Mark K. Sullivan’s Blog

Last Friday was the UW Business School’s annual Challenge 4 Charity auction, raising $$ for the Boys and Girls Clubs and Special Olympics… It was a great night of seeing old classmates and bidding on things that I wouldn’t normally shop for. The bidding was fierce, the bidding was fast…. and in the end, I ended up with a few prizes to take home and a much lighter wallet as well.

Here’s a list of the things I was able to snag with my bid number:
• A bottle of Royal Balkan Muskat wine - Apparently, only a few bottles are made every year and this supposedly something only the royal family drinks…. it may all be a bunch of hoo-ha, but it makes the wine seem very impressive, plus it’s in a cool-shaped bottle. My folks like muscat wine, so the bottle now resides in Hawaii, waiting for an “occasion” to drink it.
• Gift certificate to Duke’s Chowder House. I’ve never been there, so it’s a good excuse to try something different
• An eight-course tasting menu with wine pairings at the Union Restaurant. Haven’t been there either, but it looks like an expensive place, given the price of it…..
• A golf - dinner - lodging package for a resort out in the middle of Washington State. I always like going somewhere new to lose golf balls.
• A 60 minute and a 90 minute massage. They are at two different places, since it was a silent auction and I assumed I would win at most one of them, not both…. guess I’ll be getting the spa-treatment one of these days….
• Diamond Club seats (including food/drinks) for the Seattle Mariners. This is a wedding present to our friends, Dave and Merrick, so yippee for them, and yippee for us getting to sit in the Diamond Club area!
• 4-night lodging and ski package to Mt. Baker. It looks to be right on the mountain, so come next season, it should be a nice ski vacation
• And finally, the table centerpiece, which included a bottle of wine, wine glasses, a bunch of chocolates that somehow ended up in my mom’s suitcase when she returned home to Hawaii, and a bunch of gourmet products (smoked salmon, cheese, crackers, etc)… PLUS a stainless steel bucket (which I think is the coolest part)

Looks like I have a bunch of places to visit and things to do this year…. can’t wait! The total amount raised in the auction was approx $150,000!!! Yay to the kids that will receive the aid and to all the hard work put in to making that night possible.