Yesterday was the first day of my day job retreat and it was interesting, especially the stuff we covered on Scrum and Agile development. I got to have lunch with Beth, who grew up with me at the company these last 16 years and is like my work-sister. And around 3pm, we had a “team-building” exercise, which entailed walked down the street to the local bowling lanes and bowling for 2 hours. That was a whole lot of fun. Our team, made up of me, Pam, Cord, and Amy came in first place in the first round, second in the second round. I bowled over 100 each game and Amy bowled a remarkable (to me) 177 in our second game.
Afterward, we headed over to El Cholo in Santa Monica for an extended happy hour. A lot of my work friends were there and that made it easier to get through the rest of the evening, especially when I am missing Kelly and the Little Man. During one of our exercises today, Kelly called me because the Little Man wanted to talk to me and I said hello to him on the phone. He proceeded to tell me all about “eh-panes” which I found to be just adorable. Kelly said that at school his teacher pretended to call me because they new his daddy was “at work”. He wanted to do it for real and it was a pleasant surprise to get to talk to him in the middle of the day.
El Cholo was a lot of fun. Lots of people showed up and we were probably there for more than three hours. Eventually, my good friend Andy, myself, Mary and her husband Bruce (a fellow Yankee fan) headed out for pizza.
When Andy dropped me off at the hotel afterward, he had me autograph my story, “Hindsight, In Neon” in his copy of the Descended From Darkness anthology. It was a humbling ending to what turned out to be a very cool day.
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