Time was when I'd visit the South Puget Sound region and spend about 50% of the time with my family in University Place and about 50% with my friends in Seattle. Now that split is about 90-10. One of the unfortunate side effects of having a family of your own is that time with your friends becomes less practical and, if we're being honest, less important. It's not that your friends are any less important. I mean, I still care about all my friends to the same degree as I did before, but I have basically an endless amount of care to give so care isn't the issue. It's time that I'm always trying to budget. And all (well, most) my friends are the same way. Remember when you lived within a ten mile radius of all your friends, and you'd all hang out and just be bored together because you had already gone to all the bars, played all the video games, hit up all the coffee shops, seen all the TV shows a million times? That part of my life is gone now -- and maybe forever. I'm not complaining -- I like being a family man -- just saying is all.
Anyway, on this particular vacation we spent the first few days just bumming around U.P. -- lots of walks around Chambers Bay, a few cookouts, and one elementary school performance. My nephew B just finished one of those early grades -- first or second -- and his class put on a little end-of-the-year musical about bugs. It was exactly how every elementary school performance in the history of elementary schools has ever been. Just remember back to how it was when you were that age, and you've nailed it. One thing that did look different, however, is the audience. Parents have a lot more piercings and tattoos than they did when I was kid. I also saw quite a few Seahawks jerseys in the audience (particularly Richard Sherman). I can't recall a parent ever wearing a sports jersey of any sort when I was a kid, which is probably a good thing. They're pretty silly. I'm a huge sports fan, but I find it hard to take seriously a middle-aged man who wears the uniform of a 25-year old who's good at preventing other 25-year olds from catching a ball.
Friday morning, S and I sloughed the little guy off on the grandparents and went up to Seattle for a little non-kid excursion. Despite being to Seattle a half dozen times or so, S had never done a lot of the touristy stuff, so we did a bunch of that. We went to the Seattle Center and up the Space Needle; we took the monorail to Westlake Center and did some shopping (S's idea); we walked down to Pike's Place Market and saw the original Starbucks (such a thrill!); and then we stopped in a souvenir store and I bought a pretty cool SuperSonics hoodie. It was a good afternoon, even if a large portion of it was spent trying on pants. I desperately needed new jeans, and so I figured, if I have to be subjected to shopping anyway, I might as well kill two birds with one stone(wash).
When we were done, S drove back, and I met up with friends. Since I no longer had a car, I had to foot it from Seattle Center to the west edge of Lake Union where I was supposed to rendezvous with everybody at a pub. But the pub was closed (it was 3:30 and they open at 4), so we met at a different bar which was another few miles away. In total, I walked about four miles, which was nice, actually, I got some exercise, and I got a chance to catch up my podcasts. I met my friend RW, who has Fridays off, at The Nickerson, a bar that is right by Seattle Pacific University, the site of a killing spree the day before. It was weird how normal everything seemed just a few hundred yards and not even a day removed from a madman's homicidal rollick. On the one hand, it's a comforting feeling, like "this is our fucking city", and it's good we don't give in to people who terrorize. On the other, it's like, WTF, these shootings are so commonplace now we just shrug our shoulders and move on. Anyway, a subject for another time...
RW and I knocked one back and chatted for a while before everybody else showed up later on. That night we went to our friends' B's & N's house for dinner. It was fun. A friend of theirs who was on a massive zigzagging road trip across pretty much the entire US was staying with them. He was a cool guy, except he wore those shoes with the individual toes. You know how I feel about those.
The next day I rode back to UP with my brother and sister in-law and their adorable son, Lil' Q, who's four months young than Lil' S, but just as tall and about six pounds heavier. He's not a climber like Lil' S, but he can get into just as much trouble. He likes pressing buttons, and everything at my parent's house is automated or on a timer or something like that (my dad loves gadgets), so he was constantly messing shit up in a very cute and hilarious way. He reset the automated lock on the front door causing it make a high-pitched squealing noise nobody had ever heard before, and then he set off the sprinkler, which was on a timer, spraying himself and a few others in the vicinity. He and Lil' S figured out how to get water from the spigot on the refrigerator, but they weren't able to master the concept of getting it into a cup, so it made a mess in the kitchen. And we didn't know how to shut it off; the best we could do was change the setting to ice cubes, so that the clean up would be a bit easier.
We also got a chance to see S's cousin K and her husband M who randomly live 20 minutes from my parents. M is a pretty funny, cool guy. I like hanging out with him, but I don't think he completely gets me. Since I have an advanced degree in math and am good with computer algorithms, he doesn't understand why I'm not more ambitious with my career. In his mind, I should be trying to start the next billion dollar tech company. But I a) don't think could do that, b) currently have no desire to do that (and these are not independent). If I had a great idea for a business I might pursue it. But I don't, so I'd much rather make my comfortable wage and have some time left over for my real passions (like reading and writing and making puzzles) than spend my time and effort trying to get a start-up off the ground. It was also funny because he wanted to put me in touch with a former colleague of his through LinkedIn. But then he saw my profile, which is basically nonexistent (I have one, but literally haven't opened it once since I started it) and just let the subject drop. I felt a bit embarrassed, but whatever... I don't care much about professional networking. My wife does enough of it for both of us.
We spent the last few days of our vacation how we started it: in U.P., bumming around, hanging out with the family, eating hamburgers, and shooting the breeze on my parents' back porch. It barely rained the entire time we were there, which was fantastic. In fact, the weather was very nice. It was usually cloudy in the morning, but then beautiful in the afternoon and evening after the marine layer had burned off. I stand by it: Tacoma is seriously underrated as a beautiful city. The waterfront vistas of Commencement Bay are way better than anything Seattle has to offer. They honestly remind me of the views I saw while in New Zealand. But if you ask people what city has better views, Tacoma or Aukland, I doubt many people are taking the former. But they should.
OK, that's all for now. Until next time ...
[Seattle looking south from the Space Needle. You can see Mount Rainier if you squint.]
Anyway, on this particular vacation we spent the first few days just bumming around U.P. -- lots of walks around Chambers Bay, a few cookouts, and one elementary school performance. My nephew B just finished one of those early grades -- first or second -- and his class put on a little end-of-the-year musical about bugs. It was exactly how every elementary school performance in the history of elementary schools has ever been. Just remember back to how it was when you were that age, and you've nailed it. One thing that did look different, however, is the audience. Parents have a lot more piercings and tattoos than they did when I was kid. I also saw quite a few Seahawks jerseys in the audience (particularly Richard Sherman). I can't recall a parent ever wearing a sports jersey of any sort when I was a kid, which is probably a good thing. They're pretty silly. I'm a huge sports fan, but I find it hard to take seriously a middle-aged man who wears the uniform of a 25-year old who's good at preventing other 25-year olds from catching a ball.
[My favorite store that we went in to, only because it reminds me of "Street Fighter II".]
When we were done, S drove back, and I met up with friends. Since I no longer had a car, I had to foot it from Seattle Center to the west edge of Lake Union where I was supposed to rendezvous with everybody at a pub. But the pub was closed (it was 3:30 and they open at 4), so we met at a different bar which was another few miles away. In total, I walked about four miles, which was nice, actually, I got some exercise, and I got a chance to catch up my podcasts. I met my friend RW, who has Fridays off, at The Nickerson, a bar that is right by Seattle Pacific University, the site of a killing spree the day before. It was weird how normal everything seemed just a few hundred yards and not even a day removed from a madman's homicidal rollick. On the one hand, it's a comforting feeling, like "this is our fucking city", and it's good we don't give in to people who terrorize. On the other, it's like, WTF, these shootings are so commonplace now we just shrug our shoulders and move on. Anyway, a subject for another time...
RW and I knocked one back and chatted for a while before everybody else showed up later on. That night we went to our friends' B's & N's house for dinner. It was fun. A friend of theirs who was on a massive zigzagging road trip across pretty much the entire US was staying with them. He was a cool guy, except he wore those shoes with the individual toes. You know how I feel about those.
[Lake Union]
The next day I rode back to UP with my brother and sister in-law and their adorable son, Lil' Q, who's four months young than Lil' S, but just as tall and about six pounds heavier. He's not a climber like Lil' S, but he can get into just as much trouble. He likes pressing buttons, and everything at my parent's house is automated or on a timer or something like that (my dad loves gadgets), so he was constantly messing shit up in a very cute and hilarious way. He reset the automated lock on the front door causing it make a high-pitched squealing noise nobody had ever heard before, and then he set off the sprinkler, which was on a timer, spraying himself and a few others in the vicinity. He and Lil' S figured out how to get water from the spigot on the refrigerator, but they weren't able to master the concept of getting it into a cup, so it made a mess in the kitchen. And we didn't know how to shut it off; the best we could do was change the setting to ice cubes, so that the clean up would be a bit easier.
We also got a chance to see S's cousin K and her husband M who randomly live 20 minutes from my parents. M is a pretty funny, cool guy. I like hanging out with him, but I don't think he completely gets me. Since I have an advanced degree in math and am good with computer algorithms, he doesn't understand why I'm not more ambitious with my career. In his mind, I should be trying to start the next billion dollar tech company. But I a) don't think could do that, b) currently have no desire to do that (and these are not independent). If I had a great idea for a business I might pursue it. But I don't, so I'd much rather make my comfortable wage and have some time left over for my real passions (like reading and writing and making puzzles) than spend my time and effort trying to get a start-up off the ground. It was also funny because he wanted to put me in touch with a former colleague of his through LinkedIn. But then he saw my profile, which is basically nonexistent (I have one, but literally haven't opened it once since I started it) and just let the subject drop. I felt a bit embarrassed, but whatever... I don't care much about professional networking. My wife does enough of it for both of us.
[Osprey's nest on a structure at Chambers Bay]
We spent the last few days of our vacation how we started it: in U.P., bumming around, hanging out with the family, eating hamburgers, and shooting the breeze on my parents' back porch. It barely rained the entire time we were there, which was fantastic. In fact, the weather was very nice. It was usually cloudy in the morning, but then beautiful in the afternoon and evening after the marine layer had burned off. I stand by it: Tacoma is seriously underrated as a beautiful city. The waterfront vistas of Commencement Bay are way better than anything Seattle has to offer. They honestly remind me of the views I saw while in New Zealand. But if you ask people what city has better views, Tacoma or Aukland, I doubt many people are taking the former. But they should.
OK, that's all for now. Until next time ...
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