Walk-O-Rama: The Big Brother of Our Campus

You know we all feel at some point that Big Brother is watching, and everyone on campus should be aware that Walk-O-Rama members sometimes go under cover to play this role.  We are not violating your right to privacy; that right does not exist after you are hired. So don’t go sleeping on the job, you state workers.  It doesn’t matter how hidden and secluded you think you are, we will find you and we will blog about your efficiency.

Take yesterday, for instance.  As some refused to believe that a post office existed on campus, we had determined to seek one out. To look legitimate, Celeste even brought some envelops with stamps to hand over to the worker (or “worker”, whichever we should find).  Fortunately, the office was located exactly where Kristen always sends people looking for the post office, which filled her with a sense of relief.  We were impressed to see that not only were there numerous signs posted to reveal the room’s identification and purpose, but also that there were a series of cute little comics involving dogs on the windows to make their customers smile.  And we did.  What was equally impressive was that the woman behind the desk was not sleeping.  On the contrary, she seemed both surprised and happy to see visitors to her place of work, though we were much too busy taking photographs as proof of our success to pay her the attention she deserved.  Sorry about that.

Celeste was very convincing in her role as “Woman trying to mail letters”. Her fine acting was surprisingly true to life

They are not very good at hide-and-seek. We found them with ease thanks to their helpful signage

They mean business, as evident by this face and his threatening to strangle you hands

Having left the building that itself was in uncharted territory, we made a left, a direction that threw us even further off our familiar course.  As we began to get discombobulated, we were comforted by a happy face – one that simultaneous spread cheer among our group and served as a point of reference to inform us if our aimless wandering was leading us in circles. As it turns out, the face was not seen again, which was a great sign.

Don’t feel too violated, we were being watched ourselves

Speaking of great signs, nothing could make Kristen happier as she hungrily surveyed the landscape for food than spotting what seemed to be an apple tree. It was quickly tested to make sure by trial and error that it was not actually a tree with the largest poisonous berries ever.  Its fruit was quite delicious, despite the opinion of others, and it was not technically stealing of state property since we soon after planted it nearby so it could bear its own fruit in the future. Walk-O-Rama will soon have its own tree (and food source) around which to gather for picnics, though it is poorly located next to a dumpster.

Nature kept this walk from being too calorie burning

Heading back, we decided to try our luck in an even newer location, the Frey Halls that were recently constructed next to the Library. To our disgust, they were unaware of Walk-O-Rama and considered us part of the general public and did not allow us access.  This put a damper on our plan to hold our own ribbon cutting ceremony for the unattractive architectural add-on.  This may or may not affect our review of the space when we are allowed to enter.

Our enormous ribbon and equally gigantic pair of scissors was finally about to be put to use…

Until we were mistaken for regular members of the public 😦

We are happy to announce that Walk-O-Rama has successfully found a suitable John replacement.  Though we flirted with the title John2, we will most likely stick with Peggy2.  She was the inspiration for our clearly very serious walk today. Thanks for joining in on our adventure!

Though she is not pictured here holding a beverage of any sort, we hope that Peggy’s cute girlie walking outfit was a close enough match to former walker John

We hope you all will join in next week as we do something else amazing.  Compared to being in the office all day, time spent almost anywhere else can honest qualify as such a place.  Or perhaps it’s just the amazing company…

Till next time…

Oh! And let us not forget to brag about have an award winning walker in our group today! Thanks to Raquel for bringing a bit of added prestige to our group after your recent charitable endeavor!

There are champion walkers among us

Read Full Post »

Walk-O-Rama: If You Liked It Then You Shoulda Put a Onion Ring On It

In an effort to spare one walker who was set to walk half a marathon for charity the following day, Walk-O-Rama decided to do the noble thing and drive to our destination last week. The very, very,  noble and not at all lazy thing to do.  Some could not even bring themselves to accomplish this, though, and felt it was even too hot to walk to the parking lot. You know who you are. Driving was an acceptable plan to all, being that it was 100 degrees and Celeste had promised that her car was quite similar to the ambulance in the classic film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? What we soon began to realize, however, was that it would have likely been quicker to walk to our destination, and we regretted having missed the opportunity for a competitive man vs. automobile race.  It could be argued, however, that those blessed with AC would have been the big winners in the end, regardless of their speed.

Pretty close to Celeste’s car, and to we as passengers. OK, not really

Food could not come soon enough for Kristen, who had been imagining for hours all the things on the menu that she would surely order. Salad for appearances to start off with, the greasy goodness of onion rings to follow, chicken and pesto sandwich for protein, and some sinfully delicious cake to top it all off.  Celeste pointed out the best cake for purchase, which she lovingly ordered for someone who could not make it this week. This went against the whole “To the victor go the spoils” mentality, since it seems one does not need to leave the pleasantness of office AC to be rewarded with lunch.  Our meals were thoroughly enjoyed nonetheless, even if last minute editing did leave out the ultra greasy onion rings that Kristen felt too ashamed to add to the order that she only ate a third of, as always.

The way Kristen originally envisioned her order

To our embarrassment, Ken showed us the importance of testing a second door when the first one is locked, which we had failed to do weeks before when we were longing to eat at this destination.  Though our pride was hurt, we quickly diverted these negative feelings into mental attacks on Ken, who had not made it that week and could therefore not point out that there were two doors that should both be tried. Geez, Ken. Good job.

When one is hungry, a bad waitress is a guarantee.  Ours was no exception.  We had planned out how we would order with the utmost precision so that every minute could be taken advantage of, not realizing that water was a very trying part of the order that took 15 minutes to do right. Apparently, she took pride in her work. Things went a little too far when her what seemed to be boredom in our food selections caused her to leave mid-order to attend to customers at a nearby table. Luckily, we all forgot this once our food came, and I was able to spare myself anger all weekend. But now it’s Monday and naturally I am just looking for something to be grumpy about.  So in a way I should be grateful to her for giving me something to think about in all my Monday crankiness.

I swear this was our waitress

Celeste considered the “healthier choice” of a BLT instead of a pulled pork sandwich, but splurged and went with the latter.  Good for her for resisting that unnecessary calorie splurge. We returned to work on time, which is only to say as late as we had honestly expected to be when we left.  For those of us who take no breaks and eat our lunches at our desk like we’re in the army, this one late day of the week seemed justified. With the AC in Celeste’s car, it is a wonder we made it back into the building at all, especially since she refused to drop us all off at the building while she searched for a parking spot. Though we know her kind heart really would have done this generous act, numerous parking spots were quickly spotted, because what kind of dope works on Friday afternoon?  Us, that’s who.

We hope you can join us later this week for a nice walk in the rain, or perhaps we’ll scurry on over to the newly renovated building next door so we can grant our approval (or lack of) of the design. Don’t expect a relevant account of these findings, however.  The next time you hear from me will surely be to express the reasons why it only took two weeks for us to loathe our former walking friend John.

This person is no friend of ours anymore. Tune in next week to possibly learn why

Read Full Post »

Walk-O-Rama: ADD, Our New Disorder of Choice

Library staff and OCD, due to the very nature of our work, go together like mashed potatoes and gravy. Peas and carrots. Peanut butter and bananas (no wait, that’s really, really disgusting). And we’re ok with that.  But we were very excited today to have a new sort of disorder represented in our group. As we learned, those inflicted with ADD are awesome excursion leaders, in more ways than one!

Having happily branched out and drawn in members of departments outside of our own building, we were feeling quite pleased with ourselves. This is until we realized that there were no leaders among us now that Ken had threatened to report us to HR for assuming his gender implied that he was a successful decision maker. Fortunately, first time member Katherine took charge by instructing us all to please at least start by going outside. So we did.  It was a step in the right direction since the temperature was quite a bit cooler for and change and…hmmm… I could go for some Skittles right now, which is strange because I don’t really like Skittles, except the orange, yellow, and green ones. They are alright. What was I talking about again?

WOR newbies learn that they may be photographed against their will so they might as well look happy

Spontaneous path chosen thanks to Attention Deficit Disorder

Oh yes, being outside.  Knowing that semi-new member Arielle had never been to the legendary Roth Pond before, and since we learned that she is a kayaker and would soon be nominated by everyone to row in the Regatta next spring, we decided to take her there.  Being led, as I mentioned before, by someone with ADD, we somehow were able to travel to a place we had been so often down a totally different route to places not all of  us were aware were part of the university grounds. Jumping from subject to subject, attention eventually had to be drawn to the elephant in the room (if that expression can be used out of doors)…the footwear of one of our new members. Though stylish to be sure, this unconventional walking shoe had never been worn on a walk before. Laugh if you want (which we did), but it did add a bit of glamor to this Walk-O-Rama adventure.  The only thing that would have been classier is if…hold on, why is there a peanut on my desk? Oh yeah, we didn’t see any squirrels.  Now where was I?

Clearly (if one can say the word clearly in a description of  this picture) the pond was at its prettiest for Arielle’s first introduction to it

The new standard issued Walk-O-Rama shoe. Ken is very excited!

Having passed only one bike in SBU’s bike share rack, the crew decided to head on over to the train station to see if more could be rustled up there.  As it turned out, there were plenty more to be found, only Kristen was told that they could not take personally owned bicycles from the racks, even if Ken did remember the chain cutters.  As we stood wondering what to do, Katherine proposed Green Cactus – a decision which led them all into a harrowing den of lies!!

Having reached Green Cactus, we all decided to spontaneous shake things up again by following Raquel next door to Soup’s On.  After being denied her much anticipated soup, and upon afterwards hearing that the hot dogs that had lured Ken there had just all been sold out (most likely by 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon), the group had to think extra hard about their decisions. After all came up with suitable alternate choices, we were met by other initially less obvious disappointments. Did you ever watch 30 Rock? I love that show.

Feeling all happy about having a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich, which she’d not had in I don’t even know how many food truck seasons ago, Kristen would have thoroughly enjoyed her meal, had Katherine not pointed out the sign that advertised grilled cheese sandwiches for several dollars less than she had paid.  The company will hear about this, trust me! Katherine, too, was very pleased with her choice since she so dearly loves green peppers, until a few bites later she realized that her wrap had been served without them.  The fire of this anger was further stoked by the tabletop ad that proudly boasted that the establishment sold hot dogs, which we saw no evidence of.  To be fair, Ken did really like their chili, and Raquel declared that her banana bread was surely homemade!

Yeah, NOT!

Green peppers, enhanced with Red Dye #9. Seriously. Would we lie to you?

Yes, we’re pretty sure you are comfortable lying to us

Apparently, no campus buses were to be had since it is summer, so we were forced to walk back on our own. The OCD-ness of the library folk dictated the return trip, however, as we set off on the only path we ever take on return trips from food. The only diversions that distracted us from this office-bound journey were the few moments when conversation was abruptly halted by Raquel yelling “DOG!” Kisses were awarded by five dogs in total.

We hope you can join us next week as we….DOG!

Our new friend Dixie’s occupation is making people happy. Yes, this requires a vest

Read Full Post »

Walk-O-Rama: The Summer of Our Discontent

Today’s walk began with an ominous site that set the mood for the rest of the outing.  Having dragged ourselves out of our air conditioned offices to take a much needed break for the day, we were struck by the scorching rays of the sun that  were so hot that they nearly caused our poor bodies to spontaneously combust.  We attempted to seek refuge from the heat in the refreshing waters of the nearby fountain, but found that it was even too hot for the water to come out, leaving the basin bone dry.  Two helpless pennies sat deteriorating in the sun.  Sorry, two people whose wishes are almost certainly not going to come true!  We knew for certain that our luck was shot for the day.

The fountain offered us its two cents by implying that we were out of luck today

All conversation found topic bridges in the form of complaints about the weather, until a glimmer of excitement filled our hopeful eyes.  Three bikes were spotted in the nearby bike share rack, which was convenient since there just so happened to be three of us!  And what was this we saw?  The first hour of riding was free?!!  Oh happy day! Surely the wind would be just what we needed to cool ourselves off.  But it was not to be.  Only one walker had remembered her ID card, so we were denied this Bike-O-Rama adventure.  Next time…

To date, we have learned to always remember two things while walking: car keys and ID cards.

Too good to be true

Canada: where the world goes to buy Swedish Fish and budget bicycles

Feeling a little disappointed with the way this walk was going thus far, we decided to take our wanderings indoors.  Art titled “Why?” reminded us all of the questionable motives that drove us out into the heat today, and when we saw a lovely view in the form of an enclosed garden nearby we could not bring ourselves to venture out into it.  Instead, we observed it from the considerably cooler temperatures indoors.

Why? Who knows.

Some landscapes are better appreciated from air conditioned hallways protected by thick tinted glass

All’s well that ends well, as they say, and a quick delicious lunch left just the right amount of happiness in our stomachs and brains to tide us over in the short walk to the office.  We have learned our lesson, that’s for sure, and are not likely to do this again.  At least not for a week or so, when all memory of this torture will only exist in this blog.  Feel free to join us then!

Read Full Post »

Walk-O-Rama Special Edition: Are You Gonna Go Our Way?

This past week, many Walk-O-Rama members traveled hundreds of miles to convert multitudes of everyday boring job workers into WOR addicts.  We were met by a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and support, which brought tears to our eyes.  Having been denied permission to enter our academic poster boasting how awesome WOR is in the ALA’s 2013 conference in Chicago, we determined that the only way to spread our word would be the good old fashioned door-to-door method, which we learned about by watching the highly educational show The Book of Mormon.  So a ding-donging we went.  While there were a few who hid in lazy terror when they peeked to see who was at their door, many were eager to learn about this program we had to offer.  To our surprise, they came out to join our walks in droves.  I can’t think of a single occasional that would have brought out this many excited walkers in Chicago over the course of one weekend.

Friday: Chicago based fans rushed to the streets to greet the famous Walk-O-Rama heroes

Sunday: As word spread, what seemed to be hundreds of thousands additional members joined in the fun

We cannot rightly claim all the credit.  It helped having a celebrity endorser behind us.  Though he could not make it to the walk in person, Lenny Kravitz was kind enough to donate a few of his belongings to our cause.  Kudos to him for convincing those unsure about what we’re all about to finally make up their minds to go our way.

Thanks for the endorsement, Lenny!

When our legs were weary we slid, like clever penguins giving their tired feet a break.  Not to diss Picasso, but his statue turned out to be the best surface on which to transport ourselves quickly.  Slide on a master sculptor’s famous work of art: check! We also tried being airlifted to our next destination, but this was not an effective means of transportation, as we were returned to our original destination with almost no forward gain.

The best slide in Chicago. Picasso loves Walk-O-Rama, and vice versa

Not a sufficient mode of forward transportation

We did thoroughly enjoy our time spent in the conference and found particularly helpful information in our 40 Useful Apps session, where we learned the way to locate all of the restrooms in our immediate area.  After testing out all of these locations, we feel confident that this knowledge gained will help us with our future non-fiction endeavor, a tourist’s guide to Chicago’s 2,017 public bathrooms, with informative reviews and photos.  Thanks sitorsquat! You are a very valuable app! Download it today!

Our last and final method of skipping all the tedious walking in our Walk-O-Rama excursion was the secret port key known as The Bean.  The shot below captures our initial takeoff as we began to warp to our favorite Chicago restaurant.

3-2-1 warp to food!

Our magic Food Guardian Angel led us through the portal

The Angel of Employment who reminded us we were here on behalf of the library

The Walk-O-Rama Guardian Angel who encouraged us to keep on walking, even when we were hot and hungry

To the left, Bridgehouse Tavern. Very delicious food. To the right, smelly water

After a few nights of constant togetherness, we began to realize that we were all morphing into the same person as we started dressing alike and accessorizing with matching food.  We knew that it was time to return to our home base where the entire campus was surely distressing at the thought that we might never return.

The point at which things started getting weird

Now that we’ve returned, we hope you’ll all join in our next walk, which might sadly be lacking slides, portals, and air lifts.  We hope you understand.

Read Full Post »