, because she was tired of waiting. I happily obliged. Over the course of the night we flirted back and forth and we had a great time.
What was weird was I wasn’t buying her drinks, and she was still being nice, and flirting with me. And she was hot. Of course we stayed till closing, which was 1 AM, when she leaned over and whispered in my ear “this may seem a little forward, but I want you to take me home to “F-word”.” Now she didn’t use my censored wordage, she used the real f-bomb.
Being a somewhat shy (when it comes to male/female relations) I did a serious double take. My mind almost exploded. Did she really say...? Yeah she did. Does that mean she wants too…? Yes it does. Not really knowing how to respond, I said “yes, that sounds great”. She said “ok, I just need to use the bathroom, then we can go”. In true Rich Jandt fashion, the second she left the bar I ran to the bar top, paid my tab, and literally ran home. I only live 5 blocks away, and I ran the entire time.
I really have no idea how to handle that situation. I can think of at least 5 times when I was overwhelmed with adult situations and I just ran away. I am laughing so hard right now thinking about it, because it happened last night. My friends at the bar thought it was hilarious, and called my roommate, who was waiting for me in the living room. First thing out of his mouth was “You ran away?” Yes I did.