Bringing the Drama

After Deke and Bobby went back inside to broadcast on the radio, they announced anyone wanting to enter the Best Dressed or Hairy Legs contest, please come to the right of the stage. I had to fight my way over to the right of the stage. It was still ridiculously packed. I got to the stairs and had the lady see me so she’d pick me out of this throng of guys in dresses.
Once I got on stage, everything seemed a little disorganized. There were about 20 other guys on stage with me, but they didn’t really divide us between the two contests. I pulled my socks down so people would see why I should win. They had people go to the front of the stage because I think they were judging by crowd reaction. One of the ladies in charge looked at me and my legs and told me I’d be a finalist. Guys would go to the front of the stage, then step back. Slowly but surely they were eliminated. They hadn’t asked me to go to the front yet, so I thought the hairy legs competition would be coming up. I was going to stay up there until they asked me to leave.

Finally I got motioned to go to the front to show off my wares. I did, and my friends in the crowd had summoned help from people around them to cheer for me. Unfortunately, I did not make the finals of the Best Dressed, but I was still staying up there until they told me to leave. One of the ladies came up to me and told me she had something inside for me, and to stay up there. They announced the winner of Best Dressed, and the lady came up to me again, and said “follow me inside, we’re going to put you on the radio.” I motioned out to my friends about the greatness that was happening.

The lady told me to grab her hand and stay close. It was still crazy packed. We made our way through the crowd, and since I was with the radio lady, I got past the security guard. They had me wait near the table that was being used for the broadcast. I thought they would eventually give us microphones or something, and ask us a couple of questions.

I was going to thank my dad for the hairy legs. Sadly though, I never got the chance. They took my name, and the name of the guy who won Best Dressed, and said them over the air, so that was cool. My parents heard it. When they said my name, I turned and waved to the people in the restaurant. It was all kinds of awesome. The lady gave me a bag full of stuff from one of the local Saints shops. I wanted the plaque that the other guy got, it even had Hairy Legs on it. I think they only got one plaque though, and it did say Best In Show, so he got that.

We left the restaurant and got a picture at the Andrew Jackson statue to add to my collection. Then we made our way to Fleurty Girl, where I met THE Fleurty Girl. She asked to get a picture with me, and then she tweeted it! She’s like a real celebrity with all the local and national interviews from the cease and desist selling WHO DAT shirts thing. (or so I have learned this week) My sister was able to buy a shirt she’s been wanting. Afterward we went and ate at this BBQ place called Squeal where they had the most amazing corn grits I’ve ever had.

I have told this story over and over since Sunday. I keep thinking how incredible it all was. I was expecting a lot of guys to show up and march and all, but the amount that did blew my mind. The amount of people who turned up to watch was just awesome. The crowd was so happy. Everyone was having such a great time. I’m so glad I did it. I can’t wait till Sunday. WHO DAT!

(I divided the story into 2 parts, both parts will be posted today. Part II later this afternoon)

Last week, Bobby Hebert announced that there would actually be a Dress Parade to honor the late Buddy D and celebrate the Saints going to the Super Bowl. Later on in the week, I called my friend Jacob, who’s probably one of the only friends I have on the same level with the Saints. I asked him if he wanted to do the parade. I thought it’d be fun. We agreed. He called me Saturday, and we nailed down more plans and particulars. It was on.

Saturday night, I went to the local Goodwill to get a dress. I went through the entire rack of dresses and found two black dresses. They were pretty much the same style, so I was just going to try them both on and go with the one that fit the best. The tags were ripped off, so I had no idea what size the dresses were. It was obvious one fit better than the other, so I bought it. When I went up to the counter, the lady said “you must be going to a party”, to which I said “no, I’m going to be in the Dress Parade tomorrow.” The people around the counter laughed and encouraged me to have a good time. The dress was $5.43 total, not bad. I stopped off at the store and got a 12 pack of High Life cans, because I knew we’d need beer and I thought we’d get in trouble for having bottles. I was going to use a couple of the reusable shopping bags to split the beer between me and Jacob.

The next morning I went to early church and listened to another boring sermon. On my way home I stopped off at Academy and got some black soccer socks. I got home and threw on my dress. Since it was going to be cold, I put on my long sleeve compression shirt that I wear for running, and some compression shorts. Then I put on a long underwear shirt on and some boxers. I did not want to have to wear a coat or anything, I wanted to show off the dress!

We got downtown about 11:35 or so, and parked across the street from the Holiday Inn. We were having to wait for Jacob, and I had to go to the bathroom, so we walked across the street to the hotel. I walked into the waiting room type area, and walked past three guys who were just wearing long skirts over pants. LOSERS! That’s when I knew I had done the right thing, and the apprehension I was feeling disappeared. They saw me with everything on and I could tell from the look on their faces that they wished they had gone all out like I had. Yeah, I was working it. My sister nicknamed me Sassy Sally.

We walked over to the Dome to meet up with Jacob. There were so many guys out there, and more impressive was the number of people who came to watch.

We walked down the street doing the Who Dat! Chant, chanting Buddy D, Black and Gold Super Bowl, etc. It was amazing. The first block or so I must have said “this is awesome” 20 times. Everyone was laughing and yelling and waving. There were tons of people on both sides of the street taking video and/or pictures. It was crazy. Some of the guys took the dress wearing a little too far IMO. One guy readily admitted he was wearing a thong underneath. One guy took our picture, and then tells me “if you’d have shaved this morning, I’d be turned on”. I told him “I’m glad I didn’t!” The guys in makeup were also kind of weird.

When we made the turn onto Carondelet, there were still tons of people. It was almost as if the amount of people increased. I high fived a girl for wearing a Scott Fujita jersey. This one guy was filming and says “this is going on youtube”, so I got in the camera shot and yelled “What up! Youtube! Who Dat!” I have no idea if it’s actually anywhere yet, but I’m in a video somewhere for sure.

When we got to the Quarter, it almost became single file because of all the people on the sidewalks. These guys in front of us were just walking in jerseys and jeans, and I spoke loudly that they shouldn’t be in the parade. I don’t think they heard me. But really, we’re in dresses and you’re not, get out of our parade! Most importantly, we made it to the stage at the end of the parade and we had not run out of beer. Also, I wasn’t sure exactly where we were going, all I knew was we were following Bobby Hebert.

I knew there was going to be a hairy legs contest, so I didn’t wear stockings. I wanted to be able to enter the contest. The stage was set up in the street, and it was packed. We were in front of the stage, but it was just wall to wall people. I kept yelling for Bobby Hebert to come out, because he was our leader for the day, and I wanted to see him. I had not seen him all day. I booed a guy who was dancing on stage with a Mic Ultra. Finally, Bobby came out, and he appeared to feel very good. He said some pro Saints stuff, about how awesome it was that we all came out, that the Saints were going to the SB, life is awesome, whatever. Deke, his radio co-hort, was also there, but he didn’t have a dress. In fact, he was wearing a Bobby Hebert jersey. I think Deke’s an idiot, and his costume was just stupid. Fine, maybe you’re not man enough to wear a dress, but for crying out loud, do you have to wear the jersey of your radio partner like that? LAME!

(the exciting conclusion in part II)

Remember when I posted last month about the Andrew Jackson statues? I got a picture with the one in NOLA today. Why am I wearing a dress and what is the story behind it? Today was the parade today where guys honored late local sportscaster Buddy D and wore dresses to celebrate the Saints in the Super Bowl. Buddy always said if the Saints ever made it, he would parade through NOLA in a dress. Today my friend Jacob and I took part. Full story and more pictures to come later this week.

So I post on Saints Report now, after having finally joined back in December. Recently they had a thread where you could draw a favorite Saints moment using MS Paint. Obviously most of the drawings come out quite crude and like a child did them, but I thought it was awesome. I have since contributed two and I’ll post them here. My readers who are Saints fans will know exactly the moment I have captured so perfectly. For everyone else, the first is Reggie Bush against the Bears in the 2006 playoffs, and the 2nd is from this year’s game against the Redskins. I’ve included links to articles or video so you can get the context. Enjoy.

Because I’ve suffered from severe writers’ block lately but I still want to document the awesome things that happened over the weekend of my triumphant return to Nashville after a 2 year absence, you get the incomplete sentences of the awesome and not so awesome:

- shared plane with inappropriate singer
- lady’s excitement over inappropriate singer
- beer shopping
- trip to recycling collection place
- Dagny!
- well, now don’t you feel horrible for parking where kids in wheelchairs are coming out?
- 2 for 1 High Life
- seeing friends from across the room in the Ryman, feeling like a rock star
- realizing God still chases after me, no matter how unintentionally I seem to run from Him
- sleeping late
- ridiculous federal job app
- meeting blog friend Mandy
- making it to Fido for the first time ever
- Miles!
- Jack White’s house!
- eating sushi for the 2nd time ever
- interesting shop talk
- Hank/Hank Jr mugs
- Jack White’s record studio/shop was closed
- picture of me with Andrew Jackson statue
- Grimey’s with drunk Santa and ‘drunk’ elf
- Saints/Cowboys!
- “chicken/taco/really good whatever it is officially called” soup
- Missed FG! Craziness!
- Saints sadness
- awesome sermon at church
- leading the youth group boys to a gift wrapping championship
- blue coast burrito
- 5 NFL games at once
- free airport wifi
- home

Sometimes at work the way things happen I feel like I’m in a cartoon. Things that happen would make a great comic strip. The other day was one of those times. Useful story acronyms: In The Room That I Was In (ITRTIWI), Lady Running The Meeting (LRTM).

Tuesday at work I had to go to a training class. I will have to go to the same training class again because of what happened. About 2 pm, I went down to the conference room for the meeting. It was going to be a teleconference with video, so basically a lady was going to be showing a video on her computer that we could all see. Everyone starts tying into the telecon and there are so many people talking at once. I was in a room of probably 50 or 60 people, but the commotion on the phone was crazy. The LRTM was taking roll of people who were online, so someone ITRTIWI told her “we have attendance sheets we can send you”. Other people are saying their name and spelling them out for her. One guy had two R’s in his name, so he says “Larry, L-A-R-R-Y.” The way he said the R’s sounded like a pirate. Some coworkers and I started laughing at the pirate tied in to the telecon. Then someone asks him to repeat it, so he does it again. More hilarity ensues. Then after all this has played out, the LRTM then drops this bomb, “oh, I can’t get the meeting software working, so everyone will just have to listen to the audio from the video.” WHAT? Then someone ITRTIWI figured out how to access the video. I think the LRTM had emailed them a link or something. THE VIDEO WAS ON A WEBSITE! It was a 60 Minutes video on cbsnews.com! So instead of just telling everyone “hey, everyone load up this webpage and we’ll all hit play at the same time”, there was mass confusion and people couldn’t figure out how to get the meeting software to work. Next thing I know, someone leading the meeting ITRTIWI says “why doesn’t everyone connect to us, and we can broadcast the video?” Great idea, so everyone tries to connect to us. I tried to suggest telling everyone the web address, but I was drowned in the cacophony of the moment. There is still a lot of talking on the telecon, people asking where they’re from and stuff. One lady was from Palo Alto. WHY? Then just when you think things will finally get rolling and we’ll watch this video on cyber crime or something, someone trips over the power cord and shuts the computer down, which shut the online meeting down, which threw EVERYONE online into panic. It was decided that the meeting would have to be rescheduled for another day when things did not go so horribly wrong. I’m not sure about the people on the telecon. At least I signed the attendance sheet.

I am filing this under WATCH THIS HAPPEN. Being obsessed about my blog’s stats, I checked in yesterday afternoon. I was seeing a ton from Facebook starting yesterday at 3 and new ones were popping up every minute or two. I don’t have anything about my blog on Facebook. I clicked on one of the incoming links and found the following:

WHAT? The talking oven found me! I’m a little disappointed that so few ‘liked’ it, I thought the costume came out pretty well. (BTW, if you don’t recognize some of the stuff on that FB page, it’s because I keep mine translated in Pirate)

If the talking oven really wants to help me out, he might try to re-open the Quiznos in Slidell, LA near Target that is now closed. As far as I know, one of his mute relatives is locked inside not being used. A toasty oven is a terrible thing to waste.

On Saturday after the HALF MARATHON, it was time to go back to Chalmette for the big Halloween party. I was anxious to go again after the fantastic time last year, and then my aunt sent me an email in September about it. I was going to dress up this year, and do more than tape black circles to my shirt. I was not going to have work on a Saturday, so I had no excuses. I struggled for a costume idea though. I posted on Twitter about it, and the only response I had was from my friend Adriene whose suggestion was disappointing. I mean, I figured she’d suggest a Twilight character at least…..but she didn’t. So the week of the party, I’m thinking about not dying in the HALF MARATHON and what costume I’m going to wear. I went to Target, Walmart, and a Halloween store, and nothing. I wasn’t wanting to pay $60 to dress up like the BK King, although that would have been cool a couple of years ago. I had a fake mustache, wasn’t there something I could figure out???

Two days before the big day, I noticed I had a new follower on Twitter, and it was the Quiznos toaster oven. You may know him from the commercials where he talks to Scott, the Quiznos employee. Apparently he had started following me when I asked about costume suggestions, so clicking through his page I came upon a page full of suggestions related to Quiznos. A couple of them were dressing up as the oven himself, but I didn’t have a box big enough to pull that off. But behold, dressing as a Torpedo! BRILLIANT! It’s unique, it’s something I can make, and it’s cheap. I could even wear my fake mustache!

On Friday I went to WM and bought a white sheet for $4. FOUR DOLLARS! I’m not sure how many other people were going to be dressing as Torpedos, but I got one of the last white sheets. After running the HALF MARATHON on Saturday, the costume was put together. I had some help drawing the logos on and pinning it, but I thought it came out fine. The result is below:

And yes, that is my HALF MARATHON finishers’ medal I had EARNED earlier in the day that I was wearing no matter what.

One of the highlights was a drunk lady who tried to befriend me by showing me her Star Wars shirt and saying it was vintage because it had Jar Jar on it (she kept saying it was a jabberwocky). That doesn’t mean it’s vintage, that means it sucks. I didn’t tell her that though because she was really excited about it. She was going around by herself and told me she lost the rest of her family, but she was still collecting candy in 3 bags; two for her family, then one she said was for her dog. You know you’ve hit rock bottom when you are trick-or-treating for your dog, or worse….LYING about it.

This past weekend I went up to North Carolina for a wedding. I was flying, and had probably waited a little too long to book my flight, so I had to get a crazy flight time going to NC. My flight Friday was 6 am. SIX IN THE MORNING! It was on US Airways, an airline I had never flown before but my friend Kari had, and she’s had issues. I figured the 6 am flight was the first of the day, it wouldn’t be delayed, and I was not checking a bag. What could possibly go wrong?

I set my alarm for 3:35 am so I could wake up and have time. I packed almost everything the night before, so getting the final things together wasn’t a big deal. I left my house at 4:25 to make the 45 or so minute trip to the airport. There was no one on the road for obvious reasons, but the whole time I was nervous about making it on time because of that one time 3 years ago when I was late for a flight. I couldn’t be late for this flight. I made it to the airport about 5:15, plenty of time. I parked the car, walked in the terminal, checked in, and made it back to the gate by 5:30. I was wearing a long sleeved shirt because NC was actually cold, so I was a bit warm standing there. At 5:35 am, the guy at the gate comes on the intercom and says “Ladies and gentlemen, the crew got in late last night, so they’re still resting and we’ll start boarding once they get here.” WHAT?!? The 6 am flight is delayed? It’s the first flight of the day! Also, the crew had a late night, so they might be tired? GREAT! We waited until about 6 am, and the crew finally walked up. Freaking slackers, I had woken up at 3:35 and did my part to make it to the gate on time, the crew on the other hand did not.

We got on the plane and I put my stuff away. I had an aisle seat, which I don’t normally get, but they ended up being pretty nice. Everyone straps in and the pilot comes on and gives us some line about the FAA regulating how much sleep a crew gets each night, and they had to get their allotted rest, blah blah blah. So then he says “but don’t worry, we’re going to make it to Charlotte on time, watch this happen!” I thought to myself “he just said ‘watch this happen’”, and looked around to see if anyone else had heard it. I didn’t see anyone notice, because it was 6:15 and I guess everyone was still tired.

I tried to get some sleep, and did get some, but a whiny toddler in the back decided to make it difficult for everyone on board. Sedatives people, sedatives! We did in fact get to Charlotte on time. I did watch it happen. Maybe the pilot wasn’t so bad after all. I still didn’t forget them strolling in late though.

The connection flight to Greensboro was supposed to take off at 9:45 to arrive at 10:40 am. I had arranged for my friend Brandi to pick me up. There were some pre wedding activities she was having to do, so when I heard the connection was delayed 15 minutes, I texted her. Then we sat on the tarmac in a line of planes for another 15 minutes, so I got my phone out, turned it on, and texted her to tell her “we’re still sitting on the runway, I’ll call you when I land.” I thought for sure there was no way we’d make it to Greensboro on time after being delayed half an hour. The pilot didn’t tell us to watch anything, but assured us he’d try to get us to Greensboro on time.

I dozed off and the next thing I know we’re landing. I turned on my phone to check the time and it was 10:41. We were only 1 minute late after leaving half an hour late. How does this happen? Of course, the insanity of this happening caused me to have to chill at the airport for Brandi, which was fine because I was able to read in my grad school book and play in the arcade. They have Ms Pac Man and Galaga machines in the Greensboro airport, and they are only 25 cents! I’m pretty good at those games, so it occupied a lot of time. In fact, I gave one of my four tokens (seriously they had a TOKEN machine) to a guy that walked in right after Brandi texted me because I had no idea how long it would take her to get to the airport, and I didn’t want to make her wait with the excuse “hold on, I’m playing Ms Pac Man.”

Incidentally, this story allowed “watch this happen” to become one of the lines of the weekend. So to the pilot on the NOLA to Charlotte leg of my trip Friday, thank you. US Airways though, you suck, and btw, your $25 one way bag fees are a complete joke.

Check it, so I’ve been reading about some new phones coming out, which made me realize I have a backlog of pictures on my phone that I needed to unload. So I emailed a couple to myself today and figured I could post them here, because I figure it’s better than not writing anything for 3 weeks.

Alright, this one was taken on the first day half of the new Twin Span bridge opened in July. The original Twin Span was 2 lanes each way, and was destroyed by Katrina. The new one is higher off the water and 3 lanes. When they finish it I would assume we’ll be able to fly across it like we did the old one. Anyway, the first day it was open I drove across it on the way home from work, and it was kind of exciting. I was one of the first people to cross over on the new bridge! I’ve been watching the progress of the bridge obviously since it started, so it was cool to finally get to drive across.

I went to the LSU/ULL game a couple of weeks ago and snapped a few pictures. If you follow me on Twitter you may have seen a couple. This one I didn’t show, but it doesn’t make it any less weird. This guy was standing around Mike’s habitat, and when I saw the name he had chosen for his customized LSU baseball fashion jersey, I laughed and took the picture. IT IS MISTER DAZZLING!

That wasn’t the only picture I took where I thought “Some LSU fans are hard to accept”, like the lady who had two big poodles and decided to shave LSU into their coats. Seriously. I have photographic proof and will show you when I get around to uploading them.