A true survivor

Well, alrighty, then—for the second Friday in Pride month, we should have something from Elton John. I’ve pulled out “I’m Still Standing”, because it seems emblematic of everyone who’s made it through the pandemic, but also because this video reminds me so much of a sales conference my company had at Cannes back on the cusp of the New Millennium.

Here are some of the highlights I recall:

The EMEA GM (within a year, company CEO) got into a tussle with the VP of sales out on the hotel patio at the welcome reception, and they both ended up in the pool. I have pix.

(The VP was wearing expensive loafers. He was not best pleased.)

The company made attendees share rooms with colleagues. I ended up with someone I’d never met before. That policy absolutely creeps me out. (One of my colleagues came out to her assigned roommate before the trip. The roomie was evidently the only person in the office who didn’t know, and it turns out she didn’t care.)

The big “team building” exercise was to be divided into teams, given movie props and a video camera, and told to “make a film”. (We were there the week before the big Cannes Film Festival. It was actually the week of the Cannes Adult Film Festival, if you’re asking.) Our props were Darth Vader’s helmet and cape, and a light sword. Having a certified maniac assigned to the team resulted in a video that absolutely horrified the global head of HR, who had come over from Ottawa; I assure you with all my heart that had such a thing been shown at any corporate event in the US, the company would still be embroiled in lawsuits 20 years on.

However—my team won, and I still have the director’s chair that each of us got as a prize. Also, it was a really funny video.

I think this was the event where the GM/future CEO put on a kilt, came out with the sword Gibson used in Braveheart and mooned the audience. But that might have been a different time/place.

Possibly because of the shared room accommodation, a sales director and one of the account managers on his team had a right good shag one night on the beach outside the hotel. Many people saw it and had a right good laugh about it. Some time later the (female) account manager was let go; the director kept his job.

One of the account managers—who won a trip to the US for exceeding quota or some such—got up on the table and danced to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”. I can never hear that song without thinking of her.

A cohort of employees stayed in the hotel bar until it closed that night. Then the VP who’d picked up the tab (on the company, of course) sent everyone there back to their rooms to clean out their minibars and return. They remained drinking until about 0400. I was not part of the jolly group, but they were definitely the worse for wear the next day.

Ah, good times.

Anyway—Elton John. This is so early 80s. 

 

Good deed

Given the typical June weather here in the District They Call Columbia, I’ve had to push my daily walks earlier in the morning. Even so, before 0700 it’s 76F and at least 75% humidity, so it’s not an entirely pleasant experience.

However, you see things in the morning that you don’t later on. Viz: this little guy, who’d trudged up a slope about 10 yards and looked to be on his way to the W&OD Trail. Or possibly headed home after a night on the tiles.

I might should have let him carry on, but that direction was definitely away from the pond, so I relocated him to the wet area.

Back in grad school, I earned the epithet “[Bas Bleu], Redeemer of Reptiles”, because tortoises around the Burg had a tendency to try to cross busy highways teeming with tourons whose minds are not on driving. I would pull over, pick them up and carry them to the other side. I learned to pick them up by the edges of their shell, away from their heads, because they’d try to bite and they did pee. I applied those lessons to the turtle yesterday.

He didn’t look best pleased, but I did it for his own good.

 

 

Nature's mysteries 1

Over the past few months, I’ve been collecting a lot of pix of plants, shrubs and trees I find interesting, but have no clue as to what they are. I need you to help me with this.

First up is a shrub over to the corporate HQ that started out as interesting buds, moved through flowers with a delicate fragrance and ended up as kind of flower bones. I don’t think I’ve seen it anywhere else; not even elsewhere in the corporate HQ campus.

#IDme: 

 

 

Among us

Moving on, like bees, today’s post is full of fungi. They certainly come in many varieties, don’t they?

These beauties were growing for a (wet) day on a Japanese maple. After the rain stopped, they dried up.

These popped up in a shady area:

These over at the corporate HQ:

And these on a tree stump:

Dang—now I’m hungry.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: watching them work

I don’t know whether today’s gratitude is micro- or macrocosmic. Maybe both.

Because today I’m grateful for bees—out there doing their job, slathering themselves in pollen and tracking it all over the place. They literally make the world work, or at least the nature part off the world, and I really appreciate their service.

Also, I love watching them on the job. Viz:

(These may be a little wobbly; I literally had to shoot across a garden to get them.)

Yeah—both. It’s definitely both.