Dichotomy...

It's been a whirlwind weekend. After some (non-weather-related) delays at Dulles, I finally arrived in Atlanta. Marta has done away with tokens! They now have a one-time use card that may as well be a token. *shrug* It got us to the hotel, so whatever. I miss the tokens though. We definitely saw a pimp on Marta. They upgraded us to a suite at the hotel for free, which was nice. The hotel was certainly adequate for our needs. Not the nicest place we've stayed (Greenville Westin), but we slept well. Saturday we walked down to campus, checked out the bookstore, wandered past the College Game Day set, had lunch in the new Student Center area, tailgated with Brian and his Notre Dame "friends" and then with Kenneth and Erin and Emily's parents, and did the usual pre-game stuff. I even made it back to my watching wall, which has increased in popularity somewhat. For that reason, I've decided that when I die, I'm giving Tech $1000 to put a plaque on that wall naming it the Adam Bever Memorial Football Pre-Game Watching Wall. Most people want whole buildings and have to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to get them. I just want a brick wall (that isn't even load-bearing) on the corner of Bobby Dodd and Brittain. That can't cost that much, right? Anyway, the game was awesome. We had fireworks and an F-18 flyover (we'll never see either of those again) before kickoff and the stadium was totally packed with screaming fans wearing gold. We gave them a good fight, but eventually the defensive adjustments they made at half time were too much for us. Even though we lost, it was a good game and I love playing good programs to open the season. It gives us a list of things to work on as opposed to mopping up a I-AA team and thinking we're invicible. I could go on about the game for an hour, but other people have already summed it up pretty well, so I'll spare you. I talked to Darren briefly after the game before walking back to the hotel. Emily and I decided we walked easily 5 miles that day. Sunday Emily's parents picked us up for breakfast/lunch at Front Page News and then it was off to the airport. I flew up to Pittsburgh, rented a car and drove to Erie. The memorial service Monday morning was really hard. Mr. Gregory (Pop-pop's long-time hiking partner and our other Chilkoot Trail companion) and my dad gave the eulogy portion. My dad had been listening to everyone talk about Pop-pop over the last few days and distilled it all down into a very eloquent set of vignettes that captured who he was perfectly. And it was really nice to see some of his old friends and all the family and be able to share experiences and so forth. Tuesday morning we had a small service at the cemetary which included a 21-sparkler (instead of guns) salute and as always with our clan, a bagpiper. The drive home was longer than it should have been, even with no traffic and nice weather. But at least I was greeted with friend chicken and roasted potatoes and green beans and very messy (buy yummy) ice cream sandwiches.

Posted by Rev. Adam on Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 11:26 AM | Permalink