2003: Too Far From Reality

Another year, another Showmanship trophy. Our 6th second place finish this time, our ninth trophy in 14 competitions. A fall to second place in Space Trivia - after four straight first place finishes - probably hurt.

Our skit this year - "Too Far From Reality" - featured our usual cast of characters: Christiane Armand-Bayou, Pat McGroin, and the Chili News Network. The big story, of course, was the ongoing war in Iraq, which by this time had seen US forces enter Baghdad. The prime target for skewering was the Iraqi Information Minister who insisted (among other things) that "Everything is OK". Geraldo Rivera, Elvis, the Public Affairs Office, the new security barricades at JSC, and the recent email server problems all made appearances of sorts.



Tom and Steph updated the Jello-shot Delivery System to JDS 1.1. It was very helpful in our annual Jello Shot Twister game





Spoons - a disappointing non-top-3 finish.


At least the tattoos were a hit, though.


Bombing run!
T - E - A - M, Teeeeeeeeeam drink! (Tim's the devil)





They didn't like our chili this year either. What a surprise.


On the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the JSC Chili Cookoff, the organizers created a plaque to honor "Grand Poo-Bah" George Abbey, the who has been involved with the cookoff since the beginning. When they asked around for photos of Abbey, I remembered that as Center Director at the time, he had a photo op at our booth in 1998 with Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Beaumont, TX). The original photo has gotten misplaced somewhere, but a scan is on the Surfin' Chili web page.

George Abbey with the plaque


The original print from 1998


A closeup of the image from the plaque


Surfin' Chili 2003

2002: Lucky 13

For the first time since 1992, a first place trophy for Showmanship! That's our eighth Showmanship trophy in 12 years. A first place ribbon for Grapefruit, our seventh overall and our first since 1990, the original Surfin Chili team (Tim's the Devil!). An unprecedented fourth straight first place ribbon for Space Trivia - and no team in the 24 year history of the JSC FOD Chili Cookoff had even won three in a row. We rocked.

Taking home the Trivia prize


Steph, Dave, and Dan - "Da roof! Da roof! Da roof is on fire!"





A little for the chili, a little for the cooks...



Always the innovators - we pioneered "Burma Shave" signs, Jell-O shots (and Jell-o shot Twister), Mardi Gras beads, booth balconies, and temporary tattoos to the cookoff - this year we added Tom's Jello-shot Delivery System (JDS). Leave it to an engineer to take some PVC pipe, some copper tubing, a cooler full of ice water, and a pump, and put together a refrigerated Jello shot dispenser.



Our skit this year skewered our usual range of targets: Jefferson Howell and the ISS Program Office, a takeoff of "Willy Wonka". We took on the post-9/11 security checks, the new JSC Center Director, Enron, Britney Spears, Osama bin Laden, ISS funding problems, and new NASA Director Sean O'Keefe. We must have done something right, we won the Showmanship trophy, right?






Amid the usual cherry bombs and Jell-O shot Twister, Surfin' Chili surfed to another successful year. Team captains Lisa, Sally, and Stephanie shared the trophy with Surfin Chili Dude. We're ready to defend our title in 2003...

2001: A Surfin' Odyssey

Second place trophy for Showmanship, our seventh in 11 years. Third place ribbon for Grapefruit, our sixth. A three-peat first place ribbon for Space Trivia, the first time in the 23 year history of the JSC FOD Chili Cookoff. Surfin' Chili kicked some serious butt.

Taking a cue from the STS-98 crew, we thought Safety. You got a problem with that?






The secret ingredient in the chili


The secret ingredient in the cooks


Never content to rest on our laurels - we pioneered "Burma Shave" signs, Jell-O shots, Mardi Gras beads, and booth balconies to the cookoff - this year we added temporary tattoos.

Tim said he was putting a tattoo on her....



Our skit this year skewered our usual range of targets: 2001: A Survivor Anomaly took on Al Gore and the 2000 Presidential Election, George Abbey, the destruction of Mir, the Hainan China airplane incident, Dennis Tito, the ISS computer fiasco, and Survivor. It was not a pretty sight.



Between Robin's cherry bombs and Sally's Jell-O shots, Surfin' Chili surfed to another successful year despite not winning any chili awards for an incredible 12th straight year. We rule!

2000: SC2K

As part of the 10th Anniversary celebration, Surfin' Chili unveiled a brand new booth. It was still built by a bunch of drunks, but we were (mostly) sober when we designed it. The banner reads "Celebrating Surfin' Chili's 10th Year".

The new features for the booth: a second story (yet another first for Surfin' Chili at the JSC/FOD Chili Cookoff), Mardi Gras beads from the balcony, a new cook, a beach house theme -- but the same surfin' chili mascot. We held the official ribbon-cutting during the booth judging.

This year's skit, as usual, skewered the current events of the nation and NASA: the new class of Astronaut Candidates, Elian Gonzales, the recent failed Mars missions, the ABC/Time Warner fight, and "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire", all rolled into a skit called "Who Wants to Marry an Astronaut?".

We racked up a second straight 1st Place ribbon for space trivia, along with a second place ribbon for Spoons, and a 3rd Place Trophy for Showmanship. Still shooting for the #1 trophy there, but considering there were about a hundred teams, still not too bad. Surfin' Chili keeps rolling when the others fall by the wayside.

1999: The Phantom Menace

Kicked butt again this year. Robin was back with her cherry bombs, and Jello Shot Twister ruled. We pulled off a 160-point margin of victory in Space Trivia semifinal round then cruised for the 1st place ribbon. First place in spoons. Third place in pyramid. Our skit: a takeoff of (what else), the hot current events, "Star Wars" and the Clinton/Lewinsky scandals, entitled: "Surfin' Chili: The Phantom Menace". But the judges refused to even place us in the top three of showmanship. I smell a conspiracy.

1998: Well, ummm....

Sigh. Not every cookoff can be a winner. Oh sure, we had our Burma Shave signs (Hey John Glenn -- Think you're tough? -- Have a bowl -- The REAL Right Stuff! -- Surfin' Chili), and we had our Jello Shot Twister, and our tequila shots, and our cherry bombs... but we didn't have a skit, for the first time since 1991.

We had lame excuses like "I'm too busy". A script was planned; topical references would have included the last episode of "Seinfeld", Viagra, "Titanic", the Clinton/Lewinsky matter, and the new crew of the space station: John Glenn, Pat McGroin, and Kenny McCormack of "South Park". It also would have plagiarized old scripts of ours. In the end, though, it was just too little, too lame, so we went to the Big Dance skitless.

In the meantime, we managed to pick up a 3rd Place ribbon in both Grapefruit Pass and Pyramid Build and a 2nd Place Spoon Pass. Obviously, no Showmanship Award this year (or chili award, for that matter -- they opened up the competition and brand new teams won all the awards. A subsequent investigation turned up nothing...), but John had a comment of his own (see picture at left). Even Sally tried going undercover as a judge, but to no avail.


The booth was graced by the presence of JSC Center Director George Abbey (who once again declined our tequila shots, cherry bombs, and Jello shots) and Congressman Nick Lampson (D-Beaumont, TX) in whose disctrict JSC resides. Lampson, on the other hand, partook of both cherry bombs and Jello shots. He's a cool Congresscritter. Even General Jake Vermilyea, a top dog at USA management, chugged some cherry bomb juice.


You gotta love this place. Where else in the world can you have a German astronaut nicknamed Hoss wearing a cowboy hat and doing a Jello shot?



Next year, we'll do better. After all, it's the last chili cookoff of the millennium....

1997: So Long, Farewell to Mir

We started off the morning with a missing burner. Despite that setback, chef David Rose guided our team to an incredible 21st place finish in the Judges' Chili competition. (Out of 22 teams.)

Situated directly across from the hated Chili Con Barney team and next to Chili AsCan Carne (the 1996 Astronaut Class), we managed to keep ourselves in the spotlight. We pulled off a 2nd place finish in the Grapefruit Pass and 1st place finish in the spoons, though our space trivia team left something to be desired. Placing just out of the money in beer chug, we were in the running for Pyramid Build (under 8 seconds in practice, with the New Fat Boyz What Don't Climb) until it inexplicably collapsed. Nonetheless, we were good enough for a second consecutive 2nd Place Showmanship Trophy.


We brought back an old favorite -- the water balloon launcher, which gave us a bit of trouble due to being deep in the trees, until we learned how to aim the balloon so that it dropped its water over the intended target. We nixed the pre-cookoff idea of putting pudding in the balloons. Jeers to the guy who got upset about getting wet and threw his beer on a Surfer. Unfortunately, Sally's cherry bombs were a bit weak. The tequila shots, as always, were a big hit (especially with some of the Ascans), although JSC Center Director George Abbey politely declined a shot.




And a new favorite was introduced -- Jello Shot Twister, in which the appropriately colored jello shot was consumed before the player moved their hand or foot. A good time was had by all.

This year's skit: a look behind the scenes at Jerry Linenger's "Letters to My Son", based on Jerry's real letters to his son about life aboard the Russian space station Mir. We ended with a rousing rendition by The Surfin' von Trapp Family Singers singing "So Long, Farewell to DT" (DT is the mail code for the Astronaut Training Division).

FOD Awards:

• 2nd Place trophy for Showmanship
  
• 1st Place ribbon for Spoon Pass
  
• 2nd Place ribbon for Grapefruit Pass
  

Once again, we lost the showmanship trophy !@*&!#^%*$ Barney team, for the second year in a row. (We think our "So Long, Farewell" skit may have hurt us, seeing as how one of the judges is a manager in the Training Division). Despite the fact that Surfin' Chili was ISO 9000 Certified, we could tell there was definitely a conspiracy against us this year, since our propaganda, skit, and activities kicked Barney's butt. We're gonna have to try harder next year...

Oh, and since Tim has left, it appears that Gabe may be the devil now.

See Surfin' Chili in action! Jesse Pollard of filemedia.com was at the cookoff filming the proceedings. There's a whole page devoted to the 1997 Johnson Space Center Annual FOD Chili Cook-Off; we were there under the "smartass comments" section. (Sadly, the 1997 chili cookoff site has since been removed - this is the Internet Archive Wayback Machine's 2001 archive, and all it has is the text, no video.)

1996: X-Files: The Chili Incident

Despite a devastating loss in the Space Trivia contest, Surfin' Chili managed to pull off the most incredible cookoff coup of all times: we won all four major trophies (Judges' Choice Best Chili, Peoples' Choice Best Chili, travelling People's Choice trophy, and Showmanship). Well, OK, we didn't exactly WIN all of them, but we did have them all at our booth at once. That's because I stole all four.


There were 25 teams from all over the NASA community in Houston, including space shuttle and station projects, with teams ranging from the public affairs office to the 1995 astronaut class (the Flying Escargot) to a bunch of medical doctors. Surfin' Chili was probably the 5th oldest team with continuous representation, behind (in no particular order) PAO, Wrong Stuff, BARF, and Red Baron.

Note: drinking screwdrivers starting at 8 a.m. makes the day go a lot faster.

Our skit this year was an X-Files takeoff called X-Files: The Chili Incident. It has the X-Mobile, crop circles, mysterious disappearances, the Unabomber, Zeta Reticulans, and the return of Pat McGroin. And oh yeah, we deliberately chose to put a guy in drag to help our Showmanship chances. (Picture by Dale Martin, special to the Surfin' Chili page.)



FOD Awards:

• 2nd Place trophy for Showmanship
  
• 1st Place ribbon for Pyramid Build
  
• 2nd Place ribbon for Spoon Pass
  

But dammit, we lost the shomanship to that !@*&!#^%*$ Barney team. The Showmanship trophy goes to the team who displays the most spirit before and during the cookoff. This includes pre-cookoff propaganda, participation in events, and general obnoxiousness. The Barney team won, I suspect, due to their propagandizing (which included stuff like painting dinosaur footprints outside a few buildings [with water-based paint] and hanging a banner outside JSC that renamed it the "Lyndon Barney Johnson Space Center").

Next year, guys...

The 1996 cookoff was the first one in which one of the teams had their own web page (this one, of course, which has been around since December 1995). At least one other team, impressed by the technical wizardry required for web page building, stole the idea and began to make their own. The Red Baron Chili page was up for a while, but apparently they found that they couldn't compete with Surfin' Chili and took it down.