The shame about having a life is that the busier I get, the more I have to write about, but the less time I have to write it. Good thing I plan on being really lame and spending all weekend doing laundry and posting on livejournal. So, without further ado I bring you the story of the booze cruise and the mythical 2 day hangover.

Last Tuesday, we had our big kickoff meeting/party at work. The meeting was 4 hours of speeches, skits, and videos meant to to energize all the engineers at the company and get us excited about the coming year. I wasn’t exactly pumped up after it, but I didn’t fall asleep this time, so I consider it a successful company meeting.

The after-party was a lot more fun. In retrospect, it was a guaranteed success. The formula: take 500 engineers restless from an afternoon of speeches, pack them onto a small cruise ship, loosen them up with copious amounts of liquor from an open bar, force everyone who can’t swim to stay for the duration of the party, and play dance music that has been aged for a minimum of 10 years.

What a blast. I consumed far too much alcohol, left it all on the dance floor (including spitting my teeth onto the floor at least once), met several co-workers who I had only known through email, and definitely made a few career limiting moves.

Of course, the day after was not nearly as fun. I struggled to get into work for 11 am, showed up 15 minutes late for our team meeting, and then realized that half of my team was still sleeping. The day was a write-off. I don’t think I accomplished anything all day. I did a code review for my manager, and couldn’t pay attention to his code for more than 3 seconds without my mind drifting. It was rough. I felt like ass all day, and alternated between staring at my monitor, slurping Gatorade, and running to the washroom to pee. Thursday wasn’t much better. I must have gotten sick or something, because a 2 day hangover is simply unheard of. I partied hard, but not that hard. I blame it on low bacteria levels in my stomach. Wednesday night I had severe migraine all night. I didn’t sleep much and was very tempted to pop a few painkillers, but I resisted the urge and instead suffered in silence. I’m happy to say I’m fully recovered now, but still avoiding alcohol.

The night of the booze cruise will definitely be remembered. I put it up there with the Seattle Gas Can Party of 2005, the London Christmas Party of 2005 (and subsequent Underground Puking incident), and the St. Patrick’s Day Massacre of 2006.