Sammy's Party Recap

Last weekend was Sammy's triennial birthday bash. I, unfortunately, only made it to the last night of this festivity but I can tell you that it was a kick-ass throwdown. Tons of people came, there was plenty of booze and food, and the setting was absolutely perfect.

I took off early Saturday afternoon from Boston in Ian's V-dub. I was a little spaced out from working till 10:30 the night before and then going in to work that morning again. By the time we were flying up I89 at 100mph my head was clear and I was smiling. God bless radar detectors. Ian and I made it up to the party in great time and you couldn't ask for a nicer day!

When we got to the party everyone was already in the midst of it. There was bocce and beer pong going on in the upper field, with a contingent down at the watering hole swimming. I couldn't believe how perfect everything was. Sammy had rented a great house in rural VT with plenty of room for drunken revelers and all the amenities we would need. There was a keg on ice and a fully stocked bar. Sammy even flew in Mike Hogan from Streamline to partake in the party and play a set. More on that later

Sammy thought up the idea of competing for King and Queen of the party and so we had lots of scored competitions. Since I got there late the first one that I saw in entirety was the 2 minute speeches. These could either be prepared remarks or random topics drawn from a hat. There were some good ones and some terrible ones, all accompanied by much jeering from the crowd. I think Alvarez won the competition with an excellent speech about the topics "Batman vs. Superman" and "The Cuban Missle Crisis". Sammy's mother also gave a great speech, and despite much posturing that it was not her intention, scored many points toward Queen of the Party. My side was hurting from laughing so hard after all the speeches were done.

From there the party took its normal course until dusk when Mike Hogan started playing. He played some Streamline classics and was totally rockin! I think he started to catch on to the vibe of the party somewhere halfway through and started just fooling around in an amazingly musical and poetic way. Some featured songs were Freebird (to please the audience), Scotty Doesn't Know (Eurotrip + some improv from Mikey), and a total improv song about me, Farrell, and Aucter. My only regret about the party is that I do not have a recording of Mikey playing because he was fucking awesome.

The rest of the party I was really drunk so I'm not even going to try to string it into any kind of a timeline. Here are a few things that happened:

• Midnight Swimming. I'm not sure what time we actually went but we went swimming in the watering hole, naked. I jumped off the ledge and it was cold but oh so refreshing. Thor Hushovd passed out in the bushes (I bet he has poison ivy) and supposedly Liz fell down on some rocks. I have only vague memories of all of this but I do know that the whole thing reeked of awesome.

• Boxed Wine Stands. This did not work at all. It was actually bag of wine stands and just chugs and the wine got all over everything. I spilled wine on one of Sammy's friends (SORRY!).

• Bobbing for Beer. After the keg was gone we dumped a bunch of beer bottles in the trash can and I decided that the best way to get them out of the icey water was by bobbing for them. I came up soaked to my shoulders with a beer clenched in my teeth. Kronik also participated in this truly American passtime.

Me right after bobbing for a beer.

Over all this was a kickass time and a great job organizing it by Sammy. I had so much fun catching up with people, cutting loose, and enjoying VT. I was there at the party for less than 24 hours but is seemed like forever.

Edit: Added the picture of me bobbing for beers