Great Event Last Night, Thank You Everyone

I said it last night, and I’ll say it again here – I am constantly and consistently amazed by what this group of people does from time to time.

In a good way, mind you.

Last night was yet another shining example of why you, the people who come to ITintheD.com events, are some of the best damn people around…

Where do I even start?

2012-12-13_18-08-50_907Do I start with the great turnout that we had?

Because we absolutely had a great turnout.

Lots of people that are regulars at our events, but also a lot of new faces that were making their first appearance.

To the new folks…welcome.  You picked a great event for it.

I know Mike D. had a good night.  Winning a 50/50 raffle for some cash will do that. 🙂

IMG_20121213_163350Do I start with our friends in the military that were there?

Because Jeff, Russ, Mike, Jessica…all great to see you.

It’s always fantastic to have names to put with faces to put with the cause…and it’s clear that you believe in what you do, in your service to our country, in taking the additional time out of your lives to come on out with a bunch of geeks and hang for a few hours.

It was particularly nice to have Mike back stateside…and not just because he brought his lovely and charming wife with him, either.  It was nice because he was one of the guys who was on the receiving end of our efforts last year.  It was also nice because now that he’s back stateside and getting back in the groove of his slightly less dangerous job as a career counselor at a local college, he was looking for recruiters to talk with so that he had connections for his students moving forward.

So it’s nice that we could actually do hima service and put him directly in touch with those who were there last night.

Do I start with a shout-out to Rochester Mills for hosting? 

Because that worked out really well.  The beer was, as always, awesome.  Great food.  Good times.  The location worked out really well for a lot of people…and honestly, perhaps the best parts of the night were when random people who were just hanging out at the bar would see our banner, or the folks in uniform, walk in, ask a few questions, and then more often than not drop some cash in with the donations before walking back out again.

Do I start with the thank you’s for the donations?

Because we came in over $1200, folks.

Twelve. Hundred. Dollars.

One thousand…two hundred…dollars.

American dollars.

Like “real money”.

Outstanding.

Seriously…outstanding.

And then when you realize that we had four new iPod Shuffles, a new Kindle, and other items donated come in…

…wow.

Just simply a ridiculous successful night.

But instead of doing a generic all-in-one shout out here in this post…I think we’re going to go ahead and try something a little new and different this year.  Those of you who weighed in with some killer donations last night…I’ll touch base with you, or just please be proactive and send me an email with your company profile, a logo, and some verbiage you’d like to get out to our demographic.  Those of you who are recruiters…get me some gigs you’re hunting for hard and heavy, and we’ll include those…and we’ll also commit to spending some time combing our personal networks for you as well.

You deserve some heavy, shameless plugging for what you did last night…and so we’re gonna do some of that for you.

And yes, you know who you are.

I think we’ll wrap up there.

Thank you again, everyone.