|
|
1400 Miles Ago to the Present: A Story of My Independence Day / Barrett's Wedding
I had a very good Independence Day weekend. It started off (Day 1 of 4) with morning coffee with Kristy at CC's, then the long grueling trip to Orlando. Speed was good and cops were few, for some reason, most were facing west-bound on I-10 and north-bound on I-75, the opposite directions I was going. stopped by a fireworks "factory" to pick up some "legal" fireworks (legal in the state of Alabama that is, legality in Florida is questionable).
Once I got home we had dinner and then set them off next to the lake behind our house. It's a really good thing we set them off there because two of them went up and then back down into the lake. If we had set them off not aiming across the lake, they would have exploded on the ground, which is bad for fireworks designed to go off in the air.
Day 2 of 4 was Barrett's wedding. I went to Circuit City the morning of his wedding to look at car audio receivers and radar detectors (since I knew my trip back was going to have a lot of cops, ref: paragraph 2). I got a radar detector there then went to a Super Target to get Barrett a toaster. My dad researched toasters with Consumer Reports so we could get him the best one. It was kind of awkward writing the two and from on the gift since I did not know Barrett's wife's name. So I just put "To Barrett and Wife" on a small firework and attached it onto the gift.
I met up with Phil, Cory, Josh, and Dave at Dave's house, hung out for a short time, then they all followed me to Barrett's place since even though they had all been there, I was the only one to remember how to get to his place. (For some reason I usually get really lost finding a place for the first time, but once I know where some place is, I never forget how to get there) When we were waiting outside for Dave at Dave's house, I decided to clean my car up, in which I found a chocolate bar, melted, but still contained in its wrapper, so Cory came up with the idea of giving that to Barrett. When we got there I hid the toaster with the rest of the presents. After Barrett got out of the shower and into his tux, I shook his hand with the Hershey's bar.
As everyone guessed before the wedding even started, Barrett was marrying a Japanese girl (he has this thing for all things Japanese :P) She was wearing [I forget the name but it is the traditional Japanese wedding dress]. I got pics of the wedding, but I did not get to see them since my camera's batteries died the moment I took the picture of Emma, Barrett's wife, throwing her bouquet to the rest of the girls there (mostly from the country club Barrett works at), so my camera died with the lens open. There were American and Japanese decorations all over. Dinner was kabobs, served with lots of rice dishes and beer, wine, whiskey, and sake. I went for the wine and sake. There were two bottles of sake there, a thin one and a big one. I went for the thin one since the bottle looked more Asian. I filled my glass with it. Man, it was some good sake. Found out from Barrett later that the bottle was 50 American dollars. Many others got into it, once 2/3 of the bottle was empty, someone put the bottle away. The el-cheapo sake wasn't the same. The music at the wedding was really good. Barrett hooked him Mac up to speakers all over his house; mp3's could be heard everywhere, really good mp3 music too. As the party died down, Cory, Phil, and I got involved in a game of Texas Hold 'Em. Since it's a boring game without bets, Phil and I betted about a dollar on each hand. When Cory would win, neither of us would take the money, just put more in for the next game. At times Phil had most of my money; at other times I had most of Phil's money. But in the end, Phil won, I lost 9 dollars. We got to talk to Barrett only occasionally since he was very busy with the wedding. We didn't get to talk to Emma at all until the end. She was really nice, cute too. Barrett has done well :P The wedding was a reenactment since they already got married in May for immigration purposes. They are going to do a third ceremony later this year in Tokyo for Emma's family. Only her mother and another relative were able to come to Orlando.
The next day (3 of 4) was relaxing during the morning. Since my birthday is near the end of July and this weekend was the only time I would be home this month, my dad was going to "kind of" celebrate my birthday now. I am guessing he has something else planned, but I was able to get one gift now. It's a car audio receiver. I have wanted one that could play mp3's for a while. It's a Pioneer 4600. It can handle audio CD's, mp3 CD's, plus AM/FM (of course). But the main thing I wanted was that it could play the ID3 tags for artist and song names. However, the people at Circuit City were confused by my car. They thought it would not have an amp so they gave us a one hour installation estimate. But my car did have an amp, so they then connected it to the amp. However, once they did, they could not understand why it would not work. They then decided to rewire my entire system to bypass the amp, this would decrease sound quality but it is the only thing they could think of. After 6 hours, they gave up and put the original receiver (factory made one) back onto my dash. We waited around Circuit City the entire time. Usually I like looking around electronic stores, but after 2 hours it got dull. I got my camera's shutter to close by borrowing one of Circuit City's batteries. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was also on several TV's there, so it wasn't all that bad. I hope I can still get it installed for free at a Circuit City here in Baton Rouge; the managers of the two stores will have to talk to one another. Then I went home for dinner and all was well.
The ride to Baton Rouge (Day 4 of 4) was worse than the ride to Orlando. Even though now I had radar detector, my air conditioning failed (it works randomly), and at lunch, a family in a red truck slammed their door into mine. They did not leave a note. Now there is a reddish dent in my car. I didn't see the dent until I got to Baton Rouge since it was on the passenger's side. I really wish I looked earlier, I could of stopped them and then ask for their info; that's what bothers me the most, I could of stopped them. The traffic was good until I got to I-12, when it became heavy. But my day became good again once I got to see Kristy. She made me some dinner and all became well. She went home to her parents for Independence Day, but got back a day before me.
*plots to get more "legal in Alabama" fireworks on the trip back in August*
Summary:
Day 1: Drove to Orlando, Fireworks
Day 2: Shopped, Barrett's Wedding
Day 3: Family Time, Car mp3 receiver
Day 4: Drove back to Baton Rouge
Belched up with tidings of comfort and joy by Joe
at
9:42:00 AM. |
