IGA BBQ Reunion

Today one of my old teams got together for a BBQ picnic at Lužánky Park.  It was a very close team and even though some people have moved on to other teams and even moved on to other companies we still manage to get together pretty regularly.  Although Covid put a halt to that for a while.

We had about 20 people show up, with Jūlija even coming in from Prague to join us.

I do miss this cast of characters.  By far the best team that I ever had the pleasure of working with.  Even if I had to deal with all of the pranks.

When the date was first proposed I immediately remembered that today was the twentieth anniversary of 9/11.  That's one of those events that happens and you will forever remember what you were doing when it happened.  I still can't believe that it was 20 years ago.  I remember it like it was just yesterday.

Finally Meeting for Lunch

Some of the guys from work and I used to meet up for lunch once a month.  Due to Covid restrictions, today was the first time that we were able to get together for lunch in over 18 months.  Way too long!

We met up for burgers as Pablo EscoBar.  The food was great but the company was awesome.  So good to catch up with Michal, Michal, and Andrew.  Hopefully it won't be so long until the next one.

Reunion Night

My old IBM team, the old behind all of the pranks, at one point had over 70 people.  I left just over a year ago and now that team is only about a dozen people.  I still miss that team a lot.

Well tonight was a little get together and over 30 people showed up.  Most everyone has either moved on to other roles at IBM or gone on to other companies.  But it was so good to catch up with everyone, some of which I haven't seen in at least three years.  Not a bad turnout given it was a cold, rainy night.

Weekend in Černý Důl

This weekend was a team getaway in Černý Důl, a small town of about 700 people in the Krkonoše Mountains.  It's about a 3,5 hour drive from Brno near the Polish border.

Černý Důl is popular in the summer for hiking and for skiing in the winter.

Krkonoše is a mountain range in the north of Czechland and southwest Poland.  The mountains in Silesia  occupy 454 sq km (175 square miles) in Czechland and 177 sq km (68 square miles) in Poland.

Sněžka is the highest point in Czechland at 1.603 metres (5,259 feet) tall.

On Friday night we arrived at our pension and had some great food waiting for us.  The chef apparently placed high in a Czech Masterchef competition.  

It was quite a spread with the absolutely fanciest chlebíčky I've ever had.

On Saturday we took the ski lift up the mountain.  Half the group went skiing and snowboarding while some of us went for a long winter hike.

In typical Czech fashion you hike until you come to a pub where you have a beer before continuing on until you reach the next pub.  

On Saturday night we had dinner and hung out drinking at the pension.  So much slivovice but fortunately not enough to make Sunday morning painful.

On the way back home we stopped off at EB Diner for lunch.  I sear that this is my new happy place.  Overall a great weekend.

Vladimír's Farewell Party

Last night was the farewell send off for one of the guys at IBM who used to work for me.  Vladimír joined IBM as a student intern working in my old project office.  His intern project was actually our 2016 Agile conference.  After his internship was over he joined IBM and was my assistant for a while.  He even talked me in to giving my first webinar.

He's a good chap but I know that he's been involved in a few pranks.  Namely the tin foil desk, the packing cube, and I still haven't found my chair.



For some reason his farewell send off starting as an outdoor BBQ.  Who's ever heard of an outdoor BBQ in the snow.  It was so damn cold!  After the BBQ, people went to the pub until the wee hours of the morning.  Luckily for me, I had an early morning meeting so I was unable to make it to the pub.

Now he's off to join MicroSoft in Prague.  I'm sure that he'll do great things there.  

2018 PM Christmas Party

Last night was the our unit Christmas party.  The theme was super heroes. I'm not sure how this became the theme but it's what the team decided so there you have it.  I managed to order an Incredibles t-shirt and a black eye mask via Amazon so I was set.

This was also my farewell party as two weeks ago I took on a new role with another team in IBM.  I've had a number of different roles but I've been in the same organisation for almost ten years so I decided to take on a new challenge.

While I'm enjoying my new role it's odd not being with my project management team.  It's been such a privilege to work with group over the years.  I'll definitely miss them.

Brno Scavenger Hunt

The gremlins were at it again.  I was out of the office for four days and came back to find my desk switched with Kasia's.

The pitchfork and pink high hells were nice touches.






Oh, the irony of being away at a diversity conference to come back to find pink high heels under your desk.  #cantwaitforpayback




On Thursday night we had a team scavenger hunt in the city centre.

The scavenger hunt was challenging but fun.  We discovered things about Brno that I'd never seen before.

Who knew that there was a samurai statue that overlooks the city?



Like last year, there is another umbrella display in the centre.  This time it celebrates Kometa, Brno's ice hockey team.  In 2017, they won country's top title and they're going for it again this year.

2017 PM Christmas Party

On Thursday night we had the annual IBM Project Management Christmas party.  This year's theme was the "Roaring 20's / Great Gatsby".

Once again my team was behind the poster.  They really love Photoshop.



I didn't have anything to wear so the easiest thing was to just rent a tuxedo for a local wedding shop.




It was a really nice evening.  I had early morning calls on Friday so I went home around 10 pm.  I heard that some of the festivities lasted until around 4 am.  Way too late for me nowadays.

At It Again

My team loves to mess with me when I'm out of the office.  Well, they did it again.  I guess they decided that six weeks was too long for me to be away.  #cantwaitforpayback 

This time they switched out my desk.  All of my stuff was moved to a new height-adjustable table.  There was also a box with an old kneeling chair packed in confetti that went everywhere once I lifted up the box.

They must have have cleaned out all of the paper shredders from the entire site.

Everyone got a big kick out of it.  I know that they wouldn't pull these pranks with me if they didn't care.  But damn! That confetti went every where.

At least they understand that, while I try to be a good sport about it, I'm not the one that's going to be cleaning up the mess.  Poor Igor drew the short straw and had to clean everything up.  But I have a feeling that Igor was the mastermind of this one.  Who knows what they will come up with next?

Jaskyňa Driny, Slovakia

Little Carpathians

The Little Carpathians are a part of Europe's Carpathian Mountains.  The Little Carpathians are about 100 km (62 miles) long low range, covering 646,1 km² (249.5 sq mi) that sits in western Slovakia and northeastern Austria.

Our team building this weekend was held at Záruby which at 768 metres (2,520 feet), is the tallest hill of the Little Carpathians.

For those of us that weren't too hung over from the slivovice the night before we went on a short hike to Jaskyňa Driny, about 2 km from the village of Smolenice.


Jaskyňa Driny is the only publicly accessible cave in western Slovakia.

The limestone cave was first explored in 1929.  Various stages of of the cave were opened in 1934 and 1950, until it was reopened in 1959.  It was declared a monument in 1968.  


Of the 636 metres of explored length, 550 metres are open to the public via a guided tour.

The fearless explorers

The cave is quite interesting with various stalagmites.  We even saw some bats!

When we came out of the cave I was approached by a reporter wanting to interview me for Slovak radio about my thoughts on the cave.  My first instinct was to quickly defer to the Czech and Slovak speakers, which I did.  In hindsight I should have at least given it a try.  Oh well, maybe next time.

2017 Q3 Team Building Event

Over the weekend we had another little team building fiesta in Slovakia.  We basically rented a summer camp at Záruby, which is the highest hill of the Little Carpathians, near the village of Smolenice.  It's about 60 km (37 miles) from Bratislava and 25 km (16 miles) from Trnava.

While some people came out for just for the day, most people spent the night and everyone was assigned to various cabins.




The festivities started out with a goulash soup lunch and mingling.  A quick speech and then people were broken up in to teams followed by some pretty interesting group challenges.  Lots of good humour.

Later on there was some grilling, some home made palačinky, plenty of slivovice (and some Hungarian pálinka).  Plus some games, a DJ, a bit of dancing, and lots of overall fun.



The organising team did a fantastic job!  It was great to get people together for some fun outside of the office.




I was one of the "old" people who turned in early for the night.  Maybe around 11 pm.  But I understand that the merriment went on to around 3 or 4 in the morning.















On Sunday morning, a group of us did a short 20-minute hike to Jaskyňa Driny to explore the cave before the drive back home.

Daddy's Little IBMer

Petr, Tibor, Andrew, and Michal

Four of the guys on my team are all expecting new arrivals.  Or rather their wives are all due soon.

Baby showers aren't really done over except by the foreigners so, last week, we decided to do at least a little something for them.

We had onesies made up with our team logo and "Daddy's Little IBMer" printed on them.  The guys were all pleasantly surprised.  Congratulations lads!