What with the personal lives of the herd getting kinda busy– one moved to Cali, 2 couples getting married, jobs evaporating, new jobs emerging— we didn’t invest the kind of time in the party that we like to.  And with the change of leadership in the Convergence Party Committee and the flurry of last minute changes they announced, we weren’t at all sure of the Asylum was going to come off, much less be much fun.  We also had some hiccups getting the Herd loaded up and pointed in the same direction.

After the 5 hour drive up from Madison, the Herd’s advance party discovered that a Thursday arrival didn’t prevent us from being caught up in what looked like an endless line to check into the hotel.   20 minutes of line waiting got the Herd checked in to 124, our ‘new’ party location at the other end of the hallway from our old location.  Then we braved the horrible mob that was milling about in the lobby, where Registration had been set up this year.   After being yelled at for not being in a single file line (I don’t recall seeing any actual lines) and eventually making our way to the Reg desk, we got our badges, so now we could actually get past the Badge stations to get to our room.

Things then started to turn up.  Packing in was facilitated by the presence of one of our volunteers and favorite dancers, Hanna (who also helps run the Jews in Space party).   Pack in took very little time with the bunch of us working at it.   The herd started stripping the room down and laying the floor plastic with the cool efficiency of seasoned veterans.  As we worked we idly chatted about the ramifications of the room we were placed in this year.

For the past several years, we had been assigned a room on the other end of the cabana hallways, usually a neighbor of the house of Toast.   This made for an excellent pairing.  Toast usually closed early, as their food died off and the room on the other side was a service room for the hotel staff.  Additionally with stair access on either side of that room, people could easily bypass our room as the traffic built up, limiting the impact to their lives.

Room 124, however, shared a wall with Karaoke Joe’s — a 24/7 karaoke bar– with a tall gated area surrounding the pool across from us.  Once people started down our hallway they had no way to bypass us to get at Joe’s and we earnestly worried how our party (and the volume of our system later in the night) would have on a veteran party we knew and respected.  We talked of how we could mitigate that risk and what those changes might do for the vibe at our party.  The chatter helped make the time go by quickly.

We got moved in and the base room arrangement set up in a couple hours.   Plastic down, beds stashed, gear set up and the iconic Cow Asylum stage set up on the patio.

We had a casual dinner Thursday night and wandered back to the room to relax.   Thursday wasn’t a ‘party night’ for the Asylum per say.   That’s not to say that there wasn’t a little drinking and more than a little dancing.  So a few beers, a little scotch and a few random party drinks later the dancing started. It went deep into the night.   Perhaps too late, in fact, as many of the Herd were dragging ass the next day.

The next day the Herd converged on the room and whipped it into shape for the party.  Walls were hung and decorations put up.  More staff started showing up and the room started to take shape.   By 9pm we had answered the question ‘why aren’t you are in your usual room?’ question about 2 dozen times (the answer being ‘we don’t know either’).

And then the party started up.   As per usual, people trickled in at the early parts of the night.   By midnight we were fully engaged with a mass of bodies packing the porch, dancing to our PA system.   A lot of familiar faces showed up and we got to greet old friends, take pictures of awesome costumes and serve up a few gallons of what we affectionately called ‘Milk’ and ‘Urine’.  As it turned out, with some creative angling and placement of our speakers, we didn’t impact Karaoke Joe’s at all, which made us very happy.

It was a terrific time, with a jam packed dance floor all night.  We kicked off a ‘last call’ sing-along set as the sun came up and it was awesome.   While we’ve done this for years, this year seemed to be more intimate than previous years.  Instead of shrinking as the singing went on, it seemed to me that the party grew as we crooned out the words to our closing songs.

And then the sun rose.

By early afternoon, we were straightening up the room in advance of the final day of Convergence.   Picking up armband tags and wiping up messes, fixing the walls and neatening up the decorations.  Then we got gussied up and threw open the doors at 9pm again.   Part way through the night, the Party chair came along and presented us with a certificate for having thrown parties 5 years in a row (as of CVG ‘09, actually).

It seemed to me that the party took longer to pick up but it when it did it seemed to blow up pretty fast.  Another amazing night of dancing and revisiting old friends.   Awesome costumes, great attitudes and lots and lots of dancing (and maybe some drinking was going on too).   While there were a couple people who had to be asked to leave, even those folks were pretty compliant about it.  It’s always good to see people be cool about it when informed that they’ve stepped over the line.

The dancing went on throughout the night and as we saw the sun glowing in the skylights the whole room cheered.

Of course we ended (shortly after 5:30am) with our traditional sing alongs that left many hoarse the next morning.

All in all, it was a terrific weekend and one of the top Cow Asylum parties of the past 6 years.

We blame you folks, by the way. It’s one thing for the Herd to open a room and offer a little space.  It’s all the people who show up to dance, hang out and have a great time that make it work.  Our closing time set would be little more than the handful of us crooning off key.   It’s all the guests who show up and sway to the music with us that makes it something special.

The Cow Asylum thanks each and every one of you.

In the mean time, head over to Facebook and check out the Cow Asylum group where a large collection of pics ended up.  And if you’ve a mind to– join the group!

There will be another batch of images posted soon and if you have any out there post them to the Facebook page or send them to Pictures@CowAsylum.com.

THURS 12 Feb: The advance party has arrived at The Westin North Shore and taken up residence in Suite 1601 with some beer, a couple bottles of whisky and an intent to tip a few back with Blur, Thom and the folks from Con Ops, among others.

FRIDAY 13 Feb: The rest of the Herd will arrive and we’ll gear up for a romping good Asylum party complete with beer, loud music and glowing shots.

SATURDAY MORNING 14Feb: we’re trying something new— Bloody Marys and Grill Cheese breakfast at 10am in the suite. It’s a new idea we thought we’d try out here— not sure if it’s the kind of thing people will like or not.

SATURDAY NIGHT 14 Feb: Another rendition of the classic Asylum bash—- left over beer and LOTS of glowing test tubes— and maybe a surprise or 2.  Then we party till the cows come home.  

So yeah, the herd has been working hard at getting this party rolling.

Check into the Wisconsin Cow Asylum… if you don’t need it, you probably deserve it.

You can view a slideshow by clicking here.  Otherwise head over to the MCS3 gallery to browse at your liesure.

We can use folks to help pack in, tear down, manage the safety of the dancers and other things that makes our party flow so well.  There may even be an opportunity or 2 to work a special event or help us plan and execute an awesome theme for next year.

So if you are interested in helping out or even becoming a full fledged member of The Herd, drop us a line!

In addition to our normal debauchery, we also provided a little AV support to folks out in the common area.  I’m told that the Thriller reenactment was terrific.

Stop back soon and we’ll post pictures.  I did find a flickr stream that had a pic of our signage and some othe rgeneral convention shots– check out Lost Kitty’s shots here.  In fact, if you have a line on where we can find more Convergence pics of the Asylum, drop us an email or note it in the comments!

Edit: The Cow asylum has a flickr page with some pics.

If you’d like to help out drop us a line!

We got what appears to be an AWESOME suite– air on 3 sides, 2 patios, wet bar…. looks really great.

Hope you all can stop down and visit CAmp Asylum and The Herd.

The usual suspects will be there with a few twists, per our usual.  It’s a new hotel with new suites so we are a little apprehensive.   We are having a little trouble getting details from the con (room sizes and contents, mostly) but we’ve got reservations and contingency plans in place.

We also, at the same planning meeting, began discussing plans for Convergence this coming July.   As far as that goes, we need to have a little more detail from their Parties folks in terms of what the rules are for the new 4 day format.   We need a good location to support our heavy traffic but they aren’t clear on whether we are required to run a party every one of the 4 days in order to secure a good location.

Things are looking good so far and we are on track to get the parties together.

If you need details or want to help out, let us know!

MMMMMmmmooooooo!