I just got home from this event and had an awesome time! I met up with jwintosh and friends before the event at BJ's Pizza. I'm so glad I did. One of the coolest things was walking in with Jeff (free of charge) and having Pete immediately walk over and start chatting with us. (And giving us the latest "secret" info on upcoming projects). I thought it might be hard to talk to Pete with the crowd being so large, but arriving early surely helped. He proceeded to hand out either a mystery cigar or a black robusto. Pete seemed to be readily available to chat all evening long with much of the crowd watching the fights. My impression of Pete would be accommodating. I got him to sign my Frank box (on the inside in red), and the box of Noellas I bought, and swap the Tat ball cap for a Skully, and when I decided I wanted to try the mystery cigar instead of the black robusto, just gave me a mystery cigar too. (I need to find out what these are as it was a fantastic smoke, great flavor with a floral note of sweetness, and that was after smoking a Cruzado). I started feeling like I might be a little too presumptious, but Pete took it all in stride.
To top it all off, I won the raffle but gave the shirt away to Michael since it was a Stone Brewery shirt and I don't drink, and then proceeded to win the raffle again. So every one in our little group of 4 left with some raffle winnings (Jeff and Jeff won previously). So here's a pic of my score, lots of freebies:
(Oh yeah, someone gave me a free slice of BJ's pizza too). What a great night.