Eclipse Software Party

Today we had our major, annual software release. I really don't contribute anything to the software itself, but I'm in charge of planning all the parties to celebrate. Whoo hoo! There's 1 main rule to planning a successful software party - have free beer. If you want to have a REALLY successful software party - have lots of free beer. My book on party planning is going to be pretty short. If there's one thing I learned at St. Mary's though, it's extra wide margins, double spacing and giant font = 10-page minimum requirement met.

This party has been getting bigger every year, so we decided to move it from our office to a sports bar called Marshy's, which is down the street from us. My coworker Denis and I set up a V.I.P. entrance with a red carpet for all the software developers attending. My block printing skills still come in handy. I did refrain from drawing cartoons on the sign with my trusty pencil crayons.

Barb and Sharon C. that work in the office space next to mine, are on the intellectual property (I.P.) team - basically legal review stuff. They figured some developers may have pent up hostility towards them, so they set up a dunk tank , with an accompanying waiver required to play. The catch was it was a mini dunk tank with Barbies that looked like them. They even gave them haircuts. The clothes were a bit tarty, but I guess Barbie considers animal print and platform shoes appropriate "Summer Fun" wear.

The party was a real success (yep, lots of free beer) and Kevin's team from IBM even stopped by for a while.