Yeah, I’m back…

As most of you know, I went back to Alabama for a [Circle K] Summer Board Meeting. I left a day early, though, to get a chance to hang out. Here’s the story of my weekend, with pictures.

Thursday:
I awoke at 2:45 to get ready for my 6:00am flight from Chicago’s Midway Airport. I showered, finished packing, and was out the door by 3:30. I arrived in plenty of time for an uneventful trip through the airport. It ended up being a little TOO uneventful, however.

I got to the check-in counter and I was greeted (at 5:00am) by someone who was FAR too chipper. She asked at what time, and to where I was flying. Then asked for my name. Then her and the woman standing next to her proceded to gush over how wonderful of a name I have. “It’s like you’re always on a holiday!” Riiiight… because you’re totally the first person to say that, too. She asked if I packed my own bag… I told her that I had done so earlier that morning, all by myself. The women were amazed. The nice woman told me that I’d be leaving from Gate C3, and began to tell me where that was when she halted herself: “Oh, I’m sure you know where that is, you look like you know your way around!” I agreed and she sent me on my way. What’s missing here? That’s right… she didn’t check my ID. Didn’t ask for it. I even had my wallet out and sitting on the counter. Odd. When I got to the gate, they were checking IDs and Boarding passes (as they usually do) and lo, who was checking those IDs? The second woman from the front counter. Before I even started to extend my identification to board the plane I was greeted with a oh-so-chipper “Mr. Holiday!” Then, looking directly at me and smiling the whole time, she took my things, tore off the stub and returned them to me, without bothering to even check to see that I was getting on the right plane, let alone if I was the person that I said I was. If I had wanted to navigate the path to the security check-point a little better, I could’ve avoided using my ID all together. Scary.

The rest of the trip went as expected, except that I only slept for about 10 minutes on the plane. When I got to Birmingham, Amanda was waiting on me (as expected) and we hung out in B’ham for a few hours, including a trip to Macoroni Grill, which was quite good. She dropped me off in Tuscaloosa at around 3:00pm, and I did some work in the Circle K office for the rest of the afternoon. That evening I went back to the house. Its inhabitants were surprised to see me, but Jim and Michael were pleasant. Ry gave me the silent treatment. I said hello and asked how he was when I walked in the door. He looked at me, then looked away. It was heartbreaking, or something like that. I spent some time on the phone with a CKI Presidential Candidate who shall remain nameless, and then went to bed and slept in.

Friday:
I woke up late, ran some errands, and then trucked on over to the Circle K office for yet more work. During the course of Thursday and Friday I took a few pictures of campus. A very unique view of Clark Hall from a window that not all that many students get to look out of, the Student Services Center Courtyard and an archway at the Student Services Center.

Around 6:00pm the board started gathering in the Info Center and we trucked out to the middle-of-freakin’-nowhere to eat. The food was good, and I got to treat everyone, so it was a good time. After that we headed out to Boone Cabin where we were staying for Friday and Saturday nights. The cabin is a great place, owned by the University, which is right on Lake Tuscaloosa. It’s beautiful out there this time of year, too.

Saturday:
Despite staying up way too late, we were ALL up, showered, and ready to eat breakfast by 8:00am. We started getting up and showering at 6:45, and there were three guys and four girls and only two bathrooms… so I think we did well. Breakfast was eaten and we hopped in the cars to make it to Hardaway Hall (on campus, 20ish minutes away) for the 9:00am meeting start time. Suffice it to say, there was lots of driving.

I’ll spare you all the gory details (Pictured: Me and [Cathy], our Secretary) of the actual meeting (pictured: Kat & JG, Board Members and Rachel, our Treasurer), but I was just as impressed with this group this weekend as I have been all year. They’re awesome… they’re just too good for even ME to screw them up. After meeting for a few hours, we broke for lunch at Applebee’s (pictured: Stef, our VP) and then got back to work. Though Slave-Driver-Pete had planned to meet again AFTER dinner, we got enough done that we had no reason to. Instead, we chilled out (pictured: Rachel, Kat, and Womack). It was good to just relax (pictured: Jonathan AKA JG) Of course, all of that hard work wore us out (pictured: Treasurer Rach, me, and Secretary [Cathy]), so it was a slightly earlier night than Friday. It should be noted that one of the people that lives near the cabin has a dog that visits the cabin all the time. We called him Sparky.

Sunday:
We tied up some loose ends, and set our goals for the year. They’re quite lofty, but I have no doubt that we’ll reach them. As extra incentive, however, I said that if we did meet ALL of the goals, I’d dress up in whatever they wanted and shave anything but my head for the opening session at district convention this coming year. That alone should provide enough motivation to do just about anything.

Cathy drove me to the airport that afternoon and I spent 8 hours in transit. I found out that if you’re going to an airport to pick up nice looking young ladies, or just to look, Cincinnati is the place to go. Further, I found out that you’re allowed to take pictures with digital a camera out the plane window (1 2 3 4 5).

I’ll leave you with an interesting quote fromt his weekend… we were playing scategories, the word was ‘Autograph’:
Pete: People are going to want this from me in 50 years.
Rachel: Money!
Cathy: SEX!

I’m not sure how sexy I’m going to be when I’m SEVENTY-ONE but I sure hope people still want that sort of thing from me then. A guy can dream, right?