TU95 Ten Year Reunion 


It has been ten years since Marc joined Trilogy and that means it's time for a reunion. 

First I had to deal with the fact that it had been 10 years since I graduated from high-school in 2000. Then, in 2004, I had to come to terms with the fact that it had been 10 years since I graduated from college. This year, was the 10 year reunion of my "graduate school" - Trilogy University. As most of you know, I was part of the very first Trilogy University class in 1995. Despite the fact that I had an *entire* year of experience working at IBM, Trilogy decided to lump me in with their fresh graduates and put me through an intensive 3 month training camp designed to bring new life to the company. In reality, we worked our butts off on a bunch of marginal new product ideas, flew to Vegas at the drop of a hat, pissed a lot of customers off, and made some of the best friends of our lives.

So, when Dani sent out the invitation to everyone in our class (complete with a blank face-book template) I was very anxious to make sure all of my old friends made it back here for the weekend and, fortunately, many of them did!

Friday:

Space came into town on Wednesday night but spent Thursday with his cousin, Carrie and hooked up with us on Friday when everyone else came into town. Pat, Space, Lauren and I went to Meuller's Barbecue on Friday afternoon to welcome them back to Austin and it's meaty cuisine:


Later that evening, we had a cocktail hour at the Stephen F. Austin hotel. It was a good to see everyone back together again. Here's Lauren, Venky, Jeff Daniel (with his boyfriend Jonathan), Dani, and Pat:



After a few drinks, we headed over to Starlite for dinner - all 26 of us!


Here we all are at dinner...



Elliot and Amy arrived in town later and joined us at Starlite



Here's Jeff Van Dyke and Kevin Gilpin with Dani. We have to give "mad props" to Dani for pulling this off - she planned this whole event when she was 8 months pregnant, had her baby a month ago and rallied to come out with everyone. Unfortunately, Scott's parents were in town so he wasn't able to make the Friday evening dinner.




Saturday:

On Saturday we lazily got up and headed out for lunch at Ski Shores for the best burgers in Austin. It was quite possibly the most beautiful day we have had in Austin all year - 80 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, absolutely perfect.



Here Kevin is with his son Wesley and daughter Audrey. Karen was supposed to make the trip but she got very sick the day before and ended up not coming. She's probably looking at these pictures getting really jealous.



The rest of the afternoon we spent lounging and napping at 4910 Avenue G. We had to build up our strength for... ANOTHER meal. That evening we all went out to Guero's for some of Austin's finest Tex-mex.



After 5 years in San Francisco, Space was unaccustomed to the enormity of Guero's fajitas - fortunately, his jaw unhinges...



After Guero's we headed over to the Four Seasons to hang out and have some drinks



The ladies quickly occupied a corner table and began ordering chocolate martinis



Unfortunately, these drinks are deceptive and Pat "refunded" a couple of hers. I have some rather incriminating photos of her that I will not post in order to preserve our friendship but boy are they good!


Sunday:

Now, when we were planning this little trip, we told everyone they could stay at our house... and... everyone stayed at our house. We had Elliot, Amy, Venky, Pat, and Space in our little house the whole weekend. For old times sake I asked Space if he thought he could whip up one of his notorious breakfasts for Sunday morning and he promptly proposed a 12 course meal. I thought that seemed excessive but who am I to argue with the master? Well, he spent a fair amount of time on Friday and Saturday prepping and we all pitched in on Sunday morning to do the final steps. The result was nothing less than stupendous. Here is Space posing before his creation:



And here we are enjoying it on the deck:



Later on Sunday, Joe had us all over to his house for a little get together with the man who brought us all together. At this point, most of us were pretty worn out so it was really nice to just relax on the porch at his beautiful lake house and hang out. A perfect way to end the weekend.



Elliot, Amy, and Venky left that afternoon while Space and Pat stayed until Monday. It was a little sad to see everyone go back to their lives again after a weekend of reliving our 20's. Times have changed but it's good to know that it hasn't fundamentally changed any of us. The 20 year ought to be interesting! 

Posted: Mon - October 10, 2005 at 11:37 PM          

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