Another week or two under the bridge. Once again, a brief trip update is in order—so highlights:
- Time with my sweetie—always a good occasion to go south.
- Seeing A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. If there was ever a Shakespeare play that was meant to be viewed while sitting in the middle of the forest, it’s this one, and the production was excellent.
- Party Friday! Between the company picnic and a goodbye party for my former boss, it was officially Fun with Coworkers Day, and well spent.
So that was pretty much the whole trip—the next whirlwind tour is after Labor Day for WEB2001, then Hawaii, then back for a wedding, and then…rest. As an enjoyment until then, I offer you the love story of Kevin Smith, creator of Clerks, in comic-book form.
Made it back in one piece. Driving a van for 13 hours a day is surprisingly exhausting, but the 3-Day was again an awe-inspiring event. The 3,000 walkers raised about 4.6 million dollars for breast cancer research and services. I drove my little van, The Deb once again slogged through all 60 miles (second time in 2 weeks—you go, girl!), and we got to see some really beautiful parts of Washington. Really &@#*$ hot, though, and I think it caught a lot of the walkers by surprise, since summers are usually milder around here.
The whole experience just confirmed my commitment to participate in at least one of these events every year. Working with other people on causes like this over the past 2 years has been one of my most life-affirming experiences. I have a pretty wide cynical streak, but I’ve found every claim that Pallotta Teamworks makes on behalf of their events to be true—if you’re willing to open up to the potential of the experience, you will be transformed by it.
The other thing I decided as a result of this year’s crew experience is that I really want to do at least one event next year as a participant. It will be difficult to top my AIDS Ride journey of 2 years ago (which had a lot to do with where I was in my life at the time), but I want to make a greater commitment this time around, both to the cause by raising money, and to the event and myself by training seriously this time. I want to finish. I haven’t decided which event to do—I think they’re all worthy, but given the limits of time and fundraising capability I will probably only do one as a participant, and one other as crew. Anyone want to join me?
