May 2005 Archives

My friend Matt and his girlfriend, Jennifer came to visit us this weekend, all the way from Wisconsin and Illinois (Matt lives in WI, Jen lives in IL). They arrived on Saturday evening, at around 6pm, so we little choice but to drive to Fayetteville for a Brewski burger. Matt had a burger, Jen tried the chicken, and reported that it was tasty and delicious - that's good to know, as I've never devitated from my traditional Brewski burger order.

The weather guessers were promising rain for Sunday, so we were afraid the weather wouldn't cooperate... but, they were quite wrong - it was 80+ and sunny all weekend.

On Sunday, we made our way to the Metfield golf course with the intention of indulging in the "infamous" Metfield breakfast buffet, but a squadron of Bella Vista ghosts drove us off - the line to enter the buffet was about 50 deep, composed primarily of doddering, geriatric geezers dressed in their Sunday-best plaid-and-checkered suits, while a $2.50 synthesizer jammed hits from the '40s for the masses in waiting... "No thanks," said we, so we decided to road-trip it to Eureka Springs.

(story continues, with pictures - click the link).

We had a company party on Thursday evening, complete with a horse racing theme, some awesome BBQ, a state of the union address by the CEO of the bank, and some entertainment.

Here are some photos:

Everyone was hungry for BBQ - they had beef, pork, chicken, and sausages, plus a ton of side dishes.

Here's the winner of the hat contest - people were competing in the "best derby hat" contest, and this lady won. She had three horses on her hat, racing around a track, and our company's horse was winning, while our #1 nemesis' horse was in last place.

As part of the "horse race" contest that they had after dinner and after the state of the union address, 8 teams competed for cash prizes, and as part of the contest there were physical challenges. Here we see a team trying to spell out "ANB" with their bodies.

At around 9:15 or so we called it a night, and everyone headed home.

The party was held at our operations office (where I work) - the upstairs is wide open, sort of like a conference center, and can hold 963 people, according to the sign on the wall. All in all, it was a great time, and I got to meet some more people that work at the company, learned about the state of our business (it's great!), and got some good photos for the HR team.

I had to take some more pictures of Simon, so I went out and tried to find some good locations...

I visited my old favorite location at the road construction site:

And then I saw they had some motorcycles practicing at the local motorcross track, so I caught this little guy at just the right time:

We have this group of horses that live next to our office, and ever since my first interview at the office, I've been interested in them. They don't appear to have a barn or shelter, and there's a solitary water trough right near our parking lot that never seems to get filled.

Last weekend, I noticed that the trough was empty, and that the horses appeared to be standing by it, waiting for water. I kept an eye on it all this week, and today, when the trough was still empty, I told Nat (my friend from the bank, and longtime "war" buddy) that we should probably give the horses some water.

Nat used to have a horse, and he agreed that it seemed odd that the horses just stood around by the empty trough. So, we went on a mission to get them some water tonight. I drove home, got some 5 gallon buckets, and Nat went and got some hose. While I was waiting for Nat to arrive back at the office, I took some pictures of the horses.

These two were the most friendly of the group.

For more pictures, click the "continue reading" link.

I love it. Best job ever. The people are so awesome to work with, the work is challenging, and the company is so determined to keep moving forward - I don't see any end to their growth in sight. It's so refreshing to actually want to wake up early and go to work. Completely opposite of how things had become at the old place.

The building is right next to a pasture that has about five or six horses, so it's an added bonus that I get to look out the window at them whenever I feel like it. I'll get some pictures by this weekend.