CC26 take one

Ate dinner at work while watching six people rotating through two sets of doubles ping pong (we have two tables in the break room).  At one point, the head of tech support, the program manager for my product, the head of sustaining engineering and the CTO were all at one table. Talk about competitive!

Arrived at the Doubletree at 7, went up to the Victorian Underwear Social and entered the room behind two women in full Victorian dress. Except for the staff, we were the only ones there. They said "looks like we're too early". I said "looks like we're too late, everyone has left" and went back to the hallway. They giggled and followed.

During the next 15 minutes people started arriving, and by 7:30 there was a pretty good house. It kept getting more and more crowded as time went by.

kproche started the party by singing Barkley Square, dressed in what looked like a leather corset and pants with a tesla-would-have-been-proud brooch. He sings well. Then he sang about half of Night and Day which was also pretty good. He did the MC thing briefly, then signaled the dancing to begin. There was a group of contra dance callers who announced what kind of dance was coming up, and a pianist pounded out the music. The dances were taught on the fly, everyone picked them up easily. The party was well diversified, with stage acts and a local band taking turns with the contra dancers. Do-it-yourself ice cream sundaes appeared and remained for the rest of the party, and there was a cash bar which saw a lot of business. I said hi to lots of people, britgeekgrrl, iamradar, johnnyeponymous, dinogrl, dave_gallaher, didjiman, karisu_sama, kevin_standlee, johno, jadecat9, lisa_marli, lady_leandra, laragoth, bovil, and I saw baronlaw but didn't get a chance to talk to him. Also ran into Sharon Collier, an old friend from Menlo Players who does Dickens Faire with her family. And there were lots of people I didn't know, and was too shy to introduce myself to.

There were also more cameras per square inch than anyplace I've ever been. I took quite a few pictures of people in lavish costumes taking photos. ( photos behind the cut )