Middle School Students Grades 5-8 Registration Check List: Fill & Download for Free

Well I don’t think much of anything is interesting about me, but here goes.My name is LizzyI am an only childI am fifteen years old in less than two weeks.I was born in ColoradoI like puns way too muchI play saxophoneI plan to go to college after high schoolI know how to start a campfireI love hiking and camping and backpackingI’ve lived in at least ten houses I can rememberI’ve gone to at least five schools that I can rememeberI am in the process of trying to write several novelsAbout ten months ago I started karate and I have no intention of stoppingI have family in AustraliaI’ve been to AustraliaI’ve been to Las VegasI’ve been to DisneylandI punched a girl in fifth grade. We made a card for the other class and she took all the credit, and the teacher gave her all the credit. So I punched her.During fifth grade at recess time I was known for sitting by myself in this little alcove and reading. There’s a picture of me reading in the yearbook.I’m bi. Or sometimes I think I might be technically pan. But I like girls more, so I don’t know. All I know is that people are pretty.I have a Texas Food Handlers card which allows me to sale custom order cakes in my local community. I bake a lot of birthday cakes.I’m a decent cake baker and decorator.I’ve been the Grand Canyon twiceI do not own a smart phoneThis list is going to take way to long to complete but I’m committed and stubbornI was born in the middle of a storm. I am Lizzy Stormborn, first of her name.I like pineapple on pizza.Even more than that I like the sweet canned mandarin oranges on pizza.I like vegtablesThe biggest city I’ve lived in has a population of less than 85,000 and the towns I have lived most of my life in have had populations closer to 1,000I have sworn an oath that unless I am literally starving to death I will never eat at another McDonald's.I really like vegtablesParticularly I really like lettuceI’m an Atheopagan jediMy favorite color is blueMy second favorite color is purpleMy favorite animals are dragons. Fight me.I’m a bit of a geekI’m also a bit of a nerdI like readingI like fantasy and sci fiNever dated anyoneI’m still very close with my friends from middle school, even though I moved hundreds of miles away.I’m a girl.I like mountains.I like nature.I cannot remember living in a house with two married parentsI cannot remember the names of all my parents boyfriends and girlfriends they’ve had over the years, but I’m okay with that.I like video games.I like a variety of music genres, just not country.I decorate my room enthusiastically. I like it to be a reflection of who I am. I spend a lot of time here, so I filled it with things that make me happy.I am in my room right nowI tend to dress simplyI don’t wear makeup and never learned how, nor do I really have a desire to do soI’ve had pretty much perfect attendance since fourth grade.I have a condition called Hemihypertrophy, in which one side of my body is larger than the other to a great extent. It doesn’t really affect my life that much but I do have to wear a lifter in my shoe to help correct the difference when I walk.Because of my Hemihypertrophy, I have had more x-rays and ultrasounds than I can remember. Fun times.I’m afraid of needles.I sculpt wire trees as a hobby sometimesI still kept some stuffed animals from when I was younger becuase they have a connection to my motherI play music at my local farmer’s marketI am the first person at my local senior center to not get a single compliant calling bingo outI volunteer at the movie theater and senior centerI’m liberalI practice daily meditationsI practice karate dailyI have short hairI have blue eyes, my mother eyesI was conceived in a yurt. You didn’t need to know that…I get afraid, a lot.And then some days I’m the most annoying optimistic person on the planet.I do not have siblings, but I have friends who are family to me. So I would say proudly I have at least three brothers and four sisters.I don’t believe love is limited to romantic love. I believe in the love of friendship and family.I have a really weird sense of humor and sometimes I find the stupidest things hilarious and just. Can’t. Stop. Laughing.And sometimes I feel like the world is crashing and burning around me and I break down in tears.But I still get up every morning.And most of those mornings I remember to brush my teeth and eat something.I will finish this listMy mom and I read the entire harry potter series out loud starting when I was like 7. Honestly I could pretty much read them on my own but I loved reading them with her. She did the best Hagrid voice.My mom and her roommate read the the Tiffany Aching books to me at the same age. They are still some of my favorite books.I keep a notebook with me to write down writing ideas.I can cook but I’m a much better baker. I’ve made sauces that are chewy and I’ve burnt pasta before, but what turns out int he end after a few over boils is more or less edible and usually tastes pretty good.I’ve also done archery in the past, and have gone rabbit hunting with a bow and arrow before.My family would get together with another family and butcher hogs and chickens and stuff like thatI first rode a horse bareback when I was like 4 years oldI’ve been to Las Vegas. When I was like nine. For a choir trip. That was…an interesting trip.My padawan braid is like ten inches long nowI like to ramble on about some weird thoughts my brain has sometimesThats why I like writing, I get to rambleIf you need to talk to someone and for whatever reason you want to talk to me, go a head and send me a message.I’ve had crushes on both guys and girls.I’ve never gotten a detention or suspension. I don’t even remember, wait maybe I did get a a detention for punching that girl?I have a saxophone mouse padI have a flag hanging above my desk that is a combination of the Colorado and rainbow flagsI once saw Mahler’s fifth symphony live and I loved it. I was eleven.I have made my birthday cake every year since I was ten.Last year I was a straight A studentThat is the only straight thing about meI am the youngest in my gradeI just came up with the hundredth thing about meI prefer Marvel over DCMy favorite soda is rootbeerI love chocolateMy father is a veteranI grew up watching Avatar:The Last Airbender and I still love it.I also love Stargate, Samantha Carter was my role modelI also love Game of Thrones, didn’t grow up watching it like Stargate and Avatar though of courseMy mom was kind of a nerd, introduced me to Star Wars when I was like six? Seven?I used to be really into My Little Pony, but like my favorite part was when they were like actually fighting the bad guys. I like magic and fights and all that.I also really like FireflyI have a filing cabinetPeople tend to think I’m weirdI think I’m kind of weirdI eat lettuce with chopsticks for lunch a lot of daysI eat pretty much everything with chopsticksI like being weird, normal would be boringI eat lunch alone out at the band practice field some days so I can actually get some quietI have a cat, and I love herI am on my schools academic competition teamI watched PBS kids growing upI drink a lot of herbal teas, usually with no sugarMy mother had a degree in ethobotonyMy mother taught me yoga when I was younger, and she was a yoga instructorI hope I would make my mother proudI miss my old schoolI miss the mountainsI miss the mountain airI used to have my hair dyed purple and blue but this new school won’t let me.I’m aware I’ve switched between having period at the end of some of these and not on other but I probably won’t fix that.I’m surprised you’ve read this farI have 113 followers on Quora right nowMy answers have 57.1k viewsI was a top writer last year, somehowI’m an enthusiast for helping the environment and trying to minimize climate changeI wrote a fan fiction in middle school that has gotten over 20 thousand views. And I abandoned it.I tend not to get angry at peopleEven with people I really don’t like and who are really rude to me, I try to be politeI’m really good at convincing adults I’m a good child.I’ve been on a plane twice, as far as I can remember.I’ve been on a train three times though.My feet have gotten to the point where I almost had to switch over to a mens shoeBecuase of the hemihypertrophy, shoes are a nightmare.I own exactly five pairs of shoes. One pair of tennis shoes. One pair of sandals. One pair of dress shoes. And one pair of hiking boots.I have a love hate relationship with marching band.I actually prefer concert band.But I still do love marching band.I could be doing something really productive now, but I’m not.My favorite curse is “Bloody hell!”I’ve only been on a rollercoaster once, didn’t like it.I don’t like heights.Well more specifically, I don’t like flying, tall buildings or structures, or deep water.I’m fine with standing on the edges of cliffs or rock climbing.I used to have a problem with taking pills. Then my allergies started to get worse when we moved and I came to terms with it.I’m really annoyed I can only speak one language.I don’t really like skittles.I have a sort of fascination with trees.I’ve been to Yellowstone National Park.I’ve been to Mesa Verde National Park several times.I’ve been to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.I’ve been to Petrified Forest National Park.I’ve been to Meteor Crater.I’ve been to Chaco Canyon.I’ve been to Arches National Park.I’ve been to Canyon of the Ancients.I’ve been to Canyonlands national park.I’ve been to Grand Teton national park.I feel like listing all those was kind of cheating.My middle school science teacher is in a movie on Netflix.I’ve gone to a summer band camp the past two years.This is my non spoiler reaction to Infinity War, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHI’ve been to Padre Island.My friends and I have a inside joke around Queso.I love bagpipes.Also I really like Celtic music.I usually make a cake or something for my teachers once or twice a year, typically for valentines day.I also used to make my old band director a gluten free cake every year for his birthday.I believe the existence of the Venova is a wonderful thing.I recently connected with one of my mother’s boyfriends who I was much closer with and hopefully might get to see him for the first time in year in a few months.I celebrate the solstices and the equinoxesI did NanoWrimo last year, and reached the 50,000 word count goalI made a fairy tail birthday cake last yearFor the first time in my life I’m not really excited about going back to school this year. But eh, I’ll deal.I love karate because it’s a never ending journeyA metaphor I use for challenges in my life is to think of them as mountains. I’m from Colorado. I was born to climb mountains.I like Hamilton, but I think you have to remember our founding fathers are a little over glorified sometimes.I also grew up watching the Princess Bride and if you haven’t seen this yet Diego Swaddipong we have a serious issue.Another show I like is Outlander, but the primary reason I like it is because it has bagpipes in the theme music and is set in Scotland.I believe in equality.Even though I may not agree with my religious friends, I try to be very open about learning about their beliefs.I always try to make sure the characters I write are diverse, but that being diverse isn’t their only characteristics. I don’t write gay characters. I write some characters who happen to be gay.Each year my dad and I will make like hundreds of Christmas cookies it is actually insanity.I’ve googled some weird stuff for writing books.I also know just a little to much about swords and armor.I don’t know how I’m going to wait till the next season of Game of Thrones.I also don’t know how I’m going to wait until Captain Marvel or Avengers 4.I’m super hyped about Captain Marvel and am considering cosplaying her for Halloween next year.Last year my summer job was mowing lawns. This year it was babysitting.I’m going to get to see the game of thrones live concert experience this year and I’m super hyped.If you’ve read this far I’m impressed.I’m only a fifth of the way through this. Bloody hell.I got a flip phone when I was seven. Mostly due to the fact I was going between two houses a lot.I don’t ware glasses.My full first name means “God has sworn” or “Oath of god.” I am the vulgar language of God.English is probably my best subject.Last year on the Texas Staar tests I got commended scores on English, Math, and Biology.I scored the second highest in my school for English Staar.I will respect your religious beliefs, and even more I will fight for your right to those beliefs, as long as they are not harming others.I’ve only said the f-sword once in front of my father. It was that scene in the Martian where his potatoes die. And my dad just looks over at me, doesn’t say anything, with this look that says “Yeah, that’s accurate.” And then we go back to the movie. There was no point to this story.I am near certain no one will read to this point.This is probably going to be the longest thing I’ve written for Quora.But I have novel drafts upwards of 90,000 words so not the longest thing I’ve written.I’ve attempted to write poetry on occasion.I think a lot of people in my life give me far more credit than I deserve honestly.I don’t like the typically ball related sports but if you’re into them I won’t judge.I used to be in volleyball. Hated it.I am a feminist.I’ve been to both sides of the Pacific Ocean and I’ve been to the Gulf Of Mexico.I’m annoyed each number is only .1% of this answer.I’ve never been in an earthquake.During graduation last year the tornado siren went off and I about passed out in fear. So I guess I’ve been in a tornado. Or at least a freaky storm that was very close to creating a tornado.I’m wearing blue pants right now.I only 7 pairs of lose black pants.My typical clothing is black pants and a lose, typically solid color t shirt.I’ve worn sandals in snow.I’ve gone bare foot in snow (not for like an extended amount of time but it is fun to dance around in freshly fallen snow barefoot.)I prefer sandals but I really should wear tennis shoes more often because it’s better for my spine or something.I don’t wear glasses or contact lensesMy class was surprised at the amount of minecraft knowledge I have.That is because my brain like to hold on to useless information from when I was like ten.I love flags.I love being proud.I’m proud to be from Colorado.I’m proud to be a musician.I’m proud to be a writer.I’m proud to be a karateka.I’m proud to be bi.I’m proud of my friends.I’m proud of my mother.I’m proud of my father.I’m proud that I’m proud.I have like 24 national geographics that are like three years old.Whenever I get really upset about something I will imagine I’m a big oak tree and that genuinely helps me calm down.I think Shuri is amazing.I think Arya Stark is amazing.I think Tony Stark needs a hug.I got to attend a small Pride gathering last June and it was amazing.I have two sets of prayer flags in my room. They are not for aesthetic purpose.I have a pagan focus in my room.Like I said, I’m kind of weird.I have two Ganesha figures and several Buddha figures of my mom’s.Although I don’t generally like dresses, I do occasionally like dressing up for formal events.If you make fun of one of my friends I am 125% going to defend them. And if you hurt one of them, I will probably hurt you.I’ve seen a swarm of bats coming out of a bat cave.I own three saxophones.I am over a quarter through this.I have felt pain.I have felt loneliness.I have felt boredom.I have felt joy.I have felt loved.I have felt exhilaration.I have stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon.I have hiked below the rim of the Grand Canyon, something most visitors to the Grand Canyon don’t do.I have not eaten breakfast this morning.I am listening to music while writing this.I love art of all kinds.I own a bunch of colored pencilsThe kids I babysit this summer love the way I made chocolate milkI walk home from schoolI usually bring my own lunch to school.I have been bringing my own lunch to school since I started school.I used to have long hair, then I cut it in seventh grade.I’m scared I’m going to let everyone downI like having short hairI’m getting my hair cut in three days.I have to go take my registration papers up to the school in three days.Several weeks ago I passed my green belt exam.I have a cat purring on my foot right now.I went sledding every year as a kid.I went skiing every year as a kid.I prefer cross country skiing to downhill skiing.I got a couple of my friends into karate.I’m quite certain no one is reading this to this point but I’m going to finish this anyways.I’m wearing a shirt right now that I can’t decide if it’s purple or pink.I’m writing this on Quora.No one laughs at my jokes usually.I’m middling, average height. Short people will tell you I’m tall, tall people will tell you I’m short.I was hoping this wouldn’t take so long but I’m too far down the rabbit hole to stop.The town I grew up in mostly had this nature park with a half a mile trial. I would walk there with my dog every day.When I was little, I would walk there with my mom.I haven’t seen Ant-man and the Wasp and I am super annoyed about this because my local theater gets thing like a month or two late.I am high school.I don’t like okra.I don’t like fried food.I like fruit.Even though they can be exhausting, I quite enjoy being around little kids.I dressed up in a homemade bird costume once.I dressed up as an air bender for spirit week at my school once.No one ever picks me for sports until the academic team went to region and we played soccer at the beach. Apparently the idea was to pick the two nerdiest people to be team captains.I suck at soccer.I have built sand castles at the beach.My hair can’t decide if it wants to be straight, wavy, or curly.One section of my bangs likes to go into a full on corkscrew curl some days.I own a kimono.I have a piggy bank from Las Vegas.I’ve been to cirque du soleilI am fascinated about learning about different cultures.I don’t generally like partiesI went to prom this year. It was…okay I guess?I despise hot weather.I have almost fainted before.I am going to another karate competition this weekend.One of my grandfathers is coming into visit this week.I live with just my dad and my cat.I work with a punching bag almost daily.My forearms are currently bruised from karate.I think cats are evil and I love them for it.I have played saxophone for five years now.Sometimes I’m too hard on myself.When I was little I did not have a lot of friends outside family friends.I think the purpose of life is to never know the answer to the question, “what is the meaning of life?” And thus, to live in eternal wonder.This will be the 204th answer I have on Quora, however I have deleted a few answers I wasn’t happy with.I know a tomato is a fruit.Sometimes I like to watch people around me that don’t realize I’m watching them. That sounds creepier than I thought it would.I like movies, I think they can be a form of art.I love books.I like new bookstores, but I also love secondhand bookstores and the little book corner at the thrift store.I’m LGBTQ supportive, obviously.I try to face my fears.Sometimes I listen to the same song on repeat over an over again.One of my favorite Frank Sinatra songs is “Where are you”Another of my favorite Frank Sinatra songs is “Fly me to the moon”My favorite type of weather is snow.I love mountain rivers.I’ve drank from pure mountain springs before, and it is the best water I have ever tasted.I enjoy philosophyI like being happy.Sometimes, I even like being sad.I enjoy thinking about hypothetical scenarios.I like history.I like getting enough sleep, although I seldom do.I like poetry.I have liked dragons since I was little.I like swords.O have made four different wooden sword for Halloween costumes over the years, with my dads help.With my dads help we also made a wooden glaive.I have started learning the bo staff in karate.I think paradoxes are amazingThe next time I pick up a harry potter book will be if I am reading it to my own child.I generally like meeting new people.I am not entirely out at my school.I was once attacked by four large dogs.I am now afraid of dogs I don’t knowI think the sky is beutifulI have been canoeingI had to use spell check to help me spell canoeingI find the new airheads commercials disturbingMy favorite number is 5I believe discipline is importantI’m fine for now with not having a smartphoneI have a sweet tooth, but I limit it because I’m trying to get in better shape for karateMy favorite tree is the aspen tree.My favorite instrument is the saxophone, followed by bagpipes.I have a bad habit of loosing things.My dad has a tendency to stress me out sometimes.I may get to see some family for Christmas this year.If not it’s just going to be me and my dad for Christmas, like last year.I don’t like mushroomsI have a glass of water on my deskI’m sarcastic sometimesI have part of the wall in front of me covered will sticky notesI own three pencil sharpenersI own two pocket knivesI just took an allergy pillThe birthday cake when I turned nine was dark chocolate with strawberries and it tasted really good.I like making cakes because they make people smile.I like writing because books have helped me in life.I like karate because the dojo gives me a place I belong.I like music because my old ban gave me friends for the first time, my old band director helped me a lot through life, and music gives me a connection to my mom.Even though I am terrified of needles I plan to donate blood when I am allowed.It’s occurring to me that none of these facts have been really interesting, but I’m going to keep going anyways.I’m an introvert.I’m pretty good at math in school.I hope I can be a drum major before I graduate high school.I am positive no one is reading all this.I volunteer at a cancer benefit event each yearI have moved so many times in my life, and yet I still suck at moving.I used to have a lot of knickknacksI own two snow globesSometimes I’ll space out staring at a wall or something and in my head I’m planning out a battle strategy for a book.I tend to do a lot of math in my head and write down certain numbers as I do to remember the numbers but my math teachers don’t like thisI don’t like TrumpI try to follow the newsI think logic is good sometimes, and other times maybe not so much.I listen to a lot of soundtracks.I have a black desk.I have a freckle on own of my fingers.My room is a bit of a messI’m excited for band practice tommorowI love helping my friends in EnglishI have a bad memory when it comes to tests over specific information, but generally I have good test taking skillsI find old buildings interesting.I like Greek mythsI like Scottish mythsI like Irish mythsI like mythsI have a friend who’s Irish and Spanish, she got me into karate.I’m not even halfway through this.I live in a small town.A lot of people are surprised that I listen to rock sometimes.I named my cat FireflyI loved being in my old schools pep band and playing at football games, basketball games, volleyball games, and even cross country meets.I have never used Quora on mobile.I will go through weird period on Quora where I just…don’t write anything for a few months.I’m okay with some cursingI used to have a weird thing in middle school where I would just start talking with a British accent and not realize it.I’m right handed.I’m left eye dominant.I am made of stardust, just like all of us.I love space.I find it kind of cool astronauts have watched movies on the ISS.I’ve been to a lot of US states.I’ve been to Sydney but really only the airport.I find what computer can do fascinatingI just got into an argument with my dadI like a lot of book so it’s hard for me to pick a favorite.I live on planet earth, it’s a pretty cool placeI’m in a lot of fandoms.I’m not very good at drawing, but I enjoy itI’m not very good at photography, but I enjoy itI have the love life of a potato. No…a radish. No one likes radishes.I used to have a tradition of playing happy birthday on my saxophone at my friend’s birthday’sI have gotten stuck upside down on a stair well beforeI usually have a hard time talking about myselfI got separated from my school group at the Grand Canyon a nine mile hike.I met someone from Scotland on that hike.I have a crush.The last person I texted was the local movie theater to see if they need volunteers tonight.My favorite song lyric is by WookieFoot, “The Earth is not given to you by your parents, it is loaned to you by your children. The Earth is not given to you by your parents, it is loaned to you by your children’s children.”My favorite song by WookieFoot is “Earthling”I’m going to get my permit this next year.I own a kaleidoscope.I have several prisms hanging in my window.I like the A Song of Ice and Fire book series.I wish I was funny.I’m certain no one has read this far.I’m listening to Celtic music.I’ve spent far longer on this list than I meant to.I’m hungry, but I ate breakfast now.I think English is stupid sometimes.From karate I know more Japanese than I do Spanish.I only know a handful of terms in JapaneseI watched the movie Skyscraper last night.I get annoyed by some peopleI’m tiredI stayed up last night until 1:30 am, so I actually went to bed relatively early.I believe love is loveI am not an interesting personI am near certain no one will read all of this.I don’t think I actually have 1000 things about me, but I won’t give up.My middle name starts with a BI prefer my mother’s maiden name to the last name I haveI have a lot of cousinsI say spaghetti kind of weird apparently.In two weeks I will be over 5,475 days oldIn two weeks I will be over 131,400 hours oldMy heart has beat somewhere around 758,918,963 times since I was born.I don’t know why I’m doing this.I never really know why I’m doing somethingWhen I started music I was just drawn to it.When I first started my book it just felt write.When I started karate it just felt like something I should be doing.I am not going to proofread this answer.If anyone reads this I would actually be amazed.I write not just because I want to be heard, but also because I want to speak.I have an idea of where I want to go in life.I think also that might change.I have grown from who I was years ago.I think living is amazing.And then there are some days where I fail to see the point in everything.I have a mason jar on my desk.I have two hands.I think the fact we even exist is pretty cool.I think each moment in time is a result of all the moments that came before it and it leads to all moments to come.I believe everything is connected.I think no one will read this.But I’m enjoying writing this, so I will keep going.I think every moment matters.I think every action we take echoes out far beyond our deaths.I think we live on through the consequences of our actions.I do not believe in an afterlife.I believe that to know your days are numbered gives life meaning.I still believe in friendship.I still believe there is good in the world.I believe in kindness.I believe change starts small.I have a lot of amazing people in my life.I should do the dishes.I just went and did the dishes.I think Littlewood’s Law is pretty cool.I will experience a moment about once a month month that exceeds the probability of one in a million.I am over halfway through this.I have some amazing friends.I’ve never been jet skiing.I will never sky dive.I’m drinking a glass of almond milk, even though I can drink regular milk.I’ve been in moments that are happy and sad at the same time.I would recommend visiting the Grand Canyon if you ever get the chance.I think love is real.I just put my laundry in the wash.I didn’t write this list entirely in order.I don’t write my books chapter by chapter.Sometimes I write the climax of a book before I write the middle.I listen to music a lot, but sometimes I like to hear the silence or natural sounds around me.I get bad headaches sometimes.I have allergies.I don’t get sick very often.I think there are things that are infinite.I love being able to see the stars at night.I wish everyone could see the stars.I don’t think today was completely horrible.I have actually been working on this for two days now.Sometimes I don’t like my name.I get fascinated by the way life works.I think life finds a way.I get up at 5:50 am almost every day.I try to make a positive impact on the world around me.It makes me sad not everyone can be proud of who they are.I think it doesn’t matter what color your skin is.I think it doesn’t matter who you love.I respect people’s pronouns.I have a glass of water on my desk.I’m trying to remember to stay hydrated better.My laptop is silver colored.I have a poster of a dragon.I have a lot of photographs I save.I don’t know how I’m going to finish this.I usually hate lists, and irony.I attempted to make a joke.I’m not sure I’m going to do anything for Halloween this year.I’ve always made homemade Halloween costumes.One year I was Pipi Longstocking.I use to love Pipi Longstocking.I watched the Adams family when I was little.I’m glad I haven’t given up on this.I’ve been told I have a weird imagination.I like thinking.If I ever do get married, I want to make sure it won’t end in divorce.My parents divorced.My parents’ parents’ divorced.I have two living Great-grandmothersI’m glad I got to meet one of my Great-grandfathers.Coming out to my dad was stressful.But I got lucky.I think clouds are fascinating.Throughout middle school I always ate at this picnic table by the school gardens with my friends.That picnic table is where we met.That picnic table is where I made my first real friends.I like to eat my lunch outside.People exhaust me sometimes.But not my friends.I’ve gone camping with my friends.I find air mattresses uncomfortable and annoying.I slept on the mats at karate camp instead of a air mattress.I prefer the cold over the heat.I did ballet when I was little.I also did tap dancing.I also did soccer for a bit, but I still suck at soccer.I went backpacking for the first time when I was five years old with my mom and we got lost.I’m listening to the Sound of Silence.My family always celebrated winter solstice.I started kindergarten earlier than I was suppose to.I’ve been to the Denver Zoo.I’ve swam in hot springs.I’ve swam in mountain rivers.I’ve climbed trees.My knees are scarred from my falling down on them when I was little.I have pictures of me wearing snow boots and a swim suit.My mother had a really pretty tattooMy dad was some cool tattoos.My mother had dreads for awhile.My mother played saxophone.I’m still close with some of my mom’s friends.I dressed up as a princess a lot when I was younger.But secretly I was more of a warrior queen.I like rainbows.I like color.Sometimes I like black and white though.Sometimes I like simply elegance.I am in a debate competition.I am also in a essay writing competition.I’m aware I’ve switched back and forth between I’m and I am. I do not care.I’ve gone mushroom hunting in the forest.The first house I lived had a red door.The stair case in the house I first lived in has been replaced.I find it slightly odd revisiting the places where I have lived and seeing someone else live there.I grew up with two black cats and a black dog.I was born at an incredibly young age.I am sure no one had read this far.I don’t plan to ever smoke.I’ve gotten up early to watch the sun rise.I’ve watched the sun set behind the mountains.I’ve watched the sun rise behind the mountains.I’ve watched the sun set over the grand canyon.I’ve stayed up through the night.I was born.I will die.I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt.I do my own laundry.I rock climb, but I don’t like doing it on man made climbing walls.My favorite bird is the blue jayI own a few tie dyes that a friend of mine made.I own several wire wrapped crystals a friend of mine made.I’ve seen a symphony live.I’ve been to Elitch GardensI arranged a piece from Avatar the Last Airbender and played it with my school band before I moved.Sometimes I get a bit over-dramatic about thingsSometimes I say things that are a little cheesy.But I try to say things from the heart.I try to be nice, even when it makes things awkward.I don’t let peoples opinions of me get to my head.I have taken a couple breaks writing this.My happiest memory so far is backpacking in the mountains with my momWhen I volunteer at the movie theater I can fill one large cup with ice, start filling it with soda, fill another up with ice, start the second cup filling, by that time take the first cup to the costumer and grab the second soda by the time I’m finished doing that.I’m positive no one will read all this, but I am really enjoying writing this.I really like the movie/book Cloud Atlas and it played a large part in opening my mind to new ideas.I have a habit in karate of kicking with my right leg more because I have better balance standing on my left leg.I’m working to improve the balance standing on my right leg.I think it good to tell the truth.I also think sometimes it’s okay to lie.I don’t like guns.I have eaten ice cream when it was snowing out.I have made snow angelsI have built fairy houses by the riverI have never failed a test in schoolI have lost people I care about.I have made good friends.I have read the entire Harry Potter series.When we move to a new house my dad and I always walk around the house with sage before we sleep for the first night.I know a little bit about medicinal plants.I believe the universe is infinite.I have accepted that things die and this is a part of life.I try to learn something from every person I meetI try to be a better person than I was yesterday.I worry about my friends.I am determined to finish this.I have never broken a bone.I have a lot I want to improve in my karate.I have a lot I want to improve in my writing.I have a lot I want to improve my my music.I like competition because it gives me a chance to put myself out there.The first anime I really watched was Fairy Tail.I own a Fairy Tail necklace because it reminds me of my friends.I got one of my best friends a matching Fairy Tail necklace.When I’m struggling, sometimes when I’m about to pass out in karate, I think of my friends and it helps me through.I’m aware I can be a little cheesy and cliche.I’m not afraid to speak out for what I believe in.I will respect your opinion but that won’t change the fact I have my own.I love the stars.I love the moon.My favorite word is “Aum.”My second favorite word is “Apricity.”My third favorite word is “Defenestration”I have read the dictionary cover to cover several times.I consider the people at my karate dojo to be family.I love mangoes.One year my mom and I drew a big Christmas tree on paper instead of getting a tree.My family would usually go up into the mountains and cut down a tree.I have been in many snowball fights.My school banned dunking your cookies in milk at lunch one year in elementary school. I was annoyed.I like to be silly sometimes.My favorite celestial body is the sun, but I believe the moon better represents who I am.I can use chopsticks.I have danced in the rain.I have danced in the snow.I have played in a mountain river.I have a walking stick I’ve held onto for years.I don’t like radishes.I don’t like artichokes.My favorite ride at Disney land was the Buzz Lightyear Blaster rideI have gone carolingI have played music at old folks’ homesI love making people smileI love seeing people smileI love seeing people happyMy favorite Star Wars quotes is “Do or do not, there is no try.”I have a Avatar the Last Airbender mapI hand draw the maps for the book I’m working on.I own a long black skirt specifically for music performances.I don’t wear skirts often.The mountains are in my bones.The mountain rivers are in my blood.The mountain air is in my heart.I try to give gifts from the heart.I make my friend’s birthday cakes a lot.I came in second at my school’s talent show when I was like twelve.I own a sleeping bag designed for freezing temperatures.I can’t give up on this now.I do not like planes.I don’t like olives.I don’t like spicy food.I memorized the schedule of my local library by the time I was like 7.I can’t remember not having a library card.My signature looks horrible, but I’m working on it.I don’t really have a signature it’s more just my name in cursive.I try not me mean.I apologize a lot.I say thank you a lot.Most of the music I listen to doesn’t have lyrics or isn’t in English.My favorite season is winter.I don’t drink coffee.I don’t drink caffeinated tea.My jazz band order breakfast tacos sometimes during class when we don’t have anything to work on. (The day after a concert usually.)I cry too much.I don’t like crying.I have made ice cream from scratch without a machine.I crack my knuckles a lot.I was on a trivia team at my old school.I can’t run very far, fast, or long.But I’m working to improve that.A year ago I couldn’t do a proper pushup.Now I can do twenty on my knuckles no problem.I hate getting bored and letting my wander for too long.I have to remind myself that there is no reason to be afraid my friends are all dying right now.I have an itch.I despise chap stick.I struggled with having a dandruff issue in middle school.I really like to use commas.Using commas too much can be an issue.If it it was socially acceptable to wear a cloak around normal life, I would.People at school think my cloak is pretty cool.I own a cloak I made with the design of a dragon the back.I cried watching Incredible 2 becuase I remembered watching The Incredible with my mom.I cried watching (spoiler alert for Infinity war) Groot and Peter Parker die.I get really annoyed working the concessions at kids movies because you get those orders of drinks that are “Six small sodas and two large sodas please.” And of course they’re never the same soda. It’s two small rootbeers, a small diet dr.pepper, a small dr.pepper, a rc cola, a small, light on ice, mixture of dr. pepper and big red, a large dr.pepper heavy on ice, and a large rootbeer light on ice.I have actually gotten pretty much that exact drink order before.I am the only filling drinks at concessions, so I had to do all of that alone.I got two more orders on top of that piled up.In summary, I don’t like volunteering at kids movies.But I do enjoy seeing kids smile.I find bingo calling mind numbing boring and mentally draining.But I love seeing the people at bingo smile.Maybe this is a narcissistic quality, but I love it when I do a solo in jazz and I get compliments after the concert.At band camp I participate in the camp jazz band and I’ll get compliments all evening.And in those few hours I feel so grateful.I feel that I’m making my mom proud.My favorite compliment I ever got on playing saxophone was “Dude, you play saxophone better than I live.”I think a band camp filled with high school had cord band nerds is amazing.My favorite sandals are called Keens.My favorite candy is Twix.I dropped a hat off a ski lift.Luckily it was summer and we hiked and found it.I have met a tortoise.I’m once again up late coming up with things about me.I’m a leo but I don’t think the day you are born affects your personality.I don’t believe that you have one soulmate and you can be happy with no one else.I’m on several social media but not Instagram or Snapchat.I know practically nothing about Instagram or Snapchat.I’m really bad at remembering dates.I’m also bad at remembering names.I’m good at remembering faces, but I can’t put the name to the face so that doesn't help much.I know a pair of twins who share a birthday with me.They where the first people I met who shared my birthday.I don’t even know why I feel so determined to finish this.I put my friends in my phone by their nicknames.Other people I put in my phone by their first and last full names.I have my entire schedule for the next year planned out with five alternate days.I don’t get enough sleep.I tend to associate colors with things.The number four is green to me.The number three is purple.The number five is a mix of brown and purple.The number two is yellow.The number one is white and yellow.I don’t know why I think of them like that.I also tend to think of certain music notes in colors.A is red to me.E is blue.F is orange.G is light blue.D is brown.C is yellow.C# is mustard yellow.B is a slightly darker shade of blue than G.I don’t remember the name for the color association thing my brain does.I can move my ears without touching them.I think it you read this you would actually know a fair bit about me.I’m afraid of loosing the people I love.I want to reach the summit of a mountain greater than 10,000 ft.One day I want to summit a mountain greater than 14,000ft.I think a lot.Sometimes I think about really small mundane things and overthink them like the hold the secrets of the universe.Other days I think about the nature of existence.I used to be scared of the high school at my old school because I was terrified of teenagers.Really I’m just terrified of people in general.I think that they all secretly think I’m stupid.I begin a lot of text conversations with “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you,…”I’m not entirely sure what I’m earliest memory was.I once thought it would be better to forget everything than grieve.And now I’m starting to get better at remembering in happiness, not saddness.I think life is hard.I think it’s worth it.I make time in my life for what is important to me.I get annoyed with people who don’t know what they’re talking about, but I try to help them learn because I remember we can’t know everything.When I realize I didn’t know what I was talking about, I try to learn.I apologize when I realize I made a mistake.I roll my laundry.I do my laundry exactly once a week. I have a system that ensures this.I carry around an iPod for music because music helps me quiet my thoughts.I never dog ear books.I cannot touch my nose with my tongue.I’m getting close to being able to do a split.Karate is the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done.I’m rather stubborn.Even when I wasn’t as good as the other competitors usually are at this music competition and I didn’t prepare as much as I wanted to, I still refused to give up without trying.I came in 8th out of 17 tenor saxophonists at that competition. For a freshmen, that was pretty good.I don’t regularly shave.I like watching movies with my friends.It is now the morning where I am at.So I’ve been working on this since the day before yesterday.I smiled today.I talked to a couple friends today.I have a watch but I get really annoyed because of daylight savings times because for half the year it’s got the wrong time.I’m not just lazy it’s hard to change the time on my watch.I am kind of lazy sometimes.I’m going to bed for now, I will finish this later this morning.I lucid dream.Most of the dreams I can remember are nightmares.I’ve cried myself to sleep before.I have a lot of tabs open right now.My cat is really fluffy.I’ve ridden on an elephant before.I try to be as honest as possible.I’ve been fishing.I find fishing incredibly boring.I’ve been on a sail boat.I’ve built snow forts.I am friends with my crush.I am wearing a black t shirt right now.I don’t wear shoes sometimesI tend to be paranoid.In fifteen minutes I am going to have to leave to go try on my band uniform.I say “cool” a lot.Sometimes I accidentally bow when I leave a room because I’m tired and my brain reverts to karate.I am surprised I didn’t give up on this yet.I have been told my members of my family I’m too young to know I’m bi.I don’t care what they think.My dad expects me to remain a straight A student.I threw myself into academic studies and books when I was little because I was lonely and bored.I am more proud of the fact I have been able to help my friends with their grades than I am of my own grades.My friends are smarter than me.My friends are kinder than me.My friends are braver than me.And I look up to them for it.I try to surround myself with good people.I love the smell of vanilla.I love dark chocolate with sea salt carmel.I love potstickers.I tend to think I’m stupid.I tend to think I’m a bother.I try to remember that I’m not.I have woken up on Christmas to freshly fallen snow.I have watched a lot of movies with my friends.Sometimes my friends and I would just walk around town for no reason.The library in the town I mostly grew up in is pretty cool.Sometimes my friends and I would go hang out there.I think more people need to learn to be accepting of people different than them.I like tofu.I just went for a walk.I used to play uno a lot with my family.I suck at checkers.I’m almost sort of decent at chess.I think I would be in GriffindorOr maybe RavenclawThe number of my band jacket is 39I don’t remember the number of my band pants.I wear a lot of solid color shirts.I am annoyed hot hot it is outside.I’m not very good at swimming, but I’m good enough to keep myself from drowning.I don’t like pools.I have not been in a pool in over a year.I don’t know how people without a desk survive.I have a desk.I have two personal emails and a school email.My bed is raised several feet off the ground. I have a step stool but I usually jump to get in.I have a painting of a rainbow tree above my desk I did myself.I have a photo board with pictures of people I care about on it.I own several scarfs.I really only wear them for special occasions.I like renaissance fairs.I know some of the bare basics to playing flute, but I would in no way claim to know how to play the flute.Same with piano.I love playing saxophone.I don’t really have any birthmarks.I have some money saved up.I go to school early to have time to work on homework and sometimes practice saxophone.I’m going to try to be creative.Even though some of these are not unique to me, I don’t think that make them any less interesting or miraculous. Just existing makes something interesting in my opinion.I’m glad I’m alive.Even on the days where I forget how miraculous that fact is, I try to keep going.I am grateful.I do my best.I put everything I can into everything I do.I don’t settle for less than my best effort.I go far.I know what it’s like to win.I am human.My heart beats.My blood flows.I have a pulse, a rhythm.I have a name.I make mistakes.I know what it’s like to fail.I try.Sometimes I fail.I bleed.I fall.I face death.I shake in fear.I bruise.I get tired.I get exhausted.I get frustrated.I go to fast.I shake.I struggle to catch my breathe.I pull myself to my feet and keep going.I force myself to work through every obstacle that comes my way.My wounds heal with time.And with time my scars fade, even though they never go away completly.I keep going.I slow down and take it one thing at a time.The world pushes me down; I fight back.I don’t “fight like a girl.”I show them how girls fight.I am proud.I am happy.I am loved.I get back up.I smile.I cry.I dance.I run.I laugh.I believe.I get pushed down time and time again.I break.I shatter.I crumble into dust.I grieve.I sob.I scream.I get injured.I hurt.I get the wind knocked out of me.I feel pain.Sometimes I can’t get up.It feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders.I can’t see the light in this darkness.I can’t see the summit of the mountain.I have friends who help me up.I get up and fight.I grow.I get better.I learn.I improve.I am me.My confidence grows.I remember to be humble.I love.I hate.I accept.I help my friends.I help wherever I can.I make a positive impact.I still fail.But that’s okay, because I keep climbing the mountain.I know I have at least a chance, so I’m not throwing away my shot.I’m not defined by winning or loosing.I’m not defined by succeeding or failing.I am defined by who I am.I have valid opinions.I have valid interests.I have the right to be who I am.I am my own person and no one can take that away from me.I’m at peace with myself.I’m at peace with my place in the universe.I remember joy.I remember happiness.I remember laughter.I remember tears of joy.I remember the sun rises.I remember.I think.I ponder.I wonder.I dream.I work.I breathe.I live.

Considering I normally write about Chess, I’m going to assume that you want memories OTHER than just chess memories.But, Chess is the first one I have to go to.I have vivid memories of my first chess tournament, which was held in late February or early March of 1993, about three months shy of my 10th birthday. It was the 14th Tazewell County Scholastic tournament.I was in the youngest division for 3-4 graders, and I could still remember being in awe of the older students, particularly the 7th and 8th graders, as to to me they look like semi-adults. It’s amazing how age changes your perspective when now many 7-8 graders look like 4th graders.I really didn’t have any idea how I would do – especially since the kids from Washington elementary school were heavily favored. Although, heavily favored by whom exactly? While they might put Texas kiddie football on ESPN, I doubt there were any real “analysts” making predictions about elementary school chess back in 1993. Some of the other kids were nervous about playing chess from other schools, but strangely I think it had the opposite effect on me. I think I felt comfortable in the anonymity of it, and could win or lose without judgment or expectations.Because I was a child who focused almost totally on what others thought and made little allowance to what I thought of myself, the result was that I really had almost no expectations whatsoever. If only that were true of the various groups of parents involved…The Morton club had a “sort-of” rivalry with the Washington Chess club, which is more to say that the parents of the Washington children imagined a rivalry with those of Morton. I think this was because Washington wanted to BE Morton in terms of social-economic status, but their township shared too much real-estate with East Peoria to ever have the same upper middle class reputation. Some of these parents took their grade school chess VERY seriously.It was said (whether or not this was true I don’t know) the Washington Panthers had a coach, and not only that, but they had chess clocks, score sheets, and black chess team T-shirts with orange wildcat logos and everything! I still remember seeing those shirts and remembering the intimidation factor. Whispers were they would travel and play in NATIONALLY RATED tournaments run by the US Chess Federation. This sounded impressive and elite, and we were too young to realize you can go to tournament to be nationally ranked only to find out how much you stink.Though looking back, it is generally true that tournaments run by the USCF with national ratings do tend to be better than those run by school districts or municipalities. There is more at stake, so it attracts more serious from a wider area – that is, those willing (or with parents willing) to pay to have names on a national rating list.2018’s online announcement for the Tazewell County scholastic tournament is still 95% cut and pasted from the one in the Newspapers 25 years ago… (the Webbs still organize it).Georgetown Middle School and the Greater Peoria Chess Federation will be sponsoring the 39th Annual Tazewell County Chess Tournament on Saturday, February 17, 2018 in Marquette Heights. Tazewell County students in grades three through eight will compete at Georgetown Middle School…Each grade level is a separate contest (with the exception of a 3rd/4th combination) with awards for the top ten individuals at that grade level. Trophies will be awarded for the top three individuals and a medallion for each in 4th through 10th place at their grade level. Pupils must register at their own grade level. A maximum of 64 individuals for each grade level has been set with five rounds to be played. An adult is to supervise his or her own players. Schools do not need to have a chess club for students to participate, and individual entries are welcome.We will follow the schedule listed as much as possible; however, participants will be notified when each round is beginning: 8:30 Participants arrive and check in 9:00 First round begins 9:45 Second round 10:30 Third round 11:30-12:00 Lunch (Pupils may bring a sack lunch and concessions will be available.) 12:00 Fourth round 12:45 Fifth round 1:30 Awards Scheduled times may vary depending on length of time needed to finish some games.A fee of $4:00 per entrant is to be sent with the registration with the check made payable to Georgetown Middle School. We do not use Chess Federation rating and do not need a school rank.My mother remarked, “Four Dollars, that’s what they charged in 1993!” She would know.The good people of Tazewell County would not make their tournament a USCF rated tournament for the main reason to keep it to a manageable four dollars per student, with USCF annual membership costing over twenty dollars per pupil. As a result, they also would not use chess clocks and students did not have to take notation, which apparently Washington parents complained was a ‘competitive advantage’ against their students used to doing both. I have heard through the grapevine from Morton parents that apparently Washington parents are STILL an issue for volunteer arbiters when they volunteer to help run the years tournaments. I think I would pay money to watch my friend Daniel Garrett patiently explain to patronizing Washingtonian helicopter parents that NOT forcing 3rd graders (who’ve never even used a check clock before) to take chess annotation does not constitute a competitive advantage.One of the things I remember most was the big tables set up in the cafeteria. Front and center were beautiful chess trophies, not too big you understand, but for me, who as an individual had never done better than a participation trophy his whole life, were some of the most beautiful things I had ever seen – shiny, elusive validations of self-worth. With the trophies for first, second and third place, there were medals for 3rd through 10th place. With almost sixty kids playing in the 3-4 grade level I wondered how much of a shot I had at being one in five.There are only two kinds of people who tend have a nemesis…comic book characters and gradeschoolers. Up until the second grade, my best friend was named Jason Hohulin, who lived in a duplex just around the corner. During the summer after his 2nd Grade year, he moved to Washington, and would start playing chess his 3rd grade year.You know how kids are, though promises were made to keep in touch, neither of us did, so seeing him at the tournament was a very exciting thing! I of course would have loved to pick things right where we left off, but he gave me the cold shoulder. If you watch the movie Searching For Bobby Fischer you will see that many coaches of chess children will encourage them to have disdain for their opponents, or maybe it was just because I was from Morton and as a player on the Washington team he couldn’t afford to look disloyal. Maybe he was hurt that I never called or wrote.After being rejected, I went back to my Morton comrades (who generally didn’t like me very much) and found them surprisingly supportive. They were the enemy and we had to band together after all. It was a welcome change to normal 4th grade indignities. Whispers went around… “you KNOW Jason Hohulin, he’s supposed to be the strongest 4th grader on the Washington Team”.“Team”… they had a chess club at their elementary schools. Seriously people.But back then, this was VERY serious business. This was 1993, and we still (mostly) had the Goonies mindset of the 1980s. What was a trivial scholastic competition was now a territorial and culture war (for us) of ultimate and epic proportions. It was apocalypse NOW and we were in our own Vietnam. It’s amazing how hard core marine I felt at that moment considering I had yet to even learn the “f”- word.I’m amazed at how much I didn’t think about things back then. I was relaxed and had no serious expectations to win. I had no idea if I was good or not. Jason Coal was the strongest 4th grader at Lincoln school but it was only we Lincoln schools kids who even had a weekly club.I won my first two games with a surprising amount of ease, mostly due to the fact that I didn’t hang pieces and I had a fairly strong eye for when others hung pieces. But I also had a secret weapon: Several weeks before the chess tournament, Mr. Coal showed us on a demonstration point the four move checkmate commonly known as “Scholar’s Mate” or the “Four-Move Checkmate”. In all variations, the basic idea is the same: the queen and bishop combine in a simple mating attack on f7. Scholar’s Mate, however, was not my secret weapon. Watching Mr. Coal’s demonstration led me to a very simple realization. If Queen bishop battery trick works taking the pawn on f7, why can’t it work on h7? My secret weapon was that I became aware that a castled King was not completely safe, something not typically in the mind of a fourth grader.The first game with the black pieces I won with a Queen-Bishop battery on mating the castled King with Qxh2. I have no memory of the second game, but I remember winning easily. In round three I had a draw, resulting from the fact I didn’t know how to checkmate with a lone King and a rook. I know I had the white pieces, because I still see in my mind trying to figure out what I needed to do with that solitary yellow rook. I can also still see that opponent in my mind. He was blonde, wore glasses, and was on the heavier side. He was very nice, and took the draw very good naturally (he wasn’t from Washington) though I imagine getting the draw in the circumstances might have been a bit of a relief. It’s too bad I didn’t get his name or his phone number, I think we could’ve been friends.Lunch consisted of a peanut butter and honey sandwich and a small baggie of chips with a diet Big K lemon lime soda kept in a special cooler to keep it cold.Round 4 would be my first dose of anxiety, but it wasn’t anything significant. Strangely enough, I had no concept in my mind that I was doing very well. Part of the issue was (I think) that I didn’t really consider the idea there were only five games. Being 2 ½ after 3 would put me on a higher board, but I had no concept of that at the time. Had I know I was in the running for a Trophy, I might have been a lot more nervous. Also, I wasn’t aware this was five round tournament, so I really understand that we were moving towards the end.My anxiety was NOT that I was playing for a trophy, but rather, that the kid across from me was wearing a Washington T-Shirt, with its intimidating orange wildcat logo against the black background. I saw his coach give him a special handshake and a hug. (Chaperones could give hugs to children back then) and he (the kid not the adult) swaggered to the board. I for one, did not have any swagger. I do remember Jason Hohulin, sitting across from me and to the left, giving a nod of somber supportive to his comrade clad in black.The game, however, was not the difficult battle that I anticipated. I remember thinking to myself that this was my third game with the black pieces, and that I was dominating. I remember thinking how In fact, it was a game that I remember dominating from beginning to end. I was now 3 ½ out of 4, and I still remember not having any pressure.In between rounds I remember using linked Gameboys to play vs. Tetris against Seth Vendon and Steve Daugherty. Seth Vendon was a badass. Steve Daugherty was a nice kid. My father told me his dad was a good guy too. Although nowadays during tournaments I’m thinking about my last game or worried about my next one, at nine I was too focused on video games to even think about anything else. There was, however, drama going on in the background that I would only find out about much later.At the top of the standings, there were four players who stood at 4 or 3½ after four rounds. To the displeasure of the Washington parents in attendance, 3 out of 4 of them were from Lincoln school in Morton. Generally, when possible, tournament directors would prefer to keep kids from playing members of their own local club, but only much as the Swiss System can allow. With two Lincoln school kids at 4 and only one Washington kid at four, it seemed to make sense to many parents that kids from the same school should not play each other at the top board. When the pairings were announced as two Morton kids would be playing at the top board, some Washington parents were furious. But, in each case, the four players the Morton kids had beaten had better overall scores than the undefeated player from Washington. The TD was able to win over the Washington parents with a compromise. If two players were to finish 5-0, they would share first place and flip a coin for the trophy, and make another first place trophy if they insisted.Now, the Washington kid only had to beat the 3½ point kid for a chance at first place. All this wonderful parent participation happened in the playing hall/gym away from the cafeteria, where I was happily eating skittles and playing Tetris. Good times. I know for a fact that my own parents would never be involved in such shenanigans, and looking back, I think I’m glad they weren’t there. My parents always worked on Saturday, and being away from them also meant that I really didn’t have pressure to perform.I remember going to the board for the last game. It was only then that I realized I was playing on the second board, but I hadn’t quite grasped what that meant. I didn’t begin to realize the seriousness of the situation until I saw Jason Hohulin already waiting at the board.You know how kids are. In the greater cosmos there probably couldn’t have been anything more trivial, but for us, this was a drama of beyond Shakespearean proportions, a tale of blood feud and betrayal, and at the time it couldn’t help but feel as if there were larger forces at work, like the meeting was preordained. For the briefest of moments, in the narrative of my mind, it felt like being in a legend out of Greek mythology, there being no coincidence, but only fate. How much more abundant could living be if one could maintained such richness of imagination!Interestingly enough, I don’t think I even thought about what would happen if I would win. Helpfully though, I also hadn’t thought about what anyone would say if I lost. To this day I think that lack of knowledge might have been a serious competitive advantage – while I have the distinct impression that my opponent knew exactly what he was playing for.Looking back, judging from the content of the last game, I still don’t whether or not that day if I had been lucky or over-performed. I can tell you with near certainty that Jason was a stronger player than I as he dominated the game from the very beginning. What I wouldn’t give to know the moves of that fateful game! If the game had ended differently, I might not have remembered it at all. I have thought long and hard about trying to recreate the game from the memories I had from being nine years old. I know I had the white pieces. I know I must have played e4, though back then I would have still just said it was the king’s pawn forward two squares. I remember my opponent having an active black queen which quickly shattered by queenside. I remember struggling to defend my King, and I remember thinking that my only remaining chance was to use my secret weapon.While I can’t remember the game score, I think it went something like this:Tuhy,Micah – Hohulin, Jason1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 e6 5. Qf3 Bb46. Be2 Bxc3+ 7. bxc3 Qxc3+ 8. Bd2 Qxa1+ 9. Bd1 Qxa2 10. Ne2 Ne711. Nc3 Qa5 12. O-O O-O 13. Be2 Nbc6 14. Bd3 Nd5 15. Qe4 Nxc3White to move.16. Qxh7 mateI have the distinct impression that the real game was actually a lot more sloppy and unsophisticated than the one presented above, but I know that the finish is pretty close. I also remember the center of the board being more crowded, but my memory is so fragmentary! The feeling that I can remember most is disbelief, checking and double checking the mate even as I played it and announced it on the board. I’m not sure who was more in shock, myself or Jason Hohulin, who did not let up on his silent treatment.Jason Coal, the strongest chess player in 4th grade, had won his game handily against a fellow Morton third grader. I don’t remember his name, but I know he also used to live on Marshall avenue not too far from my house. His house was across the street and a few houses over from Jason Coal. I don’t know why, but the idea of me having done really well STILL hadn’t click in my brain. I think it’s because the idea of being of winner, (much less winning a trophy) was so far from my experience that it all still hadn’t clicked.Do you think I placed?” I remember asking Jason Coal. “You placed” he said with certainly, I think both being annoyed and having compassion on my ignorance, and had to explain that after 4 ½ out of 5, I was a shoo-in for second place. I had both joy and repetitive disbelief at my success “I came in second place? Really?!” I wonder if this made me come off as bad winner. But… I was going to get a trophy…a NICE trophy…I couldn’t believe it that I, Micah Tuhy, who no one ever called by his first name…was going to get to go up on stage and get a trophy. Not only that, but second place seemed EXTRA triumphant, after all, I had gone through the whole tournament without a loss, so even though I was second, I also had the accomplishment of being unbeaten. It felt like it was the first time I had ever accomplished anything.So it was that Lincoln Grade School managed to capture 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th in the third and fourth grade division. Hohulin had technically had won shared 3rd with 4/5, but after losing on board two, (and looking quite shaken up by the loss) he quietly took his 4th place medal and went home. I can say however, that Hohulin would redeem himself and score 5/5 and take first place in the county the next year.The most memorable moment of that day the next year was watching a fifth grade Jason Hohulin going up on stage to receive his first place trophy to a roar of shouts and jubilation. That moment too, felt fated, like it was part of an epic story. He and I didn’t meet over the board that day, but I think our eyes met, as he held up his trophy exultantly to the crowd. Maybe my being a bad winner the previous year had made Jason’s fifth grade victory all the sweeter – I hope so, if it made the story and experience all the more worthwhile.Returning to that spring of 1993, it might (emotionally speaking) always be the highlight of my chess “career”. Having only begun playing chess about six months before, I don’t think my parents had any real expectations about my participating in the chess tournament, for good or ill.I had always been an intelligent but underperforming student due to lack of an attention span, and to my parents credit, they were never ones to live vicariously by my success or failure in extra-curricular activities. When I told my father I had gotten second place, I couldn’t believe how excited I was – but I think the highlight of the day was just how excited and happy HE was. It remains one of two times I remember my father telling me he was proud of me (verball) and it may have been the only time my father ever showered praise upon me. He kept telling me in the car, over and over that he was proud of me. A few weeks later, my father would buy me Chessmaster 2000 for our Macintosh (which trust me, a 45$ purchase was not insignificant in 1993).My parents were not the type to based professions of their love based upon performance, but considering my parents frequently told me they loved me no matter what after reading report cards with voices filled with disappointment – such statements often felt like my parents love was an obligation based on biological obligation rather than any innate value in me.It was the first time my parents love or affection had a purpose that felt something more than a biological accident. When my father heaped praises upon me for the first time, in truth it was all so overwhelming and foreign I think I was largely too numb to be able to enjoy the experience, locked inside my own head. And yet it happened, and a good memory, as Dostoevsky writes in Brothers Karamazov, can sometimes be enough to save one’s soul:You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.This has also been my experience.Epilogue:Not all answers have to be about chess. I also had a lot of fun with Monopoly and Mouse Trap!My childhood friends Karsten and Kahlin featured an ongoing game of monopoly that lasted all summer. I think somehow we have acheived a perfect triumvirate of economic balance which kept any of us from getting enough of an advantage to win.My earliest memories with a board game, if it can be called that, is Mouse Trap!First of all, for a child the game looked so colorful and intricate, and yet as a playable game even at 5 I was able to participate! More great memories included watching my father get frustrated trying to put it together, making the whole delicate (intentionally flawed) rube goldberg machine try to work. He later turned it into a lesson about how things need to all work together.

As a preface to readers: this is HYPOTHETICAL.Hypothetical-1. of, based on, or serving as a hypothesis. 2. a hypothetical proposition or statement.The fact that you have to tell adults…with computers, who can ostensibly read higher than an 8th grade level that something is hypothetical online now says far more about people than the internet.Money FoundThis will take time to work out, you have to know that as soon as you’re standing there looking at the pallet. If possible, sit down with some paper and a pen next to the pallet and write out your first 10 steps. You’ll need a basic map before you launch into action. 1 hour to plan.I agree with: tell no one. Ever.Your cover story is a dying relative in California. Go, within 3 days. You need a 3 day head start. All of us have about a week or so before jobs, family, friends would inquire about us. Buy a burner phone—you lost yours at the airport and call a short list of people every week, destroy burner, burn the burner to a smokey, plastic cinder. Always call from a new burner from a new location. If possible leave them on vehicles heading THAT way. North, west, south, east, any direction you’re not going. Trains, buses, planes.If you do it right you can even reappear in your old life in 5 years after you have secreted, moved and secured the cash…..elsewhere.My HYPOTHETICAL logic to this scenario and the action is that you can’t be absolutely sure that the money is untraceable or won’t be missed. Assume, in this HYPOTHETICAL scenario, that someone, somewhere, even if all of the drug dealers are dead, knows about the money.Year 1Logistics and MovementFirst issue: how much does $1 million weigh?$1M in $100 bills = 22.05 pounds.$1M in $20 bills = 110.5 pounds.So it’s 24x the above. Let’s say it’s probably $20s. So half a ton. 24 trips to move it. You’ll need a van or a U Haul truck.I’d get boxes, duffel bags and rent a car/SUV. Rent a storage room. You have about a day to move it. I would make a stop at a motel room and drop off a few duffel bags, just in case I returned and something was going on—-I still got 10%-20%. $2–$4 million in the hotel room, this might be my expenses cash anyway.Let’s say I get it all. All $24 million safely into the truck.Go back to the hotel room and rest, make a reservation at another hotel. Find a car/truck to buy for cash—-under $2000 online/newspaper. Get this truck—-better yet an RV, buy it, transfer money from storage room to RV/truck. Most storage places aren’t paying attention if you’re going back and forth, in and out. You need to move the money from your first stop and scatter your trail.Your first trail is to the storage place and the hotel.Then to a New hotel.Then to a New storage place.In the interim, you get your van/RV (preferable) and you decide where to go. I would go South, first.Once South I would buy another truck/van/RV for cash. I’d want a POS. Nothing fancy. Leave the first old van/RV in front of a motel that you’ve rented a room for several days. Long enough for you to get back on the road. The beauty of the cash is that you can pay for gas, food, supplies in cash along the way and your trail is reasonably scattered with similar vans/trucks/RVs.You have to keep moving to scatter your trail.(The logic of scattering your trail is that if someone were to follow you, it’s harder to follow someone who stops places, ostensibly to set up—-you have the #1 Storage Room—-so they have to watch that room or break into it. Are you coming back? It’s going to be difficult to break into a storage room so they have to wait. While they are waiting, you’ve boogied on to another storage place and down the same thing. What this does, for a minimal amount of time and money is it forces anyone trying to track you to stop and watch a cold trail. Are you near the storage room? Is the money in it? Are you coming back to it?My HYPOTHETICAL acts as if someone will come after you. The key to evading a tracker, legal or otherwise, isn’t speed or distance, that can always be surpassed but time. You want to wear out your trackers. You want them criss crossing their own tracks trying to discern yours and your intentions. If I find $24 million, I’m balls to the wall going to play this out once I touch the money and move it. And I play to win, on my terms.)Then I’d back track to NJ if I started in NY. You need to be somewhere that you’re familiar with but new to where you’re going.You need a ghetto/lower middle class neighborhood to rent a house in.(The logic of this—but I didn’t consider this, because Black and Latino people don’t think about this as Black and Latino people is that we can hide easier among our own people than not. $24 million is cartel level cash—-that’s White and Latino, Mexican, Colombian, etc.. They won’t be able to ease into a Black/Latino ghetto unnoticed by the residents. As an individual Black man I can rent a room or a house and drop in and be invisible and quickly build rapport. Poverty is all about relationships. I passively can get half a dozen watchers keeping their eyes open faster than I could in secure community whee I stand out.)Another storage room. Cash.(The logic is now I’ve created 3–4 storage rooms in 3–4 parts of the Eastern seaboard. if I paid upfront for 6 months to a year and left boxes, and even some money in them — one if trackers break in, they find the money or they find nothing. But they now have to break into a place, commit a crime, evade storage security. News, the storage place, someone will alert me that my unit was broken into. This immediately answers whether I’m being tracked or not. Anyone tracking the money will have an idea of it’s size and weight so they’ll think a storage place is logical as I figure out what to do with the money. Not the RV/truck itself. Especially if I’m on my second or third truck/RV. It generally takes the DMV in multiple states anywhere from one month to six to update ownership records.)I might not even transfer title of the vehicle I’m in until I get a another one. I dump one truck in Charlotte. Buy another in Raleigh, don’t change the registration. Drive it for a day to Virginia and buy the next truck there. A tracker again has to wait for North Carolina to update. That’s potentially a month before they start expanding to neighboring states. If I’m really hot, I’d not buy the 3rd vehicle in a neighboring state but in the state on the other side — instead of Virginia, buy in Maryland. A tracker now has to systematically go from state to state using NC as a start point — but should they track west, south or north? That questioning — gives me time.In California you can buy a brand new car, and not have plates for 6 months (they’re changing the law — but Steve Jobs regularly replaced his car with the exact same car before the plates deadline occurred…so technically he was driving a car with no traceable plates.)Your next goal is to get something in another state that you control. Another storage room.I would separate the money. Maybe three or four drops over two or three states. At some point you might need to walk away from everything and you’ll need to walk away, period, never look back, don’t go back to your place, no clothes, no mementos, nothing. Just walk.(The logic is I’ve bought some time. Maybe a month, maybe 3–4 months. I’ve also created a human network (storage attendants, police, newspapers, etc.) as unknowing watchers to keep an eye out for trackers after me. But I’ve gained time. Now I have to long-haul ass because the east coast is too hot. Yet on the other hand that’s what a tracker might think I’m doing so I have to double blind myself. I go old school. Old Native school.Native American war parties would attack a camp, fort, etc.. Draw out the enemy. Sometimes the force was too great and the war party would have to run, retreat. The enemy might know that it was Sioux or Apache or Narragansett so they would know we’re heading upland 200 miles to where the tribe camp is with their reinforcements and more importantly women and children. The war party on the run would intentionally do this criss-crossing game, leaving behind war party members to distract, delay and confuse the enemy. This might mean if there were 10 of you that along the 200 mile trek, you left behind 5 people to sometimes start a fight, the enemy would stop. 3 to run tracks to the east rather than the north east, creating the tracks of ten, the enemy would follow. 2 more would circle behind the enemy and attack them from behind. This gave the fastest 5 men time to get to the village and move the village.But with $24 million I have to always assume trackers are coming. I’m playing for time. I also have to assume that the trackers will get close to me, no matter what, so I must have a bug out plan. Because no one can be left alive over this $24 million, once you take the money, any of it, it’s now your life. Or your death. Your only chance is to decide, on your own terms, how you’ll live and die. Like a Sioux war party.)The Art of Disappearing in Plain SightNow the real work begins. You have to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life and where. The challenge of America is that you’ll always be looking over your shoulder from wherever this money came from. Maybe you can get scot-free away, maybe not. $24 million is different than a few million. $24 million suggests the originator can travel abroad, so you have to consider where you can and can’t go. The places are limited.Monaco.Fiji Islands.Australia.Africa (South Africa — maybe).Rio.France.I would go to the airport and buy tickets to several North American cities leaving on varying dates. Go to the loading gate, check in and then walk away if possible. You need to create a trail, a lot of false positives. This is easier to do with trains and buses, at least a dozen tickets going to multiple points. You have to become a ghost. When someone comes looking for you, you need them checking a dozen trails by train, car, bus, plane — it might mean your life.I’d then use a year in seclusion, bouncing from cash hotels to cash hotels, using a fake ID to plot and plan my next moves.(A point about ID came up, needing it for hotels. Credit cards. You can use gift cards and even Hotel gift cards or online site gift cards. You can make a reservation with a card and pay in cash when you arrive.)The next big question is how much money are you willing to spend to keep $20 million? It will cost you several million to keep the $20 million.I’d use the year to find people in financial distress. Real estate developers. Financiers. Attorneys. Auctioneers. But they have to be knowledgeable and right on the edge of desperate. Not a criminal. Someone who is motivated to help you, hopefully several someones who don’t know each other. You need someone INSIDE of a high money system to move your money.Test cash — say 10% as a brokers fee to someone to move $1-$5 million. You need a credible lie as to why you have this cash. That’s the biggest challenge. Now here’s the kicker: the government will eventually notice cash deposits but how long is that eventually? A tax period? A year? What if I deposit on say January 1st of 2020? Then logically I might not have to answer for it until 2021–2022. They’ll wait a year to see if you file/answer. Then pursue. That’s 2 years right there. Time. You’re always playing for and with time.But you have to make sure that you’re willing to lose your test cash. Say at first a million to move into an account. Set up a business account. Then write one check from one account to another. Set up another business. Invest in several, small businesses. A Chinese restaurant, a laundromat, a grocery store, a bodega, a cell phone store, a discount store, a thrift store. A shifty lawyer (How do you find a shifty lawyer? A criminal attorney that specializes in drug cases. I would hang out at a court house, watch who has the most clients and what their charges are.) would help you set up seed money that you could then move into legit businesses fast. Perhaps a dozen or more businesses, partnerships. I buy 25% of Bob’s laundromat and pay Bob $1000 a month in money orders for 5 years. I just have to buy a money order every few days and I could do this for a dozen businesses in varying states.(The logic is — I don’t need a dozen businesses or partnerships to succeed, I need one or two. The rest are McGuffins. Distractions. I’m dropping seeds, planting them, creating a legal mix and scattering across multiple states in very small ways to obtain legal, financial access. Once I get that I can start parsing cash into accounts I control or have access to or can mix my money into other businesses.Note: Someone brought up tracing the cash itself. Drug dealers don’t possess the technology of the Secret Service/Treasury Department to do this. But let’s give these mofos the benefit of this just to make the exercise fun. In order to track money, generally by serial number it has to get into a banking system, a reserve. There are several large ones through the country.I spend $100 at Joe’s Gas Station in Southern Jersey.I buy a truck for $2500 in Southern Jersey.I buy food and supplies at several stop and go shops along the highway from NJ to PA, $1000.I spend $200 at a motel in eastern Pennsylvania.I buy a truck for $2200 in Pennsylvania.I spend $500 at a storage place in Charlotte.I buy food and supplies at Wal-Mart in North Carolina, $1000.I spend $1000 in Raleigh on storage.I buy a truck for $2000 in North Carolina back woods.I buy another truck in Virginia for $3000.Here’s the problem with even a government entity tracking money:Circulation.There’s estimated to be a trillion dollars floating electronically around the world in bank accounts, unclaimed.There’s estimated to be billions in cash in the USA that has not been retrieved back into the Reserves. (Under mattresses, hidden, forgotten, lost, DB Cooper.)It takes time for the cash from all of my purchases to move into circulation in a specific way.My above list isn’t as simple to track as it looks, in cash money. Instead look at it as it’s depository/hand.StorePrivate citizenMultiple stores and private citizensCash/credit businessPrivate citizenBusiness-cash and creditLarge retailerBusiness-cash and creditPrivate citizenPrivate citizenWalMart. I used to work at WalMart, they collect and store and then reuse cash throughout their regional store systems. That money is not getting to a governmental or a bank scanning system soon.Private citizens—where are they going to spend that money? Bills, food, leisure—WalMart, bank, movie theater. A third party removed from me will deposit the money, if they deposit it at all. Is it unusual to have a few hundred, a few thousand on hand at home, to split it up with the wife and kids. That’s the reason why I’m buying under a certain number. Large amounts get deposited, smaller amounts get held and spent.Business and Cash business, will hold it’s cash. Or deposit weekly. Probably not nightly because as a storage place how much cash do they get that they run out the bank with? They need that cash on hand for more possible cash customers. Now those cash customers come to storage place, change a $100, get 3 of my $20s and take those and go to…..Walmart.Total: $15,000 spent. Times 5 $20s that’s 750 $20 bills.Dispersed, imagine 750 $20 dollar bills scattered across the above 5 states, cities, towns, small towns, highway stops. Let’s say you got serial number pings, it would take awhile to get the pings because the bill has to make it’s way back to a bank/reserve. $20s for a reason. $100s are less common and you’d stand out. Remember that fat guy who paid with a $20 bill in front of you two months ago at the Piggly Wiggly? Yeah, I didn’t think so.The below map is now a HYPOTHETICAL illustration. It has no bearing to the words printed on it. Imagine each one of those dots is our tracked $20 bills. What does this tell you?The dude with the $24 million dollars is on the East Coast maybe.Now imagine it’s me, you think I’m not going to burn trails across the country, leave cash on buses and trains and in cars? Not a lot. A few hundred, here and there. Nothing of consequence that someone won’t pick up, count their lucky stars and go spend on casual, normal purchases. Ten or twenty of these drops, I bet less than 3 of the drops actually gets deposited to a bank. And if it does—-let’s say I put $300 in $20s in a wallet on a seat on an Amtrak going to Washington, DC. I hop off before the train leaves. The wallet is found in Washington D.C. or someone finds it at a point beforehand, gets off and a whole new cluster is created in Baltimore. I’d have the entirety of the USA covered in less than a month with false-positive trails.Every one of the major reserves and banks would flag money.I would plant money on trains, buses, cars going in a variety of directions, in abandoned purses and backpacks on college campuses, get the money into circulation. Everywhere.Scary Fact: Cocaine traces found on 4 out of 5 of every US currency bill,. Not because it was used to snort coke but because it’s such a fine powder it transfer easily.)Here’s the loophole of taxes—-you have time to declare what it is and where it came from. Time is what will allow you to implement your next plan. Which is why you need time to figure out what you want to do with your life and to lay reasonably low for awhile. It’s easier to hide among poor people than rich. Plenty of hotels take cash and you can live there week to week or change every few months.(Most poor people, even middle class don’t plan their lives. Rich people do. The planning creates the success, not the success. With time and adroit planning, you can manage all of this. Hell, you’re not working full time anymore and you’re just ostensibly taking care of that dying relative, right? As an aside to this, I would add that there are constant questions about what do “rich” people do that poor people don’t. Rich people start from the premise that there is a solution, complex perhaps, to their challenge. Poor people throw up their hands when their FIRST thought proves unworkable. Rich people people say shit, and get a pad and say there are at least 100 ways to do this, I’ll chart them all, investigate them and come up with 10 and then find 10 people to answer what’s workable and not. From those 10 and those 10 people, I’ll narrow it down to 5 ways that will work.)Accept The New Reality: Your old life is over. Accept it.Your new goals are to find the people who will help you set up your new life.You need a new identity. Several, in fact.I would avoid criminals and instead find somewhere populated by immigrants, maybe even do some Home Depot day labor work. Talk to them. They know ways to get ID. That’s what you need. A new identity. Several in fact. Get several identities, stash them with the money drops. Act as if one day you will only have time to get to a stash and run. I’d slowly set up cars, used, with the money nearby—-long term parking.(Logic. You need to learn from people who are surviving, living, taking care of their families, living on the margins, perhaps even hiding in plain sight how they do it. Juan and his buddies in the pic? Your new mentors. They know how to live off of the grid but access it as different identities for what you will need. You spot Juan a couple of hundred for his contact for a SS card, birth certificate and you can get a new license, grow a bank account and credit cards.)I’d also go to a gun range and take private lessons. Buy guns at gun shows t avoid paperwork and have a gun within six feet of you and the money at all times. I’d also go out into the wild and practice killing animals and gutting them, get past squeamishness at killing.At some point you will probably have to hurt someone who is after the money or who tries to take the money from you. Or the trackers will find you and you’ll have to fight/escape. You must be your first but not your only weapon. I’d take aikido lessons if I were a woman, boxing lessons too. Aikido and boxing and wrestling as a man. You’ll need to know how to fight, even if it’s at a gas station late at night on one of your sojourns. But your first defensive tactic is to always get away.I would also take security guard lessons and keep taking more and more of the classes to understand fire alarms, buildings, transport, weapons, observational skills. Your biggest weakness will be the police and law enforcement. If they get to close to you or have reason to search your premises, you can’t have anything that looks like more than what you are. Which is why the money has to be secreted and broken up. If your hotel gets drug raided, they can’t find your laptop and books or gun (I’d keep it small, maybe in a bag in my pocket, a Starbucks cup, something innocuous.) You have to walk out every day ready to never come back to that room and ready to dump anything on you that connects you to you.That means your clothing will have to be more basic, monotone, boring. Slacks, khakis, a suit, shirts, shoes, sneakers, hiking boots, a travel bag. Anything you can replace, you do replace. Anything that can be replaced, you don’t carry. That immediately lightens your load. I would leave bags with clothing at hotels, happens all the time. You put $200 in cash in it, no one will ever report the bag.(Logic-DNA: I would also at this point start getting weird about DNA traces. By that I mean I would frequent sex clubs, adult book stores, gyms and start gathering hair, semen samples, blood samples and liberally leaving around places you’ve been. Again a higher level trail scattering.)I would also buy, with cash, financial planning books and then dump them on buses, trains, etc. so that the hotel staff never sees what you’re “thinking” about.(You have $24 million in cash. Money will make you a target and you will have to burn the night oil to keep it. You have to constantly think about that now as your full time job so you need a crash course on financial planning and international finances. With enough of this scattering you have maybe 1 year to pull this off, it’s literally a heist. I’d cut that to the bare-wire to 6 months.)Someone will be a problem one day. You have to get yourself in your secluded year to a level where you’re ready to handle problems at a level most people are specially trained at. I would spend time at the gym, a personal trainer, and tell the hotel I do something stupid like data entry and go to my classes several times a week. I wouldn’t isolate myself though, you might need teh protection of a crowd to alert you to danger and facilitate your getting away. I go to movies and concerts quite often, several times a week. This gives you the protection of the crowd but more importantly, if anyone is following you they will stand out because it’s more difficult to blend in to a crowd, two, three, four times in a row AND keep track of following you.The secondary effect of all of this physical working out this has is you’ll probably look different than you did when you got a hold of the money. This gives you time to physically grow into new identities and to grow your new identities that you’ve obtained. You can now play with hair color, eye color, beards, clean shaven. I would have IDs with a variety of looks—-shaven, bald, bearded, something I could change in a short period of time or explain away but different from the other.Again buy travel tickets scattering across the country from several different outlets, make it weekend gigs to go places and just buy tickets. This is your new hobby, false positive trails.When someone tracks you, and eventually someone will, you need to have gone back and forth over your own trail half a dozen times. So that no one can see where you started or stopped. You’ll probably have to keep track of this in some basic way—-don’t keep this list/map on your person, on your computer nor with any of the money. I’d say a USB drive with just a list that you only access from public-library pcs or Fed Ex/Staples. You’ll need to avoid your own clustering. Or create so many clusters that it’s impossible to discern what’s a clustering.You will also have to no longer use any of the social media you have used, the search history, websites. You have to change everything. I would spend the year slowly deleting what I could and recreating false positives again. Family in different states, pictures from places you’ve never been, etc.. People don’t realize that we create “internet fingerprints” as individual as our physical ones when we go online based upon how you think and therefore how you search. You’re going to have to work diligently at scrubbing this, changing this, being a new person. I would start creating social media for new identities, attaching emails, uploading pics of places, people you’re “related” to. You have to grow the identities Juan helped you create/buy.HYPOTHETICALLY, This excessive diligence might seem insane but you have multiple short and long term problems:You don’t know what you don’t know. (Where did this money come from, is anyone looking for it or knows about it? You might never know the answer to this question but you have to act like there’s a 12 man bounty squad after you. Because....there might be.)You don’t know what you need to know, yet. (You’re learning how to move, safe guard and launder $24 million…on a Thursday. Give yourself a break. But create rules about how much cash you carry, spend, what you buy and don’t buy. You can’t flash money. Yet.)You don’t know what others know. You have to become the kind of person who controls the narrative about yourself. That’s not just simply lying, that’s filling in the blanks that people nose in about. Money draws attention and you’ll have to deflect it even as you use a little bit of money to keep the majority of it.You are playing a game about how much of the money you can keep and can’t. I would say the best case scenario is $20 million. Worse case $12 million. Between bribes, walking away from, costs, etc., you have to accept it’s not all yours, keeping it might cost half of it. But you’re $12 million up, not $12 million down, right?You will have to defend the money/yourself without the help of the entire police, legal or justice system. You’re on your own. Which means you have to be ready to cross the line when your crack addict hotel neighbor breaks into your room, when someone attacks you at a gas station, when someone tries to carjack you. Something will happen, mainly because you’re alone and what often insulates us from danger is that we travel in small or large packs of people at work, school, family. You’re out of that club, you’re a lone wolf on the prairie. You can no longer call the police. Ever again. You have to run from danger or seriously harm your attacker and then get away. You in essence have become a criminal, the irony is that no one will know you’re one until they catch you, interrogate you, imprison you…as a criminal for something unrelated. Therefore you can never get detained by the police, even if you’re the victim.It will be years of this obscuring and obfuscation before you can rest. But it will be worth it when you calculate the payment you get for each of these years. Best case scenario: $20 million with 20–50 years of life left. Worst case scenario: $12 million with 20–50 years of life left. But that’s before you invest it for a profit….You must control your image in a world that records all of us. This means that you have to assume that unless you’re in a room in the dark, you are being recorded—-video. You must control what that all seeing eye sees. A boring data analyst staying at a Jersey cheap hotel leaving with a laptop and gym bag every day by noon. The goal isn’t to become invisible, the goal is to become one of the herd. The herd will make you individually invisible. But you have to be ready to slip out of the pack at any time. (I’ve been thinking a lot about this one—-there’s make up, prosthetics, wigs, fat suits. I would also start looking into glasses, altering them to cause reflections and refractions from your face with light as well as micro-filaments to apply to eye brows, cheekbones. Hell, I’ve got free time, I’d watch a lot of facial special effects videos on YouTube and experiment for a few months. Nothing will be a perfect disguise—-it’s easier for a woman to change her appearance than a man. If I were a smaller framed man or could lose weight, I’d go drag the whole year, live as the opposite sex than the one being looked for.)You have to play your life as a long game now. In increments of years. I would take up meditation to learn how to calm myself quickly and deeply. Maybe even go to retreats. You need to relate to Time differently. You need to have greater control over your emotions and impulses because you need to hone your sense of intuition vs your sense of fear.I would use escorts/prostitutes in various cities for sex. Again your data analyst cover. You may have to avoid deep relationships for years because the money is your primary project and you can’t have someone too close, snooping around your apartment. If you date someone then rent a hotel room in a second hotel-—never bring anyone back to your A Spot. if you play it right, you’ll get the money into places, accounts, and businesses that you wholly control in a few years and then you can discreetly marry them (marriage will help you double hide in their identity. The problem is they are married to a false identity and this is why you might forsake deep relationships for a few years.) Another problem would be spending money in front of them, you’ve just created a witness to the fact that you paid for dinner with a wad of $20s. If the Trackers are good they’re going through each person, proofing money to event, to purchase. Eventually they might find an ex. Or an ex will look for you. Or an ex will become a stalker. Intimate relationships are dangerous until you’ve established a whole new identity, moved all the money and have control of it. Then you can date in your new identity.You’re not sure yet where you’ll end up. You have to accept that you’re moving to move at first. Then you’re moving to obscure. Then you’re moving to obscure your obscuring. Then you’re moving to drop seeds. Then you’re moving to check your buds. Then you’re moving to reap your harvest and ship it away. A lot of your life will be this movement so you’ll need to become a more encapsulated person who is flexible enough to move and disappear at will or intuition. This would also disrupt any long term relationships or even answering what your “life plan” is. Your inability to answer or sudden disappearance might raise a red flag. All of the scattering work has one crucial element: you’re not attached to it. Running around, creating false trails, all of this has been done by an invisible hand-—the last thing you need is someone who can identify you on such and such date in such and such place. That identification, say 6 months in, would obliterate any scatterings you’ve created up until then and immediately put you on the run. And a running rabbit is easier to catch than one that’s had time to hide in a forest. Running itself is the worse thing that can happen now, so you have to make sure you’re in control.Years 2 to 5You’re in better physical and mental shape, you’ve had time to think, plot, plan, pull together some pieces, be quiet, check some people out.Someone has helped you get a small chunk, say $750,000, into a bank account you control. Now you can do something.Buy a cheap house (s) with the company, rent a couple of them out. New storage places for cash, again dividing it up. Conceivably you could end up with a dozen or twice as many hiding places. This is perfect. Trackers are looking for $24 million, a thief might consider it a boon to find $500,000, you can walk away from $500,000 easier than $23,500,000. You’ll be willing to cut bait if you spot something out of whack on $500k, your instinct would be to fight for $5 to 24 million, you need to work against your own instincts.You can start easing cash into the accounts of each LLC, not much but some. Done properly and quietly, as if you have tenants, you could probably get a million or so in. I would furnish the homes, AirBnB them (get a student to manage it for you or a neighbor or property manager. Pay well but not too well. You need them to help maintain your mundane existence as you “travel doing IT projects as a consultant”—-just saying that alone and eyes will glaze over and take they’ll paycheck), stage them as if people live there, light timers.I would encourage AirBnB folk into them, you want again a steady flow of traffic in and out, lots of faces and people. Always assume that wherever you are you’re being watched. I would arrive at these places with a suitcase like a traveler. Any chance, no matter how remote you get to lie about yourself, about what you are and are not, take it. Your favorite food, color, type of music, I would fill the trucks and RVs with different music than I liked, buy clothing two sizes too big or too small, pepper my stuff with women’s clothing and make up to look like a couple traveling together. Whatever it took to make someone, a Tracker, doubt. Scattered trail, multiple trails, doubt, false trails.You have to treat the money like you’ll only have 1 hour to retrieve it one day so you can’t lump it together. If a million is 50–100lbs you have to consider how fast can you move 500lbs? What kind of car can do that and not look suspicious? A packed car in a garage of a house or two, maybe even one rented down the block from where you live. If you arrive and it looks hinky you want to be able to keep driving by and go to another house. I would get my house at the end of a cul de sac so that I can watch who comes in or out—-I would slowly buy the surrounding houses in the cul de sac under varying LLCs and own the whole neighborhood in a year or two—-and be able to cut through the backwoods. Or on a corner of an intersection, it will give you good visibility of who is watching the house.Assume you will get caught in one of your hideouts. Someone will break in. There will be a natural disaster. A fire. Your whole bundle can’t be in one spot.But with cash in the bank and time, you can now branch out. You can invest in things, create partners, limited partners who put in cash every month. Stores, restaurants, bodegas, laundromats can do 10%, maybe even 50% better in business every month to get cash into their working accounts. And that cash can be used to set up something else until you have a network where you can slowly infuse cash into it. But you’ll need time and a drawn out plan. Think of it like a chain of Christmas lights of businesses and accounts that you control.Now you can run business deals, get paid in cash slowly to get passports, to get out of the country. Which might have always been your long term goal. You’ve been taking flights to places, checking places out, checking out the strength of your ID. I would do tourism junkets to one country, leave the group to check out another. Again improvising your scattering your trail internationally.Insanely it’s easier to get INTO Mexico than out of. I’d start experimental trips down the coast. The coast is safer because there are American military boats and bases on the Pacific side and the Gulf inner side. Inner country, consider it bedlam, too risky and you would stand out. You want to go from seaport to seaport, military town to military town, you’re scoping out with $750k in the bank, how to get out of America. You might want to get out as one identity, secrete the money legally internationally where you have access and control and then come back into the country as another identity, who works for/owns the company that now has the money. That would be perfection, this would be to my mind, my end goal.Scatter.Leave America with money under one identity.Have the ability to return to America as another identity with full control of money. I would look like just an employee/business person with international business. I might even do something insane like get government contracts or do catering or something for law enforcement so that I was always surrounded by police. Another layer of protection.This might take you several years with that much money but you want to travel around Mexico and the Caribbean. Get to St. Kitts. Bimini. Deposit and transfer small amounts of cash. Start taking short flights to there and back. Private flights. Watch security. Could you get through with a duffel bag? $500k? $1 million?Your goal might be to over the course of 5 years get cash to a friendly foreign bank (Your nest egg of $12 million). But it will be a full time job just scoping out spots and moving money. Never trust anyone with the full story, the whole nut. Always be piddling, a fool with half a million in cash, maybe $1 million max in an account from multiple legitimate sources.But your security training and self protection training will make you someone who can spot a problem, get away from one and fight out of one if there’s no other choice.Steps.Move and separate money.Obscure your identity.Train yourselfCreate new identities.Bribe others to move small amounts.Repeat steps 3–5.Not that, you know, I’ve thought about this……..Note: TrackersI got several messages about them. HYPOTHETICALLY. It wouldn't be the criminals in any way tied to the money, it would be one person removed. Say the secretary (or a family member) who tied up wads and wads of $20s learns her bosses were killed by each other and the money is gone. (If possible, I would torch the place where the money and bodies were, burn some cash.) She’s not going to run around the country with a gun looking for you. She’s smart so she’s going to hire Skip Tracers around the country to keep tabs on your identity if she can figure it out. She’s also going to hire a handful of private investigators and/or bounty hunters with your pic and a substantial cash reward for your capture. If I were her, I would build up a BS charge of divorce, child support, alimony, and running off with a million in cash.Smart Trackers would also be looking at a certain economic level, high and low, medium is broad. High, because suddenly you’ve got lots of cash so someone would go wild, high on the hog. Easiest to find. Low would be someone who doesn’t fit. Medium though, Best Western, Comfort Inn, Motel 8—-there are thousands of them and a dozen ways to register and get a room, it would be a nightmare to search through these.Highways and byways. If they assumed you drove then I would put investigators and watchers at major highway intersections/interstates. The best bet is to pull out a road map and only travel blue roads and thin red ones. Nothing built by the state, only roads built by the county and back roads. Interstate have tolls, and tolls are cameras.I would shop at WalMarts. WalMarts are crowds and the disparate kinds of things you can buy at WalMarts make it difficult for even the sales associates to remember if you bought a wagon of food, women’s clothing and a power saw all at once. Also it’s a high cash place, you can get everything from gum to glasses to weapons, to food to computers there with less tracking. Their video system is extensive yes, but Trackers won’t have time or legal right to subpoena video records. This leaves you a gap of time to keep moving.Trackers on commission/bounty are never going to stop, (DB Cooper!) which is why you have to give them something to do with all of your false positive trails. All of the scatterings give you a tangled ball of yawn for Trackers to undo while you isolate/create your new identity and slip into it. Once you accept they’re after you, forever, it becomes easier to work your program of vanishing.Smart Trackers will also be watching newly incorporated companies with large cash deposits which is why you might want to sidle into an existing business.Trackers won’t be expecting you to have trained to turn and fight them. But Trackers will be able to stop, harm and detain you so you have to be ready to go to war with them, the closer they get.Trackers will never give up if there is a 10% bounty on your head. Ever.Your best and final hope is to vanish in America, get out of America, return to America, if you so choose, as someone else.#KylePhoenix