One for the road…
It is with deep regret and sadness that I must inform all of you that the bears won’t be able to make it after all. 
I tried, believe me. Even JimB tried to bribe us, but to no avail, there was nothing I could do. Dagnabit!
I was soooooooo looking forward to seeing all of you again, getting my long-overdue dance with rob, hugs all around, and some serious flirting with the always sweet Irishman. Maiden and Freud can’t make it either, so they are headed to SA as I type this to commiserate with the bears, and have our own mini-dopefest here.
Ayesha, please give Scotti and Jim a hug from me when you can, and ask them to return in kind, since I can’t give one in person. And, everyone else give hugs all around, just like I would if I were there. And someone <beatle perhaps ;)> chug a beer for Mr Bear.
I will make the next one, promise. And anyone who wants to head San Antone way, just holler, and I’ll be there.
I just got home from HouDope, and it was a blast. I’m gonna leave the details for Irishman, but I can say that a good time was had by all.
Purple and Mr Bear, y’all were definitely missed.
Robin
Sorry I missed everyone. As I told Robin in chat earlier, I came down with a case of the flu. These damndable winters in Houston suck. 
I hope everyone had a good time, and rasied a pint for me!
Just back, and a wonderful time it truly was. Purple and Sapphy and rob were missed (so we talked about y’all 
), but we did see Scotticher, MsRobyn, Ayesha, LionSOB, TheNerd, JimB, BigGiantHead*, beatle, Irishman, Road Rash (whom I finally realized is the renamed cool_dude), Zap_Rowsdower*, Polly Esther** and surprise late arrival Capt. Nemo*.
- New to me and decent chaps, all.
** The baby.
I got fired from my job as relator of goings on after I went stream-of-consciousness on the group a couple of times. Irishman has since done a wonderful job, which I’m sure he’ll do again. So I’ll not attempt a recap, but I’ll offer a little bit.
Man, I just do not get out to see live music that much these days, and as such am always a bit surprised when I do to realize the generally beneficial effect it has on me. I’ve got to give a hand to the two fellows who performed. Great repertoire. But the volume left us unable to speak to each other, so Irish’s notepad became a sort of low-tech message board (more like chat, I suppose) that we passed around.
The baby got drunk (pictures to follow) and Jim aged, err, excuse me, lead us into the future. Bubble Girl and Sealemon, we like you and are very happy about your family’s expansion.
A great time!!
::sniff:: ::sniff::
Mmmm…there’s perfume on my shirt…I must have had a good time.
I just want to make a few comments for now. Scotti and I did make it back safely. There was wreck on 59 right where we got on the highway and the freeway was closed, so we had to have the entire entrance ramp manage to back down the the street. Then, the next entrance was closed for construction, so we didn’t manage to find our way onto a freeway till we got to I-45 downtown. We finally got going around 2am and drove straight thru to Dallas arriving here at about 6am. She’s now on her way back home.
A couple of other quick notes:
Beatle seems to enjoy when I’m at a dopefest with him because I’m older than him. I did point out that I was that much better, too. I got one more year ahead in both areas this morning.
I had a wonderful time. The Houston group is great, almost as good as the Dallas group.
I’ll post more later after Irishman has posted the minutes, including the part about Ayesha’s baby that drank my beer.
Thanks all, it was a good trip.
Jim
Yes, indeed a good time was had by all. Many thanks to every last friendly one of you that showed up. I had lots of fun finally putting faces to all the names. And then adding IRL names, that was even more exciting. :eek:
So, beatle, you got perfume on your shirt, huh? I can’t notice any on mine, and I think I hugged all the same people you did - while I was there, at least. Did something else happen after I drove Robin home? Hmmmmm?
I ended up indulging a little more than I expected to, but surely that was true for quite a few of us. One of the most interesting parts of the evening (for me) was a bunch of semi-intoxicated Dopers - or perhaps just Dopes - trying to explain to our excellent server Michelle what beatle’s “SDMB” table sign was about. Not one of us could hammer a decent explanation of the magic that is Cecil out of our brains.
I’m looking forward to Irishman’s posting of the account. There was a good deal of people looking at his pad and saying “You’re going to say THAT?!? That’s not fair, it wasn’t like that!” etc., etc.
Until next time,
- Dave
Not that this was any excuse. But you were missed.
Robin
Ok, is Irishman going to post notes or did we write that book for nothing?
I’m actually going to have to tell that he had me take the blame for taking the picture of that woman’s boobs if he doesn’t get back in here with the facts.
Jim
If I can be so bold, I’d like to propose that we make this a regular thing; maybe last Saturday of every month or something. Those who choose to can go; who doesn’t want to, won’t have to.
Robin
/me WAILS…
But I can’t GET there every month…and it won’t be HALF as much fun without me, now will it? Hmmmmm?
[sub]Now don’t everybody jump in and agree at once…[/sub]
Scotti
Of course we’ll miss you, Scotti. It won’t be nearly as much fun without you
Robin
Not a bad idea, Robin. We might do something like propose it at the first of the month (Wow! Surprise - what day is it?) and give it a little leeway for moving a bit depending on people’s commitments. Hmm…, well, maybe I need to think about it a little.
And then - do we settle on a regular venue or keep trying to find new spots?
One thing I will note. I have two monthly things going, one a geophysical luncheon with a speaker that I co-host, the other a regular monthly poker game. Both have been moving ahead for years now, and we’ve come to recognize that the monthly thing just plain runs into trouble during the holiday season. The geophysical talk we just put on hiatus for November and December and the poker game adapts. The point is that we recognize that the Holiday season does this, and it didn’t fall apart, it’s just on holiday. In fact, I can already see a possible problem with the end of this month with Halloween.
What would you think of making it a bi-monthly thing? It would give us ~8 weeks from proposal to settle on the better of one or two weekends for most folk, plus more trawling time to bring in more new interested ones.
Just thoughts.
[sup]It’d make it easier on Scotti’s budget, too! ;)[/sup]
(We’re just all hangin’ out here keepin’ this thread warm for ya’, Irishman.)
::tap::tap::tap::
I’m easy. It was a suggestion, and I think we can adapt it. Besides, it’d be a good break from the holiday stress, y’know?
Robin
Hey everyone, come on over [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=90515]The]( [url) “Official” HouDope Thread - Sat, 9-29-01
(I know, I’m just being difficult.)
Futz! I would have to go and kill the coding.
ScottiLove, of course it wouldn’t be as fun without you, but you CAN get there once a month. You just need to get closer in the first place. Say about Grapevine?
Jim