in my own Maliyacular...: Pritesh!!!!!!!! (Plus a Few Other Favorites)

Well, weekend number four of staying up past midnight on the weekends was a semi-success. I say a semi-success, because I didn't exactly stay awake til midnight on either Friday or Saturday night. However, the amount of fun I had on both evenings supercedes the whole midnight goal thing.

This past Friday was the day of our firm's Chicago market's All Hands meeting - this is essentially a large all-day meeting for all people in the Chicago Advisory (consulting) practice at our firm. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the meeting because of other client commitments I had during the day. However, I was able to make it just in time for the networking event that was lined up at Navy Pier immediately following the official business.

If you know me at all, you know I live for networking events - I feel totally in my element during these kinds of things. I knew this particular networking event was going to be especially fun, since a group of us had already planned to go out together afterwards, to celebrate Pritesh's visit to Chicago.

Pritesh is a co-worker from one of my old projects last year and... well, simply put, he QUICKLY escalated to Favorite status in my book He is honestly just one of the GREATEST (read: nicest, chillest, funniest, etc.) people I know... I could literally go on and on about his greatness. Honestly though, as I've said before, you know how you can just pick out the "good people" based on instinct alone? That's Pritesh for you. Given how fantastic he is, it's no wonder that his ~~former teammates~~ "Chicago following" was so excited to reunite with him and take him out for his Friday night in Chicago.

The evening started off innocently enough - after taking FULL advantage of that PwC-sponsored open bar networking event (and/or being the last people to leave the networking event), we decided it was time to move onto the next stop. After a bit of debate, it was settled that we would head to Durkin's (a bar in Lincoln Park)... all you can eat pizza and drinks for $20 on a Friday?! You better believe it - it's times like this that you realize how much it pays to have someone like Sandeep K (read: frugality personified... and another Favorite) around.

How to get there, you ask? Well, why not an impromptu little limo ride?

(It's times like this that you realize how much it pays to have someone like Neha K (another Favorite) around to negotiate those limo rates...)

And, well, I mean, obviously the early evening (it was way too early to be considered "night") deserved a pit stop at a liquor store for... some champagne. Naturally.

I mean, Pritesh WAS in town - we clearly had a lot to celebrate!

After spilling like the majority of champagne throughout the limo and circling around the block a couple of times (we wanted to get our money's worth!), we finally tumbled on outta that limo and into Durkin's.

You better believe we got straight to work with that all you can eat and drink special. God, it's been so long since I've had Domino's pizza... and as much as I love pizza of all kinds (gourmet or otherwise), there is just something so tantalizingly delicious about good, ol' fashioned Domino's.

Okay, I may have gotten a bit carried away with the pizza ~~gorging~~ love that night, but... well, damn. It is just that good.

And... well, in all fairness, I think the rest of the pictures can just speak for themselves. The night was filled with...

Some serious socializing (and consumption of Domino's pizza)...