Five dollars was apparently enough to become an early investor in the hot tub.
The invitation arrived late Thursday for a party Saturday night in Boulder. The plan was hot tub, beer, and whatever else people brought. Towels and ridiculous swimwear were encouraged. Anyone who drank too much could stay over.
One reply offered $5 of capital to help get the tub filled.
The email went to a long group of friends from the Denver and Boulder orbit. It was the kind of plan that existed almost entirely in a reply-all chain. No ticket link. No calendar service. No group chat. Somebody picked a house, wrote a cheerful paragraph, and told everyone to pass it along if a name was missing.
I do not have a sent reply that proves I went. The archive stops at the invitation and the first joke. That is still enough to remember the shape of those weekends.
My professional life was getting more serious. I had a director title at Beatport, a growing set of systems to manage, and a work signature that named five different products. Outside the office, somebody was figuring out whether the hot tub needed another five bucks.
The two things were not in conflict. Work moved fast and consumed a lot of attention. Friends kept putting something on the calendar anyway. Skiing, camping, baseball, house parties, road trips. The plans did not always happen exactly as advertised, but the invitations kept coming.
This one promised a glorious evening on two days' notice.
That seemed like enough planning for 2008.