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Declaration of independence

I always knew that when I had my own place, I’d like to have company often. And when I was first moving in to my new apartment, I was told that I’d be able to see the city’s Fourth of July fireworks show. So, I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone by having a housewarming party on the Fourth of July. Not only would it allow me some social interaction, but it would also give me something to look forward to as I got settled in. And I guess it would be my first social event as a real adult—a declaration of independence, if you will. Will you? No? Okay.

I spent much of that weekend getting my place in order. I invited everyone I knew in Seattle, mostly Microsofties and Amazonians I had gone to school with. Yes, I’m not totally alone here in my new city; I actually know more people here than I thought. Some of them are only here as interns during the summer, but maybe they’ll come back after they graduate.

I have low expectations when it comes to RSVPs. My birthday is in the summer (tomorrow, actually), and when I was a teenager, the turnout for my birthday parties was usually dismal. So you can imagine how pleased I was that most of the people I invited were able to make it. A few friends of friends also came over, so I got to meet new people. Perhaps of interest to World of Stuff readers is that I invited Daniel, a longtime reader who’s currently an intern at Microsoft. It was good to finally meet him!

So, what was it like? Well, there was plenty of food; I had bought some chips and soda, but I asked people to bring some more snacks also. I’m still eating (and drinking) the leftovers. For soda, I chose Coke because everybody likes Coke, and I also got Mountain Dew because it’s a stereotypical favorite of nerds, presumably for the caffeine content. One of my guests had the same reasoning and brought the same drinks. Great minds.

I wanted to make it clear to everyone that this wasn’t going to be a party in the college (or, presumably, high school, although I wouldn’t know) sense of the word. No loud music, excess drinking, vomiting, or anything like that. I was not disappointed. Everyone behaved responsibly, even though there was beer. Hooray for being adults.

We mostly just chatted in a big group, at first on my balcony, and then in my living room, and then back to the balcony to watch the fireworks. We had a good view of the show, and we were so close that I could start to smell the fireworks by the end of it. After the fireworks, we went back to my living room to continue the conversation until people started leaving one by one. Daniel crashed here because his transportation options at night were fairly limited.

So, will we do it again? A couple of people told me they hoped so, and I invited everyone to dinner tomorrow night for my birthday.

Plus, we’ll have an even better view of the fireworks on New Year’s Eve. They launch them from the Space Needle.

Here’s a high-speed video in slow motion. It looks like time is standing still. (Via The Presurfer)