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BluePanda wrote:

I want golf cart races and OC competitions...

We almost had AMD lined up for an official sponsored OC competition a couple years ago but that fell though. Its just as well, the electrical infrastructural of the cottage probably couldn't handle it anyway.

zgirl wrote:

OH and one other thing. Someone else gets the Wasson Cup this year. You cannot keep giving it to the cook.

Awesome! 100% agree about The Cup. No back to back winners. I'm equally excited to see if it will be handed out for a win or for a fail.

Reservations have been made. Have no plans to slum it at the Microtel this year.

Captain Ned wrote:

Reservations have been made. Have no plans to slum it at the Microtel this year.

Which hotel?

idchafee wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

Reservations have been made. Have no plans to slum it at the Microtel this year.

Which hotel?

The Fairfield Inn off US 31.

You guys should do something more fun this year... Something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqyubVwOV7w&sns=em
Tesla coil kits are available for purchase from many places, if you're too lazy to make your own

JohnC wrote:

You guys should do something more fun this year... Something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqyubVwOV7w&sns=em
Tesla coil kits are available for purchase from many places, if you're too lazy to make your own

Well, when I win this Saturday's Powerball jackpot, I pledge that I shall spend the ensuing 5 months in obtaining a P-51D Mustang, getting a pilot's license and P-51 type certificate, and planning a mid-afternoon airshow punctuated by the holy sound of a Merlin engine in full boost.

Best. Plane. Ever.

Although the B2 that flew over one year was pretty sweet!

drfish wrote:

zgirl wrote:

OH and one other thing. Someone else gets the Wasson Cup this year. You cannot keep giving it to the cook.

Awesome! 100% agree about The Cup. No back to back winners. I'm equally excited to see if it will be handed out for a win or for a fail.

Maybe it should be like the Stanley Cup and get handed back and forth every year. I can see myself now, drinking champagne from the Wasson Cup.

drfish wrote:

Although the B2 that flew over one year was pretty sweet!

Yeah, that was pretty epic

drfish wrote:

Best. Plane. Ever.

I'd go for an Avro Lancaster and 4 Merlins except for the fact that the only one still flying is owned by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and is somewhat unobtanium.

Besides, even if I won on Saturday I'm not sure I'd have enough time to lose enough fat to even shinny into the cockpit of a P-51 in time for BBQ.

idchafee wrote:

Maybe it should be like the Stanley Cup and get handed back and forth every year. I can see myself now, drinking champagne from the Wasson Cup.

Hmm, maybe the Wasson Cup needs a Deed of Gift (just like Lord Stanley's punchbowl and the America's Cup). Someone better bring a laptop so that we can get all of the requirements down as they're crowd-sourced.

wow... i've been away far too long... months? lol i don't even recall! anyways, glad to see this thread is alive again (gunna reply to drfishs other thread next) and i'll be there with wife (hopefully) on the 17th! so excited!

i'll check back here for more updates as they progress...

thegleek wrote:

wow... i've been away far too long... months? ...........

Now I know why you haven't been banned yet..........again.

POW! ZING! Trash talk is starting early this year.

Well this is tempting...

Of course when you can already make these whenever you want it's not quite as cool:



Many thanks to sis_of_fish for the artwork! And yes, it's to scale...

If we have that at the beach, we need a loud stereo with the Jaws theme music looping

Checks post count....

Are lurkers invited?

Dposcorp wrote:

If we have that at the beach, we need a loud stereo with the Jaws theme music looping

Jaw's? For a whale? I guess we could make one with a Great White drawn on it...

Questar wrote:

Checks post count....

Are lurkers invited?

You bet!

Questar wrote:

Checks post count....

Are lurkers invited?

All of my posts are from this thread every year. Your one totally counts.

drfish wrote:

Dposcorp wrote:

If we have that at the beach, we need a loud stereo with the Jaws theme music looping

Jaw's? For a whale? I guess we could make one with a Great White drawn on it...

The theme from "Free Willy" just wouldn't seem right

Dposcorp wrote:

The theme from "Free Willy" just wouldn't seem right

And the theme from Orca has no hint of malevolence.

*sigh*.....*pops neck*....I'm in this year.

Google maps gives me 1,451 miles from colorado to holland.
Sounds like another Iron Butt bike trip for me!

Well, we're approaching the two month warning and I've got some free time so let's see about getting this thread (and my mind) a little more organized. I'm starting to get a pretty decent picture of what things will look like for my family a couple months from now and how it will impact the BBQ... First of all I'm already out of vacation for the year so unlike previous years there will be no week off before the BBQ to slowly bring things to the cottage and set up, we're just talking mad dashes to drop off supplies a couple times the Wednesday and Thursday night before. Similar plan for getting everything cleared back out, not too big of a deal all told. Honestly the thing I would like the most is to free up my time during the BBQ, the setup and takedown shouldn't be too bad but silly endeavors like HatCam/LiveSteam and giant rafts take a surprising toll. With a total of two viewers of the LiveSteam last year and at least one of them coming this year I think I'll just kill that off completely. Jury is still out on the raft, I'm tempted to can it since it's not practical to outdo last year's and the water just doesn't seem to be that popular with much of our crowd anyway. What do you think???

Let's talk about Ellie a little bit... First of all she's doing really well but she still has a lot going on and many questions remain unanswered. Two months from now she may be on less or possibly even no extra oxygen which will make her a lot more portable for longer periods. I'd like to have her at the BBQ for awhile but she needs to be transported by two people everywhere and one of them has to be me or my wife so there are some logistics involved. I don't expect we'll be comfortable leaving her alone even with her night nurse so Mrs. Fish will only be at the BBQ for as long and it's appropriate for Ellie to be there as well. While she's there as long as Stacy or myself is with her it shouldn't be a big deal, she's all good.

Ok, so now I want to walk through the day/weekend from start to finish to see what will be happening that I might need help with...

1 ) Last year we did a pre-party at New Holland Brewing, this year I was thinking that we could instead (or in addition if you're so inclined afterward) we could host something at our house for early arrivals, we'll get pizza and, as long as someone tells me what to buy, some good beer as well. We had a lot of fun last time and liked seeing people early but it's not really practical for us to get out the night before this time around. Let me know what you think of that.
2 ) Morning starts as normal, I meet Kelli at the cottage early AM to get the ribs started, not a lot of surprises there.
3 ) People start to arrive a little before or after noon, make themselves comfortable, hang out.
4 ) We feast around 2:00.
5 ) We kick off the bean bag tourney as feasting winds down, Ian or some other keeper of the brackets manages the event.
6 ) Dp gets the hardware swap kicked into gear and runs that show.
7 ) Some people start to leave, others settle in for the second half of the BBQ...
8 ) Bonfire on the beach around 8:00, hot dogs and/or brats are roasted followed by Smores.
9 ) FIREWORKS and maybe some more paper lanterns are launched as the night winds down and people sit around the fire until they call it a night.
10 ) The next morning we sweep the property and beach for garbage, general clean up and people head out, maybe eat some breakfast first.

Heh... If a 10 step process to the perfect BBQ doesn't make you look like a nerd I don't know what does... Of course the entire time people are free to do as they please and any number of ancillary activities will be taking place, launching of potatoes at high velocities, consumption of homebrew, inhalation of fine smokables, blowing of large bubbles, group pictures, flaunting cool new toys, chasing tents and/or umbrellas door the beach, whatever...

What do I have to do? Well I need to edit my first post and start building the list of confirmed attendees and what they will bring. I need to order trophies for the tourney. I need to get charcoal for the grill since I'm the only person on site early enough to get it there when it's needed. I always seem to need to buy nametags and a new marker. I need to get a new foam board for the bracket to be drawn on. I need to bring my bean bag set to the cottage, also trash bags and Kelli's warming pans. Nothing too terribly difficult or time consuming. Maybe make a raft...

What do I want help with? Well I want some ideas for memes to have written on the trophies. I would like some ideas for ways to distribute any potential swag we may end up with (formalized BBQ achievements!). We need to decide on how the Wasson Cup will be awarded. I need to know from you guys what the BBQ must haves and ok to not haves are. I'd like to know any ideas you have to make the 10th BBQ particularly special (gerbil cake, dry ice in the lake, play with lasers, rent a boat?)...

Thanks for reading my ramblings... As we get closer all this stuff just starts rattling around in my head and I have to put it somewhere, this seemed the logical place...

Well if everything works out for me this year, I should be able to make it.

I only have a few things to add at this point.

1)Ellie comes first of course; the rest of us gerbils can fend for ourselves, so dont worry about it.

2) drfish, with you and your family having a bit more stuff going on at home, lets make the BBQ as simple as possible.......getting together with friends, food, drinks, and games is enough for me.
Anything else like bonfires, rafts, fireworks, etc.....is just a bonus.

I would also forget the live steaming, and if you really want photos, go instead with some kind of time lapse setup, augmented by random attendees taking and uploading pics throughout the day. Setup a shared upload site, even free, like dropbox or Windows live, and give everyone the name and password and we can all upload throughout the event.
It is easier on the limited bandwidth, too.

3)The schedule looks close to perfect, so lets plan on that, with maybe any hardware swap running at around the same time as the tourney, cause we have people standing around a lot near the beginning and end.

4)The Trophy - This may be wishful thinking, but I think it would be great to make it like Lord Stanley's Cup, and pass it around from now on.
Make it something that can be engraved, and we can buy a battery power engraver and do it on site.
If the winner cant make it the following year, he/she can mail it back.

Just a few thoughts.

There's some pretty huge appeal to being a little more low key and not constantly trying to outdo the previous year (I mean how far can we realistically go?)... ...but it is the 10th one so I'm equally tempted to really go all out at least one more time before "rebooting" the BBQ into less of an event and more of a casual gathering. I also want to make sure the people coming for "the big one" aren't disappointed. Hmmm...

http://www.centertrophy.net/trophies/me ... q82Pd10r1/

I hope Damage and company can make it again!

Nice!

This is where I have bought them from so far.

No response from Damage on email lately, obviously they have been super busy - but with everything coming out right now I would think late summer would be pretty open for travel??? Unless AMD has something new to show off... At any rate I'm hoping for a front page reminder sometime soon.

I think I'll be coming this year again - last year was awesome.

woot! I'm in (just in case you didn't see it previously)

[ √ ] I'll have my custom Kelli ™ bean bag set with me....

[ √ ] I'm muster up 12 bottles of special rare beers. And maybe 12 homebrew beers too... We'll see what I have in my inventory. Trading microbrews from other states was fun! be sure to bring some from your state!

[ √ ] There's always so much food, so I'll pack the minimal oddities like Kowalski or Dearborn hotdogs, flavoured hummus, tortilla chips & store-made guacamole (close enuff to homemade), and random foodstuffs.

[ √ ] random items for the swap meet louie/flea market area. not sure what yet.

[ ? ] as usual, the wife is unknown, with her work schedule we never know if she'll be available or not (yes, even with advanced notice)

[ √ ] oh yeah! i'll bring 2 folding tables with me (tables tables tables! we always need more tables!)

I'm there with:

Potato Cannon (hope there's a Meijer's on the north side of town for ammo supplies)
Cooler full of ice, VT beers, and bottled water (I promise not to bark my shin and bleed all over the proceedings all day/night)
A new tie-dye shirt
Anything else I'm asked to bring that I can collect at the aforementioned Meijer's.
My dorky boonie hat
Folding chairs
Folding camp table
My always overloud voice
Anticipation at meeting old friends and making new friends
Pointed argument as to the best-ever BIOS-implemented mobo fan speed controls
An appetite
Abysmal cornhole skills

Sounds like a great event to me.

We will be there Friday night. Fish if it would be easier on your family I can meet Kelli at the cottage early Saturday so you can be home a bit more that day. Wouldn't be a big deal at all.