Casey Reichert: “Picked up the baby. Honestly, it weighs as much as my toddler.”

It’s Sidney Charity Cup time again, and that means the traveling trophy has come home safely for its annual polishing in prep for the March 27^th event. If you’ve never won or at least beheld this trophy or its Loveland sibling, you may not know that it’s HEAVY. Like, 18-month-old Collette Reichert heavy.

We’ve featured Colette’s brother Urban in a Mindset before—remember when he won the NCAA pool last March and brought us cinnamon rolls? Indeed, there have been quite a few other Choice One kids’ smiles featured in Mindsets over the years: “new hire” surveyor Owen Kuck, future engineers Justin and Jake Puthoff, scanning helpers Carly and Danielle Barhorst, that adorable trio of kiddos named after local communities, the dad-supporting Goubeaux kids, and filing assistant Ryann Bornhorst (albeit sleeping and not smiling…). Just looking back on all these memories makes us smile, too!

The toddler-sized trophy and the event it represents next week are about smiles, too! During the Sidney Charity Cup, we’re excited to make a difference in the lives of lots of area kids and families by supporting the Miami Valley Down Syndrome Association and Ronald McDonald House Charities. The excitement generated through funds raised by our clients and friends at this event is sure to be priceless. So buckle up and help us drive a few smiles for great causes next week!

Michael Seeger: “’Ceeeeee’ if you can guess where my ship is…”

This past weekend we enjoyed another annual Choice One Game Night. While there was no crowning of the Most Fun Spouse, project manager Michael Seeger was trying to be the Most Helpful Spouse by giving his wife Andrea some hints around what coordinates to guess next during our intense Battleship tournament.

Like Michael helping Andrea, we try to be a helpful bunch. For instance, the Battleship tournament champs—Shae Swick (administrative professional Abbey’s husband), surveyor Eric Kuck, and traffic engineer Mike Goettemoeller—trusted in helpfulness to win out. According to Mike G., the winning strategy was to “…rely on my teammates. Since Eric is a surveyor, he has a good understanding of boundaries and mapping things. Shae is a software engineer, so he is a very strategic thinker.” Smart!

Don’t sell yourself short, Mike G., we’re pretty sure your traffic safety skills helped your Battleship team in a roundabout way. And Michael Ceeeee-ger, don’t sweat your loss despite your helpful, hint-ful efforts. We know when it really matters, you’re clear about helping our clients and projects succeed (and blatantly obvious about helping coworkers stay grounded)!

Kristi Moorman: “Steve was using a jacket to ‘guide’ the bird. Specifically Daniel’s jacket… not his own.”

While days out on our survey crews sometimes get a little adventurous, most days in our Sidney and Loveland offices are pretty routine— wear green, design public and private infrastructure, discuss lunch, chat about sports, celebrate roundabouts, and so on. But this past Tuesday, a BIRD got into the Loveland office and excitement followed!

While we’ve had the occasional mouse in the office, this bird was a new experience. Not wanting any bird germs on his own coat, designer Steve Goessling grabbed Daniel Foos’s jacket to toss in the air to guide the bird out of the office. After much flailing and waving, the bird was successfully shooed out the front door. (All the while, project manager Troy Niese never missed a beat while on the phone determining a project schedule with a client…)

Despite working mostly with passive objects like concrete and plastic, we as engineers still have to expect the unexpected—sometimes that 80-year-old water main is wooden or brick! So whether it’s dealing with an old clay storm tile or an unexpected bird invasion, our adaptability is often put to the test. At least with an old pipe, it doesn’t land on a monitor to rest!

Inquiring Mindsets: “What is your all-time favorite Choice Mindset?”

We’ve written over 300 Choice Mindsets since October 7, 2011—which one is your favorite?

Nick Selhorst: “It’s not like dust flies up while I’m typing. It’s tucked in there.”

Thanks to our computer system at Choice One, we can easily visit either office and work from anyone’s desk. This is super handy, as we’re able to quickly log into a computer and get started in AutoCAD, Photoshop, or water/sewer modeling software in just a few minutes.

The catch, then, as engineer Becca McCready recently experienced, is that when you visit another’s desk, you also visit their habits. Nick Selhorst’s habit? Not dusting his keyboard. Cue Becca, pictured, and her slight discontent using Nick’s keyboard for a day. Despite joining Choice One only a few months ago, Becca embraced the Choice One way and made sure everyone was aware of Nick’s dusting deficiency with some good-natured ribbing. Exasperated, Nick lamented: “Is this keyboard joke going to flame out in a week, or be more like a “Kunk not buying donuts” thing and never go away?”

Nick, you know the answer. Choice One never forgets. Plus, now that your keyboard cleanliness has been carved into Choice Mindsets stone, we’ve ensured over a thousand readers outside of Choice One never forget, too. Besides, after all the “bonding” we enjoyed giving you a hard time, you said it best yourself: “My keyboard is the glue holding this place together.”

Nick Selhorst: “In the words of Yukon Cornelius, ‘You eat what you like, and I eat what I like.’”

Truer words have never been spoken at Choice One, especially about Skyline Chili. We have a fairly sharp divide between the “Skyline’s amazing!” crowd, and the “Skyline’s not amazing!” crowd (although stronger words than “amazing” are used by both sides…). And when Jeff Puthoff questioned Nick on his festive hat (and chili) choice this week, Nick used Yukon’s words to proudly defend the side of the Skyline fence he is on.

Nick’s nod to Yukon Cornelius harkens back to the 1964 stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer program and a conversation between Hermey the future dentist elf and North Pole prospector Cornelius about peanut butter and pea soup. While the Skyline debate rages in the background of just about every lunch conversation at Choice One, we can be fairly sure there is little controversy in the peanut butter versus pea soup debate, just like there is little controversy that “doughnuts are good,” “pizza is good,” and “Brian Schmidt wants Arby’s.”

Like Yukon, Nick unapologetically embraces the 3-, 4-, and 5-way of tastes on the flavorful journey of boiled hot dogs topped with chili… because Choice One is serious about lunch, especially when it comes to anything topped with or relating to cheese. And like Yukon, we’ll stick to what we like, whether on Team Skyline or a Skyline Skeptic, because the winner of that debate at Choice One is as up in the air as Rudolph on Christmas Eve.