Roblog

The weather report said 10% chance of rain that day, so I left my umbrella in the car, which was parked (for free!) 5 blocks away (you can see where this is going). It turns out that day was the 1 day out of 10 like it when it rained. I could see the rain clouds building from my desk on the 37th floor all afternoon, and by the time I was ready to leave, it was a steady rain.

Most of the materials I was taking to the event were already in my car, so I just had to get myself and my 2 bags of stuff (for the event that were not yet in the car) to the restaurant without getting too drenched. I had visions of poking holes in a trashbag for my head and arms, but I just couldn't stand the thought of how that would look. I eventually decided on a deconstructed cardboard box, which I could hold over my head with one hand while I carried the bags in my other.

That actually worked quite well. I was able to get 1 block closer to my car via the underground tunnels to the parking garage for the building. I then skittered across the street (yes, I jaywalked), box in-hand, over to the next parking garage. That left me 3 blocks of unprotected walking. The box held up admirably against the constant drizzle. The bottom of my pants and my shoes got wet, but nothing much else. I arrived at my car in better shape than I had feared.

Now, with my umbrella, I was on easy street, in theory. I wasn't in Theory, though. I was in Houston on Smith street trying to find the restaurant. I found it (it was quite inconspicuous, actually) but refused to pay the $10 for valet parking (I didn't have the cash, anyway). Driving around some more, I found some parking along the street that would turn into free parking in one hour. I just had to find 6 quarters to pay the meter, which I found only after some serious rummaging in my car.

Leaving my "rain box" behind, I grabbed my umbrella and an armful of stuff, and walked the block to the restaurant. This I repeated 5 times until I had all the materials in the restaurant (I only had one arm free, since I had to hold the umbrella, too). It was after the second trip that I couldn't get the umbrella to collapse upon entering the restaurant (yes, it was still drizzling). So I had the added pleasure of trying to secure the umbrella with the velcro strap outside the restaurant in the rain while holding a big box. By the third time doing that, I got pretty good at it.

The event itself was fun. Part of what I brought in were objects that took the place of name cards that I put at random seats at our table. So as people arrived, they looked at the objects and tried to determine which one represented themselves (and tried to guess which ones represented corresponded to other people). This was actually a lot of fun, since our ideas of what objects would represent people were not always obvious or necessarily aligned with what they thought of themselves. Since there was an mostly unfamiliar senior executive joining us for the event, we went around the table introducing ourselves, and as part of that introduction explained why that particular object represented that person. In some cases, the person had no idea (or the wrong idea) why that object was used!

For historical purposes, I'm listing the objects we used to represent each person and a short reason why.
- Laura: to-do list - she is very organized and always has lists she is working from (in fact, she used the to-do this before the evening was over!)
- Kim: miniature poker set - she and her husband have gone to Vegas to participate in poker tournaments
- Kevin: wind-up chattering teeth - he is able to talk for a long time
- Andrew: a inflatable hammer - he is called "the hammer" by some people in the group because of his tight adherence and enforcement of our processes
- Phuong: a male racing figurine in a barbie dress - her second child (nit yet born at the time) was initially determined to be a boy, but later identified as a girl
- Kamran: broken up Matchbox car - his son has totalled his family's car more than once
- Rob: smiley face mouse pad - I'm always cheerful
- Jerry: Truly Tasteless joke book - his sense of humor can be politically incorrect at times
- Wayne: carpet remnant with a hole in it and a paper model of a server - he has a network server sitting in his hallway to cover up a hole in the carpet his son's dog chewed
- Dirar: Chuck-E-Cheese place setting - he took his kids to Chuck-E-Cheese a lot
- Susan: paper iPod - she is always listening to her iPod at work
- John: WWF magazine - he was a wrestler in college
- Tommy: fake bill from the restaurant - he was the senior executive who funded the event
- Ed: regulation football - he played on the national champion Miami team in college
- Shelby: small Astros helmet with a ring on top - she was proposed to during an Astros game (she accepted)