ItÂ’s the magical Karma thing. You know, you do something good for someone else and something good happens to you. I went to an off site retreat today for work. I was kind of dreading this, as these things are usually nothing more then how to be more sensitive to your employees crap. As we all know IÂ’m the most farking sensitive arsehole in my company. Thinking that is what this was going to be, I really was not looking forward to it.

It was held at a log lodge owned and operated by the local YMCA. It’s a nice location and I love the atmosphere of the place. The problem is that the heat in there is not exactly the best, but it does have two fireplaces. When I walked in the building had a good chill to it. Outside it was about 45 degrees and inside it was about 55 degrees. Everyone was complaining about the cold. I looked at the fireplace and made the offhand comment, “Well, we could always build a fire.” Our Director (Above manager) emphatically said yes, lets build a fire. Now I was just joking around, I like it cold and thought it was fine in there. But I thought, hey if they want one, I can build it. Then someone stated, “You can’t build a fire, we don’t have any fire starters or newspaper. All we have is wood.” Oh it was on. I’m a re-enactor; if I couldn’t get a fire started then I don’t deserve to call myself a re-enactor.

I look at the wood supply, nothing but big logs. Okay, no problem. I pull out my handy dandy pocketknife and get to work. I peal the bark off some of the logs, scrape the inside and get a nice bundle of fiber. As I was digging through the pile I found a birch log with some bark still on it. Score! This stuff is fire making gold. Then I used my knife to whittle off some smaller kindling and tinder. When I asked if anyone had a lighter, no one did. But they found a book of matches… that had two matches in it. Again I heard, “You’ll never get it started with only two matches and no newspaper or fire starters.”

I scoffed.

I chortled.

Hell, I even giggled.

One match was all it took. I touched the burning match to the bundle I had made and it went up faster then house set to torch in any movie. People actually cooed and awed as the bright glow of warmth spread across the fireplace. They actually took peoples pictures standing around warming themselves by it. I had a lot of people thank me and tell me that I was there hero. These were sincere thanks and actually appreciated what I did.

Then Karma set in. Not only was the retreat anything but sensitivity training, it was actually kind of fun. It got out early and I was able to hit Carlyle Brewing Co. I needed to pick up some growlers of beer to take with down to Fort Obie for my friend Will. When I got there I noticed they had some new beers, including a Walnut Stout. I couldnÂ’t help but to sample a pint. OHÂ… MYÂ… HECK. If you like their regular stout, you should get down to sample one of these before itÂ’s gone, they only ran single batch, but itÂ’s damn good.

It was a good day.

Posted by: Contagion at 05:59 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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