It was pretty special to attend a karaoke party that the Southwest Vocal Alliance was holding to throw a party for Allysen and another member. I got to hear some pretty good talent do karaoke! What a treat!
As usual this time of year, we headed out to Tempe for their library convention. While we met up with a whole bunch of people there, I only took one good enough quality photo of our core group. Afterwards we went out to dinner on that side of town at a pretty decent gluten free place.
I had lunch with my friends whom I used to work with, then I had dinner with Damien. I’ve been trying to have regular contact with friends and family and why not do it over a meal?
I was invited a few weeks ago to go to Barret-Jackson from an old friend/vendor that I’ve known for years when I used to do RSA Archer stuff. I wasn’t sure and neither was Jaime, but after a little bit of discussion, we decided, why the heck not?! So we agreed and because we anticipated a buttload of traffic, we ubered it there.
It was so cool! Right when we walked in, there was a massively huge Earth Roamer, a $1.1 million dollar monster truck RV. It was ridiculous and awesome! Totally I would get it if I was a billionaire! lol.
Some of the cars were super cool. I was amazed to find some exotic vehicles were much more affordable than some others. For example, we saw a Lamborghini go for 87,000 while a Ram TRX went for 150,000. That’s ridiculous.
Because we were invited, we had VIP access and hung out in the Skybox, I ate some food, we had unlimited drinks, and had some good conversation with the vendors. We didn’t even have to talk about work or business because I already own the product! So we got to talk about cars and stuff.
We had yet another build party, as a con we are prepping for is coming up quick! So we spent some time with our friends making costumes and discussing our lineups and stuff.
Personally, I’m working on ninja stars. My brother and I had the idea of doing Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, from the GI Joe series. I’ve always wanted to do this and it’s a relatively easy outfit for me anyway. Plus, I was thinking if any kids approached me, i could give them a paper ninja star if their parents are cool with it. What kid doesn’t want a ninja star? AMIRITE! lol.
Afterwards, like the last build party, we went out to eat, but this time for Jonathan’s birthday.
I got to see my Alltel people again last night, it was really cool to catch up with them.
Some look so very different than 20 years ago, while some others, like no change at all.
We had our first build party of 2024, people came over and started working on their costumes for some of the conventions that we will be attending during the year.
We ended the night going to a restaurant to share a meal with Gabe before he leaves.
It is always bitter sweet for me to welcome the new year. I always try to remember the good times of the year as the clock ticks forward. I had a lot of great times this year and have made a bunch of memories.
This year is no exception. I had some really great times this year, and very few times that were not fun. Like, how lucky is it that I know I had a couple of not so fun times but I can’t recall exactly what they were and can only think of the good times that occurred. That’s actually really cool. A quick review of the 2023 tag quickly summarizes it all.
For the last day of the year, after chilling out at home and getting some good rest and having late afternoon coffee, we spent some time at Allison and Brian’s for a murder mystery. It was a lot of fun and we finished up about 20 minutes from midnight and we went outside with drinks, did our countdown and celebrated the new year with all the fireworks in the neighborhood.
We just got back last night from our trip to Michigan. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun.
One of our good friends invited us to watch the ballet and it was great. I think there is something about getting older where you can appreciate the arts with a mature mind. The last time when Jaime and I went to see the Romeo and Juliet ballet, I didn’t appreciate it as much as I did this one.
![CarmeloWalsh[.]com](https://www.carmelowalsh.com/wp-content/themes/twentyten/images/headers/sunset.jpg)