It will probably be uttered by some wiesenheimer after every year, but it honestly feels like every Threadless blogger gathering is filled with more friends, good times and love. This year upped the ante significantly in all directions, and also every year instead of people getting more entrenched in their prime circle of blogger buddies, it felt like everyone was reaching out further and further to get to know one another, whether they be blogger, sloganeer, illustrator, or miscellaneous.

We are all members and kin folk of the wonderfully dysfunctional and ever-growing family of Threadless, and you all certainly showed me the power of that free-wheeling energy and more this weekend.

And Alvin didn't even tell me to shut up and go to hell ONCE during the entire meetup! Score!


MORE CRAPPY QUALITY CAMERA PHONE PICTURES COMING SOON!
















Random, unfinished list of highlights that pop into my head from the weekend (feel free to add your own):


-Getting a "Welcome To Chicago" goodie bag and ride to our hotel with Charity from Soloyo as soon as we set foot in town.

-Quoting our favorite Canadian bashing lines from the Simpsons with Dee: "I'm from Canaada so they theeenk I'm sloow, eh?"

-Marveling at the A-Z Black Rock Collective presentation at the Threadstore on Friday night. Astounding and educational, people!

-Meeting ilovedoodle aka Lim! Super sweet guy and such a sport coming to the Black Rock show when he said it was actually 6am in Malaysia time. That's not jetlag, that's time warp fatigue.

-Walking thirteen hundred miles to a bar of SpeedyJoe's choosing (and passing on the way to it five or six perfectly good-looking enough to get krunked at drinking establishments) and then finding out the bar was worth its weight in free barbeque'd food and carrot cupcakes in the bar's backyard. Having the first and hopefully last Jaager shot of my small-time shot drinking career. It wasn't as bad as I heard, surprisingly.

-Meeting and talking at length with Terry and Monica, you guys are super awesome and a power duo of a couple. That goes out to Adam and his girlie as well, super great to know someone can stand Adam enough to spend a good amount of their waking hours with his company!

-Me, Dez, Mitch and Squatter squeezing into the back seat of a cab for the ride home from the bar and watching Taxi TV with Dez. "Peacocks Run Amok" is the best headline ever/needs to be the name of a prog rock indie band.

-Being able to collab live and unfiltered with Jill at the meetup and actually finishing a collab we've worked on for 4-5 months, ALL IN ONE SITTING! SO much props to Jill for flagging me down every fifteen minutes or so we could banter about progress on it, thanks a million for being so dedicated to get it done at the meetup and for being so gal-dang talented!

-Said by some blogger in a happy way: "I heard RandyOtter might be here today, I can't wait to meet him and punch him in the face!"

-Meeting more of the Threadless All Star Dream Team ball players and hearing their war stories: Brock and Glennz!! Amazing presentation guys, so inspiring and fanboy-erific.

-Brock mentioning me in his presentation from out of nowhere! My fanboy heart skipped a beat.

-Mac and Cheese pizza, Pasta Alfredo pizza....S'MORES PIZZA?!?!?!?!

-Met Alverejo, David Schwen, Phil Jones and his girl, SuperRyan, Midi-Crystal, Ladrones, Jonah and so many more amazing new folks at the warehouse. Also EmmyC and her T-shirt posse/militia protecting her from the meanie pants Threadless peeps that might give her a hard time...don't think anyone did, it was swell meeting you Emmy.

-Festa and Shimala pinata pummeling freak-outs! "Hit him in the beard!"

A plethora of fun moments at dinner during the break Saturday with Ryder, Jill, Dee, Kevin, Colin and Tony at Giardonos:

-Learning of a local commercial from Kevin and Jill from their youth on public access that involves giant birds shitting out eggs of savings for used cars and screaming: HAVE I GOT A DEAL FOR UUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

-"I swear that girl who is pacing back and forth talking on her phone in that dark alley is TRYING to get robbed and murdered."


-Karaoke, Karaoke and more Karaoke! Ghostbusters was the yearly favorite dance floor sing along, and J Stumpz was in prime , steamrolling through "Africa" "Take On Me" and a thirty minute version of "Hungry Like The Wolf"! You are the clutch Karaoke home-run hit singer dude.

-Finding out iDan did not go completely insane and is actually alive and well and full of hilarity and "mew mew welcome!" at the Saturday night party.

-Talking and laughing with Leon and finding out that he actually might not hate me as much as I thought.

-Liz picking out the one song in the 500 song selection that i really didn't know the song too well to! "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" admittedly is well known enough, and the machine should be shot and ran out of town for not having any Journey on it for us to dishonor with our vocal chords!

-Chilling with Tyler (Vice) at the hotel for a while and discussing why everything in Hollywood and entertainment is done in the most ass-backwards, pandering way possible and why it drives most artists trying to cater to the whims of these people completely crazy.

-Trying to go to sleep and then suddenly discussing favorite Full House and Perfect Stranger episodes with Spacemitch for what seemed like another two hours.

-Eating with plastic forks and knives in a diner for some reason with Mitch and Charity. Also, watching Charity's growing disgust at the amount of sugar that the waitress poured into everything she ate/drank without her asking for it.

-Watching Dee perform "lazy-ass parkour" between the beds in our hotel room.

-Renegade Craft Fair! So great continually bumping into more and more Threadfolks (mostly hungover) throughout the day.

-Charity and I trying to squeeze in ONE MORE good time at the airport before our planes left, drinking a beer and inhaling a huge nacho platter in about five minutes in order to catch our planes on time. I nearly had to do a Super Mario jump from the terminal to the plane in order to make it on there, and Charity actually missed her flight and had to wait for the next one?!?!?! All for some nachos and more good times, but more about that in her blog I'm sure.



I love all of you with all my heart and gonad power, and can't wait to relive the magic and create more in 2011! Threadless, thanks again for hosting all of us and making us feel like T-shirt kings and queens for the weekend.