liketoeat.

Today, we had the first drift event in downtown Atlanta since September of last year, and it was great. If you’d like to read more details of it, they’re up on the S3 Website, so feel free to check it out for better coverage.

Instead, I’ll mention some of the other aspects of the day that aren’t quite as boring as rambling about cars. First, Laura decided to make it out for her first ever ride along in a drift car (and no Tran, there was no blood). She was awesome and made Erin and I the always tasty broco (brownie/cookie combo, not an abbreviation for broccoli or anything weird like that). It was delicious, and I thank you again for your baking!

The event went quite well, and Erin and I enjoyed a full day of tandem action. Here’s a picture of us. (Laura and Tran are also hidden in the passenger seats, but you probably can’t tell that. They seemed to enjoy themselves though, and Laura is now on an optimistic path to becoming a pro drifter herself and is eventually moving to Japan so that she can star in a future edition of The Fast and The Furious).

I had to leave a bit early for a family gathering down in Griffin which involved a ~200 mile round trip in my loud, hot, and generally uncomfortable drift car. It was still fairly amusing to ride around in, and my family enjoyed checking it out and probably wondered about what I’m doing with my life. At the gathering, I enjoyed a nice selection of hot wings, mini roast beef sandwiches, honey ham and turkey, and a few other snacks. It was all quite nice.

Eventually, I finally headed back to D-Wood where I met up with Laura who had accidentally gotten herself sorta drunk from headache medicine. I picked up some Wendy’s and she made some green beans, and we enjoyed a viewing of the ultra-awkward Lars and The Real Girl. I may have slept through a portion of the film, but I liked the bits I was actually awake for. I later joined the “I feel drunk” club, but it was mainly due to my lack of sleep for nearly 108 hours (at least that’s what I think I was rambling on about, but it was probably more like 15 or so). I finally made it home around 2 or 3 in the morning, and joined Jerry, Shiz, and Panda in watching a few music videos on OnDemand before I finally called it a night. Fun day though, and can’t wait for the next drift event at the end of this month.

Not really.

Anyhow, on to the story. Tonight, I met up with Erin and Laura to hang out for a little while and eventually head down to the Atlanta airport to pick up Tran as she was flying back from a business trip. We all knew that the 75/85 connector through Atlanta would be fairly slow (due to this awesome weekend paving project the city of Atlanta has been doing for a while now), so wised up and took the round about way of taking 285 around the city to get to the airport. That trip went fine, but little did we know that northbound traffic miles south of the city was also effected, and we got caught up in it pretty bad upon our return trip home.

After a number of minutes in the mess, we took the always glamorous University Avenue exit, and jumped on some back roads for yet another trip to Camelli’s Pizza where Laura’s cousin Shannon works. We hung out with her for a while there and kept ourselves amused with the fancy jukebox machine that costs a lot. Laura and I picked out a fine selection of Strung Out, Against Me!, and Thrice to keep us entertained while we waited on our food.

Here’s Erin and Tran looking excited about the pizza which they would soon be consuming:

And then a sadder shot of semi-hippie Laura after realizing the jukebox didn’t have any Butch Walker:

She later cheered up, but also became blurry at the same time.

My weekend meal for about the 3rd or 4th week in a row, Camelli’s cheesebread. It’s tasty.

Today, Erin met up with Wooley and myself up at the S3 office where we spent the morning hanging out and eventually lunching at the Pizza Pub in downtown Buford for the second time this week. I quite enjoyed their Pizza sub sandwich, but forgot to get any photos of it. Sorry.

After lunch, I went with Erin to the local Suzuki dealership as he’s interested in picking up a new SX4 hatch to replace his current Nissan Titan which isn’t too much fun with gas prices the way they are now. This ended up being a pretty bad idea, and we had to deal with annoyingly pushy salespeople who lectured Erin on how he was making the wrong choice (by not taking the overly low trade in offer they made him), and some how tried to compare this to having choosing the wrong girlfriend earlier in life (I think?). We were really confused and laughed a lot. He also made a bunch of racist remarks about who he’d be able to sell the truck to. It was weird.

Anyhow, after we got out of that fiasco, we came back to my house to install some new 25mm spacers on my 240SX drift car to help widen the stance and get the wheels a bit more flush. It took a little while to get everything on and roll the fenders out so that they wouldn’t totally rub against my tires, but eventually it was all done and came out looking much nicer than it has for the last couple of years.

After we finished the install, we decided to grab a bite to eat, but not before a quick ride through the car wash machine near my house. This car wash magically pulls your car through this long tunnel filled with moving sponges, spraying water, neon lights, and creepy stuffed animals hanging from the ceilings. That last part kinda freaks me out but the rest of it is amusing, especially for only $2.99. Here’s a shot I tried to snap (while at the same time plugging the hole in my car’s roof which is always entertaining).

It’s kinda hard to see any of the weird stuff I referenced, but it is actually there for some strange reason. After we got through the car wash machine and did a small accidental drift demo down Pleasant Hill Road (thanks cheap tires and slippery soap stuff), we headed over to Firehouse Subs. I had never tried this place before, but aside from the slightly high prices, it was delicious. I tried the “Hook and Ladder” combo which included honey ham, turkey, and some type of delicious cheese on wheat bread. I liked it a lot.

Today, I met up with Laura at her work to have a classy lakeside picnic for lunch. Upon my arrivial, we laughed a lot because there was a random man fishing in this small lake behind her office building which isn’t typically used for fishing, but oh well. Anyhow, I got the tour of the new Collinson Publishing office and then we headed over to Publix for some tasty subs, pink lemonade, and chips.

As we got to the lakeside dining spot, we were sad to see that the landshark (pretty much this fake plastic shark statue that lived on the other side of the lake) had been removed/overgrown by plants/eaten by a heron, but continued our lunch anyhow.

The view was nice:

Laura really enjoyed her veggie sub even though most of the ingredients ended up falling out of it and ended up in her lap:

And I was pleased with my Boars Head Ultimate on wheat:

We hung out around the office for a while after this and then I headed south to hang out with my family down in Hampton where my stepmom made some tasty spaghetti. My dad also picked up his latest rifle in his 35+ gun arsenal, a Finnish M91 Mosin Nagant in really nice tiger striped wood. It’s neat.

Fun day overall, and hopefully the landshark will eventually return and I’ll be able to document him in a future post.

This past weekend, myself and a bunch of the liketoeat crew decided to go camping. This was a trip that had been in the works for some time now, and I was personally quite excited about it. See, a few of us went camping one time last year and had a great time (although it was somewhat of a disaster with myself and QC being terribly unprepared), but I decided to really step it up this time and actually get it planned out a little better.

My planning started out a few weeks back by ordering a large sized U.S. Army issue ALICE backpack, some canteens, and a few other assorted items. Last time I was only outfit with 2 small messenger bags, so I felt like this would be a huge improvement. What I didn’t know is that the government isn’t overly concerned with the comfort of their soldiers, and that my new investment was terribly uncomfortable when loaded down. The preparation continued with me making a mile-long list of things to remember and bring, and finally wasting at least $100 on various camping goodies that caught my eye on Friday, the day before we departed. That evening, myself and Laura began loading up our packs, filling our canteens, and I practiced by carrying mine up and down a level of the parking deck a few times. So far, so good. Also (to keep this post mildly related to food), Panda cooked some delicious spaghetti that night. I didn’t get any pictures, but it was quite tasty. QC slept on a chair through most of the evening.

Saturday morning found me waking up fairly early to finalize my packing and head towards D-Wood with QC to pick up Laura. We were told by Matt that our trip was to a spot “not too far” up I-575, and were under the assumption that it would only be a 1-2 hour drive, so we weren’t overly rushed. Matt however had other plans up his sleeves, and seemed a bit bothered by the fact that we didn’t roll up to his house until 3:00 pm. The reason? He was taking us into the middle of North Carolina. 2 states and 150+ miles away, which led to a 3.5 hour trip thanks to us getting somewhat lost and having to drive a majority of the trip on 2-lane mountain roads behind old people on Goldwing Trikes, and the last ~5 mile leg taking part on a 1-lane dirt road that pretty much went up the side of a mountain. Anyhow, our large convoy (consisting of myself, Laura, and QC in his car, Brady and Jessica in their car, and Matt and Jessica’s friend Jenn in his truck) finally rolled into the campsite around 7:00 pm and were ready to get to our site for the evening.

Matt started up the trail and we all followed. Now I’m by no means in great shape, but after about one minute, I literally felt like I was about to pass out. We were pretty much vertically climbing the side of a mountain with packs that weighed in the 70lb range, and it was downright miserable. We continued on for a number of minutes, until both Laura and I both physically felt sick from dehydration. At this point, we had only made it 0.3 miles (according to GPS), but had already been up a few hundred feet. Brady and Jessica had already turned back, and pretty much everyone wanted to call it quits. Matt finally agreed, and we went back down the mountain to the parking lot to re-evaluate the trip. Suddenly, Matt spotted a different trail on the other side of the parking lot and quickly realized that was our intended path, and that he had accidentally taken us on the super extreme advanced trail. Awesome. Matt hopped in the truck to chase down Jessica and Brady (who had already driven off to find a calmer campsite for the evening), brought them back, and we started on our way down the slightly easier trail.

On the hike down, this trail was great. A nice downhill slope, good shade to keep us out of the sun, and a nice creek for scenery. We found a site after about half a mile and decided to claim it for the evening as it was quickly getting dark. We set up all of our tents, started a fire, and got ready to make our dinners.

QC and I went in super redneck shirtless mode as we were still a bit worn out from the hike down. We looked ridiculous.

Here’s me showing that I’m proud to be from Hampton, where this is standard attire.

My dinner for the night consisted of most of a bag of beef jerkey and some delicious hot dogs. I didn’t get any pics of them, but they were quite good. After dinner, Jenn broke out some of her strange camping accessories, fireworks and glowing bracelets. We played around with these for a while and I tried to take fancy pictures. Here’s everyone taking part in the campside rave. It was interesting.

Towards the end of the evening, Jenn and Matt disappeared and the rest of us sat around enjoying the wilderness for a while. Around midnight, we called it a night and I got to be sandwiched between Laura and QC in the tent. I probably woke up 20 times during the evening due to the fact that I couldn’t really move and my limbs kept falling asleep, but oh well, it was fun.

My thought on the comfort during the night:

The next day, we got up and had a quick breakfast. I enjoyed a mini bowl of Kashi’s Heart to Heart cereal, along with about 4 or so tasty rolls that QC brought along. Laura, myself, and Jenn also made hot tea. It was nice.

After breakfast, Jessica and Brady had to hit the road and head back towards Atlanta as Brady had to be at work Monday morning. We all said our goodbyes and then headed to our camp site for night #2.

The trek to this site was quite a bit longer, but still not bad (at least going out there) as it was again mostly downhill. We did have to cross a sizable creek at least 4 times which ended up with some of our crew getting mildly wet (Jenn had the award for most times falling in the creek, but she seemed to enjoy it). After about 2 hours, we finally made it to the site and were quite impressed by the scenery.

The water was right beside us and flowed down to a large waterfall, and eventually into a few still pool areas that seemed great for swimming. We tossed on our swimsuits, climbed down the rocks, and watched Matt and Laura be brave and try out the water. They said it was cold, but that ended up being quite the understatement. I dipped my foot in, got horribly scared, tried to ignore it, and finally just jumped in. I lasted about 6 seconds as I quickly swam to the rocks on the other side where I could climb out, and tried to get over the shock I had just felt from swimming in water that couldn’t have been more than a few degrees over absolute zero. Some of the others stayed in for some time, but I decided to spend my time attempting to climb a tree covered hill (which attacked me and scratched my back pretty good), and later found some neat trails across the creek. Unfortunately, the camera didn’t make it to the swimming party as I probably would’ve drenched it trying to get any shots, but here are a few photos from the area anyhow.

After swimfest, we decided to just hang around the campsite for a while. We kept ourselves amused with a few board games, talking, snacking, and finally a bit of reading. We also happened upon a frightening guest no more than 20 or 30 feet from our tent, a venomous Copperhead (we think):

I was a bit worried about the creature and was tempted to hunt it down for dinner (Matt said he’d eat it if I took care of the hunting), but as Laura slightly approached it to get a better look, he took off and wasn’t seen again. Probably better I didn’t go after it anyhow as most snakebites occur when doing things like that, and getting attacked by a venomous snake wasn’t high on my list of things to do while 5 miles in the woods with no communication to the outside world.

A bit later, QC packed his gear and headed back for the night as he also needed to be home for Monday to visit with some family. After he left, Laura and I enjoyed a bit of reading by the creek (except for my constant paranoia that the rogue copperhead would attack at any given time), until QC randomly wandered back about 2 or 3 hours after his original departure. Apparently, he got confused by the trail (which was poorly marked and had numerous options), and figured he’d just come back to our camp for the evening. Laura and I were mildly confident in our outdoor navigation skills and offered to help guide him back to a recognizable point, so we set out to help him find his way home.

After about 40 minutes of hiking, we too were puzzled with an unfamiliar trail and a river crossing that we were sure we hadn’t gone over earlier in the day. Considering it was already almost dark, we all decided that going back and not getting even more lost would be the best idea. Chris agreed, and decided he’d just try to leave earlier the next day.

Back at the campsite, Matt had the fire started up and we were ready to start up our dinners. I opted for the always classic ramen cooked over Matt’s classy mini gas stove thing.

Laura made a hobo dinner for the 2nd day in a row and seemed to find it quite delicious.

After dinner, we broke out the goods to make a few Smores and enjoyed those as well.

At this point, it felt like it was getting quite late, so we decided to climb into the tents for the evening. I thought to turn on my phone and check and it ended up only being 10:30 pm. Apparently being in the woods turns you into an old person. I had another night of marginal sleeping, but managed to stay in bed until 9:00 the next morning when we packed up and got started with our difficult hike back to the car.

Words can’t even begin to describe the misery we went through on the return hike. We never found the definite distance, but I’m guessing it was between 4 and 5 miles, all uphill, through creeks (our feet got soaked at the very beginning), and with tons of gear on our backs. It probably doesn’t sound all that terrible, but it was one of the more painful things I’ve ever done, and for a while, getting eaten by wild bears or wolves would have been a welcome opportunity. I had already packed up my camera during the return hike, but Laura managed to snap a few shots before we had gotten terribly exhausted and angry from the uphill battle.

Matt and Chris were apparently in better shape than the rest of us and went ahead, but Laura, Jenn, and myself stayed towards the back. Jenn ended up being dehydrated and was getting sick, so Laura and I donated our remaining water to help her out. Towards the final half mile, we were all nearly dying and even considering using purification tablets on creek water so that we’d have something to drink (they take 35 minutes and still make things taste like a lake though, so we decided against it). We hiked for what seemed like ages and had only made it about a quarter of a mile, and were finally just getting exhausted. Taking even 10 steps felt impossible, and I really wanted to just pass out in the middle of the path. Here’s a nice shot showing my enthusiasm at this point:

With only 0.2 miles left, QC and Matt came back for us and luckily provided a bit of much needed water for Laura and I. Matt also carried Jenn’s pack the remainder of the way, and we all finally arrived at the parking lot where the adventure had begun 2 nights earlier.

I (along with Matt and QC) returned to redneck shirtless mode, cleaned up with some Old Spice Bro wipes, ate a few Kashi bars, and then we all posed for a few final photos. Clearly, I was still angry at the path at this point.

After this, it was finally time to head home. Laura and I hopped back into QC’s accord, blasted down the gravel rally inspired road that got us to the campsite, and then ended back on the Dragon (US129, a famous road made up of a few hundred curves in the span of a few miles). We had to keep a close eye on Laura’s security as slaying her kind seems to be acceptable in those parts (For those completely clueless to thtat reference, Laura’s nickname is Dragon as she’s good at making campfires. Pretty sure anyone actually reading this is well aware of that though).

We were also amazed by the amount of rockets and jets that must hang out in the middle of nowhere, NC. Apparently there are so many that local gas stations had to add specialty fuels for those vehicles. Crazy stuff.

Continuing along the way home, I kept the camera armed for a few key photo opportunities that we missed while driving up to the camp site. This was the first of those:

The second was so ridiculous that it warranted the title of this blog post. I won’t even try to describe how much we laughed when we saw this amazing billboard.

Success! We had captured the most amazing advertising ever on camera, and were pleased with our results.

After this, we finished up the trip home (after a quick stop at Wendy’s), and eventually ended up back in D-Wood where we showered for the first time in 3 days. Not smelling like a homeless person after all that time was really amazing. To finish up the weekend, we had a nice little cookout by the pool and enjoyed a few hot dogs and burgers courtesy of chef Erin.

The full gallery from the entire weekend is up here so be sure to check that out for even more shots of all the fun we had. I’m also working on a small video from the camping portion and will post it up as soon as it’s finished up.

Yesterday started off as a slow morning around the house until Panda randomly decided he wanted to buy an acoustic guitar. I was in full support of this idea and joined him in a trip to the local Guitar Center. I test drove a few choices and he ended up with a nice playing Yamaha F335 Acoustic in the Tobacco Brown Sunburst finish. It looks like this:

Back at the house, I began showing Panda a few basic techniques and chords, and left him to practice on his own with Monster Mash (that’s his name for the guitar FYI). I then ended up meeting Laura, Tran, Erin, and Jerry for dinner, but not before a stop by Laura’s apartment where I was given a late yet awesome birthday gift from the crew. At first, I was merely presented with a package of spaghetti and sauce (which I do enjoy, but was somewhat puzzled by), some awesome birthday sunglasses fit for a 7-year old girl, and a birthday card. This card had signatures from all of my friends and animals that I commonly associate with, but as pointed out by Tran, an additional signature from an unknown creature called Giraffe was featured. It was then that I was introduced to my newest critter which the girls decided to name Giraffe, a ridiculously cute little mouse:

He’s now residing at the S3 office alongside Admiral Squirrel, and seems to be enjoying his home so far. Wooley and I gave him a nice little tube to crawl around in, and he’s also quite amused by his little running wheel.

While I was at it, I figured I’d snap a few better photos of Squirrel as the ones from my iPhone weren’t exactly the best quality. Here he is swimming around his home on my desk:

Also, not leaving out any of my pets, I snapped a new shot of Skyy as she has yet to be featured on the liketoeatblog:

Ok, enough of my small zoo, back to the food related part of the evening, our dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. Jerry, Laura, and I dined at CPK a few weeks ago and were given these clever “Do Not Open” cards, sealed cards that were only valid if opened by the manager that were guaranteed to win anything from 10% off your meal to $25,000 cash. Being victims of the genius marketing, we returned, anxious to see what fantastic prizes we’d walk away with. Our hopes were a bit higher than the reality, and we only ended up getting 10% and 20% off. Oh well. We still managed to enjoy some delicous pizza, and according to Laura, one of the best salads ever.

Here, we have Erin and Tran in ninja ordering mode:

My delicious pizza:

Gerald enjoying his Jamaican pizza:

And finally, Erin, Tran, and Laura with their meals:

On the way back to the apt, we stopped by Kroger to pick up a variety of desserts. Erin grabbed some tasty mini brownies and blueberry donuts which I quite enjoyed.

We finished up the evening by playing 2 fun rounds of Apples to Apples, and finally called it a night.

Yesterday was a fun filled day which started up with an early trip of taking Ged to the local gun range on his last day in the U.S. On the way there, I introduced him to the magic of QT, home of the south’s finest gas station food and coffee, where we enjoyed some beverages and biscuits to start the morning. At the gun range, we had an entertaining time of firing off a few rounds from everything in my small arsenal.

Here’s me attempting a few precision shots from my Ruger 10/22:

And then we have Ged enjoying the classic DPMS AR-15:

After the range, we met back up with Laura and Chrysandra, and then joined  Lisa and some of her friends for  lunch at Cheeseburger In Paradise.

I opted for the mini-cheeseburgers, and they were delicious.

Here’s Chrys and Lisa analyzing their meals and Ged trying to figure out why the American fries taste like bacon:

After lunch, Laura and I managed to hit up a book sale at the Dunwoody Library where we both picked up some good finds. I ended up with the Dodgeball DVD, a book on arctic wolves, and The DaVinci Code all for only $6, and she got a large variety of reading choices for barely $5. We also enjoyed looking at the First Aid for Cats book which featured strange illustrations of felines that had been shot by arrows and bandaged up. We hope to never experience that scenario in real life.

Following the book sale, it was time to sent Chrys and Ged off for their return voyage to London. We joined them on Marta as we were attending the Against Me! concert at Centennial Park downtown and didn’t want to fight traffic.

Here’s Ged, Laura, and I while waiting on the southbound train:

While on the train we enjoyed the company of about 20 drunken high school aged kids that were probably the most obnoxious group of people we had ever been around. They all smelled like beer, constantly fell over, and were just generally annoying. I was kinda hoping that we’d run into recently famed Soulja Girl while en route and perhaps another altercation would break out, but unfortunately she’s probably still in custody from her first fiasco. Eventually, we hopped off the train to make our way to the park where we enjoyed the nice free concert and hanging out with Erin and Tracy.

Here’s a crappy shot of Against Me! during their set:

While waiting to board the train on the way back, Laura remembered that she had some slightly old Pop Rocks in her bag so we broke those out to snack on. Apparently they were a bit messier than we remembered, and we ended up getting into a sticky situation with them. It was somewhat entertaining though.

After cleaning our hands and finally getting back to D-Wood on the train, Laura and I enjoyed a late night dinner at Felini’s. It was also quite tasty and affordable ($2 dinners are awesome). I didn’t get any photos there, but pretty sure everyone knows what a slice of pizza looks like. If not, here’s an illustration along with a sweet word search courtesy of google images. Enjoy!

Today was a randomly fun day. It started as a regular morning at the new S3 office with a guest appearance from Panda as it was his day off, but after lunch we were honored with the presence of Jen and Erin along with Chloe and their new puppy, Heidi. As the official Godfather of the new pup, it was good to get to meet her. She’s only a few weeks old and doesn’t even weigh 2 pounds yet, but was lots of fun to play with.

Here you can see how small she is next to Panda’s foot:

We hung out around the office for a while, played with the dogs, and snapped a few pics. Here’s one of napping Heidi with her well-fed sister, Chloebat:

After this, we decided to make a quick run over to Petco. I’ve been thinking of getting some fish of some sort for the new office, and figured today would be a good day to do a bit of looking. After analyzing a number of choices (saltwater which I really can’t afford, a big freshwater tank with some neon tetra and other assorted fish, or just a single Betta for my desk), I decided picking up a betta would be the best idea for today. They had quite a few to choose from:

After checking out a ton of the little guys, Wooley helped me pick out this neatly colored male which I named Squirrel (Admiral Squirrel to be exact, per suggestion of Panda). I have a weird habit of not really calling animals by their correct name, so the name seemed fairly appropriate.

Before leaving the store, we stumbled upon a fairly enticing display of dog cookies and biscuits at the dog bar.

I agreed to buy a small variety for Panda if he’d eat them, and obviously he agreed without problem. Some of the cookies did look totally delicous though.

Back in Erin’s truck, Panda commenced with trying the first of these classy desserts, one of the vanilla creme cookies.

After a few seconds of thought, Panda gave it the thumbs up of approval and said it had a fairly enjoyable taste.

While driving back, Erin, Tran, and myself decided we wanted some treats of our own and hit up an all time favorite, Bojangles. We took it back to the office for a picnic style dinner where I enjoed my country ham and boberry biscuits.

Tran clearly found her meal to be quite delicious:

In the meantime, Panda continued to enjoy a few of his treats. Chloe looked on with extreme jealousy the entire time, although she ended up with a few samples of her own before the night was up.

After our dinner, it was time to get Squirrel’s new 1/2 gallon home set up. After cleaning everything up and conditioning the water, my new aquatic friend was ready for his new home.

(And yes, this aquarium seems to possibly be intended for female fish but the male one was covered with lame tribal designs so I decided to pass on it. Squirrel doesn’t seemt to mind so far).

Here you can see the final positioning of Squirrel on my desk:

Made a full gallery of the photos from today’s adventure here so be sure to check it out to see even more of the fun.

It’s delicious.

I haven’t had a fig newton in years but randomly just bought some (along with a box of capri sun fruit punch) at Dollar General by the S3 office. Good stuff.

That is all.

This past weekend was one of the biggest weekends for motorsports in our hometown as Formula D, the country’s largest professional drift series, came to town at Road Atlanta. I won’t bore everyone with details of the actual event (although you can read about it at the S3 Blog), but will instead go into some of the other fun things that went down, particularly the food aspect.

After the 2 day event, I met up with my friend Antonio who was in town from California. Antonio is an awesome photographer and runs a photography group called Cipher Media, shoots pics for lots of important companies, and wrote The Drifting Book which is really good. Aside from this, he’s a huge fan of sweet tea and any southern food, so our friend Erik recommended a trip to a place called Roaster’s down near Lenox mall. I had never been there before, but made the trip down to meet Antonio, Erik and Ainsely, Eugene, Tony Shorts, Mikey, Andy and Lieze, and BM.

Before ordering, they brought out some of the best cornbread I’ve ever eaten. I could totally make an entire meal on this stuff, and just might try it one day.

Antonio is the only other person I’ve ever met that takes just as many food pics as me (if not more), so found that entertaining. I think this is him messing with his point-and-shoot before also snapping some pics of the bread arrangement.

Here, you can see Mikey, Eugene, and BM all enjoying their bread as well.

And at the other end of the table, Antonio, Lieze, and Andy.

Antonio changed up his typical sweet tea ordering and instead went with sweet tea/lemonade hybrid combo. He seemed to enjoy it.

After we had all eaten tons of bread, we finally got our actual meals. I went with chicken fingers and dual potato varieties (baked and mashed). It was all delicious.

Following the fun at Roasters, we went to pick up Andy’s truck and race BMW that had been left at Lenox mall due to parking issues at Roasters. At Lenox, we also met up with Delicious Steve (Byron) and Marcos, and then went downtown to let Antonio snap some pics of the guys’ cars. He took some rad shots around the Tuner Field area to get a good ATL feel and hopefully they’ll be posted somewhere on the interwebs before too long.

After this, we wanted to grab a bit of an afternoon snack at the Varsity, a proven Atlanta favorite. Before going in, Antonio recognized the J.R. Crickets wings establishment across the street which apparently brought back bad memories (something about their hot sauce not sitting well with him, I didn’t get the full story). Whatever it was, Eugene found amusing.

As many times as I’ve been to the Varsity in the past, I’ve never tried a frosted orange but Antonio picked up a round of those (along with a few assorted pies and onion rings) for everyone to enjoy. I quite liked mine.

Delicious Steve agreed.

Erik, Tony Shorts, and Ainsley also found them tasty.

Again, Antonio rocking out some fine food photography. Perhaps one day he’ll also start a food blog. It’s whats hot on the streets.

Eugene and BM like pie.

And finally, Antonio enjoying his pie and frosted orange combo.

Awesome time overall, and really good catching up with all the old friends who I hadn’t seen in a while.