Monthly Archives: February 2014

The Mountain Came Out Today

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Snow-Capped Mount Rainier

Snow-Capped Mount Rainier

My three colleagues, Jack Bauer, Mister Hanky and Laura Croft, not their real names, just ones they picked, and I have survived our second day of working together, here in Seattle. I can’t really discuss what we are doing here for work, but I can tell you what we are doing when we’re not working. We took three breaks today, coffee (this is Seattle after all), lunch and dinner. Do you see a theme here? It is food related. We walked to the container Starbucks that I had visited the day before. It’s a busy street, but there are plenty of things to see along it. The rain had cleared off and the day continued to brighten. We saw an Anna’s hummingbird darting among the rafters, both on our way out and on our return. Laura had decreed that today was Thai Tuesday, so we went to CP Thai for lunch, hence the Buddha. Lunch was forgettable, but dinner at the Melrose Grill was not. We almost all enjoyed the beef. I would tell you more, but I was drinking Amnesia Crystal Red and I cannot remember any more.

This is Laura’s first business trip, so she has been getting some ribbing from the other older hands, even Jack with his one other trip under his belt, feels like a relatively old hand. I must confess that I too participated in this bit of hazing, when it came to the mountain. Mount Rainier is a sight that I have only seen twice before today, so I was somewhat skeptical when she first announce that she had seen the mountain. Dodging in and out of traffic, whenever she saw it, none of us could confirm her sighting before it ducked behind a building or a truck. Turning south after lunch though, it was plain to see that she was both lucky and right. She had seen the mountain.

Container Starbucks

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Container Starbucks

Container Starbucks

I bought my morning Starbucks at a store made out of recycled shipping containers. This store was made from shipping containers that were past their useful lifespan and were re-purposed to keep them out of a landfill. The coffee here tasted just the same as at my neighborhood Starbucks store.

Newsflash here, it rained in Seattle, all day long. Mostly this didn’t matter, because I was inside for most of the day. We unpacked the parts that were shipped last week and after some trials and a few tribulations got the model put together and began testing it around lunchtime. We went to Duke’s for lunch and enjoyed their ‘award winning’ clam chowder. It really was quite good. The next best thing beyond its taste was that they gave everyone a copy of its recipe. I’ll have to try it out when I get back home again. 

Travel Day

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Flying Across the Wide Missouri

Flying Across the Wide Missouri

Trust me folks, because the government does. I’m TSA Pre-screened. No long lines, no friendly pat downs, no X-Ray vision sneak peeks at my privates. I’m a TSA VIP! I don’t even remember signing up for pre-screening, but I must have, right? I was queued up for the worst, when an agent asked to see my boarding pass. Then she told me that I didn’t have to wait in line and I was whisked through security. It happened so fast that my head was still spinning when I found myself inside the cordon. I did have to show ID and take off my coat. My bag and coat were X-Rayed and I passed through a metal detector. I didn’t have to remove my shoes or belt and I didn’t have to show off my lap top or liquids and gels. Sweet!

The first leg wasn’t too bad. We landed in Denver, birthplace of the Great One! I didn’t have to change planes and consequently wasn’t even allowed off the plane. The next leg to Seattle was a different matter. Being later in the day, families returning from ski vacations made up a lot of the plane, families with lots of little kids. It was a long and bumpy flight, it was late in the day and the kids were cranky. It soon became a crying flight. Ear buds and an iPhone pretty much drowned out that noise, but they were no match for the little girl behind me, who kept kicking the back of my seat. We finally landed and everyone got ready to deplane. A mother excitedly told her half sleepy family, “We’re home, we’re back in Seattle.” Her son asked looking out the window, “Is that snow?” “No honey, that’s rain, this is Seattle”, she answered. “I want to go back to Vail, where it is sunny and there is snow. Seattle is dark and grey.”, said her son.