ladyeyeliner's Weblog Site • NuTang.com

So, since I haven't updated in forever, I have tons to share. Let me see, blood test was pointless, and now the parents want me to go see the real doctor. Last Staurday (as in not a few days ago), I had my first regatta. We were in Austin, and although we didn't do very well, it was a lot of fun. I finally had my first taste of why people love this sport so much. But, it was nothing in comparison to this past weekend. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Then there was seeing President Bush on Monday night. Now that was fucking awesome!! He was so excited to be back home. They got there really late though. Chuck Norris, Tracie Byrd and Toby Keith were are there. It was a huge cowboy reunion. Shea, Chris, Emily, Alan and I waited in line for about two hours before we even saw the doors to the place, but it was well worth every minute. I spent the majority of Tuesday night glued to the TV in hopes of seeing who would win. Of course, Ohio had to be special, so I went to bed with angst. Thursday night Lanae and I babysat these two little boys we are giong to start taking care of. They are so cute and so good. Lanae was the only problem we had all night. She drove me nuts!! I had to play with boys, bathe them, put them into pjs and then get them into bed without any help from her. And every time She was alone with the baby, he would scream and scream until I came in a rescued him. It was the saddest thing ever. So, I was pretty pissed at her after the night was over. And all that wasn't including the fact that she talked about the drama of her and Chad all night. I could have killed myself! And now we are to Friday. I woke up at 4:00 in the morning and tromped on a bus. Then we headed off to the airport. Upon arriving and getting our tickets, Doug hands every one of us an envelope. And what does it contain, you ask. Well, just $26 for breakfast that morning and lunch Sunday afternoon. Yes, they handed us an envelope of cash. I was quite amazed. So, we arrive in Atlanta, Georgia and hop on another bus. This bus takes us about 30 minutes away to Gainesville. We arrive and the head of the Chattahoochee River where the '96 Olympic rowers raced. Kevin and Lenis are there with the trailer and we start unloading and rigging the boats. We also hear the story about how Kevin (my coach) killed the truck on the way there. Make mental note - never jackknife with a huge trailer full of 9 boats and aviod a flat tire at all costs. So, after that we practice on the course and get to check things out. This place is absolutely gorgeous. It kinda reminded me of Wisconsin. Then, around 6ish, we headed to the hotel. And damn the hotel! You see, hotel is a little misleading. I figured hotel like at Nationals. After all, the varsity said it was really nice and Kevin said it was four stars. Well, as it turned out, my hotel room - number 4 - turned out to be a cabin. Yes, a cabin. I shared a house with two other girls. We had two bathrooms, three beds, three tvs, a dishwasher, fridge, coffemaker, toater, washer, dryer and.....a hot tub! I have never stayed anywhere this nice in my entire life. This place kicked my dorm rooms ass. We could have lived there for weeks! I just about died. On Saturday, my boat raced. We did fucking awesome! Let me give you a little background and then I'll tell you more. My boat is a four person boat plus a coxwain (pronounced cox-in). Here is a picture of an eight. My boat is different in the sense that obviously there are only four rowers and see that girl on the far left doing nothing? Well, she is the coxwain and she lies down behind the person on the far right in my boat. The coxwain is the only person who can see where we are heading so she steers. The saying hear goes, "we win our races by sitting on our asses and going backwards". I am the person on the far right in my boat, the bow. Me = bow seat because I am the shortest. So, we are get in this boat and row 1000 meters from the dock to the finish line and then 3 miles to the start. After we get to the start line, it is time to move. We turn the boat around, get in line and experience the most painful 25ish minutes of our entire lives...again. The way the race works is that each boat is let go one at a time and the boats race against the clock. Obviously if you pass boats, your time will be lower than their's at the finish line. So, we start off on out 3-mile tourture row and almost immeadiatley pass the boat in front of us. Of course, this is the motivator for the whole race, and we pass five more boats!! All in all, we got 17 out of 38 boats and the other SMU novice boat got 27 out of 38. While this may not seem like any big feat, it really is because most novice teams there are made of already experienced freshman rowers. Both our boats were full of people who just walked on the team. And we killed Duke and Rice who are both supposed to have awesome novice/frosh teams. Ok, I'm tired of writing, so here are some Bush Rally pics and here are 2 crappy Austin pics. And HERE is a little piece of the Atlanta trip. If all the pics don't load, close the window and try again. I promise, they all should work.