There was an AudioBlog here, but I wasn’t that impressed with it, and so I dissapeared it. 🙂 It’s still around, so if you want to hear it, let me know.

I came back from Youth and Gov today. I had a good time, all in all. I got there about 11:30 Thursday, and saw a few sessions, talked with Brionna in the Governor’s Office for quite a while, watched debate on several bills, and generally just hung out.

They were in the capitol building this year, after two years in temporary facilities. Normally, they use the Capitol, but in 2001, there was a serious earthquake, and the Capitol sustained some pretty serious damage. The 2001 session, the year before I joined, was at a college because they were still assessing the damage, but the capitol was open for the 2002 session, and we were the last to use it before they closed it for a long overdue renovation, which forced the last two sessions to use the same temporary quarters that the legislators were using–they were a bit tight on space, though. Anyway, it was good to be back in the Capitol Building.

I went up to Nathan R.’s house for the night, which worked out well. It was a bit more of a drive than I anticipated, and there was road construction by his exit, and although traffic wasn’t that bad by city standards, there were still a lot of cars to deal with, so the trip up there was a bit interesting. I made it safely, though, and Nathan and I ended up disassembling his computer and then putting it back together, and trying to install a new motherboard in between. It didn’t boot properly, but we’re not sure what was wrong, other than the computer never even displayed the BIOS on the screen. I’ve never taken a motherboard out before, so it was a learning experience. Good thing for Google, though, as we disconnected the wires to the front panel, and then realized that it wasn’t as simple as it looked to re-connect them. And they are important–they connect to things like the power button.

This morning, I discovered that it is a small world. Nathan’s next-door neighbor stopped by for a few minutes, and we discovered that he had gone to high school with man that works with my dad. Weird the way things work out like that.

I went back to Olympia today, with mainly a repeat of yesterday. The Governor’s Office was busier today, but also better organized. I watched the Governor’s press conference, and then decided to leave (it was about 3) so I wouldn’t hit the Friday night traffic too bad. I got really tired on the way home, so I pulled over, intending to take a short nap, but I couldn’t sleep at all. I got some food from a convenience store, and was not sleepy the rest of the trip home (2hrs). Traffic wasn’t bad for me, with the exception of a 2 mile stretch of Highway 14, from I-205 to 164th, which crawled at about 5-10 mph.

I’m glad I went, I got to talk to a lot of people that I remembered from previous years, and see the program continue on. It’s not as exciting when you’re not a participant, and if I’m not some sort of an advisor next year, I probably wouldn’t go. I’m hoping something can be worked out, though. I don’t know if there’s any way I could attend any of the events before the real session, though. Of course, I don’t know why I’m worrying about that before the session is even over.

When I got home, my mom had me call a man from church, who apparently is looking for someone to move a bunch of wood chips and debris left over from having two trees cut down. He wanted me to work on it, as he can’t do it all himself, so I’m going to be working on that tomorrow. I’m not sure how big of a project it is, but I guess I’ll find out when I get there.Speaking of work, I stopped by the store on my way home, and got my schedule–I start working there again Thursday. For some reason, I’m almost dreading it, although I never had that feeling when I was working there last summer. We’ll see if this continues after I actually get started. I’m currently scheduled on one freight shift, which means that I get to arrive at 5 in the morning on Monday to unload the semi and stock the shelves. And once you get set in a pattern, Troy usually sticks with it. This part, I’m really not looking forward to.

Seeing as it’s nearly 11, and I was falling asleep earlier, and I’m going to be working tomorrow, I wish you all a good night.

–Nathan