Wednesday night, Melissa and I had our annual New Years Party. It was a really good time. There was plenty of folks, fun, and drama.

Melissa and I spent a lot of time getting the house ready for the party. The work spanned over a couple of weekends. We cleaned out our planters, cleaned out the rain gutters, hung lights, pressure cleaned, layed a lot of new mulch, hung drapes, painted, and did all of the typical short term fixes to make everything nice.

The day of the party, my long time friend / brother, Chris showed up quite early. He had told me he’d be there early. However, I’m known as an absent minded professor type for a reason, and I forgot he’d mentioned that to me.

So, Chris hung out while I mowed the yard. Then we went to Total Wine to pick up the keg, and he picked up a bunch of champagne. We also picked up rental chairs / tables from a place downtown.

I invited my neighbors. They’re all good to me, so it felt natural to have them over (plus, if folks were parking in their yard, the least I could do was offer them a beer).

It turns out that one of my neighbors isn’t doing so well. He’s a little older, so I never figured that he was sick. It turns out he has cancer, and doesn’t get out as often anymore. He showed up with his wife and daughter, and I’m really glad they came. They were a lot of fun to have around. They’re good folks, and I’m glad they’re my neighbors.

We had an unexpected guest arrive shortly into the night. Little Kaydon was dropped off on his layover back to his place. He’s a funny kid. I know it sounds cliche, but he is growing up really fast. He runs around now, and probably weighs as much as kids in grade school. He’s a verbal kid too, which means he definitely takes after his mom

Alex and Mike (who recently proposed to Alex) came by early. They were staying the night in our honeymoon suite. They live in Boston (bastard Patriot fans), and were down for the holidays. I suspect the much warmer weather was a welcome change of pace for them.

There aren’t many folks from that area that I can say I like. Mike however, is a really good dude. I always catch myself, trying to speak to his level. So, I’m really glad he’ll be around for a while.

He says he want’s to go bass fishing sometime. Apparently, the fresh-water fishing in the greater Boston area isn’t that good. Well, I can think of a few more things around there that ain’t so hot either.

After that, Trinit, Taylor, Carly, April, Hal and Jason, showed up. That’s the group that Melissa and I get into trouble with. They’re all a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with. They all know quite well how to party. Aside from Chris, Mike and Alex, that group was the only other one to spend the night. I’m glad they did too, ’cause they were all hammered.

Mardi and Tony arrived shortly after, with Tony’s longtime friend Eric (a fellow software developer). Tony came in with a bottle of Glenmorangie, a premium whiskey he’d been raving about for months. I was on a Guinness kick all night, so I didn’t have any. However, he left me the bottle. So, whenever the sound of alcohol doesn’t turn my stomach anymore, I’m definitely gonna give it a shot.

Mickey and Megan (Melissa’s sister) came out next. Mickey recently had surgery, so he wasn’t up for drinking. He’s a good guy though, and can chill out regardless. Megan got a bit rowdy, which is uncharacteristic of her. So, it was awesome.

I owe Megan (and her Mom), a website as a Christmas gift. Megan’s a Full Sail graduate with a degree in Digital Media. She’s a graphics girl though (like her mom), so I think her website is gonna be pretty rad.

I’m pretty sure Bender came out after. Bender (the only NFi showup?), has been a great friend for a while now. His childhood beer funnel has been at my house since last year’s party. Surprisingly, I don’t think anyone used it this year.

Regardless, Bender put his two cents into beer pong, and proved once again why he’s an awesome friend to have.

Dan and Kristina came next. They too are also recently engaged. They’ve been together for years, and we were all wondering when the inevitable would finally happen. They too, are a lot of fun to hang out with, as many of the pictures show.

Kristina and Megan, turned out as Beer Pong champs for the night. I can’t explain how funny it is to see two pretty girls kicking everyone’s ass at what seems like a more manly sport.

Next up was the Hydra crew. Bobby and Halley (+ her buddy, whose name I don’t recall), Rob, Parker,Parler and Heather, and Shayne came out. Those guys have been amazing to me since I’ve started at Hydra, so I was really happy they came out. To be completely honest, much of the work I did to the house was an attempt to impress Bobby, my boss. He’s a super cool guy, but he’s also a perfectionist (really). He has a beautiful house, and I was hoping to compare.

I’m still a little bent that Zach didn’t show, but hey, whatever.

After that it’s a bit of a blur. I know I saw, Shandyn and Eric, Amanda and Bill, Dave and Sarah, John and a couple of friends of Dave (whose name also escapes me) were there. By the time those guys came out though, I was into double-digit territory on pints of Guinness. Hopefully I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself.

Oh wait… I did

So, Bill lost his wedding band in his backyard. He asked me if I had a flashlight, to help him find it. The first flashlight I could think of, was the weapon light mounted to my M-4. So, I grabbed the weapon, and used it as a flashlight in the backyard. It seemed like a completely plausible idea, to help out my friend. I did notice some hesitation on the part of folks in the area, which I wasn’t understanding of.

So, I fired the rifle.

5 shots rang out in rapid order (all aimed at the ground). Immediately Jason came over and told me (in a very calm manor), “Dude, it’s time to put the gun away”. Since I don’t live in the sticks anymore, I figured cops would be at the house shortly, so I agreed.

Melissa was not happy.

We got into a fight in our bathroom. She pushed me into the tub, and I grabbed her by the neck to get her to stop. We argued for a bit, and it was horrible. We were both drunk, and letting out the built up frustrations that a marriage can put on folks. By the end of the night, we were fine. It took some cooling off to get there though.

There were tons of good parts of the party too though. We all played a lot of beer pong, folks were dancing in the living room, and my infamous shoulder pads got around. A few people wound up naked, and a few more needed the toilet for reasons the toilet wasn’t designed for.

A number of people didn’t show up (all of Push, Zach, NFi ?), but I still had a great time. With a much smaller group than I had anticipated, we still killed the keg. I have almost no leftover alcohol (except that Glenmorangie ).

So, to all of you that came out; Thank you. Everyone was great. Thank all of you for being so awesome.

More thanks go to Chris, who helped me clean up the next day, he even helped my find the rifle casings from my little, ‘incident’.