Anatomy of a 3 mile traffic jam in central Minnesota

For those of you not from the Brainerd Lakes Area, let me give you a picture of Fourth of July weekend here. Normally, there are approx. 20,000 residents here. In the summer, on an average week, it's probably up to 40-50,000 people counting snow birds and and vacationers. For the fourth? I'm guessing here, but I would say conservatively over 100,000 people descend on Brianerd, MN and the surrounding communities, probably more. Needless to say, traffic blows. Hard. There are some fun events that go on, like the parade, and some pretty dang sweet fireworks/ Beyond that, I could really live without this weekend.

No work during the rest of the weekend though, so I'll learn to live.

So I'm watching VH1/MTV right now, and they've got the Live 8 concerts on, and the one in London looks fricking sweet, and I have friends interning in London right now, and I'm really hoping they're in Hyde Park at the free show, and if they are it would be so insanely sweet.

I worked for about 5 hours this morning, and it wasn't too bad. Plus, my dad wasn't with me, so I get payed more. Nice.

Went to Coco Moon and Northwest Pizza last night with Aana and Ashley, which was fun. Then we tok our pizza to Whipple and had a picnic, which was even better, and Drew and Seth came too. Then we went to Erin's, lost Drew and Aana, gained Shane, and played Shout About Movies Vol 2, which was a ton of fun, and I would totally buy it if they weren't so expensive and/or had more than 3 games on them. Seth, Ashley, and I smoked Shane and Erin (not really, but we did win).

I've heard rumors of Crosslake fireworks tonight, but I'm not sure. And War of the Worlds is happening tomorrow afternoon. Good times.