Skip to main content

High strung party

Businesses throw a holiday bash for their employees come Christmas time.  It is tradition that exists in corporations of all size across America.  Time to tell your peeps that they deserve to stretch out and have booze on the company's dime.  This once.

So it was with my employer that hosted its annual event in a contemporary art museum in the city.
The rains were upon us so it was a mist covered evening as I stepped out of the BART (our local transit with a meager 40 miles of operable track) to make my way to the festivities.



Not sure if any arriving attendees (many from work) were high strung that night but some of the hosts assigned to drink duty were.  Literally.  The audience was greeted with two acrobats in mid air wrapped in silk scarves dangling from the ceiling.  And they had champagne bottles in their hand whereupon they attempted to pour some of it out to passerbys below.



It was a spectacle.  Not being a fan of the bubbly myself I strode on up the stairs to the main extravaganza floor.  In total five floors were decked out for the party and the hot chocolate (which I was going to attempt to get to before the crowd) was promised to be ready on the fifth.

Turns out my advance march upstairs was for naught as the chocolate was in its early infancy of being warmed.  So lukewarm is how the 'hot' chocolate was when I happened on it.  Oh well.  The desserts were wonderful.  Since I for one do not particularly pay attention to the sequence in which I consume food, I went ahead and enjoyed the pastry including matcha cake in relative calm.

The desserts were accompanied by a sax and bass and it was possible to hear it above the din of the crowds on the floors below us.

I then strolled downstairs one floor at a time sampling the world cuisine. I stayed clear of all alcohol not being smart to appreciate wine or have the palette to enjoy any of the local beer.







Each floor had some kind of music trio carving or beating a musical instrument or two.  Not a huge fan or student of music I could not tell who the bands were or what they were attempting to do.

There was quite a bit to choose from food wise and getting there early and tackling it top down proved a good move.  Sort of Jeopardy in reverse if you followed the strategy of a recent champ called James Holzhauer who picked the high value tiles from the bottom going topside.

I exited the event within 30 minutes.  Not a fan of large crowds this was slated to be my last company hosted event in a while.. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

On the go(zay masta) in Japan again

Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk  My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...

A few good books

 On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...