It’s just about 10:00 Monday night as I write this. I won’t be able to post the entry until I get back to the office in the morning, however, as my room is apparently one of the ones not yet blessed with DSL internet connections. Ah well, it could have been a lot worse.

First, the resort. It’s in the foothills, nicely situated in heavily wooded surroundings. Some time when I have lots and lots of money I’ll come back and explore what hiking opportunities may be nearby. I won’t get that chance on this trip, unfortunately.

The meetings themselves went about as well as any other department heads’ shindig. We talked a lot about what our goals are. We took a valiant stab at creating a mission statement for our local cluster. Positive and negative aspects of our workplace were brought to light. We even talked a little bit about The Tipping Point, the book that served as the catalyst for this event to begin with. Towards the end we were given colored hats and fresh new logoed shirts.

Why colored hats, you ask? Our “scheduled fun” took the form of croquet. This isn’t the backyard variety, either. The layout and rules are a bit different, and rather strict. We originally were broken up into teams with the intent of holding a sort of tournament, but most folks really wanted to eat, watch a game on TV and get blitzed at one of the condos. Some of us got better accomodations than others, you see. (I’m not complaining: I’m tucked away in a small and quiet portion of the resort… far away from the noise and frivolity. Praise the goddesses.)

There was a last-minute rally by a sizable group of us to get some more use out of those nice (lamplit) croquet greens. An idea borne of alcohol and pure contrariness led us to play “double green croquet.” Four wickets up, four wickets back, four down the middle, both posts. The eight of us had a complete blast. (Score? Seven wickets to five, the team with seven hit both posts. Who knew I was a croquet savant?) After we lost and gained personnel, one more regulation-style game was assayed. The teaming of David Lichtman, Keevin Wagner and myself remains undefeated, thank you, thank you.

And now I’m out on my feet and have to get up at 7:00 or so if I want to have a nice full breakfast on the company dime. There’s one more meeting, then lunch, and after that we are encouraged to enjoy the available facilities at will. Gary Hilliard (Chief Engineer) is my ride, though, and we both agreed to bail for the office as soon as possible. (He’s got work to do, I have a vacation to prepare for.)

All in all, there are worse ways I can imagine spending a day in the Cascade foothills.