A weekend in TN

This weekend I went to Cookeville, TN for an IIE (Institute of Industrial Engineers) Conference. It was.... special?

First of all, Cookeville (home of Tennessee Tech University) is about as awesome as it sounds. There are like 3 bars there and they are all sketchy, lame, horrible or some combination of the three. Also, the taxi service appears to be four independently operated businesses with a total of 6 cabs between them.

As for the conference, there were high points and low points which I will expound in list form.

Highs

• Tour of the Jack Daniels Distillery. AwesomeAwesomeAwesome. Yay for Tennessee sipping whiskey. The tour takes you through every step of the process in the actual facilities which all smell like bread, grain alcohol or active yeast. The whole thing was pretty badass. Recommended by Abby,
• Other IE's from other schools. Particular shout-out to the 4 brave souls from Virginia Tech who are completely fabulous and also my heroes for providing transportation in their bitchin' minivan.
• Competitions involving Lego's. The Clemson teams completely dominated the competition that involved building a Lego building for a small, stuffed King Kong to climb. My team built a 27-inch tower in 17 seconds. Plus we got to play with Legos for like an hour.
  
• Surprisingly, the food. Our two fancy-ish dinners were quite tasty.

Lows

• There was no coffee served anywhere at any time. I've given up soda for Lent so I was extremely under-caffeinated.
  
• Going out at night meant that the Clemson-ites were averaging about 3 hours of sleep a night. Grumpiness. Again- no coffee.
  
• The theme of the weekend was leadership, which meant we heard about 87 boring speakers give the same boring speech about how IE's make great leaders.
• We lost the keys to our 12-passenger van and spent much of the trip without transportation for 12 people.
• We were late for absolutely everything, because it is impossible to get 14 hung-over, sleep-deprived, cranky collegiates anywhere in a timely fashion. Particularly if they have no vehicle.
• I broke a nail. Not in the 'oh I'm a girl and I'm sad my nails are uneven' way (though that does make me sad- they were so pretty!) I broke it the in the way that it cracks a half-inch below the skin and after the nail is completely broken it stays attached to the skin and has to be torn off like a band-aid that rips off four layers of skin and hurts so bad you think you'll faint. So after all that, the end of my right thumb looks like it attacked in a knife fight and it still hurts like an obscenity because I keep running it into stuff. I use my right thumb a lot. Like to turn keys and write, and put on jewelry, and tie my shoes, and open doors, and reach into pockets, and button my pants and all of those things are now rather painful experiences.
  

Anyway, I had fun. It was my first conference like that and will probably be my last. I was not aware that the purpose of these things was to go get ragingly drunk and act up doing things you wouldn't normally do. Apparently Vegas rules apply. I found this somewhat annoying, particularly because I'm not repressed and there isn't anything I want to do that I wouldn't do in front of people I know.

All that funnels into me being very grateful that my friends and family love me just the crazy way I am, so I don't have to spend 5 hours in a van full of strangers to get far enough away to let loose.

Love you Blogsters.

Also, Obama is kickin' ass. Yay Barack!!!

The Times They are A-Changin'

Yep, new layout. Love it. That's an order.

Quick comment on the wedding.

Scottish ceremony, kilts, bagpipes, that whole Braveheart situation.

Turkish bride. Turkish music.

Drunken groomsmen in skirts dancing to fantabulous turkish pop music.

Don't see that every day :)

Vote Obama... today!

John Mayer

Yesterday Lauren VM, Dia and I went to see John "the love of Dia's life" Mayer. He's just like he is on his albums. So if you love that you would die of happiness to see him live. If you don't love it, you aren't confronted with something unpleasant or unfamiliar.

I like him (not love). I did have a fabulous time at the concert. There was an insanely drunk girl in a conservative sweater set in the row in front of us. Betting on whether she'd do a header over the railing in front of her was really entertaining.

After the show we went to the Capitol, took some pictures and did not get arrested. But barely. Good times. Lauren has the pics, I'll post a few when she uploads them.

What being at a concert really did for me though was get me excessively excited about Joe Firstman! Woooooo! I'm trying not to get myself worked up too early (still a month to wait) but its hard.

Today after dragging my unrested butt to Spanish and 368, Melissa and I went and got her Pierced!!! The dude had just opened and he made us wait like an hour in his frigid cold waiting area, but it was worth it. Melissa was so brave, she didn't even scream. She did curse. But I mean how could you not? Plus she has the cutest little tiny tummy thats starting to get tan and muscular from the crunches and self-tanner. She's too hot to handle.

Pics to follow-
Abby

Abby and Dia's Adventures

A Brief History of Abby and Dia's Concerts
Oct. 2004- Gavin DeGraw in Greenville, SC. Michael Tolcher Opens.
Aug. 2005- Gavin DeGraw in Raleigh, NC. Michael Tolcher Opens.
Nov. 2005- Michael Tolcher in Atlanta, GA. Family Force 5 Opens.
Oct. 2006- Family Force 5 in Columbia, SC.

A Brief History of Abby and Dia being Lost
Oct. 2004- Lost in Greenville looking for Gavin. GHOST DOG!!!!
Nov. 2004- Lost near the SC/NC state line. Are we in North Carolina?
July 2005- Lost in Columbia looking for a two-story Starbuck's with a balcony.
July 2005- Lost in Columbia looking for a mall.
Aug. 2005- Lost our minds while receiving a speeding ticket somewheres in NC at 3am.
Oct. 2006- Lost in Columbia by taking the wrong turn, and turning the wrong way- twice.

A Long History about what happened Last Night.
Last night Dia and I made the 2 hour journey to Columbia to see Family Force 5 give a free outdoor show at 5 Points. We left approximately 1.75 hours after our planned departure time. But we looked fabulous. I wore my teal Chinese shirt and my red cords, Dia had French jeans on with a button-up tied over a black tank. Tres chic!

We did not get lost on the way there. Nearly, but not quite. Go us! We drive up and find $3 parking right across the street, which was probably a huge rip-off, but we Chicagoans were thrilled.

We walk up and the concert is on a big open lot (probably a parking lot by day) that has a 20x20ft "stage" in one corner. The "stage" is really a 4ft high walled in area that looks like it should be a garden or something. There's a tree in it. Pretty classy. The lot has a little beer stand and a snack stand and the building on one side of it seems to be occupied by a bar and a Starbucks. A two-story Starbuck's with a fricken balcony. You should have seen Dia's face.

The opening band was called Mean Wiener. They were ok, an older, local-looking rock band. We got Bud Light in plastic bottles. Those things freak me out.

Dia had this idea about putting on a French accent and telling people she was French. Some guy walked up to hit on me (he complimented my shirt) and Dia just jumped in. It was amazing. His tongue was dragging on the ground. He thought her frenchness was so sexy. He totally believed that she was my French cousin. It was positively the most awesome nonsense Dia has ever pulled in front of me. I'm now learning accents for the exclusive purpose of picking up guys.

Anyway, eventually Family Force 5 came on and they were so brilliant. They are great live and they are so energetic. Plus they are nuts. The guitarist jumped down off the stage and did a lap around the lot with a stop to play a solo on the curb for passing cars. One of the guys did the worm on the 1 foot wide ledge. The lead singer spent a lot of quality time hanging over us on the light post on the ledge. So crazy, so fun. Afterwards we got pics with the boys and signatures.

When we left, Dia turned on the wrong road. But we found our way to the interstate and promptly got on going the wrong way. Luckily there was a Waffle House at the next exit so we went in and grabbed some coffee and grub. Our waiter was totally high. We ate and got pecan pie to go. We got back on the road in the right direction and then got on the next road going the wrong way. It happens. We made it home in one piece anyway. Good Times.

Yay getting lost and concerts and finding that damn Starbucks a year after we gave up on it.

And Wrastle They Did

So I went to WWE Raw, and it was wonderful. Everything you could hope professional wrestling would be. The fans were rowdy and the fights were super fake. But still, it takes a lot of talent to body slam someone off the ropes without injuring either party.

I went with Melissa, whose uncle is one of the wrestlers, HackSaw. Thats the one that carries an American Flag and hits people with a 2x4. It was fun to be with her, because she knows the whole "plot" if you will. She knows who has personal conflicts with Vince McMahan and who's been to anger management and who is sleeping with whose ex-girlfriend. Its like a soap opera.

So aside from the disappointingly small numbers of mullets and flashers, it was all a pretty enjoyable experience. I recommend everyone go once. Once is probably enough.

Home In One Piece

Well, we've returned from the Mountains. Twas a lovely weekend. The football game was awesome (obviously!) We did a little walking in Tryon. Abby bought two books, Melissa bought enough to start her own bookstore. I got The Awakening and Music For Chameleons. Super excited if I can ever finish Becoming Madame Mao. The style is slowing me down.

Other weekend highlights: While we were waiting for Michael and Ash to catch up with us I got these fabulous new shoes. Orange sequined wedges. So Clemsontastic.

Mostly it was just a nice relaxing weekend with no cable, no internet, and no cell phone! I hate that stupid thing. It rings a lot. Grrrrrr.

We did have a little excitement on the way down the mountain today when JD's brakes started smoking like crazy. Tiny bit scary! Apparently stopping and letting them cool off will fix it. Who knew?

Time for me to now take care of my girl getting into grad school. More later.
-Abby