Choice Mindsets

 

A few weekends back, the Choice One crew loaded up a couple of buses and hung out in Pittsburgh for the weekend. Part of the weekend included a photo scavenger hunt that resulted in lots of entertaining photos, as you might guess. We made such an impression on the people of Pittsburgh, apparently, that one gentleman offered to be at the top of TWO of our groups’ human pyramids.

 

The list of scavenger hunt items was most interesting. In addition to a human pyramid, we looked for roadkill, a green house (naturally), a green car (obviously), Christmas decorations, and, of course, a roundabout (which no one could find, by the way… it was an engineering tragedy). We posed with strangers who had the same first names as us, recreated the Beatles Abbey Road cover, and tried our best to pronounce “Monongahela.”

 

If you haven’t guessed yet, we try to spread fun wherever we go. And based on our new friend’s willingness to participate, it appears we succeeded. Enjoy a few more photos of our fun below!

We notice a green shirt across the room at a conference, and we automatically think it’s a coworker. We hear someone talk about their “first choice” in a situation, and we know they’ve used the wrong phrase to indicate the best selection. We are given two options during an eye exam, and we know which choice is the right choice, even if it leads to ineffective prescription eyewear.

We just can’t help ourselves. When we spend each day wearing green, surrounded by green, living the Choice One mindset (pun intended), it just happens. Don’t worry about our mental states–we promise we’re not brainwashed!

To celebrate the recent Summer Olympics, Choice One held a cotton ball shotput contest complete with super official measurements and prizes as extravagant as bragging rights. While Kyle didn’t win with his mediocre distance, he certainly won “recognition” for an impressive throwing style.

 

The Olympics are always a fun topic to discuss at Choice One. Our conversations revolve around things like “How does the scoring in fencing work?” “What kind of BMX bike trick is ‘The Truck Driver 4000?’” and “How do water polo players tread water for that long? I would most certainly drown.” We cheered, we laughed, we talked about obscure sports like equestrian dressage, artistic swimming, and speed-walking. And when it was over, we got back to discussing regular, everyday stuff like European Tram Driving and Killer Whale Riding.

 

Perhaps with a little more practice we’ll see Kyle in a future Olympics, throwing a 16-pound shot put instead of a 0.5-gram cotton ball. Kyle, if you’re as dedicated to the shotput as you are to trying to prove Allen Bertke wrong by at standing at your desk, we’re sure you’ll win gold!

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!