Behold the return of SpiceQuest!

Hello SpiceHeads. Are you ready to jump with me into a Brave and Fabulous New World? This SpiceQuest is dedicated to both Groundhog’s Day and Valentine’s Day. Let’s get started.

Your quest, should you choose to accept it, is as follows:

  1. Appreciation: In honor of Phil Connors, who had to learn to appreciate the town of Punxsutawney in order to escape his personal time loop, we’re going to appreciate the community by reaching out to others. For quest item one, go say something nice / positive to someone you don’t know. Compliment someone’s post, welcome someone to the community , or congratulate someone who just reached the next pepper level . Tag them in the post so they have a better chance of seeing it. Coax those groundhogs out into the light. No sneaky snideness or sarcasm for this step, or you have to do the whole quest all over again… and again… and again…
  2. Description: Part of the successful navigation of Valentine’s Day is a good description. For this quest item, tell us how you would describe Spiceworks to a friend in six words or less (think bumper sticker size). Alternately, actually design a Spiceworks bumper sticker.
  3. Expression: For this quest item, tell us how you would express your love if you had to write it on one of those chalky candy hearts (which, by the way, might not be available this year). For our purposes, let’s say you are limited to 3 lines of up to 7 letters each. Alternately, if you hate Valentine’s day, you can design a chalky candy heart that is negative about love, like “Go Away.” Here is a place to practice if you like.
  4. Recognition: Even vendors need love. For this step, do something nice for a vendor. Like, or comment, or follow… anything that reminds them that they are needed and appreciated in our community.
  5. Romanticism: In honor of Valentine’s Day, tell us (in a safe-for-work way) the most romantic thing that you have ever done. Alternately, tell us what you have planned for this year. Alternately, if you hate Valentine’s Day, you can tell us the funniest (again in a safe-for-work way) anti-Valentine’s Day thing you’ve done, or seen, or looked up online, for instance a website where you can send dead fish instead of flowers.
  6. Association: For this step of the quest, show some love to a fellow SpiceHead. Tell us about someone else in the community that you appreciate (in a non-romantic / non-stalker way) and why. [Hint: if you can’t think of anyone, here are some easy targets .]
  7. Acclamation: This one is easy. Express your appreciation for Spiceworkers, either an individual or as a group. Has one of them ever helped you out? Tell us. Alternately, since you know this quest step seems all self-serving and stuff, tell us what you would do with your time if you got caught in a ten year time loop.
  8. Ostentation: 6 More Weeks of Winter? Let’s find out: for this quest step, either post a picture of yourself, or a picture of your shadow. Alternately, if that is too invasive for you, you can post a picture of a groundhog.
  9. Information: Let’s practice our descriptive abilities a little more. For this quest step, go write a product review about a product you have used. (No requirement to be positive for this one. Honesty is best. Just try to at least be polite, like those valentines you had to give in your elementary classroom even to people you didn’t know.)
  10. Jubilation: Let’s end on a positive note. For the final task in this quest, go post something happy / amazing in the Huzzah thread.

… Oh sure, I know some of you read past all of that just to see what your reward would be. Shame on you for not being self-motivated in an altruistic way (Go to step one).

Never fear though, when you break the time loop with trusty old CTRL-C (and post proof of your completion of each of the quest tasks in the comments below), a nice SpiceQuest badge will be waiting for you. (See my example post in the comments below for an illustration of how to provide proof. All entries must be postmarked… err, posted… by February 28, 2019.)

[Note: Even if I don’t explicitly say it in the text of each quest item, all entries are expected to be safe for work.]

[Note: if you can’t / prefer not to complete a step because of privacy / bias concerns either for yourself or your company, repeating step one ten times will officially make up for any one of the other steps (ten equals one step, not ten equals ten steps), but it has to be a different person each time, and it has to be legitimately nice each time. (If anyone chooses to utilize this option, maybe take your time and try not to bunch them all up in the same thread.)]

PS: Don’t miss the Punxsutawney Phil live stream starting at 6am February 2nd!

166 Spice ups

[Example comment illustrating how to complete the SpiceQuest]

Hoo! What a great contest. Love it. Love Spiceworks, love you. Would have liked to see more use of the letter Z in the post though. … Just saying.

Here is my proof-of-contest:

  1. Welcomed (and tagged) spicyWordWizard HERE .

  2. My bumper sticker:

  1. My chalky heart:

  1. Spiced up Sarah for Connectwise’s topic HERE .

  2. My favorite anti-Valentine thing used to be Despair.com’s Bittersweets (they were snarky candy hearts), but apparently they stopped selling them. I don’t really like the idea of revenge sites that send dead fish and wilted flowers, but in the spirit of Valentines, I do think that really fake-looking plastic roses are hilarious. I used to give a friend of mine (who also hated the holiday) a plastic rose each year… the more fake the better. HERE are some I found that look pretty sickening.

  3. One post that I really appreciated recently was by cdorsey3 in THIS thread. Great advice.

  4. Wow, I LOVE Spiceworkers so much, especially that one new girl… oh, wait. :slight_smile: Okay, if I were in a ten-year time loop, I think that I would write a book. I mean, obviously I would waste some of the time binge-watching some shows, but considering that I have ten years, I think I would still be able to get a book done. Maybe even two or three, depending on how dedicated I was. The thing that I wouldn’t do after the first few days would be go to work. I mean, I do love my job, but if one day repeats for 10 years and I am only getting paid for it once (after the loop ends), that is going to get super old. So, I’d get up early, send in a personal day email, and then get some longer-term stuff done. :slight_smile:

  5. Me and my shadow:

  1. My review is HERE . (No complaints. I’m not allowed to review most products. This was the best I could do.)

  2. Posted my Huzzah HERE . I actually wanted to talk about the RETURN OF SPICEQUEST!! … but, you know, didn’t want to give it away too early. :slight_smile:

Again, thank you so much for the opportunity to earn a new, shiny badge. WHOO-HOOOOO!

Z

6 Spice ups

So steps 2-10 can be replaced by doing step 1 over and over, but what if step 1 is the real challenge? Turning off sarcasm is hard. Especially when every other thought in my head is sarcastic in nature.

12 Spice ups

That is a concern that I didn’t consider.

I guess for this particular SpiceQuest you are just out of luck. (sad emoticon)

However, I will try to incorporate the need for a sarcasm outlet in a future SpiceQuest.

2 Spice ups

Step 1 - Congratulated LHA2872

Step 2 - Spiceworks - “Where Experts Actually Exchange”

Step 3 - sw-step-3-reboot.png

Step 4 - Started following Eaton (and Mike :P) here and spiced up Mike’s topic here . For those who haven’t already, be sure to check out Eaton. We are coming up on a bit of a spring cleanup soon and will likely be grabbing some UPS’s from Eaton.

Step 5 - Probably not the MOST romantic thing I’ve ever done because I’m a regular ole Romeo over here but when I was deployed, my girlfriend (now-wife) and I would find creative ways to either spell out “I love you” or draw hearts. Super corny young people stuff. Because I’m a tough brute of a man though, I decided to take advantage of the tough coolguy army stuff available to me at the time. I arranged a bunch of ammo and weapons in a way to where it spelled out “I <3 U” and then gave some of the Iraqi’s I worked with some MRE’s to all give testimonials of stories about my girlfriend - all fake, of course. Then I edited it together like it was a documentary on her. It’s funny listening to some random dude in a desert talk about how my girlfriend saved his life from a polar bear attack and he plans to name all of his children, boy or girl, after her because of it.

Step 6 - I appreciate a ton of people here, waaaaay too many to name. I’ve learned a ton from guys like Martin9700, who basically taught me how to be a badass with PowerShell back in 2014 and was one of the main reasons I joined the site in the first place. Guys like dbeato and how much they contribute to helping others in the community genuinely inspire me to do better with helping too. Even though he’s an actual robot, I still admire how much work @fernandogerardo9344 put’s into everything here. Sean (Spiceworks) is always the first name that pops into my head when I think about how great this community has become. He works his tail off and I always feel like a thorn in his side. Sorry Sean. Ceci (Spiceworks) is one of the nicest people I’ve never met (yet). Justin O (Spiceworks) kills it with the webinars and has great hair. Lastly, shout-out to some other buddies of mine here like DiegoF1000101, @joshua-spiceworks , @justin5198-spiceworks , Bweber93, Big Green Man, etc etc… too many cool people here to name, so I’m sorry for those I forgot to mention.

Step 7 - Oh shoot, I got ahead of myself in Step 6, sorry. So to reiterate, Peter, Sean, Casey M, Ceci and I’ll add in Suzanne (Spiceworks) too - you guys rock!

Step 8 - Me and the future president casting shadows on the wall:

selfie-lando.png

Step 9 - https://community.spiceworks.com/products/64684-seans-company-of-awesome O_o
I also did this one too: https://community.spiceworks.com/products/49580-meraki

Step 10 - Official "Huzzah!" Thread

Thanks Suzanne, you rock!

@martin9700 @sean-spiceworks @big-green-man @peter-spiceworks @justin-o-spiceworks @ceci-spiceworks @dbeato @brodyweber @eaglemitchell @diegoflorez @suzanne-spiceworks @casey-spiceworks

26 Spice ups

That’s hilarious, and I love it, but it doesn’t meet the criteria set forth (3 lines of up to 7 letters each). In the true spirit of Groundhog Day… do it again. :slight_smile:

(This is going to be fun.)

2 Spice ups

nudge_wink.jpg

23 Spice ups

Whoops! Sorry about that! Here’s a redone one which meets the criteria :stuck_out_tongue:

sw-dang-suz.png

11 Spice ups

That’s not 3 lines…

4 Spice ups

I am tempted to have him do it again, but it was only an upper limit.

Heart_that_one_works.jpg

6 Spice ups

download.jpg

9 Spice ups

sw-shut-it-huw.png

12 Spice ups

Appreciation: Welcome Jael, here’s the warm and fuzzies we all wish we had more of! Introduce Yourself!

Description:

Expression:

Spicy_Heart.jpg

Recognition: Nicole (CCB) – I appreciate all of the hard work you and the team put into the Tech Showcase. This year will be bigger and better than ever! Thank you also for the strong support of the Milwaukee SpiceCorps, you and the CCB team really supercharge the group!

Romanticism: This year my beautiful bride and I are expecting our first child, due June 1st. I have had some recent injury-related health problems and my wife has had a rough time with this pregnancy, so I am treating her to a spa day where she can kick back, relax, and get some much needed R&R. Maybe not as romantic as some, but certainly much needed!

Association: I appreciate dimforest as he is always quick with a joke, but keeps it classy and is certainly helpful. He also along with DiegoF1000101 they both have been crucial in helping me get this Spiceworks Unofficial Discord Server pumped up and gaining support daily.

Acclamation: I am super grateful to Sarah Crook (Spiceworks) for trusting me and giving me a shot with the Discord. I am also thankful for Francois (Spiceworks), Sean (Spiceworks), and Marta (Spiceworks) for making it out to the Midwest Meetup last weekend. It was great to meet all of you and hear about the awesome things going on at SW HQ. And Lastly, Suzanne (Spiceworks) for that great SpiceRex review!

Ostentation: It’s a little old, but here is a cool picture of me enjoying the winter and helping rescue a patient during a ski patrol shift. And yes dimforest I am the guy driving, not laying in the toboggan :stuck_out_tongue:

2019-02-01_9-30-34.png

Information: Not sure if this counts since this device does not exist as a product that is reviewable in the Hardware section of the reviews page, but this reply was a lot like a review: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/post/8193444 if not, I would be happy to do another one for something else.

Jubilation: Official "Huzzah!" Thread

@sean-spiceworks @sarah @nicole-ccb @dimforest @marta @francois-sw @diegoflorez @suzanne-spiceworks

10 Spice ups

Aw shucks, thank you Mitchell!! I’ll be sure to share this with the team. :slight_smile: Congrats on becoming a dad soon!!

3 Spice ups

Good try, but

Heart_do_it_over_again.jpg

3 Spice ups

Ah crap, as I’m going about my day after posting my initial post I’m realizing just how many awesome people I’ve left out. Guys like @kareembadr4040 , who is EVERYWHERE and one of the coolest people on this site and more. He’s helped me with a ton and I enjoy chit-chatting with him about gaming and other non-IT stuff. Bryce Katz for being (along with Martin) one of the reasons I’m here today. fatLUNCH but mainly just out of pity because he’s a Vikings fan… Green folks like Heidi (SmartDeploy) and Jordan (Thycotic) for being all around awesome, Mike (AeroCom Inc.) for being extremely helpful, freaking Stu (KnowBe4) for scaring the crap out of me constantly, and a bunch more.

Last and probably least… @justin5198-spiceworks for making me question myself on a daily basis. I wish I could disagree with him more but unfortunately I find myself only really ever agreeing with him. He’s an extremely level-headed and intelligent guy who would have made a great NCO.

Again, there are a ton I’m still forgetting but oh well. Sorry.

@stu-knowbe4 @heidi-smartdeploy @brycekatz @rhummel @jimmy-t @jordan-thycotic @mike-aerocominc @fatlunch

11 Spice ups

Got you covered: https://community.spiceworks.com/products/65549-barracuda-essentials

Plus it is a First Review of that product! only 3,999 to go! Right dimforest?

@dimforest

3 Spice ups

This just made my Friday! Thank you so much!

grateful.png

@dimforest

6 Spice ups

*4999, actually!

You could probably knock those out today too. You should definitely try.

:stuck_out_tongue:

2 Spice ups

[Sets down all work-related tasks and puts on SpiceRex Hat acquired at the HQ tour.]

3 Spice ups