my pie party brings all the geeks to the yard
... even when the yard is chilly and slightly damp.
This year's Carnival seemed a bit quieter than usual, although I'm not sure if that was more because this was the first year in a while that I didn't have the jboys for it, or that there were simply fewer people (from my alum groups) around for it.
The more subdued nature didn't actually make it less horrendously busy to plan for, though, particularly since our bedroom remodeling project was dragging its little legs out and making the final crunch cleaning time even more crunchy. In the last few days before Carnival-start, we moved out of our temporary bedroom in the basement, cleaned the living daylights out of the basement in prep for cat-allergic houseguests to stay there without dying, then did additional cleaning to the entire first floor in prep for the party.
Friday was the last day of our teasingly beautiful summer weather, so I did a bunch of wandering around. Caught bits and pieces of buggy, mobot, midway, a few booths, had lunch outside, ran into a few alums, and attempted to entice people to come play board games later on. Mid-afternoon I went to the track to run in the SCS Random Distance Run, where I successfully met my goal of not placing last! I even managed a sub-8 min/mi pace for 3/4 of a mile, which is pretty darn fast for me. After that I stopped by the annual CS volleyball alum games, although I'm not really in good form for vball these days, as the last time I played was last year's carnival. Fortunately, unlike last year, my knee didn't hurt at all and the limiting factor on my games ended up being my forearms and a light sunburn. xuth and I headed back to midway to wander a bit and meet up with sheenaqotj but quickly realized I needed to get home and collapse. A shower and dinner helped a lot and a few people did end up coming by for games.
Saturday was rain, rain, and more rain, pretty much just like last year, but again, we had already seen the forecast and planned for a day of being inside. We slept in, hit campus for lunch at the SCS alumni reception, where I picked up yet another warm red fleece jacket, then KGB for dessert and people-standing-on-people tricks, then the CSLBBQ for more food and people and games. As that one wrapped down into Poker, a few stragglers got successfully dragged back to our house for pizza and more hanging out until late.
games post pie (link to more)Sunday was pie party, and despite all the great cleaning I'd done earlier in the week, there was still plenty of OTHER prep that needed to happen, including both xuth and me being silly enough to try to make last minute pizzas. It eventually all happened, with 59 people (12 kids) and 23 pie or pi-like things. It was a smaller party than last year, with a very large number (like ~20?) of expected attendees no-showing at the last minute, which was probably a good thing, as the chillier weather also made standing around outside not nearly as attractive, except for a few of the more energetic toddlers.
Pies as recorded included raw veggie pizza (x2) by blk (with drafted help from csg87, ravens_prentice, and rhythmandbruise), pepperoni pizza (x4) by xuth, spinach feta quiche by demonlurking, spinach feta quiche by grouchyoldcoot, veggie quiche by abby and franklin, spicy cheese quiche and kielbasi quiche by qiika, harvest by bhudson, chicken teriyaki by mg4h, samosa by rupes and rehana, chicken pot pie by chad, pumpkin (x2) by de0t, pumpkin by genuinekfc, oreo pie and cookie pie by jamie, smoked pecan by ralphmelton, schadenfreude pie by jude, and gummi pi by arashink. Non-pie food included bread and cheese by npm, a plate of veggies from me, and a large variety of beer and drinks from a variety of people.
The pie ratio was odd this year, in that it was still close to a 3:1 ratio of pie/people, but savory pies outnumbered sweet pies by greater than 2:1, which is near flipped from what it has been in the past. Veggie dishes were popular, with only three pies having any meat. Nearly all of the food was eaten, with only a few mushy pieces of my veggie pizza leftover, which were my lunch today. A lot of the drinks were consumed, and the rest will be distributed at other parties I attend in the next while.
A dedicated few hung out and played games until reasonably late. My guests very kindly let me win a game of Settlers and a game of Factory Fun, and several awesome people put in a lot of work helping to clean up before heading out. Houseguests left early this morning, and now I have a busy week of catching up on other things to look forward to.
This year's Carnival seemed a bit quieter than usual, although I'm not sure if that was more because this was the first year in a while that I didn't have the jboys for it, or that there were simply fewer people (from my alum groups) around for it.
The more subdued nature didn't actually make it less horrendously busy to plan for, though, particularly since our bedroom remodeling project was dragging its little legs out and making the final crunch cleaning time even more crunchy. In the last few days before Carnival-start, we moved out of our temporary bedroom in the basement, cleaned the living daylights out of the basement in prep for cat-allergic houseguests to stay there without dying, then did additional cleaning to the entire first floor in prep for the party.
Friday was the last day of our teasingly beautiful summer weather, so I did a bunch of wandering around. Caught bits and pieces of buggy, mobot, midway, a few booths, had lunch outside, ran into a few alums, and attempted to entice people to come play board games later on. Mid-afternoon I went to the track to run in the SCS Random Distance Run, where I successfully met my goal of not placing last! I even managed a sub-8 min/mi pace for 3/4 of a mile, which is pretty darn fast for me. After that I stopped by the annual CS volleyball alum games, although I'm not really in good form for vball these days, as the last time I played was last year's carnival. Fortunately, unlike last year, my knee didn't hurt at all and the limiting factor on my games ended up being my forearms and a light sunburn. xuth and I headed back to midway to wander a bit and meet up with sheenaqotj but quickly realized I needed to get home and collapse. A shower and dinner helped a lot and a few people did end up coming by for games.
Saturday was rain, rain, and more rain, pretty much just like last year, but again, we had already seen the forecast and planned for a day of being inside. We slept in, hit campus for lunch at the SCS alumni reception, where I picked up yet another warm red fleece jacket, then KGB for dessert and people-standing-on-people tricks, then the CSLBBQ for more food and people and games. As that one wrapped down into Poker, a few stragglers got successfully dragged back to our house for pizza and more hanging out until late.
games post pie (link to more)Sunday was pie party, and despite all the great cleaning I'd done earlier in the week, there was still plenty of OTHER prep that needed to happen, including both xuth and me being silly enough to try to make last minute pizzas. It eventually all happened, with 59 people (12 kids) and 23 pie or pi-like things. It was a smaller party than last year, with a very large number (like ~20?) of expected attendees no-showing at the last minute, which was probably a good thing, as the chillier weather also made standing around outside not nearly as attractive, except for a few of the more energetic toddlers.
Pies as recorded included raw veggie pizza (x2) by blk (with drafted help from csg87, ravens_prentice, and rhythmandbruise), pepperoni pizza (x4) by xuth, spinach feta quiche by demonlurking, spinach feta quiche by grouchyoldcoot, veggie quiche by abby and franklin, spicy cheese quiche and kielbasi quiche by qiika, harvest by bhudson, chicken teriyaki by mg4h, samosa by rupes and rehana, chicken pot pie by chad, pumpkin (x2) by de0t, pumpkin by genuinekfc, oreo pie and cookie pie by jamie, smoked pecan by ralphmelton, schadenfreude pie by jude, and gummi pi by arashink. Non-pie food included bread and cheese by npm, a plate of veggies from me, and a large variety of beer and drinks from a variety of people.
The pie ratio was odd this year, in that it was still close to a 3:1 ratio of pie/people, but savory pies outnumbered sweet pies by greater than 2:1, which is near flipped from what it has been in the past. Veggie dishes were popular, with only three pies having any meat. Nearly all of the food was eaten, with only a few mushy pieces of my veggie pizza leftover, which were my lunch today. A lot of the drinks were consumed, and the rest will be distributed at other parties I attend in the next while.
A dedicated few hung out and played games until reasonably late. My guests very kindly let me win a game of Settlers and a game of Factory Fun, and several awesome people put in a lot of work helping to clean up before heading out. Houseguests left early this morning, and now I have a busy week of catching up on other things to look forward to.