1.31.2008

LOST!

Did you watch it tonight? Once again.... I'm sucked in. They just better not drag out this 'rescue' for the rest of the season.....

More proof that Time Warner is EVIL!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327386,00.html

Not surprising... with all the money they collect off stupid incidents like this, why can't they pay to update their online bill pay to the twenty-first century...and send me emails to remind me when my bill is ready. And quit randomly sending me paper bills....some months I get them, some months I don't. Evil!!

1.30.2008

Gatlinburg in the off season.

This past weekend Bradley and I took a three day weekend and drove up to Gatlinburg. The occasion was my birthday....that was back in August...but football season and the holidays left us no free weekends to do this trip, so we postponed it until we knew we could relax and really enjoy it. And I'm so glad we waited.

It was the off season for Gatlinburg, so the town was dead. And since people generally get on my nerves, I couldn't be happier! Bradley and I pretty much had the town to ourselves! Gatlinburg was so cool. I had never been before. It's so quaint and touristy, and I love cold weather and being in the mountains. The drive wasn't bad because the majority of the time you're driving in north North Carolina and then the mountains of Tennessee, so there is so much to look at you forget about your drive.

We stayed in a hotel right downtown Gatlinburg, so we could walk everywhere. Friday we hit up Ripley's believe it or not museum. That was quirky and fun. We walked up and down the main strip of Gatlinburg and toured the shops. A local recommended the best Italian restaurant Bradley and I have eaten in. It was right outside of Gatlinburg in a stip mall. It was called Gondoliers. You walk in and you're thinking, "Um...ok, this is a hole in the wall." But the food was awesome. We got two...not one...two large baskets of bread sticks, and our food took no time at all. Afterwards, we went to a Brewery that our waitress had recommended. We bought the sampler beer 'platter' and tried miniature pints of each beer the brewery made. It was pretty good, but the darkest beer was gross... of course it was Bradley's favorite.

Saturday we woke up early, ate a free breakfast at our hotel, and then headed to Pigeon Forge for the day. We drove up and down Pigeon Forge, and finally decided to race some go-karts at the Nascar SpeedWay. Bradley and I were the only ones racing, and I had a go-kart's length head start. I wasn't going very fast, so Bradley yelled from behind me, "Push the petal to the medal." So I did. And that was the last Bradley saw of me. I took off and he never could catch up. He blames his go-kart...riiiight. Next we decided to play some putt putt. Putt putt was probably the best part of the trip... Ripley's putt putt was so fun! Try putting underneath outhouses, around bunny rabbits popping out of the green, over creeks, in secret passage ways..... Bradley kicked my butt the first game (maybe by three strokes), but we tied the second game...and I got a hole in one on the last hole and won a free game. Go me!


We continued to drive around Pigeon Forge...stopping at the ginormous Christmas store where we helped ourselves to some chocolate turtles, chocolate peanuts, chocolate pretzels...do you see a trend here? :)

Next stop... Dixie Stampede! Basically Dixie Stampede is a North vs. South version of Medieval Times, where you eat a dinner and watch a show. At this show, you sit on the North or South side of the arena. Of course we sat on the South side. I would have taken more pictures, but cameras weren't allowed. I did get a picture of us right before the show, and of the big plantation house front in the arena. The food was so good. We ate with our hands of course, but definitely worth it. The show consisted of horse tricks and stunts, racing pigs and ostriches, and other crazy things. It was really a great show. They had different competitions throughout the show where they pulled people out of the audience from the North and form the South side. The winner of the event would bring back a medal and a flag for their side. By the end of the show, the North and the South were basically tied. The last challenge? Each row had to pass a flag from one side of the arena to the other before the opposite side completed passing the flag. Who won? Well the North of course.... Southerners do everything slow...so we couldn't even get our flags half way across before the North had finished. However, I think there might be some sort of conspiracy... I need to ask Dolly... everyone I've talked to who has gone before says the North has won when they were there. Has anyone ever been when the South wins? Hmm.

Sunday, our last day, we woke up and walked the strip of Gatlinburg one final time...did a little shopping and site seeing, then hit the road. However, on our way out, we stopped by our new fave restaurant, Gondoliers, for some pizza. It was amazing...as we expected. :) The drive back wasn't too bad, and we made it back in time to relax and chill in Columbia the rest of the day.

I was pretty depressed on Monday because such a fun weekend was over... I bowled pretty decent Monday night though, so that cheered me up a little. Tuesday I surprised Bradley by coming down to Charleston after work for his birthday. I emailed with his work buddies, and they convinced him to go to a Happy Hour after work for his b-day. I plotted and had J-tay, Beth, Brooks, and Matt show up as well. He was surprised. :) It was a short-lived good time, but it gave me a taste of what it would be like to live in a city with not only my boyfriend, but my friends. I thought to myself, "So this is what it's like to live in Charleston... have access to all of my best friends and actually have a social life after work when I want it." I guess time will tell....

I'm exhausted today...driving back from Chucktown this morning, working non-stop all day, and then going to two hours of ballet... I'm beat. The next two weekends should be pretty nice. Not this weekend, but next I am open (rare!), so I'm thinking a weekend in Cola with the girls who I never get to see or hang out with anymore (Jess and Brandi) OR a weekend in Charlotte (or here if I can convince her) with Jenny W. OR who knows.....

On another note: I posted Bradley's pictures from Punchfest...all 160+ of them... so... check them out. They are pretty funny...and of course while you're there, check out the pics from Gatlinburg.

1.23.2008

Mozilla

So I've been having issues with Internet Explorer. It will randomly freeze, sometimes to the point where I have to reboot my computer. I'd be right in the middle of something and the IE error would show up and everything would close. I was losing my mind. So... I've had Mozilla on my computer, but just never thought to use it. After Googling the IE error I was getting, most of what I saw is, "The new IE 7 is crap, get rid of it and start using Mozilla...it's free."

So I started trying it out... and I love it! It works so much faster than IE... it's such a different experience. If you're annoyed with IE, I would seriously try out Mozilla... you can download it off the FireFox Web site. Try it!

1.22.2008

Vegas bound in March!!!

I'm going to Vegas! The beginning of March!! I'm going for a work conference for two days and staying over the weekend to have fun! I know my luck will never be repeated from my first trip to Vegas over three years ago, but let's hope for the best... Hooray!! Slot machines here I come! Fingers crossed that Bradley can fly out and join me.

I'm staying at the Wynn hotel... it's super fancy!

1.21.2008

Punchfest!!

So I finally got up the energy to write about Punchfest. What's Punchfest you ask? Some background: Bradley has been throwing theme parties to celebrate his birthday for the past two or three years. He had been having them at his Condo's club house. Well... many complaints and fines later, it was decided that having the party at a place where drinking and loud music is encouraged. So Bradley rented out Toucan Reef (did I spell that right?), a bar right on the waterfront downtown Charleston with an awesome view. He hired a DJ, made his own logo, and hence Punchfest was born. The evite was sent out and everything was set.

The party was a ton of fun. Total count of people there was about 170. The party drank over $4000 in alcohol....drank the bar out of pretty much everything. Most likely because there was an open bar for two hours, and from what we hear, some party goers were ordering 8 drinks at a time, lol.... There were flip cup tables, beer pong, dancing, etc. Where did the hula hoops come from?? And even at one point the DJ's break dance friends broke out some moves whch was pretty cool... but the highlight of the party was when Matt decided to break out some moves of his own -- sit ups, push ups, the robot, and some unidentified moves that maybe I wish I hadn't seen... lol. The party was a ton of fun.. and a few too many Red Bull and Vodkas later (eck) and drinking about five different brands of beer (the bar ran out of almost every beer) I had a great time.. what I remember. ;)

Oh, and you'll notice someone special in all our pictures.... LYNDE! She flew down from way up north to come surprise all of us and come to the party. We're so used to seeing her only once a year for Homecoming, so it was super cool to be surprised and get to hang out! We're trying to convince her to come down for St. Patty's day in Cola.

ADDENDUM: I'm an idiot...I'll admit... I completely left out the fact that my sister and her boyfriend drove five hours to come to Punchfest! They came up and went to the party (they are in tons of pictures!) and unfortunately, beat J-tay and I at Beer Pong. How did that happen? They had to wake up early and leave the next morning because it was going to snow in Athens...but it was fun to have them there! I hope they had a good time... I'm in trouble for leaving this out originally.

What did you think of J-tay and I's Punchfest outfits? Looking at the pictures, we look like tweedle dum and tweedle dee. The funny thing was, we looked exactly alike... Bradley almost grabbed J-tay a time or two... hilarious! Can you tell who is who?

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did. I felt like the night flew by. There were so many people there. I hope I said hello to everyone...


So, the rest of the weekend was uber lazy. Saturday Bradley and I watched Weeds, Season 2. We've started watching the show, and it's actually so funny! We're trying to figure out how to watch Season 3... I think I have it on demand with Showtime. Saturday night we met up with some folks at Kickin' Chicken for dinner and Clemson basketball. Then... most of us suffering still from Friday night, we called it a night and headed home. Sunday, the girls went to see 27 Dresses. It was cute. I think I had it all built up in my head, so I'll admit I was a little disappointed, but it was still good. I recommend it. Guys will hate it, but it's a good girlie Sunday movie. The rest of the day was football and guitar hero.

So I drove back this morning...went striaght to work... and I'm embarassed to admit this, but I'm really digging Hannah Montana's newest song... Hanna Montana? Omg. What is wrong with me? Lol. It has a good beat. It's called, "See You Again".

Sooooooo... work was crazy today, but I won't go into detail because people at work stalk me online. Worked till 6pm. I've spent all evening uploading my 100+ photos of Punchfest. I ate two packages of Pez candy. I'm watching The L Word. And for those of you who know the issues I've been having with my new computer (poor Bradley), it's driving me insane. Grrrr!!

Final words: I ate lunch at home today, and the light coming in my bathroom window was so pretty, I had to take a picture:

1.17.2008

The first post...

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