Bikes 'n Ballard

I'm on the Board of Bike Works and today was the annual community kids' bike swap. This is a super great annual feel-good event where people can bring used kids' bikes, get a value estimate on them, then shop for a "new" used bike with their trade-in credit...hundreds of bikes get traded/bought and many of the same bikes and families show up every year as the kids get bigger and the bikes don't. I was working the checkout for about 3 hours today and it was really fun (plus, a sunny spring day in the park, what's not to love about that). The little kids get super jazzed to get new bikes and some of the bikes are pretty damn cute, albeit too often pink, too (see example above...unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the kid who was wearing a superman cape on his new bike and sporting a red cast on his arm-adorable). And here's the people-aren't-all-bad-have-faith-in-the-human-race story from the event. A guy came in with 3 kids and wanted to swap 3 bikes. The value of the bikes they brought was less than the ones the kids chose and wanted to buy, so he needed to pay the difference of $45. The guy was a little frustrated and obviously didn't have the cash...he went into the bike coral to look around again for other options. The guy who'd been behind him in line gave us a credit card and asked if he could anonymously pay for the other family's bikes. How's that for pay it forward??

At the moment, I' m in a coffee shop in Ballard behaving a kinda like a tourist. I'm dogsitting for Maddie & Winnie, my favorite Ballard residents (aka the velvet-coated Labs) this weekend. I don't hang out much in Ballard and there are a ton of cool places to eat, drink, shop, and people watch...I'm avioding the homework in my backpack and waiting for Seujan to meet me so we can look for a good happy hour location...

Here's Maddie after a chuck-it session this morning...she looks like I've been feeling the last week.