I had the best birthday party that I’ve ever had in my entire life, no doubt. Super-extra special thanks to Kat for planning all of it. Outside of the date and the quiz, everything else was Kat. Also thanks to everyone that helped Kat get everything together: McP, Miranda, Eric, Amanda, and everyone else involved, the party would not have happened without you guys. And thanks to Amanda for driving me around and sitting through the excruciating lost luggage scene with me.

We overcame a lot of adversity to make it to the party; some people had flight delays, others had long drives to make, and Balki even got hit by a car. We only had one casualty; a co-worker of mine from New York (John) had planned on coming to Austin with me for the party. After 8+ hours at the airport it was clear that only one of us was going to make it. He forced the person working the ticket counter to wait while he ran over to get me to make sure I got to Austin. It took him 5 days to get his luggage back from JetBlue.

If you haven’t heard my story yet, I’ll spare you the gory details. It was fucking miserable. At the end of it all, I spent 14 hours at JFK, getting about an hour of sleep total and I arrived to Austin 13 hours later than expected. And even that almost didn’t happen. I was inches away from having to fly into Houston at 11am and drive for three hours to make it to the party. But I would have done it without skipping a beat. There was no way I was going to miss this party.

Once I finally did get to Austin, my luggage was lost. This is the fourth time in a row and the third time in a row on JetBlue going to Austin. Fucking miserable. So I did my regular routine, buy some new clothes and new toiletries. This time I did something smarter than in the past, I let the toiletries at Jason’s house. That way they’ll be waiting for me next time Jetblue loses my bags.

I loved the roast. Thanks to everyone who spoke. I’m really serious when I say I have the best friends in the world. I’m glad everyone enjoyed the quiz, but don’t feel bad if you didn’t get any right. Julianna had the best score with 60% correct and she was guessing on many of them. Even Jim, who has known me longer than anyone, only got 5 right. I’ll eventually put the quiz online so you can test your memory and see if you can improve your score.

Thanks to all of you for coming out. I know you have many options for Saturday evening activities and I’m glad you chose to spend it with me.