So Long, Farewell, It's Time To Say Goodbye!

So today was the last day of the conference. We got up, bright and early again, and headed out. Once there, Brent said his goal was to out tweet Shane. I thought that sounded like a good idea, so that was my goal too. The tweets have been tallied, and the winner is: NICKEL!!! 31 tweets compared to Shane's 27. I rock! This only counts the tweets at the conference, so the one Shane had about dinner didn't count. Not that it would have helped him beat me or anything because he still would have been 3 short. Today was pretty cool. The emcee guy was HILARIOUS! At the conference, there was an interesting character dressed in full Scottish garb, complete with kilt, and waving a "Don't Tread On Me" flag. He was a curious individual. Shane and I wanted to go to a panel about using technology to rile up conservatives, so we left the big ballroom a little bit early to get to the other ballroom. While we were headed there, we were interviewed by a reporter from American University for the American Observer paper. That was pretty cool. When we got to the panel, it was really boring so we left to go back to the big ballroom to wait for Anne Coulter to speak. She was really funny. I liked her speech. After that, Shane and I went to grab McDonalds. The place was PACKED!!! I got a cheeseburger and fries, then we went to CVS to get snacks to hold us through the rest of the day because we had to keep our good seats for Glenn Beck later. I got some Chili Cheese Fritos, Kit Kats, and a cheese danish. Newt Gingrich made quite the entrance. He came in the side door of the floor, to the tune of Eye of the Tiger. It was great! His speech was really good too! Later, a guy was talking about global warming, and asked if we had gotten the hockey sticks yet. He said there were only 400 of them. I saw the guy with the box, and ran back to get one. Two guys tried to cut in front of me, so I stepped on their toes. Then when I finally got the last one from the box, some guy tried to grab it from me, but I held on really tight and he let go. Then, another guy pushed me and I almost fell onto a row of conference watchers, which prompted a lady to say "Watch who you boys are pushing!" Nice lady. I think I may have scratched a guy in my attempt to prevent myself from falling into the people. But I got my hockey stick, so I'm happy. There was a crazy Irish lady who spoke, and she was hilarious! I liked her, her accent was great. After that, they released the straw poll results. Unfortunately, Ron Paul won the presidential straw poll. Then *drumroll* Glenn Beck! His speech was absolutely amazing. He even brought a blackboard with him lol. It was pretty cool. He was really funny too. Shane got some good pics of him. Then we left the conference. We went to Good Stuff for dinner. The burger was really good, but it made a few of us sick. The ones that didn't feel sick are out at the monuments now, but I've already seen them, so I was ok with missing it. Time for bed though. Early morning tomorrow! Heading back to the airport bright and early!

NRA

They'll Make A Politician Out Of Me Yet...

So I started my day with a Red Bull. Imagine if you put one of those hyper little ankle biter dogs on speed. Yeah, that's kind of what I was like after the Red Bull. We headed out to Ford's Theatre and toured there. After that, we headed across the street to the house where Lincoln died. I've seen both before, and they haven't changed a bit, so it wasn't a new experience for me. After that, we had a while before our White House tour, so we headed over to Au Bon Pain. I got some awesome chicken noodle soup. Progresso soup thinks they have big chunks of carrot in their soup? Not compared to this stuff. Man these carrot chunks were like the size of ping pong balls! I had to cut them in half to eat them. I got my vitamin A and keratin for the day. So once we finished up there, we headed over to the White House, where there was this ridiculously long line to get in. So we just got in line and waited. To pass the time, Gerard got out his iPhone and he, Derek, and I watched Whitest Kids You Know Lincolns Assassination, It's Good To Be In DC, and Super Obama. Check out the first video on YouTube, and the other two on JibJab. They rock! After many security checks, we got in to the White House. All in all, not too impressed. I was expecting something far more interesting, but it was surprisingly anti-climactic. But hey, who else can say they've been in the White House? So yeah. Then we headed to the conference. The panel that was going on when we got there went waaaay over their time, so we only got to see a couple minutes of Darrell Issa's speech before we had to leave to go to a panel that our friend Niger Innis was in. It was pretty cool. About halfway through the panel, I started getting really fidgety and shaky and realised my blood sugar levels must have dropped really low, so Shane and I left when they asked for questions so that I could grab some food. After I grabbed a Kit Kat, we headed over to the main ballroom to wait for Ron Paul. A panel was going on when we got there. There were people going up to the mic, saying a bit, then sitting down. I'm not really sure what was going on since I missed the beginning, but it was entertaining. Then this guy goes up, and says he condemns CPAC for inviting Go Pride, a gay/lesbian organization, to the conference. He got boo'ed by many people. Then, we had a surprise speaker, the governor from Virginia! After him, a couple came out and announced Ron Paul, and the Ron Paul Crazies went wild. "End the Fed" was their chant of choice. It was an entertaining speech, to say the least. After that was over, we made our way to the exhibit room, where I got many a free bumper sticker to stick on my cabinets at home. Then we went to the NRA booth and played the laser shooting game. I suck at shooting this laser gun, but I'm pretty decent at shooting a real one. Just ask Shane about the first time I shot a gun and how I outshot him :P We came back to the hotel for a quick clothing change, and then headed off to Potbelly's for dinner. I got a meatball sub. It was pretty decent, and stayed mostly together when I cut it into pieces. I also got a chocolate malt. Turner had a brain lapse and asked Shane who the governor of Kentucky was. Imagine their surprise when it was me who answered! So Shane started asking me all these questions, like who is the governor of Ohio, and the Speaker of the House, and a senator from Florida and the new senator in Massachusetts and whatnot. I'm awesome, because I got most of them right! Then he started asking obscure ones that I didn't know, and I started sucking at it. Then we came back home and watched part of Good Luck Chuck on TV. Funny movie. Now, it's bedtime. More to come tomorrow!

Day full of surprises!

The conference started today! It was pretty cool. We were there early, so we got checked in, then went to the exhibit room. It was awesome! I got lots of really cool stuff for free! I got a bunch of buttons and blinged out my bag with them. We watched some really cool speeches. Once Liz Cheney was done speaking, Dick Cheney came out and spoke for a minute. That was awesome! We heard a rumor that he might be coming, so we made sure not to miss it. Then, before Mitt Romney came out, Scott Brown surprised everyone and spoke. That was pretty awesome too. Mitt Romney won quote of the day for me by saying: The gold medal from American Lindsey Vaughn has been stripped. Obama is going downhill faster than she is!" It was hilarious. The speech from Wayne LaPierre from the NRA was really cool too. After the conference, a few of us went to Union Station for some food and shopping. I had chicken salad and mint chocolate gelato from Vittaro's (or something like that). That was some gooooood gelato! Then I went to a little tourist shop and took care of my keychain addiction by buying two. Total keychains this trip: 3. We go on our White House tour tomorrow! I'm super excited about it! Sleep time now. Another early day tomorrow!

DC Or Bust!!

So we got to DC today. My ears felt like they were going to explode as we started our descent into Baltimore. It sucked. But we arrived safely, despite crazy bus driver man. Once we got our stuff into a room at the hotel, we got onto the Metro in search of Ollie's Trolley for lunch. When we got to the Metro station, we ran into Tyreese Bradley, some random guy. He went on this crazy, hilarious rant, with a couple highlight quotes: "My wife said she won't hug me cuz she might get too horny" and "You gonna see me on the ESPN one day and you gonna be like 'That's Tyresse'" or something to that effect. He was freakin hilarious!!! Anyways, delicious lunch at Ollie's Trolley! Their fries rock! Then we toured the Capitol building. It was nothing new, I've seen it twice before. Was able to take a lot more pics this time though, there were less people there. After the Capitol, it was obvious that people were getting very sleepy (we had to meet at the airport at 6:00am, which puts us all waking up at 4am). We went to Union Station and walked around for a short bit. Then we came back and went to a pizza place for dinner near the hotel. The food was ok, I wasn't very impressed. WAY too expensive! But we got back to the hotel and I took a shower. Most people are headed in for an early night, and after this posts, I will be headed to bed as well!