OK, we’re all smarter than Jake… usually. 

Here’s where Jake went wrong:  he tried to learn how to ride a bicycle on the freeway.   You wouldn’t do that… you understand that we all encounter problems the first few times we try anything; from riding a bike to driving a car to performing brain surgery to throwing a party.  The more complex an activity is, the harder it is to master.

You can read about how to ride a bike, you can watch other people ride bikes, but until you try it for the first time you don’t really understand how to do it.  Until you’ve done it for awhile you’re not very good.  For most of us, it took help from parents, training wheels, and a few falls before we got really good at riding a bicycle.  Until we did, we stayed off major streets, let alone the freeway.  We passed through a few stages along the way; we stopped falling, we started to enjoy it, and eventually (for those who stuck it out) we got really good.

With learning how to effortlessly give a good party, just like learning how to ride a bike, it’s all about learning, practice, coaching, and most of all starting small. 

This blog is a how-to guide for people who want to throw a party that may be bigger, more complex, or more important than any party they’d ever given.  Having the in-laws over for dinner the first time is NOT the same thing as having a friend over for pizza and beer.  But you knew that, that’s why you’re reading this blog; sweaty palms and all.  This blog is going to be your training wheels, and the three of us are going to be your party parents.

We’re going to impart our hard-learned lessons in order for you to achieve the three stages of party competence: avoid pain, enjoy your own party, and eventually become known as a person who gives great parties. 

Here’s what you will (eventually, if not just yet) find in this blog:

• What you need to be able to do; what skills are needed to plan and execute a complex party, and how to develop them
• What planning a party looks like, and why it is essential to minimizing your stress
• What the key questions are you need to be able to answer, and how to pick the right answers
•  

…..now tell them what we’re going to tell them….

Jake couldn’t figure out exactly when it was that the party became irretrievably out of control.  The police weren’t any help; they seemed more interested in asking questions than answering them.  The paramedics were too busy stopping his bleeding.  His girlfriend Tara had disappeared.  Jake expected that was maybe a good thing right now… he dimly remembered a lot of yelling that seemed to be coming from her, directed at him.

It was going to be his biggest party ever; he invited everybody he knew, and told them to invite everybody THEY knew.  He remembered getting nervous when his apartment started to look like a subway car during commute hour, and more nervous when the food ran out. 

He also remembered the tension ratcheting further up when the beer and wine ran out and some of his guests found his stash of hard liquor, hidden behind the pots he never used in the kitchen.  Folk started doing straight shots of whatever they could find; vodka, tequila, ouzo, sterno…

After that, all he could summon up were vague memories of glasses breaking, various fluids hitting the carpet, furniture and a few guests, small fires breaking out and being extinguished, his cat darting frantically around the room*, banging on the walls (some of that apparently caused by his head), and at the end of it all a very bright light.

At the end of the bright light was a flashlight pointing into his bleary eyes, held by one of the cops at his door.  Yep, by then things had gotten beyond control, but Jake knew he’s lost control much earlier in the evening.  “Where did I go wrong” moaned Jake.

“Failure to plan is planning for failure, little grasshopper” said the EMT working on the gash in Jake’s forehead.

“Wow! Are you some kind of Shaolin monk?” Jake asked.  “No, I’m an IT Disaster Recovery planner in my day job” replied the medic.   “I do this to de-stress.”

This blog is being written by two IT types and a production-line troubleshooter.  Our goal is to show you how you, by applying a small amount of planning and discipline, can give stupendous parties without killing yourself (or anyone else) in the process.

We’ll try and learn from Jake’s (many) mistakes.

* No animals were harmed during the research for or writing of this blog.