It’s Just Justin

Blogography Davelouis - Late and Irate

So I finally have gotten the chance or energy or whatever to write about Dave from Blogography.com’s trip to St. Louis for Davelouis.

I decided before heading out of town that I’d be smart to get a GPS for the long drive and the fucking confusing traffic in St. Louis as the city decides to shut down its most heavily trafficed roads for months at a time.  Every other time I have gone to St. Louis, either as a passenger or driver, getting lost seemed to be top priority.

Getting lost is one of the things that annoys me the most in the world.  I guess it’s because it leads to my even great pet peeve, being late.

I got a GPS, that will be talked about in another post, it’s a story all its own.  And it lead me to being late… nice.

Once I got to Blueberry Hill I met up with the gang.  And since I’m lazy right now, I’m just going to steal from Blogography the summary of people (naughty naughty) in attendance.

• Ajooja… from Ajooja. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! I have Ajooja to thank for everything, since he’s the one who entered the Grand Prize Drawing for Blogiversary V and picked St. Louis to meet. I had already met him last year at Davecago 2, but we’ve known each other online well before that (he wrote two previous blogs I enjoyed). It’s easy to find all kinds of nice things to say about Ajooja, but the fact that he went out of his way to drive me back to my hotel after the event just about says it all.
• Carlos… who doesn’t blog, but has been reading Blogography for three years. Since I manually approve every comment here, I recognized his email address immediately when it hit my inbox with the subject “Dave Louis.” In some ways, it’s more interesting meeting your readers who don’t blog because all you know about them come from the comments they leave. Though it was no surprise to find that Carlos is just as kind and supportive in person as he has always been on my blog.
• Ellipsis… a mysterious former-blogger that I’m pissed I missed out on, because if her blog was anything like she is in person, it must have been a very entertaining read indeed.
• Gina… from SeeGinaBlog. One of my favorite Twitter People (Tweeps?!?), Gina was kind enough to not only go out to dinner with me on Friday so I wouldn’t have to eat alone… but she also let me watch her get tattooed, introduced me to her beau, AND didn’t yell at me when I forgot her name badge lanyard back at the hotel! As if being a truly sweet and interesting person wasn’t enough, she’s got a great eye for photography too!
• Justin… from Just Justin. A very recent find, I first ran across Justin on other blogs I read. Like me, Justin is a Mac & iPhone whore. Unlike me, Justin is an amazing photographer. When I first found out about his blog, I sat down and read through every single entry so I could see beautiful shots like these. Yes, I hate him just a little bit.
• The Queen… from Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia. I always say that the best part of going to blogger gatherings is meeting the people behind the blogs you read. A close second is finding sweet new blogs you didn’t know about. My audience with The Queen was a lot of fun in person… but that didn’t prepare me for her blog, which is funny as hell. She wrote a re-cap here. But it’s what happened AFTER Dave Louis that made me LOL. And, while I would usually never forgive somebody for using “LOL” on my blog, Her Majesty DID blog a recipe for Gooey Butter CoffeeCake, so all is forgiven.
• Sarah… who currently doesn’t blog, but really should. I award Sarah the coveted “Best Dressed at Dave Louis Award” for showing up in a classy “Zombies Ate My Brains” T-Shirt. The girl knows how to dress to impress at a party!

Yes, Dave did it best haha.

It was a great fantastical group of people.  I even kinda sorta knew some of them; “Ellipses” and Sarah both know a good friend of mine from Columbia who is also my old coworker and possibly my cousin (we never sorted that one out).  Sarah and I are pretty sure that we know each other on our own but we could not pin point our first encounter.

So we chitchatted, ate and had a fabulous time at Blueberry Hill.  There was a magic show going on and an Asian Elvis impersonator; both were private party only but that didn’t stop the imagination from flowing.

After talks of fudgy bunt cake a la mode and ooey gooey butter cake, the troupe of St. Louians decided that nothign would be good enough for Dave except Ted Drewes Frozen Custard.

I had enver had Ted Drewes and didn’t want to break my diet but decided one bite would be ok.  Of course Ellipses had to twist my arm a bit.

It was good but… THIS good?

I guess you could said it’s so good it’s to die for!

Oh snap!

Guess someone had more than their fill.  Old lady fell to the ground and well… didn’t get up for a bit.  She did manage to get up and put herself onto the gurney before they trucked her off though they did spend an awful long time there just sitting.  Something tells me they got themselves some Ted Drewes.

Before we too fell to the fate of the little old lady, we decided to part ways but not without a picture!

It was a great time and totally worth all the trouble to get out there!

Tags: Blogography, Blueberry Hill, Elvis impersonator, iPhone, Meetup, St. Louis, St. Louis Missouri, Travel

Blogography DaveLouis

Pictures now, explanations later. Meanwhile, why not make your own. Frozen Custard, Ambulance and the satisfied looks… hmmm.

Tags: Blogging, Blogography, Dave, Davelouis, Going Out, Missouri, St. Louis, TomTom

Travel Woes

I have always loved to travel.  Being able to put out a couple hundred dollars and travel across the country is awesome to me, and I’ve done it more than many people my age.  I have been flying since I was a little child from my yearly voyage to California, to trips to Europe, the Caribbean and Hawaii, to more continental trips to Missouri, Texas, Washington DC, Florida, Massachusetts, Georgia, Arizona, Tennessee…

I’ve been to pretty much every state, take the Dakotas, Montana, Alaska and Maine.

Today was the first time I’ve really been a prissy little bitch while traveling.

The plan was that I would take the MoExpress shuttle to St. Louis, fly to Baltimore/Washington International, have dinner with my best friend of all time Landon during my four hour layover and then finish my flight to Raleigh North Carolina where I would meet my grandmother and then head to our hotel to prepare for our presentation tomorrow night.

Well, I did take MoExpress.  I sat next to a guy stuffing his face full of McDonalds and taking up a good portion of my seat doing it.  Behind me there was a guy eating a ten piece fried chicken bucket with biscuits and gravy.  Oh, don’t forget the woman who some how managed to get actual movie theater popcorn at 10:30 in the morning.  Not a small bag, we are talking the refillable plastic bucket.  Finally there was the kid who had two trays of Chinese food, which he ate solo.

Missouri is  sloppy state.

We arrive at the airport as scheduled at 12:30pm, I went through security without any trouble and declared sanctuary.

Too soon.

My flight is delayed 30 minutes.  I decided to take this extra time and explore the airport terminal.  To my surprise, the E terminal now connected to the D terminal, and so on all the way to A.  This is a new thing.  Southwest’s terminal has always sat as it’s own with no connection to the other terminals beyond using a shuttle.

I walk, and walk, and walk.  There are half mile markers through the terminal.  I guess the city of Saint Louis is trying to remove the negative health stigma attached to the state?

I walk all the way to terminal A, find nothing too exciting and head back to terminal E.

At The Great American Bagel and Bakery I order a veggie sandwich on an asiago bagel.

“That’ll be an extra $0.99 you know”

“Yes I understand that”

“What do you want again?  Turkey?”

“Veggie on asiago”

“Oh, yeah.  The asiago is an extra $0.99”

“Yes, that’s what I hear”

“What would you like on it?”

“Well, what veggies do you have?” (they don’t show the makings of the sandwich which makes me a bit nervous)

Pointing to her right, “Look at “Condiments”

I look to her left, where I see “Condiments”.  Is lettuce a condiment?  Ok, I bite, “Lettuce, tomato, red onion, cucumber, peppers and light mayo”.

“Want cheese?”

“Yes, provolone”

“Alright, do you want any cheese?”

“Yes… provolone”

“Oh, yeah.”

It’s over $9.00 for this sandwich.  I hand her my debit card as a man walks up and says, “I need a large coffee”.

The register attendant cancels the transaction to process his coffee order.  Mind you, there is a line about ten deep behind me and this bloke walks up and cuts in front of us all, and she cancels my transaction for a $2.50 cup of coffee.

Then she picks up the phone, apparently “Char-ease” has called in sick, again.

“Oh no!  You tell Char-ease she can’t be calling in again.  She called in yesterday, no way, nuh uh.”

This continues, my transaction is processed.  I leave, unwrap my bagel and am met with one piece of lettuce, two anemic tomato slices and vinegar.  So that’s how the sandwich got so greasy, the oil and vinegar she poured all over it.  Did I order that?  No.

So I took apart the sandwich and treated it as a half side salad with stale asiago bread on the side.

Needless to say it wasn’t very good and it definitely wasn’t worth $9.00+.  I would have been better off getting the caesar salad from Wolfgang Puck for $8.99 in the other terminal.  Lesson learned.

I get to the gate, flight delayed another ten minutes.

Flight delayed another 30 minutes.

Flight has arrived… ?  Huh?  It was at least forty minutes away and now, magically, it is here. We board the flight.

We sit on the the runway 20 minutes.  We start to take off, we stop.  We sit on the runway 30 minutes.  We return to the gate where we deplane and I plug in my laptop to charge a bit more.

The air traffic controllers in Baltimore are saying there is at least another hour before we can take off so I get myself comfortable, cancel my plans with Landon and hop onto the internet.
Ten minutes later they are calling us back onto the plane.  So much for an hour, but I won’t complain.

We get back on the plane.  We sit on the runway.  We sit some more.  We finally take off.

During the entire thing, everyone kept a positive attitude, thank the lord.  I mean, I was pessimistic and bitchy and pissy but I made sure to keep that to myself.  The flight attendants were so nice, the pilot kept us up to date as best he could and gate workers did their best to keep us comfortable with the entire situation.

That is why I love Southwest Airlines.  They put customer service as a top priority and had this been another airline, I am certain there would have been some pretty vocal people on the plane.

I only wish they had Midwest Airline’s cookies.  Never ending supply of warm cookies would keep any Missourian happy, especially the ones I met today.  Holy shit.
UPDATE:

We have

Tags: Annoying, California, Crappy, Delayed, Pitchfork Music Festival, Rant, Southwest Airlines, St. Louis, St. Louis Missouri, Travel, Ugh, United States, Washington DC, Wolfgang Puck, WTF?

Always Busy

It seems like every week I’m flying out somewhere or otherwise taking a trip out of town.

Texas, Birmingham, Chicago, Kansas City, Saint Louis, San Francisco… This Monday I’m flying out to Raleigh North Carolina and giving a presentation to the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission and then Ryan will join me in Texas to spend a long weekend with my grandmother and grandfather at their home there outside of Austin.

I am really excited/nervous about the trip to Texas.  This is the first time that I have really integrated a boyfriend in my family life.  I have always wanted to do so with my past boyfriends (namely, only, Landon and Geoffrey) but a mixture of my fear and my family’s obvious distaste for that quelched any chances of something like this.

However, my family seems to just love Ryan, a lot.  I mean, why not?  He’s smart, funny, loving, cute, incredibly diligent, charming and so kind.  He has helped me grow and feel comfortable in my skin.  He is such a light in my life and my family must see that.  He emails back and forth with my grandmother and my parents ask about him everytime we talk on the phone.  How great is that?

So anyways, going to be busy traveling but it will be a lot of fun and let’s be honest, getting out of Columbia is about the best thing one can do in the summer!

Tags: Family, Geoffrey, Kansas City, Landon, Love, North Carolina, Raleigh North Carolina, Ryan, Society and Culture, St. Louis, Travel, Work

The Piano Bar

Last night, while Ryan worked hard all night saving lives, Micheal and I joined Dustin, Annalee and Seema at the Piano bar for some good times.

We drank a top hat.  It’s like Sangria plus hard liquor. It’s like heaven.  It’s $12.

It’s really big and Micheal and Annalee drank it all.  (Well, not really)

It was a really fun night.  I’m glad Micheal called me to go hang out.  :-)  We were txt messaging Jenny the entire time, sending pictures and our love.  Next week Micheal and I are going to Saint Louis to visit her and go to Showtune Tuesday.  How exciting!

Tags: Annalee, Drinking, Dustin, Friends, Fun, Going Out, Jenny, Micheal, Piano Bar, Seema, St. Louis, Yay

What Can Go Wrong…

Ryan and I had this plan.  The plan was that we would have a couple of friends join us to St. Louis where Six Flags was “celebrating” GLBT Day.  The idea was, two hotel rooms, one car, four friends driving, having drinks with mutual and new friends Saturday night, waking up Sunday and picking up Jenny and going to the park for a fun filled day of rides and expensive bottles of water.

Well damn!

My car broke down.  A recalled part landed my car in the shop.  Coincidentally, that recalled part cost me money to get fixed…

Ryan’s car was too small for four people and the air conditioner is on the fritz so we investigated a rental car.  Every dealer was sold out.

Jeremy’s cousin volunteered to drive us, quite nice of her.  A few problems there.  That made a total of five people driving up in a car made for four people.  Never mind picking up Jenny the next day, never mind that we wouldn’t have a way to see our friends for drinks that night.  Never mind that the other three in the car would be under 21 and thus unable to go out with us.

We get about ten miles outside of town when I get a phone call from my dad that he has managed to get us a rental car.  Our driver reluctantly turns the car around.  (Not so secretly, I was thankful to get out of the car.  Between the packed backseat to the driving skills of our 17 year old driver… I was ready to get the hell out of there).

The car rental place does indeed have a car for us.  It’s a 2008 Ford Mustang GT.

You’ve got to be kidding.

$75 a day, 14-20mpg and you have to be 25 to rent it.  I’m 23.  Reluctantly, again, our driver brings us back to the condo.  Ryan and I decide we will just take his mustang.  It was really the only choice.  So we go inside the condo to pick up a few things… and notice the fabulous trail of chocolate tracked in by my flip flops.

For real?  OMG.

We work hard to clean up the mess, it was actually a bit fun, thanks mostly to Ryan’s eternally positive attitude.

So we clean up the floor, pick up our things, get some gas, buy a few drinks and drive.  We have fun in the car because… well we always have fun together.  If left on an otherwise deserted island and given the option to bring one thing with me, it would be Ryan.

He makes me laugh, he makes me see the brighter side of things.  He makes me feel whole.

Ryan would bring hydrogen peroxide.  He isn’t as romantic as I am in times like these.  wink wink

We make it to the hotel, we get dinner, and ultimately decide that driving 40 minutes to meet our already partially drunk friends at a bar and then have to find our way home would be a bad idea.  Plus our other three people are under 21.

After about an hour of talking to each other about me allowing myself to be trampled on by my friends and my exes, we head downstairs to the bar.  Ryan charms the bartender, I drink my vodka and Sprite.  It was tasty.  We again, have a wonderful time together.

We wake up, head to Jenny’s, get lost… get lost some more.  Get bagels, cheat the system at Panera, get to Jenny’s, eat said bagels, meet her roommate, meet her roommate’s boyfriend and his friend, head to Six Flags.  We forget the camera.  Holy shit.

About the park later.

After the day at the park, we went back to Jenny’s, took a nap, took a shower, and headed out to see Geoffrey for dinner.  Got lost, then we got really lost.  Then we made it.

This weekend has convinced me that Ryan and I have to get a Garmin, or at the least, I’ll definitely have to get the new iPhone 3G with built in GPS.  Holy hell.

Tags: Car rental, Chadd, Driving, Ford Mustang, Geoffrey, Jenny, Jeremy, Six Flags, St. Louis, Transportation, Ugh, WTF?