Dan was awarded the Circle
of Excellence Award at his company, AT&T Wireless. The reward is an
all expenses paid trip to Hawaii with a guest. Airfare, hotel, transfers,
tips, activities and $150 in cold hard cash for spending money. They also
pay the taxes for the cost of the trip. Is that great or what? The only
bad news is that we were on the last COE trip ever, which they have been
doing for 17 years. AT&T Wireless is being purchased by Cingular Wireless
and it is very doubtful that they will keep this program. I can't even
calculate how much it cost the company to send over 1600 people on a 5
day 4 night trip, but ain't my company great?  |
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| Day 2 was hot. A nice big breakfast followed by
an excellent guest speaker, Dewitt
Jones. He was quite entertaining and had some very profound ideas on
how to approach life and work. The Go Games were a lot of fun. We sweat
a lot, played a lot, drank a ton of water, and made some friends, though
we didn't win a medal. After lunch we hit the lagoon to catch some rays
and snorkel. The lagoon was a little murky but we did see a few fish. No
underwater pictures this time. That night was a fun beach party with tie-dye
shirts. Some of the food was funky, I mean, come on, corn dogs in Hawaii???
As we made our way out of the park towards the bus home, there was a kind
of scary moment as a woman was laying down white as a sheet with her friends
comforting her. Appears a full day of sun and too many mai tais had caught
up with her. The ambulance was on it's way and she did recover apparently
as she was back two days later. No wonder we were not served any more mai
tais the last two nights. |
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Read Gen's
Play by Play of the trip here. |
| Today was activity day. We had the option of about
10 different activities: golf, deep sea fishing, snorkeling, whale watching;
spa massages, volcano tour, horseback riding, ocean cliff hike, waterfall
hike, or Flumin' Da Ditch. We did the Ditch. It was very fun and we learned
a lot about the island. All of the guides are natives who were able to tell
us a lot about King Kamehameha and the history of the area. The water flumes
were built in 1903 by Japanese laborers in 18 months. They are an amazing
engineering feat, they drop only 78 feet over 8 miles. Shopping was fun,
we found tons of cute stuff for the kids. That night was the talent show.
|
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| Our last full day in paradise. We started with snorkeling
in the Lagoon and caught some fish on film. Lunch was with some relatives
in Waimea. Afternoon was a massage for Gen and playtime for Dan. Evening
was the big formal awards dinner. The day went way too fast... . |
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| An early morning flight to Honolulu, and then home
to Seattle. We still managed to get some good pictures and enjoy the trip
home. This was a wonderful trip and we will always remember it. |
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The Videos
Mai
Tai Guy
The
Sound of Waves
More
Waves
The
Birds |
