This weekend was pretty party-filled. I took Bryan to the airport on Friday for a weekend trip to take his CISSP certification test, and then came back and watched some Scrubs and Family Guy with Cat. On Saturday I met up with Cat again and we watched The Goonies. Just as the movie was finishing, Kelsey text-messaged me and suggested I come over for an impromptu get-together she and her roommates were having in New Orleans. What perfect timing. I knew I was going to have to drive back out to New Orleans the next day to pick up Bryan at the airport, but I've only hung out with Kelsey once since I moved up here, so I figured it was well worth the drive.

I jumped in the car, drove across the Causeway, and became immediately lost once I got into New Orleans. I hate driving in that city at night. The street signs, when there are any at all, are drowned out by the bright stoplights, so it's really hard to follow even the simplest of directions. On the upside though, the on-ramps and overpasses are all made of crossbraced structural steel and they give the whole place the mechanical atmosphere of a train station or an amusement park ride.

Once I finally found my way to Kelsey's house, I found that quite a few other people had arrived while I had been making my way there. All in all I got to know 10 or 15 friends of hers, and had a great time. Her friends are all pretty cool people, and hopefully I'll get to know them better over time, and thus expand my circle of friends here.

I didn't take many pictures until the evening was mostly over, but those that I did take are here. Kelsey kept pouring shots of berry-flavored vodka for us — that's what I like, someone who forces the alcohol on me so I don't have to build up the nerve to drink it myself. :)

At one point we realized we were hungry and decided that mozarella sticks would be a good idea, and so Kelsey threw a few in the oven. The group then proceeded to migrate out to the living room and we forgot about them completely. When we made our way back to the kitchen several hours later, we found to our dismay that the mozarella sticks had turned into mozarella rocks. I knocked one against the table and it shattered. Cheese isn't supposed to shatter.

When most of the people had left, Kelsey and her roommate Erin and I headed out to the roof of her porch to hang out, by way of their absent third roommate's window. We had a little bit of a furniture-related mishap — apparently those $30 Wal-Mart cabinets aren't designed to support the full weight of a person — but other than that, the rest of the night was uneventful. Except that Erin has the most gigantic beanbag I've ever seen (it's the beige, room-sized thing in the picture), and I fell instantly in love with it.

Since I'd been drinking, I found myself staying there for the night. This turned out to be convenient because it meant I was already in town to pick up Bryan the next morning at the airport.

Cat's coworkers were having a party that afternoon from noon to 4pm, so the plan was for me to pick up Bryan at 1:30 and drive back to Covington, get cleaned up, and head to the party. I'm such a social butterfly, heading straight from one party to the next.

We ended up making it back into Covington around 3, and the party was already winding down by the time we were ready to head out. Still, they invited us to come out anyway and see the few people who were still there. We stayed and talked for a few hours. Cat's coworkers are all very nice, but they're mostly middle-aged women so this party wasn't quite as lively as the one the night before. Still, it was a pleasant afternoon. When it got dark, we headed back home and watched The Cave. Overall, one of the most fun weekends I've had here so far.