Happy Valentine's Day!

Several guys and gals from 24/7 decided to meet up for dinner tonight. Jason and Christina hosted the event at Christina and Erika's apartment. Erika and I arrived late because of a detour at Target. We arrived at the apartment with dinner in full swing,and the apartment decked out in cheesy Valentine's Day decorations. After dinner, Chung serenaded us with some original tunes and then we wound up jamming to some worship songs.

Tonight reminded me about the beauty of fellowship and friendship. And not just because it was Valentine's Day.

Meet Will.I.Am.

Will.I.Am, the brainchild of the Black Eyed Peas, visited us at work today. Unlike John Legend, who actually held a concert for us, Will.I.Am sat down and had an interview session with our host, and then proceeded to show us the processes he takes to produce a beat. He brought in recordings he made from the previous night of him on the drum, keyboad, bass, and mic (he had a 4 minute freestyle recording about Google) and edited, spliced, and mixed them to create a hot ringtone.

It's always a trip for me to meet such talented individuals. Society glamorizes their celebrity to make us think that they're completely different from us, but this interview session revealed to us that he is a very down to earth guy. In fact, he's quite dorky, which made the entire event quite entertaining. For example, he'd explain to us that he needed to enhance the bass using a plug-in on ProTools to "bootify" it. Without it, the bass apparently had no booty. Hehe.

During the meet and greet, my camera decided to die on me. So props to Pam Shore for coming through and taking this pic of the day for me.

Cold Heat.

Due to a miscommunication between my landlord, me, and the power company, we haven't had heat in our apartment for over a week now. It wouldn't be so bad, except we have hardwood floors. I've resorted to showering at work, which I've grown accustomed to now, but I'd love to be able to enjoy hot water in my own house. Today is supposed to be the last day of no heat, as the PG&E guy's supposed to come tomorrow and turn on the gas again. I can't wait to get feeling in my toes again.

Meet Faith

This weekend, more than other weekends, was way too short. And no matter how much time I do take to take off to spend with her, it's always too short. I find myself at the airport getting ready to leave even though it feels like I just got there.

While some people may think I was crazy to fly back for two days, I don't regret one bit of it. I got to spend time with her. I got to step inside the Dean Dome once again with her. I got to see my church family. So even though I did only spend about 50 hours in Chapel Hill, it was well worth it in my book.

It's the smallest and simplest things during reunions that I enjoy the most. Watching movies together. Talking about nothing. Being goofy. And it's those things that I miss while I'm out here.

Until next time...

The Champs are Here!

My return to North Carolina this time around was sweetened by watching a UNC-Wake Forest game with Faith in the Dean Dome. The game was a blowout, as we steamrolled WFU 104-67. But the highlight of the game came at halftime. when we honored the 1957 and 1982 NCAA Championship teams by celebrating their 50th and 25th anniversaries. The members of both squads were greeted with a roaring standing ovation, and rightfully so.

If you look at the right of this picture, the last four people you see are Sam Perkins. "Big Game" James Worthy, Michael Jordan, and the legendary Dean Smith. Yes, you heard me correctly, the champs were back in the building.

Grounded.

My excitement in seeing my girlfriend this weekend was dampened pretty badly with my flight being cancelled as I was driving to the airport. I was informed by way of a voicemail recording about the cancellation and how they decided to rebook me on a route that would begin five hours later and get me into RDU at around 2:30AM, After frantically calling the 800 Delta number and a 40 minute hold, I discovered that I was rebooked to an American Airlines route that would go by way of Dallas-Fort Worth and get me into RDU by 12:50am-- two hours past my original arrival. I also discovered that there was an already-delayed flight that was departing for DFW promptly and if we arrived early or the flight out of DFW was delayed, I still had a chance to board an earlier flight that would get me in at 10PM. Although I was very disappointed about the intial cancellation, I knew that I had no other choice, so I decided to take my chances, knowing that it was a long shot to begin with.However, it was never meant to be. The earlier DFW-bound flight actually left later than projected, getting us in about half an hour after the first RDU flight departed.

So I was expecting to get to RDU at 12:50AM. But then, I was screwed over once again.

The captain of our RDU flight emerged from the jetway to inform us that there was a maintenance light that turned on, forcing me into another delay. After all was said and done, I wound up getting into RDU at 2AM, a good three hours past my original arrival time.

This is why I hate flying domestic. Regardless of the airline, the domestic fleet is always outdated, old, and one flight away from breaking down. There are ridiculous airport taxes that get attached to my ticket, which pay the TSA to "randomly" search me every time I fly anywhere. The crapshoot that they call a flight itinerary, which always seems to change. Need I go on?

Raindrops.

I looked out my window today to notice that it was raining outside. I liked how the raindrops were streaking across the window. I was pleasantly surprised that my new point and shoot was able to capture the shot with the depth I wanted. While I did admire the rain in a photographic standpoint, I didn't necessarily like it altogether. Rain only meant that I'd have to walk from the shuttle stop in the urban wetness later that evening.

It could've been worse though.