3rd Year IEET celebration

Introduction and Background
Yet another milestone achieved at this Intel Project. We (Syed, Rohan, Marco and myself), completed 3 successful years at the project. Just like every other year we planned to celebrate this and there were many ideas and changes in plans (Just as usual).
Initially the plan was to head to Pondicherry and due to non-availability of accommodation, we were forced to look out for other options. Among all the various choices we had like Kodachadri, Shimoga, Kemmanagudi and Wayanad, as a team unanimously decided for Wayanad as the destination.
Nasir Khan was in-charge of the whole organizing part (Organizer). He along with the assistance of other team members like Rohan Chandrahas/Praveen etc. finalized on the resort (http://www.monsoonmagicgmr.com/).
Nataraj and Myself were in-charge of the music (did a bad job at it actually). And also in-charge of the things to carry and do’s & don’ts
Marco (before I forget) was as usual in-charge of the Vehicle booking (Tempo Traveler)
Priyadharshini (New member) was in-charge of the Snacks and cool drinks
Nagabhushan was in-charge of finishing them. LOL He did a wonderful job at that.
Now it was the craziest weekend and I can say by now most of my blog readers trust me when I say that. I am going to break this up into 3 different blogs though the funs started from the word GO itself (7th August 2009).

Day One – 7th August 2009
My boss’ boss (Brian Adams) had come down to India from the USA on the 6th of August 2009. Part of his agenda was to spend one whole day with us outdoors. So we had decided to unwind at Angsana (An International Resort) close to Doddaballapur. The itinerary was as below:
07:30 Start off to Angsana from Intel BGA 1
08:45 - 09:00 Welcome Drink
09:00 - 10:00 Breakfast
10:00 - 10:30 Brian addresses the team
10:30 - 11:00 Water Polo match
11:00 - 11:30 Dolphin Relay
11:30 - 12:00 Poison Pool Toss
12:00 - 12:30 Shark & Mermaid
12:30 - 01:00 Refresh & relax
01:00 - 02:00 Lunch
02:00 - 03:00 Usage of facilities TT, Tennis, Squash under team members discretion
03:00 - 03:30 High Tea / Thank you note from Syed / Final words from Brian

We all gathered up at Intel office sharp 7.30 a.m. and Marco had arranged the Tempo Traveler for us. Perhaps it was one of those rare incidents where we left on time and reached Angsana at 9 am sharp. It was a shocking revelation to Brian about the traffic at Bangalore. He always used to reach and leave Bangalore only during dawn and this was the first time he met the actual traffic of Bangalore.

The place was wonderful with many facilities like Gym/Swimming pool/Indoor Games/Outdoor Games etc. Once we reached, we were given a welcome drink and taken for breakfast immediately. Breakfast was sumptuous with a lot of vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. Even the hard core dieters like Rohan and Praveen had an exception and feasted on all the food available.

After a hearty breakfast we were taken around the campus to see all the facilities available. The Gym was truly world class with the all types of work outs available. There were many other paid services like sauna/Massage etc.

Post the property tour we were let loose to start our activities. The obvious option was to jump into the water and start the water sports. After 10 minutes of relaxing and swimming in the 4 feet deep pool we decided to start the water games. Everybody (except Brian/Photographer-Nataraj) stepped into the water with the swim suits and we were provided with the ball from the resort itself.

We almost played for more than an hour and it was really fun all the way. Everybody was very sporting and trying to play their best. After a 5-10 minutes break, Rohan came up with the idea of playing Dolphin. The rule of the game is that there would be couple of sharks (in the team) and the rest would be Dolphins. The Sharks would freeze the Dolphins by touching them and they can get unfrozen only by another Dolphin. It was a lot of fun and of course more light hearted cheating by our Manager, LOL.

After playing that for 30 minutes we decided to move to the sports room. After everyone dried up, Marco-Nataraj-Rohan-Praveen-Syed-Brian-Priya and myself, moved to the sports room. Rohan & Praveen initiated on the Squash court and the rest shuffled to the table tennis board. It was again a perspiring moment for most of us. We were all sweating after 60 minutes of games.

After that we had a little bit of bird watching from the tower at the resort. Guess after seeing the pictures below it is not what you perverted minds were thinking. LOL

It was lunch time and we started moving towards the luncheon room. Lunch was equally great with super options for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians. We were totally exhausted by the time we finished lunch.
Post lunch we went to the MIRAGE (Bar area) and stretched our legs out to relax.

Brian and Syed had an opportunity to express their wishes and thanks to the team and vice versa. It was a very emotional moment for we four Musketeers (Syed, Rohan, Marco & myself) as we had completed 3 memorable and challenging years at the Intel project.

It was time to leave (30 minutes behind schedule) and we took one quick team photo by the pool side and left from there with our hearts palpitating and dreaming about what is in store for the next two days.

We were leaving to Wayanad (Kerala) for two solid days of fun and frolic. We reached back Intel campus around 5 in the evening and Brian thanked all of us for such an eventful moment and rushed to the airport. Yes, he was flying down to Shanghai for his next meeting with our China team.
We split up for the day and decided to meet up at 11 pm by Rohan’s house (Banashankari). We all met up by 11 pm and started the unforgettable travel to Wayanad. The team was definitely energetic in spite of the tiring day spent at Angsana. We were awake for most part of the night singing songs and playing our team movie (Angrez).
We reached Kalpetta via Sulthan Bathery around 6 am the next day morning. Stay tuned for the next blog.