See you all soon :icare:

:D

And snow...?? :)
/me packs extra sweatshirts.

sweetpea

I'm grabbing a bite at Lincoln Park Cafe right now and the snow seems to have *just* started. Besides getting big honking snowflakes in my eye, I'd say it was kind of pleasant out. :p

There's no snow in the Loop at 1:45. I was going to head home early to beat the storm, but no such luck...

I'm seeing precious little show from the 15th floor of 211 W. Wacker.

Thanks Secret, for pointing out my stupidity...I must have read every post but that one. ;) I swear...

I think its stopped snowing here at McCormick place. Who knows.

Im alls alone.

It seems a bit sad that a lot of you are here already and nothing's going on. But, sadly, I have to work tomorrow which means I have to get some sleep tonight if I plan on staying up all weekend (which I don't, but so what?) and since it's shesus' birthday, I have to tie her up to the new bed and have my way with her while simultaneously eating cheesecake. I don't think we want company for that.

Would now be a bad time to say that this was all just a big practical joke to see how many people we could get to fly to chicago this weekend?



OOps.. Not everyone is here yet. I'll have to post this tomorrow. Nevermind what I just said. You didn't see anything.

Hehehehe...

I am so wishing we could be there this weekend. With the remodeling just finishing up our funds are drained and our time is priceless. We will have to keep an eye out for the next get-together in our area. I saw some that might be possible for us already in the works. Rochester would be better than Chicago as it's further north and we have friends there that we could stay with. Plus it appears there's another one in Chicago later this year possibly. I sure hope all you great people can be at one of those so we can meet ya. You can bet I'll be wishin I was there this weekend. Have fun and don't do anything I wouldn't. ;)

I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to get together with you guys this time, but hopefully next time will work out. Have fun!

Okay...here's what's going on right now.

We ended up having such a great time with each other's company that we failed to log on at all this weekend. We were going to install a webcam, but a certain Headbanging-Bears-fan administrator forgot to bring the software he was familiar with and was a little too inebriated to figure out any other ftp programs to get it going.

There were somewhere around 1,000 photos taken on my camera and who knows how many were taken on other cameras so it will take a bit of time to get through them. I will also have to say that photo credit will just go to the whole group since my camera got passed around to a few different people.

I will try to get photos up as soon as I can, but it make take a day or two to go through them all.

Having said that, I have to say that this was an incredible weekend. Whenever I log on here from now on and see posts from those that were here, I will be reading posts from people I now consider friends. Not internet friends, but real friends.

I want to thank everyone who came for being such perfect guests and for making this such a wonderful weekend. Shesus and I were a bit nervous having so many people over to our place and we weren't sure how having 15 or so people in our place would work out. It turned out that 15 people in one small room didn't feel crowded at all. In fact, I felt that our apartment grew this weekend.

Waking up this morning, I must admit there was a bit of sadness in knowing that our home wouldn't be filled up today or tonight with everyone. Of course, this just means that we'll have to plan another one soon.

Thank you to everyone who came and made this weekend so great.

I know it gets said almost ad nauseum, but I have to reiterate without any cliche whatsoever that the people of TFP are some of the greatest people I have ever met.

My mother in law always says the biggest house can feel small if there is no love in it, and the smallest can feel like a mansion when it is filled with love. You just described that perfectly. I am glad you all had such a great weekend. I can't wait to see some of the photos. :love:

That bastard! *whistles innocently*

And it wasn't really the software, it was because we couldn't find your ftp server other than the browser based one. I was in no condition to figure it out, but you didn't know it either. :p
And he's not exaggerating, he did take that many. He'd snap pics as we were walking, eating, or just hanging out. And when he wasn't, someone else was.
Agreed. It'll be so nice to put a face and voice when talking with everyone.
And thank you. You were both such great hosts.
Couldn't agree more. :)

JumpinJesus basically spoke for both of us I think. I truly enjoyed spending my weekend and opening up our apartment to such great people. Nothing was broken...well almost nothing ;)...and the place was always magically cleaned when I woke up in the morning.

I had so much fun it was sad to have it end although I knew that it must. The place feels so empty without people here. Anytime any of you want to come back to Chicago you are welcomed to visit again.

Oh, and supplecow...next time you're here...I'm going to kick your butt in chinese checkers :p

Here's to a successful meet-up! :D I hope everyone had as good of a time as I did.

You guys make me proud :)

It was Great!! :) I admit too J.J. it's a little quiet here at home and getting back into the daily grind after such a long and fun weekend with all of you :icare:

and all of you TFPer's are amazing :) And i enjoyed meeting each of you :)

sweetpea

The meetup was an absolute blast. Sunday was bittersweet as people left us. I had a moment where I realized that I wasn't going to see everybody for a while and it made me very sad. All these new friends I've made need to move closer. :)

JJ and Shesus did the board proud in organizing things and hosting the tourists. No one can say enough good things about them.

I'll be writing little notes to everyone that was there so all you kids that were should expect something in the next couple of days.

I wanted to say thanks before this to JJ and Shesus but IM SICK!!!

As for Spectre... damn you. Oh, may I have a copy of that Monty Python thing we watched. Too funny kid... too funny. PM me please :)

It was a great time. JJ and Shesus were fantastic and most gracious hosts. They have a beautiful home and a cuuute kitty.

Everyone else helped in my great time. Im so glad to have met all of you.. its nice putting not just a name with a face but a body and a voice too.

Im also amazed at how clean a group we are for the most part I dont remember JJ and Shesus having to do too much cleaning up after us. :)

Thanks again everyone. :)

Not my fault... I opened it and it fell off :hmm: Sorry 'bout that again... I hope you were able to fix it. :icare: :)

sweetpea

:) Or you need to come visit Us in Seattle very soon Toaster :)

That goes for each of you.... any and all of you are welcome in our home whenever you are near our rainy city. I'll supply the umbrellas. (both the function ones and the ones for the drinks we'll have)

:)

sweetpea

I know. :) :icare: And this is why we live in a building with awesome, free maintenance. Just had to throw that in there to give you a hard time, but it's no big deal at all. :D

I had a blast as well. It was an awesome weekend, and I feel exactly the same way as JumpinJesus. It was great to meet everyone, and I hope I get to see you all again some time.

I also wanted to thank everyone for being so kind to me, and thank JJ and shesus for being such awesome people and letting us enjoy their beautiful home.

I say this with no sarcasm or deception whatsoever: I will never forget my weekend in Chicago in March 2006.

sounds like you guys had a blast.

cant wait to see the pics. if hosting is needed lemme know.

i'm really gonna have to make it to one of these meetups one day.

Glad to hear that it was easily fixed! :D I think i said "oh shit" when it happened :) hehehehe

sweetpea

So where are the pictures? I'm dying for pictures.

There's nothing like walking into a room and finding that everybody there is on the same page... except for reading a thread about it and discovering it all over again.

Thanks for a terrific weekend, all! Thanks especially to JJ & Shesus for welcoming us into your lovely home. (And there's no way you'll beat me at chinese checkers! :p)

Now that I have so many new real-life friends, I hope that you all find your way to NYC sometime soon. My home is yours. :icare:

Actually, yellowchef and I were talking about visiting NYC. I have never been there and she wants to go back. Perhaps this summer! :)

And who got naked first?

That might be me... Friday night I showed off my piercings. Everyone agreed that my tits were in fact awesome. :)

Hah, yeah I think it was you. Too bad no pictures were taken of the piercings though..

***THIS THREAD IS USELESS WITHOUT PICTURES!!!!!****


Come On now ... I had 2 threads of pics up from the Rochester get together while it was still in motion .... *grumble grumble*

You are quite the taskmaster, Ms. Monkie.

Fine, fine, fine. I have a few preliminary images up in Portraits for your viewing pleasure here.

I'll be adding more in the coming days.

Before I get into talking about the meetup, JJ and I (and some by Secretmethod70, and a couple by others) took more like 1,500 pictures. I think he was forgetting the second card he pulled out that we put another 500 on when he wanted to start transferring the first 1,000. JJ and I have plans for some of those pictures in the form of soemthing very fun for everyone, but that will take a short amount of time (within a week, most likely) for me to edit up and put together.

We hung out together, we ate together, we talked and laughed and shared many, many hilarious jokes together, we played pool and scrabble and watched TV and movies and all kinds of stuff. The meetup was sort of scheduled for Saturday night... but it pretty much lasted Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Everyone went to JJ and Shesus' place on friday night- and we had such a great time that we were all pretty much inseparable until we each had to leave on sunday, etc. We met back up during the days to hang out together, we stayed late at JJ and Shesus' after the "meet-up dinner" and playing pool, and we all got back together during the day sunday to hang out, enjoy some crazy bowling- which is the most fun when you're with such a great group of people.

I have to say that watching each person leave, in turn, was kind of difficult. We all clicked so well, had so many laughs, that I really hated parting with everyone. There are pics of the whole group on the way, so you'll all eventually get to see a real, full, group shot of the TFP Chicago meet-up '06 crew.

And again, I know you're all clamoring for pics, but we took a shitload of them. lol so it's just taking some time to put them together and reducing them down a bit (JJ's camera is fucking awesome and takes incredible, BIG pictures lol).

And once again, a giant thank you to JJ and Shesus for being the absolute superstar hosts that they were, opening up their home for 14 people to go hang out in, for almost 3 full days. Like I said earlier- once we all got together, we were inseparable, and they had guests fairly non-stop. :)

By the next couple of days I apparently meant I'll get to it eventually. Sorry for those that haven't gotten theirs yet...