Music City Fail

Merry Christmas, Brent: two tickets to the Music City Bowl in Nashville, TN.  Lesson learned: never let the “success” of a gift depend on the Tennessee Vols.  Ha! What a disappointing and unfair game.  I know, I know.  I sound like one of “those” fans.

Music City Bowl Highlights:

1. We got to see some of Brent’s friends from home before the game
2. Nashville sunset over the stadium
3. We got to spend time together
4. I got to see Brent scold the drunk guys that kept getting up and down and up and down all throughout the game (we were on the aisle).  Funny!!!  But necessary!
5. Stadium food.  We had pizza, popcorn, and pretzels.  It was a total carb feast
6. The Pride of the Southland marching band & the infamous circle drill
7. Winning a bowl game

Obviously, we didn’t really win the game, but because of the ridiculous last play, we actually thought we won the game for like 15 seconds and celebrated accordingly.  That was nice.

And win or lose, we do have the cutest coach in the SEC – quite possibly the entire NCAA.  Admittedly, I’m not exactly sure what all of the coaches in the NCAA look like, but I do know what Derek Dooley looks like and feel pretty good about our chances in that particular competition.

After it was over, we walked back across the bridge to the hotel.  For most people, the party was just starting, but for me and Brent we were ready to get in the bed!  Honestly, the hotel room was the highlight of the trip for me.  It was the downtown Hilton and it was really nice.  Our room had a living room and a separate bedroom with a nice view of downtown.  Too bad we were only there for one night!

I believe the game can be summarized by the following picture – Brent’s reaction to the loss:

Sometimes – well, actually most times – being a Tennessee fan is painful.

Scenic Snowy Drive

A few days after Christmas, I managed to peel myself off the leather couch and away from my Kindle long enough to accompany Daddy on a drive to Bald River Falls in Tellico.  My goal over the Christmas holiday was to NOT change out of pajamas or pajama-like clothing the entire time I was there, so this activity was consistent with those goals.  Plus I’m always up for any opportunity to take an excessive amount of pictures.

Especially of myself.  I don’t mind saying that this is self-portraiture at its finest.  (I’m not sure if “portraiture” is a word, but spell check isn’t catching it!)  Note that the best self-portraits are those that do not look like self portraits.  In this photo, I have managed to capture myself in the passenger’s seat as if the driver of the vehicle took the photo.  See, totally sly.  (Never mind the fact that the driver of the vehicle was supervising the clean-up of a traffic accident at the time and was actually not in the vehicle.)  The key is making absolutely sure your outstretched arm is not visible in the self portrait and that the photo is not large enough for anyone to easily detect your outstretched arm in the reflection of your sunglasses. Also, practice makes perfect.

Moving on.

Daddy actually said something really funny as we were driving through, frantically taking pictures every square foot.  The conversation went like this:

Daddy: I don’t know why I take so many pictures.

Me: Chances are, the more pictures you take, the more likely you are to get a really good one.

Daddy: Chances are, no one will ever even look at them.

Ha! 

But that seriously is the rule I live (and take pictures) by.  If you increase the number of pictures you take, you increase the odds that you will get a good one.  I would say for every 250 pictures I take, I get about 2-3 that I really like.

Compare this self-portrait to the earlier one.  See, even though you can’t see my outstretched arm, you know this is a self portrait because of the angle.  NO one could easily take a photo of me in a truck from that angle – except for me!

And then, the highlight of the trip….THE BEACH!!!  Woo hoo!  This place has the best “slawdawgs” (i.e., hotdogs with slaw) in East Tennessee, possibly in the whole country.  Everything is good here, especially the milkshakes, which we didn’t get since it was so cold. Love the beach!  This is also the site of perhaps the funniest practical joke I have ever initiated in my life.  It involved two misspelled text messages from Daddy’s phone, an embellished sighting of one of Kourtney’s ex-boyfriends, a serendipitous pix message from Daddy, and a hilarious text from her that simply stated “I want to die.”  I’m still laughing about it to this day.  Brent says I can pull a good joke when I try because no one ever knows if I’m joking or not….I guess being a straight, serious, wet blanket most of the time pays off occasionally.