Friday, May 31st 2002
Weather: South Carolina & Georgia....Just absolutely perfect...sunny with a few clouds and highs in the mid to uppers 80's
Total Miles To Date 1,016 miles
Money spent today:
1.50 I-185 tolls leaving SC
7.00 All day parking in Atlanta
8.00 CNN Tour
3.50 Frozen Lemonade
3.00 A bottle of the New Vanilla Coke
Total Spent Today
$23.00
Total Spent To Date
311.01
Now this is the way to sleep....What a great room to stay in...Thankfully, I have wonderful family for me to stay with...
I woke up at 9am...and was out the door and on the road by 10am
11:10am I cross into the state of Georgia.....It's quite the uneventful drive...
12:30 I enter the city limits of Atlanta....and this is a city....you know how I know that? There are 6 lanes on each side and it's completely congested!! Yuck.... On the positive side, what a nice skyline...
1pm I finally figure this city out and find a parking lot near the local arena and the CNN Center...Parking for the whole day is $7, which apparently is a lot here...
The CNN Center is huge and is also connected to the Omni Hotel...quite a site...I rush in to try to get a tour, but alas, there are booked...but wait, they have one spot open on the 4:40pm tour. I know I'm suppose to be meeting my cousin around then, but hey, I'll see them all weekend. I purchase the $8 ticket and look for things to do for the next 3+ hours....
Well, it didn't take to long to get busy....First of all the CNN Center is huge....with a food court, Atlanta Braves store and a TBS store...pretty cool. But even better, they film a live TV Show right next to the food court...A show called "Talk Balk Live"...I take a free ticket to be in the audience, which starts broadcasting at 3pm...
1:30pm Well now that I have plans for later in the day, it's time to go out and explore. What I didn't notice when I first entered the building is that Centennial Park is right across the street. If that park sounds familiar, it should.....A lot of the festivities of Olympics occurred there as well as that bomb that went off during one of the celebrations.
Not only was this a great park, but they seem to be setting up some kind of festival and show. I would compare this to the concerts we put on at the World Trade Center meets a NYC Street Fair...
I basically laid in the sun on the grass in the park eating frozen lemonade...does life get any better than this?....
2:30 I went back to the CNN Center to get my seat for "Talk Back Live" which is hosted by Arthel Neville (Aaron Neville's daughter). I sat next to a couple from Texas who were here for a convention. A convention on Holistic Medicine, or as I like to call it, "bullshit". But, it definitely was interesting conversation, and I let them know how I felt about it....Overall, they were nice people....The show, which was suppose to start at 3pm, was bumped to 3:25 because of some breaking news on CNN...Oh, well.....I think that anyone who watched the show, probably saw my shoulder and that was it...
4pm The show was now over and I killed some time in the gift shop till my tour was ready to line at 4:30pm
4:30pm The tour began. This place is amazing. The CNN Center was originally the Sid and Marty Kroft amusement park...how weird. I saw memorabilia from all sorts of CNN stuff and got to see the CNN & Headline News Studios. The control room was massive and I completely enjoyed the tour. Bret, why do you think the tour guide wanted to slap me when I asked if I could meet Rudi Bahktiar...
5:30pm I went back to Centennial Park to find that the concert they are having is Rusted Root (yes Jason, smelly hippies). This looked like this was going to be so much fun. They actually have weekly free concerts here included Alanis, They Might Be Giants and Michelle Branch to name a few.....I was having a blast. Even better, the local radio station brought a monkey to do tricks....yes, I said a monkey. .
I walked around and even talked to some of the promotion staff of the station there. Hey, I even got to try the new Coke....It's Vanilla Coke.... It wasn't bad. Anyway, I stayed for a little bit of the opening band, but I was deeply disappointed to find out that Rusted Root was not going on till 9pm and I couldn't make my cousin wait anymore...
6:30 I start my drive back to Alpharetta, which is a suburb of Atlanta to see my cousin, Mahmood, his wife Priya and they son Arman.
7pm I finally get to see Mahmood and his family...It so great to see them. Apparently, they're quite hungry, because, I don't even get out of my car before we just in their car and go get food....Oops,,sorry.
We went to this good sports bar (it would have been a great sports bar if they carried the Yankees game)
Mahmood's son Arman is the greatest kid.. He's a little wild, but he loves Batman and Spiderman...So how could you go wrong?
8:30 We came back to their place and I finally got to see the inside....and it was well worth the wait...What a beautiful house. It's huge and just so nice. We spend some time talking and then popped in a movie and what strange movie it was....so strange we didn't even finish it...I should have known this movie was going to suck, it had Jon Bon Jovi in it... The movie was called "Home Grown"....a movie about drug dealers who get in over their head, starring Billy Bob Thorton, Ryan Phillipe, Hank Azaria, Kelly Lynch, Ted Danson, Jamie Lee Curtis and other random people. this movie should have been better...
we killed the movie at around 11pm and I went to my room to start writing my journal and to check the yankees score...damn sox beat us...oh well.
So, it's now 1:25 and I should probably go to sleep...
C YA
notes:
thanks auntie and uncle for being so great and taking such good care of me while I stayed with you.....
A HUGE SHOUT OUT TO MY FRIEND CJ!!!
Yo Joey, what up DUDE?
Do the people of the town of "Fair Play" ever cheat
Thanks to ex-Mayor Guiliani there are more strip clubs on the interstate than the entire island of Manhattan
Frankie, you'd love Atlanta...there's a Dave & Busters here
Why is every radio station named "Star" or "B-whatever the frequency is"
as a special edition, I have included Frankie's hypothetical log if he joined me on this adventure:
5/28
Delaware...whata freakin waste of a state. Why not call it a neighborhood, its so freakin small.
Why is there no Bon Jovi in this jukebox?!
5/29
Georgetown is great..... for me to poop on!!
Damn dude!! Could there possibly be more traffic?! Let me out I'll just walk...
Man...its dark, I'm hungry and freakin tired can we not find a place to stay that requires me to mortgage the house?!
one side the sign said "Tell the kids I love them" tho other side said "Bret's fat"
5/30
Why we gotta get up so early, your uncle doesnt even vome home til 4:30...
How come this cover band doesn't play Bon Jovi?!
Dude that ice crem looks gross... It looks like its been pre-chewed or something....ew..
Lets get a gun
Lets go to the Yoo Hooters contest.
Dude I am tired.
Total Miles Traveled Today
192 miles