On April 19th I, along with the captains of the other 25 teams, attended the 2007 Parker Aerospace Irvine Flight to Fitness challenge award luncheon in a side room off our cafeteria. The food was nice. This year they recognized the top ten teams from the Alton and Von Karman facilities, as opposed to last year when only the top three were recognized. This may have accounted for the decrease in value of this year's prizes. The team that I captained was awarded 1st place. We received 1/2 day paid vacation, a $55 Target gift certificate, and (get this) a 30-day trial membership to 24-Hour Fitness. (Like we need MORE exercise right now! We're still recovering from the big push during the last 2 weeks of the challenge.) Captains were also given blue ribbons for team members who achieved or exceeded their activity goals to wear on their badges. I think most of my team members were disappointed that there was no Disney California Adventure pass this year for the winning team. I was. We're not going to complain; however, as the 2nd place team received a gift certificate for some spa that did massages and dental work! (what a combo!)
Team names, captains, & prizes of top 11 FTF teams.
(click on photo to display full size version)
Was it worth all the effort and determination and hours and hours of exercise? Well, lets put it this way. I received about 1 second of applause for every 1,000 minutes of exercise. But there's a certain level of satisfaction being able, as the oldest guy on the court, to run circles around all the younger guys while playing basketball. ;) I can't jump and don't play that well anymore, but I sure can get up and down the court. ;)
