1200 Miles West

Last night we attended the APEX awards at the EXDO Events Center. Indigio was nominated in multiple categories and we were awarded Best Tech Workplace.

Here are some snap shots from the evening…

The curly haired girls of Indigio - Teresa, Heather, me, Sara and Becki. Sara and Heather straightened their hair for the event, however they normally have curls like the rest of us!

During Tim’s acceptance speech, he thanked the CIA instead of CSIA…OOPS!

No, they aren’t the same pair…but their close!  Also, I’m not sure why Mike elected to take the picture at this angle, but it’s kinda cool.

Indigio designed all of the marketing materials for the event…way to go team, they looked awesome!

Indigio walked today. It was for a great cause and we had fun.

The day started out a little chilly, but it warmed up as we set-up the tent and started to pass out bracelets to the other walkers. If you’ve seen the yellow Lance Armstrong bracelets, then you know what I’m talking about, except ours were blue and were inscribed with the following:

Get Inspired! Get Involved! www.indigio.com/cares

They were a hit, plus it never hurts to get your name out there.

Here’s some snapshots from the walk:

Here’s my favorite…

A good time was had by all, plus we raised over $6000 for the Colorado Chapter of the MS Society.

I’m already looking forward to next years walk!

As the Indigio Inspires team prepares for the upcoming MS Walk on May 3rd, we are raising additional money by having a bake sale at the office. Not being a baker, I quickly volunteered to bring chocolate covered Rice Krispy treats and pretzels.

Here’s a picture of the pretzels before I got started.

Good thing I don’t like chocolate as these look very appetizing.

If you’re going to be in the office on Friday, stop by the game room after 2pm and help out a good cause while enjoying a tasty treat.

Also, I should mention that we’re raffling a weekend at the Winter Park condo away. If you’re interested let me know as the tickets are $10 each. The money goes to a good cause, so if you’re interested in a weekend in the mountains let me know and I’ll buy you a ticket!

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but there is a group of girls that I work and we have fondly nicknamed ourselves the Indigo Girls. The name is a result of the fact that 80% of the people who attempt to say the name of our company pronounce it wrong. If you haven’t noticed, there’s an extra “i” in Indigio.

Anyway, here’s some highlights from the weekend that I spent in Frisco with Sara and Heather:

1. We participated in the Stomp for a Cure snowshoe event helping to raise $250k. We were all inspired by the participants and survivors who participated in the event and look forward to doing it again next year.

2. We stayed at the Frisco Lodge where we shared a Victorian Delux En-Suite which basically equated to a bedroom with three beds and a small bathroom. Each of the beds had it’s own unique feature as Sara’s was the squeaky one, Heather was lucky enough to get the one that was slanted and mine had a soft spot right in the middle.

3. Frisco is vegetarian friendly! Technically Sara is a vegan, but regardless we were able to find something delicious to each at each of the restaurants we frequented. I especially enjoyed the lettuce wraps from the Friday night.

4. During our first night in Frisco, we were awoken at 4:30am by the sound of Heather’s cell phone. She had set the alarm in order to wake up early to pack before work on Friday, but unfortunately she “forgot” to turn it off. Thankfully we all fell back asleep and awoke again at 7am to prepare for the snowshoe trek.

5. Frisco has some of the best coffee we’ve ever tasted and it can be found at Abbey’s Coffee shop. I enjoyed two wonderful vanilla soy lattes while in town.

6. On Saturday Sara and I did a little shopping in Dillon as there is a good sized outlet mall there. While we were bargain shopping, Heather stayed in Dillon to watch the Avalance game. When we returned, we met up with for a nice Italian dinner and then headed back to the lodge. Heather had some other friends in town, so she decided to out with them while we stayed back and hung out. After two puzzles and various conversations with John who worked at the lodge, we headed to bed. At 2:30am my phone rings and I immediately answer it and to my surprise it’s Heather and she can’t figure out how to get into the lodge. Ironically earlier in the evening while we were chatting with John we found out that only the front door is open 24 hours. I provided Heather with the details of how to get in and we all laughed about it the next day.

7. Snowshoeing at Clinton’s Gulch was amazing! We originally tried to find Mayflower Gulch as it had been recommended by the lady at the bookstore where we bought our matching socks, but we couldn’t find it.

If you ask me, it worked out for the best as we were the only three people on the trail which meant that the only sounds we heard were each other talking when we stopped to take a break. Check it out, isn’t it absolutely beautiful?

My first experience snowshoeing was wonderful, but maybe that’s because I was accompanied by two of my favorite people. Special thanks to Sara an Heather for letting me tag along!

7a. This piggy backs on the above, but I could let Heather forget that she left my car door open at Clinton’s Gulch. Thankfully someone in the parking lot that was heading out on a ski trip was nice enough to flag us down and ultimately shut it for us. Did I mention that Heather was out until 2:30am the night before?

On Friday evening we attended the Colorado Mammoth game with some of our fellow Indigians. The Mammoth play at the Pepsi Center, so we decided to grab a beer or two in between work and the game at the Pour House.

Never having attended a professional lacrosse game, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would it be anything like the Avalanche game that we attended a week or so back? Or would it be more like an indoor soccer game? I’m not sure that I ever caught on to the actual rules of the game, but I definitely had fun.

I think the next game is sometime in March, maybe we’ll check it out…

Following the game, we went out for a little Mexican food with Ronnie, Jesse and Thomas. The restauarnt was called Las Margaritas and not understanding the two for one margarita deal, everyone ended up double fisted.

I had a spinach enchilada that was yummy and we chatted a little about work and little about our plans for the weekend. Overall it was a good night out

On Saturday, I joined a team of co-workers to participate in a local Habitat for Humanity project in Englewood, CO. We arrived shortly before 9am and after checking in we picked out our hard hat, glasses and gloves. As you can see from this pic, I was ready to go!

Here’s a team picture that I snapped before the work started. Pictured - Thomas, Sara, Heather, Ronnie, Jaala, Aimee (from CSIA) and Terri. Some how both Brent and Jesse avoided the group photo, but don’t worry I got plenty of pics throughout the day.

We were assigned the task of painting and everyone on the team seemed to think that was a good fit. There was another team assigned to “our” house. They must volunteer on a regular basis as they had a pre-existing team name which was “Hammer Heads”. They worked on the two sheds that were located in the extremely muddy area behind the house.

Here’s a picture of the house before we got started.

Jaala immediately volunteered to go up high and paint the top section of the house using a 24 foot ladder. After working to position the ladder so that it was stable (the ground was in the process of thawing) she was up and at it.

Heather, Thomas. Terri and Brent volunteered by be on porch duty. They spent a good portion of the morning applying stain. After lunch Brent inspected the team’s work and he decided to fire Heather as she missed the inside of her section of the porch railing.

We definitely got a good workout during the day. Here’s some of my favorite snapshots from the rest of the day…

My mom was a little worried that I’d be working with power tools, but this is probably the most dangerous position I was in all day. I’d like to think that I was just “hanging” out.

We were also fortunate enough to meet both of the future homeowners as they were on site painting with us. Surprisingly we painted the ENTIRE house! From top to bottom and Kathy who was our Habitat coordinator was over joyed at the amount of work we were able to accomplish. She also invited us back to participate in the dedication of the house once it’s done. I plan on attending and hope others from the group will join me.

The consensus at the end of the day was that we all felt good about the job we did and wondered when and how we could contribute our time and skills again in the future to help more families in the Metro Denver area.

Special thanks go out to Ronnie (our co-worker) and his Mom as she sent an official King Cake from Louisiana, along with beads and masks to help us celebrate. Ronnie whose family hails from Louisiana helped Indigio get into the Mardi Gras spirit by preparing homemade Hurricanes.

Ronnie (our in house drink master) and Brandon are featured on the left and Lana (our resident rock star) appears on the right.

There was a little confusion as to what holiday we were celebrating, but all in all a good time was had by all!

Wayne, our resident Photoshop guru here at Indigio, created this for me in honor of my birthday:

Those are really my eyes, nose (even though I don’t like to admit it!) and my mouth. Can you believe it?

Wayne’s a talented man, here’s a picture he did for Mike.

Not sure why he picked the Indian theme, but it worked out well, don’t you think? He has a nice weather look to him. Hopefully that’s not a reflect of me!

Regardless, we hope you enjoy these photos as much as we did!

On Friday, a bunch Mike and I joined our fellow Indigians at Falling Rock to bid farewell to Henry Fieger who after four years with Indigio is moving on to a new position.

If you’re looking for a bar that has a wide selection of beer on tap, this is the place to go. That is if you don’t mind that the unisex bathroom smells like urine. Overall, a good time was had by all.

Earlier today Mike emailed the staff at Indigio to let everyone know that it is exceptionally difficult to find the sweet spot where we don’t lose legitimate mail and you don’t get Viagra advertisements and penny stock opportunities. He explained that the IT team would be making some adjustments to the SPAM filters and that we should email them with concerns.

Later in the day Sara, our Creative Director, sent out the following image to the staff. The emails immediately started flying around the office that Mike was the “other” white meat.

I hope you enjoy this picture as much as I did and still do!