Here are some pictures of Gary's group's Bowling off-site.
Click on any of the pictures to see it bigger.

Before we left, Gary insisted we start with an exercise he learned
during his early days as a competitive bowler: "Become the Ball."

Notice the blissful expression on Gary's face. What is on the inside
of a bowling ball?

Here we are, about to begin the trip to the restaurant.
Obviously, these people are not used to freedom.

I think someone should have told them that the doors were not locked and they were welcome to enjoy the fresh air.
Finally, someone figured out how to work the doors, and people started to filter out into the sunlight.
Just to give you an idea of the effect fresh air and sunshine have on people, I have for you
two photos of David Wang. In the photo on the left, David Wang is inside the lobby. In the
photo on the right, David Wang is just outside the lobby doors. These photos were taken
within minutes of each other. Amazing, isn't it?
Before we left the Cisco campus, Rajiv decided we could all use a hearty round of "All Thumbs Point to the Maniac."
It was a lot of fun, but as you can see, Rajiv won. I think the game was fixed, myself.


We went to a nice Persian restaurant for lunch. The management took one look at me and told me to
wait out back, so I didn't get any pictures of us eating. They did send out a burger for me to eat, though.
The place seemed awfully fancy for a McDonald's, but I did enjoy my Big Mac. Gary even sent out some
of his fries so I would know they were thinking of me.

Next, we went to the Bowling alley. As you can see, Henry brought along a nice purse to carry his shoe and balls,
excuse me, I mean his ball and shoes, in. Henry said the last to enter will get the highest score. We all just laughed
at his superstition, except Biji, who snuck around front in an attempt to be the last in. I didn't bother to point out to
Biji that I was behind him. Not that it helped me any. I think the trick to bowling well is to have a nice purse to hold
your balls, I mean shoes, in.


Here we have a nice shot of Nik and Emanuele discussing what sort of purse they each hope to buy for their shoes.
 

John and Biji got into the swing of things by showing us that they are not unaware of the importance of their shoes.
Personally, I think they could stand to get some balls, too.  Then they'd really be with it.

At this point, all we had to do was decide which of us would be the one to do the bowling. Prancing about in
fancy shoes is all well and good, but when it comes to hurling large multi-pound spheres around, only the best
of the best will do. While we were deciding who would be our champion, the air was filled with excitement.
As you can see by the picture below, our finest member was, as always, an oasis of calm in an ocean of
chaos.
 


Now that we'd taken care of the preliminaries, it's time to bowl! None of us really knew how to bowl, so we picked
John to represent us to the world of bowling. This was a very good choice as you'll see when you click on the image
below to view John's excellent technique in action.
 

We all had a very good time watching John bowl.


After John had shown the world exactly what the off-line team is made of, we gave out an award for the best and worst
advice offered to John while he was representing us.

Henry told John to imagine the world's perfect purse for holding all the shoes he was going to win, so he got
the award for best advice. Priti was mumbling some rubbish about aiming for the pins, so we gave her the
award for worst advice. Way to go, Team!

After all that excitement, we decided we should do it again just to make sure we'd done the best we could.
this time we appointed Nik to bowl on our behalf. I think Nik had been listening to Priti a little too much,
because he seemed to have come up with his very own technique. Come on Nik, quit playing around and
visualize the purse! Click on image to see Nik in action.
 

We gave out the usual awards, for best and worst advice. Here's a shot of the winners enjoying their moment of
victory.
Henry got the award for best advice, giving his usual wise words about purse selection. Priti claimed Nik's grand success
was not her fault, so we gave the award to Nik, for giving himself the worse advice possible - Keep your eye on the
camera. Come on, Nik, it's all about the purse!

After John and Nik had done such a great job of showing the world how talented the off-line diags team really is, we were all
in the mood for showing off. Nobody else had the courage to try their hand at bowling, so we took turns doing impressions.

Here's Gary's impression of the Borg. "I am the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."


Biji did his impression of a photographer. This is a picture he took of me. I think he shows promise.

Well, that was the bowling off-site. We all had fun. Thanks, Gary! Next time could we go to
a restaurant that will let me sit in the dining room?

Feel free to get out of here.