First we all met up on Friday Night in August at a hotel near Washington-Dulles
International Airport. We met in the lobby and exchanged greetings, mostly for
the first time. I had met Kathy O. before but not anyone else. The only person
absent at that time was Thor. He showed up later. Here is a picture from dinner
that night. From left to right are Stephanie (my then fiancee), myself, Joe Jaycee,
Mark Rothrock, Thor, Kathy O., Jody, Snowy, Tini and Dago. Alan is either hidden
behind Jody or is the one who took this picture. I don't remember.
After dinner, we all headed over to a Sports Bar named "Scrooples" across
the street. Here we talked, drank, smoked and a few did some dancing. This was
really a "Let's *really* get to know each other" party and was a very cool way
to spend a Friday night.
The next day, it was too hot to really go anywhere, so we stayed poolside at
the Holiday Inn across the street. More details of our lives were exchanged and
we relaxed and enjoyed the company we were in. The water felt great. I took
this picture of everyone else. (Mark was trying to hide.)
Finally, we decided to head into D.C. proper and get some dinner. At first,
we were planning on hitting the Old Ebbett Grill where we were to meet up with
Ross, an old friend of mine from High School. However, brilliant me never made
a reservation. (In truth, I had never needed one before.) Thus, we switched
plans and headed over to the Hard Rock Cafe. Here is a nice photo of us outside
waiting to get in. (Ross is second from the left. Also note that Joe Jaycee is
wearing an 80's Server Tee-Shirt and my tee-shirt says "Shut-Up And Vault!" Hey,
pole_vaulter84, right? Tini snapped this picture.)
After a hearty meal and three really bad renditions of "I Melt With You" we
headed over to Polly Esther's to re-live our misspent youth. We checked out the
70's bar upstairs and the 90's bar too. We quickly decided to avoid them both
like the plague. Instead we staked out a claim at one of the 80's bars and
only moved when we got up to dance to "Don't You Want Me." Here we are:
Of particular interest was Snowy and Tini putting on sunglasses at 11:00
p.m. Care to guess what song the DJ was playing at that time? (Note: Tini is
actually wearing my sunglasses which I loaned her.)
Finally the end drew near and people made their way back to the hotel and
the next day, we said our goodbyes and all promised to meet again next year,
hopefully with more friends from our favorite site on the Internet!