I got to attend my employer’s annual charity auction this past week. This year is also a significant anniversary, so they booked a club for an evening party on another night. They also had some other small going-ons during the day, but the aforementioned two were the big ones.
The club was pretty normal. A somewhat typical slideshow of photographs of people throughout the years, speeches, etc. A couple free drink tickets and some free appetizers (like ants swarming when you try to get to them!). I’m not really a club person, I’ve no idea of how to deal with it. Thus the highlight for me was when the magician turned up.
He was pretty good, did a few tricks. There’s a couple tricks I can’t even guess at how he did. One in particular is frustrating: he held a large (2cm) six-sided die between his thumb and forefinger, away from his body. He turned it back and forth, without moving his fingers, just wrist. One, three. One, three. One… four?! He even gave us the die to look at! I love that trick however it was done.
The other event, the charity auction, was a lot of fun. It was an open bar, and the company issued taxi tickets for the ride home. The live auctions were pretty astounding (usually more than ten thousand), and included: being served morning coffee by the president, flight for a group to some special island to go golfing, and a keg party thrown by some other high rollers in the company.
They also had a silent auction, where all the items were donated by employees or solicited from other companies regularily dealt with. There were over 400 items; a sampling: signed hockey jerseys, U2 concert tickets, many variations of iPods, and spa certificates. The food was catered by a local (high class) restaurant. It was so good, I really want to visit the restaurant for the real thing!
As for my “winnings”, well, I didn’t go away empty handed. I bid for, and eventually won… a rock.
Of course, the rock isn’t a plain rock, but it sounds more silly that way (and trust me, it is very silly). It’s a chunk of unprocessed gold ore. It looks like a regular rock, but with sections that look like they’ve been painted with gold paint (duh?). It’s funny how these unusual trinkets, that I can’t imagine finding elsewhere, grab my fancy. Oh well, as people always say at these kinds of events: “It’s for charity!”
