Sandrock74
4th Level Green Feather
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2001
- Messages
- 4,763
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Greetings all!
Well, I attended my first ever gathering this past weekend (Oct. 10th-12th) and I am not afraid to admit I wasn't sure what exactly to expect heading to it. I had never met anyone from the TMF or TT face to face, so this was completely new for me! I was a newbie and not afraid to admit it. I felt like I practically had the word "Newbie" stamped on my forehead!
First off thou, I want to extend my personal thank you to George (ticklingfeet4fun) and Amy (sadira) our awesome hosts! As far as I could tell, they had all the bases covered and enough food to feed a whole army! Well, maybe the G.I. Joes at least, but thats still A LOT! I ate too much over the weekend if you can't tell. I think I'm still full. So again, thanks you two for doing so much hard work so everyone could enjoy themselves...your aces in my book!
Now before I continue, if I happen to get anyones screen name wrong or misspell anyones real name, please forgive me as it's not intentional. I will do my best thou.
Alrighty then...thanks to three seperate accidents, a construction detour and mapquest sending me right when it was supposed to be left, the trip took far longer than it should have. Then came the daunting task of finding the place with no address! LOL...luckily I was able to find it by using logic to deduce the address range (and the fact that the street dead ended into a lake), I did indeed find the place. And what a place it was! We had full run of the property: the "big house" and the five cabins. Really spacious and very quiet at night. Hell, you could even see the stars at night!
George and Amy just happened to be the first two people I met followed by Phil (manonearth), Brian (ijustwannaplay) and Luca (luca002) who gets the award for farthest distance traveled; all the way from Italy! Once I got inside the big house (that just sounds like a prison, doesn't it?) I met Jason (jbfttickler) who I paled around with for a bit as I was meeting more people like Chris (Impaler09) who had wanted to meet me since my not-so-successful attempt to take over the forum back during the New Hampshire gathering. By the way...I forgot to ask Chris what his screen name means. Who or what does he impale anyway? 😕
Anyway, as time went on we got our "assigned seating" so we knew who were in which cabin and I lucked out and got cabin 5 right next to the water and the docks! I was roomies with Lisa (Dimpletoes) and her husband Don (who is really cool!) and pokeyinmich and his wife Deb. I also lucked out in choice of room mates as cabin 5 had the highest rate of costume party winners with 3 of us snagging awards for our costumes (pokey, Deb and Don). Three out of the five of us...that ain't so bad! We may not have been "The Party Cabin" (you all know who you are) but we did alright.
We had the halloween costume party Friday night which made keeping names and faces even more difficult but I managed. LOL! I was clearly a cowboy for the party but Amy still asked who I was for voting purposes. Ever the smart ass, I answered I was the construction worker from the Village People. That got a good laugh. 😛 Oh, how I paid for that the following night!
Anyway, Phil made an awesome Pirate even if he kept forgetting about his sword in his sash whenever he bent over! Poor guy would have disembowled himself if was a real pirate! "Arrrgh" indeed!
A bunch of us manly men made a bon fire (ok, it was mostly Don who did the hard work while we watched) and spent our time discussing various intellectual topics like how women are always wearinf lingerie, having pillow fights and making out with each other when they think we men aren't paying attention. Yes ladies, we know. Believe me, we know! Anyway, people came and went but Jay (JayMoney), Christy, Blood (I won't even attempt to spell your screen name!), Don and myself were like some bonfire "Breakfast Club".
I had a great time as we even squeezed in some Chuck Norris talk, Jay melted some of his boot sole while talking AND we were laughing at Brian who was an army soldier for the costume party and he looked like some homeless Vietnam vet trying to stay warm sitting by the bonfire! 
Poor homless Vietnam vet...
I had my own "room" in the cabin for sleeping purposes. It was the (enclosed) porch and a futon, but Lisa was kind enough to set up the portable heater out there for me so I wouldn't be cold at night. I slept pretty well, even turned the heater down and kicked some covers off because I was so nice and toasty. Imagine my surprise when I woke up in the morning and opened the door to use the bathroom and it was absolutely FREEZING in there! It felt like I stepped into the ice cave of the Wampa Ice Monster on the planey Hoth! I had assumed that the cabin was heated and I was using the portable heater. Poor Lisa, Don, Jim and Deb were freezing their booties off while I was sitting in my sauna room! LOL! I felt like such an ass. D'Oh!
What a great roommate I made...
Anway, I spent most of Saturday morning sitting on one of the docks doing some work while Don and Christy (ChristyL) were fishing. I was hoping some of Dons coolness would rub off on me but alas I don't think it stuck.
Unfortunately, we lost Jim and Deb who left early due to poor Jims back acting up due to the double whammy of the broken couch bed they slept on AND the coldness of the cabin. I feel so bad about that.
Anyway, Christy and Jay ended up taking their place because Christy wanted to sleep by the docks.
Yeah, I don't get it either. But, thats cool.
At 1 pm sharp, George had everyone gather 'round in the big house so we could all officially meet ala AA style (since we did have some late arrivals) and I did my best to make sure I could try to keep names and faces right. I forget what the final number was in attendance...I know it was approx 30. A full house really. We went over the accomodations, rules, told who the monitors were (by the way, thanks Phil for your assist when I needed it) and we had the ever popular raffle! I won't bore you with the raffle details, all I will say is that I was up last and by that time I was such a bundle of nerves I was outright scared! But with some ribbing from Terrance (Natural Tickler), I did my duty (lol, I said duty...sounds like doodie...but no time for that now!) and I didn't even use a safe word! Granted I felt like I ran a marathon and I was ready for a nap but I hope I did the brotherhood proud.
Afterwards I got to hang out and talk with a bunch of the others. I have to say that the wiz and his wife are my new favorite married couple! They are so damn funny! If I ever end up married again
I hope we could be like them. You two are awesome! 
Eventually we (and by "we" I mean Don) started another bon fire and us regulars gathered again. More gossip, stories and such ensued. This particular night thou, people were tired from laughing too much throughout the day, so people were going to bed a bit earlier. I eventually went to sit out on the bench on the dock so I could just sit in the peace and quiet and look at the star constellations and the moon. It was BEAUTIFUL. It was so dark and the water was still. All I could hear was the occassional fish jump at the waters surface and Christys voice carrying thru the night from my cabin LMAO
I know that the big house was shut down for the night but some people were still up in their cabins. I eventually headed in and found poor Jay was doing his best to find some comfortable position on the bed. He also came up with a NEW Chuck Norris fact: "Sleeping on this bed would make even Chuck Norris cry!" Christy and I had a late night snack as Lisa was scared by Don who was looking in a window with the flashlight under his chin. When I was ready to crash for the night, I made sure to keep my door open so the cabin would stay warm. I think it worked. I know I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow 
By the time I woke up this morning, I found that about half the people had already left! They had early flights and such to catch. I didn't get a chance to say good bye to them and for that I am sorry.
I did eat well at breakfast thou. I also got to hang out some more with Terrance, Brian, Jason (ever the busy body), Phil, Kyle (who seemed to be packing for like 2 hours), Blood (who I kept saying good bye to because of some weird time causality loop or something), Amy and Lisa. I wasn't ready to leave until after I got done watching Van Helsing since it has Kate Beckinsale in it. Terrance and I are in disagreement in which of us gets first dibs on her but I guess this is one of those times we just have to agree to disagree. (How ironic...I am watching Kate Beckinsale again on Pearl Harbor as I type all this out! At least I'm consistent.)
Eventually, once the movie finished up, Brian and I decided it was time to hit the road. As much as I didn't want to come back home, at least the ride was much faster this time!
Instead of lamenting on how much I wish I was still there or how its a let down to be back home, I instead will wrap up by listing the things I learned at the gathering:
1. Lisa loves Jeff Goldblum, even from the movie The Fly
<a href="http://s224.photobucket.com/albums/dd51/sandrock74/?action=view¤t=The_Fly-1986.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd51/sandrock74/The_Fly-1986.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
2. Amy looks and acts very nice. Amy is, in fact, evil. Very evil.
3. Christy gave up! She couldn't finish her session. Kyle was too much for her to handle. Don't listen to her trying to rewrite history!
4. TJ is an Imperial Stormtrooper!
5. Don and Jay are both really cool 😎 Maybe one day I can grow up to be like them.
6. I think that Brian played one of the POWs that Chuck Norris freed in all the Missing In Action movies.
7. Terrance and I are both awaiting the day when Kate Beckinsale becomes available. Clearly we are both tops on her list!
8. Phil made some tickle videos back in the day...and I watched one of them! I thought that was really cool!
9. Stocks look imposing in reality.
10. Kyle looks scary in drag!
11. Jasons new name is pajama boy.
12. Everyone at the gathering are NORMAL people! No one was dressed like the Gimp from Pulp Fiction.
I went with the desire to meet people so I could put faces to (screen) names. I wanted to talk with everyone and have a good time and I did all that exactly. I even got some tickling in of course.
If you've ever wanted to attend your local gathering, I would reccomend it. Its not scary and no one makes you do anything. Whatever you do or don't want to do is up to you and no one else.
So thats my first experience attending a gathering. For those of you who were in attendance, please feel free to post something here as well. Lets hear from you!
Well, I attended my first ever gathering this past weekend (Oct. 10th-12th) and I am not afraid to admit I wasn't sure what exactly to expect heading to it. I had never met anyone from the TMF or TT face to face, so this was completely new for me! I was a newbie and not afraid to admit it. I felt like I practically had the word "Newbie" stamped on my forehead!
First off thou, I want to extend my personal thank you to George (ticklingfeet4fun) and Amy (sadira) our awesome hosts! As far as I could tell, they had all the bases covered and enough food to feed a whole army! Well, maybe the G.I. Joes at least, but thats still A LOT! I ate too much over the weekend if you can't tell. I think I'm still full. So again, thanks you two for doing so much hard work so everyone could enjoy themselves...your aces in my book!
Now before I continue, if I happen to get anyones screen name wrong or misspell anyones real name, please forgive me as it's not intentional. I will do my best thou.
Alrighty then...thanks to three seperate accidents, a construction detour and mapquest sending me right when it was supposed to be left, the trip took far longer than it should have. Then came the daunting task of finding the place with no address! LOL...luckily I was able to find it by using logic to deduce the address range (and the fact that the street dead ended into a lake), I did indeed find the place. And what a place it was! We had full run of the property: the "big house" and the five cabins. Really spacious and very quiet at night. Hell, you could even see the stars at night!
George and Amy just happened to be the first two people I met followed by Phil (manonearth), Brian (ijustwannaplay) and Luca (luca002) who gets the award for farthest distance traveled; all the way from Italy! Once I got inside the big house (that just sounds like a prison, doesn't it?) I met Jason (jbfttickler) who I paled around with for a bit as I was meeting more people like Chris (Impaler09) who had wanted to meet me since my not-so-successful attempt to take over the forum back during the New Hampshire gathering. By the way...I forgot to ask Chris what his screen name means. Who or what does he impale anyway? 😕
Anyway, as time went on we got our "assigned seating" so we knew who were in which cabin and I lucked out and got cabin 5 right next to the water and the docks! I was roomies with Lisa (Dimpletoes) and her husband Don (who is really cool!) and pokeyinmich and his wife Deb. I also lucked out in choice of room mates as cabin 5 had the highest rate of costume party winners with 3 of us snagging awards for our costumes (pokey, Deb and Don). Three out of the five of us...that ain't so bad! We may not have been "The Party Cabin" (you all know who you are) but we did alright.
We had the halloween costume party Friday night which made keeping names and faces even more difficult but I managed. LOL! I was clearly a cowboy for the party but Amy still asked who I was for voting purposes. Ever the smart ass, I answered I was the construction worker from the Village People. That got a good laugh. 😛 Oh, how I paid for that the following night!
Anyway, Phil made an awesome Pirate even if he kept forgetting about his sword in his sash whenever he bent over! Poor guy would have disembowled himself if was a real pirate! "Arrrgh" indeed!
A bunch of us manly men made a bon fire (ok, it was mostly Don who did the hard work while we watched) and spent our time discussing various intellectual topics like how women are always wearinf lingerie, having pillow fights and making out with each other when they think we men aren't paying attention. Yes ladies, we know. Believe me, we know! Anyway, people came and went but Jay (JayMoney), Christy, Blood (I won't even attempt to spell your screen name!), Don and myself were like some bonfire "Breakfast Club".
I had a great time as we even squeezed in some Chuck Norris talk, Jay melted some of his boot sole while talking AND we were laughing at Brian who was an army soldier for the costume party and he looked like some homeless Vietnam vet trying to stay warm sitting by the bonfire! Poor homless Vietnam vet...I had my own "room" in the cabin for sleeping purposes. It was the (enclosed) porch and a futon, but Lisa was kind enough to set up the portable heater out there for me so I wouldn't be cold at night. I slept pretty well, even turned the heater down and kicked some covers off because I was so nice and toasty. Imagine my surprise when I woke up in the morning and opened the door to use the bathroom and it was absolutely FREEZING in there! It felt like I stepped into the ice cave of the Wampa Ice Monster on the planey Hoth! I had assumed that the cabin was heated and I was using the portable heater. Poor Lisa, Don, Jim and Deb were freezing their booties off while I was sitting in my sauna room! LOL! I felt like such an ass. D'Oh!
What a great roommate I made...Anway, I spent most of Saturday morning sitting on one of the docks doing some work while Don and Christy (ChristyL) were fishing. I was hoping some of Dons coolness would rub off on me but alas I don't think it stuck.
Unfortunately, we lost Jim and Deb who left early due to poor Jims back acting up due to the double whammy of the broken couch bed they slept on AND the coldness of the cabin. I feel so bad about that.
Anyway, Christy and Jay ended up taking their place because Christy wanted to sleep by the docks.
Yeah, I don't get it either. But, thats cool.At 1 pm sharp, George had everyone gather 'round in the big house so we could all officially meet ala AA style (since we did have some late arrivals) and I did my best to make sure I could try to keep names and faces right. I forget what the final number was in attendance...I know it was approx 30. A full house really. We went over the accomodations, rules, told who the monitors were (by the way, thanks Phil for your assist when I needed it
) and we had the ever popular raffle! I won't bore you with the raffle details, all I will say is that I was up last and by that time I was such a bundle of nerves I was outright scared! But with some ribbing from Terrance (Natural Tickler), I did my duty (lol, I said duty...sounds like doodie...but no time for that now!) and I didn't even use a safe word! Granted I felt like I ran a marathon and I was ready for a nap but I hope I did the brotherhood proud.Afterwards I got to hang out and talk with a bunch of the others. I have to say that the wiz and his wife are my new favorite married couple! They are so damn funny! If I ever end up married again
I hope we could be like them. You two are awesome! Eventually we (and by "we" I mean Don) started another bon fire and us regulars gathered again. More gossip, stories and such ensued. This particular night thou, people were tired from laughing too much throughout the day, so people were going to bed a bit earlier. I eventually went to sit out on the bench on the dock so I could just sit in the peace and quiet and look at the star constellations and the moon. It was BEAUTIFUL. It was so dark and the water was still. All I could hear was the occassional fish jump at the waters surface and Christys voice carrying thru the night from my cabin
LMAOI know that the big house was shut down for the night but some people were still up in their cabins. I eventually headed in and found poor Jay was doing his best to find some comfortable position on the bed. He also came up with a NEW Chuck Norris fact: "Sleeping on this bed would make even Chuck Norris cry!"
Christy and I had a late night snack as Lisa was scared by Don who was looking in a window with the flashlight under his chin. When I was ready to crash for the night, I made sure to keep my door open so the cabin would stay warm. I think it worked. I know I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow By the time I woke up this morning, I found that about half the people had already left! They had early flights and such to catch. I didn't get a chance to say good bye to them and for that I am sorry.
I did eat well at breakfast thou. I also got to hang out some more with Terrance, Brian, Jason (ever the busy body), Phil, Kyle (who seemed to be packing for like 2 hours), Blood (who I kept saying good bye to because of some weird time causality loop or something), Amy and Lisa. I wasn't ready to leave until after I got done watching Van Helsing since it has Kate Beckinsale in it. Terrance and I are in disagreement in which of us gets first dibs on her but I guess this is one of those times we just have to agree to disagree. (How ironic...I am watching Kate Beckinsale again on Pearl Harbor as I type all this out! At least I'm consistent.)
Eventually, once the movie finished up, Brian and I decided it was time to hit the road. As much as I didn't want to come back home, at least the ride was much faster this time!
Instead of lamenting on how much I wish I was still there or how its a let down to be back home, I instead will wrap up by listing the things I learned at the gathering:
1. Lisa loves Jeff Goldblum, even from the movie The Fly
<a href="http://s224.photobucket.com/albums/dd51/sandrock74/?action=view¤t=The_Fly-1986.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd51/sandrock74/The_Fly-1986.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
2. Amy looks and acts very nice. Amy is, in fact, evil. Very evil.
3. Christy gave up! She couldn't finish her session. Kyle was too much for her to handle. Don't listen to her trying to rewrite history!
4. TJ is an Imperial Stormtrooper!
5. Don and Jay are both really cool 😎 Maybe one day I can grow up to be like them.
6. I think that Brian played one of the POWs that Chuck Norris freed in all the Missing In Action movies.
7. Terrance and I are both awaiting the day when Kate Beckinsale becomes available. Clearly we are both tops on her list!
8. Phil made some tickle videos back in the day...and I watched one of them! I thought that was really cool!
9. Stocks look imposing in reality.
10. Kyle looks scary in drag!
11. Jasons new name is pajama boy.
12. Everyone at the gathering are NORMAL people! No one was dressed like the Gimp from Pulp Fiction.
I went with the desire to meet people so I could put faces to (screen) names. I wanted to talk with everyone and have a good time and I did all that exactly. I even got some tickling in of course.
If you've ever wanted to attend your local gathering, I would reccomend it. Its not scary and no one makes you do anything. Whatever you do or don't want to do is up to you and no one else. So thats my first experience attending a gathering. For those of you who were in attendance, please feel free to post something here as well. Lets hear from you!
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