Denver: Kind of Ghetto
I returned from the NSCS Leadership Summit in Denver yesterday. It's a bit of a dirty, oddball, ghetto town.
My trip actually began on Wednesday. I drove down to Katie's house so that I could spend the night there, that I wouldn't have to wake up at 5:00 a.m. on Thursday in order to drive down to SeaTac. I got lost on the way. Apparently there are two Cherry Hill Avenues within ten miles of eachother in the Duvall area. No, they aren't North Cherry Hill and South Cherry Hill, they are entirely different roads. Who the Christ does such a thing?
Our flight to Denver was mostly uneventful. I got stopped at the security checkpoint and had to strip every bit of metal from my body before I got through. Even then, the guard told me that I "just barely made it." My leg-rod is a terrorist.
Denver is incredibly hot. The temperature usually hovered around 95º F while we were there. The thin, dry air softened the effects of the heat a bit, though it was still nearly unbearable to walk around outside.
Our opening session was presented by a couple of folks from Road Trip Nation, a sort-of documentary that got started when a few college grads who weren't sure what to do in life bought an old, beat-up RV and toured the nation interviewing famous people. They now have three newer RVs traveling the nation with unsure college student inside, and they give grants out to students that are unable to take a trip on one of the official RVs. It was a rather inspiring presentation, and it made me think even more about switching my major to something I'm more passionate about. They used an Apple computer to play clips of their movies, too. Go !
I went to a few sessions on Friday before departing for the service project. In one of the sessions we divided up in groups and ended up proposing mascots for our region. My group had the best proposal -- a chameleon, because our region is so varied with its mountains and oceans and volcanos and deserts and whatnot. However, two groups proposed an eagle, and the eagle won. How fucking cliché!
Our service project was a park clean-up and restoration. I happened to meet a few girls from Cincinnati there, which was very fortunate, considering that I'll be in Cincinnati less than a week from now. I spent a good deal of time digging a shallow ditch around a tennis court and filling the ditch with gravel. I spent much of this time doing so with Yu Yao, one of the Cincinnati girls. She's absolutely über-cute. She does surprisingly well with a shovel too, given that she weighs less than a hundred pounds.
Katie had expressed an interest in having Dinner at the Hard Rock Café we'd seen in town, so I invited the Cincinnati girls to come along. They accepted, and so we dined. It was my first time at a Hard Rock, and probably my last. Not only was the atmosphere loud, annoying, and a celebration of mostly crappy music, but the waiter told us that it would take an hour for him to separate the check so that we could pay separately. About twenty minutes was spent trying to do it ourselves before Katie got pissy with the waiter and demanded that he separate out the check. She ended up not paying him the 15% tip that was already billed by writing in a lower amount on the credit card receipt.
Following that, we visited a liquor store. I was surprised to find that there are privately owned liquor stores in Colorado. It's probably better that way from everyone's point of view. Those who want to buy liquor don't end up going without due to a store closing early, the proprietor makes his money, and the state makes more tax revenue as the store is more likely to make more sales, given that the proprietor has a great incentive to do so.
I made my Brown Russians -- Kahlua, vodka, and chocolate milk -- and we drank and played "Never Have I..." The point of the game is to say something you've never done, and others who have done what you have not take a drink. Joaquim, a guy from Georgia Tech that was rooming with us, flipped out when Robin said that she'd never had sexual relations with someone of the same sex and Chiho took a drink. How the hell can't you tell?!
Katie's presentation, "A Fresh Start: Revitalizing Your Chapter," took place at 8:30 a.m. the next morning. I was her tech guy. It was awesome. The room was absolutely packed, with people sitting on the floor and lining up outside the door. Katie had made the presentation using Keynote on my PowerBook, and used my phone to advance slides. It was slick.
I went to a couple of tech sessions, and didn't learn a thing. The first was the standard "hey here are communites of interest check these out," and the second was given by a guy whose knowledge went way over the heads of all the girls there who had never heard the acronym 'HTML' before. I did manage to inform one girl that she should stay away from FrontPage though, as it'd kill the things she had been doing with Dreamweaver. I think I'll try to teach that session next year -- a session in which I'd be able to get everyone who doesn't have a website up and running with one would be absolutely superb.
Following the sessions, we had our awards reception. We were a Gold Chapter, and that's just completely awesome. We're one of 21 such chapters in the nation, three in our region, and the only such chapter in our state. There's more than 250 NSCS chapters in the US. There was much standing and applauding.
We went to a Rockies game after our session work was done. Though I watch very little baseball, I can confirm that the Rockies are the worst team in the game. It was like a carnival of unforced errors and strikeouts.
That night, me and Chiho decided that we were much too sleepy to venture out, and that we'd just stay in the room, have a few drinks, and maybe watch a movie on Pay-Per-View. The girls would have none of this. They badgered Chiho to come to a night club until he capitulated, and then I was compelled to go, having lost my anti-night-club ally. Chiho, Yu Yao, and myself were the only ones under 21 years of age, and the only ones who didn't feel much like enjoying the club scene. We got to the club, and were horrified to discover just how far out of place we were. I counted not a single white person or Asian among the Fubu-bedecked crowd. There was an extremely large black woman behind us with index fingers in the air, gesturing for what I assumed to be reasons of night-clubbery. As there were separate 18+ and 21+ entrances, us three young'n's bolted once the other girls were out of sight. There was no way I was going to pay a cover fee for something I'm not going to enjoy at all.
We went back to the hotel, Yu Yao broke off for her room, and me and Chiho relaxed with some drinks. The girls came back, and we were unable to maintain our lie about Yu Yao being turned away because she had a t-shirt on and me forgetting my ID. Oh well -- I didn't care. Apparently Yu Yao did, though, from what the girls told me. I think she got the worst end of that deal, as the girls made us swear not tell her of their groping and humping experiences in the club, so that she wouldn't be scared away from the club scene. I'm pretty sure that's exactly the sort of behavior that she doesn't want to experience, though.
Sunday was our last day. We had a mysterious all-donut breakfast at the classy Marriott where servants place napkins on your lap for you. Robin won an iPod shuffle, which was great justice, as Chiho had been teasing her about her dated CD player the day before.
We bid our adieus to the people we'd been hanging out with, left our last region session, snagged some lunch and souveniers, returned to the hotel for our luggage, caught a cab with a Somali driver back to the airport, flew back to Seattle, and were home. I made it back in time to see Family Guy, but it was a rerun. I made pizza rolls for dinner, and got a nosebleed just as I was about to eat them. Rocky Mountain High, indeed.
For pictures, be clickin dis.
My trip actually began on Wednesday. I drove down to Katie's house so that I could spend the night there, that I wouldn't have to wake up at 5:00 a.m. on Thursday in order to drive down to SeaTac. I got lost on the way. Apparently there are two Cherry Hill Avenues within ten miles of eachother in the Duvall area. No, they aren't North Cherry Hill and South Cherry Hill, they are entirely different roads. Who the Christ does such a thing?
Our flight to Denver was mostly uneventful. I got stopped at the security checkpoint and had to strip every bit of metal from my body before I got through. Even then, the guard told me that I "just barely made it." My leg-rod is a terrorist.
Denver is incredibly hot. The temperature usually hovered around 95º F while we were there. The thin, dry air softened the effects of the heat a bit, though it was still nearly unbearable to walk around outside.
Our opening session was presented by a couple of folks from Road Trip Nation, a sort-of documentary that got started when a few college grads who weren't sure what to do in life bought an old, beat-up RV and toured the nation interviewing famous people. They now have three newer RVs traveling the nation with unsure college student inside, and they give grants out to students that are unable to take a trip on one of the official RVs. It was a rather inspiring presentation, and it made me think even more about switching my major to something I'm more passionate about. They used an Apple computer to play clips of their movies, too. Go !
I went to a few sessions on Friday before departing for the service project. In one of the sessions we divided up in groups and ended up proposing mascots for our region. My group had the best proposal -- a chameleon, because our region is so varied with its mountains and oceans and volcanos and deserts and whatnot. However, two groups proposed an eagle, and the eagle won. How fucking cliché!
Our service project was a park clean-up and restoration. I happened to meet a few girls from Cincinnati there, which was very fortunate, considering that I'll be in Cincinnati less than a week from now. I spent a good deal of time digging a shallow ditch around a tennis court and filling the ditch with gravel. I spent much of this time doing so with Yu Yao, one of the Cincinnati girls. She's absolutely über-cute. She does surprisingly well with a shovel too, given that she weighs less than a hundred pounds.
Katie had expressed an interest in having Dinner at the Hard Rock Café we'd seen in town, so I invited the Cincinnati girls to come along. They accepted, and so we dined. It was my first time at a Hard Rock, and probably my last. Not only was the atmosphere loud, annoying, and a celebration of mostly crappy music, but the waiter told us that it would take an hour for him to separate the check so that we could pay separately. About twenty minutes was spent trying to do it ourselves before Katie got pissy with the waiter and demanded that he separate out the check. She ended up not paying him the 15% tip that was already billed by writing in a lower amount on the credit card receipt.
Following that, we visited a liquor store. I was surprised to find that there are privately owned liquor stores in Colorado. It's probably better that way from everyone's point of view. Those who want to buy liquor don't end up going without due to a store closing early, the proprietor makes his money, and the state makes more tax revenue as the store is more likely to make more sales, given that the proprietor has a great incentive to do so.
I made my Brown Russians -- Kahlua, vodka, and chocolate milk -- and we drank and played "Never Have I..." The point of the game is to say something you've never done, and others who have done what you have not take a drink. Joaquim, a guy from Georgia Tech that was rooming with us, flipped out when Robin said that she'd never had sexual relations with someone of the same sex and Chiho took a drink. How the hell can't you tell?!
Katie's presentation, "A Fresh Start: Revitalizing Your Chapter," took place at 8:30 a.m. the next morning. I was her tech guy. It was awesome. The room was absolutely packed, with people sitting on the floor and lining up outside the door. Katie had made the presentation using Keynote on my PowerBook, and used my phone to advance slides. It was slick.
I went to a couple of tech sessions, and didn't learn a thing. The first was the standard "hey here are communites of interest check these out," and the second was given by a guy whose knowledge went way over the heads of all the girls there who had never heard the acronym 'HTML' before. I did manage to inform one girl that she should stay away from FrontPage though, as it'd kill the things she had been doing with Dreamweaver. I think I'll try to teach that session next year -- a session in which I'd be able to get everyone who doesn't have a website up and running with one would be absolutely superb.
Following the sessions, we had our awards reception. We were a Gold Chapter, and that's just completely awesome. We're one of 21 such chapters in the nation, three in our region, and the only such chapter in our state. There's more than 250 NSCS chapters in the US. There was much standing and applauding.
We went to a Rockies game after our session work was done. Though I watch very little baseball, I can confirm that the Rockies are the worst team in the game. It was like a carnival of unforced errors and strikeouts.
That night, me and Chiho decided that we were much too sleepy to venture out, and that we'd just stay in the room, have a few drinks, and maybe watch a movie on Pay-Per-View. The girls would have none of this. They badgered Chiho to come to a night club until he capitulated, and then I was compelled to go, having lost my anti-night-club ally. Chiho, Yu Yao, and myself were the only ones under 21 years of age, and the only ones who didn't feel much like enjoying the club scene. We got to the club, and were horrified to discover just how far out of place we were. I counted not a single white person or Asian among the Fubu-bedecked crowd. There was an extremely large black woman behind us with index fingers in the air, gesturing for what I assumed to be reasons of night-clubbery. As there were separate 18+ and 21+ entrances, us three young'n's bolted once the other girls were out of sight. There was no way I was going to pay a cover fee for something I'm not going to enjoy at all.
We went back to the hotel, Yu Yao broke off for her room, and me and Chiho relaxed with some drinks. The girls came back, and we were unable to maintain our lie about Yu Yao being turned away because she had a t-shirt on and me forgetting my ID. Oh well -- I didn't care. Apparently Yu Yao did, though, from what the girls told me. I think she got the worst end of that deal, as the girls made us swear not tell her of their groping and humping experiences in the club, so that she wouldn't be scared away from the club scene. I'm pretty sure that's exactly the sort of behavior that she doesn't want to experience, though.
Sunday was our last day. We had a mysterious all-donut breakfast at the classy Marriott where servants place napkins on your lap for you. Robin won an iPod shuffle, which was great justice, as Chiho had been teasing her about her dated CD player the day before.
We bid our adieus to the people we'd been hanging out with, left our last region session, snagged some lunch and souveniers, returned to the hotel for our luggage, caught a cab with a Somali driver back to the airport, flew back to Seattle, and were home. I made it back in time to see Family Guy, but it was a rerun. I made pizza rolls for dinner, and got a nosebleed just as I was about to eat them. Rocky Mountain High, indeed.
For pictures, be clickin dis.
posted by Brandon Adams at
9:34 PM
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