Year of the Beard

Good to see you again Cleveland! You haven’t changed a bit! September 27, 2009

Hello Year of the Beard fans! I am finally back in Cleveland after my two week vacation. It was quite a trip. Let’s do a short recap.

I started off by driving to New York to see a bunch of people. I had some great pizza and was really excited to be able to spend as much time with as many people as I got to see. One of the highlights of that leg of the tour was a little video game called NBA 2K7 (I believe it was 2K7 but it could have been a different year). For those of you who don’t know, I am quite the video game player. I used to have a blog about being the best in the world at NHL ‘94 for the Sega Genesis. I had to stop that blog in order to keep up with this one. But anyways, the people I was staying with had this basketball game for their Xbox 360, and I was really excited about playing as LeBron, so I picked up the controller and took the whole house on. I beat Jarod a few times, and beat Jeff like four times in a row (that battle ended around 4 in the morning). Only Joe was able to beat me, and it’s technically his game, so I think that is a victory on my part.

From New York, I picked up my friend Peter and we drove down to Philadelphia to stay with my buddy Matt. I had the genius idea of leaving New York during rush hour, so that two and a half hour drive ended up being about 4 hours. But we did eat cheesesteaks as soon as we got there. The next day, Matt, Peter and I drove to Delaware to visit our friend Austin. On the way there, a car ahead of us on the highway, swerved out of control, did a 180, bumped into a semi-truck, did another 180 the opposite way, and then somehow pulled over the shoulder across four lanes without hitting any other cars or doing any more damage to itself. And everyone in the car looked fine! It was quite the site.

Delaware was filled with funny videos and funnier songs.

We then drove back to Philly the next day and Matt and Austin had to go to a wedding, so Peter and I found out where the hotel was that everyone was staying after the wedding, and we went there and just waited for everyone to show up. Luckily for us, there was a 1974 high school reunion going on in the hotel, which provided us with plenty of entertainment until the real party got started. Congratulations Zach and Katie!

At this point in my journey I was flying solo again, and I drove from Philly to Athens, GA. If you’re keeping score, that’s a twelve hour drive. I wouldn’t recommend it. I got into Georgia and it was pouring rain. The next day I found out that it had been raining for about a week straight, and that Atlanta (and hour away) was flooded. Luckily for me, Athens was starting to dry up. I was staying with my friends Tim and Aiola, and on day two of my stay we decided to go see some bears and crocodiles. On the way there, a woman turned her pickup truck right in front of us. Tim slammed on the brakes but there was nothing he could do, and he hit the side of the truck. Rather than stopping, the lady just drove off! We managed to pull into a driveway and we called 911. While we were waiting, a car pulled up and the driver told us that someone had followed the woman who turned in front of us, and had blocked her car in the parking lot that she was turning into. I walked through the parking lot and found the truck, and there was a guy standing near it talking to the police. I joined the conversation. It turns out the woman turned in the parking lot (after getting in our little accident) and just decided to park her car. The guy following her asked her what she was doing and she ran into a Kroger. He then blocked her truck into her parking space. The cops went into the Kroger and arrested the woman for leaving the scene of an accident and driving without a license. Luckily no one was hurt.

We also did a trivia night in Athens and did absolutely terrible.

I left Athens and drove to Cincinnati to visit my mom. That drive should have been under eight hours. However, as I was driving through Smokey Mountains National park, an RV lit on fire and they closed the road… for “a few hours.” I had to double back and drive around the park, which added about two hours to the trip. But I got to Cinci alright and my mom and I had an amazing dinner at some hotel.

Next day, Mom and I drive home and I went to see my roommate’s band play. It was pretty awesome. I had a party to go to the next day and I told everyone who was expecting to see me that there was no way I was making it home in time. I then showed up to the party as a surprise! Fran was the most surprised.

So that’s my whole trip. Any questions, please ask.