It sure did happen, yes indeed.
Saturday started off innocently enough. I dragged my ass out of bed, checked my e-mail right quick, then drove down to Atlanta Airport to meet up with panamaus before he flew off to Los Angeles. Upon arriving at the Atlanta Bread Company inside the airport's Atrium (What? an atrium in an airport?), I discovered panamaus, jessicapierce, WonkoDSane, and ccunning ready to sit down. We sat, talked, and waited until panamaus had to depart.
After panamaus wandered off to his gate, us remaining noders went our separate ways, each agreeing to meet back up around 15:00 at Spackle's place. 15:00 comes, and I find a parking space on Centennial Olympic Park drive or whatever, and I make my way over to the building where I see several people talking. Observing the people, I see them all shaking hands in meet-and-greet style with people who have come downstairs from above. I figure these people probably have never met before, and they might just be noders. I wander over and say "I'm sorry... noders?", to an exhuberant "YES!" reply. We go upstairs to Spackle's apartment, and discover already present noders.
I make my entrance and introductions, and take my place among the conversations. Soon, more noders arrive, and the gathering has graduated to "full-effect mode". Once all have arrived, we shift gears and head to R. Thomas for dinner.
After some table-shifting, we all sit down to a snake-like arrangement of tables. Our server, "Ryan", (who looks a lot like Dido) did an outstanding job, and the food was very yummy. I got a portabello mushroom sandwich with a side of greens. The "freak-salt" they provided on the tables (made of sea salt, and various ground-up veggies) was actually pretty tasty.
Gamaliel does not like Zucchini.
There was a wine glass making the rounds around the table, and it contained a wine called "Fat Bastard". I found it amusing that the wine label, with its classic clipart picture of fruit, had the words "Fat Bastard" written in semi-elegant letters.
The bill, which incidentally was Ryan's largest bill ever, came to around $550 and change. She was pretty happy with the results of her hard work, and again, she did a fantastic job. She even managed to work a little bit of humor and happiness with her work.
In the parking lot of R. Thomas, we decided our next stop was going to be Dave & Buster's. Riding with piq and O-Swirl, we accidently miss the exit due to my miscalculation. We turn around at the next exit, and catch it on the way back. No problem.
Games are played, and I meet up with some friends from my former place of employment including my old boss. We part ways, and we find our way to the pool tables. Pool is played for the rest of the time spent at D&B's, and we finally make our way back to Spackle's place. dann and WonkoDSane play several energetic games of Foosball, and the night concludes. Segnbora-t's transport to her hotel room bailed eariler, but since their hotel is about 2 minutes from my apartment, I happily give her a lift there.
It was planned for breakfast to happen at Waffle House on Sunday, and Spackle said the best place would be the Waffle House on Howell Mill Road. Shortly after, he second-guessed and said "actually, I don't think it's on Howell Mill. It's on Northside Drive.", later retracting that and saying "No, it's definitely on Howell Mill. Go there."
Unfortunately, there's a Waffle House on both of those exits. (Would you expect any less from interstate exits?) Segnbora-t and I end up at the correct (heh) Waffle House on Howell Mill, while the rest of the breakfast contingent finds their way to the wrong House on Northside Drive.
With time to kill before her flight, Segnbora-t and I head to Underground Atlanta and subsequently, the World of Coca-Cola. We learned that some international sodas are really nasty, and that the entire world has their Coca-Cola delivered in nothing but glass Coca-Cola bottles. (Except England. They only have Diet Coke cans.)
I dropped Segnbora-t off at the security checkpoint at 2:30 because of the oddly long lines, and then headed back to my car to go home.
Another fun E2-Atlanta weekend for all!
Pictures: http://www.accipiter.org/gallery/browser/index.pl?album=mars
Quick note: Spackle say "Call me on my Cell Phone!", then leaves said phone off all day. BAD SPACKLE. THAT'S A BAD SPACKLE. *hits with stick*