NASA Tweetup pt. 1

So, I want to first apologize for not updating my audience on what was going on at the tweetup. If you follow me on Twitter, I'm sure that my tweets flooded your feed. I apologize for the volume, but not for what I was tweeting about.

Now that the apologies are out of the way...it's time to talk about what I wanted to.

I arrived in Florida on Monday the 21st. I flew out of Pittsburgh at about 1:45 PM or so, and I arrived at Orlando International at 6:00 PM that night. My condomate, Christy was there to pick me up. After she picked me up, we went back to Cape Canaveral, FL and ate "dinner" at a local IHOP. I haven't been to one of those in a while, so, I ordered my french toast. It was just as awesome as I remembered. After supper, we headed back to the condo, and it ended up being a normal night.

The next morning was Tuesday, and the other two people, Pat Cooney, and Jeff Harbert were going to show up at some point.

Pat showed up a couple of hours before the pre-tweetup dinner. I got to learn some backround information about him, starting off with what he majored in during college. I was happy to find out that he majored in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue.

After a 'short' time talking to each other, we got in Christy's rental, and headed off to Dixie Crossroads for the pre-tweetup dinner. We were a bit early, which was wonderful. We got to meet Brandon, Rachel, Lincoln (Rachel's hubby), and Keri Bean.

Personally, I was finally happy to meet Keri in person, as I had contact with her through SEDS a few years before. There were many space related things we were talking about, as well as some hilarious things. For example, Brandon was tweeting about the table getting beer (which I can't drink...legally). Keri introduced me to Scott Maxwell, who drives the Mars Exploration Rovers.

Most geeks/nerds like myself aren't very social all the time. I am like that, unless I am put with a group of people that have the same kind of interests as me.

After Tuesday night, everyone went to sleep. We had nothing planned for that day, so we all just took some time out to relax after travel. Wednesday was also the first day to get our bag full of NASA epicness. In it was: A cool color-changing cup, provided by NASA LSP, multiple pins, including pins from the mission, various datasheets on the mission itself, a free ticket to the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center, and the NASATweetup badge that gave us all access to the press site and tweetup tent, also known as the Twent. Finally, Thanksgiving came around. My group went out to the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center. I will continue my story in another part shortly.

PS: This was supposed to be posted months ago, but school came down on me like a boss.