Geography Lessons

The last map painting ever is done, and I have a little bit of a sunburn. (Check the tan line.) For those of you who don't know: In high school I started a community service project so I could get into NHS [and I joined NHS so I could get into college. Yes, I know, I abused the system, but so did everybody else.] wherein a group of my friends and I got together, bought a giant stencil of the US, and painted or repainted giant US maps on elementary school blacktops.

They started out taking us 8 hours apiece, but as we got the hang of it/improved our technique/materials and got more efficient we got it down to 4 hours per map.
We've done I think 30 or so maps since the summer after my junior year of HS, and this was my last one.

It also happened to be at my elementary school, which was fun, since I hadn't been back in a long time. It went without incident, and I emerged unscathed save a small blister on my right hand. I also regained the true mark of a southern californian, the beloved sandal tan. Also, when dealing extensively in acrylics and spraypaint, one gets quite messy, hence the rather sorry state of my hands at the moment. It's alright, though, I don't mind it much. The only thing that bothers me is having paint under my fingernails.

It's pretty and multicolored and...this is quickly turning into the most boring, pointless entry ever. I think I just wanted to try putting pictures in. Sorry about all this. I did, however, put a sunflower seed where Dartmouth is. You can't see it in this picture, but I circled the spot. Hopefully it sticks in the paint, and generations of small children will forever know there's something significant about the near-geographical center of the Vermont-New Hampshire block, even if they don't know what that something is. It's like subliminally brainwashing little kiddies! Maybe they'll all start yearning for the granite state and they won't know why, and eight or nine years from now Dartmouth will get a flood of applications from Mission Viejo. That would be cool. Or I could just be insane. :)