swestrup | Twas Busy, Yesterday

Got woken up earlier than planned by the phone ringing this morning. No big deal though, as I had had most of my night's sleep, and I can use the extra time in the morning to get some things done before its time to paint again.

Yesterday was crazy busy. It was pretty much non-stop from the time I got up until around 22:30 when I got home. We managed to get all of the base coat painted in the basement. As in many things, the job was not as bad as I had anticipated. I think I just have a real reluctance to do things that I want to come out good, and that I have so little experience with. I haven't looked at the results from yesterday yet, but I figure we should manage to get the rest of everything painted by supper time.

After painting yesterday I had barely enough time to scrub off paint splatters, take a quick shower, wolf down a small supper (which I had 10 minutes total to cook and eat), and run to catch my bus. I just made it.

I arrived at SAT just moments before

peaceful_dragon, who I was meeting, and we went in and set up the t-shirts for distribution. I handed a bunch out as folks arrived, and had to explain to a few people that I could only give them to folks on my list.

From where I was stationed guarding the shirts I could see the bar, but didn't have any way to get to it. It turned out later it wasn't really an 'Open Bar' in the sense of free drinks, but merely that they were actually selling drinks at the bar. No big loss then as my drinks budget was only a couple of bucks.

Then the demos started and I had to move the table so that I could see the presentations. This democamp was much, much, MUCH better than the last one. There were projects featured that I had no use for, but I was never wondering 'why did they even bother with this?' like I did last time. Here, there was an obvious market for everything, even if I wasn't always in that market. I am definitely going to spend some time checking on some of the project websites, but not until next week when I expect to have a few free moments.

Sitting at the t-shirt table did have the unintended consequence of me not getting to mingle at all. A number of interesting conversations strolled past while I was manning my post, but I had to sit put. A few folks made a point of coming by and saying hello. I'm afraid I didn't actually recognize 75% of them, including an old co-worker from Terrascale.

Unlike last time, folks started to leave fairly early after the event. I didn't notice a lot of groups clumping together to go to bars or restaurants afterwards, although there was a bit of that. So, when

kino_kid told me she'd be at the train station for the 21:25 train, if I wanted to ride back with her, I decided to do that.

I had a lovely walk to the train station through Chinatown. I certainly appreciated the fact that it was spring, even if my legs were protesting that what with standing for hours while painting, and all the walking I've done lately, they would have preferred a bus or metro ride.

So, I got to the train station and was just trying to figure out if one can still use a zone 2 train ticket as a bus transfer when Emru and his wife showed up. I had never met her before but they made a lovely couple. Emru offered me a ride home since his car was parked at the train station, to which I readily agreed. Moments later

kino_kid arrived and we chatted a bit. I dashed off to buy a coffee and to get my ticket stamped and returned just as the train started boarding.

Less than an hour later I was dropped off on my corner and tottered the last few steps to my door, suddenly exhausted. I sat and vegged for an hour or so, and then headed off to bed, where I immediately fell fast asleep.