The Travels of Justin's Famous Sports Chickens

 
SectionEditable

Rick Steves  2011
http://www.ricksteves.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Steves

Past Justin’s Sports Chickens recruiter, Craig Williams (who scored the Pete Sampras chicken) organized many volunteer outings for the employees of VMware.  From 2001 to 2011, Craig was a key figure in forming the culture of grass roots volunteerism that VMware has today.    As a side note, VMware has taken this culture to the next level globally by creating a The VMWare Foundation, headed by Hans’s friend Nicola Acutt. What is really cool about the VMware Foundation is that it gives employees 40 hours of company time to do community service projects.  This model was based partially on the fact that Hans, from day one in 2000 at VMware (when it had less than 100 employees ), would use a week of his vacation annually to volunteer as entertainment director at MDA Summer camp.  Vmware was very supportive of Hans’s activity and all the other volunteer things going on. Now VMware has over 14000 employees and all of them can give 40 hours of their company time to the community without having to use vacation time.  Good stuff!  More companies should do it as it encourages a positive atmosphere in all areas.
OK back to the grass roots volunteering.  Craig regularly organized the employees of VMware to assist with a public TV fund drive at KQED TV in San Francisco. Hans had been to previous fund drives and says there is TV footage of the camera scanning the volunteers at the phones, and in front of Hans’s phone there is a, well YES, a rubber chicken.
The night in 2011 that Hans volunteered, the well known travel authority Rick Steves was a guest in the studio.  Little does Rick know that Hans has a collection of thousands of rubber chicken travel photos over 13 years  in numerous places globally.   Little does Rick also know that  Hans is a slacker who has yet to reveal  MOST of these photos to the world. So perhaps Rick signing a rubber chicken is apropos as at least THAT chicken has a name on it of a person who HAS shared his travel  experiences with many.  HA! 
So OK Rick is not a sports dude.  BUT travel can be exhausting.  So we’ll leave it at that.