On Friday, instead of coming into the office, most of the interns from work volunteered at the Busse Forrest Preserve in Schaumberg to participate in a “Day of Service / Social Event.” There were a lot of cool pictures to be had, like interns chopping down invasive plants like buckthorn (and baby oak trees.. oops) and doing controlled burns of the stuff they cut, but I was relegated to trash pickup duty and didn’t really get to see any action. Other than stuff burning, I did get to see a lot of cool things around the park (like lakes, bridges, and a family of geese) but instead of carrying a 1D-mk III around with me, I decided to shed the extra weight and focus on my duties as a garbage-man. After 3 hours of trash pick up, I can say with confidence that I am now considering a career change.

Anyway, we had lunch back at HQ. Here’s some photos of my fellow engineering interns out of Libertyville:

Shawn brings up the topic of either Sanjay or Palin.

Lynn joins in the conversation is bored by the guy talk (hot girls, airplanes, and the Florida Marlins). :-P

Lisa looks so poor (not really, but I just wanted to include this joke somewhere in the post).

Jess and Ayo on the other side of the table are motivated by Motorola execs.

Shawn gets ready to ask the hard-hitting questions that need to be answered.