| Las Vegas March 1-3, 2002 |
| This is the looooooooooooooong version of the events last weekend with Nick and Aaron (and a little bit of Dream Street). I've literally been typing this up ALL WEEK. There is no short way to give all the details (it was basically 12 hours of non-stop Carter encounters), so you can sit back and relax because this is going to take a while. With all honesty, some of the stuff that was said I'm keeping to myself out of respect for Nick, Aaron, Mike, and anyone else involved and because of the respect I think I EARNED from them this weekend. Forgive me if I make little things seem like major events, but to me they ARE major events. I hope this translates ok into words, but really you HAD to be there. Remember, this is just what *I* experienced and how *I* perceived things. On Friday night Debi and I realized that airports/airlines hate us. Our flight was delayed over two hours, the lady next to me in the plane was annoying and fidgety, the flight attendant WOKE US UP to ask if we wanted anything to drink... GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! We decided that at midnight our luck HAD to change, and luckily it did. :) Because of our airport delay, we ended up checking in to the hotel (where Aaron's concert was) just after midnight. As we were checking in, I spotted Frankie, Matt, and Greg from Dream Street wandering around the lobby. (the DS guys were actually roaming around freely all weekend, no security, just totally normal) I NEVER would have recognized them if I didn't see them open for Aaron in SJ the previous weekend, and I didn't even know their names at the time. But we took it as a sign that our luck had in fact changed just liked we hoped. After we checked in we decided that we needed to get the lay of the land, so we went exploring the hotel for a few hours. In that process we also saw Jesse from DS (he used to play JR on All My Children so he's the only one we knew lol) walking around with his family. We actually followed him and his bodyguard into the elevator because #1 it was the same elevator we needed to use to get to our room and #2 we wanted to find out what floor they were on. YES, we will stalk ANYONE. lol Throughout the course of the weekend we found out that Jesse was a MAJOR brat though. Anyway, after a couple of hours of exploring, we called it a night with high hopes for the next day. Saturday morning we had some "tourist" things we wanted to do, so we visited some of the other hotels on the Strip. Debi and I had both been to Vegas MANY times, but there were some things we HAD to do while we were there this time. *wink* One of our stops was the Virgin Megastore in the Forum Shops at Caesar's Place. On our way down the escalator from the video/DVD section upstairs, I spotted Chris from DS walking through the store. Again, I didn't know his name and NEVER would have known it was him except he was dressed, shall we say, conspicuously -- huge orange sunglasses, loud pants and shirt (almost like it was a stage outfit), and his trademark super spikey hair. Debi and I followed him down the aisle, but he turned and left just as we got there. Now here's the HYSTERICAL part -- we checked to see what he had been looking at... it was THE DREAM STREET CD!!!!! LMAO He was checking out his OWN cd. That alone was enough to keep us amused for a couple hours. Debi and I continued on to a few other hotels and returned to our own hotel a little after 3 pm. That's when the REAL fun began. :D As we walked through the lobby to scope out any activity at the elevators, we overheard two older teenage girls and their parents say something about Aaron, so Debi and I eavesdropped. lol Then they mentioned Nick so I had to speak up. I asked them what they were talking about and they told us that Nick had arrived at the hotel about 10 minutes earlier and they had gotten autographs and pictures with him. He had gotten into an elevator (with Angel, whom these girls thought was Nick's GIRLFRIEND! LOL) but he said he'd be back down. *THUD* You could have knocked us over with a feather! #1 Nick was THERE in Vegas, which meant he was probably going to perform with Aaron at the show that night, and #2 we had a chance to meet him. There are NO WORDS to describe the way we were feeling at that moment. Luckily we were prepared for this posibility (though we TRIED not to get our hopes up), so we had our cameras on hand and Nick pics to be autographed. We planted ourselves in the elevator area to wait (saw Angel with Tequila, Aaron's new puppy, and that's when we found out the girls thought she was Nick's gf). About 20 minutes later Nick appeared coming out of an elevator with Mike Self and they were both still carrying their bags on their shoulders. For some reason I was UNUSUALLY BOLD all day and night -- heck, it was NICK -- so I walked up to him and asked if he had time to stop. Mike said that they had a problem with their rooms and needed a few minutes to take care of it but that they'd be back. So we let them be and waited again. About 15-20 minutes later, this guy who was hanging around waiting for Nick with a stack of 8x10 glossies to be autographed (he said he does this all the time) said that Nick was coming around the elevators from another direction, so we tried to head him off. Sure enough, Nick and Mike were trying to sneak past the elevators all together heading down one of the main corridors. Nick was playing with the buttons on his cell phone as we approached him, but he stopped for us when I asked if he had time to sign. (again, how on earth my legs moved towards him and my mouth acutally formed coherent sentences, I'll never know!) He took my pen and signed autographs for all of us waiting (only like 5 or 6 people). I asked him if he was performing with Aaron that night and he said he didn't know. (yeah right!) I also asked if he had time to pose for pics but he said he needed to pick something up and he'd be back, so yet again we let him go about his business and waited patiently. Again about 15 mintues later the guy who was waiting near us signaled that Nick was coming from yet ANOTHER differnet direction (that boy must've had escape routes mapped out or something), so again we snagged Nick and Mike's attention. I asked Mike if they had time to stop for pictures now, but Nick answered, "Ya know what, I've been carrying this stuff aaaaaaaaaaaaallllllll day" (trust me, the way he said it was cute) and told us that he needed to go upstairs to put his stuff down. (they were still carrying their bags from like 45 minutes before) So AGAIN we waited for Nick's return. In the meantime, Angel again surfaced wandering around carrying Tequila, an adorable shitzu puppy. I got her attention and asked her if that was Tequila and she said yeah and walked over to us. She was extremely friendly, let us pet the dog, talked to us for a minute or two. Cute girl, she doesn't look like she's 14 either. After that, Debi planted herself on the floor and I leaned on a pillar *wink* near the elevators, still in shock that we had seen and spoken to Nick not once but THREE TIMES in less than an hour. Finally around 4:15 Nick and Mike again came out of the elevator (without their bags this time lol) and Nick walked right over to me and Debi. I asked him if he had time for pictures now, and he said sure. Of course, the other 2 or 3 fans that were waiting around too jumped in to take pics with him before Debi and I had a chance to. Debi said he didn't smile for their pics. lol Then Debi jumped in for a pic, and while I was fumbling with the camera, Nick motioned to me like "come here" and said, "Both y'all." I don't remember what he smelled like -- he didn't smell like anything I guess. I don't really remember what he felt like either. All I was thinking was, "DON'T BLINK! This is your ONE chance, don't blow it!" Another fan took pics of the two of us with Nick using both of our cameras, and I told Nick and Debi which camera to look at when. lol I was like Kevin -- "First this one then that one." Both pics turned out really well, and he SMILED for US. Then Nick and Mike walked away in the direction of the venue, but some other fans stopped them part way down the hall for pics and autographs. As he was posing with them I walked over to snap a few more pics and he was basically staring me down, kind of smirking and looking right at me waiting for me to take my pictures rather than paying attention to the fans right in front of him. Then the guy who had been waiting around for Nick and helping us before asked me if I'd take a pic of him with Nick. After posing with the girls Nick started to walk away, but I called him back and said, "NICK, there's one more person who wants a picture" and he turned back around to talk to the guy. Nick actually seemed kind of surprised at first that it was A GUY who wanted to meet him. So Nick posed with the guy and as I was taking the pic I said, "SMILE!" I don't know why that strikes me as funny, that I told Nick to smile, but it just makes me giggle. :) So then Nick and Mike walked away towards the venue, and Debi and I ran upstairs to our room to call our friends and scream. lol Phase 2 Back to Concert Reviews and Encounters The Carter Factor Homepage The Carter Factor Yahoogroup |
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