Rainy Day Birthday

Rainy Day Birthday

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for July 21, 2019

It was back to Seattle this week for three nights of learning and team bonding for my new role at Oracle.

We were here to visit our newly opened "Cloud Experience Center" in downtown Seattle.  We were there to learn all about our new Generation 2 Cloud.

I'm pretty excited for my new role which I started in June.  I am now a sales representative for mid-market customers in Minnesota and Wisconsin selling our next generation Oracle Analytics Cloud, Autonomous Database, and Generation 2 Cloud Technology Solutions.  That kind of stuff may sound boring to a lot of you, but it's the kind of stuff I dream about at night!

At night, we did team building exercises including a 3 hour "Scavenger Hunt" at Pike Place Market.  This one was unique in that we were split into teams and each group was given an iPhone which instructed us where to go and what to do including taking all sorts of pictures and videos of us being silly in various spots around town.  In other words, it was right up my alley!

One of the tasks was taking a picture showing a "unique perspective" with one of our team members utilizing something in the background as part of the picture.  One of my co-workers thought it would be cool to get a unique perspective with this statue acting as his feet.  

I was feeling pretty thankful when this photo was taken.  Some of my new co-workers really stepped up to help me out after I discovered my iPhone was lost.  I figured out that I must have dropped it out of my pocket when I fell to the ground during one of our video skits.  I didn't have much faith that I'd recover it though because at least 10-15 minutes had passed since I realized I lost it and it was in the middle of a very crowded place.  One of my colleagues though was quick thinking and suggested I use the Find my iPhone feature on his phone and we were able to get a signal of it.  We wandered the area where it was supposedly located, but couldn't place it.  Suddenly the dot started rapidly moving across the park and then stopped in a spot we hadn't been to yet.  Sure enough when I went over there, it was laying on the ground.  I'm sure if we would have started 5 minutes later it would have been gone and I would have had to buy a brand new phone.  So three cheers for technology and kind co-workers who were nice enough to stop playing the game to come over and give me a hand!  There's good people left in this world!!

  

Late at night, we explored a different side of Seattle visiting the Nest's rooftop bar and it's incredible views.  It was a beautiful sunset!  Then it got dark...

Back home, the weather had been pretty rainy.  Miss Sheri always looks at the bright side of life, though, and was able to catch this beautiful shot of a rainbow adding a protective shield over our house.  

I turned 49 on the 20th. Which is weird. 49 feels old to me. Because I still don’t have things figured out yet. Just

like I didn't when I was 10...20...30... 

I still need a lot more time because there’s still big things I want to do with this life. 

I guess I’d better get going!

It was rainy all day on my birthday, so we opted to just stay inside all day which was fine with me.  There's no-one else I'd rather be with on my birthday than these guys and their mother.

This is a Bird on a Wire.  Or a good start for the first 2 days of Christmas.  Now all I need is another turtle dove and a partridge in a pear tree and I'm all set.