Alrighty! This trip started out with quite a change from last year; David's flight got delayed pretty late because of a huge storm system that was moving through the midwest, this left him stranded in Milwaukee at midnight the day before the meet. I had 2 options, I could wait for him to catch an 11 AM flight to Green Bay (and waste that entire day), or drive in the middle of the night to pick him up in Milwaukee.... through this massive storm. It was a terrifying drive, but I couldn't leave Clemens waiting, and ultimately decided to drive through the AM hours to Eddie's house. Chicago was *dead*, and eventually I pulled over to nap for a bit at a small gas station; it probably looked weird seeing Clemens lying on his back in the back of my huge car, and me lying across both front seats in the fetal position. I actually took the wrong exit at first off of I-94, and ended up in an area of 99% black thugs, which deep down scared the hell out of me! Just a few miles down though, the segregation line appeared and it turned into a nice white neighborhood, where Eddie lived! We arrived!
Within about 3 hours, I nailed Jungle 0:53 (on tape); I'm pretty sure it got taped over, but after getting some tips from Clemens and Eddie, the time was a total joke. It was during the first day's fuck-around period of multiplayer that I got my only trainshot of the meet, aww. Eddie bought us pizza later that night which was total ownage, and Greg spent about 3 hours inputting the codes in to enable Control for multiplayer, which I personally greatly enjoyed. The highlight for the first day (well, besides the thought of being at another meet), was meeting Jackson! I have never met a cat who was as friendly, social, and awesome as this cat, everyone wanted to take him home!
Sunday consisted of the 2 events in the meet that, at least to me, will stick out for a lifetime. We went to Eddie's mom's house to do the bench-off and play some ping pong; I eventually had the brilliant idea of playing croquet (which I always keep in my car). It was a super fun game and most of us picked on Clemens, but ultimately Matis/Trent DESTROYED us. Adam, Trent, and I left our wallets and other things on the hood of my car, but Adam appeared to have forgotten to take his wallet off the hood. About 6 miles down the interstate, Adam realizes he doesn't have his wallet... So I have to turn around and go back to the neighborhood. After driving pretty slow to spot anything we could in the streets, Eddie's mom said she found it with no cash in it! (-$37), turns out she was just breaking Adam's balls and everything was OK; the wallet was in the street lying open, Adam caught a break!
Later that night, Eddie suggested we go to this restaurant that he had never been to. I'll let Eddie or someone else explain how this waitress was, but this was probably the worst service we had ever gotten lol, I think she was high. We also played the most intense 50-turn round of Mario Party 2 I've ever been involved in, we all got screwed multiple times but in the end, Greg took home the gold in a match where 22 stars were earned!
Monday I got Statue SA 2:21, and failed 2:20 00A because Clemens told me to leave the statue just a hair too early (failed Obj B), and I got the flight recorder anyway
On the drive home, I ran over a massive tunk of semi-tire and destroyed a muffler on my car, making my car exceptionally loud. I got 23.19 MPG on the way home, which is phenomenal for such a big car and big engine (kept the A/C off). Time for the highlight pictures!
(They had to ride in my 3rd row seat, which faced backwards; called the "gunner seats" by anyone who owned a station wagon of this time period)
(Fuck yeah Lovins!)
