Sunday, June 29, 2008

Putting on the 4th annual Walters BBQ

Yesterday was the 4th Annual Walters BBQ and it was an overall success. Each year it has gotten larger and larger. I'm always amazed by a few friends every year and this time was no different.

First a quick little history of the BBQ. I'll spare you the story of why I started BBQ'ing but let's just say it had to do with a 1 week grocery bill of over $300 and a lot of fillet mignon while I was alone at home. Back when we owned My Linux ISP (or when it owned us), Reagan and I thought it was a good idea to have an annual company party so everyone could get together and enjoy a meal. We'd cook steaks and stuff that we'd see on the bbq and grilling TV shows. But when we sold the company that tradition went away too. Wanting to have an excuse to get together with the old staff and stay in touch with some of my more memorable clients we started the annual Walters BBQ in June of 2005. The idea was to have it the weekend before the 4th of July so maybe some party attendee would invite us to their party as well.

Fast forward to today and we have now successfully completed 4 of these events. Each year the guest list has grown larger and larger. For the past 2 years we've had some friends from Dallas come down to help with all the work of set up and tear down. Without our friends we wouldn't be able to put on such an event.

This year amazed me a little more though. At the end of the day, all but one of the people that stuck around to help clean up had been involved as crew members on past Avon and Susan G Koman breast cancer walks that I've participated in. On those walks people from all over come together as a crew to support the walkers and help pull off the event. Yesterday felt about the same. People were outside folding up tents, cleaning up tables and picking up trash. Inside they were taking turns on the dirty dishes, picking stuff up, and putting away the food. For a brief time I had to look around to make sure I was still at home and not out on a breast cancer event. It was amazing. When all the heavy lifting had been done we all enjoyed a little time visiting in the backyard before the skeeters got too big.

Next year will be the 5th annual Walters BBQ and should be even bigger. There's some discussion about the event date as I'm planning on being in Alaska on June 21st riding my motorcycle. No matter when we put it on, I'm sure it'll be great. Especially having friends like ours.


For the numbers folks, we used:
42 racks of baby back ribs
70lbs of brisket
48lbs of pulled pork
2 105oz cans of baked beans
2lbs of pintos
3 105oz cans of whole potatoes
320lbs of ice

and a lot of other stuff too.

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