Ice Cream

I started the morning with a fairly intense run around the neighborhood. It was a bit chilly, but a short-sleeved shirt was adequate to keep me from freezing. Unfortunately, the weather deteriorated throughout the remainder of the day.

On most normal work days, I stay inside the same building for my entire shift. It's usually a welcome treat to attend a meeting in another building, because I can go outside and enjoy a nice walk across our beautiful campus. I was definitely looking forward to attending our VP's "all-hands" meeting, because it would mean I could walk over to a building on the other side of the ravine. (At this time of year, you can safely ignore the "Beware of Rattlesnakes" signs -- those slithery guys are all hunkered down for the winter. In the summer, well, you need to stay a tad more alert.)

When my buddy Russ and I left the building, we noted that the air was a bit more brisk than we had thought. But we'd have to go back in the building and walk back up the stairs to get jackets, and we hadn't built backtracking time into our schedule. We decided that we could make the half-mile walk without additional insulation, so we put on our macho, Manly-Man-Who-Laughs-at-Nature faces, and took off across the parking lot.

By the time we reached the SSB entrance, our ears were bright red, our hands were frozen into gnarled claws, and our speech was slurred and indistinct. Fortunately, the building was fairly warm, and when we sat down in the Presentation Room, we proceeded to warm up without further problems.

The VP talked about how well our department was doing, mentioned several capital improvement projects that are in work, and expressed general optimism about the business climate within our unit for the next year. He didn't say anything at all about layoffs or cutbacks, so the meeting ended without any additional disgruntlement or pessimism. And once it was over, they broke out the ice cream!

I can't decide whether it's cool that our group meetings feature free ice cream with bounteous fixin's...or if it's sad that they feel they have to bribe us with frostilicious treats to get us to attend. I guess it doesn't matter -- the important thing is that they had multiple varieties of chocolate topping, and no restrictions on how many times you could go back through the line! I consumed my daily lunch and dinner calories without breaking a sweat, and enjoyed every cold, delicious bite.

But the operative word is "cold". Once we were full of ice cream, it was time to head back across campus to our office in RDL. Upon stepping outside, we noticed that the clouds had rolled in and the wind had picked up. It's possible that the temperature had dropped, as well. The weather had gone from merely "unpleasant" to flat-out "nasty" in the time we'd been there, and we had just consumed massive amounts of core-temp-reducing confection. Our chances of returning to the office without frostbite were looking pretty slim. Still, it would be downright unmanly to ask for a ride back over there...so we set out to bravely trudge through the wintery blast.

My memory of the hike itself is a bit fuzzy. I suppose it's possible that we were attacked by Yetti, stalked by timber wolves, and tempted to succumb to Alferd-Packerism...but I cannot remember any of those specific events. All I know for sure is that I somehow ended up back at my desk with a new appreciation for the benefits of wearing a jacket when hiking in the middle of February.

But I'm already looking forward to the next "all-hands" meeting. That sure was good ice cream.