Last night (1/14/00), special, Padeye, and I gathered at Coffee Plantation in Dowtown Tempe for the first official Phoenix Straight Doper gathering. I arrived first, at about 6:00, with little cash in my wallet. Seeing that no one else had arrived yet, I went to the ATM and stood behind someone who was apparently refinancing her house. Upon my return, 2 days later, I spotted special at the counter picking up her coffee; the red hair made her very noticeable. We found a table outside and, after chatting for a few minutes, saw Padeye walking up the sidewalk. The description of “Bluto carrying a video camera” made him easy to pick out. Also, he was about the only other person out there who wasn’t “Goth.”
Padeye got some coffee and sat down with us. We proceeded to talk about Padeye’s former job at BioSphere as well as his current job, special’s places of residence all around the country, and my job search. (It’s the beginning of the year now. Just waiting. Thanks for asking.) We also talked about some of the threads on this board and some of the posters here. The obligatory list, from what I can remember, is as follows: beatle, Doctor Jackson, miss davis, our humble TubaDiva, Satan, Diane, OpalCat, ARG, Mark Serlin, Ursa Major, and SqrlCub.
Other conversations covered such topics as the fact that Padeye has a Van Dyke (beard), not a goatee, special’s kids, and what an immature little twerp I am. The night went by quickly and at 10 the party broke up since special and Padeye had to get up early this morning. I, on the other hand, went to bar near my house to play NTN Trivia and slept until noon, at which point I got up to yell at some kids who were riding their bikes through my yard. We all had a great time and agreed that there will be many more Phoenix Doper gatherings to come.
you are no such thing as an immature twerp! you’re a sweetie, youthful, handsome, very intelligent, enthusiastic, focussed, ambitious. an engineer, fercrynoutloud, one of my favorite kinds of people.
padeye & i, otoh, are just crazies.
of course, we all laughed a bunch, especially me, probably scaring a lot of the goth kids in the general area of our table.
oh, sorry for all you folks who don’t live here, but it was a lovely 60 deg. or so. most pleasant evening out.
Great minutes, Straing! I enjoy reading real life accounts of folks here. Sounds like a good time was had by all, and the “Bluto w/ a video camera” is priceless.
Thanks for the info. The Great Des Moines Mini Doper Get Together thread sank like a paralyzed falcon, so it’s good to read about other folks doin’ it, doin’ it.
Well, thanks, special! That’s very nice of you to say!
Hence my renegging (sp?) on the “green jacket w/ brown corduroy collar.” Yes Opal, we were pretty close to the fountain; although we weren’t paying attention to it. Had a great time, y’all! Looking forward to the next get-together.
we’re gonna see if we can do this at least monthly, folks. falcon said she would be around in march i believe; & i think we will try to plan around that if she will let us know when it is.
also, open invitation here to anyone else who might be in arizona.
&, opal, were you here when the waterfall & pool was upgraded in the little meadow & plaza next to the theater southwest of coffee plantation? that’s where the monster bronze rabbits are. another lovely area. they have a lot of street concerts over there. we had a couple of very good musicians singing where we were on friday night.
Sorry I haven’t made captures from the hardly incriminating video of the event but I’ll try to get to it in the next couple of days. I’m looking forward to the next event but need to pick out an all black ensemble (but not goth) to fit in better. It’s bad enough coming straight from work without changing but I should have at least ditched the tassled loafers.
Special, I’m glad you like the loafers but I need to lose the work clothes during recreation time just for my own sanity.
I’m glad my blutoesque physique was easy to spot. I was looking around for Special, telling people I was trying to find a girl with long red hair wearing black leather and they all told to lower my standards and not be so specific. Now that we’ve met I can more easily spot your red hair and Strainger’s semi-mullet among the goth kids.
