CDA Convention: July 21, 2006.
Part Two:
I wake up Friday morning, and the first thing I hear is Ashley saying to me, "God. We still have to clean that puke out of the car." I reply, "We really should've left some windows open to air it out. I'll bet it's hotter today than it was yesterday." I put a shirt on, and walk down to the car to retrieve my wallet that I remember leaving in the car the night before. I walk downstairs to the not-a-parking space where I left the car and noticed the left-rear window open. Not only that, but all four doors were unlocked. Shit. Shitfuck. I remember leaving my wallet on the center console in the car, and it's not there...
Apparently my memory wasn't as good as I thought it was, because I frantically open the driver side door, and my wallet falls out. Sorry to disappoint everyone, but it wasn't stolen. Neither were my $7 aviators that I also left in the car. Yet another credit to Belleville, IL. Not only was nothing stolen, but the car wasn't towed for being in a heinously non-parking space. It wasn't exactly a fire lane or anything, but it was pretty rough.
So i get back up to the room just as Joe, who had blacked out the night previous, is waking up with a groan.
Sean [laughing]: Want an aspirin, Broseph?
Joe: ...why?
Candice [groaning]: You don't feel like shit?
Joe: ...nooooo. What are we doing today?
Again, probably funnier had you seen the extent to how far gone Joe was the night before and how ready to attack the day he was not 6 hours later.
After getting little more than a half-hour sleep Thursday night, we wake up and decide to pretty much blow off the breakfast in St. Louis because, well, it's in St. Louis and it happened two hours prior. Also, half of us were hungover. In addition, we had previously planned to skip the first two workshops at the convention and attend the last two. As long as we made it to the Wes Clark speech, which was at 2, we were good.
Before that, we explore Belleville, or at least Main Street Downtown. We hit lunch at the largest Quiznos I've been to where the entire staff was wearing "I [heart] Belleville" shirts. We make nice with the staff, absorb Alabama jokes about boiled peanuts, and find out that they got their super cool shirts from 'Beatniks' across the street. So we go there, buy some faux vintage shirts, then off to a few thrift stores to buy some actual vintage stuff. I grabbed some shirts and ties.
We race over to the speech which we thought we'd be late for, but he took the podium just as we showed up. Unfortunately, there was no seating, so we had to stand in the back. Having a combined of 4-5 hours sleep in the past two days, I was exhausted and leaned up against the wall. However, this just wasn't cutting it. I decided to bend my knees and lean down lower. Just then, in the middle of Wes Clark's speech the lights began to dim on the stage and eventually shut off completely.
Everyone looks around, I exchange annoyed, "Who brought the asshole?" looks with Anna Ruth Williams, as Clark doesn't miss a beat. Then I get a sinking feeling. Oh god. What if it was me? Yeah. It totally was.
I turned off the lights on Supreme Allied General Commander Wesley Clark.
I look behind me, expecting to see a light switch, but am met instead with some weird ultra-modern keypad that requires a code to turn both on and off the lights. Apparently my shoulder blades knew the password. A volunteer comes over, turns them back up as Clark jokes, "You may be done with me, but I'm not done with you kids yet!", which is met with a resounding applause and a standing ovation.
Being the good, responsible College Democrats we are, we eventually decided to blow off the final two workshops as well and hit the Arch. It was cool to a certain extent, but it was a bit of a letdown. It was an experience that I recommend everyone share in their lives, but for no other reason than it's a really neat National Park and a cool museum. If you want to pay $10 to go up in the Arch, you experience little more than a sweet view of Busch Stadium and the rest of the park. Plenty of goofy pictures were taken.
After the arch, with Candice still relatively hung over and Joe not feeling good, we decide to keep it in for the most part. We ate dinner at one of the 7 Irish Grille + Pubs in Belleville, and have one of the worst experiences ever. I ordered a medium rare burger, and it was quite literally 60% ash. Candice's was better, but not much. Broseph apparently had an outstanding Reuben and Ashley had similar luck w/ her Salmon. Convinced Candice and I cannot catch a culinary break this trip. Again, considering eating my new shoes with super-homo pink shoelaces for lunch tomorrow. On the bright side, "Castletown" served me my Blue Moon in an even-larger Blue Moon glass than Humphrey's the night previous, which I promptly stole as well.
Ashley and I picked up a bottle of rum at a supermarket called Shnucks (god, I love not-Alabama) and we take it back to the hotel for some catchphrase and Uno. After Candice and Joe decide to go to bed, Ashley and I head out to hit a few bars by the hotel. "Big Daddy's" was half the size of Huntsville's Sammy T's with twice the amount of obnoxious people. After that, we went to 'Main Street Jazz + Blues' which was considerably cooler. I met a hot 30 yr old named Kelly who seemed impressed with Alabama shirt and my usage of the word pretentious. So I talked to her for a while, got her to start using the word alternative, then bid her adieu.
Newsflash, people: You cannot stop alternative. I how have operatives in Atlanta, St. Louis, New Orleans, Nashville, Portland, LA, Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Auburn.
So Ashley and I make it back to the hotel, act like we were sloppy drunk (of which we were the polar opposite) in an attempt to be funny wake up Candice and Joe, but to no avail. We hit the sack and dream of a care-free Saturday full of speeches and a tour at Anheuser Busch in the Lou.
Again, folks: if you've made it thus far, thanks for reading. Hopefully I'll have some pictures ready soon if I can grab them from Ashley or if she posts them on facebook. They're pure gold.
Part three, which isn't the final chapter by any means, hopefully tomorrow.
I've got my court date for the DUI tomorrow. Wish a brother luck.
I wake up Friday morning, and the first thing I hear is Ashley saying to me, "God. We still have to clean that puke out of the car." I reply, "We really should've left some windows open to air it out. I'll bet it's hotter today than it was yesterday." I put a shirt on, and walk down to the car to retrieve my wallet that I remember leaving in the car the night before. I walk downstairs to the not-a-parking space where I left the car and noticed the left-rear window open. Not only that, but all four doors were unlocked. Shit. Shitfuck. I remember leaving my wallet on the center console in the car, and it's not there...
Apparently my memory wasn't as good as I thought it was, because I frantically open the driver side door, and my wallet falls out. Sorry to disappoint everyone, but it wasn't stolen. Neither were my $7 aviators that I also left in the car. Yet another credit to Belleville, IL. Not only was nothing stolen, but the car wasn't towed for being in a heinously non-parking space. It wasn't exactly a fire lane or anything, but it was pretty rough.
So i get back up to the room just as Joe, who had blacked out the night previous, is waking up with a groan.
Sean [laughing]: Want an aspirin, Broseph?
Joe: ...why?
Candice [groaning]: You don't feel like shit?
Joe: ...nooooo. What are we doing today?
Again, probably funnier had you seen the extent to how far gone Joe was the night before and how ready to attack the day he was not 6 hours later.
After getting little more than a half-hour sleep Thursday night, we wake up and decide to pretty much blow off the breakfast in St. Louis because, well, it's in St. Louis and it happened two hours prior. Also, half of us were hungover. In addition, we had previously planned to skip the first two workshops at the convention and attend the last two. As long as we made it to the Wes Clark speech, which was at 2, we were good.
Before that, we explore Belleville, or at least Main Street Downtown. We hit lunch at the largest Quiznos I've been to where the entire staff was wearing "I [heart] Belleville" shirts. We make nice with the staff, absorb Alabama jokes about boiled peanuts, and find out that they got their super cool shirts from 'Beatniks' across the street. So we go there, buy some faux vintage shirts, then off to a few thrift stores to buy some actual vintage stuff. I grabbed some shirts and ties.
We race over to the speech which we thought we'd be late for, but he took the podium just as we showed up. Unfortunately, there was no seating, so we had to stand in the back. Having a combined of 4-5 hours sleep in the past two days, I was exhausted and leaned up against the wall. However, this just wasn't cutting it. I decided to bend my knees and lean down lower. Just then, in the middle of Wes Clark's speech the lights began to dim on the stage and eventually shut off completely.
Everyone looks around, I exchange annoyed, "Who brought the asshole?" looks with Anna Ruth Williams, as Clark doesn't miss a beat. Then I get a sinking feeling. Oh god. What if it was me? Yeah. It totally was.
I turned off the lights on Supreme Allied General Commander Wesley Clark.
I look behind me, expecting to see a light switch, but am met instead with some weird ultra-modern keypad that requires a code to turn both on and off the lights. Apparently my shoulder blades knew the password. A volunteer comes over, turns them back up as Clark jokes, "You may be done with me, but I'm not done with you kids yet!", which is met with a resounding applause and a standing ovation.
Being the good, responsible College Democrats we are, we eventually decided to blow off the final two workshops as well and hit the Arch. It was cool to a certain extent, but it was a bit of a letdown. It was an experience that I recommend everyone share in their lives, but for no other reason than it's a really neat National Park and a cool museum. If you want to pay $10 to go up in the Arch, you experience little more than a sweet view of Busch Stadium and the rest of the park. Plenty of goofy pictures were taken.
After the arch, with Candice still relatively hung over and Joe not feeling good, we decide to keep it in for the most part. We ate dinner at one of the 7 Irish Grille + Pubs in Belleville, and have one of the worst experiences ever. I ordered a medium rare burger, and it was quite literally 60% ash. Candice's was better, but not much. Broseph apparently had an outstanding Reuben and Ashley had similar luck w/ her Salmon. Convinced Candice and I cannot catch a culinary break this trip. Again, considering eating my new shoes with super-homo pink shoelaces for lunch tomorrow. On the bright side, "Castletown" served me my Blue Moon in an even-larger Blue Moon glass than Humphrey's the night previous, which I promptly stole as well.
Ashley and I picked up a bottle of rum at a supermarket called Shnucks (god, I love not-Alabama) and we take it back to the hotel for some catchphrase and Uno. After Candice and Joe decide to go to bed, Ashley and I head out to hit a few bars by the hotel. "Big Daddy's" was half the size of Huntsville's Sammy T's with twice the amount of obnoxious people. After that, we went to 'Main Street Jazz + Blues' which was considerably cooler. I met a hot 30 yr old named Kelly who seemed impressed with Alabama shirt and my usage of the word pretentious. So I talked to her for a while, got her to start using the word alternative, then bid her adieu.
Newsflash, people: You cannot stop alternative. I how have operatives in Atlanta, St. Louis, New Orleans, Nashville, Portland, LA, Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Auburn.
So Ashley and I make it back to the hotel, act like we were sloppy drunk (of which we were the polar opposite) in an attempt to be funny wake up Candice and Joe, but to no avail. We hit the sack and dream of a care-free Saturday full of speeches and a tour at Anheuser Busch in the Lou.
Again, folks: if you've made it thus far, thanks for reading. Hopefully I'll have some pictures ready soon if I can grab them from Ashley or if she posts them on facebook. They're pure gold.
Part three, which isn't the final chapter by any means, hopefully tomorrow.
I've got my court date for the DUI tomorrow. Wish a brother luck.