I think my place of work is quite amazing.

I work in an old school building in a historical part of Indy called Lockerbie Square –the original part was built in 1899, and then fifteen classrooms were added in 1926.

It’s named Clemens Vonnegut Public School #9 (that’s Kurt Vonnegut’s great-grandfather). The creator of the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls went to this school. I think about this sometimes when I’m really bored and stare out the old, tall windows near my double-wide cubicle. I think about all elementary school kids who daydreamed out this same window and are now grandmothers and grandfathers.

The inside is all modern and spiffy:

The picture on the left was the school’s gym, which we now use for lunch and meetings and such.

Here you can see how the hallways still look like hallways.  A co-worker and I were laughing yesterday about how when a cute boy passes you in the halls here, it is not unlike your giddy school days.  I think that’s what makes it so great.  I’m a dork for being so excited about such things, but I think there’s such character in old buildings like these.  And I spend a huge chunk of my life here, so I like to find out who else did, too.

Last week we had our company retreat in Bloomington.  I had mentioned earlier that we’d be down at the Bluebird, and we were.  However, something about being back in that college town makes me think that I’m capable of my college alcohol tolerance.  Clearly, that is not the case.  If I saw you at the Bluebird, hi, I hope we had nice conversation.  I vaguely remember it.

This made for a very rough first day of retreat, through which I had to sit through long presentations.  I am happy that I got the recklessness out of my system, and there was also beer-a-plenty at the company dinner.  I politely sipped on a Blue Moon while a group of my co-workers got wasted and provided all the entertainment I could ever want at a company function.  Nothing incriminating — just wedding-reception-level debauchery.  Somehow the people that intimidate you don’t intimidate you as much after you’ve seen them drunkenly battle eachother in a game of flippy cup.