What the heck is a pink squirrel you may be asking yourself? 

What you see here is the classic representation of some silliness that we just had to keep going for years now. 

The cast of characters involved was Myself (staring as the pink squirrel even though I did not know that at the time), Joshua Canary (the ringleader), Eric Parucki (the one and only EROCK), David Leonard (ringleader in training) and finally Karen McLaughlin (whatever she is, it's perfect) . 

Let us set the scene.  It is a warm and balmy Saturday night in Austin, Texas and we as a group have just finished seven of the longest days you can imagine.  As a group we had run through 11 days worth of Microsoft training material in 7 days.  All of us were pretty much fried completely.  We had half a day of trivia to cover on Sunday and then we were all flying back to our regular work schedules which were not all that free on time. 

Now, at the time I was still a big guy who was getting back into being able to have fun.  I had been a tee-totaller for at least the last 18 years.  You see I had this little problem when it came to booze. As long as I avoided beer or wine, I could generally drink like a fish and not pay for it in the normal manner.  A bottle or two of booze goes in and I don't get sick.  I wake up in the morning feeling a little tired but still able to function.  I was working in the restaurant business as a youngster when I learned this about myself.  I realized that I had no control and needed to get some so I quit drinking completely.  Fast forward to this nice warm night after a long week and here I am not drinking while all my "friends" get fried.

We find ourselves at the closest restaurant that is within walking distance of the hotel (drinking requiring certain conditions) and commence to having dinner.  The choice was a place called the Bahama Breeze.  Sadly it no longer exists at least at that location. 

The Bahama Breeze uses an island / Jamaican theme for it's restaurant concept.  This leads to lots of drinks made / based on rum.  They did a serious drink menu of many to many pages.  It included in it a special drink called a pink squirrel. 

For those who don't know, this is what you need to make a pink squirrel:

     - 1/2 oz Creme de Almond (Noyaux)
     - 1/2 oz Creme de Cacao (white)
     - 2 oz Cream
 

Now this should be a white drink cool refreshing drink which has nothing to do with rum or cherry juice or vanilla ice cream. 

On that dastardly night in question, my friends were drinking and I was not.  This is situation fraught with danger.  You will eventually give in and take that small step that leads to becoming something of a pink squirrel yourself :-)

Accepting my fate, I ordered something small.  Not even sure what it was.  The night progressed as did many drinks of different kinds.

I was most interested in the drink called a pink squirrel after reading the description in the Bahama Breeze table drinks menu many times.  I was a bit wasted at that point.  Mental note to self, do not drink yourself to this state with "friends".  Especially if you are going to discuss in detail how interesting a pink squirrel sounds and then after much deliberation order it.

I wish I could still remember the exact description of the drink but it involved vanilla ice cream, rum, cherry juice and other goodies.  What it tasted like was a cherry vanilla milkshake with lots of rum and crushed ice in it.  Nothing at all like what most bartenders will make when they hear the name.

Since I took too long to buy the drink my friends had to give me that nick name.  It's all good!

I'm now and forever known as the pink squirrel and to that end I had it made permanent :-)

Most shocking was how many pink squirrels exist on the various instant messenger services.  Since I am an engineer I decided to use a well known integer representative "x" as the unique but totally variable piece of my name.  I can always be reached that way.  On Yahoo, I am pinksquirrelx.  On AOL, I am pinksquirrelx as well. 

HAPPY DRINKING, ESPECIALLY WITH FRIENDS!