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This past week was Pride Week here in Portland. As usual I didn’t do anything during the week. I did all of my celebrating on the weekend. Well, one thing I did do during the week was pick up one of the rainbow badges that I see so many LGBT employees and allies wearing at Intel.

I drove past the Pride Festival on Saturday, but I figured I would wait until Sunday to go.

On Sunday, I marched in the parade for the first time. I was happy to be marching with Intel. Like I said on Facebook, I know a lot of people are cynical about corporations getting involved with Pride. Some think that corporations just throw money at it for good PR. From what I’ve seen, I believe that companies like Intel see the value in employees feeling comfortable being themselves at work. We had large group marching with our float. Apparently a lot larger than normal. It was so much fun walking along the route and being cheered on by the crowd. Everyone was nice, including the drag queens doing commentary at a couple of the bars along the route. People seemed genuinely excited to see us. I saw some friends in the crowd and I was later told by friends that they saw me. The only negative was that the speakers in our float that were playing music lost power early on even though they were supposed to have a 4-hour charge. Oh well.

After we got to the end of the route, I went to the festival. I didn’t stop at as many booths as I normally do because I was tired and had stuff to do at home. I got food samples for Reese, bought a Nike Pride shirt, and took a picture with underwear models like I do each year.

As I was leaving the festival to go back to my car, a homeless guy called me the f word because I didn’t have any change to give him. I was still flying high from my experience that day, so it didn’t bother me at all. That guy is going through some stuff I can’t relate to. Since my car was along the parade route, I decided to watch more of the parade. Yes, it’s a LONG parade. It turns out that the parade was almost over at this point. Intel’s float was #33. The last float was #164.

I had a great time at Pride this year. Even though I was exhausted Monday, I hope to try to fit more activities in my schedule next year.