Levi's Silly Blog - Party!

To-PhD-or-not-to-PhD, Alaska, Disco-Kegger

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:28:00 -0700

So I've been meaning to write this post for a while. Many exciting adventures have happened in my life lately. Most recently, I have just walked in the door from the 2nd night of my Cuban Salsa I (specifically Casino) class. What a blast!

Perhaps the most significant happenings in my life over the last month have had to do with my near miss with dropping out of graduate school. The short story is that: a) I got discouraged/depressed about school. b) took a while off to think about it why exactly I want to do this at all (including traveling home to Alaska... more on that in a moment). c) Eventually decided to actually do this thing. For those who have talked to me in the past, this may not sound much different than other thoughts that I've had to this effect. However, for those who have talked with me through this one, I think the differences are clear, and I feel pretty good about the decision that I've made. I'm now shooting for being finished with my PhD in a year. There, I said it. ;)

Alaska was fantastic. My Nana and Grandpa Mark were there as well, and it was wonderful to spend some time with them. August is growing up, and while it is fantastic to see him, it makes me miss all the moments that I don't even know I am missing. My favorite August story from this trip was when we were sitting down to breakfast at "The Cosmic Kitchen", and two police officers came in. When they sat at there table to wait, August sat up straight and said:
"Thank you for serving and protecting our city of Homer." You can imagine how much the officers appreciated this, and August proceeded to get up and sit at there table to discuss local current events.

I've had a few fun weekends since coming home from Alaska. The day after I arrived back in Corvallis, I headed straight back to Portland and joined Peter, Kara, James, Andy, Axel, Tim and Melissa for a "ring-in-the-new-year" at Mt. Hood Meadows. It was fun, except for the 20 minutes that I had to wait at the bottom of the lift while the fireworks went off (at 10:00, not midnight). The next weekend (Jan. 5), Emily came into town. It's been nice to have another friend around town to hang with.

On the 12th, we threw our "Saturday Night Fever", disco party that was inspired by the Disco music I won in a White Elephant gift exchange at my Mom's friend Shannon's place in Alaska. I don't know if this was the best party the Hacienda has ever hosted, but it was the best party I've ever hosted and the best party I've been to since... I dunno probably Junior year. For some reason, I can't imagine parties ever being as much fun as my sophomore year of college. It was all so new and exciting at the time. Anyway, highlights included Kenny - root beer in hand - heckling pool players for at least three hours. The dance floor was raging for at least 4 solid hours, and the kegs (ya, that's right there were two... though admittedly one was only 5 gallons) were tapped by midnight. Fortunately, I had encouraged people to bring back-up supplies, and the party was still going strong at 2. Logan lost his shirt, twice, and pretended like he couldn't find it again. Many impressive costumes surfaced, out of the >70 people. I even caught a bunch of crap for not telling everyone that it was a theme party. I can't really keep track of all of the debauchery, but I believe it was a success.

Squirrels 33 and a third

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 11:35:41 -0700

Last night was the squirrels party. A fun-filled camp-out at adair park with 4 bands, dinner, beer and breakfast the next morning. I'd been working hard all day and decided at the last moment that I probably wouldn't get much more done that evening anyway. Significant moments include napping while Eleven Eyes blasted melodious tunes across the fields, dancing intermittently to a Stevie-Ray-Vaughn-esque cover band, star gazing with an old friend, flash-flight on the hillside and sleeping in the middle of the field under a bright half-moon.

The most humorous moment came the next morning when I was informed that I had been "missing", to the point that upon introducing myself to someone, they said "oh, you're Levi?, everyone was looking for you last night... there was a search party." If my friends had thought about it though, they probably could have guessed to just follow the flash-flights.

Good times.

Kegarita

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 10:00:00 -0700

Last night was a super fun "Keg-Gharita" party that Eleanor and Anna had at their place. It is Eleanor's birthday today, and Anna is later this week. Also, Tristan's birthday is today, as is Tully's. Anyway, lots of reasons to celebrate.
This photo, of my roommate Logan should be entered into some kind of "best party photo" award:

If someone runs across this with the intention of stealing it for that purpose, screw-you, the credit belongs to Eleanor.
Other great photos from the night can be found here.
When the party began to slow, we regrouped and ended up playing flip-cup until like 3am. It was a blast.

Prom 2007

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Last night some friends of friends threw a "prom" party at their house. Everyone got dressed up and had a kickin' time. I took the opportunity to debut my new Tailored suit that I picked up in Thailand. The best photo of me is this one, with my friend Pek (just so everyone knows, she's engaged to an awesome guy):

The worst photo was taken 8 seconds later:

These and other photos from this evening can be found here. Though I couldn't drink because of my parasite medication, I had a blast and met a few cool new people.

Fondue Party!

nospam@example.com (Levi Kilcher) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0700

We had a fondue party at my place this evening. It was an eclectic group of people from various social circles, but something about warm cheese and chocolate brings people together. I was a bit worried that there would either be too many or too few people (I suppose any party organizer worries about these things), but it ended up working out perfectly.

The party was also sort of a going away party for Aaron and Trish. Here's me saying bye to Aaron:

At the end of the night we played Charades. It was super fun, but I think some of the clues were too difficult considering most people hadn't ever played the game before.
Anyway, it was a really great evening, and I think most of us thought that the party was a great success.