Summer 2007 Explanation

The video follows a chronological order from Honda Civic Tour (May 23, 2007) to me coming to Philadelphia (August 22, 2007).

The first picture was taken in Kirsten's car at Rockwood Park in the side view mirrors. Yes, I am wearing two different pairs of sunglasses. Why? I don't know.

My brother has played baseball for the last 10 years and last year he played for Chesterfield Little League where they use the major league team names for the different teams and my brother just happened to have a Cincinnati Reds hat at home before he was "drafted" to the Reds in his league. So I wore it to the sun blinding games.

Honda Civic Tour was in Virginia Beach which is about two to two and a half hours from Richmond. The one and only day I ever skipped school was to go see this concert we had been planning since February. Jessica the driver and for some reason Kirsten was navigating because she was sitting in the front seat and printed the directions. We ended up finding London Bridge looking for Dam Neck while driving on Hooker... er... Holland. In this time I also became a man whore with a boating dog. When we got there at one (doors were at six), there were a few people but not as many as we expected. When gates opened we took off running and ended up being in the very front, right up against the barricade - every Fall Out Boy fan's dream. We danced to Cobra Starship, sang at the top of lungs, and threw our fangs up like it was our job. During Paul Wall we were a little bored because we are not fans with his music, but for some reason I am fascinated with grillz. In the one photo I have of his grillz, he did it once and I missed it and I shook my hand and shouted "NOOOOO!!!" He happened to see me do it and came back and smiled for me. Also, he gave away a free grill and I almost got it but looked away and someone else received my treasure. The Academy Is... was amazing, as usual. They have their music down pat and the singer William Beckett (Food Boy), is so graceful on stage you can't take your eyes off of him. He was in the Cobra pictures because of Cobra Starship's signature song "Snakes on a Plane" he is featured in it. +44 is a band with Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker from Blink - 182, so to be staring at them was incredible. It was even better when they played a Blink song, that may have excited the crowd more than Fall Out Boy (at least the ones who knew who Blink was). Front and center for Fall Out Boy. It was the second time seeing them ever, first seeing them as a full main stream band - yes I saw AND met them before they were all over MTV and owned their previous records before From Under the Cork Tree. To see people that you once "knew" in front of you changed was hard to accept but their songs still gave off the same energy as Joe seizure around and Pete jumped off of things. "Saturday" was the best, Pete standing on the barricade above us, being held by CharlieWarchief, being held by Dre. We were picking confetti out of our hairs all night.

My friend,Kirsten, and I ended up buying her a Guinea Pig randomly one day at the beginning of June. His name is Warchief; he is named after Fall Out Boy's former security guard; he is a silkie guinea pig - the yorkie of guinea pigs - his hair always grows so we must groom him.

I graduated from Monacan High School at the VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) Seigel Center on June 12, 2007. My friends (who weren't graduating) and family attended to scream my name as my obnoxiousness crossed the stage with a fake diploma in my hand. I had my graduation party where we blasted dance music and hardcore music from my brother's bedroom window to our front yard. Arrogance was in full effect as I said random things, played football, and ended up with blue icing on my foot.

After I graduated there were a few random days of nothing and insanity. Like the day we went to Wal Mart and I rode around on a princess tricycle and protected myself with a pizza frisbee.

My grandparents live in West Virginia so I spent a month there. My aunt gave me a much needed hair snip and covered up my roots with some color.

I spent a lot of time babysitting my high school journalism teacher's son Matthew. I was more than a babysitter I was his summer play date. He would tell me he was having the worst day of his life but later tell his mom that he had the best day of his life with me. He has these pop up tents which we would set up and fill up with stuffed animals and play board games with no room at all - because I take up half of the children's tent.

Random photos of me dying on my bedroom floor after Kirsten put reinforcements all over my face.

The "glamour shot" was for Kirsten's grandma to show off her make up styles for Mary Kay.

Going to the Outer Banks is a typical summer adventure of people from the RVA. Those are the beach houses and Kirsten's little sister,Georgia, walking along the Hatteras beach.

I honestly can not tell you what is going on in the next photo, somehow I am parallel to my wall. It is very awkward.

The roller coster is the Griffon at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg.

The lovely glare was in the Virginia Eye Institute while some random eye specialist was pressing things against Kirsten's blind eye.

Warped Tour 2007, it wasn't as intense as previous years where there was no time to see all of the bands that were there. The band the HOTLINE had just started promoting themselves off of Hidden In Plain View's fall. When we got there we instantly looked at the inflatable board to figure out who was playing and where. We had some extra time so we decided to find the guy who was in the HOTLINE that was on warped. I Instant Messaged him and found where he was and ended up slightly befriending the dirty, tattooed merch man/ bassist. A lot of the day was spent in the amphitheater making fun of the awful bands that we saw while keeping shaded from the heat. We saw New Found Glory play and were completely awesome in the front rocking out to the old New Found songs. After New Found Glory we got in line at their tent to meet them; took a dumb picture with Jordan Pundik (the singer); and moved on. Back under the amphitheater to make fun of more bands or harass Vince. We were making fun of one of the bands, Amber Pacific, when we realized that we actually liked them. And we ended up spending our last moments of the night at warped with them.

August 4, 2007, the busiest day of the summer. My brother was coming home from being in Florida with my dad and he was flying into DC. So, my mom and I drove the two hours to DC to go to the airport. Then on the way back my brother and I had some random bonding from the front seat to the back seat. Later on Christopher, my brother, Kirsten, and I were heading to Virginia Center Commons to go see the band Plain White T's play at the mall. When we got there, there was a ton of chaos in the mall trying to meet the one hit wonders (mainstream wise these guys are one hit wonders, in the actual "alternative music scene," they have been around for a while). We ended up missing the band play so we circled the mall looking for their van. Once we found it we relocated to that nearby area to spy. Only to realize that it was 100 degrees out in August with no hydration. We make a quick trip back in the mall to get water and when we come back out, the vans that we found were gone. We drove around the west end of Richmond searching anywhere for this band. We instant messaged our good friend Vince from Warped Tour and asked him where we should look. We had no luck and just went back to the mall and hung out 45 minutes away from home for nothing.

My brother has a unibrow. I pinned him down and plucked his eyebrows. He threw a big fit, but over break he begged me to fix them again.

(Hey) Christopher Gutierrez is the king of the internet and now a writer. He has self published two books and now tours around doing speakings and reading some from his books. He toured the south at the end of the summer and his first stop was Richmond on August 18, 2007. It was very inspirational to hear my hero speaking.

The back seat of my mom's car flips down and it opens to the trunk, so I though it would be a good idea to climb in it.

For some other good reason I thought it would be funny to climb in the dryer on the very last night at home in Richmond.

Is the next picture not just funny? Thanks South of the Border.

On August 24, 2007, my dad took me and my brother to a Phillies game because we're all baseball people, they were in town, and my brother's birthday is the 25th. I have one of their practice balls hanging out in my dorm.

The songs that are featured in the slideshow were "Bendy" by Hidden In Plain View and "Hit or Miss" by New Found Glory. Hidden In Plain View's final CD came out over the summer so I felt it was appropriate to have it in there for me, plus the words really fit with myself and even some of the images. "Bendy" works really well with the graduation images. I chose New Found Glory because when I think of summer I think of NFG. The song "Hit or Miss" is one of the most fun songs live and we were able to hear it at warped tour and even some of the words match the images. Especially in regard to Plain White T's and waiting too long to see them.