Way Back Tuesday: DylanFest

I started at my company in 2003 in the Customer Support department.  In 2007 I made the switch to be a Sales Engineer.  There were a lot of new people on our SE team that first year, as we had done a lot of hiring.  Our manager, Dylan, owns a cabin on a lake in North Dakota, so he decided to host a team building event there in August of that year.  We spent one day doing work stuff, but the second day was a recreation day. We took his boat out on the lake, and he asked if anyone wanted to water ski.  I'd never done it, but I thought this was the perfect opportunity to take a shot at it, so I volunteered.  It took me a few tries, but I was eventually able to get up on my skis for awhile several times in a row  The next year in 2008 we did the same event, and again I water skied, though I was't quite as successful, but it was still fun.  Our team informally dubbed each of these events as a DylanFest.  There was a small faction who preferred Dylanpalooza, but they were snuffed out (I don't mean we actually snuffed out their lives and killed them, as that might be too strong of a reaction, but rather we just dismissed their proposal, which is way less illegal).  I was excited about DylanFest being an annual event, but sadly funding was not approved in 2009 and it has since fizzled out as being a realistic possibility, as the work benefits we got from it weren't enough to justify the expense.  This put my water skiing career on hold, as I haven't done it since then.  The event was held in August both years, and every August since then I think about how it would be fun if we could do it again.  So here I am this August not going to DylanFest, but I will memorialize it with these pictures of our team in 2007 and me water skiing in 2008.