I'll be away this weekend—a.k.a. nowhere near my home town—to attend Grapefruit's ninth anniversary party. I'm expecting a wacky weekend, generally marked by surprises, fun, games and booze. We, in Grapefruit, call that team building. I don't know how the concept rolls out in the real world, but this is Grapefruit.
I'll give you a short overview of what happened in the past two years.
Seven
Two years ago I was a fresh-man in Grapefruit. You'll recognize that by the fact that I'm much skinnier than you know me today. (I'm planning to fix that, by the way.) I didn't know much about these parties, but there was one thing for sure. It was about team building. And there happened to be a party. With booze. A fresh-man. Let's just say that in the first night I got really drunk and said some things. Mayne some day I'll have the balls to post that video on YouTube. Maybe.
Anyway, here's the Grapefruit team two years ago. (Be sure to click on it. It'll take you to Flickr, where there are annotations.)
Like I said, the gathering is about fun and games, thought and intended for team-building. Challenging or simply funny, I liked the theme.
But eventually, the booze gave into everybody and so we extended the party extensions, which actually means most of them partied all night long, until we end up something along these lines.
Oh, don't worry. Nobody's ashamed of anything: nobody even remembers anything. As a matter of a fact, I was the only wuss (read: not on booze) who didn't give into the party. Let's just say I felt like I had something at stake.
All-in-all everybody had loads of fun, and I couldn't possibly actually normally wait for a whole year to get some more of that. And I didn't have to. There were more parties, some more domestic, but generally along those lines.
Eight
The next year, we've toned it down a notch. Could have been because of our new management... Also, the team was a bit more mature. Well, except for me and Claudiu, that is... I mean who else would convince the team to strip of all their clothes in order to make the longest rope made of clothing? It was a team exercise that spun out of control, and we didn't even need to be on booze for that.
My highlights of the trip were carting and paintball. Sure, there was booze and partying and a barbecue, but that already seemed so regular.
Oh, by the way, that trip was also when I played Magic: The Gathering for the first time! It looked something rather awkward like this:
Nine
Well, who knows what'll happen this year? One things for sure: it's a lot of fun to be tangled with these guys, be it in work or in party!
Can't wait! And I no longer have to...
