Summer in Seattle

Ahhh, Seattle. It is beautiful here. I've been told the summers are gorgeous, sunny and warm, but it's been a little chilly and a bit rainy. Not that I'm complaining. It's a hell of a lot better than hot, humid Philly. Gustafson Guthrie Nichol is pretty cool so far. They've got me doing fun and cool work, competitions, graphics, etc., absolutely NO Cad work!! Awesome. And I think I'll be mostly saved (unless I get a hankering for getting some CD experience [yeah, I'm picking up the lingo]) because the same day I started another dude started full time whose whole job is to do Cad stuff.

The office location is effin' sick. Right on the Sound. I look up and see ferries, container ships and the Olympic mountains right over the top of my monitor. Sometimes it's a little distracting...I finally got a day off over the weekend and was told not to miss the Solstice Day Parade, mainly because it's known for all the naked bikers. I overslept and had to walk so just headed to where the parade was supposed to end, Gasworks park. I figured I had missed it and knew the bikers didn't do the whole route anyway, but headed out to at least see the park. Turns out I managed to show up just in time to catch the show, and despite there being no bikers, there were still a lot of naked hippies. Fucking hippies. There was everything you'd expect, bands on floats, people from the land of Boxonia (where everything is made of boxes, of course) and a legalize marijuana dragon which appeared to be carried around by a bunch of naked old men underneath...


To top it all off, as I was getting ready to leave I noticed a Friends of Gasworks Park both next to an open gate. I inquired as to what was going on. 'They're giving tours of the fenced off area to raise awareness of the need to preserve the park.' Cool. I dig deeper. 'Yeah, I'm just volunteering with my mom and step-father... yada-yada-yada, so Richard is still trying to protect the park--' Excuse me!?! 'Richard Haag who designed the park, is giving tours for--' Yeah, I know who he is, lady, just give me a goddamn hardhat and sign me up.

Cool old dude. Funny. And old.

Hope everyone is having a great summer. My roommates are taking me hiking out at Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascades on Saturday. Gonna see some mountains, snow and glaciers, yee-haw!!

Almost forgot... Results for the competition I did with Keith and Julie came in. We didn't win. I think Walla Walla just didn't know how to handle something so cool and progressive. Or they didn't like it. I don't know. We did, however, get an honorable mention. Pbbbtttt! Whatevs. Your loss, Walla. You can check out our losing entry here. We all did some mad Rhino modeling, of course, and I did the rendering at the top of Board A (my first night render! what a bitch) and the bottom of Board B. Enjoy.

Austin