Opening Day

This is me goofing at the podium before the Opening. It might be a long time before I get this sort of patriotic photo-op again, so I felt that I should advantage of the opportunity.

When I returned to my desk, I found that someone had left two red balloons tied to my chair and a sewing needle next to my keyboard. I don't know who my mystery benefactor was, but they seem to understand the way I think.

After the party, the balloons presented a problem. There is a motion detector alarm I set when I close the office at night, but the balloons were waving whenever the heat kicked in and I was afraid the motion might trip the alarm.

My solution? A popping contest. The red balloons were worth 10 points, the blue ones worth five and the whites earned a single point. I had a sewing needle and my clerks were armed with paper clips, so I probably won, but no one kept score and there was no prize. Popping balloons is it's own reward.

This is the hallway entrance, before the ceremony.


Pictures of the kids who used to attend, back in the days when it was a school:


The music was supplied by a local high school jazz band. They were excellent.


Cake! It was nearly inedible -the frosting was several inches deep- but it was cool to look at.






The area where I work. And yes, it is usually that crowded.

When the TV crews arrived, we were directed to "thin out" the crowded area, take seats at our workstations and pretend that we were working. I grabbed a pile of random documents, marked them in a studiously administrative manner and then passed them to a co-worker for his review and comment.
On the paper I had written : " We are getting paid to pretend to be working and the TV is calling it "news". That's pretty awesome.

My clerk looked it over, wrote, " I already don't trust the TV news" on the paper and handed it back to me.
It was at that exact moment that the woman in charge of one of the TV crews started screeching," Take the food off the table! Put the cookie away! This is the only chance I get to shoot this and I don't want a cookie ruining my shoot!"

It was all I could do to keep myself from exploding into gut-busting laughter.

My friends who saw the coverage said that I must really love my job because I sure did have a big grin on my face.

So far, so good.