Mr. Elliott writes:
Our thanks to Gregory for the marvellous job he did running around filling up our wine glasses, serving the soup, and generally keeping each course arriving on time ;-)
My pleasure. I was also pleased to be of help as far as advising which fork to use with the salad, and admonishing our out-of-town guests not to scratch themselves with the shrimp fork or drink from the finger-bowl, that sort of thing. (And in future try not to forget, Rob - here in the Colonies mashed potatoes are really not considered "finger-food"). The downside was seeing yet again just how poorly the British tip, but that's a story for another day. ;-)
Joking aside, the banquet was great fun, the Planetary Studies Foundation raised quite a bit of money, which among other things will be partially used to fund future Antarctic trips for meteorite-collecting purposes. The evening also featured a silent auction (and a separate live one) of some intriguing astronaut memorabilia (an astronaut-signed Apollo "action figure" brought over $700!) as well as the sale of some pretty Kilabo specimens that Paul had acquired.
And the get-together the next night was a hoot, even if a little lightly-attended. I think the Coleman's Bar and Grill people are still trying to figure out the covert activities that were going on their bar until "last call". Lots of talk of kilos and money and cost-per-gram. The owner finally came over and introduced himself; I think he wanted to satisfy himself that there was nothing "funny" going on, although with this rogue's gallery of characters, he probably left more unconvinced of that than before. ;-)
Gregory
