awhile back, i won a contest at work along with most of the management staff of my store. the prize of winning was going the “Achiever’s Conference”. What that means is a paid 5 day vacation provided by best buy. it’s a couple meetings here and there, but mostly a 5 day party where you are showered in gifts from the vendors. for this conference, best buy flew us to fort lauderdale. we boarded the royal caribean “enchantment of the seas”. commence partying. all in all, it was an incredible experience and i thought you guys might enjoy the pics.
the minute we got to the port, we were checked in. after signing a bunch of papers, we were given a bag of towels, sunscreen, etc. then we were given a digital camera and a camcorder!
Casio EX-V8
JVC Everio MG155
from there it was on to the ship.
ricer exhaust…lulz
center hub of the ship
rock climbing wall on the ship (me pwning face on it)
live band playing
the next day was the vendor show. i didn’t take a lot of pics there because it seemed to be frowned upon which was understandable. that was a lot of fun, but stressful at the same time.
effectively, what you do is go see all your vendors, then when you are done, you go to whoever else you want to see. i’m the appliances supervisor, so my vendors weren’t too exciting, however, they took good care of me.
dyson hooked me up with a vaccum
bissel also gave me a vaccum
frigidaire gave me a microwave
whirlpool gave me a networkable digital photo frame.
the samsung meeting was insane. they gave us the choice of one of their new refrigerators or a front load washer and dryer. i won’t bore you with the details, but i went with the laundry pair and they are the most baller ones we sell.
bose gave me some headphones that are amazing.
i also got lots of random shit too. i can’t even remember half the stuff, but if i do i will let you know.
oh, and a panasonic 50" 720p plasma tv.
that day started at about 6 am. about 5 pm we headed back to the ship. from there, we headed out for key west.
in key west, there were a lot of options for things to do. i elected to just go wander key west with my gf. it is an awesome little town. basically, we did a mini pub crawl at 9 am. lol
first bar, sloppy joe’s. kinda meh, but judging by the giant plexiglass encasement around the drum set on the stage, it was a wild place at night.
wandering the streets after a couple few looking for margaritaville
finally…
tried the jimmy buffet beer. honestly, wasn’t too impressed.
by far, the most bad ass place in all of key west
they had a house beer there that was unbelievable. i had quite a bit due to it being so delicious.
from there it was back on the ship. more partying, swimming, drinking, etc.
then we got to cozumel. cozumel was where we did an excursion. there were all sorts of different things to choose from. the one that caught my eye was the “Eco-Jeep and Snorkel Adventure”.
we got off the boat and there was this crazy mexican yelling at us to hurry. we followed him down some streets away from the port and there was a line of about 20 TJ jeep wranglers. 4 people to a jeep. we paired up with another couple and picked out a white jeep. around us, people were arguing over who got to drive first. luckily, i was the only one in our foursome that could drive stick.
we cruised down mexican highways in a big caravan of jeeps
we pulled off into a nature reserve type thing with mayan ruins and beaches. unforunately, due to poor planning on my part and the fact that we had to park bumper to bumper i couldn’t get any pics of the mayan ruins or the crocodile we were a couple feet from. we also went snorkeling, but unfortunately my digital camera isn’t waterproof.
from there we went to check out this lighthouse.
view from the top:
the beach
it was awesome getting to do something like that. i beat the piss out of the jeep offroading for a few hours, snorkeled, and saw a lot of ancient mayan culture. i wish my gf had gotten the reactions from the couple that was with us when i hit it a little too hard around turns and broke the jeep loose.
we got back to the ship exhausted and sunburned, but we had a blast.
view of cozumel from the ship
the next day was the business meeting. i got to meet with the company COO and soon to be CEO (reorg next year).
here he is giving his speech. honestly, incredible guy and the best motivational speaker i have ever seen
random, but appreciated…after the meeting, they gave us all watches.
right before the dinner that night.
crazy dude i partied with.
some lounge we drank in a lot
this pic is a mess, but so was i so it was like a first person perspective of what it looked like on the ship.
for the few of you that work for best buy, this is me and adam from TagTV. if you don’t know what i’m talking about, here’s a pic of me and some crazy dude in a cowboy hat.
another drunk pic of me being a mess
lastly, in the airport on the way home, me and a buddy i work with saw the COO of best buy in the airport. i thought it was really cool that he flew jetblue with us instead of taking a private jet or something.
anyway, that was my vacation/work week if you will. sorry for spelling errors or anything that didn’t make sense. eviljay is on his way over and doesn’t like to have to wait on me so i was rushed.
