Tidy up good, eh?

My former boss and mentor at my old job just turned fifty, so to celebrate his birthday, he threw a black tie catered dinner at this house, inviting over about a dozen of his friends. I was honored to be on that list.

He has reached the point in his life where he can buy and enjoy really expensive first growth wines. So the main event of the evening was a series of vintages from his birth year: they included a 1955 Chateau Latour, Margaux, Lafite Rothschild, Petrus, Mouton Rothschild, Haut Brion, and Penfolds Grange. Good god. All of them were in the three to four digit price range. I don’t know my palate really is close to being worthy of tasting those vintages, but I thoroughly enjoyed drinking them. And after all, when the hell else in my life am I going to try these wines?

The folks above are my advisor (a.k.a. The Boy Genius Professor), me, my former boss/mentor (a.k.a. Fearless Leader), and Chief Grad Student (um, I haven’t come up with a good nickname besides that). But looking at me and Fearless Leader, you can see why I referred to myself as, "the other short, fat, foulmouthed engineer" at the company.

Incidentally, that reminds me of a nice discovery while putting on my tuxedo that evening (Yes, I own my own tux. Yes, really, I'm straight.) The last time I wore it, the vest rode up enough so that there was this small patch of exposed white shirt sticking out from the bottom. Turns out that was a function of gut protrusion--when I put it on this time, the vest covered it all up; no white patch. Yay. This brought to you by the National Reduction of Kohta Act. Here's hoping that keeps going.