..that planning and executing a birthday party for a 12-year-old would be so time consuming?  Add to that exhausting.  Throw a cold and a full time job on top of said issues and you have a recipe that will keep you quite occupied.

In all honesty, however, I really don’t mind.  It requires a lot of strategic planning, teamwork, and organization.  I am fantastic at everything except for the teamwork thing part of things unless everyone is pulling their own weight.  In this case, that is definitely happening, so to become completely contradictory for a second I suppose I’ll label myself fantastic there as well.

I am handling the technical end of things, as that is what I love to do best.  Things probably wouldn’t go as well if I was the cook.  I like to eat and while I do not mind cooking, it would be a lie to say that everything that comes out of the oven when I am done is edible.  The effort is always there, but the execution is not.

In any event, this journey started last week when the girlfriend and I travelled down to Buffalo to do a little bit of birthday shopping, picking up both presents and groceries.  For the record, doing some of your grocery shopping in the good old U S of A can save you a decent amount of money.  Some stuff is priced the same, but most canned goods, snacks, and of course alcohol are far less expensive.

From there we hit up some of the dollar stores to grab decorations, all of which will be put up tomorrow evening after work.  My role is to play the amateur DJ.  I will be floating around, taking photos, and making sure that the music is constantly rocking.  I will also be videotaping the entire event.  Should be fun!

Edit:  The previous entry was written prior to the party, on March 4th.  Below is the aftermath…

On Friday evening, we went to setup the technology and the decorations for the event.  I got everything setup from a technology standpoint and tested everything to ensure it was running.  Somehow, we were missing an adapter for the camera, but Grace went out and purchased one.  Four hours later, we still were not done.  But regardless, we went home and got a few hours (literally) sleep and returned to finish on Saturday.

We got to the location on Saturday and finished the setup.  We unpacked all the food and unloaded the car for I think the fourth time.  Truly, it felt like we were moving in.  I have never seen so much food in all my time, though I must say that it is better to have too much than too little.  The food was delicious and I would have eaten more except for the fact that I was not feeling well.  I was in a lot of pain, and combine that with a lack of sleep and it did not make for a good day physically.  Truly, I should have not gotten out of bed but when you say that you are going to do something, you get off your ass and you do it.  I did not mention how I was feeling to anyone because that would have caused them unneeded worry.

Regardless, I think that the party went off pretty well.  We took lots of photos and had video running the entire time.  The video, clocking in at some seven hours, will have to be edited down to a more manageable size.  That type of project is within my bailiwick to do, and after I am finished my book project it will be first or second on the list (before or after our Christmas videos).  We had food in abundance, a great cake, lots of kids, some loud music, and a lot of fun.  Everything may not have gone completely to plan, but I think everyone managed to have a great time.

As usual with an undertaking of this size, we ran into a couple of hiccups, but we overcame them.  We always do.  Such is the definition of teamwork.  Sometimes it’s not pretty, but the only thing that matters to me is the end result.  And quite honestly, with only two people doing the majority of the work (specifically during the party itself), we pulled it off pretty good.

As a final note, driving home after two long days with less than six hours sleep is not recommended.  I was falling asleep on the road and quite honestly, I don’t know how I made it home.  I don’t even remember driving home until I pulled into the garage.  A word to the wise, pull off the road if you feel dozy.  Trying to be a man and fight through it (as I did) is not the sensible thing to do, trust me.