Send off for my boss.....

My last post mentioned that my boss was leaving the organization to go on to a new exciting opportunity with a local up and coming company. I'm very happy for him and wish him the best, but I also and very sad to see him go. I organized a send off for him from the department on Thursday evening, which was a fun time and we had a great turn out as well. He was shocked by how many people showed up to wish him well. Why is it that the "good ones" never know how "good" they are?? We "decorated his office" on Friday morning as well. I wanted to have an "off campus" event for him as well, which would allow me to invite different people - people who used to work with Al, but have moved on over the years. So I organized a surprise party for him on the Saturday. A colleague offered up his house to hold the event, which worked great. My boss's wife and my friend's wife grew up in the same town and my boss and my friend play hockey and hang out together outside of work, so getting them over to the house was not as hard as it could have been. We just organized everything with his wife and the premise of the event was a social BBQ with their friends. Luckily, he had no clue...not until he saw a few cars he recognized from work - yeah the ones with personalized licence plates... oh well he was still surprised. We had a great turn out and I'm quite certain everyone had a good time. I made this card for our departmental send off. It has multiple pages so there was lots of room for people to sign the card. I made these two little guys to put the gift cards we got for him. I made this card to give to him with his gift on Saturday evening. I thought being a guy he would like this one. I also made him a book of memories and put a bunch of pictures inside as well as I had people write little stories or send me little stories and then I printed them off and tacked them in the book. Do you know how hard it is to get guys to write in a memory book? It's like pulling teeth! But it was pretty full so that's the main thing. I also got him a t-shirt, designed by me and airbrushed by Trevor this awesome airbrush artist that we see at the Grand Bend Flea Market. This is a personal joke between Al and us. Quite often when we would do something for him...instead of saying thank you, he would say Muchos "Grassy Ass" hence the shirt. And since we work at the hospital - the blue H. Our extension at work for the Help Desk is 44357 which actually spells 4-HELP, so across the back 4-HELP is airbrushed as well. We also got him a booze bucket!!! Which was full of all kinds of stuff: red wine, white wine, Kahlua, Vodka, Rum, Crown Royal, Baileys, Strawberry Daiquiri's, Tequila, Heineken, Bud Light Lime, Coors Light, Bud Light, peanuts, popcorn and chocolate!!!! It was fun to plan and it was fun to see everyone outside of work. It was a nice chance to relax and get to know people a little better in a non-work environment. Best wishes Al, you will be missed more than you will ever know. Chow for now, Jacqui