Kansas City!
Oy, I guess I should make an entry, seeings as how I took a Business trip to missouri.
No, srsly, it was a business trip! Ash Grove wanted all their interns out at their main HQ in Overland Park, Kansas, for a full day gathering thing. So I said "wottheheck, why not", and flew out last wednesday, flew back friday.
I...enjoyed it a lot, actually. Not so much because of what we were doing, but because of the other interns. :D So maybe I've been a bit socially deprived this summer; being out in the middle of nowhere for 3 months, but I thought it was awesome!
Wednesday: Checked into the Holtze executive villas. 0_0 Fanciest hotel I'd ever been in. WALK-IN CLOSETS. IN A HOTEL. Unbelievable. And the Bathtubs were enormous!
Wednesday night: The HR peoples took those of us who'd flown in early enough out to eat. And yes, Kansas City barbeque is good. Best in the world (as they claim)...I can't say. But definitely very good. T'was here that I met most of the interns; or at least learned their names. Sat across from a woman named Manda, and we hit it off pretty good. :D
Actually, I hit it off with most of the people there pretty good. I tell ya, I felt on top of my social game! But seriously...I really hit it off well with Manda. More later.
But ennewayz: After that, I was in my dorm room and got a call.
"hey, who is this? This is Luciano, one of the Ash Grove interns; we're meeting by the pool to do something!" (apparently, the receptionist wouldn't give them the room numbers; she just dialed them all for him.
So: 5 of us met by the pool. And here...I learned...That there is a BIG difference between being 20 and being 21 outside of Utah. Because outside of Utah, people drink. o_o And since I was the only one who was under 21...we didn't go clubbing.
We actually ended up going by a grocery store and getting a 6-pack and a thing of root beer (for me. xD And Manda; she doesn't like to drink), and just talking about our internships. That was fun, too.
"So, like, did anyone else get the impression they were totally unprepared for us?"
"You're telling me!"
Thursday morning: We listened to presentations, we gave presentations. Nothing exciting.
Thursday afternoon: We got tours. Ash Grove labs - Kinda cool. Transfer station - boring. Under Construction Sprint Center - VERY COOL.
Mmkay, it was cool enough to deserve a bit on the sprint center. This place is...an arena. Ice hockey, basketball, concerts, etc. It seats 18,000 people, and has 72 special boxes that go for $300,000++ every year. And they were sold out before construction even began. o_o For the next 5 years. O_O
It looks like a giant tire. Seriously. It's a big oval, and the outer walls are completely glass, in a fat tire shape.
And it was designed...STUPIDLY. STUPIDLY STUPIDLY STUPIDLY. So you have 7 layers of glass panes. Each one has 770 panes around the circumference of the building. That's what, more than five thousand glass panes? EVERY SINGLE ONE IN DISTINCT AND INDIVIDUAL. AND EVERY SINGLE ONE COSTS $6,000. AND IS HAND MADE OVER IN ASIA. I did a bit of quick math, each pane is off of perfectly rectangular by less than 1/100th of an inch. A tiny fraction.
*headdesk* Seriously, did they not SEE the implications?! Because each one is individual, you can't preorder spares. When one breaks (and in a 100% glass building, they WILL break), you have to special order it, for $6000, from asia, and wait for it to travel around the world. AAAARGH THE STUPIDITY.
Me and Manda spent the rest of the tour discussing how dumb that was.
Thursday evening: Dinner was at...the Cheesecake Factory. @_@ Sounds delicious, and it probably would've been, but I had absolutely zero appetite. But meh, I was still on top of my social game and it was awesome. Manda correctly stereotyped me as a gamer. Alas, she was not so lucky with the others; they all said she was way off.
Thursday night: The group split up. Most wanted to go drinking. Me and Manda went to one of her friends' apartment, and we played...a nerd game. xD (previously, me and Manda had discussed the joys of hanging out with other nerds. For she is a serious nerd as well)
T'was called Robo-Rally, and was pretty fun, although they screwed me over by telling me the wrong rules first and causing me to die once.
Brief interjection: hanging out with nerds is totally awesome. Where else will you have discussions on positrons (we were watching I, Robot at the same time), games, and styrofoam sword fights all at once?
Friday Morning: I flew back to SLC; got picked up at the airport by my dad.
Notice what's missing? Me asking Manda for her email address. And me asking everyone else for their email addresses. I feel like kicking myself.
But wot'ev, that's life. Only one more week of work!
No, srsly, it was a business trip! Ash Grove wanted all their interns out at their main HQ in Overland Park, Kansas, for a full day gathering thing. So I said "wottheheck, why not", and flew out last wednesday, flew back friday.
I...enjoyed it a lot, actually. Not so much because of what we were doing, but because of the other interns. :D So maybe I've been a bit socially deprived this summer; being out in the middle of nowhere for 3 months, but I thought it was awesome!
Wednesday: Checked into the Holtze executive villas. 0_0 Fanciest hotel I'd ever been in. WALK-IN CLOSETS. IN A HOTEL. Unbelievable. And the Bathtubs were enormous!
Wednesday night: The HR peoples took those of us who'd flown in early enough out to eat. And yes, Kansas City barbeque is good. Best in the world (as they claim)...I can't say. But definitely very good. T'was here that I met most of the interns; or at least learned their names. Sat across from a woman named Manda, and we hit it off pretty good. :D
Actually, I hit it off with most of the people there pretty good. I tell ya, I felt on top of my social game! But seriously...I really hit it off well with Manda. More later.
But ennewayz: After that, I was in my dorm room and got a call.
"hey, who is this? This is Luciano, one of the Ash Grove interns; we're meeting by the pool to do something!" (apparently, the receptionist wouldn't give them the room numbers; she just dialed them all for him.
So: 5 of us met by the pool. And here...I learned...That there is a BIG difference between being 20 and being 21 outside of Utah. Because outside of Utah, people drink. o_o And since I was the only one who was under 21...we didn't go clubbing.
We actually ended up going by a grocery store and getting a 6-pack and a thing of root beer (for me. xD And Manda; she doesn't like to drink), and just talking about our internships. That was fun, too.
"So, like, did anyone else get the impression they were totally unprepared for us?"
"You're telling me!"
Thursday morning: We listened to presentations, we gave presentations. Nothing exciting.
Thursday afternoon: We got tours. Ash Grove labs - Kinda cool. Transfer station - boring. Under Construction Sprint Center - VERY COOL.
Mmkay, it was cool enough to deserve a bit on the sprint center. This place is...an arena. Ice hockey, basketball, concerts, etc. It seats 18,000 people, and has 72 special boxes that go for $300,000++ every year. And they were sold out before construction even began. o_o For the next 5 years. O_O
It looks like a giant tire. Seriously. It's a big oval, and the outer walls are completely glass, in a fat tire shape.
And it was designed...STUPIDLY. STUPIDLY STUPIDLY STUPIDLY. So you have 7 layers of glass panes. Each one has 770 panes around the circumference of the building. That's what, more than five thousand glass panes? EVERY SINGLE ONE IN DISTINCT AND INDIVIDUAL. AND EVERY SINGLE ONE COSTS $6,000. AND IS HAND MADE OVER IN ASIA. I did a bit of quick math, each pane is off of perfectly rectangular by less than 1/100th of an inch. A tiny fraction.
*headdesk* Seriously, did they not SEE the implications?! Because each one is individual, you can't preorder spares. When one breaks (and in a 100% glass building, they WILL break), you have to special order it, for $6000, from asia, and wait for it to travel around the world. AAAARGH THE STUPIDITY.
Me and Manda spent the rest of the tour discussing how dumb that was.
Thursday evening: Dinner was at...the Cheesecake Factory. @_@ Sounds delicious, and it probably would've been, but I had absolutely zero appetite. But meh, I was still on top of my social game and it was awesome. Manda correctly stereotyped me as a gamer. Alas, she was not so lucky with the others; they all said she was way off.
Thursday night: The group split up. Most wanted to go drinking. Me and Manda went to one of her friends' apartment, and we played...a nerd game. xD (previously, me and Manda had discussed the joys of hanging out with other nerds. For she is a serious nerd as well)
T'was called Robo-Rally, and was pretty fun, although they screwed me over by telling me the wrong rules first and causing me to die once.
Brief interjection: hanging out with nerds is totally awesome. Where else will you have discussions on positrons (we were watching I, Robot at the same time), games, and styrofoam sword fights all at once?
Friday Morning: I flew back to SLC; got picked up at the airport by my dad.
Notice what's missing? Me asking Manda for her email address. And me asking everyone else for their email addresses. I feel like kicking myself.
But wot'ev, that's life. Only one more week of work!