NPC Nationals 1998
by -jabber
Friday evening...


Well, there 'was' a Men's Prejudging held the night before (Friday evening)
but you know the -jabber didn't bother with that one.  Both Hooligan (who
I'd met for the first time at the Women's Strength Extravaganza '98 in NJ)
and I were to meet at the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, and then share
expenses while in Atlanta.  You know, conserve money and only spend it when
you have to (like on $75 tickets and other things...).  

Hooligan had given me a hard time about when I went to NJ (flying in and
out of  Philadelphia to meet Lisa Houston for lunch on the way back -
unfortunately she had the flu that week and those plans were shot to shit)
how I missed my morning flight from Dallas.  Point is, with the horrendous
Dallas morning traffic, it took longer to drive from the NE end of the
Metroplex to the DFW airport than it took to drive from Philadelphia all
the way across the teeny state of NJ to Hackensack (which I maintain sounds
like a cheap grocery store chain!).

So, poetically, although Hooligan took a day off from work, he still missed
his afternoon flight from NY down to Atlanta for the Nationals!  At the
airport, since my flight was to arrive later than Hooligan's, I frantically
dashed to his baggage claim since he wasn't at my gate (briefly stopping to, 
back to my gate in case we crossed paths, back to baggage claim, kept on
having him paged (with a bunch of unsavory characters answering to the page
of Hooligan - ha!), but no Hooligan. Anyway, why did the guy not page me? 
I gave him my pager number for just such instances...

Finally, I figured 'oh' well and headed off to the hotel I selected (NOT
the host hotel Marriott Marquis, as that was another way to save money).
Finally met up with Hooligan there!  Whew, I actually forgot I told him
where cheapskate -jabber was staying. :-)  Actually it wasn't half bad.
Friday evening we went to the host hotel just to see who was milling around
(muscle-people watching).  

First person I saw, Nicole Bass came running over to the -jabber saying,
"Oh great, someone to crack my back!"  Whatever she was doing, her back
'was' tight that evening. :-)  I said hello to Bill Jentz (who I'd
personally met for the first time in NJ - knew him by face for years
though) who in turn introduced me to John Nafpliotis (also knew by face for
years), both of Women's Physique World fame.  I'd spotted a bunch of other
cute bodies milling around that evening, too.

Perhaps the cutest was the great Andrulla Blanchette, who I knew via chat
and occasional email and vice versa, but she wouldn't have recognized me. I
didn't interrupt her Friday evening to introduce myself as she was having a
conversation with Charles Peoples from 'The Valkyries' site (met him in NJ
for the first time, too).  Later when I did meet Andrulla, she said I
should've interrupted and introduced myself earlier... :-)

Well, a good night's rest was in order for the -jabber if he was to take
pictures of the NPC Nationals for the Diana the Valkyrie's web site, as he
did for the WSE '98 in NJ.  Sustenance was obtained for Hooligan and myself
by a quick stop (the first stop of many) in one of the many, many 24-hour
Waffle Houses that dot the city of Atlanta like no other. Interestingly,
although it was in a decent part of town, we witness a verbal altercation
between a non-paying customer (male) and a couple of the waitresses behind
the counter.  How I wished a female customer (cute as hell - why was she
out alone at that hour?) would've put a stop to his nonsense. :-)  Instead,
our 'waiter' took it upon himself to put a stop to the nonsense, this
delaying our 'quick' bite to eat immeasurably.