Sonic Mexico Qualifier Party
So what started out as fairly lame outing, proved to be a really cool evening. Before I go any further, I should provide some back story. I had won the Mi-Fri Mexico Qualifier entry through my daily routine of collecting sonic points, and spending accordingly. After much frustration of not seeing another iPod Touch style giveaway, and no sign of anything epic, I gave into a hunch. That hunch was that I would win a trip to Mexico. So I spent all my hard earned points one fateful morning in mid January, only to receive a phone call that same day notifying me of my winning entry. This was exciting to say the least, as I rarely win anything, and I’ve never been to Mexico.
On to the lameness. My Brother could not make it to this super sweet event, as he was backed up with work. Fine. I decided to invite a buddy from work, which proved to be both the redemption to the lameness, and the partial cause. Okay, so not the cause, but we freezed our asses off 2-3 more times than I normally like to on a harsh winter day, and I need somebody to blame that on. So we go to the wrong pub first. It’s cool. We figure it out after walking about a block towards it. Back in the car! No problem, we call the number of the pub thanks to my GPS, and get the right address. Awesome. Now to find parking. “Hey look, a parkade!”. This might seem promising, but by this point we are already about 10 minutes late, and very cold, standing in line to pay for the parking. Oh, God! The machine won’t accept Chobans Visa, or my MasterCard. This was getting to be rediculous. Neither of us have change, so we decide to get to the pub which is still about a block and a half away from the parking, register, get our names in the draw, get seated, meet some radio celebrities. Yes, ALL the Sonic radio personalities were there, and with only maybe 40-50 people in the lower level of this pub, it was a pretty cool intimate environment. But wait. We kinda need to pay for parking. So I ask Rick Lee politely if my guest and I can leave to go pay for parking. Yeah. He’s pretty sure that’s cool.
Off to pay for parking! We’re still frozen to the bone when we leave the pub, but we’re pretty determined to pay for parking, and get back so we can starting winning. So, a quick stop in a nearby Booster Juice to beg for change (which wasn’t even enough for the machine by the way), was enough to throw a piece of paper on my dashboard, and run back to warmness, and prizes. Now, I had hoped for free food and drinks, but as it would turn out, there was only one domestic beer voucher, and finger food. Which in the end I guess was cool enough. I did end up getting a shirt, calendar, and a sticker. Not to mention the ID card around my neck which I will likely keep as proof of my interesting evening.
So, first name they call for spinning-wheel-for-money game? Choban! More like CHOKE-ban. Seriously. I think anybody could have spun that wheel and won more money than he did. But in hindsight I’m pretty sure it was rigged. It’s okay though. It was only a chance to win $1000 cash, and there was still a trip to Mexico up for grabs. But Mexico drawing came and went, and was a bit of a let down, just like our domestic watered down beers. Upside was that there were some female web developers sitting at our table that had over heard us talking development, and invited us to the Edmonton Flash Users Group meeting afterwards. Uh, totally! How often does one go to a Sonic party, and end up sitting beside female web developers? Not very often. We both agreed this was an opportunity that would not be passed up.
The Flash Users Group ended up being very cool. Seeing previews of Adobe Air in action gave some pretty inspiring ideas, despite not being overly interested in the technology itself. It certainly has some promise, and wide open opportunities for forward thinking web developers. So we ordered up some veggie burgers, and salad which turned out to be awesome, and then ended up taking off a little early for some Starbucks before taking yet another bone chilling walk in the freezing cold.
So all in all, we’re talking 9 walks in ungodly temperatures, 3 sonic stickers, 2 calendars, 2 shirts, 1 EFUG meeting, and a fairly memorable evening. Oh, and one of the longest blog posts I’ve ever written.
By the way Choban… I have your calendar and stickers. We’ll need to do that again sometime.