Today, I actually took the day off and spent it outdoors (except for a breakfast sorta-meeting, which was actually outdoors, as well). At Paramount's Great America, of all places. It was the first time I'd been there -- in fact, the first time I'd been to an amusement park in, probably, 15 years. It was fun. I didn't realize I liked roller coasters so much. The Invertigo was the best (we didn't make it to the new, Stealth -- "the world's only flying coaster"!).
The reason for the excursion was Applied Materials' company party, where my good friends, Greg and Anju work. Applied goes all-out for a company party, by the way. Besides renting out the entire park for 40,000 people, giving them each $10 in "fun money" to spend inside the park, and giving out nice backpacks to every employee, they also hired Sinbad, the Goo-Goo Dolls, Dana Carvey, The B-52s, and Bonnie Rait to perform. Oh -- and they topped it off with a big ol' fireworks show. It made one proud to be an American.
The only shows we watched were Dana Carvey -- who was quite humorous ("I told my agent I wanted a gig at an amusement park, in the middle of the day, with lots of little kids, so I couldn't do most of my act."), especially the Bill Gates impression and other tech-industry bits. And The B-52s -- who, much to their credit, managed to get a crowd of engineers (and families), who weren't drinking (no booze inside the ampitheater for some reason) and were attending a free concert with crazy, exciting roller coasters right outside, to actually get up and dance. Very impressive. B-52s rock. Yeah, love shack baby. Rock lobster.
The reason for the excursion was Applied Materials' company party, where my good friends, Greg and Anju work. Applied goes all-out for a company party, by the way. Besides renting out the entire park for 40,000 people, giving them each $10 in "fun money" to spend inside the park, and giving out nice backpacks to every employee, they also hired Sinbad, the Goo-Goo Dolls, Dana Carvey, The B-52s, and Bonnie Rait to perform. Oh -- and they topped it off with a big ol' fireworks show. It made one proud to be an American.
The only shows we watched were Dana Carvey -- who was quite humorous ("I told my agent I wanted a gig at an amusement park, in the middle of the day, with lots of little kids, so I couldn't do most of my act."), especially the Bill Gates impression and other tech-industry bits. And The B-52s -- who, much to their credit, managed to get a crowd of engineers (and families), who weren't drinking (no booze inside the ampitheater for some reason) and were attending a free concert with crazy, exciting roller coasters right outside, to actually get up and dance. Very impressive. B-52s rock. Yeah, love shack baby. Rock lobster.