Creation of The Rat Pack…not THAT Rat Pack.

Ahhhhh it’s Rat Pack week!  One of my favorite weekends of the year is upon us.  For those reading this, I shall give you the back story on the creation of this event.

My group of friends are awesome.  Crazy.  Fun.  I grew up an only child, so I really wanted to make sure I kept these friends for as long as humanly possible, so I came up with this amazing idea when I was 22.  I wanted to have a party once a year where we all met up, but we dressed up in nice suits and dresses.  We have a big group, so something like this made sense to me.

I was always fascinated by how The Rat Pack were the coolest people in the entire world and they basically ran Las Vegas. Being big headed I thought this way of my group.  Also being big headed, it started out on my birthday weekend because why not, right!?

The party started out at our college house, The Double Barrel (named because we always had two kegs).  The night started as a traditional college party, except everyone dressed up, we blared Sinatra music and it ended up with myself bleeding profusely from my face (again, I’ll delve in to this at a later date).

Each party has changed along the way, with the latest one being my bachelor party.  This brings us to this weekend, Rat Pack 11, the very first Rat Pack party that I am not in charge of planning, with my good friend Kyle taking over.

Actually the next 3 (Bazmore, Pew, Baker) are taken care of (maybe I’ll do Rat Pack 15 if it’s still going), and I’m excited to sit back, visit with old friends, and drink, I can never forget the drinking part!

So I’ll do a recap of each Rat Pack for this week.  You will also notice a theme, one person has a ridiculous story every year, we’ll call him Rider.  If anyone has any stories to add, please feel free to comment, there’s only so much I can actually remember.  Enjoy!

The Rat Pack Party

This is as good of a group picture as we’re gonna get this first year.  You’ll see the progression to the next year, it grows a bit.  This party was created, as I said, as my birthday party.  Wanted an invite only event that only our friends could attend.  I also said nobody was allowed to wear underwear.  Long story.

Stories from this first one.  A lot of drinking.  Being my birthday I had a lot of shots, and did fall down face first on cement…twice.  I also had a cake hit to my face, which I did request.  There was almost a group fight at our local bar hangout due to our friend Oli hitting on a girl.  Great times!

Rider story: Woke up in a person’s house, that he did not know.  He thought it was our friends house.  He was wrong.  I believe a child woke him up, asking if he wanted to see his toys.

Rat Pack 2 aka Rat Pack 2006

It grew quite a bit as you can tell.  Highlights, a ridiculous house party where trucks showed up with people from a town 30 miles away.  A fun bar trip not many remember and The Muppets took Vermillion (inside joke). Also my buddy Dino wore a LARGE hat.

Rider story: Woke up in his car in front of my house covered in mud.  Seriously, just covered in it.  Breakfast that next morning was nuts.  This party was truly on to something.

Rat Pack 3

Well this one was fun.  Probably one of the most tame ones, which means everyone still got really inebriated.  The slip and slide was quite nice.  Are there pictures?  Yes.  Will I show them?  No.  Also I wore this really nice crushed velvet blazer AND had a shaved head…sexy.

Rider story: Woke up outside to a pastor…on a Sunday morning…who told him to find God.  This is a sign of things to come.

Rat Pack 4 aka Rat Pack McDonald’s House

Oh man, what didn’t we do at this one!?  This was fantastic.  We had cake.  We had better planned group pictures AND we had party pizzas served at our bar hangout that turned in to half of our bar place-of-work.

Rider story: His second most tame.  I believe he got behind the bar and wasn’t supposed to and was threatened by the manager of the bar to move, he was possibly punched.  He would more than make up for this the next year….trust me.

Rat Pack 5 aka The Best Rat Pack Ever Until Rat Pack 7

This one had it all man.  A great house party, a fantastic bar scene, ridiculous stories (Rider’s is a doozy) and most importantly a great time.  Billy Mays died that night, RIP.

This was the first one people REALLY stepped their game up.  Just look at this picture!  There is a freaking motorcycle!  Bad ass.  And everyone really got in to it.

Rider story: I get a text that Rider is outside of a bar on the ground, the ambulance has come to pick him up.  Instead of getting the assistance, he looks at the cops, on the ground no less, shrugs his shoulders and states “You wanna start something!?”  They did not.

Rat Pack 6 aka The Rat Pack That Almost Killed Rat Packs aka Rat Pack 2010

The least said about this one the better.  Half good, we had a closed dinner at a bar, THANKS RIGGS!  Also the very first one we awarded best dressed.  Congrats Pew and Steph.  The worst, ugh, just an awful one.  Rider doesn’t even have a story.

Rider story: He has no story.  That’s the story.

Rat Pack 7 aka THE BEST RAT PACK EVER (arguably)

Easily the best to that point.  There are two that are arguably as good.  This one was amazing.  Damn near entire group finally made it.  Everybody looks good.  My buddy is blocking this crazy b I dated for a week in the picture AND we got a party bus.  My favorite thing, and I wish this could be recreated but probably never will, Mr. Kyle Jensen gave introductions to each person that got on the bus.  That was bad ass, and this one was freaking fantastic.

Rider story: Woke up outside an apartment under a bush, walking in the small city of Sioux Falls, SD even though he got a hotel.  Brilliant!

Rat Pack 8 aka Rat Pack Bus Party Sequel

This one was good, not great.  Still an amazing night.  I was dating a crazy, hence the nice edit on the picture here.  A group meal at a local bar of 30 was awesome.  Getting crazy on a bus is always a good time.  Still better than most usual parties, and still WAY BETTER than Rat Pack 6.

Rider story: Oooof, better left unsaid.  Had to walk 3 miles to his home due to an issue.

Rat Pack 9 aka Rat Pack Deadwood

My personal favorite Rat Pack.  Ever.  Bonuses, one of my best friends birthdays, the second Rat Pack to not actually be on my birthday, which was nice to get away from that!  We had a slot tourney, a blackjack tourney, a meal, a birthday cake and a closed off portion of a popular casino in Deadwood for $34! Easily the best one and it was a full weekend.  The night before Rat Pack may actually be my favorite as we took that town by storm and had a cool gambling story where we played roulette and the roof started leaking water on us. Also did an old timey picture as well.  Pretty awesome.

Also the first Rat Pack of my wife.  How cool is that!?

Least favorite moment.  Very tiny complaint, but a handful of people still complained about paying $34 dollars for all of the stuff listed above that I did all the work for AND that group picture is nice and all, but I can never hang it up in my house without seeing pure evil…so there’s that.  Still the best one of all time easily.  And MVP of that weekend was easily my buddy Dino.  Hands down.

Rider story: Passed out under steps in the pouring rain on May 31-June 1.  Usually it wouldn’t be that awful if it wasn’t abnormally cold and there was snow that week…in May.  Proceeded to pass out in the hotel to warm up, only to get told to move.  Still better than how the previous year worked out!

Rat Pack 10 aka Rat Pack Vegas

Oh man.  So Rat Pack 3 I made a promise that if we ever made it to 10, we’d go to Vegas.  And we did it.  But man, was it hard to get planned.  But holy shit we did it.

Bachelor/Bachelorette party weekend in Vegas.  Got a house we could all party at on the cheap.  Had a great time on Fremont the Friday night.  The Thursday night just at the house was one of the funnest nights of my life.  And nothing like hearing stories of two of your buddies having $40 bucks and ending up with FAR more than that.

Only downfalls, forgot that we are all old now and the actual Rat Pack night, the very last night, everybody looked like they wanted to die.  Literally everyone was dead to the world.  Also 30 people in one house for 2-3 nights, probably not the best idea for non college people. We originally had a bigger house, but Vegas house people are not to be trusted and a few weeks before our house got switched to a smaller one.

Also should’ve just had everybody go out for the bachelor party instead of splitting up the boys and girls.  But what can you do?!  Still an awesome time and something I never thought would happen.

Rider story: No comment

And here we are!  Rat Pack 11!!!  Excited to see everyone as always.  My wife Heather and I just got married 2 weeks ago, but we didn’t really get to hang out with everybody, so that’ll be nice to actually get to sit down and unwind.  And that’s what this is for, for all of us to stay in touch.  Hopefully this continues on for as long as we can all swing it.  Obviously kids and work will make it tough to keep going with this, but this group of friends is easily worth trying to keep this going.  See you guys Saturday!

Jeff