<--Southern Hospitality I flew down to Charlotte on the 20th for practice. When I got to the airport I called Justin from the Charlotte team to see if he could give me a ride to a location closer to the I-85 where Marc's dad from the D2 team would pick me up in his RV. Since I had a little bit of time in between my first lift, I took the shuttle bus from the airport to downtown Charlotte. Charlotte is quite beautiful! I spent a good portion of the day in the Bank of America building reading "The five people you meet in heaven"(definitely worth reading btw). Justin picked me up a little later and brought me back to his place which was closer to highway. When I told him that the airline had lost my bags, he lent me some pants, a t-shirt and some socks. I thought that was really awesome of him since I had just met him! Justin had to go to a wedding and the RV gang hadn't arrived yet so he dropped me at the Concord Mills Mall where I spent the afternoon. This mall is incomparable in size to anything I have seen in Canada, just to give you an idea, they don't call their sections….well sections they call them neighborhoods! I went to Nike town to buy a new pair of cleats and I was lucky to find a sick pair of football cleats for only 10$ After of few hours, most of them spent in Bass Pro Shop (love that store) The RV gang picked me up. I must of looked a little crazy when I got in the RV because I was definitely shocked at how much space and how cool one of those trailers are! Marc’s dad had the RV fully equipped with an expanding living room, bedroom, satellite internet and tv. This thing was rock star material. I got to meet some of my teammates from the D2 squad Marc, Jaimie, Steven and Brian. Most of them are from team Triad except for Jaimie who played with Authority. As I’ve reported previously Triad was a great team with great players and I’m happy they all jumped aboard onto Gridlock as it just makes us stronger. We spent the night at friends of Marc’s dad. Because the practice had been changed to not mandatory due to the threat of really cold weather and believing no one would show up, we went out looking for a closed Gold mine that we were told was nearby the cottage. We never did find it but we did see lots of dead deer. In the morning we were treated to a full course breakfast by Mr.Marc's friends. They even prepared a side plate of potatoes thinking I wouldn't eat Grits. Thinking we would make the best out of the weather we headed out to practice and to our surprise most of Gridlock had shown up. I borrowed equipment from various people and did the practice. After practice Rob Staudinger of Baltimore Trauma, gave a speech about the formation of the Gridlock program and what it means to be in it. It was definitely quite compelling and it encouraged me to focus on my goals and keep pushing harder and further. Slasher from D2 gave me a ride back to the airport and we talked about the coming season and each of our own plans for the future. After having met all these great players and people I am really glad I took the decision to join Gridlock. I can’t wait for the L.A Open as I know Gridlock will tear it up!