The Stars That Usher Evening Rose

I guess I shall update on the whole Jamie situation. On Thursday evening I went to the mall to where she works and told her how I felt about her. Her initial reaction was that of surprise as she had the text book dropped jawed look on her face. I basically just told her how I felt and why I had not said anything to her sooner, so on and so forth. After her initial surprised reaction she really gave me nothing to work with as she said nothing nor gave me any signs in one direction or the other. Basically once she felt like I was finished she went on acting like I had not said anything to her. The days since she has not said anything either so I basically have no idea what she is thinking. She came over Thursday night and spent the night so she obviously wasn't that uncomfortable with what I told her. Though for some reason she did not tell Niki I had said anything to her, though Niki did red it out herself. As at one point Jamie went to the restroom and Niki turned to me and said "You told her didn't you?" and I said "She told you huh?" and Niki said "No, I can just tell" she also said it was because I was acting weird and I later asked her about it and said that not only was I acting strange but so was Jamie. Which I noticed a little too as she was more talkative than normal and quite often talked in a higher pitched girly voice especially towards me. I have been trying to get a read of Jamie in the times I have been around her since Thursday but she has been pretty silent about everything. Niki and Jamie spent half of Friday together so I was hoping that they would talk about it at some point but when I asked Niki Saturday morning if Jamie had said anything Niki said "not really". Whatever "not really" means, does that mean she did say something or not, but I didn't think to ask Niki that until after she had left to go to her sister's cheerleading competition. I half wonder if she has stuck it in the back of her mind and has not really thought about it which could be for a couple different reasons. One reason could be that she may not be interested and therefore just stuck it in the back of her mind and is trying to move past it but it also could be because she is afraid that if she does think about it that of what the answer might be because if she is interested and does like me then it would definitely put her in a difficult situation. So, basically I am just sitting here in limbo. Hopefully I will find something out in the near future, if I do I will post about it.

Now on to the post about the trip to Atlanta.

Once off work I filled our cooler with Ice and the cokes we had previously bought and then made my way over to the mall where Niki and Jamie work. Once they finished closing up their respective stores they changed into their pajamas and we headed out. Before getting on the interstate we decided to get something to eat and Jamie wanted Taco Bell so that is where we went. At which point we preceded to sit in line for what felt like at least 30 minutes before finally getting our food. Finally we get on the interstate and officially begin the trip at roughly 10:30-10:40pm. We were not on the road maybe 10 or 15 minutes and Niki preceded to drop part of her food on her pants. For some reason the food was sloppier and greasier than normal. She had Jamie get her the tide-to-go pen so that way she could hopefully stop it from staining her pajama bottoms. She kept getting aggravated with me because I kept putting my elbow on the arm rest thingy in the middle console which is were she put the tide-to-pen after finishing with it and it is where she had her hand sanitiser, both of which she used several times and just about every time I had put my elbow back up there. We then drove about a 1/3rd of the way into South Carolina were we finally stopped for gas at which point I moved to the back seat and Jamie took over the drivers seat. She ended up driving the rest of the way into Atlanta as we made only one more stop for me to use the restroom at which point Niki moved to the back seat and I moved to the passenger seat. Which ended up working well as it allowed me to give Jamie instructions easier of how to get from the interstate to the hotel.

We were staying at the Embassy Suites hotel right next to Centennial Olympic Park which is normally about $220 a night but we got it for free since we used my brother-in-laws hotel points. So anyway we get there we pulled up to the valet attendant who then helped us unload the car onto a cart and then took the car and parked it for us while we made our way to the front desk to check in. We checked in and made our way up the elevator to the 6th floor where our room was located. We entered the room, which I have to admit was fairly nice as it had a living room with a coach, chair, tv and a desk in it. It also had a fairly decent bathroom, at least for a hotel, a refrigerator, microwave, a safe and a decent size closet. Then of course there was the bedroom which had two double beds both of which were very comfortable, a table, a couple chairs and a tv. After we finished looking around I changed into my pajamas and we basically just lounged around and watched tv for a little bit before heading to bed.

Sunday morning we all got up within about a half hour to 40 minutes of each other. I called Matt, a friend of mine who was meeting us in order to go with us to the coke museum, to make sure he was up and going to be there on time. I then went and took my shower real quick so that way Niki and Jamie could have the bathroom to get their showers and get ready since they take longer than I do. At around 1pm Matt arrived and I had him meet me outside the elevators on the sixth floor since Niki and Jamie were not quite ready yet. Though not but maybe ten minutes later they were so we headed out and made our way across the street to the food court located in the CNN building so we could get something to eat before going to the museum. After we finished eating we made our way across Centennial Olympic park and over to the Coke Museum entrance at just a few minutes past 2pm. Once they had let us in we made our way into the lobby and waited for the next entrance time to begin which was only about two minutes. We first entered a room that had a ton of coke memorabilia in it from over the years. There were two women in there who gave us a brief run through of the history of coke and where some of the memorabilia in the room came from. From that point they had us all go into this theater to see a video called the "Happiness Factory" about the journey of a coke bottle from the time someone puts a quarter in a machine to the time it comes out the other end. Once the film ended and we made our way out of the theater we were then allowed to tour the rest of the museum at our own pace. We first went into the bottle works station which showed you the process of making coke and putting it into a bottle. From there we went into the Milestones section of the museum which was basically a lot like the first room we came in except bigger with much more memorabilia and interesting facts about each one. When we finished there we made our way up to the second floor and checked out some large cool artistic coke bottles and then made our way into the 4-D movie. Which in waiting to go into the 4-D movie you watch another shorter and partially uninteresting film about your taste buds and how and why they love coke. Once that was over we got to go in and watch the 4-D film. The film was about finding out the secret formula to coke. Overall it was pretty cool as the seats moved, air and water would come out at you, stuff would hit your feet and you also get poked in the back. The film it self was ok and at the end you find out it is you, the drinker, who is the secret formula to coke. So anyway from there we headed out of the theater and went into the Pop Culture section. Which basically just had some computers where you could design your own coke bottle as well as some places to sit down and look at some of the unusual coke items they had in the room. Including coke ceiling fans. Next to that was another little theater that was about the history of advertising for coke. But, we decided to skip that part and move on to our favorite part, the room where you get to taste all the different kinds of coke products from around the world. Niki, Jamie and I had decided before hand to go in and try every single drink they had in there. Matt didn't want to because he didn't want to get grossed out which Niki and I both agreed that getting grossed out was half the fun. So we preceded to go from station to station trying every drink we could. Some of them were actually half way decent and others were quite disgusting. Finally we got to the station for the coke we know and love and after all the other drinks it didn't even taste the same. I guess our taste buds had been shot. From there we made our way out and grabbed our free coke that we got for going through the museum. As in just about all museums you exit into their gift shop and this one was no different. The gift shop was actually fairly large and we spent about 40-45 minutes wondering around looking at different things. All I bought was this little weird looking coke figurine thing for Niki since she asked me to for her birthday since it passed a little while ago. Niki on the other hand bought another one of those little weird looking coke figurines for herself as well as some Barq's flavored chap stick for Jillian and a coke can ornament for Jeralyn. Jamie bought herself some cherry coke chap stick, and something else too but for the life of me I can't remember what. Jamie also bought a pair of coke boxers for her boyfriend, Chris. I don't remember Matt buying anything. Once we checked out we then left and made our way back to our hotel where we separated from Matt as he had to head home.

Niki, Jamie and I then headed up to the hotel room to grab our jackets as it was starting to get a little cool outside. We left again this time our destination being Underground Atlanta. We could have driven there but instead we took Marta so that way they could get the full Atlanta experience, even though we only went one stop away. We got off Marta and made our way into Underground Atlanta. It definitely is not what I remember it being in the past, first off I remember it being bigger than it is now and definitely it used to have more going on than it seems to now. We walked up and down it making only a couple stops to look at shoes and some bracelets, but no one bought anything. We left underground and walked around outside a little bit before we finally were approached by our first homeless person looking for hand outs. I told him I did not have any money what so ever not even change, which was actually the truth. The guy then asked me if it was ok to ask the two girls if they had any change to spare and I told him it would be pointless as I was almost positive they did not have any money either. He asked if I was sure and I told him that I was pretty positive because I had known that one of them had $3 dollars earlier but that I was pretty sure she had used it to buy her Marta ticket. Which I really had thought she did. With that he sped up to catch up to the two of them and asked Niki if she had some money telling them I had said it was ok for him to ask them (which was not true though Niki still doesn't seem to believe me) at which point to my surprise Niki pulled out the $3 and gave it to him and he took off. At this point we were getting hungry so we decided to catch Marta and take it back to the station near out hotel. After we got back off Marta and up one of the worlds longest escalators to street level we made our way across the street to the Hard Rock Cafe where Niki and Jamie wanted to eat. Off and on through most of the meal Jamie and Niki talked about how cute the waiter was and about the watch he was wearing (they work with watches). After we ate Niki ordered a piece of Chocolate Cake which she shared with Jamie and I and I told Niki she was evil for offering me some of the cake (I am trying to lose weight and had being doing a good job until the trip). We left Hard Rock and walked back to the Hotel.

We hung out at the Hotel for a little while trying to figure out what we wanted to do next. They kept asking me what there was to do since I lived in Atlanta for 15 years but since I only really started using Atlanta for entertainment purposes about the last 4 or 5 years I lived there I didn't really know a whole lot of places to go. Partly because many of the places open that late the two of them can not get into as they are both under 21 (they are 19, well Jamie is close enough to 19) and all the other places were either closed or to far away. So I decided to call Cathy as she knows Atlanta better than I do. Most of the stuff she came up with was in Buckhead so the three of us decided we would ride up to Buckhead. We got part of the way there when I remembered that highway 400 was a toll road and we had no change on us what so ever. I was pretty sure I know a way to go to avoid the tolls but I was not a 100% sure so we turned around and started to head back. On the way back we decided to stop at Wal-mart to get a game or something we could play in the room since it was already 10pm. The Wal-Mart was definitely unusual as for starters it had a quite large parking garage attached to it which I have to admit I had not seen before. Plus the Wal-Mart was all backwards compared to all the other ones I had been in which made it hard to find things. We finally found the games and Niki and I decided to split the cost of an electronic Deal or No Deal game. Jamie then decided she wanted to get crayons and a coloring book to color in. So we looked around for a while looking for a coloring book as we could not find any. Finally I stumbled upon them and brought them over to them. Jamie picked one out and we went up to the front to check out. The lady that checked us out had a story too, she had these teeth that stuck out in the front and upon further inspection we noticed they were gold teeth with dollar signs engraved in them. From there Niki handed the keys to her Jeep over to me and I drove us back to the Hotel. We got up to our room and then I left to go downstairs to try and catch the valet before they parked our car so that way I could get another six pack of cokes to put in our cooler. I got back to the room and Niki and Jamie were gone, so started to take the game out of the box but then it dawned on me that this game is electronic which means it probably needs batteries. So I looked around the box looking for something about batteries when I noticed it said "4 AA batteries required, not included". Well we did not exactly have any batteries. So once Niki and Jamie got back to the room I informed them of the situation and then called the front desk to ask where the closest place was to get batteries. The man at the desk gave me directions to get to a 24 hour Walgreens. Well I can honestly say the guy sucks at giving directions as we drove around in circles for at least 15 minutes before we finally decided to ask for directions. We noticed a cop walking down the street and so we asked him. He told us how to get there so we followed his directions but again could not find this supposed 24 hour Walgreens. Luckily though we did stumble upon a CVS that was open till midnight (it was just before 11:30pm at this time). So we ran in and bought AA batteries. Upon leaving the store we were approached by our second and thankfully final homeless person of the trip. This time we just half ignored the guy, kept walking, and said no we had no money (or at least I did, I don't remember what Niki or Jamie said to him). We got back to the car and I drove us back to the hotel. We get back up to the room take the batteries out of the package go to put them in the game and there is a damn screw that has the cover for the batteries screwed down. Well we don't have a screw driver. So again I call down to the front desk and ask them if they happen to have a small phillips head screw driver and somewhat to my surprise they did. So I took the game and went downstairs so I could put the batteries in. I returned to the room and we played the game for about 30 minutes, though the last round of the game Jamie didn't play as she wanted to color in her new coloring book, so just Niki and I played the last game. After that we watched America's Funniest Home Videos and then went to sleep.

Monday morning we woke up at 9:30am to the chiming of Niki's alarm clock on her watch. We all got up and again I jumped in the shower first. Once I was finished Niki got hers followed by Jamie getting hers. Once everyone was finished getting ready we had them bring us up a cart from downstairs. We loaded it up and headed down to check out. After checking out and loading our stuff in the car we headed back over to the food Court in the CNN building to grab something to eat. From there we made our way across Centennial Olympic Park and over to the George Aquarium. We walked up to the entrance and gave them our tickets. They then had us take a picture before actually going in. Once in we went over to the Georgia Explorer section of the aquarium which had areas where you could touch, shrimp, starfish and some type of hard shelled creature. They also had a area were you could pet sting rays and small sharks. We wondered around there looking at everything along with a big turtle named Dylan. From there we headed over to the River Scout section and walked around it. This part reminded me most of the Tennessee Aquarium as that aquarium dealt more with river species of fish than the Georgia Aquarium does. But they had things like River Otters and large Catfish among other things in that exhibit. From there we went to the Cold Water Quest (I think it was called) and this is where all the cold water fish and crabs, etc... were located. Including the Beluga Whales. Which the Beluga whales had a story all to their own. We start watching them (there were four of them) and it wasn't long before we realised that two of them were trying to mate. It was one of those things you really didn't want to watch yet could not take your eye's off it. Even the little kids knew what was going on as you could tell by their reactions and even the lady who was telling us all about the Beluga whales admittedly got distracted by their actions. All I can say is Nico (the male Beluga whale) has got some really bad aim. So anyway from there we walked through the rest of the Cold Water Quest exhibit looking at the seals, penguins and sea otters. We exited the Cold Water Quest exhibit and crossed to the other side of the aquarium and entered the Tropical Diver exhibit. In here we found things such as sea horses, sea urchins, jellyfish, octopus, and some of the more unusual creatures of the ocean. Once we left the Tropical Diver exhibit we sat down for a minute and I took this time to call Matt as he wanted to meet up with us again before we left. Basically I told him we were almost done with the Aquarium so if he was going to come up he better get moving, which he did. So, at this point we got up and made our way to the final and by far the largest exhibit in the Aquarium, the Ocean Voyager exhibit. This is the exhibit that houses the Whale Sharks, hammerhead Sharks, saw fish, basically all the larger fish. We started by entering the underwater tunnel that traverses across the length of the six million gallon tank. We walked through the tunnel and made our way into another room which had other smaller viewing areas into the tank as well as a touch wall where you could walk up to the wall and touch the images of fish as they went by and it would tell you the name of the fish and something about it. After that we followed the passage around and it led us to the main viewing room with a huge class wall that was something like 65ft by something like 25 feet tall that allowed you to look inside the tank. They have standing and seating areas in there so you can sit and enjoy the views for as long as you like. We sat there for probably 15 or so minutes, enough time to hear the lady talk about the different fish and for Niki and Jamie to get up and take pictures with their phones of some of the fish swimming by. We finally got up and made our way to the aquarium gift shop where we wondered around looking at a bunch of different things but Jamie was the only one who bought anything as she bought a shot glass for Chris as he collects them.

Niki and Jamie wanted to go back to the Coke store so we walked next store and went back into the coke gift shop. Jamie found another shot glass for Chris so she bought it. She also bought some more chap stick for herself but this time it was Dasani flavored chap stick and she also bought two coca-cola pencils. Niki bought another one of those little weird looking coke figurines but this time she bought one for Jillian. She also bought a coke glass for her friend, Phillip, who also works at the mall. I again bought nothing as I never really could find anything that jumped out enough to me to make me spend money on it. Matt arrived while we were in the store and staying true to himself he talked the entire time and even talked me into playing a game of bowling on the Wii that was set up in the store. Niki even said that he talks more than any girl she has ever known. We finally checked out and made our way out of the store. We walked back over to Centennial Olympic Park and looked at a bunch of the bricks, making fun of what some of them said or the names that were on them. From there we headed back to the Hotel where Jamie and I hit the restrooms while Matt and Niki waited out in the Hotel Atrium. Once the four of us were back together we sat there trying to figure out what to do next as Niki, Jamie nor I were ready to leave. But neither Matt nor I could really think of anything to do in the short amount of time we had. Though Niki and Jamie did want to stop at the Tanger Outlet mall on our way home. After a while of getting no where Matt chimed in and said "Well you all seem to have your mind set on the Tanger Outlet Mall so why do you just go there", except he said it really sarcastically. Not a minute after he said that his phone rang so he answered it and walked off a little ways and Jamie said "I almost snapped on your friend there for a second" which I was not surprised as I knew at some point he would probably aggravate one of them because thats just how Matt is. So anyway that all passed and we headed outside to figure out what to do next. At this time it was 4:00pm and I knew traffic would really begin to pick up around 4:30 so I just went ahead a suggested if they wanted to avoid the worst part of the traffic we should probably get going. They both agreed so we got the valet to pull our car around. So matt left and headed to meet some other friends while other the three of us pilled in the Jeep with myself driving, Niki in the passenger seat and Jamie in the back seat behind me.

We finally hit the road for home. Traffic wasn't that bad but I drove in the HOV lane for as long as I could which allowed us to move faster than the rest of the traffic around us. An hour or so and the occasoinal head poke from Jamie later we reached exit 149 on I-85 in Georgia where the Tanger Outlet Mall was located. We got off and pulled into the mall. I parked the car and we got out and walked into some store that had a ton of sun glasses in the front which Niki and Jamie spent some time looking through. After a little bit they gave up their sun glasses search and we exited the store. We then walked around for a little bit before deciding not to go any further because the store they wanted to go to (Coach Outlet) was not located here and the majority of the stores that were located there are also located at the mall they work at here in Concord. So we left this time with Jamie driving, Niki still in passengers seat and myself this time in the backseat. From about this point until we finally arrived in Charlotte the two of them blamed every single smell that creeped into the car on me, no matter what it was. So anyway Jamie drove until we got into the Anderson/Clemson, SC area where we stopped and ate dinner at Cracker Barrel. After eating and wondering through the Cracker Barrel store we hit the road again though this time Niki was behind the wheel. From that point we drove the rest of the way in without stopping with nothing really eventful happening. We arrived back here at the house in Charlotte around 9:15pm or so. From there we all came in used the restroom and then helped Jamie pack her car so that she could head home. At which point she headed home which marked the end of the trip.

Like I have already said overall we all had a great time and Niki and Jamie are already trying to plan our next trip but this time they want to go to Washington D.C. I found that it only takes six to seven hours to drive there from here which makes it a decent possibility for a future trip. Though if we go it will have to be after the first of the year since it is going to be near impossible for any of us to get any time off work before then with the holiday season coming up. So if we decide to do that trip I will leave the actual scheduling of the dates to Niki and Jamie as come January Niki will be back in school and Jamie will be starting school so it will be harder for them to find the proper amount of time to go than it will be for me. So bascially if they can find five or six days to take off and plan the trip for that time then I will adjust my schedule accordingly since it will be easier for me to do that than for them. But, this is all in the very earily planning stages and far from anything being set in stone, more just decent ideas floating about at this time. We shall see though.

I am a little overdue posting on here I think. Niki, Jamie and I got back from Atlanta on Monday. We had a great time and are already trying to plan another trip but this time to D.C. I will go more in depth about that in my next post. But for this post I guess I will use it as they were most likely originally intended to be used for, an outlet for some ramblings of my mind.



I find myself in an interesting predicament though I am far from the first person to have this as a problem. I have mentioned Jamie on this blog several times but never really expressed anything about her other than I became friends with her through Niki. But the predicament that I find myself in is one that pretains to Jamie and that Niki already knows about, though I don't think she quiet knows the extent of it. My brother-in-law (Niki's dad) also knows a little about it as well as my friend Michael, who probably knows the most about it. My problem mainly is that I have come to like Jamie a lot, as in having feelings for her. In my opinion She is absolutely beautiful, she has an amazing personality, she is an incredibly strong individual as she has had to be in order to make it through some of the crap she has gone through, just over all she is an amazing person. Plus she is a whole of a lot of fun to hang out with, I mean shoot I can't lie I look forward to every time she comes over, hell she was even part the reason I looked forward to going on the Atlanta trip because it meant I got to spend two days with her. The only negative thing about her that I had was the age difference factor as she is five almost six years younger than I am. Which I will admit when I first started becoming interested in her that part made me pretty apprehensive about the whole thing. But, in the end it did not take me long to look past it, partly because she does carry herself as someone older than she is. But, the problem I have is that she has a boyfriend, named Chris, who she has been dating for over two years now and even though they have had some rough patches of late I still have a really hard time believing that she would be interested in me especially to the point that she would even consider me in that way. Therefore I know my chances of anything happening with her are fairly slim and that there probably is not a whole lot I can do about it. At least not that I am aware of. Plus I am hesitant to do anything because I don't want to come across as a jerk or some obsessed weirdo (which I can promise I am not) and I don't want to chance messing up our friendship. Plus I also know that Niki is not overly keen on the idea as she has said that it would make things really weird for her. Which I totally understand why that is as I probably would feel the same way if I was her. So I am overall at a loss of what to do. Basically all I know to do is just basically tell her how I feel, and not because I think it will change anything but mostly just so this whole thing will stop eating at me. You know just kind of get the monkey off my back per say so that way my brain can somewhat get back to normal. I wouldn't be making a move on her, as I wouldn't do that, but just letting her know how I feel and leave it at that. Basically at that point if anything did happen between us it would be because she made a move and decided to get me a shot(whether it be based off what I told her or not). So there you have it the ramblings of my mind at least for now. Suggestions are welcome if anyone who reads this has any ideas. Anyway I will probably post about the Atlanta trip tomorrow before I go to work.