Where is the World Do I Start? Part Deux

Crap, now a whole 'nother weekend has gone by and I feel even further behind! So I think I left off around Christmas, which means the next big event was....

A. New Years Eve

Wow, what an amazing bunch of feelings that all come bubbling up from THAT day. My initial plan was for myself and Megan to stay pretty open to anything that night - no one in my circle of friends had made advanced plans of what to do (which isn't that abnormal), but we had all had some kind of conversation about where we would all end up. Beach party...backyard party...Mulligan's retaurant....all fine and dandy, and it didn't really matter as long as we were all hanging together, so no one was really aggro about it at all.

Then, work happened.

For the several weeks prior to NYE, I had gotten more and more involved in helping to plan an event at Mala. One of our owners, Shep Gordon (agent to Alice Cooper, and otherwise ridiculously rich and connected in the music and Hollywood scene), usually has a big NYE party at his home with all his rich homeboys. This year, since he has this beautiful restaurant, he decided to have the event here at Mala. And without warning my role here suddenly changed to include Event Planner. In case i haven't mentioned it before, the employment environment here on Maui is significantly different than that of the Silicon Valley. Normally, when your role changes in the corporate world, you go through some meetings, maybe a couple more meetings, maybe an interview, a new job offer, new salary discussions, official offer acceptance, job code reassignment, and possible new team, new cubicle, etc., etc. Here, not so much. I pretty much just started getting directives from Shep about what I needed to do for his party, and that was that.

I won't complain (much)...this guy is unbelievable powerful, and very influential in this community as well as in the music industry, and without question he entrusted me with a lot in terms of getting this event taken care of. It was fairly flattering. And I was privvy to some very...ahem....interesting email exchanges with some big celebrities. Which, being an actor at heart, was quite titillating for me. I ended up writing cue cards for Tom Arnold, arranging a pre-ordered lei for Helen Hunt, and getting Carlos Santana through security.

Originally I wasn't supposed to be at the actual event, but as the day loomed closer, it became very apparent that I needed to be there. I did, however, negotiate that if I had to be there, they would comp Bradley and Megan, since I had previous plans to enjoy NYE with them. The evening of the event actually went pretty smoothly, albeit a 16 hour day for me, and I got to meet and take care of some famous people (Santana being my favorite). It was an amazing night of music as well - some real legends and some newbies (Mick Fleetwood, Alice Cooper, Rick Vito, Michael Bolton(?), Nickelback, Santana) all on stage together, singing amazing versions of blues songs. It was a night to remember. (also in attendance: Helen Hunt, Owen Wilson, Kocho, and some sheik that rang up a $15K tab. nice.)

But I was ready to leave and hang with my friends. So after that, we all went home and changed and met up with some of my favorite people at another Halama St. house, hit the ice louge, and hung out for a bit.

The unfortunate result of this event was that the billing wasn't done well. I had an idea of how it should have been done, but my GM overrode me, and we went with his method. His method sucked donkey balls. And I have since been cleaning up from that mess. I was supposed to be taking a day and a half off after NYE to spend with Megan, and instead spent it all at work, trying to reconcile the books from that night.

B. The rest of Megan's trip

I was finally able to spend some quality time with Megs over the weekend before she left, which I'm really grateful for. We spent a lot of time out with my friends, which was a blast. Everyone loved her of course, and it was a nice affirmation of how lucky I am to be surrounded by so many awesome people in my life. Way too much drinking, and not enough sleep, that's for sure, but it was all time well spent. :)


I think that brings me current from the holidays....I guess it wasn't that much more, though I'm sure I'm missing something. On to other musings.....

***(I have pictures to post, but I'm getting errors right now. Will try again later!)***