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Poker Walk Adventures
May. 9th, 2007 08:00 pmToday I went on my employer's annual poker walk. This event promotes walking as a good way to get fit. (Not poker. Don't get confused.) Since it was a cloudy day it wasn't too crazy hot to make people think it would be a good idea, so that part worked out.
What you do is follow a one-mile route that has been laid out, and at various points you pick up a poker chip. In the olden days, you would pick up a playing card sealed in an envelope. Now you trade your poker chips for cards. The stations are laid out so that you have to go to the farthest corners to pick up your chips, though you could still cheat a bit by taking the diagonal, if you knew where the stations were.
We got a different path than usual this time, which did not double back on itself and which brought us into contact with some of the nicer areas on campus such as the turtle pond, the native plant garden, and a rose garden.
In the way olden days there were little signs with health tips along the entire route. In later years there were lots of cones and people in brightly colored shirts lining the route. This time there were occasional cones, occasional balloons, and a few people in non-matching shirts giving obscure directions. My favorite was "go through the pool," and they pointed in the general direction of a wall with a dumpster in front of it, around which you could probably go on either side, and a building with stairs leading up to a door. There was no sign of a pool. The efficient route was to go around the wall on the right. Then you could totally swim down a lane of the pool, be there were probably rules against swimming in work clothes, certainly back at our offices.
So it was a nice adventure. And I talked to a random lady who I met at one of the poker chip stations. I said that next time I will make an effort to actually check out the map first. She said there wouldn't be a next time for her. It turns out she will be retiring in the next year. She would like to work part time elsewhere, though she hasn't quite decided on what type of job to get. She might like to work closer to home and so not have to drive so far. Or she might like to work on advancing a good cause which might require a lot of door-to-door work.
She'd also like to travel. She'd like to go back to Arkansas. She's never been to Kansas. And she might like to go to England. She'd like to visit her relatives who live in all different states, including one of the ones that start with an "I." (I'm pretty sure she said Idaho, but not totally. Bad me!)
She'd like to finally work on some things around the house. She'd like to join a gym.
I warned her that she still wouldn't have enough time to do everything she wanted to. She agreed, saying that any one of her goals could take up all her free time. She doesn't understand people who think it is possible to be too young to retire.
At one point we were at a crossroads where it wasn't obvious which way to go. We went for the scenic route assumption, but that was a mistake. That's okay, we ran into my first roommate and some of her co-workers who pointed us in the right direction. Don't worry--we still went the entire mile, we just took the wrong two sides of a rectangle at one point.
The route ends in a heavily air conditioned gym. We both got very bad poker hands and thus were not in the running for any prizes. We were offered t-shirts. I was good--all of my t-shirts are prettier and most are a better size (the smallest available was medium), so I didn't take one. Then you could buy a sack lunch for $5. Again, I was good and brought my own sandwich (which I ate on the way to the starting point).
You can register early and compete for prizes for things like best costume (last year's winning team was the Sleepwalkers in pajamas and hair curlers) and best team name ("I Poker Walk the Line"). Apparently there were other games you could play to win prizes too. I didn't stay for that or to hear this year's winners, although they might be on that link by the time you read this.
I do not know where the money for the t-shirts or for the other prizes came from.
What you do is follow a one-mile route that has been laid out, and at various points you pick up a poker chip. In the olden days, you would pick up a playing card sealed in an envelope. Now you trade your poker chips for cards. The stations are laid out so that you have to go to the farthest corners to pick up your chips, though you could still cheat a bit by taking the diagonal, if you knew where the stations were.
We got a different path than usual this time, which did not double back on itself and which brought us into contact with some of the nicer areas on campus such as the turtle pond, the native plant garden, and a rose garden.
In the way olden days there were little signs with health tips along the entire route. In later years there were lots of cones and people in brightly colored shirts lining the route. This time there were occasional cones, occasional balloons, and a few people in non-matching shirts giving obscure directions. My favorite was "go through the pool," and they pointed in the general direction of a wall with a dumpster in front of it, around which you could probably go on either side, and a building with stairs leading up to a door. There was no sign of a pool. The efficient route was to go around the wall on the right. Then you could totally swim down a lane of the pool, be there were probably rules against swimming in work clothes, certainly back at our offices.
So it was a nice adventure. And I talked to a random lady who I met at one of the poker chip stations. I said that next time I will make an effort to actually check out the map first. She said there wouldn't be a next time for her. It turns out she will be retiring in the next year. She would like to work part time elsewhere, though she hasn't quite decided on what type of job to get. She might like to work closer to home and so not have to drive so far. Or she might like to work on advancing a good cause which might require a lot of door-to-door work.
She'd also like to travel. She'd like to go back to Arkansas. She's never been to Kansas. And she might like to go to England. She'd like to visit her relatives who live in all different states, including one of the ones that start with an "I." (I'm pretty sure she said Idaho, but not totally. Bad me!)
She'd like to finally work on some things around the house. She'd like to join a gym.
I warned her that she still wouldn't have enough time to do everything she wanted to. She agreed, saying that any one of her goals could take up all her free time. She doesn't understand people who think it is possible to be too young to retire.
At one point we were at a crossroads where it wasn't obvious which way to go. We went for the scenic route assumption, but that was a mistake. That's okay, we ran into my first roommate and some of her co-workers who pointed us in the right direction. Don't worry--we still went the entire mile, we just took the wrong two sides of a rectangle at one point.
The route ends in a heavily air conditioned gym. We both got very bad poker hands and thus were not in the running for any prizes. We were offered t-shirts. I was good--all of my t-shirts are prettier and most are a better size (the smallest available was medium), so I didn't take one. Then you could buy a sack lunch for $5. Again, I was good and brought my own sandwich (which I ate on the way to the starting point).
You can register early and compete for prizes for things like best costume (last year's winning team was the Sleepwalkers in pajamas and hair curlers) and best team name ("I Poker Walk the Line"). Apparently there were other games you could play to win prizes too. I didn't stay for that or to hear this year's winners, although they might be on that link by the time you read this.
I do not know where the money for the t-shirts or for the other prizes came from.