I never was good with these kinds of things, but I guess I should start out by saying hello and thank you for coming to this big ol’ shindig. A special thanks to the best friends a guy could ever have – Jimmy and Bob - and of course an extra special thanks to my beautiful soul mate, Sunshine.

I’ve been with this company for awhile now and I’ve had so much fun here. We have all come such a long way in this journey we call life, changing all the while. Everyone used to tell me,”Mark, you’re such an old hippie,” and that is so true because I am.

I remember when I first started here I completely didn’t “fit in,” but after awhile, a LONG while, I started to wear the monkey suit that you see me in today; although my hair stayed, no matter how grey it would turned. I started at the bottom and worked my way up, having a blast the entire way.

I’ll never forget the time that Jimmy, Bob and I were all up for the same position at the same time … and boy oh boy, was that fun! We tried EVERYTHING we could think of to sabotage each other from getting that position. It went so far that Bob and I rigged Jimmy’s desk drawer to spray green ink all over whoever opened it. The problem was that he got sick and was out of the office for a few days and I forgot what we did, so I went into that drawer to get some paper work that I needed. Needless to say, within a second I had green ink all over me and the paper work that would make or break the promotion for me. That’s the reason why we had to answer to Jimmy for awhile.

We had some fun times after the company was sold too. We decided that the new people needed to be initiated into our screwed up clan. Talk about having some fun! We convinced all of them that they should chip in to buy a room full of pink flowers for Kath. Here’s the funny part, she hated pink and was allergic to them. There was a lot of sneezing going on that day! She was a good sport about the whole thing after awhile – a LONG while.

It’s a shame that she isn’t here with us. For those of you who never knew her, I wish you could have. Almost every day was something new, with never a dull moment. “Mark, you’re such an old hippie,” was started by her, and it caught on with everyone else. She made a point of it to remind me of that all the time. What made it even funnier was she was one too! We would constantly swap Woodstock stories … we were both there, loving the music and the mud. At one point we tried to have a free thinking office party, but none of you kids liked that idea.
Good times, Good times…

This has been a long time coming and this free bird is ready to take flight again, to feel young again. This time will be well spent touring the U.S. – following around whatever great bands are left in this crazy world we live in.

So, again, thank you all for coming. Wish me luck as I try to keep up with all of the young groupies. Sorry Sunshine, I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.
Thanks again guys. I’ll talk to you all soon.