| Blonde Boy Adventure Part 3 Las Vegas June 16-17, 2002 |
| Again, starting with some minor details that I forgot in part 2... At the Vegas concert, O-Town also performed Girl, Take Me Under, and Death Wish, making the grand total (if I didn't forget any more) 14 songs performed in one hour. *whew* And now the final chapter in the saga... it just turned out that the best stuff happened at the end. :D LAS VEGAS -- SUNDAY JUNE 16TH CONTINUED... After Ashley, Shelli, and their group of people left the lobby of the hotel, Debi and I decided that we needed to check out the casino for more familiar faces. We were basically just thinking O-Town at this point. We didn't make it halfway through the casino when Debi, by some miracle, recognized Dan Miller at an ATM machine. How she spotted him, I'll never know -- he had his back to us and was wearing a baseball cap and a white t-shirt. Suuuuuuuuuure, that just screams pop star. lol We watched Dan and his girlfriend as they settled at a craps table, and then we conveniently positioned ourselves at some nearby slot machines, perfect for our viewing purposes. We watched Dan play for a while -- his girlfriend left at some point -- until he got up to leave the table. I took the opportunity to approach him. (Debi was on her cell talking to her hubby, she hung up quickly lol) I told Dan how much we loved the show, especially American Game (which he co-wrote) and all of the new songs. He was so sweet and so nice and just kept saying, "Thank you, thank you so much." He had a couple of chips in his hands and said that he wasn't doing too well in the gambling department, said he kept losing. lol Then Debi, having just gotten off the phone, came up to us and said, "Did you tell him how much we love American Game?" and of course Dan was again flattered and very humble. After talking to him for a minute or two, we let him be on his way and decided that we should continue scoping the casino. We didn't go another quarter of the way around the casino when I spotted the face of the most beautiful man on the planet -- NICK CARTER. *sigh* I'm getting chills just thinking about it! *trying to compose myself* He was sitting at a blackjack table wearing the same outfit he had performed in, looking like absolute perfection with his spiky hair, and Tony was standing a few feet behind him. No one else Carter-related in sight, and FYI, no alcohol. To add to our amazing luck, there was a bar/lounge area right next to Nick's blackjack table, so Debi and I stood at a tall bar table and just watched. Conveniently, Nick was facing the lounge, so we could see his face the entire time. I think everything the man does is pretty damn adorable, but seeing him sitting right in front of me... there are no words. My breath hung on his every move. He'd smile, he'd raise his eyebrows, he'd rub his hands together, he'd lick his lips, he'd lean his chin on his fist, he'd bite his nails... I'm telling you, I was in awe. Every time he looked up at us, I gasped and tried to smile as sweetly as possible. Eye contact with Nick Carter... it's enough to make your heart stop. And the entire time Debi was on her flashing-lights cell phone talking to a friend. lol That's probably the reason why Nick kept looking at us, Debi's cell phone was constantly blinking against her face. She said talking on the phone kept her from freaking out. Me, I WAS freaking out... on the inside. On the outside I probably looked like a deer caught in headlights. lol We must've watched Nick for at least 30 minutes before he got up and started to walk the opposite direction with Tony. We wanted to talk to him, so we let him walk away but followed at a respectable distance. As Nick reached a change counter, two other girls (legal age girls of course) stopped Nick for pictures. Debi and I caught up and when they were done, I asked Nick for a picture too. Honestly, Debi should be typing up this next part because I was pretty much in a "DUH" state of mind the entire time. I took my "Christmas card" picture with Nick lol, but then he kind of started to walk away, so Debi said, "Nick, you aren't gonna leave before you take your picture with me are you?" He responded by reaching out his arm and wiggling his fingers for her to come to him. *thud* Then a couple of other girls asked him for pictures as well. I apologized for stopping him and drawing attention to him and interrupting whatever he was doing. He said something like, "Nah it's ok, see, these other girls wanted pictures too." Now here's the WEIRD thing, after Nick took his picture with the other two, he turned BACK TO US with a huge smile, raised his arms kind of shrugging, and said, "So?" like "ok, what are we going to do now?" Again, I was pretty much "DUH" -- it's like I have SOOOOOOO much that I want to say to this man that I can't figure out what to say first. lol Golden opportunity missed. *sigh* Thank god Debi had some thoughts running through her head because I didn't. She put her hand on Nick's chest *THUD* and told him that she couldn't wait to hear his solo cd, to which he responded, "Awesome, that's cool." I was just mesmerized by his perfect lips talking to US. *still in shock* Debi also touched Nick's arm (she was very touchy-feely that night! lol) and told him, "You must be tired coming in from Sweden" and he kind of turned his head with a little boy look and sighed, "I'm EXHAUSTED. I should be in bed right now." Nick... bed... dear lord. *shiver* Somewhere in there I blurted out that Nick should perform with his brother more often and that I loved his new haircut, but thank god I don't think he heard me. lol I also asked him if they were in Vegas for just one night, and as he was telling me that yes, they were leaving the next day, THAT'S when I actually had the *rational* thought to introduce myself to him. Better late than never right? I interrupted Nick (yes, like Kevin, I deserve to be shot lol), held out my hand to him, and said, "By the way, I'm Angela," and he shook my hand, and then Debi introduced herself too. Just then the three of us we were interrupted by some guy Nick knew who told him, "Come on, let's play roulette!" but Nick responded with a smile, "I only play blackjack." As Nick and Tony (and I think the other guy too) walked away back towards the blackjack table where we first saw Nick, we all thanked him and said bye, and as he was walking, Nick turned back to look over his shoulder, smiled at us, and gave us the "I love you" sign with his fingers. *sigh* Does that count as Nick telling me he loves me? lol Trying to make a long story a little shorter (yeah right!), we watched Nick for a while after that. He played blackjack again and then proceeded to walk in circles around the casino, exploring all of the 4 levels. At one point Nick and Tony got in line to go in a restaurant, but they were only there for a few seconds before they got out of line and went down to the general store in the lobby. Debi and I later found out that Tommy Smith, O-Town's current keyboardist and BSB's former keyboardist who is suing Nick and BSB, was in the restaurant -- good observation Nicky -- and that's probably why Nick didn't go in. Nick and Tony lingered at the counter in the general store for a while before Nick walked out flipping a bottle of water while Tony was carrying a small shopping bag. When we investigated later, we noticed that the counter next to the register where Nick and Tony were standing so long actually contained a cigar case. Any bets as to what was in Tony's little bag? lol When they came out of the store, I again apologized to Nick for bothering him and thanked him for being patient with us, and he was really sweet and said it was ok, not a problem. Nick met up with a couple of guys from O-Town's crew in the lobby, and based on their interactions, Debi and I assume these guys were with BSB at one point also. *shrug* They didn't look familiar to me, but Nick definitely knew them. Nick, Tony, and the two crew guys talked for a while and then Nick and Tony returned to the casino. I felt absolutely AWFUL about watching Nick so much, so we purposely stayed behind to try to let them disappear. When we finally went back to the casino, who is coming down the escalators from the thrid floor lounge right in front of us but Nick and Tony! Even when we TRY to lose him, he's there! lol They proceeded to circle the casino a few more times and then returned to the third floor lounge, where a couple of other girls approached them and talked with them for a few minutes. Still feeling miserable for following him but not being able to stop myself, Debi and I sat down in the lounge FAR away from Nick and Tony and I sat with my back to them. I WANTED them to get away so I wasn't tempted to keep following. Put it this way: I didn't want to FOLLOW Nick, I just wanted to WATCH him, and I couldn't help myself! After only a few minutes in the lounge, Nick and Tony walked up the stairs to the fourth floor and were out of sight. We FORCED ourselves to stay in our chairs at the lounge and then a few minutes later went DOWN stairs in the opposite direction of Nick and Tony. We needed to let them get away, for their sake and for ours. Debi and I headed to the restaurant to try to lose Nick, and who do we find sitting right at the edge of the eating area by the casino -- Dan and his girlfriend. I casually asked him how his gambling luck was going, and he laughed and said it was pretty bad. I told him he was safer spending his money buying food at the restaurant. lol This is when we also realized that Tommy Smith was in the restaurant right by the entrance too, hence Nick's quickness in getting out of line. After forcing the tiniest bit of nourishment on ourselves, Debi and I again wandered through the casino, half hoping to find Nick and half hoping NOT to find him. What we found instead was Mark, Aaron's tour manager/back up singer, playing blackjack. We waited for him to get up from the table before we approached him for a very nice conversation. We talked about Aaron, the radio shows, the Winter Party tour, the upcoming tour *fingers crossed they extended it to the West Coast*, how they had been spending their time in Vegas... all kinds of stuff. Mark was genuinely happy to hear that Aaron has a loyal "older" fan base. He was incredibly sweet, and we talked with him for about 10 minutes before letting him go about his business. It was around 1:30 am at this point, so Debi and I decided to call it a night with plans to return to the hotel the next morning to see if we could catch any of our hotties checking out. LAS VEGAS -- MONDAY JUNE 17TH Debi and I went back to the hotel the next day a little later than we had wanted, but we were so exhausted from our weekend of excitement that we're lucky we made it at all. The lobby was PACKED with people and absolutely FREEZING (they compensate for it being 10000 degrees outside by making it -100000 inside), which made our morning of waiting not very pleasant. We had little sign of anything "suspicious" except for what turned out to be Ashanti and her body guards. (good eyes Debi!) Around noon our luck changed... kinda. lol Trevor came out of the elevators empty-handed and walked towards us waiting in the lobby. Excited to finally see SOMEONE we were looking for, Debi and I jumped up (we were sitting on the floor lol) and said hi to him and that we really loved the show the night before. He was kind of, um, distant and he just said, "Thanks" without even really looking at us. He told us he was looking for Ashley, who was supposed to be meeting him there, and I laughed and said, "We haven't seen him!" (heck, we had been there for HOURS, we should know!) Trevor just ignored us. I said something about them having to leave to get back to their own tour, and he said that he and Ashley were hanging out in Vegas for the day, whatever that means. I asked him if he was enjoying himself in Vegas, and looking over our heads at the crowd, he said, "Oh... yeah... I love Vegas" and then walked away. He was VERY distracted -- I'm trying to resist calling him rude. He said something about having to check out, and I told him that he should pay someone to do that for him, but he ignored me again. He stood next to us for a while pretending that we weren't there, and then he walked away to stand in the check out line. Trevor Penick, big fro hair with the bleached tips, standing in line with the rest of the tourists trying not to attract attention -- definitely an odd sight! A minute or two later, Ashley and Shelli came from the elevator area into the lobby with all of their luggage. Ashley looked like he was looking for Trevor, so I blurted out, "He's waiting for you over there" and pointed to the check out line. Ashley said he saw him and walked over to Trevor, leaving Shelli there next to us with all of the bags. Not passing up this opportunity, I decided to go talk to Shelli, who I've absolutely DESPISED on Making the Band. When I turned to her, she was drinking out of a water bottle and kind of started to choke. I asked her if she was ok and she said yeah, and then she started talking about how you can swallow something wrong and choke like she was on her water. Kinda weird I guess. lol I thanked her for putting up with us and for letting Ashley take pictures the night before and applogized for hanging around. She was very nice, SURPRISINGLY nice, and said, "Oh it's not a problem at all. Don't let him fool you -- he LOVES the attention." LOL!!! Just then we noticed Ashley and Trevor walking back in our direction, so I told Shelli that I'd leave them alone now. That's when Ashley approached me and Debi and said, "So are you guys going back to San Francisco today?" *shock* Not only did Ashley remember who we were, but HE asked US a question! We told him no, we were staying another day, and he told us to enjoy the rest of our vacation in Vegas. He also told us AGAIN that we needed to come see THEIR show, and when we said that they needed to bring it farther west, he said, "Believe me, I'm the biggest supporter of coming to Northern California." It was very very cute. We said our good byes and away they went. Our only other sighting of note was seeing Erik coming downstairs from the casino with Jacob's brother (at least that's who we THINK it was) about a half an hour later. We didn't talk to them and just let them do their thing, which was to wander through the crowd in the lobby before catching a taxi outside. We still had over 24 hours left in Vegas, but our celebrity stalking adventure ended there. No more signs of anything Carter or O-Town related, blonde or otherwise. Thanks to everyone who read this whole saga, parts 1, 2, and 3. I know it was long, but I wanted to share. Like I said, you are the only people I have to tell. Again, thanks for letting me ramble. I'm done for now... until our next adventure. :) |
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