SWD etc

I've had a really good weekend so far. Hurrah, I'm normal again!

Yesterday was Seattle Works Day. Though I was disappointed that no one else I knew signed up for the event, it was still a lot of fun. There were about eight of us from the team, and we went to Helplink, in the International district, to paint some of their rooms. The paint was gorgeous, bright and colorful and so much better than the dingy white it was before. I worked with two others in the computer lab and we had to use the three colors that the kids had chosen. We decided on a stripe of the darker color in the middle to bring the two brighter colors together. It was a process. In the end we did the stripe/three colors on two walls, and then one full wall of each brighter color. It took a long time, there wasn't quite enough equipment to maximize the time. Everyone stayed an extra hour and a half to get the job done, though, which really impressed me. It turned out really nicely, we were all proud and the sponsor was thrilled. I took a bunch of great pictures with their digital camera too, so we all can have before, during, after photos, cause those are the best.

When we'd finished and cleaned everything up, five or six of us headed to the afterparty at South Lake Union Park. People had already cleared out some (probably partly because the weather was nowhere near the predicted 70 degrees), so we just sat in the beer garden and talked. It was really nice. We discussed work/unemployment, travel, random things. I really enjoyed it; they are genuinely nice folks.

I drove my painty self to Issaquah and went to see Troy with my dad and Bill. The movie was okay. It was certainly very epic, but it wasn't quite the incredible film I'd heard it was supposed to be. Later I told my dad that I was starting to really second-guess myself about driving to New York, with the cost and wear on the car and pain to park...but he said that I should stick with the driving plan. So that made me feel better, to hear unbiased advice. Now I really need to think about how fun the drive will be and what I want to do.

Today I got up and had the time to eat breakfast and read before heading in to work. It was a good shift, it went quickly and was pretty fun. It was a lot busier than the evening shifts I worked the rest of the week. I stopped at Costco before going home, and now I've got the rest of the evening to relax and do nothing!