Denver

First day of orientation is complete. Nothing to exciting: welcome to the program, finance, HR, InfoSec, and travel. Judging from those who are returning for another season, the highlight of the first day of orientation (2nd for those who had a day of OSHA briefings) is supposed to be receiving our luggage tags:

Apparently, they change color each year and there was much discussion over which color(s) were left to choose from, with 'clear' coming as a surprise.  I'll admit, it is cool to see them on the bags, and they're a heck of a lot better built than tags you buy in stores.  They also made me realize I never thought to pack my Tux stress penguin (for those unfamiliar with Linux, Tux the penguin is the mascot for the Linux Kernel).  It's such an appropriate desktop fixture I may need to have it sent down.

The only other event of the day was me forgetting that Denver is a mile above sea level and 2 hours of October sun is significantly different here than in Minnesota.  Sporting some nice color on half my face and the top of my head.  Should make for an interesting tan if it doesn't even out.

The other program participants are fairly diverse.  College age, approaching retirement age, tree hugger looking, white collar, blue collar, Caucasian, African America, male, female.  Just about every demographic is represented.  I even ran into another Minnesotan.

The vast majority are people returning for their nth season, but what surprised me was the number of people that are returning after long absences.  I have talked to people that did a series of seasons (over anywhere from 2-5+ years), then left the program for anywhere from 3-10 years, and have come back.  So far it seems an even split between people who have seasonal summer jobs (motorcycle mechanic, biologist, dude ranch, etc) so they do this instead of taking the winter off and those that are drawn to life on the ice.

Next stop: New Zealand