Spring break ends, back to the grind

Ah, spring break 2009. Easily the best spring break ever (second only to the previous year with the ever-talented Jon and Sabrina Kay, but nothing can trump being with my sweetheart, of course). To ensure that I don’t put off making a write-up of the things we did, I decided I would do it now. Oh yeah, as a precursor to this, I just wanted to add that I made a perfect 4.0 last quarter and that I’m totally awesome. Glad we got that out of the way.

Mallory arrived on Friday, March 13th (Friday the 13th oh noes!). She flew into Myrtle Beach airport which is conveniently located next to the Coastal Grand mall, so after she came in we went over there to look around do a bit of shopping. That night we went home and mostly just relaxed.

The next morning Austin called me and asked if I wanted to go to lunch. After I crawled out of bed and got ready, Mallory and myself met him at the Little River Burger King (where Austin and I ate lunch pretty much every time we got together). Despite having dated Mallory for an entire year, Austin had yet to meet her, but we quickly solved that problem. After lunch we went back home for a few hours then headed out later that evening to get supper at Logan’s steakhouse. Mallory (through the use of Jen’s almighty Facebook friend powers) had invited all of my friends to celebrate my birthday with me. Including us, there were 16 people there, which is quite an incredible turnout. Afterwards we were going to go bowling (something I had planned for a few months), so we headed over there. I had stupidly not called ahead and it was impossible to get in to play. In an effort to save the day, it was suggested that we head over to Carolina Forest where a new “fun zone” place had opened up, so we caravanned over there.

Laser tag! What a fun time. Normally when Austin and I play laser tag we’re always flip-flopping between first place, but this time I was a total bust. I don’t know if I was out of practice or if the lasers were just different (they were, but I guess it could’ve effected my performance), but I came in close to last place (but still a few points in front of Mal ;D). After we finished we went and got some ice cream at McDonald’s and sat in the Kroger parking lot eating it. I had a great time getting to see everybody again, and I look forward to doing it again this summer, maybe even twice.

The next morning was Sunday, and after church we ate at Golden Corral (hadn’t been there since Dan visited) followed by Mal having a spa visit. I went and got the oil changed in my vehicle while she was getting pampered. After she finished we got some doughnuts and headed home for the evening.

Monday we were supposed to meet Jarrett in Charleston (we were going anyway but it turns out he was going to be there at the same time), but since it was supposed to rain all day we postponed it. That night we went to get the best sushi either of us had ever eaten (and the most) at Miyabi’s. Tons of nigiri with every fish imaginable… it was so delicious~ Anyway, after that we were on our way home when Mallory couldn’t take it anymore and had to see the beach. Despite it being dark and raining, we stopped and walked out onto the beach. I don’t think Mal had planned on it being so cold (and rainy), so we were only out there for a minute or so before we ran back to the car to avoid the soon approaching thunderstorm.

Tuesday was the day we decided to head to Charleston. One of Mallory’s friends wanted us to visit Huntington State Park, so we did that on the way up. We looked around there a bit then headed to Atalaya, a very famous house in the park. It took about 25 minutes just to walk through the entire thing (it was quite large!), then we headed down to the beach. Mallory took a ton of photos there (try and look through the entire album of our spring break when you get a chance, it’s got 200+ photos). Once we had our fill of the beach, we headed the rest of the drive to Charleston.

We met Seth for lunch at the Kickin’ Chicken and then had him use his ultra tour-guide abilities to lead us around Charleston for a few hours. After we parted with him, we checked out the local mall then headed back home for the night.

On Wednesday, Mallory and I got up in the afternoon and drove down the road to Indigo Farms. She took plenty of photos of the flowers and we got some mini-eclairs before we headed down further to Calabash, NC. We looked around Callahan’s for an hour or so then headed back to North Myrtle Beach to eat some Firehouse subs (or sub, rather, since we split a 12” everytime). We went back to the house for more Super Mario Bros 3 (we were hellbent on completing it by the end of the week), and later we had a candlelight homemade dinner (Mallory made chicken alfredo). After a wonderful dinner we watched PS I Love You then turned in for the night.

Thursday we got up and went searching for job applications for Mallory (she’s planning on staying with me for the summer). After doing that a while, I headed over to Sam’s Club to get a membership card (bulk buying for the dorm). We went to the beach for a little bit after that, but only the crazy Canadian tourists could stand the temperature (it was cold and windy to boot). Mallory was surprised the warm beach she loved in August was so chilly in March. We didn’t stay too long, and left to get some pizza and play computer games.

If we did anything of particular interest on Friday morning/afternoon I can’t seem to remember it. It was my 20th birthday and my mom managed to get ultra-discounted tickets to the Dixie Stampede from her job. I go to the Dixie Stampede probably at least 3 or 4 times a year, and I went much more often than that when I was younger. All in all I’ve been there probably close or over 100 times. Even so, it was great being able to go again with Mallory (she saw the show in August too). We laughed at how corny some parts of the show was.

We normally stay up all night the last night of her stay, but we managed to get some sleep since we planned on seeing the sunset the next morning (the day she had to leave).

We got up early and jumped into the vehicle to head to the beach. We stood there shivering in the cold morning wind but we watched the sun come up together. We went back to the house to get some breakfast and to get her stuff packed up. It was a long drive to the airport, but even longer when I was on my way back. It took us a long time to let go: we must’ve been quite the scene in the airport. Eventually we said our last “real” goodbye, though, and turned away for good. It was a great week, definitely one to smile about. I’ll see her when this quarter ends, about 70 days from now.

I’ve done pretty good about not being too down about it, which is good since my studies are already here. I drove back to SCAD on Sunday afternoon and I’ve already had one of each of my classes. It’s definitely going to be my hardest quarter thus far. It seems like all of my classes are very demanding, and I know I’m not going to have a whole lot of free time for stuff, unfortunately.

Unrelated, I’ve been interested in building a “hackintosh” for quite some time now. For those uninformed, a hackintosh (as I’ve mentioned previously in my blog) is a computer assembled with PC components but running the Mac OS (Leopard, 10.5). I’ve been doing a ton of research since I didn’t want to mess anything up, but earlier I had the setup I was sure of. I took the plunge (and dropped quite a bit of money), but I’ve got a incredible computer on the way. It’s going to take some trial and error to get everything working properly, but you can’t beat buying a Mac for 1/5th of the price. For those interested in specs, here you go:

• Quad core 2.66ghz processor (Intel Core i7 920 which has been safely overclocked to 3.8ghz before… no, I’m not trying that D:)
• 2x 500gb WD 7200rpm HDD
• GeForce 9800GTX 512MB Video
• 6GB Corsair Dominator RAM