Once a year it is permitted to take a day off to "socialize" with coworkers in Germany. It is planned by the employees and supervisors and management are invited along to get to know the employees better.

I have about 65 people working for me in design, management, and inspection of projects. This year we took a tour of the Grafenwoehr Training Area and then had a picnic afterwards.

Here are 3 pictures (posted below in the album called Works Outing). You might notice only one person is kilted . It was the first time I wore a kilt in front of the whole group. Several nice comments, no negatives. Got into a long discussion with one fellow about the migrations of the Celts through central Europe and how they were pushed to the fringes by stronger bands.

Last photo is of myself and Ali, one of my engineers, who is from Ghana. We had some friendly rivalry over the World Cup football matches, but we now both root for Germany (who won on penalty kicks against Argentina and advance to the Semi-final round tonight).

Now that I have broken the ice on wearing a kilt to an office function, will probably do it again. The Army sponsors a big 3 day fest in August.

May be able to post more pics next week when others show me the photos they took. I have to observe some security rules about what I show on base, and courtesy considerations with my German friends makes me ask their permission before showing them on the Web.