Celebrating 50 Years Of Bobbortunities...

My friends are awesome! Tonight I had the best party you could ever imagine. Paige, Greg, Terry, Bert, Charlene and the Ale House manager, Travis, went above and beyond the call of duty to put together a fabulous event. It was held on the deck of the Carolina Ale House, our regular hangout.

Thanks also to Jeff & Kim, Suzanne, and Donna for helping Paige, Terry and Greg get the deck decorated. And to Gigi, Belva and Donna for providing some of the decorations.

My good friend C.J. flew in from NYC with her husband Bjorn to celebrate. And my old buddy Steve Thompson came all the way from Seattle. Hell, even Bob Patterson drove up from Charlotte. There was no way I was expecting to see the bunch of them. What a great night of surprises!

I rented a big ol' tent in case of rain. As soon as I paid for it, that pretty much guaranteed that it would not rain, but better safe than sorry.

There were 50 chickens:


There were official party laminates:


There were official party beer koozies:

There were official party t-shirts:

There was even an official party slogan:

"Celebrating 50 Years Of Bobbortunities"

Greg created a photo-board from old (and new) photos of me. Me as a 5 year old, me as a 49 year old, and all points in between:

Lots of party favors:

There was also a giant card for everyone to sign:

My buddy Bert Rogers provide a kick-ass PA system for tunes. We had our own bar and bartender outside, along with 3 servers for food and drinks. I'm estimating the crowd at about 150 over the course of the night, and I talked myself hoarse by the end.

I had a blast DJ'ing with my new iPod Nano and had the crowd dancing pretty good by the latter stages of the party.

My dear friend and ex-neighbor Charlene Miller made a huge cake replica of one of my pinball machines:

There was even a miniature version of ME, holding a can of Budweiser, standing next to the cake:

The party started at 7pm with about a dozen or so folks, and was in full swing a short time later. Finally petered out right before 2am. I got in bed around 4:15 or so.

You can see lots of photos from the festivities HERE and HERE and HERE.