EAFy Day 2021

Last Friday was EAFy Day. If you don't remember what that is, it's a team-building event across the Extend-a-Family organization. This is the fourth one I've been to, and the second one I've helped plan. Each year has a theme and is set at a different location. Last year's was "QuarantEAFy Day" and this year's was "Reconnecting" and we held it at Bingeman's which is like a catch-all entertainment spot. I was the MC for the event, greeting everyone, going over the schedule, and introducing everyone new to the organization.

The first event was a volleyball tournament, with teams decided by organization branch. I didn't really think we at WALES had much of a chance since we were one of the less confident branches facing off in the first round against one of the most competitive. And I was right to feel the way that I did, since we wound up losing, but it was way closer than I thought it would be, with us winning by a strong margin for a while. Some branches chose team names, and it was only when we seemed to have a shot at winning that I realized we should have named ourselves the Killer WALES.

Some teams had uniforms, and one of our teammates made us all shirts and hats with the WALES logo. I thought we looked the most professional of all the branches. There's a team photo floating around but I don't have it at the moment. If I find it, I'll post it here.

Somehow, I wound up being the judge for the volleyball tournament (except the round I played in), which is weird because I only kind of understand volleyball. I feel like I might have not enamored myself with the team that beat us, because under my judgement they made it all the way to the final round, took a heavy advantage and were only one point from winning the finals, and then the other team got like seven points in a row and won. Also, in the final round I approved a not-by-the-books method of serving (it's complicated) and they wound up losing because of it.

Bingeman's is attached to a Boston Pizza and that's what we wound up having for lunch. I got the 7 cheese ravioli. It was just ok. Back in college, I had a friend who would host get-togethers at Boston Pizza fairly regularly and I went a handful of times. To be honest, it's never been my favourite place.

In the afternoon, people had the choice to do bowling, an escape room, or kayaking. I did an escape room. There were through groups that did this, and we wound up taking the highest difficulty one. I won't share the secrets of the escape room, as I believe that is the etiquette, but the theme was that we were stuck in an abandoned mine shaft and had to find our way out.

We got through 95% of it and ran out of time. There was only one trick left to figure out. I would almost rather have gotten like, 85%. The guy even let us know the solution to the final trick, and it's upsetting because we actually said out loud the solution, but we didn't know how to implement it. Also, we wasted a lot of time working a piece of equipment even though we figured out the answer. Very, very close.

I made another painting:

Gryphon's Gallery: Radiating Moonlight (gryphonsgallery.blogspot.com)