Glasseye's Trip to Chico October 6-8, 2000

Friday, October 6, 2000, I woke up early to get down to meet Craig at Hertz to pick up the mini-van a.k.a. The Pimpmobile. The van was all pimped out and ready to roll (at least for a rental van anyways). It had aluminum wheels, a kit, automatic everything, an in-dash CD changer, and a moonroof. After making all the rounds, Sib, Raver, Craig, Jason, Ajay, and I were on our way to Chico. We drove through Kern, Bakersfield, Fresno, Sacramento, and finally made our way into Butte County... complete with Butte Creek, Butte River, and Butte College. heheh. Sib even picked up the local "101 things to do in Butte County" guide. When we were done with all the "Butte" jokes, we found our way over to the hotel (Vagabond Inn) and checked in. Total Time including stops - about 9 hours.

After checking in, we walked over the park to meet up with everybody. Everyone was having a good time and there was a nice vibe to the whole thing. The Gong Show was going on which was pretty funny to watch. But was it really necessary to play "Pump Up the Jam", "Men in Black", "Whoop there it is", etc... again and again and again and again??? C'mon guys, leave the Jock Jams at home. At least it wasn't "Blue", "I'm your little Butterfly", or that damn Tarzan song. Ugh... Anyways, the show was entertaining. I don't remember most of the people that went up, but I'll try to recall some highlights. Sky Kiyabu put on a nice performance and did some breakdancing, Steve was dragged onto stage by Bride and someone else and Higby threw a trapeze around Steve, Higby also did some comedic stuff that reminded me of Buster Keaton, Matt Rose did some really nice and fast combos, some girl (I think her name was nana) from THP did a nice two-handed routine, and Felix did his two-handed crazy-eights. I know there are more things that happened, but I can't remember them right now.

Afterwards, Sib and I went to go kick it in Jen and Eric Niles room back at the Holiday Inn with Jason Tracy, Clay, The Flare Girl in Training, Jason Gallagher, and his brother. Then we were told the story of "The Dirty Sanchez", but I'll save the for another time. Later that night, we went downstairs to hangout in the lobby and catch up with some friends. Adam Dennehy took off on the Drunk guy's bike. Raver showed off his skillz with the photons. I got to try out one of Mo's Rollersnakes (his inventions get scarier and scarier with each yo-yo! Where does he come up with this stuff?). And I hung out and spun tops with Luis from Yo-Yo Jam. I was tired from the drive up so at about 2, we headed back to the room to try to get some rest but I ended up tossing and turning the entire night.

Saturday, October 7, 2000, we got to the park a little before 9:00 am. I chatted with Higby and scored one of his Higby GT's. This guy makes some really nice stuff. I've painted a couple of yo-yos myself, but Higby really took it to the next level. I mean he had literally hundreds of yo-yos and designs at his table. If I'm trying to do a nice paint job on a yo-yo, I'll spend up to two hours painting it, so you can imagine how much time it took him to make these.