A sonic pumpkin, by AudaciousSon.

All right, what can I say that has not been said in a much better recap yet?

The Costume

The Famous Accessory

Well, I’m not one to toot my own horn, but as most of you already know, my costume kicked ass – if I do say so myself. The reaction when I walked in was priceless, and well worth all the thinking, planning and shopping in the women’s section at Wal-Mart I had to do to get this done. However, I couldn’t have done it without the support of LovelyWife (despite her first reaction when I showed her the original picture: “You’re going to this party naked?”) who sewed the thing together, Dave2 who agreed to bring the famous t-shirt with him when I told him I was worried that the shipping delays would screw with my last-minute idea, and of course Avitable for the inspiration behind the picture that Invaded! our Tweeter Timeline many months ago.

The People

It’s not a successful party unless there’s a lot of interesting people around, and this party was a massive success! I don’t want to forget anyone I met, so I will not try to link to everyone or even mention everyone I met. Just know that each and every person I spoke to, smiled at, listen to while they where at the karaoke station, absolutely made my day. For those of you that I had already met last year, it was a blast to see you again. For those of you who I met this year for the first time, you are awesome! Oh and for the few that I didn’t meet or recognize before I looked at the Flickr Pool, I am so sorry and I can’t believe that I’ve missed saying hi to you!

Of course, I also met people outside of the soirée, and those people now hold a special place in my heart.

Last year I was really anxious about meeting my first 3D blogger (turned out it was Mr. Fab & Turnbaby) so this year I was wondering who I would recognize first or who would recognize me first. The first blogger I met was Robin. She was sitting down with her back to me in the executive concierge area, texting away. I resisted the urge to creep behind her and tell her that I was pulling up to her bumper, but I really really wanted to.  Instead I just said: “Hi Robin!” and her “Oh shit!” reply made me smile. We chatted for a little while we had breakfast and then briefly met with Dave2 – he was meeting with Robin and bringing me the t-shirt – before we parted ways.

Then much later that night I joined Poppy & Dawg in the closing-too-soon Hilton Bar. I did see CMG walk through the lobby, but by the time my brain remembered her real name she was already gone.

The next day we met with The Libragirl. She was just sitting in the breakfast area reading her Amazon Kindle and we chatted about stuff we could be doing. Unfortunately, it didn’t really pan out as LovelyWife and I already had plans for that day. We also managed to walk by SheilaCSR – not literally walkedby, but it sure felt that way - as we were going to see our Blues Traveler show at the House of Blues.

EDIT: WordPress ate the rest of my post! WTH??? I had about 500 more words written here.

So what’s the deal with putting two showers in one house, but just one water heater? I’m just saying it doesn’t make much sense.

Because of this, you can never take two showers at the same time, not to mention flushing the toilet, running the dishwasher, the washing machine or just turning a tap on. How do I fix this considering I have two kids that are growing fast, a wife that likes to take long hot baths and all of them tend to not hear the shower running when I’m in it.

I’m thinking about those tank-less water heaters, but I’m wondering if I should get one, two, one on top of the regular water heater, what? Also, there must be a way to regulate the water pressure to be able to run a tap or flush the toilet while the shower is running.

Am I asking for too much here? It’s 2009 people! There was 200+ rooms at the Altamonte Springs Hilton and it worked (well, the pressure wasn’t that great and I could do without the sulphuric smell really). I could even flush the toilet while in the shower.

Any plumber out there with ideas?

I’m trying to get back to normal.

Well, as normal as I can be, really. Getting back to normal would mean that I was normal to begin with, which we all know is not really the case.

Flying home yesterday was uneventful except for a few minor turbulences over New-York. I suspect Poppy, Dawg & most probably Robin were just simply doing something crazy that affected the atmospheric pressure or something like that.

I’m flying out next Monday to Denver, Colorado. That means I only have 3 days of work. Gotta make the most of them!

So yesterday was our last full day in Orlando.

We went to New Smyrna Beach, and had food at Chases on the beach. It was cool.

We had planned to go back to Seasons 52 for a fancier dinner – and really those indulgences are just to die for –  but we decided to go hang out with Avitable  instead, as part of the clean-up crew. Adam did feed us pizza, chocolate and all the booze we could drink. As you can see, we had fun tearing down the decorations and making the house look like a house again.

We had an awesome time in Orlando, and meeting all the bloggers who came down was awesome.

Today we’re flying back home. If all goes well, we should be home by 20h30.

Remind me again why I’m going from 80F degree weather to 30F? Sigh.

Man, the days are just flying by! Vacation is soon over.

I’ll blog more later. I should really do a Avitaween recap, right?

All good things must come to an end, I know. But it still makes me sad.

And so another chapter closes on Avitaween. You can see my pictures on Flickr. I’m sure that soon enough, we’ll create a picture pool of some sort.

Until next year…

All right, if my math is correct, the party has already begun so I can reveal my costume for you folks who are not attending or will be fashionably late.

In keeping with the party theme, I decided to go as something that invaded us this last year:

Mike as the famous “Avitaball’d” picture.

It’s the new RickRolling, I tell ya!

It was fairly easy to do and simple to carry on the plane too! I was just hoping custom agents would not search my luggage and find the homemade accessory needed to pull this off.

Yup, that’s homemade (thanks to LovelyWife)

So there you have it. I’m sure you’ll get a lot of action shots tomorrow.

Oh, and if you don’t get it, you might want to look at this first.

Or: How I got hit in the head by John Popper’s harmonica and survived to blog about it.

Seriously, I got hit in the head by one of his harmonicas. He threw three in the crowd and the third one hit me. And no, I wasn’t quick enough to grab it – someone else beat me, nay scratched me to it.

[But first, cue harp flashback music]

The day started with some breakfast, followed by a visit to the gym and the pool. We then relaxed a bit, took showers and went to lunch at Seasons 52. I highly recommend it.

We then waited for SheilaCSR to get her butt to the hotel. We finally said hello as she was getting here and we were leaving for the Blues Travelers’ show at the House of Blues, where we walked around for a bit, had some food (too much food) and then stood around for 5 hours waiting in line, listening to Mike Dunn and the Kings of New England and then Blues Travelers. Oh, and did I mention I got hit in the head by an harmonica? Because I totally did.

We made our way back to the Hilton, where Avitable himself was waiting by the door to greet us (also, he was helping SheilaCSR staying up / walking). A few other bloggers were inside (Poppy, Dawg, Finn, Bellaventa, Kim205, Mr. Fab, Turnbaby and a few others I’m forgetting I’m sure.

Because I got hit in the head.

The end.

+++++

I wonder what I’ll do today…

We went to Epcot.

We had a blast.

I’m uploading pictures to Flickr, but it’s taking forever.

Yesterday I hung out with Dawg and Poppy! Woot! Rachel and Robin made an appearance, but had to quickly go to bed to get up at the crack of dawn and to go swim with the dolphin. It’s always fun to hang with the Poppy & Dawg, you never know what crazy thing they’re gonna do. For example, I saw Dawg’s poop face yesterday. True story.

Oh and speaking of poop, the Hilton Bar remodel is awesome, but it still closes at midnight. Poop.

I don’t really know what our plans are for today, except for Blues Travelers tonight at the House of Blues. Lovely Wife will be hitting the gym shortly and I’m not sure if I’m just going to chill or join her. Maybe I’ll give the pool a try. Who knows!

I wish all my traveling buddies safe flights today. See you soon!