Too Much....

I have started writing at least 4 different times…but nothing is coming out right. All of my words seem to be jumbled and out of sorts.

Tonight I am quite happy sitting in a hotel room in Arlington. You see, my company had its annual “Kick-Off” meeting this week. Our employees world-wide come to our head quarters here in McLean and we start out the year right. There are training sessions for the departments that need it, there are employee bonding times, there is a motivational speaker, and other stuff to keep us busy. This year it was held at the Westin in Arlington (Steph you are a genius!). Due to the traffic congestion we were given hotel rooms to allow us to be at the meetings at 7:30 this morning. Not a big deal but nice for me as that is two nights I don’t feel like a mooch.

Last night was “employee bonding”. A couple of cheerleaders from the Washington Redskins came to cheer for us, then the employees were split into teams and required to create a cheer. Now, I am pretty sure this was uncomfortable for many of the employees. By the way the drinks were going, most of the participants got pretty loose due to the need for a bit of liquid courage. This only added to the humor of the created cheers, the group that won the contest that consisted of about 4 lines….one line referred to our CEO as Mama Siki, one line said our company kicked a** and the last line said: Cuz Mama ain’t no hoe! Throw in pom-poms and a lot of liquor and this is a very funny scene. (One of the guys let me play with his expensive fancy schmancy camera..I got a ton of pictures including one that has MY BOSS on top of a pyramid of people arms raised to the V.) A down side to all of the liquor is that the guys in our company were circling the cheerleaders like sharks by the end of the night. It got a little old after a while.

Today our speaker was David Breshears, he has climbed Mount Everest, and made an IMAX film about it. It was an interesting presentation; I am interested in reading his book and seeing the DVD of his movie. There were many other presentations, which I was the photographer for. (I will get better.) It has been nice.

Here is my problem. I really don’t have much to do with these events. This is my second one and, as Steph can attest to, I come in at the very end and help fill in all the spots where an extra set of hands is needed. That is all. Today I have been thanked many times for all of my work. I haven’t done anything to be thanked for. Yeah I help with set up, prep, etc. for these two days, but there are other people that have spent months working on this project. Yet every single time they extend the appreciation I am on the list of those that “make everything possible”. On top of it I got an achievement award for my work during the second half of this last year. It came as quite a shock. I sit with those that are running the show, doing what ever needs to be done, so we were outside of the banquet room during the announcing of the awards (we had finally gotten a chance to eat) I was called into take a picture, only to find out that they are presenting me with this award. Everyone thought it was funny to watch me be surprised. I felt awkward. This company has always been good to me. I know my loyalty is not misplaced, but I sometimes feel as if they think I do more then I actually do.

Anyway, I have a few projects to work on tonight. I finally have my move in date and need to see if I can get people to actually help me move that day. On top of that I am working on the committee for the George Washington Birthday Celebration in Alexandria…Anyone want to volunteer to help on the Race? :)