The Pi Diplomat.

One night, Tom diffused a fight as only Tom could.

I emerged from my room after hearing a lot of screaming and breaking glass. Two young gentlemen were about to get in a big fight. As I pondered what to do, Tom showed up. He quickly donned his "Tom is processing" look and quietly sized up the situation. Tom spoke up: 

"If you guys need to beat each other up, fine. But if you're going to fight here you need to pass a test. Ready? You need to name more digits of Pi than I can."

Both guys stopped fighting. The angrier looking one wanted to hit the other one so much that he tried to defeat Tom at Pi memory. He failed.

Both guys sulked away.

Tom started laughing and looked straight at me.

"And that's how you mediate with math, son."

Shaking of the fist

Incidentally, I love that the address for this collection is "fistshakingstories," as so many of Tom's best stories/rants included, at some point, a fist thrust up and waved in the air (often accompanied by some form of guttural ARG!)

targets that I can specifically recall:
- Nan Keohane, Bill Burig, Nan's Chilly Bivalve
- the Hideaway
- terrorists
- politicians
- rain
- sunshine
- God
- beer
- virtually every non-Chicago baseball team
- Chicago baseball teams, including virtually every individual player and manager by name
- at one point, even the Chicago Cubs batboy (though not, to my knowledge, by name)



- check that... pretty much every sports team to ever make TV or print that he watched or read...

- fraternities (plus PhiDelt GHQ)... especially PhiDelt GHQ...
- women (other than Krista)



- Krista and most fraternity brothers, but definitely only in jest

...(mostly) definitely...

More Norway!

At another point (post-calculating water depth story, below) in Norway we came upon a deck from which we decided one could reasonably jump off of into the fjord.

Now let's recall that I'm a florida boy and rarely get in water below 102 degrees F, which obviously is the ideal temperature for a jacuzzi. The fjord water was one degree above absolute zero (crazy as it sounds there was a kelvin thermometer in the water, we looked at it and it said "1"). In other words, the water was probably the coldest water has ever gotten in the universe ever, ever. Why or how Tom convinced me (or much less likely, I convinced Tom) to jump into the fjord I cannot recall. (Krista, can you?)

But in any case we did.







What these photos don't show is immediately after I hit the water, I rushed out of it up those stairs on the right as fast as I could, screaming like a girl, howling "whyyyyy??!! whhyyyyy??!!!"

Tom, however, began calmly swimming, farther from the dock! He then proceeded to do the "pop pop" float (sp?), a move named in honor of his grandfather I believe, in which he gracefully treaded water on his back and spouted the fjord water in the air as if he were a fountain. His ability to withstand that water - 1 degree above absolute zero - always astounded me.

Norway part deux, or trois

One of my favorite Tom stories took place in Norway, when the family decided to walk up a fjord. (It's unclear why we were doing this exactly, when there were perfectly good hi-res fjord photos online to look at, and plenty of lovely bars in Norway we could have been at drinking in the local culture as our ancestors would have, instead of slogging up a mountain. Alas.) Half way up the hill, maybe an hour or two into the hike, we stopped at a scenic spot to take a breather. See the photo below.




So here we all are, huffing and puffing, and the group was pretty quiet. I can't remember who asked me, probably Mom, what I was thinking about. At the time I was looking at a bug like an idiot. "That bug," I said, pointing to the bug. No one said anything, because the bug wasn't interesting or note-worthy in any particular way. (I think that was the last time I was asked on the trip what I was thinking about.) Someone probably asked Krista or Dad what they were thinking about, but I can't remember what their responses where. Dad's was probably something about enjoying the great outdoors etc etc. In any case, enter Tom!

"Tom," someone asked, "What are you thinking about?"



"Oh," he answered nonchalantly in the way that Tom answers things nonchalantly, "I was just thinking I could calculate the depth of the water out there in my head by measuring the distance of the waves (Imagine Tom pointing at the waves in the water) and here I can't recall what Tom said exactly because my mind folded in on itself, but not because it was a complicated answer, Tom rather expertly explained to the math laypersons huffing around him how simple the answer would be to derive, but rather because I was keenly aware of the incredibly contrast between my own insect comment and Tom's awesome brain.

The Vikings and one Irishman visit the Viking countryside

Tom joined our family on a trip to Norway just a month after he asked Krista to marry him. Because of scheduling conflicts Tom arrived in Oslo a day after us. His jet-lagged state did not stop him from enduring a very long first day of sightseeing and even participating in our mimicking of the statues in Frogner Park.

We have a tradition of taking “jumping pictures” which are simply group pictures of us jumping in new surroundings, in this case along a Norwegian fjord. In order for all of us to be included in the picture we set the camera on some convenient object, set the timer, count 1, 2, 3, jump, and jump. The problem of course is in the timing, knowing exactly when to jump to capture all in midair. Being new to this tradition Tom at first jumped straight up with hands in his pockets but after just two or three of our 30 or so attempts was the star showing us all some new moves for future jumping adventures.

Wii Revenge

It was two days before Christmas, 2007 and Krista, Tom, and Matthew had all arrived in Florida the night before. At the top of Krista's list that year was a Wii and the "boys"had heavily and successfully lobbied Ross and I to give Krista this gift early in their visit so "she" could enjoy it longer. After opening the Wii Krista positioned herself on the floor in front of the TV as she set out to create her Mii. Tom and Matthew sat next to each other on a couch behind her salivating as they waited their turn.

At first the boys were jolly as old St. Nick taking turns needling her as she, in true Krista fashion, methodically made her choices of eyes, hair, etc. turning to ask their opinion as she worked. After many, many long minutes of enduring Krista's thoroughness their joy turned to annoyance. Photos taken of them waiting show the progression of their joy, anguish, and I believe even the patented "Tom" fist shake.

Toothbrush

Many of you have heard this - I can't believe I had forgotten to post one of my favorite stories about Tom.

After we graduated from college, Tom and I backpacked in Europe for a month (joined for about a third of the trip by Seth and for one day by Brian). We landed in Brussels midday and immediately took a train to Paris. By the time we got to Paris and found a place to stay we were both pretty tired. Tom asked to borrow my toothbrush. I said, "Oh, did you forget your toothbrush? Ok, we can get you a new one tomorrow." Tom said, "No, I didn't forget - I just didn't bring my toothbrush. I figured I'd use yours." I (sensibly) was more than a little confused about this - over more than three years of dating sharing our toothbrushes wasn't an established thing. Tom was insistent though, so I shared my toothbrush with him for a month. This was annoying when we stayed in hostels separated by gender - toothbrush handoff was necessary.

I'm not very picky about toothbrushes anymore.