Ha, been out of commision for 10 days, so I didn't see this until today. But yeah, when I saw your post I got so nostalgic, in fact just yesterday a friend came from Ecuador after a year and three months and we made a LAN party this sunday to receive him back!
A friend of us, a sociologist, said he was really impressed at the bonds we had made, because almost none of us had played dota in a long time, in fact I hadn't played ever since the friend had gone to Ecuador. We all had to copy the client and configure a server for playing because none of us had it, and that friend was like... WOW, you guys really got reunited by a videogame that you guys haven't played in a year? That's AMAZING!
When I was reading your post I felt like I was there, plus you had many pics... unfortunately I don't have any pics of our tournaments... though I would have loved to have some... maybe next time I'll take a few, I just get so focused on making sure the server works, the wifi works, the computers don't freeze, etc... that I forget to take pics.
Treasure those friends (I'm sure you do). You never know when they'll leave and when you won't be able to play together again... I miss a lot these times.