High Point Furniture Market

I think the coolest thing about this trip was that I got the chance to hang out with people from my major that I hadn't before and got to know everyone on a more personal level. On the way up to High Point, Kareem and I played Backgammon and we talked amongst ourselves and with the 2 Jesses mainly. I did my regular thing and sang to every song that I knew on the radio and of course I slept as well.

We stopped along the way at the BMW museum which had some nice cars inside. When we reached Salisbury, we checked into our hotel and then ate at the Mexican restaurant next door. The food was really good - I had at Quesadilla Fajita (yes, apparently that does exist). I guess Kate wasn't that hungry and so she gave me her plate of fajitas as well and then I also had fried ice cream.

That night we went out to a pub and played some pool. The following morning, we went to the High Point Furniture Market and walked around for hours looking at different pieces of furniture. American Leather had a really cool reclining chair. It had tiny metal handles inset on the inner piece of the armrests that allowed you to pull them back once and it would rock you continually for a good while.

I also like another company's idea of using a thin piece of wood that was spring loaded to hide the gap between doors. This is cool because traditionally this gap was hidden by having a thin piece of wood on the back of one of the doors which means that you would have to open/close one of them before the other. With the spring loaded method, you can open either.

At one company, the 2 Davids and I got to test out some pretty sweet gaming chairs. They had speakers in them and made you feel like you were in the game with the vibrations. They were really comfortable too. There were massage chairs that were amazing as well. It is unfortunate that those are so expensive no?

In addition, I liked the tables that had a wood frame with porcelain tiles. It reminded me a lot of Mexico where I saw tables made of tiles. For my project, I want to make a ping pong table and try to do something like this, but I don't know if I want to do this in case it goes against the ping pong table standards...I'm going to have to look those up and determine if I care to adhere to them. Also, I am going to think about designing the table to fold better and to have a nice net - one that isn't flimsy. So I have to think about how it and the table will stand up and stay level. I haven't seen much design with ping pong tables - I think much could be done with the legs and the paddles. But again, maybe there isn't so much variability because of the standards. Consequently, maybe I'll have to invent a game that is similar to it mwhahah.

So after the market, we went out to eat in Greensboro and then went bowling at AMF. After we finished, the girl gave us scratch-and-win tickets and David G won a free game for 10 people. With that and others' wins we bowled another game for free. It was so much fun. When we finished that time, she gave us more tickets and David G won 10 again, but he didn't want to bowl any more and tore it up. So she gave Stephanie one more to replace that one and she won 10. By that time everyone was done, so we went back. But, people gave me their cards and now I have like 6 bowl 1 get 1 free and 1 ticket for a free game of bowling.

When we got back to the motel, I saw some Mexicans playing soccer in the parking lot and Kareem and I went and played with them. They called me guerro I think...anyway, it is slang for white heh heh. They had been playing a while and after 30 minutes they left but I wish they would have played longer.

The next day we took a tour of Hafele. They are a German company and make every kind of fastener you can imagine. The plant that we toured had these awesome box cranes that were on a single track. They probably went 100 feet back and 50 feet up and they let us ride on them! They had a nice box making machine and they let me make a box. Apparently, I am employment material :-P

When the tour was over, my Mom picked me up and I got to spend the weekend with my family!!! It was great to see them all again - I hadn't seen them since January. So we went hiking and went to the theater to see the new TMNT. We also rented a bunch of movies and chatted. On Sunday afternoon, we did a little shopping and then Stephen and I drove back to Atlanta. It was a fun ride back where Stephen and I talked the whole time and really bonded again. He made some mixed CDs and we sang a bunch and chatted about the family and ourselves.

The countdown has officially begun. 1 month and 1 day until I graduate. Heck yeah! What am I going to do with my life?hahah Catch ya later cowboy.