We had some impressive entries for Gravitate’s Annual Costume Contest. Some old, some new, some confusing. The unofficial theme ended up being wigs – or by 10am – complaining how itchy wigs are.

Zombies were a popular choice this year.

The Gravitate logo is always in style. An afro? Not so sure about that.

Grand prize went to Elton John Wayne.  British cowboy accent, one earring, a 2-gallon hat, and a toy gun…what’s not to love!  All he was missing was a purple grand piano (I think it’s still on backorder from Amazon.com).

Naturally, some of us are already planning our costumes for next year.

Gravitate Principal William Roskowski is a pretty smooth dude. True to his too-cool-for-school style, he believes in the presence of celebrities that one should be loose, linger, maybe even have a snack, but DEFINITELY no eye contact and no letting on that in fact, you know that they are a celebrity.

Here’s our fearless leader in Vegas, attempting to “hang out” with Jason Alexander and Cheryl Hines without them realizing that the three of them were in fact hanging out together. This scene consisted of 10 minutes of shark-circling, followed by the consumption of 2 Twinkies. Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.

I had high hopes for our corporate retreat this year – a quaint little cabin in the woods, ropes courses, trust falls…somehow my plans went sideways and we ended up going to Las Vegas instead, playing poker with celebrities and going backstage with actor/comedian Brad Garrett.

After completing the websites for Brad Garrett’s comedy club and the Maximum Hope Foundation (Brad’s charity) we had the opportunity to visit our funniest client in Sin City. Not only was he so gracious in letting us come backstage, we also participated in the Maximum Hope celebrity poker tournament, where Annie Duke, Ray Romano, Cheryl Hines, Jason Alexander, Joe Conseco and more were in attendance.

It turns out that the troops at Gravitate are far better at creating websites than Texas Hold-Em, and we lost our shirts (but not our pride) at the tables. At least it was for a good cause. Next year? Back to the woods…