Florida...Mother Nature's Stepchild and America's Retirement Home!

I spent the New Year's weekend in the great state of Florida. I left Rabun on Saturday Morning at 9:00 to arrive just north of Jacksonville around 3:30 PM. Good Times. That night I met with my friends Chris, Josh and Lance to go to Orlando to see Sevendust live at the House of Blues. The show was at 8:00 and when we got there (after eating at the world's most expensive McDonald's...$6.50 for a Big Mac Meal???)around 7:30 the line to get in was insane. We thought the House of Blues would be a somewhat intimate setting with only a few hundred people...nope, there were at least 1,000 in front of us in line, with another 1,000 or so behind us. After getting violated by the security guy (who also asked me to open up my can of lip balm, but didn't ask me to take off my hat...I think he just wanted to cop a feelsky) I finally got in and proceeded to the upper level with my friends, to watch a few thousand screaming teenagers get doused with water by the opening bands. I like the opening bands a lot, AM Conspiracy and Burn Season especially. When Sevendust came out, things got crazy! They absolutley rocked my face off, and then when it was about to be 12 they stopped in the middle of a song, and here's the kicker...DIDN'T DO A COUNTDOWN!!!! The lead singer Lajon was like "there's about 20 seconds left of 2005" and then like a minute later "Happy New Year Y'all" then drank a glass of champagne from a $500 bottle of Cristal, while I had a $6 beer...For you wrestling fans out there, since we were in the balcony area and only 5 feet from the VIP section, I got to sit behind former Tag-Team champion Bubba Ray Dudley, who was with some hot blonde, who he later got to kiss another girl beside her while he took a picture. After the concert, we walked around Downtown Disney at 1:30 in the morning, and then shot 7 people in the parking lot trying to get out...I'll tell you about Sunday in the next post!