Since the creation of social media there have been warnings of "You spend too much time on there you're going to miss out on life" and "Those aren't your real friends." I'm not saying these aren't true, but I know that this is not always the case. It's a fact of life that I'm on Twitter all the time. If its a big sporing event or an F1 race your timeline will be taken over by my hundreds of tweets and retweets. Another thing I do a lot on Twitter is reply/have conversations. Now here's where someone could ask "Have you ever talked to them in real life before?" and sometimes the answer is no.
There is a special case that I want to talk about. Right before school started I ended up following a bunch of people that would also be attending BYU for the fall semester. I didn't really know who they were but figured there might be some connections made. There were a few people whose tweets I favorite and there was some conversation but nothing much from that original group. Then things started to change. I had noticed that one of the girls whom I'd almost never interacted with on Twitter was talking about Finance. Turns out we were in the same class after I DMed her saying "I just saw your finance tweet. I think we're in the same class" and then left it at that. Then I accidentally showed up to finance when it was cancelled and messaged her asking if class was canceled. It was awkward. But then about a week later in marketing we had a guest speaker and it was almost unbearable to sit through so I took to Twitter. Turns out Hannah (finance girl) was in the class and also suffering. Then her friend Lindsey also started tweeting about it and together we got through the "Drink the water with the gold" speech. Even after that we were in each other's mentions a lot and eventually Hannah (a different Hannah) encouraged me to slide into Lindsey's DMs. After a legendary approach I got her number and the conversation led to an invite to sit with her and Hannah in marketing. I'll admit it was a little awkward at first, I had only seen them one time before at a BYU basketball game where we tried to figure out if it was really the other person and then some smiles and waves. But after I stained my hands after a bunch of M&Ms melted in them things got better. We had plenty more fun in marketing. We hung out a little outside of marketing like watching the BYU @ Gonzaga game, being forced to spill srirache water on the table, then spontaneously going to the dollar theatre to see Mockingjay. On March 1st Nathan brought up the idea of "wouldn't it be fun if we went to Vegas?" and I of course jumped on the idea. The only problem was we had no way of getting there. I then texted Hannah not only did she have a car but she and her group of friends would make for an entertaining roadtrip. I was a little surprised when she agreed. I then found out where to get tickets and we made plans to leave Saturday morning for Vegas. Now if you haven't been following the story, we had really only known each other for about 2 and half weeks and now we're going to be in car for over 12 hours total (t's kind of like driving to Draper at 4am with people you've only known for 14 hours). The drive, while a little Beyonce and Taylor Swift heavy, was actually really fun; We stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch in St. George. We were lucky enough that Hannah had some family friends in Vegas so we had a place to sleep that night. The unlucky part was that they had Nathan and Me in a room with a full size bed. Nathan saw the bed and immediately said "I'm sleeping on the floor." We had some time before the game so we went to Bahama Bucks (A Texas company!) and then Walmart to buy sign making supplies. On Twitter the ROC was promoting free triple doubles (because Kyle Collinsworth) at In-N-Out so of course we were going to go there. The burgers were great but the awkward and uncomfortable interview wasn't. I mean some media outlet just put a camera in our faces while we were eating and it was not the best. We then made our signs, which I was pretty proud of. We had the "We Want Kentucky" and "For what it's [Collins]worth, Pangos is not P.O.Y." Those signs got plenty of attention at In-N-Out and the game. We were finally ready for the game, but here's the thing about where it was. It was in a casino and it felt like they just added on a high school gym for little events. But we still enjoyed both games we got to watch and an added bonus we made a whole lot of Gonzaga fans upset with our Pangos sign. After nearly 5 hours at the end of the game our signs finally got on the big screen and we got plenty of applause. After the game we went to the strip. Norm's travel tip; Don't go to the strip after midnight because it is not a place you want to wander around in (the price of cocaine was actually pretty nice). So after a very bad experience on the strip we went to the temple. Well we tried to go to the temple but ended up at a normal church building pretty far away from the actual temple, but eventually we made it. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about my experience there, but it was a very powerful and personal spiritual experience sitting outside that temple for an hour in silence just thinking and praying. The drive back the next day was uneventful except for Hannah's frightening but highly entertaining road rage against the 18 Wheelers and other stupid drivers. Looking back almost 2 weeks later I still can't believe we made that spontaneous trip. If it wasn't for Twitter I wouldn't have been able to experience it and I wouldn't have made such great friends. Just like Marshawn Lynch, I'm thankful. Thankful for friends and thankful for Twitter.
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March is one of the best and worst months of the year. Best because F1 is back but also it's March Madness. Worst because it is March Madness and my grades are going to suffer. I read an article by Ryan Bennion (someone I follow on Twitter) and he explained why he was not filling out his bracket even though he loves sports. While it was well written (read here) I have to disagree. Brackets are what makes March Madness so great. The trick is to not get too attached to your bracket. It may be the Suns and Lions fan inside that allows me to deal with losing and disappointment after high expectations. Brackets are really a social endeavor and it's fun to take some time and play against your friends. Yeah I want my bracket to be right, but I always want to enjoy the games. Of course I'll be cheering for cinderella teams and upsets all the way, as a matter of fact I've already bought an SFA shirt. It's like why I played fantasy football, it's part social and part engaging. I found that by keeping up with my fantasy team I could better follow the NFL and the same holds true for this bracket. I make a bracket and it forces me to pay close attention to all the games. There's a good chance my bracket is just plain wrong, and that's ok because I'll still be enjoying all the games no matter what.
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Austin "Apex" SteeleSports. Cars. Sports cars. Archives
January 2018
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