I was supposed to sit in an aisle seat, but when most people were on
board and there was a window seat free in Julie's row, I switched seats.
My glee at the views out the window was childlike. Julie, paging through
her magazine casually, was tolerant of my outbursts, but I think everyone
found these mountains amazing as we approached Seattle.
More mountains! Aren't they awesome? We don't have these in Illinois!
Here's my swanky hotel room at the Westin. Of course, the swankier the
hotel, the more they feel they can charge for internet access, the coffee
by the coffeepot in the room ($3.50!) and of course, food products. No
fridge in the room for eating on the cheap or saving restaurant leftovers,
either.
After the first day of the conference, I went for a walk down to Pike
Market. That's where they throw fish around and whatnot. I did not see
fish tossed, but on the way I did see this puzzling billboard. My theory
is it's a screening device to get you to some hardcore math/science job
site.
Update! My brother googled this (I was going to, but he beat me to it!) and found it's Google soliciting resumes from geeks. So I was kind of right. Yay Allan! Send yours in!
I also saw Roxy's Diner. It seems to be closed because Roxy has not
quite set everything up yet -- she tells me it'll be an all-kibble menu,
but whenever anybody opens a can in the kitchen all the waitstaff and
patrons will gather around and ask what is in the can and if they can
have some. (Roxy also
might
have some trouble with the health department, given how much she sheds.)
The Wigland store seems to be in favor of the monorail! (Which was not
running due to a fire a month or two ago. Will it be back? Hard to say.)
That evening, I got to meet up with an old friend. This is me with
Dipa Sarkar, who was one of my computer science comrades at Knox. She is
now finishing her dissertation, and also working at Microsoft to keep bugs
out of the next release of Windows. Now you know who to blame in a couple
of years when you get the Blue Screen of Death.
Dipa is extremely good at keeping in touch with people, whereas I am terribly bad at it. She told me all the news, and we had Thai food.
After the second day of sessions, the Seattle Opera House hosted a
reception at their awesome, newly renovated theater. It's so beautiful!
They have opera and ballet there, and they are on Tessitura also.
Jeanne and I left the reception and walked over to the Space Needle,
which was right nearby. This fountain was too tempting to resist wading
through.
This fountain was also on the way to the Space Needle. It's huge!
Couldn't run through this one, though, since I had things in my pockets
that I didn't want to soak.
And here's the Needle! All this stuff was in the same area, where the
World's Fair was. There's also an amusement park -- so the Opera/Ballet
folks work right next to a carnival too!
Here's Jeanne at the top of the Needle. I told her to turn around and
look cute and then I took this picture. She's looking cute, but also "I
bet I could have you fired for this"-ish.
Sailboats on Puget Sound -- the guide said they have races every
Thursday.
Seattle spread out before us!
Another view of Seattle -- you can just see Mt. Ranier in the
background.
Here - a close-up of the mountain!
We were up there long enough for the sunset. Ahhhhh.
The next evening we went to the Sci Fi Museum/Experience Music
Project. We spent about 4 hours. Here it is in all its Gehry glory from
the Needle -- photos not allowed in the museum of course. So awesome!
In the Sci Fi museum I wrote down about 20 books I needed to read. They
also have an awesome globe vidscreen in there -- if I ever get rich I'm
totally getting one of those for my living room. The EMP lets you play
instruments and sing and pluck the air over a sculpture to hear music,
and there was an Indigo Girls laden room which made me squeal and jump
up and down. Totally worth a trip to Seattle, even if I hadn't learned
some very valuable stuff at the conference itself.
Here's one last picture from atop the Space Needle. Thanks for
looking at my photos!
