People and Pooches Came Out for Unity Walk
Posted on October 12, 2008 by Ching under Flickr, Life.
We had a really good turn out at the Walk for Unity 2008 held at Central Riverside Park today. There were a couple thousand participants, easy. And that’s just counting people. If we count all the canines in attendance, we could probably add another hundred to that tally.
When we first arrived, Brian immediate noticed all the dogs. He said we should have brought Molly. He was really tempted to go back home and get her so she can socialize with the other pooches. Then we thought against it. It would have been sensory overload for her. She probably would have gone berzerk and we wouldn’t be able to control her. That, and we would have to pick up her poopies. LOL.
Anyway, we had several people from work participate in the event. Nothing like Cessna, though. They had over a thousand participants. They must have asked every single employee to attend. Everyone had their own team shirts and all of us were mere blips in the sea of Cessna shirts. Brian and I got to chat with a couple of people from Cessna and one of the Cessna guys joked that it was amazing how they were able to get the employees to show up for this event because they couldn’t get them to show up for work. Hmmm… I wonder if they have FMLA woes there, too. I suppose that it’s a plague that most companies suffer.
Even though we didn’t have as many participants as Cessna, we did win the prize for best shirt design. And, after the work fundraisers that got divided up among the various participants, I had collected almost $300 ($294 and change) in donations. Thank you so much to everyone who made a contribution. I really appreciate it.
Brian had pretty much told everyone how I forced him to walk with me so I decided to go the short route (instead of the long route) this time. I didn’t want to hear any more whining from him. It actually worked out better because we got to eat a small cup of frozen custard from Freddy’s and a little bit of chocolate chip cookie from Panera. By the time everyone else got back from the long route there were no more cookies left. I’m not sure if there was any frozen custard left, but there were a lot of participants so I’m guessing not everyone got some. The cookies went really fast, though.
Anyway, Angie found out that the massages performed by the Butler County Community College massage therapy students were free so we lined up to receive one. There was a short wait, but it was worth it. Hey, I won’t turn down a free chair massage. Although, Brian did get a much longer chair massage than I did. Beggars can’t be choosers, though. I was just grateful I got one.
I was telling Brian that if it were up to me, I would have given the massages for free but asked for donations. That would have been additional money raised to go toward Diversity Kansas. Brian thought it was a good thing that I wasn’t the one running the free massage area because we never would have gotten one as he left his wallet in the car.
We took ofter shortly after so that we could pick up a new optical mouse at Wal-Mart for Brian’s grandma. We went to see them before meeting Chad for dinner at Tsunami. Today is Brian’s grandfather Clark’s birthday and his grandparents’ 67th wedding anniversary. We went over to greet them and also bring them their gift, a digital photo frame that we had purchased a few weeks ago at Sam’s Club. I went ahead and loaded the internal memory with pictures, but it also accepts memory cards. Brian put it together for them. I think the remote is too small for either of them to use, though. We might return another time and help them figure out how to make the most of the digital photo frame, and maybe bring a memory card full of music so they can play music out of it also.
Anyway, we are doing our big multi-celebration on Sunday at Carrabba’s. It’s my most favorite restaurant right now. Since Brian and I are going to be away for week, we figured that we would celebrate my birthday early and do a combination celebration with the grandparents. Basically, we will celebrate grandpa’s birthday, grandma and grandpa’s wedding anniversary, and my birthday simultaneously. It should be fun. Chad said he will join us also.
Please comment on this entry if you’d also like to join us. This will help us get a head count for reservations. Hopefully, Carrabba’s allows reserverations. If not, we can just call ahead. We’re looking at being there around 11-ish next Sunday.
I hope everyone has a fantastic week. Thanks again for the donations.
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April on October 13, 2008
Do you have room for two more for lunch?