Choice Mindsets

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!

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!

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.