Parties can sometimes be hit or miss but I was at 2 different kinds of parties this weekend that made my day for different reasons.  Sometimes it’s the small things in life that bring the biggest smiles.

The first was with a group of ex-coworkers who get together to have dinner at someone’s house every few months or so.  We’re all so “inbred” it’s gotten to the point where we’ve worked with each other for 2 or 3 different companies by now.  If you’re not in the I.T. world that might sound unstable, but it’s simply reflects reality in our business where companies are bought and sold with regularity.  People leave, whether by being downsized or leaving voluntarily, and they tend to follow former coworkers to other companies.  It’s nice to know when you being a new job that you might actually know a few people.  Since I’m jumped from the banking world to the auction software world, I left our small incestuous group and joined another small incestuous group who had previously worked with each other in other industries before coming to Marketworks.

Anyway, now that I’ve gone completely off tangent, let’s get back to the party.  For anyone that knows me, you’re well aware of 3 things.

1 – One of my favorite breweries in the world is Goose Island, based in Chicago.

2 – Goose Island is not distributed in Georgia.

3 – Therefore, I miss Goose Island like a mofo.

I do thankfully have yet another ex-coworker who routinely goes up to Chicago for work and when he does, he always brings me back beers that we can’t get here in Georgia, including Goose Island.  For that, I am eternally grateful but it still doesn’t quench my thirst for their sweet nectar.  Keep in mind I got my M.B.A (Masters of Beer Appreciation) from Goose Island back when I lived in Chicago, which entailed having about 50 different beers of theirs in a year’s time.

So, what catches my eye in the bucket of beer the host has but one lonely bottle with a very familiar logo of a goose on it.  I reach into the bucket and felt like Indiana Jones.  There, dripping coldly in my hands, was a Goose Island India Pale Ale.  I immediately ask loudly and excitedly “WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?!?!”  When she initially answered, she said it was the local package store.  I said “No way, you can’t buy Goose Island in Georgia.”  Then she remembered she had actually bought the beer in IRELAND!!!  Long story short – her brother frequented some bar where you get a free drink if you bring in a bottle that they’ve never had before that had a bird on it.  So she brought some back from Ireland for him.  I guess there was one stray one that wound up staying at her house, which eventually landed on my happy tongue Saturday night.  I told her she had made my week by having that Goose Island IPA.  By way of Ireland, no less!!

The next smile-inducing moment came yesterday at a birthday party for a child of another ex-coworker who we keep in touch with and have enjoyed watching each others children grow these past few years.  This weekend was relatively cold (by southern standards anyway) and in addition to having their house open for the kids to do their thing, they also cleared out the garage.  In it they had tons of balloons and a bubble maker that was placed in front of a fan in order to spread the bubbles around the room.  But that wasn’t the great part.  The part that appealed to kids and adults alike was they had totally lined the entire floor with bubble wrap!!!  Obviously the kids absolutely loved that but the parents were having just as much fun making those familiar “pops” with our shoes.  Parts of the floor had those large bubble strips, and other parts had the standard small bubbles to burst so we had a choice of what we could pop too.

I dare anyone to say they wouldn’t have enjoyed themselves if someone opened up a room and the floor was covered in bubble wrap.  And if you claim to not be impressed, I deem you a liar.