Thunder Thighs in Valparaiso

Today I began the Global Corporate Challenge. I don’t very often participate in work events, so when this one came around I decided to join in. The idea is that you are put into a team of seven people from your company, given a bag of goodies (mouse pad, cap, water bottle - all the usual corporate marketing paraphernalia), which contains two pedometers, and encouraged to walk 10,000 steps a day. You enter your step count into the website every day and take a virtual journey around the world. First we had to decide on a team name, which was an amusing endeavour. One fellow was convinced that the name should contain either "ninjas" or "assassins". Another thought we should use Thomson and Reuters Excellent Walkers because it was a play on words of a famous movie. Call me stupid but I couldn’t pick the movie. Apparently it was "Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures", and apparently word substitution will do for a play on words for some. In a moment of stupidity I sent my team an email saying "I have it! The Thomson Thunder Thighs!" (not at all being serious). Anyway, you know what happens with stupid ideas and that actually became the group consensus, after a little squabbling, so I now am in a team called The Thomson Thunder Thighs, and it was actually MY idea. This morning I clipped on my pedometer and it appears that for the next four months I am to be dogged by this small rattling thing which sounds like there is a stone in my shoe. The challenge began in Valparaiso, Chile. It made me think of this great song by Sting, which I taught myself to play on the flute many years ago just because I really liked it. It’s a little reminiscent of an Irish Ballad and just because I can I’ve pasted it in here:

Valparaiso

Written by Sting

Chase the dog star

Over the sea

Home where my true love is waiting for me

Rope the south wind

Canvas the stars

Harness the moonlight

So she can safely go

Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso

Red the port light

Starboard the green

How will she know of the devils I've seen

Cross in the sky

Star of the sea

Under the moonlight

There she can safely go

Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso

And every road I walked would take me down to the sea

With every broken promise in my sack

And every love would always send the ship of my heart

Over the rolling sea

If I should die

And water's my grave

She'll never know if I'm damned or I'm saved

See the ghost fly

Over the sea

Under the moonlight

There she can safely go

Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso