The Only Ten I See

Thursday: It started with a 4am wake up call. Dirty. It was one of those tireds that hurts your eyeballs. The kind where your eyes feel like they are swelling out of their sockets. 

My most wonderful friends Maddie and Emily endured the agony with me and took me to the Ontario Airport (Ontario, California. Commonly confused with Ontario, Canada). My flight was scheduled to take of at 6am for good ol' Nashville, Tennessee, with a layover in Denver.

My first flight was nice. I had a window seat and sufficient leg room. Little did I know we were about to have a medical emergency. The flight attendants spared no emotion in conveying the panic. They announced it about 4 times throughout the flight. "Ladies and gentlemen. We have a medical emergency. Will a doctor please come to the front of the plane immediately?" The urgency can be clearly heard in her voice. You would think she would spare us so that everyone on the plane doesn't freak out and start screaming, praying out loud, and reading their Bibles. That didn't happen on my flight. Although it did happen on my friend Teagan's plane when she hit severe turbulence on her way to North Carolina.

So everyone looks around frantically after the first announcement. I had been sleeping and I was immediately wide awake. A doctor finally steps up after about a minute of awkward silence and head turning. I think he was waiting for someone else to step up. Nice job doctor.

They continue to make announcements talking about how we are flying as fast as we possibly can and as soon as we land we are not allowed to stand up because the paramedics have to come in and whisk the medical emergency away. I started getting really worried. They wouldn't tell us what was going on and it seemed pretty urgent but we weren't making an emergency landing. When we finally get to Denver, the medical emergency, a middle aged Latino man, slightly overweight, GETS UP, and walks off the plane. If it were a true emergency don't you think they would have had to wheel him out on a stretcher? I honestly thought someone was suffering from a heart attack judging by the pain and urgency in the flight attendants voice. I thought someone had died or something. He seemed fine! 

So after walking literally the entire length of the Denver Airport, I make it to my connection to Nashville. This plane was much smaller, much more cramped, and utterly lacking in medical emergencies. Although, our flight attendant was an incredibly enthusiastic black man who referred to everyone as young man and young lady, whether they were 72 or 3. It was epic.

I land in Nashville at about 2 in the afternoon and it's sooo incredibly hot. Oh side note, as I was landing there was a lightning storm going on. Freaked me out. We were in a plane, in the air, with lightning striking right next to us. I saw it. With my own eyes. It was terrible. 

My friend Megan picks me up at the airport and we head to her house for a shower, shave, and shine sesh and then we head out to pick up my girl Teagan at the airport. After stalling for about 20 minutes in the "No Waiting" section of the airport we finally find her. We are whisked away to Young Life club at a sweet house right on the Cumberland River. It was gorgeous. I did however feel incredibly encouraged by the fact that DPYL is not the only struggling YoungLife club in the country. Three kids showed up to club in Nashville. We all played signs and it was epic. After club, Megan whisked us off again to this concert. It was a British guy named Bobby Long. He's pretty good. The only downfall, we got to the concert too late so there was absolutely no room to sit. We had to awkwardly stand next to the sound tech guy. We even ate dinner standing up. Tad ridiculous but what can you do when there are hundreds of screaming girls with their heads falling off because a slightly attractive British man is singing sweet melodies to them, and they're taking up all the damn chairs!

So Teagan and I got tired of standing for so long, we went to sit outside among the smokers and ridiculously drunk women who had come outside to sober up a little. We take a seat on the curb behind the building and we can still hear the concert really well. Not long after, we are harassed by a homeless man that was clearly tweaked out but he was so incredibly polite and I made him promise that he would buy food if we helped him so we gave him 5 bucks and he went on his merry way. One of my prayers for awhile has been that God would release my firm grip on my finances. Slight progress made tonight. 

After the concert Megan waits outside for another 20 minutes to get a picture with him, Mr. Bobby Long. She really likes him apparently. We get back to Megan's house at about 12:30 and wither into bed. It's been an atrociously long day. But a good one. I am successfully in Music City. And boy is it musicious.

Def Jam Poetry and A Life List

My two new favorite things in life right now involve four guys on a road trip and an amazing poet. 

So my journalism professor this quarter is a sassy badass with somewhat of a permanent thizz face. She comes into class the first day demanding that we all set The New York Times as our internet browser homepage. Since she scares me, I did it. 

Yesterday I was browsing The Times and I discovered this article talking about how MTV is trying to re-vamp their image and instead of all the trashy rich kid drama they put out, they're going to start having shows with more positive images like Taking the Stage, TI's Road to Redemption, and the newest one is called The Buried Life. 

The Buried Life is about four guys who have set out on a road trip across the country embarking on a mission to complete a list of 100 things they want to do before they die. Their mission is so powerful because with each item they cross off their list, they find a stranger to help complete something that that person wants to do before they die. I spent an hour yesterday playing around on their website and watching heart-warming videos. This has always been a dream of mine and I hope to spend the next couple years of my life plotting and planning something very similar. Check it out. the buriedlife.com

While I was browsing their site, I found a video of this phenomenal spoken word poet. Seriously, breath-taking. He goes by the name of Rives and I think I might be in love with him. I'm an English major, a word girl if you will. I have stacks and stacks of books, I volunteered at the library when I was in middle school, I proofread my texts...let's just say I love words. And this man is a complete master of words. He's fascinating and his words are strung together so eloquently, powerfully, emotionally provoking. I want to marry him. Tomorrow. Please watch his youtube videos under shopliftwindchimes.

We fly high, no lie, you know this...Booowwwlliiinnn'

We don't just bowl. We bowl in style. 

It's become somewhat of a tradition now with me and some of my super classy friends...Thursday night bowling. 10pm. Zodo's Bowling and Beyond. It's pretty epic.

This last Thursday I decided to throw a little cog in the wheel if you will...something that would get some attention and make the evening just that much more enjoyable.

So if you know anything about me at all, you know that I enjoy loud ridiculous neon things. I have a neon duct tape wallet that I made myself, yes I'm very proud of it. I have a neon workout bag, snowsuit, several pairs of neon shorts, and I have a sick nasty collect

ion of 80's neon windbreakers. I now have seven in my collection. 

I decided that for this particular trip to Zodo's I would break out all my neon windies and me and all my friends would rock them while bowling. It was a tremendous success. We succeeded in getting plenty of weird looks and I had one of my friends believing that it was an actual event that Zodo's was putting on, not my own little quirky adventure.

I don't know about you, but I love to bowl. It's probably because I'm pretty good at it. Not! I break 100 pretty often but I'm nothing special. I have considered joining a league but I think it might be too expensive...so instead my friends and I have started our own makeshift league on Thursday nights at 10. We don't have any competition yet besides ourselves so if you're feeling confident, suit up and come battle us!

Side note..I got in a heated bowling battle with my friend Danny. We were bowling for merit and other costly items. Seeing as I won three out of the four games I'm getting free dinner and a trip to magic mountain! Love when I win free things. Highlight of my life. I did however, lose one game, which means I have to pay two entry tickets to ice skating but hey, it's not too expensive and it's pretty darn adventurous so I'm down like James and Charlie, but not Chris and Bobby Brown. For those of you who missed that, James and Charlie Brown are cool. Chris and Bobby Brown are not. 

So consider this a formal invitation to Thursday night bowl sesh with me and my peeps. Except this Thursday is a no go considering I'll be marathonning in Tennessee this weekend. Stay posted for zorb adventures up soon! 

I'm On A Float (Floatopia 2009)

Floatopia. It freckled the lips of not only the students of UCSB, but the local high school kids, the Isla Vista vagrants, and random others from all over the grand state of California. It's now been deemed UCSB's Halloween of the Spring. For those of you who have never experienced Halloween in Isla Vista (the most densely populated square mile west of the Mississippi), you don't know the havoc you're missing. Youtube it.

So Floatopia was nothing short of the wildest thing I have ever seen in my whole entire life. Thanks to Facebook, a grand total of over 13,000 people populated the event. April 4th, 2009 will go down in history as the Floatopia to end all Floatopias. So let me break it down for you. I'm not pretending I'm proud of this event, because I'm not. I just have to let you in on the ludicrosity of all that is UCSB, soon to be my Alma Mater. Floatopia is just as it sounds...like Autopia at Disneyland or Dinotopia from childhood, only this topia involves floats, rafts if you will. Hundreds of them. 

Me and my friends Genna, Caitlyn, and Lilah arrive in IV at about 3ish and actually miraculously find a parking spot on DP. If you know anything about Del Playa, you know this is ridiculously lucky but could also end up being absolutely horrific. We take the closest beach access point and as we hit the sand our eyes are pummeled by the sights ahead. In the distance we can see the horrendous crowd composed of thousands upon thousands of drunk people and there are boats and floats polka-dotted all over the ocean. We walk towards it, not really knowing if we are ready for this adventure. I had never been to Floatopia before and since this is my senior year I decided I needed to check it out.

Before we know it, we are in the midst of the mayhem. There are random frisbees landing everywhere, people trying to carry their rafts over my head, and people falling all over themselves and others everywhere. We search endlessly for a place to sit and finally we just curl up in this tiny spot of open sand just below the 65 block of DP right near the beach access point. This ends up being the perfect spot for all the action.

So first thing I took note of was the insane amount of people trying to get up and down the stairs at the beach access point. There were so many people trying to move that they ended up in a gridlock and no one could go anywhere, so literally people started to scale the cliff trying to get off the beach. Treacherous. Two people ended up falling off the cliff, one was in critical condition, but no one died this year. That's a milestone to document.

Second thing to note, the wild girl in the hot pink bathing suit dancing on the apex of the roof. She was literally straddling the rooftop doing a stripper dance for the entire time I was on the beach, grand total of about 3 1/2 hours. Girl certainly got her work out for the day and that wasn't all she got. She was wearing a string bikini so of course drunk guys on the roof with her are going to pull her strings right? Right. I can't count how many times her boobs were nearly exposed. This girl was wild. Finally she put on a shirt and then took her top off underneath and was swinging it around. So ridiculous! Everyone on the beach below was watching, waiting, ad watching some more. I couldn't count how many open mouthed boys there were standing around me. Great job girl. You really worked the crowd. 

Third thing, there were seriously some of the coolest rafts I had ever seen in my life. Rafts that looked like they were made especially for Floatopia. There were 20 person inner tubes, ones with slides, butterfly shaped ones, double decker ones, and I even saw a floating cooler. It had cup holders on the outside with the "soda" in the middle. So wild!

Fourth thing to note, the over-zealous homeless people scavenging for cans all over the beach. They were like kids at an Easter egg hunt. They seriously had a field day. I know this is terrible but it was actually quite comical to watch them literally taking cans from mouths. 

I was seriously blown away at how crazy this adventure was. The amount of people and liquor was baffling. Apparently something like 63 citations were issued and 15 people were arrested. Several people went to the emergency room for deep cuts due to broken glass bottles. Needless to say I will never forget Floatopia '09. I don't think anything could surpass it. Except maybe Floatopia '09 part deuce happening May 9th...although I'm not sure who decided that date because it's Mother's Day weekend you dimwit. Although, I was told to invite my mom. She would probably enjoy it far too much. 

I've also heard a rumor that Cal Poly is trying to start their own version of Floatopia that they will deem Slotopia. Good luck suckaaaaaas!!!

I'm on a float motha f***a don't you ever foooorgettt!!

This is my very own video...

and this one is even betttteeeerrrr!!!

Day 7: Home Stretch

The alarm goes off at 6:30am. We get up, pack up, grab some crumbled remains of banana bread and I wake up my cousin to thank him and say goodbye. We get in my foul smelling rotten car and hit the road for the last time. 

Dannah insists on driving the entire way home because I drove the whole way from Eugene. We have an 8 hour drive ahead of us and she refuses to let me drive. What do I do? Sleep. Well not from the get go. We drive for about an hour and a half and then we have to get gas. We stop at this station and the attendant is so creepy and weird. I can't really explain it because I was sort of sleep drunk but I got weird vibes. Not only do I want to write a book about truck drivers, but gas station attendants as well. Grave yard shifters in general are just mesmerizing. I get crumb donuts and a Dr. Pepper. Throws me back to my breakfast of champions everyday of my senior year in high school. 

We hop back on the road and I knock out. Next thing I know we are in Sac Town stopping at a Jamba Juice. Dannah insists on buying. Original Strawberries Wild. We get on the 5 for the longest stretch of highway known to man. We bump Pink's first CD, sooo good. Bugs splatter the windshield like no other. I sleep some more and we finally make it to Paso Robles where we stop for some more bombass chicken tacos. Remember the Carl's Jr. disguised as a Green Burrito, yeah that one. We stopped there again and then the 2 1/2 hour home streeeetch!!! 

We finally pull into to my driveway at about 3:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday. The epic road trip has come to an end. Sooo sad. Dannah and I exchange hugs and she gets all her ish out of my car. We are both exhausted but every single second of this trip was nothing short of epic. Except for the broken snow-mobile. So not epic. 

I think I have caught some sort of virus, however. The virus is one of longing. Yearning. Anxiety and un-requitted anticipation. I'm obsessed with the open road. The options and adventures are endless. From gas station bathrooms to open fields of flowers. From icy highways to bug splattered windshields. From dirty fast food to home-cooked meals gone wrong, there are soooo many adventures to be had, so many smiles to crack open, so many friends to visit. Driving tickles my soul and one thing I learned on this trip is that driving certainly is a privilege and I intend to cherish it for what it is. My road rage has gotten significantly better since this trip and I think it's because I have fully realized how much I actually do enjoy being on the road. Why should I get mad at someone for allowing me to spend more time doing something I love, right??

Day 6: Crunch Time

After sleeping for approximately five hours Dannah and I wake up to a glamorous breakfast prepped by my aunt. Crepes with Fruit Compote Topping, whipped cream, Banana Bread, and Stripples. What are Stripples you ask? They are strips of fake bacon that look like dog food. My aunt, uncle, and cousins are vegetarian but they still like to pretend they eat meat by eating things like Stripples. Kinda sounds like a stipping nipple. Not a fake slice of bacon. 

After satisfying my gluttonous appetite my cousin heads out to get the snowmobiles ready. Meanwhile my aunt is running around trying to find snow stuff for us to wear. I can sense this ominous overlying tension in the air but I didn't really put 2 and 2 together until my cousin was pulling up to the road we were gonna be playing on. My uncle and cousin were super stressed out for Dannah and I to be riding their really expensive toys when we had absolutely no experience! I didn't think it was that big of a deal but I was very mistaken. 

Dannah decides to go out first. There are only two mobiles so My cousin Ryan takes Dannah out, promising to be back in an hour. Dannah is having a hard time adjusting to the throttle

 so she keeps jumping the bike and nearly hits a tree on her way out but then she sort of gets it down and heads out. Apparently

about 3 minutes into the ride, just after she had left my line of vision, Dannah crashes into a tree. Not a little tree either. And not going very slow. When they got back, the bike didn't look that bad but apparently the whole front end was crunched up underneath and my cousin was able to pull it out but the screws were all stripped. Needless to say, Dannah's entire trip has been ruined. At this point my cousin decides to tell me that these bikes are each worth about 16 grand. Yeah. More than my car. I lost it when I heard that. I felt like it was my responsibility because I was the one that asked if we could ride them. 

Well now it's my turn to take the crunched bike out and I'm super nervous but I'm also a lot bigger than Dannah so my cousin assures me that it will be soooo much easier for me to 

maneuver the vehicle. So Ryan takes me all the way up the mountain to where we can see the 

lake from the top. The bikes can go up to 80 mph but I get it up to 30 and I'm more than fine! I had a blast. These are the coolest toys ever. It's super fun because sometimes you have to jump over to one side of the bike and lean so that the bike doesn't roll down the hill. I rolled it once. And one time the bike sort of ran away from me but I used my ninja moves that I learned from the sandwich artist in Redding to catch it before it rolled down a hill into a tree. Overall it was a pretty successful ride for me. 

We got the bikes back and my cousin told my uncle about the accident and he was pretty upset but at least no one was hurt, right? 

My aunt made bomb vegetarian chicken pot pie. Not really sure how that's possible but it was delish and then Dannah and I hit the sack pretty early because we have to be up at 7 tomorrow morning to head hoooome!! The trip is nearly over. Sad day.