Of all my friends (and, again, I have more friends than I can justify), the one who is respected for giving the best gifts (and for being an all around great friend) is my friend and office-mate Erik. Yesterday he gave me my retirement gift, which were two metal Minnesota Vikings bookmarks. Amazing. Of course, the best part of the present were the incredibly heartfelt comments from Erik and his wife Laura in the card, which I will long cherish.
On the back of both he had "Audeamus" engraved. It's the made-up motto of Champlain College, which has been a long-standing inside joke in our office. I guess it is inspiring to base your goals on "We Will Dare," or whateve3r we translate it as. Mainly, the joke is based on my belief that once you give something a label, especially a self-generated one for publicity, it certainly has no meaning - and I don't think we've had one "daring" moment since we crowd-sourced the motto (unlike the days of Champlain, when that was what we were known for). I told Erik that since the Vikings are featured the motto be the Latin equivalent for "we will fail", which is think is something like deficiemus. Still, it's a sweet gift.
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