The NJRC Annual Holiday Bash was a smashing success! We had visitors from EchoTech, the VorTech folks, Andy from Ice Cap and our guest speaker, Sanjay, who missed his son's finals round football game yesterday to be in attendance! Big thanks to the Joshi family for sending him along on such an important day!!
Congrats to Sanjay's son & team for making it on to the next round of the playoffs (down to the final 4)!
By 2:00 the food spread on the table was getting quite crowded! There were many thing to choose from, ham, turkey, ziti, sweet potatos, SPICY chicken (we did say it would be spicy, right?!), veggies galore, huge salads, breads, rolls, macaroni and cheese... and more than enough of everything to go around (and around and around)!
There was a great turnout with a packed house as it came time to settle in for Sanjay's presentation. Sorry to those left standing, we would have pulled some more chairs out of the back room had we realized we'd be needing so many more! We sat and listened intently as Sanjay shed some light on the lighting industry. We learned enough about the difference between lumens and PAR to make our head swim. There'll be a test at the January meeting. This being my second time hearing Sanjay speak it actually made a lot more sense this time around. I'm looking forward to surfing around on his website to see how my bulb/ballast combination hold up! Next up on the docket was the Penn State Aquarium. Wow. What a work of art that is from the design (including the beam support to suspend the students from) to the rock layout. A lot of thought went into the pre-planning on that magnificent tank. For the finale we got to see the making of Sanjay's newest tank. An in-wall basement 500g tank. A tank that weighs 900#! EMPTY! A very interesting speach to say the least. Thanks, Sanjay! (Insert Video footage here!)
Raffles went fast and furiously with Brian trying his best to keep up with the fray! The corals raffled were largely from ReeferMadness (please make sure to post and let us know how they're doing), with some local donations being added in at the last minute (thanks to Andy and Merv). We got lots of support from our local fish clubs for this month's meeting. We had gift certificates from In Living Color, Tropiquarium, Aquarium Obsessions, and Oceanarium! StanThePaintMan, of chiller winning fame, came through with a 100$ gift certificate to Eagle's Reef (a great tradition to start, Stan!
).
Add to that the door prizes, and everyone went home with *something* (though quite a few folks took home a LOT)!
After the party we headed back to the bar at the hotel where we enjoyed the company of Sanjay until late into the evening. We waved good bye to him at breakfast this morning as he set sail on his daunting four hour journey home!
Thanks again to Sanjay and the entire Joshi family!
Pictures to follow, right gang!? With all those flashes there's sure to be LOTS of them to see.
Thanks to all of the members who helped to setup! It was great to have so many eager participants in the setup. There are always so many last minute things to do that having so many hands to help was wonderful!
A big thanks to all of the officers for their help in making this year's party a great success!
Congrats to Sanjay's son & team for making it on to the next round of the playoffs (down to the final 4)!
By 2:00 the food spread on the table was getting quite crowded! There were many thing to choose from, ham, turkey, ziti, sweet potatos, SPICY chicken (we did say it would be spicy, right?!), veggies galore, huge salads, breads, rolls, macaroni and cheese... and more than enough of everything to go around (and around and around)!
There was a great turnout with a packed house as it came time to settle in for Sanjay's presentation. Sorry to those left standing, we would have pulled some more chairs out of the back room had we realized we'd be needing so many more! We sat and listened intently as Sanjay shed some light on the lighting industry. We learned enough about the difference between lumens and PAR to make our head swim. There'll be a test at the January meeting. This being my second time hearing Sanjay speak it actually made a lot more sense this time around. I'm looking forward to surfing around on his website to see how my bulb/ballast combination hold up! Next up on the docket was the Penn State Aquarium. Wow. What a work of art that is from the design (including the beam support to suspend the students from) to the rock layout. A lot of thought went into the pre-planning on that magnificent tank. For the finale we got to see the making of Sanjay's newest tank. An in-wall basement 500g tank. A tank that weighs 900#! EMPTY! A very interesting speach to say the least. Thanks, Sanjay! (Insert Video footage here!)
Raffles went fast and furiously with Brian trying his best to keep up with the fray! The corals raffled were largely from ReeferMadness (please make sure to post and let us know how they're doing), with some local donations being added in at the last minute (thanks to Andy and Merv). We got lots of support from our local fish clubs for this month's meeting. We had gift certificates from In Living Color, Tropiquarium, Aquarium Obsessions, and Oceanarium! StanThePaintMan, of chiller winning fame, came through with a 100$ gift certificate to Eagle's Reef (a great tradition to start, Stan!
). Add to that the door prizes, and everyone went home with *something* (though quite a few folks took home a LOT)!
After the party we headed back to the bar at the hotel where we enjoyed the company of Sanjay until late into the evening. We waved good bye to him at breakfast this morning as he set sail on his daunting four hour journey home!
Thanks again to Sanjay and the entire Joshi family!
Pictures to follow, right gang!? With all those flashes there's sure to be LOTS of them to see.
Thanks to all of the members who helped to setup! It was great to have so many eager participants in the setup. There are always so many last minute things to do that having so many hands to help was wonderful!
A big thanks to all of the officers for their help in making this year's party a great success!
