Team building and eggrolls

Yesterday, my group at work went to "Triple Play", a "family fun center"-type establishment with minigolf, laser tag, bowling, an arcade, that sort of thing.

The first hour, we did a team-building exercise where two teams had an identical jigsaw puzzle and had to figure out the most efficient way to connect the most pieces in the next 45 minutes. Our team divided up roles, with each person responsible for a section (with two people sorting pieces at the beginning). We communicated the entire time, and since everyone knew what everyone else was working on, we all knew which person to give a specific type of piece to. The other team barely talked at all, and they all just worked on the border.

The final total? 373 connected pieces for our team, 175 for their team. I'm usually pretty skeptical of "team-building" stuff, but this was a pretty good example of how much increased efficiency you can get out of teamwork and cooperation, especially when you allow people to focus on their own strengths.

After that, I played a little bit of DDR (my coworkers didn't know it, but the whiteboy's got moves!), and bowled a game. Worst game I've had since I was 11 years old, didn't even break 100. Ugh. It was still a good time though.

I also picked up Ahboo from the shelter, which I'll go into this weekend (I want to have some pictures to share!). On the way through Spokane, I passed a Chinese restaurant called "Tasty House". You can't really argue with the name, I guess. I told my friend Bill about it, and we agreed that a good Chinese restaurant should have a name consisting of a combination of the words "China", "Golden", "Panda", and "Moon". How you combine them is up to you, but it guarantees a tasty meal.