Mardi Gras - A Festival of Food and Fun

by Tom Moseley

Published 1997-09-01    Printer-friendly version

Good Food, Good Friends

The sun was beginning to dip in Fort Lauderdale as Mardi Gras, the DevCon 97 welcome party began.

The party is just getting started

In fitting with the theme, partygoers were given gold doubloons for drinks, and collected more (purple) doubloons from TopSpeed employees asking questions ranging from tricky...

Q: How many of each animal did Moses load on the ark?
A: None. Noah loaded the animals on the ark.

to the just plain silly, which I won't repeat here. Answer the question correctly (or at all) and you won a doubloon. Why the doubloons? More on that later.

Bruce Barrington is going to make you an offer you cannot refuse

Roy Rafalco, President of TopSpeed Corporation

Ilka Ciocanel of the TopSpeed Development Centre gives away doubloons

While TopSpeed employees were busy answering questions, Andrew Guidroz and a cadre of sous-chef's prepared a Cajun meal that was absolutely fabulous. Among the goodies serves were catfish, crawfish etouffee and corn maque choux.

Andrew Guidroz serves corn maque choux to Richard Taylor

After all were stuffed, and after Andrew had received his due as chef, TopSpeed's Bob Foreman and Jim DeFabia assumed the roles of Masters of Ceremony.

Jim DeFabia, looking especially dapper

Here's where the doubloons came into play. The top three collectors of doubloons won prizes, including two Clarion Online subscriptions. Afterwards, Bob and company led the group through a TopSpeed trivia contest, with prizes given out to all of the lucky contestants.

Bob and Jim lead the party

In all, a wonderful party, which let all of the DevCon attendees loosen up before getting to work. Andrew Guidroz and all of the crew from TopSpeed deserve a round of applause (and they got one) for all of their hard work in making Mardi Gras night the best DevCon party yet.

Our thanks go to Gwen Taylor for some of the pictures used in this article.

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Clarion Magazine ISSN 1718-9942