9/25/05 - 9/30/05

9/25/2005
座了差不多三十多个小时的飞机终于到达了Oregon,除了累，还是累。不过老板定给我们的Hotel非常豪华，它的床非常舒服。唉！也不过住一晚罢了，明天又得座四个小时的车去Lakeside.又不知道是个怎麽样的地方。

9/26/2005

终于到达目的地 – Lakeside.
非常非常的冷，但是个世外桃源，空气清新。也见了美国的同事，不知是不是因为最近工作上的磨擦，见了面有点腼腆。但我相信经过这几天，一切都会好转。
MikeC形容这里为”Heaven On The Earth”. 无可否认，这里的环境悠美、宁静，是休息的好地方。
(figure out typing in English is much more faster, coz there are too many stuff to write here)
The bad thing about here is, I cannot get any h/phone signal and internet dial-up, so I am totally lost the connection to the outside world.
At the dinner, Mike gave us surprise, Surprise and SURPRISE
Surprise #1: PaulM. has plan a trip to here to meet all of us, he fly from Folsom->Portland->Lakeside, but the plane cannot find the place to land and they fly back to Portland (he took a private flight). PaulM called us from Portland, thank you all of us for the good job done and told us how much he recognize and appreciate all our hard work.
Surprise #2: All of us get an Instant recognition with a plague and USD100
Surprise #3: All of us get an iPod shuffle (1GB).
Everyone’s mouth is smiling from right to left.
What a BIG SURPRISE and thoughtful the boss is !!

9/27/2005

First day of the F2F, meet at the dock at 8:15am. Wow! It was so cold but nice, I like it, have ducks swimming in the river. John R. arrived on time together with Mike G. and Nate G. with MikeC’s boat. Another excited ride with the cold icy air and the water splashing from both side of the boat, 6 of us heading to Cochrane’s Cove.
When we arrive at the cabin, the breakfast is ready, we have meatloaf, omelet and yogurt. Then the meeting start at 9am, it was an effective meeting, we manage to cover everything on the agenda plus some of the stuff in tomorrow agenda. Super!
We have ribs and salad for the dinner, trust me, this is the BEST ribs I ever had in my life (Chillis and Apple’s Bee also cannot compete with it), MikeC cook good dishes. I’ll definitely miss it.
We start our first Olympic game - Pocker at 8pm and it ended at 9pm. Guat C. is the first winner and I was the fist one kicked out from the game.

9/28/2005

Wow! It was so so foggy till I could not see anything on the river, it is chilly and freezing. We finished the meeting at 12pm and that’s it about work, the rest of the day are Fun Time. We went for Sands Dunes, while waiting for our Sands Bug (the cart), MikeC is checking on us, make sure we put on enough coat as it will be very very cold out there. When we get up to the Sands Bugs, they gave us goggle, and we need to cover our face and hair with our coat else our nose, ears, eyes, mouth will be full of sands after the ride. It was an excited ride, it took about 1.5 hours to complete the whole route. Nice and Adventures ride. At night after the dinner (of course MikeC cooks for us), we start our 2nd and 3rd game, pool and shuffleboard. Again, I still score zero.

9/29/2005

Another excited day begins … today we are going out to the River for crabbing. Not an easy task and I almost throw out after spending 30mins on the boat. But I caught the most crab and score No.1. Wow! After that we headed back to the cabin for jet ski and fishing. Fishing is another contest, again I caught the biggest fish among the rest, luck is really on my side. Our final game is Karaoke, the killing part is, this pub only have 60’s and 70’s American country side songs which I know none of them. End of with, I choose a song which I don’t know what is it and sing on the stage (they don’t have the VIP room) , trust me, I don’t know what was it, but everyone in the pub seem so enjoy. May be they just don’t listen to my song but enjoy with their beer.

9/30/2005
All of us have GREAT TIME and it is time to say bye-bye. MikeC announces the winner of the game over the breakfast, and I am in Second place. Wow! I never imagine that. Anyway, this is the Best F2F I ever had and I will definitely miss everything here. Through out this few days, we get to know each other much much better and the whole team is getting closer. I really enjoy every moment we had at Lakeside. Thank you everyone for making this happen and especially want to thank MikeC for sharing this “Heaven on Earth” with us and cook us all the breakfast, Lunches and Dinners.