it's really a bad idea to have one of these crazy whirlwind weekends and then try to sit down and post about it. one reason is that you're completely exhausted and you're really tired of thinking about it. another reason would be that a bunch of people have already asked you "how was your trip?" and you're tired of talking about it.

but i don't really want to think about going to work yet, so here goes…

friday night: i got the wise idea to try to convince matt to go to michigan fest with me. we then promptly closed the bar and walked out into the night, as drunk as possible, vowing to meet up in the morning (or in a few short hours, rather).

saturday: late start (as matt said, about three hours late). no matter…i hauled ass all the way to michigan. this doesn't seem to bother matt too much, mainly because he and i have the same driving philosophies. right around nightfall, we cruised into toledo and i looked at matt and said "it's probably a bad idea to have the cruise control set at 90, driving through toledo at night." matt looked at me and said "yep." i turned it off and less than one second later, i blow past an ohio state trooper doing just under 90. note: your car doesn't decelerate much in the span of one second. miracle: the cop just let us cruise on past. i looked at matt and said "that's my free one."

we finally arrived in romulus, michigan and the fest right when small brown bike ended their set. we hung out for a bit, shot the shit with those guys and then hey mercedes took the stage. the new guitarist seemed to work out pretty well. matt enjoyed himself, which was good. then we promptly went outside to hang out in the coalesce van and consume cold ones with way too many people to list. many jokes were told about dewees' insane eating habits (think week old crave case and leftover hot wings) and death metal bands on japanese street corners.

then we went back in and coalesce proceeded to tear the roof down (not literally…that happened earlier in the evening). we then ended up back at the hotel, hanging with the gang(s). there was some one man jacuzzi shenanigans. we decided to go get food. at the little diner, the following conversation took place between me and sean from coalesce…

sean: hey…did your room come with a jacuzzi?
me: nope. i'd trade you, but i don't want the naked o'brien that comes with the deal.
sean: good point. you're better off.

we then went back to our room and passed the fuck out.

sunday: i vaguely remember hauling ass through ohio again and eating lunch at a denny's in toledo. i also remember some car locking his brakes up and skidding across three lanes of traffic, somewhere around dayton. matt and i pretty much just gave it a "what the fuck?" and moved on.

sunday night i slept in my own bed. bitchin'.

monday: chris and i headed up to chicago to see hot snakes. this was a trip i was really excited about before, but at this point i was just tired of driving. regardless, we went. as we proceeded through indiana, our nice, spring-like weather from kentucky changed into crappy snow. by the time we got into indianapolis, there were snow drifts on the sides of the road. insanity. we got to chicago without incident. we hit the record store, stopped at a friend of chris's house and had a beer, and then headed out to the show.

we met up with sebastian and his ladyfriend at the venue, and much catching up was done. selby tigers were pretty good. i lost interest in atombombpocketknife pretty quickly, as they seemed to try to play every song like it was the last one of their set. they also sounded pretty monotonous in their "rocking."

hot snakes took the stage and destroyed me. that's all that can really be said. they played a few new songs (here's the setlist) and they were pretty damn…awesome. sebastian took a picture of me kickin' it with rick fork.

"him? oh…that's my buddy rick. he's a pretty cool guy."

then we ran into a friend of chris's and my life became hell. he convinced us to go out to another bar with him after the show, guaranteeing us a place to stay. you never want to turn down a guaranteed place to crash in chicago, so we bit. we ended up at some bar called "the rainbo" or something. i parked around the corner on division, under the friend's suggestion. "there's other cars parked there. it's not snowing. it's cool, man…it's cool." that's when we went into the bar and proceeded to get completely obliterated. i ended up in a photo booth with a beer, as per a certain mr. dawursk's suggestion.

the rainbo closed for the night. we walked a block to another bar and then ditched that and took a cab to a completely different drinking establishment. i am, of course, completely oblivious to the doom that was happening at division and damen…

we hop a taxi back to the neck of the woods of my car, which happens to also be right around the corner from where we were staying. i didn't see my car on division (correction: i didn't see any cars on division) and i tried to point it out. the "friend" kept telling me "your car is cool, man…it's cool. it's just around the corner." i promptly made him walk with us to find my car. point: my car was not there. it had been towed due to some snow route signage. i punched a bus stop a few times and yelled. a lot. then we went back to dude's apartment and proceeded to call around and find my car. once it was located, we passed out and decided to go grab it in the morning.

tuesday: one huge ordeal later…i'm on the phone with work, telling them "i'm not going to be into work today. why? well…i just got my car back and i'm in chicago. seeing as i have to be in there in 25 minutes, i don't think i'm gonna make it." they relented, but made sure to tell me they'd need to see my receipts from the whole ordeal. bastards…you're just opening a fresh wound.

then chris and i ate at chipotle and decided it tastes like asshole. nowhere near the level of the mighty q'doba. we even started working out an elaborate burrito rating system. taco bell is a 1, q'doba is a 10. you figure out the rest.

then we came home.

total miles put on my car over the weekend: ~1300
total cops that i blew past in excess of 80 miles an hour and still didn't get pulled over: 3

i was tired and apparently i got a call from an ex-girlfriend about an hour before i came home. weird.

i just want a quiet moment.