Labor Day Wockende 2000-Great

I still don't have time to write about the massive month of my life that was August and the immense change therein, but what I can say now is the kind of weekend I had:

Friday night: Enjoyment > Dinner with Family > Walking around Dragon*Con with Gadsden family friends > Going back to the house with my Boys from Bama and enjoying a party downstairs > Enjoyment

Saturday: Enjoyment > Barbecue with family friends at Roy and Dave's > Enjoyment > BAMA LOOKIN' FRESH, MANE! at Alabama vs. Clemson in the Georgia Dome > Going to Dragon*Con with friends and people-watching and people-talking and people-drinking until about 4 A.M.

Sunday: Enjoyment > Karaoke

Monday: Nothing.

Pictures from Dragon*Con:


Tiffany, exhibiting our normal love / hate / pinch relationship


I don't know what she was supposed to be, except camera candy


A Battlestar Galactica nugget initiation party: "SO SAY WE ALL!"


Las mujeres de las peliculas jovenes fantasias. Un poquito Freudesque.


They told me to "Get on your knees." I wasn't about to not comply.

Don't Be Denied

The greatest things happen. You get back from the greatest conference, a newly fortified grand human being. Snatch about four hours of sleep back in Valencia before catching the six AM train down to Gandia to begin an amazing week of roadtripping (I invented the Spanish word via de calle) and camping through Andalucía, see faces old and new, return and begin the final crunch. You do and learn difficult things. Your amigo comes to visit. And you wake up on a Sunday afternoon, connect to the series of tubes and you get a message from a member of your fabulous TEAM from ITC with the subject line: Next Challenge - Chair for German Regional Conference?!?

And even though you promised yourself that after returning from Romania you would not leave Spain until you were back in the Land of the Free, even though there are so many great trips you could be taking in Spain, even though the plane tickets are a wallet-busting €50, you realize, by Dog, that's a great opportunity, and you're flattened and flattered that they would ask you do to it. So you say, "OK."

And you chair the first offer that came to your box, which will just so happen to be, the best conference in the world, it was the best conference in the world.

That is how I'll come to be the chair for Germany's Wild West Region summer conference "Bonanza" from June 14-17.

The greatest things get even better. I was selected to be on the Marketing team as part of the Congress Committee of AIESEC International Congress 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey. This means 40 days of working on the most difficult and significant project I've ever been a part of. I am certain I'm going for the right reasons, and I'm going to put myself 100% into the work. I expect to cause a revolution. 40 days living with people from 50 countries in Istanbul and working harder than we've ever worked will do some kind of trick. Plus, I'll get to reunite with one of the big characters of the great Story.

But nothing gold can stay, I know you've heard that story told. My love affair with Spain will be cut off on July 1, when I ride back into Atlanta on a white horse. There will be many meetings, and I'll finally get to return to my own mecca-trough. Have you ever seen the Blue Ridge Mountains, boy? I'll see them when I return to the steps of Lee Hall in Black Mountain, NC for the YMCA Youth & Government Council on National Affairs (CONA) 40th Anniversary Reunion. How I got there the first time is just the damnedest story, and the people who've affected me since - the future conqueror of Planet Earth and the person who, though too far away, still makes me believe in the music of life - will join together again. It's my blue sky, my sunny day.

But before it all, I've got one test, hopefully a visit from a future nomad - my sister - followed by the Bonanza conference, and then to San Sebastián where I'll encounter my Spanish amiga Alicia and take in quite the beach and pintxos scene.

And before I forget to write for a long time and lose that feeling, I have to say that the one thing I miss truly and forever and that never fails to bring me euphoria is playing music. It is a perpetual dolour to be around people with their drum circles and guitars and smaller instruments and only be able to clap, because everything I play is so large and not portable. Jealousy threatens me when I hear tell of my friends who go to the Capstone or UGA and they can play music all the time (and make a better living than I do at co-op), but it is nigh impossible to keep up at Georgia Tech. Lament of my life. I don't need drugs. I get my seratonin high elsewhere, when I can.