Obama, Part II

I had a miserable night. Who knew spray painting was so physically demanding? Holding the spray can and pressing the nozzle down as hard as a could for nearly three hours wreaked havoc on my hand and forearm. My thumb and index finger tips are still numb.

Turns out this is mostly due to bad supplies. I bought spray paint that cost a buck a can. As a result, flow was uneven and small and there wasn't much in each can. Today I went back to the store and got better paint plus a couple of these things you fit over the top of a can so you can have more of a two-finger trigger to spray. Made a huge difference. Plus, the new paint had a much bigger fanned out spray area. Tonight I am mostly complaining about how sore my hamstrings and butt are from leaning over for so long.

Today I got started around 3:30 and wrapped up around 5:30. I had Owen with me, and he helped a little but mostly I wanted to keep him away from the fumes. Turns out that cheap spray paint also seems to smell worse and fly up into the air more. I had hardly any trouble breathing at all with the Krylon!

So, some blue first. I bought new blue since I thought what I had was too dark. Not enough, though, so I ended up finishing with the cheap blue. It looked fine in the end.

So all done with the red and blue, I then re-applied some white so it would look better. And that's that! I did hang a big light in the tree pointing down on the whole thing so you can see it in the dark. I need to mess with that a little more so it shows more, but otherwise I am done!

Summary stats: about 6 hours of time, 7 cans of white (6 cheap, 1 good), 4 cans of blue (2 cheap, 2 good), 7 cans of red (4 cheap, 3 good)

p.s. We did Trick-or-Treating in another neighborhood tonight with friends. I made sure we left a huge bag of candy out for people to take. When we got home, no candy left, but also no eggs or other vandalism! This afternoon probably 8 people honked or waved or yelled positive stuff out their car windows while I was working in it. Excellent!