White Ra :: Picture me, Friday evening, happy houring with my favorite co-worker(who hates it when I call him that), we finish and he asks, “ Want to meet my friend for a drink? She has a friend visiting from out of town and I promised I’d meet up with them.”

“Mmmm, not really,” I say, but then after some coaxing agreed to go along for an hour.

AND I AM SO GLAD I AGREED because neither of us could have predicted the random night that unfolded from there.

Upon meeting said friend and her out of town guest our little foursome made our way to a bar.  Several blocks away from our destination people start coming up to “out of town guest” and exclaiming, “OH! HI! OMG, Can I get a picture with you?” Before I knew it, I was taking picture after picture of “out of town guest” and every person that passed us on the side walk.

We get to the bar, sit down, and it’s the same thing all over again — rounds of drinks are being bought for our table, random people sit down with us to meet “out of town guest” or have their picture taken with him. All the while I’m thinking, “WHAT IN THE WORLD. WHO IS THIS GUY?!”

As it turns out “out of town guest” is a world class famous video game player from Ukraine. He’s REALLY good at video games. So good, that he makes a living(and a good one) playing video games and traveling to gaming conferences(which is why he was in Seattle).

Post hour of drinks, we took full advantage of the celebrity in our midst and followed him to a party hosted by one of his sponsors. It was like a scene from a movie: We were ushered to the front of the long line, told the bouncer who we were with, and were instantly given VIP passes which were good for free drinks all night, lots of dancing with video game fanatics from all over the country, and best of all allowed for hours of getting a kick out of watching gamer after gamer came up to “our friend” ecstatic to be in the presence of one of the best video game players on Planet Earth.

** He’s the one in the red jacket. He goes by White Ra. …And I’m the one pretending not to care that I’m in the presence of greatness.