Office Olympia

“You don’t have to be bi to take part in the biathlon," suggested Amy, for the tagline of our biathlon event.  Funny and tempting as it was, we didn't end up using it. 

When Thursday rolled along, I surprised to see the tagline-free-not-so-well-advertised-event had still managed to gather a huge crowd (ready to cheer on our athletes), and a very worried HR manager (not ready to make a WCB claim). 

Thankfully, the worries did not materialise.  Instead, the most active of the Office Olympic events had people having a great time!  Whew! 

The week of Office Olympics finished off today with people bringing their scavenger hunt items to the boardroom at our Coffee Club.  I couldn't believe how much stuff people pulled together all in a few days.  It was by far our best attended too (though I might have helped that along by making one of the Scavenger Hunt items "Ten team members in attendance wearing red"). 

When the final scores were talled: Team Black won the big prize - a team pizza lunch. 

There were no prizes for the following, but I thought they're worth a mention:

1. Team Green - eventhough the team started out as pretty much just Simon, they eventually rallied big participation numbers, and managed a perfect score for the Scavenger Hunt.

2. Team Blue - Best spirit - we were possibly the loudest, most identifiable (by our swatch of blue cloth), and arguably the funnest (though, I might be a little biased...)

I still have yet to watch any of the real Olympics, but I hear Canada is doing pretty well.  I'm just happy the OO turned out all right.  The social committee's already heard from staff saying they'd look forward to something like this soon... though the commitee just might need 4 years to recover for the next one. 

Some more photo highlights here. 

Gold!

The Social Committee, ambitiously, decided to host a series of challenges / games over the week, Office Olympics, to coincide with the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. 

The first set of activities took place at lunch today: Table Hockey and Hula Hoop. 

After some grueling elimination rounds and some innovative technical variations that tested Anglea's (fellow Social Committee member and organiser of this event) judgement, I can proudly say, I am the Hula Hoop champ.  Yay! The first gold medal for the Blue Team!

(Right: Me, proudly displaying what I'm sure will be a delicious cookie medal.)

It'll be a crazy week with all organising and lunchtime activities (and work), but the office already seems to be really enjoying it.  Fingers crossed that the two activities I'm organising go without a hitch. 

More details and highlights at the end of the week. 

Go, Blue Team, go!

The Flame, This Way Came

From Neil's office it looked like a white thing and another white thing happened to have another bright white thing pass between them.  The photos show exactly that. 

After seeing this exchange, Paul, Wendy, and I headed our separate ways home. By chance, the LRT I caught also included one the white shapes (now clearly more than a thing), who candidly talked about the experience and posed for some photos. 

Downtown, it was clear the excitement of the Olympic flame making its way through the city had come to a boil.  The Square had been turned into a (at least partially) corporate sponsored carnival.  The Beverage Company had a booth to hand out specially packaged samples, a bank handed out souveniers... All had the Olympic symbol, so I guess are official collectibles.

 

People milled around for the entertainment and to wait for the last leg of the relay in Edmonton. Some were even dressed up - fully decked in red and white, and plenty of maple leaves (I feel a little sorry for the really young kids - do they know why they're out there in the cold?)  I wasn't going to wait for to seen another white thing meet another white thing... so I hopped on my bus and went home (with a couple of souveniers, of course). 

Today, everything seems back to normal.  With a little talk of whether we attended the festivities.  Boss Michael told me then the relay doesn't actually all happen on foot - the flame is driven from city to city.  While this is understandably practical, it seems a little less magical. 

Meanwhile, there is other magic: A M&M baby!  Congratulations, Margaret and Morgan!