Thursday, September 11th 2003
Holy crap am I tired. I only got three hours sleep. I woke up at 1am, did a little web surfing, talked to Anna. At 4am dad got up, made breakfast. We drove to the airport, my flight left at 7am. I got into Atlanta airport. Bored, I sent a "Badgers badgers badgers badgers mushroom mushroom!" message to Kyt's cell phone. She sent a message back "Snake ;)" So I called her. Then I realized it was 6am in California. I apologised, but she needed to get up and do the dishes anyway, since she'd forgotten to do them the night before. Then I called Liz and talked to her for a bit. My flight from Atlanta to Richmond was late, but finally Liz and I got together. She helped me pile my bags in the back of the van. I opened the passenger door.. and there was giftart! So in "typical Kelly fashion" I squealed and started jumping up and down. A guy on his cell phone behind me apparently began laughing his ass off. He had to turn to the side to regain his composure. Liz feels sorry for him because he was talking to someone at the time.

Liz and I went to the mall, looking for food and DDR. The new mall had neither. So we went to walmart and got snacks. We started looking at pirate clothing for Liz, including boots. At one point she tried on a pair of boots that didn't really fit, so I piled them back into the box. The toilet-paper tube-esque thing that was in the box was still on the floor, so Liz said "Don't forget the durdur." Which sent me into a fit of hysterics. We went to Ukrop's for lunch, where I ate too much stir fry and could barely walk. Then off to Saxon shoes (didn't find any DDR shoes there), then to the Pet Club to visit Liz's brother. We played with some lizards and looked at beta fish, then at the mice (and their big balls o.O) We went to the other mall, Virginia Center Commons, where Liz got DDR shoes and we played just a little DDR. Then we came back to Liz's house to wait for Mr. Holmes, the person who is going to repaint Liz's house. Taylor came over, we just kind of hung out for a while. Once Mr. Holmes came and left, the three of us went to O'Charlies for food and drinks. I didn't really like their Midori Sour. Taylor and I didn't want to watch a movie afterwards, we need sleep. However after I took my shower and got ready for bed, I realized I needed to type up the day's journal. So I'm sitting here, watching Final Destination 2 anyway, and will be logging on to check email and whatnot. Joy, the tiredness will continue. And I fell asleep to the sound of goat frogs. BEeEeehHhHh.

Friday, September 12th 2003
I woke up to the sounds of Taylor and Liz talking, specifically Liz telling Taylor not to go downstairs. "Why would she tell him that?" I wondered, tho I now know its because she thought I would be down here, naked, doing pagan rituals. Hehe. Anyway, I yelled "Good morning Taylor!" .. no answer. I finally dragged my ass upstairs and said "What is this- 'pay no attention to the raptor under the stairs!' day?" And Taylor was confused, because he had been out on the porch and hadn't heard me. We got ready to go to Busch Gardens. Liz saw the weather report that said "PM T-storms" .. yeah. It rained all day. We stopped at Ukrop's for breakfast, then hit the road. (Liz feels it's important to mention that I've been having yogurt shakes with my breakfast.) We spent 40 minutes on the road before Liz realized she'd left the tickets at home. During this time Taylor expressed his annoyance about people who rave in the car, and ended up giving a demonstration of said car-raving. So we turned around and drove 40 minutes back (raining all the way, mind you) to get the tickets. This time Taylor drove, and we got to Busch Gardens somewhere around 2pm. The bastards (not the term I was going to use, but Liz's word works just as well) WERE CLOSING! AT FOUR! *dies* Really, I wasn't upset, it just kinda suckes we wasted the day driving.

I logged onto AIM via my phone to see who was online. Dreamie was on, so I called her and asked her to look on DDRFreak.com and see what machine locations were close. Thank you Dreamie!! We stopped at Go-carts Plus.. which was also closed. So we went to Put-Put to play DDR. I played Boom-Boom on Maniac. I actually learned to do the crossover, which is really going to help me in Paranoia Rebirth (once I can recognize the arrows better.) We made reservations to eat at the Melting Pot, then went to Taylor's house and I met his dad. Taylor dropped us off at Liz's house so we could freshen up, and he went home to do the same. We went to the Melting Pot and had a GREAT dinner- French Quarter Coc Au Vin style, Cheddar dip & veggies, plus chocolate fondue for dessert. Our waiter was really, really cool- a trekkie too, which immediately earned him brownie points and a good tip. (He was a great, attentive server anyway.) I gave him my card, I hope he shows up in chat. *waves to Mark* We ended up chatting for quite a long time. Taylor kept saying he needed to go home and go to bed, but then got sucked back into the conversation. I ended up staying awake til near 3am working on my site.

Saturday, September 13th 2003
I heard Liz doing stuff upstairs but didn't want to get out of bed until the last possible moment. I only ended up getting around 6 hours sleep. We hurredly got ready and went to pick up Taylor. We went to.. wait for it.. UKROP'S for breakfast. We went to King's Dominion. Liz used an employee pass to get in, Taylor and I used tickets. We first road the Hypersonic, which basically launches you forward, strait (literally) up a hill, then strait back down. It was fun. We played a little DDR, of course. We road the Volcano, which Liz feels is the best ride in the park. (I liked Hypersonic better, as Liz put it "it's almost too much to take.") We road Outerlimits and Anaconda, neither of which are fantastic, both of which kind of hurt, the Anaconda more so. Liz's ears were brutalizied, I almost snapped my neck. More DDR, the Drop-Zone, which was pretty damn cool. We ate subway subs, then treasure cave. Only the end is cool. Of all the rides, Treasure Cave nauseated us the most- and it's not even a ride, you just walk through this fun-house-ish thing, and at the end the floor is all uneven and the walls are slanted. I could barely walk though it, I thought I was going to fall over. I wanted to ride the Hypersonic again, but the line was too long, so we road the Volcano again instead. We came back to the Hypersonic again and the line was shorter, road it, talked to Liz's coworkers, then left. We spent the whole day quoting "Patrick Stewart, Star of TV's Star Trek, the Next Generation, and host of MGM's When the Lion Roars" ... and laughing about sparklies. Though that joke sprang from a conversation the day before while playing in Photoshop with the Mother Goddess image.

After much discussion we decided to go to O'Charlies again for dinner. We stuffed ourselves and all brought home leftovers. We also stopped to get ice cream- but my feet were in so much pain I couldn't get out of the van, and just waited for Liz and Taylor. We came back to Liz's house, fiddled on the computer a bit, watched an episode of Dinoriders and ripped it apart MST-3K style. I'm now sitting here, finishing up the day's report, with Liz and Taylor each sprawled out on a couch, looking like they're ready to sleep for the next century or so.

Sunday, September 14th 2003
I did not want to wake up this morning. Really. Liz got me out of bed though, and was blissfully patient with me. We ate our leftovers from O'Charlies for brekfast. Taylor came over, and we really just chatted, watched Sonic, Taylor and I obsessed over Secret of Mana. He finally convinced me to download an emulator. The only reason I agreed is because I do own a SNES and the game, so it's not really piracy. I just can't bring my SNES with me everywhere like I can Jerrod. Liz finally convinced us to stop fiddling with the laptops and go. We drove to Premiere Costumes to look for piratey stuff for Liz. I didn't know if we were going to find anything, I was kind of discouraged at their "for sale selection." Though their rental selection was great. Anyway, Liz and Taylor did find a jacket that was perfect. It had a rip, but the lady fixed it for us before we left. Liz is going to make some minor alterations, add some embroidery, etc. But really, it looks pretty damn cool. We also laughed at the Pimp-Barbossa hats. They did have tri-corn hats, but they didn't really look good on me, so I decided to not get one.

We stopped at another shop that had stuffed animals and novelties. Taylor found a stuffed elephant that I couldn't let go of... I really wanted it. It was so perfect- soft, and it had a great weight to be held in my arms. But it was $20 nd it was something I didn't really need. So I was strong, and put it back. I do kind of have a twinge in my heart when I think about it, but I really didn't need it. *sai* ... We dropped off Taylor at Liz's house so he could start heading back to Elon. Taylor was a lot of fun.. I'm really, really glad I got to meet him in person.

Liz and I went to Wal-Mart to drop off a disposable camera so Liz could finally see the pic of Ben I took in February. Yes, I hate developing film. She also needed to return the Final Destination2 DVD she'd bought- it froze in the same spot all the time. She really wanted another DVD, but they didn't have any more Final Destination2's. And she couldn't find anything else that she really wanted, so she made them give her money back. Oh.. and when we dropped off the film, an employee hit on me. It was flattering, but kind of creepy. He asked me if I lived around here (no). He asked if he could come visit me in Florida (Um... no.) Creepy. Dumbass me I put my address and phone number on the envelope the camera was in, I hope he doesn't stalk me. o.O

We went to Circuit City so Liz could get a DVD/VHS player, since all the machines in her house kind of suck. She also got the same USB 4-to-1 adapter I have (yay blue glowey!) and I got a USB game controller. Then back to Wal-Mart to pick up the CD with our photos on it. We came back to the house, I started laundry. We went to Graywolf for dinner, which is a lot like the restaurant I went with my parents to in Saint Pete. Though I don't remember the name. I got to have curry, though Graywolf doesn't have near the selection as the restaurant in Saint Pete. But the food was still good. A guy made fun of me about my tattoos, and then my religion, which amused me, since he had piercings, tattoos and funk-ified hair and clothes. Like.. "How dare you rag on me, when you're the punkass wanabe." Dumbass.

Liz and I came home and tried to play a little DDR. I found a HUGE cricket in the bathroom and made Liz go kill it for me. We found that for some reason we were unable to play DDR like normal- we lacked the energy and our feet felt like lead. I have no idea what, but something sucked the energy right out of the room. So we did play a little, and Liz demonstrated the Butterfly Turn for me, so I could get the hang of it. We watched the Count of Monte Cristo, which I enjoyed. Liz dozed off several times, awake only while I was making her pause it so I could grill her and make sure I was understanding the plot properly. I also doodled a little, but it took me the whole movie to finish because I was actually quite interested in the plot. I took a shower, packed up, and went to bed.

Monday, September 15th 2003
I was so tired this morning, but Liz woke me up and we chatted a bit before playing some DDR. So, just like in January, we played DDR every day! HAH! I really didn't want to leave, I had that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. No choice though, so Liz drove me to the airport.