Kicked out, college-style

Okay, this post probably would've had more oomph if I'd posted it last week, right when we were in the thick of things... but I had a rare weekend all to myself and decided I'd rather spend it vegging out on the couch, reading and watching TV.

But... a brief update on what occupied half of our week last week:

The annual Tech Retreat! Every year in mid-September the Tech Group goes out for some team-building and some fun and relaxation. 2 years ago we descended upon a beachfront hotel in Pismo Beach, doing Amazing-Race-style challenges as teams, eating delicious food and of course, drinking. Last year was a little more low-key with a camping excursion to El Capitan, and a geocaching exercise which was pretty lame and not very team-like.

This year, we headed south to Carpinteria State Beach, invading a large portion of the campground.

Wednesday started out ordinarily enough, with the team-building exercise of a chili cookoff! It was actually kind of fun-- designing a marketing campaign and cooking delicious chili. Our team actually made it to 3rd place, not bad considering how we didn't hit on any marketing  inspiration until we had about 20 minutes to go, and then scrambled to put it all together. I'm sure the delicious chili helped :-) That evening after dinner, Allan and I broke out our copy of the Game of "Things", and proceeded to introduce several of our co-workers to the game. As always happens with this game, lots of raucous laughter ensued. Elsewhere on the campsite, other folks were involved with other games of their own. That's when the trouble started.

You see, unlike last year at El Capitan, we didn't have a section of campground exclusively for ourselves. In other words, we had "civilian" neighbors. People who didn't appreciate our noise. But the truth was, it wasn't all that bad. Sure, there were a few tables full of loud laughter and talking, but it wasn't anything out of hand. And! It wasn't. Even. 10pm! When the complaints started.

A little after 10pm, Allan and I packed up our game and headed out. Since we don't believe in tent camping, we booked a motel a half mile down the road to spend the night in. We had plans to be back at the campground by around 9am to get breakfast.

Thursday morning, we roll out of our clean, comfy beds, and Allan checks his phone for email. And he starts laughing. There was an email from the VP of Engineering, announcing that 1) we'd run into some problem with the authorities and 2) we were being ejected from the campsite.  Since Thursday activities were still on, however, we were instructed to reconvene further down the beach. All morning long I couldn't stop giggling everytime I thought of that email. We arrived at the beach and patiently awaited everyone else, eagerly anticipating all sorts of stories of crazy hijinks the night before. After all, I'd heard some stories about how out of hand some of the engineers could get at previous retreats!

To our disappointment, we learned that our co-workers hadn't gotten much crazier than we already were after dinner, playing our games and just hanging out. And that most people actually retired by midnight-1am, a relatively reasonable hour considering that... well, if you're out camping, where are you gonna go the next day? To work!?

Turns out it was mainly a case of picky neighbors and a picky campsite who just wasn't used to even a subdued version of our tech group. Apparently at some point there were six cop cars congregated in the campground, leaving our admin, who arranges these things, scrambling to smooth things over. At 8:30 the next morning, we were officially kicked out by the campground personnel, and everyone scrambled to get their stuff together and make the "Exodus of Shame" out of there by 10am. I still laugh when I think about it.

Still, Thursday's activities went off without a hitch-- football, frisbee, bocce ball in the sand, as well as kayaking and paddleboarding lessons, and serenading by guitar/ukulele players. Oh, and another round of "Things", of course ;-) Lunch was served at the beach, and dinner was fan-damn-tastic, and was a really great way to close out the retreat.

This was definitely one of the more entertaining retreats. 2 years ago, the team-building exercise was just too exhausting, and last year it was kinda lame. But this year was great-- a fun exercise, lots of fun and relaxing beach activities, and being kicked out just like a bunch of drunken college frat boys. Something tells me we won't be going back there again next year! ;-)