Monday Monday 8.13.2007

Good Morning,

As I sit in my chair this morning, I clearly feel the effects of the weekend warming my body. With my shoulders and face aching, I think it is safe to say that I spent way to much time in the sun! To be honest, it was sort of a "roller coaster" weekend (and I mean that literally and figuratively).

As I left the office on Thursday to make my way to the airport, I looked all around to see the sun shining, hear the birds chirping, and I didn't have a care in the world. About 10 miles down I-97 between Annapolis and BWI Airport, I realized that I left my boarding pass on my desk at work (Oops). With that I put a phone call into a guy at work who was heading to the airport in just a few minutes. Fortunately he was able to snag my pass and bring it to me. We're on the same flight home to Charlotte, so we decide to hang out before the flight by first getting a Pretzel at Auntie Anne's and then grabbing some liquid refreshment at the terminal's bar (for Aunt Pam's knowledge, we paid Airport prices of about $15 for two beers). Of course having noticed that our flight was delayed an hour, we knew that we'd have time for a couple, so after the second beer we went to check on our flight. . . CANCELED. Awesome, so we soon found out that the next flight out would be Friday at 8pm! With that we decided to drive home, which took us about 7.5 hours putting us into Charlotte at about 5:30AM.

Meanwhile up in Newark, New Jersey - Gerard was sitting on the runway for about 6 hours before the cancelled his flight. He opted the four hour drive back to Vermont rather than the 12 hour drive to Charlotte.

Meanwhile up in Syracuse, my friend Kevin was scheduled to fly down for a visit. His scheduled arrival in Syracuse was about 11:00pm on Thursday evening. Well, his flight got all screwed up due to a connection in Washington-Dulles Airport. He managed a flight out of Syracuse to Charlotte on Friday morning connecting through Chicago. He left Syracuse at 7:00 and arrived in Charlotte with no issues at noon. Maggie rolled into the airport at about 3:00, so now that all the characters have made it to Charlotte, we can actually begin to enjoy the weekend.

The rest of the weekend was a good time! We met up with a high school friend of Maggie's in uptown Charlotte for a few drinks on Friday Night. Kevin, Dusty, Maggie and I spent all day Saturday at Carowinds, which is the Charlotte flavor of Amusement Park. As the park was owned by Paramount, we went on rides designed with Top Gun, Star Trek, and Nickelodeon in mind. We entered the park, headed straight for the Borg Assimilator Roller Coaster and got in line. Two people in front of us was a Fraternity Brother of Kevin and me, Jesse Moss. . . A very odd coincidence.

We spent the rest of the weekend sitting by the pool, catching up, and having a few drinks! The burning sensation on the end of my nose and on my shoulders has nothing to do with the 7-8 hours spent in the sun at Carowinds on Saturday, but everything to do with the 2 hours spent by the pool on Sunday. . .

Hope everyone has a good week!! -- Ryan Joy