Shinney's profile

Give me a hill, snow and some gravity and I'll give you a story that uses the phrase, “It was about this time that I started screaming like a girl.” Like the time I was in grade school when we made The Jump. Of the approximately 400 jumps I've gone over on my bike/snowboard/rollerskates/baby stroller, this remains the only one that can be referred to as “The Jump” with no sense of confusion. It wasn't just me and my friends who referred to this particular construct w...

A man and his young son stood on the bank of a slow moving river silhouetted by the setting sun dancing on the water. They both waited in silence, the boy fighting back tears, as they watched a man row across the water. The father, a farmer by the name of Zhao Huding, also felt the same sadness as his child, but a lifetime of emotional control helped him hide his true feelings. With each stroke of the boatman's paddles, Huding reminded himself why he was doing this. He knew this was the righ...

In Jack's defense, it was really hot that day. Heat will make people do things they'd rather not. A health nut will buy ice cream. A serious business man will frolic in the sprinklers in his best suit. A middle aged woman will think that wearing a bikini is OK, even though she's let her body go in recent years. Throughout human history, heat has lead to all kinds of horrible things, none any worse than what my best friend for life, Jack Pattywack, did that hot summer afternoon. It was mid-Aug...