Saturday Plans and John Speaking in Public

I have signed up to work at the Belltown graffiti paint-out on Saturday from 9-1. We will apparently be going around Belltown painting over graffiti. They are providing us with breakfast, lunch, and on Sunday a celebration including dinner from Outback and beer from...somewhere else. This should be fun and a good way to meet more people now that I am feeling social after my 2 year convalescence in graduate school.

Yesterday John flew down to California with one of his bosses to give a seminar at HP. He really hates doing any type of public speaking so I don't think he is having much fun. He has a group of about 10 developers he is working with. Apparently several of the people they were working with have been laid-off and several people in the "class" will be laid off staring next week. John says the whole place is very sad and depressing - they have sold off over 1/2 of the buidings on the HP "campus", there is no longer anyone at the front gates, the grounds are getting run-down and neglected, and the building he was in had a football sized room full of cubicles that were mostly empty. Not a happy place.