I'm back (voice from ending scene in Independence Day as he flies his jet into the alien spacecraft)
Fun Fact: since I hinted I would be back with a flame thrower, did you know that you can own/buy one, the ThrowFlame XL18, look it up, must be great to have for parties
Not to take away from this post of a beautiful custom C8 build, but will be somewhat brief on the topic of HS grads. There are 2 camps of people.
Those that see a HS grad as nothing more than collecting a piece of paper, and moving on to the next level of school, and maybe keep in touch with a couple of "friends" at most, and move on with life
Those that see HS grad as a major life accomplishment, working hard to achieve great things (not a TRUMP statement), and parents overjoyed that they want to mark the occasion like that of a wedding, with their "child" taking that next step into adulthood making big choices for their career (and in essence continuing with school).
No need to guess what category I fall under. My parents (late mother) rolled out the red carpet, hired a limo to take me to the event, with them as paparazzi in tow. I wanted to take that 100 levels higher, but since it was GP weekend, limos were extremely costly (hence the GradMobile decor), and we celebrated the event with both sides of the family at a nice restaurant, and many of the gifts were quite big.
I had to explain all of this to my francophone in-laws, who also had the same thought, why so big. Turns out the English (at least in Quebec) have the tradition to treat a HS grad like a wedding, go big and make it count, make your kid feel special for a day/weekend. My father-in-law said it best to me. He said he finally got it, that on the French side, it was not as big of a deal, because it was a given that kids would just continue onto school, but in reality many dropped out as well, giving no chance to celebrate a future grad. This one was the BIG ONE, and possibly the ONLY ONE for some. It was also a step into adulthood, to make big decisions on career choices.
So won't turn the corvette forum into a graduation 101 lesson, but I can say that it was one hell of a memorable weekend, we wanted our son to have the best time ever with his friends and girlfriend, so much so that we stayed downtown all night (showed off the C8 cruising around during GP) and waited for their grad to end (dance) and picked them up to take them back to our house, where we hosted the afterparty. Let me tell you, you have never seen a morning brunch like the one we put on, the spread stretched across the table and we treated them like they were at the Fairmont. It was all about making them feel special, the only thing missing was a fireworks display in the backyard. We did have the BIG LETTERS on the front lawn GRAD 2023, with a ton of balloons outside too, and my brother appropriately came by with a nice bottle of champagne, and let my son pop the bottle open (his first time doing so), and we toasted to his big day and success (both families present).
Would we go this big for a CEGEP or University grad, most likely not, but it was our chance to shout out loud for everyone to hear how proud we were of him, his girlfriend, and all his close friends.
Now back to your regular scheduled program.
And on a side note, I too will "subscribe" to any thread that Jack replies to !!