Choice Mindsets

Choice Mindsets

30 Jul

Posted at 11:15h in Uncategorized

Inquiring Mindsets:
“What was your favorite county fair ride as a kid?”

With local county fairs in full swing, we’ve been discussing two questions: what is your favorite fair food and what was your favorite fair ride as a kid? On the food side, we Choice Oners are consistent, enjoying typical fair fare: funnel cakes, sugar waffles, and elephant ears (no surprise we’re sugar-coated fried dough people). But on the ride side, it turns out the kid version of Team Green was more adventurous, as numerous Choice One respondents listed their favorite childhood fair ride as the Gravitron.

 

Our fondness for the Gravitron debunks the general assumption that engineers are boring. Anyone who pays to willingly climb into an oversized children’s top, assembled on the spot in less than a day, spinning 40 miles per hour is NOT boring. Crazy? Yes. Boring? No.

 

Might it be the Gravitron that made our engineers who they are? Indeed, some of us enjoy driving endlessly around the same roundabout just for fun, several of us have been caught dancing [awkwardly], and one of us has been known to perform numerous consecutive cartwheels just to prove a point. Be it our engineering nature or that the Gravitron knocked a few of our screws loose—the love of the Gravitron proves that a-round here, our engineers are not squares!

16 Jul

Posted at 11:15h in Uncategorized

Dane Sommer:
“Roundabouts are poetic.”

 

Roses are red,
Choice One wears green.
When roundabouts are the topic here,
You won’t get a word between.

They talk of deflection,
Angle of entry and yield.
The enhancement of safety,
Traffic congestion now healed.

The excitement will grow,
If ADT you do mention.
Capacity and curvature,
The perfect intersection intention!

So smile and nod,
Go along with the flow.
Because nothing’s worse for a roundabout,
Than someone who won’t just go!

02 Jul

Posted at 09:30h in Uncategorized

Dan Perreira:
“Justin, since it’s hot, I’ll let you have one of the A/C vents in the truck today.”

 

If you’ve been inside an air-conditioned building this past week, you probably didn’t mind that it was hot and humid. No surprise that our field surveyors are a little more aware, however. So in an act of thoughtful generosity, field surveyor Dan offered to point one of the survey truck’s six A/C vents towards co-op Justin for the day. Justin was VERY excited.

 

Once in a while we are nice to each other around here. Brian Barhorst is always willing to offer a jump start for your car—even if it’s twice in one day. We show appreciation by making cookies, buying pizza, and bringing doughnuts (except for Jeff Kunk, of course). And, if you couldn’t tell from the previous 262 Choice Mindsets, we like to share a laugh or two with each other.

 

Despite only working as a co-op for about 45 days, Justin is clearly already feeling the ”love” we show for each other at Choice One. Justin, give it a couple more weeks and Dan might find it in his heart to give you two vents in the truck. But don’t expect three. He’s too much of a celebrity to let his buzz-cut hair get ruined in this heat.

17 Jun

Posted at 15:34h in Uncategorized

Casey Reichert:
“This is not how I thought my modeling career would go.”

 

 

Casey was recently asked to model something really glamorous: sanitary sewer. We tried to tell her how thrilling it would be—the effluent! the manholes! the forcemains!—but she knew the truth. Her modeling career would certainly put any New York supermodel (or sewer) to shame, but the results would always have to be hidden underground at a 0.40% slope.

 

We have a lot of opportunity to be spokespeople here. Between Dan’s survey ‘modeling’, Jake’s water modeling, and now Casey’s sewer modeling, we could be posing with lots of products and surely selling tens of… tens. Just think how passionate and persuasive we would be recommending our favorite things. It wouldn’t be long before everyone is thinking just like Choice One: Pizza! Doritos! Roundabouts!

 

You heard it here first, folks: green is the new black!

03 Jun

Posted at 13:14h in Uncategorized

Kristi Moorman:
“It looks like they’re playing Battleship.”

If you want to see intense engineers, have them try to access the same Excel spreadsheet at the same time while the whole company waits, staring. Then make that situation even more intense by telling them they look like they’re playing a game. (We won’t publish any of the “intensity” that might follow that statement.)
When playing the board game Battleship, some of us at Choice One have some “intense” strategies. As a Navy veteran, Craig Eley uses his nautical know-how to “always attack the corners first.” Nick Selhorst just spills his ships across the grid, letting them land where they may. Chris Fluegeman’s strategy is to distract the other player with his collection of dad jokes. And Kyle Siegrist keeps a detailed chart of how others place their ships, and then uses it against them to prove something irrelevant but never actually win.
If the photo above really was a game of Battleship, who would win? Matt’s strategy involves a complex three-by-three grid guessing system, which seems watertight (pun intended). Mike G.’s less than watertight strategy: “Uhhh, sink Matt’s ships?” We’ll just say it’s a toss-up…

19 May

Posted at 08:36h in Uncategorized

Craig Eley:
“I feel like a Transformer.”

We got a new fridge in our Sidney office, and that meant the old fridge went to live elsewhere. Craig Eley, “helping” with the move, just sort of wandered around holding the freezer door panel, looking rather robot-like.

Speaking of Transformers, what vehicles would the Choice One-bots convert into?

  • Nick Selhorst would be a Ford Focus just like his Choice One car.
  • Ryan Bruns would opt for a Blackhawk helicopter, but at his height, we think he’d better fold into a Reliant Robin.
  • Craig Frilling would, without hesitation, be his sweet 1989 GMC Safari van.
  • Matt Hoying would be the A-Team van. The humanoid version would clearly need a mohawk like B.A. Baracus. Hey, let’s shave your head today, Matt!

 

We’re guessing that Craig’s Transformer vehicle of choice would not be “Stainless Steel Refrigerator-mobile.” Indeed, he would prefer to be Cadillac Eldorado. However, because he has a few grey hairs, we’re guessing he’d probably actually transform into Dino-bot. Either way, he’s a classic!