Choose Your Own Adventure
Posted by Steve Kinman on February 9, 2012 in Culture, Executive Blog, SoftLayerI was unbelievably busy last week, and surprisingly, the busyness I’m referencing did not even involve my official responsibilities in compliance. I was planning on writing a blog to share some of the fun/insane/ridiculous things that happened, and I thought of a way to mix it up a little and make a challenge out of it for our readers.
Have you ever seen those image-based logic puzzles where you’re given a series of images and challenged to put them in order to create a story? Here’s an example:
What story are those pictures trying to tell? A boy [6] grabs a fishing pole [4], and finds a fishing hole [5]. He baits his hook [3] and waits for the catfish to quit posing [2] and bite the hook! He takes his catch home, and his mom fries it up [1]. MMMM Good [7]!
You could probably interpret it a different way and “choose your own adventure” where the anthropomorphized fish deep fried the boy … Depends on how far outside the box you think. The answer the question was meant to have is the one above. Now that you see how it works, I have a logic puzzle for you to try and figure out about what happened during my week last week.
All ten of the pictures below were taken in the span of 56 hours … If you can come up with the correct story, I’ll send you a prize (detailed below). If you can come up with a creative story that isn’t correct, I can probably find something to send you as well. Without further ado, here are the pieces of the story [Click for Larger Version]:
If you’ve been to the SoftLayer Blog this week, you know that we have a “Kids Meal” kind of special going right now where for the next few months if you buy a server and email us, you can get an official SoftLayer Bobblehead! To piggyback on that giveaway, the first person who posts a comment with the correct order of the photos to answer the puzzle (or the funniest answer if no correct answers are posted), will get my personal FULL SET of official SLobbleheads. Yes, the full set! You won’t have to wait to place your server orders in the next month to complete your bobblehead collection (though I hope you still keep ordering servers).
So what are you waiting for? Tell me the story!
February 10th, 2012 at 11:22 am
Let me guess … SoftLayer was named a “Best Company to Work for in Texas” [8], so they drove [5] to Austin to receive the award [2], and they saw the capitol building [7]. Because they were in Texas, it’s pretty normal to have a trailer hooked up to the back of your car, so when they were driving by a huge statue of Sam Houston [6], they saw a sign that said “Cattle for Sale.” Because it was nearing dinnertime by this point, they had some seafood [3] to discuss whether buying SoftLayer cattle would be a good idea, and the unanimous vote was “Why not?!” … Backtracking to the “Cattle for Sale” sign, the SoftLayer crew had their choice of cows and bulls [9]. They chose one and gave it the Three Bars brand [4], thus becoming “The SoftLayer Bull” [10]. Oh, and I guess the odometer picture shows Steve’s lucky number of 1,250.8 [1].
Do I get my Bobbleheads now? Was I right?
February 13th, 2012 at 11:31 am
I know the answer to the puzzle, but I’m going to have a little fun with answering at SKinman’s expense … Instead of reorganizing the photos, my story is going to use them sequentially:
On a dark and stormy night, SKinman looked down at his instrument cluster and was horrified. It was 53 degrees outside, and he was facing due North [1] … His worst nightmare.
Kevin and Summer knew something terrible was happening [2] … Did SKinman really travel North when it was 53 degrees outside?! A feast of seafood [3] couldn’t even console them from SKinman’s recklessness. Why? Because driving North when it’s 53 degrees outside almost always sets off a series of unfortunate events. The last time such an endeavor was attempted, the end result was SKinman branding himself with “Three Bars” [4]. The team could only hope this instance would be different.
To prepare for the possible apocalypse, a Suburban was purchased, and a cattle trailer was attached to transport supplies [5]. What would happen?! Was there any hope? No matter where they drove, they couldn’t escape the haunting fear of the end of the world (or more people getting branded). They passed by Sam Houston and felt his steely gaze piercing their souls with a warning [6]. They tried to hide in the shadow of the capitol building [7], but the fear followed them to Austin as well. Even holding a prestigious award [8] aloft into the darkness did nothing to assuage the terror of impending doom.
Then SKinman had an (extremely rare) “Aha!” moment … If the series of unfortunate events always concludes with someone getting branded by Three Bars, why don’t we proactively brand something with that symbol to prevent the intermediate suffering … But what could we brand?
What about a bull? [9] There’s no guarantee that the curse would be lifted if the branded being isn’t a human, but it’s worth a try, right?
A bull was selected to stand in and take the brand to prevent what was guaranteed to be the worst series of events ever experienced by SKinman and the SoftLayer crew, and as the brand was removed, the weight of worry was immediately lifted. To remind us of how to respond in the future, we memorialized the bull’s sacrifice on a plaque as “The SoftLayer Bull” [10]. We asked for them to put “The SoftLayer Savior Bull” on the plaque, but they charged by the letter, so we shortened it and the “Savior” part is implied.
The moral of the story: If it’s 53 degrees outside, don’t drive North.
February 13th, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Well Stella, you don’t quite have your groove back, and Hazard, I Think you should have been a writer for the show “Lost”. The ending would have been better I am certain.
February 16th, 2012 at 3:44 pm
I’m just going to go for the correct order of numbers, 9,4,10,5,7,2,8,6,3,1
February 17th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
We’ll see if even I got it right.
Without the story: 10, 3, 7, 8, 2, 9, 4, 5, 6, 1
February 17th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Justin #fail lol
February 20th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Let’s see if I get this correct……..9,4,10,1,5,7,3,8,2,6
February 27th, 2012 at 3:32 am
From my point of view correct sequence are 6,4,9,7,5,1,3,2,8,10
February 29th, 2012 at 9:58 am
@Bentours – I would love to hear how that story goes!! However, that is the incorrect order.