Update on The Olivia!

In review of my recent posts I noticed that I've only posted a few pictures of Olivia! My blog is meant to be little sketches about the places we've gone and things we've done, so I try my hardest to not clutter it up with cuteness, but now that the little tyke is walking about, the time has definitely come. In that vein, here's a little featurette on my favorite little eleven month old!

Just like her sister before her, it is very hard to get a picture of Olivia without a giant smile on her face. She has so much practice smiling that she's managed to come up with several different kinds. I'm a big fan of the open-mouthed grin she's modeling in this picture taken at that really awesome park with the zip line and the merry-go-round in Ballard. Unless she's really tired, or truly needs something, Olivia just sits there happy as a clam, thinking of new ways to smile. It's been kinda sad to watch her get bigger and more independent. She won't let us hold her with a bottle until she falls asleep anymore, so I'm missing a lot of quality T.V. time with her. At bed time she just wants to be tossed into her crib with a drink. That's alright though, because when we put her in there she smiles, flops around like a beached fish and giggles a bit as she gets comfy. I do the same when I finally go to bed.

As the daddy, I get the great honor of being greeted like a rock star when I walk in the door after work. This has been a great way for me to see Livy's progress in the mobility arena. After rolling to me at 5 months, scooting at 6, crawling like a little beetle from 8-10 months, this week she's finally mastered the frozen-legged walk. Olivia is still in her "taste everything" stage, which is a horrible mixture with walking, as she has now been converted to a high-speed germ detector. By the time I clean the plant dirt out of her mouth and off the floor, she's already toddled her way over to the open dishwasher. We just can't have nice things! I love that whenever she stands up or walks on her own, she has to clap her hands, as was taught to her by her adoring and congratulatory parents. Yeah Olivia!!

Perhaps the leading factor in Livy's cuteness is that her mommy goes to a lot of work to nudge her into the adorable category. I take on the rough task of being the parent in charge of Olivia's hair. I wonder how long it will be until I finally have a medium to work in? Until then, my toughest job is searching the house for the bow of Sara's choosing (nearly always in my suit coat pocket). The consequence of the cuteness may be a few more minutes to get out the door when we've got a place to go, but no matter what the place is, Sara teaches our little girls how dress in a presentable way. It's a good thing they've got such a classy mommy. This is a great example of Olivia dressed to the nines at Snoqualmie Falls last weekend. People can't help but notice Olivia's cuteness and throw some ridiculous noises at her. And what's the first thing they always ask us after their cooing? "Oh my goodness, how old is she?" To which we always respond with the appropriate age, calibrated in months. Next time someone asks me how old I am I think I'll say that I'm 353 months.

Here's The Olivia in the wagon during one of our summer evening walks around the vacant cul-de-sac in front of our house. We hope that some houses finally get built in these fields with nice little kids Zoe and Olivia's age that they can play with. Until then, Sara and I will continue to be their best friends...and maybe afterwards too. I hope it's not very soon that I have to start putting this innocent little girl into time out and reminding her to behave. I love my little Olivia a lot, and I hope she knows that I do. She needs me so bad, and I'm sure I can handle the needs...it's the "wants" that I worry about. We're a happy little family, and though she doesn't contribute a lot in cleanliness or finances, Olivia makes the family happy with those little smiles. Yeah, she loves us too, I can tell when she tries so hard to beat her sister into my arms when I get home from work. There's no better feeling than being on the daddy end of outreached eleven-month old arms.

Hat 'n' Boots

Sometimes I sit back and count my lucky stars to be able to live in the same metropolitan area that houses the world's largest hat and cowboy boots. It's a cryin' shame that the majority of my friends and co-workers who have lived in western Washington their entire lives aren't even aware that such whoppers of western wardrobe have been one bus ride away for over 57 years.

Our little family moseyed on over to Oxbow Park in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle only a few months after we moved into town. This little trip was absolutely necessary to retain our status as fans of America's favorite comedy, National Lampoon's Vacation. Sara's mom had tipped us off that Hat 'n' Boots is featured in one of the slides during the opening sequence of the movie. Actually I'm not doing this particular slide any justice, it may be the single most important one that flashes by in the opening credits, as it is the one that has "And Introducing Christie Brinkley" written across it. The Hat 'n' Boots have undergone a few changes since they were shown in the movie. These important pieces of our national history were originally constructed in 1954 as giant advertisements at a western-themed gas station. Everyone knows that gas stations must have themes in order to be successful, and I think a western motiff is very appropriate. I'd much prefer giant boots and hats over the more standard service station focus on bacteria and stench. Surprisingly the giant orange hat and glamour boots didn't rustle up sufficient clientele to keep the joint in business, so the station was closed and scheduled for demolition. That's when the City of Seattle came riding over horizon like true fronteir heroes and rescued the legends, moving them down the street to Oxbow Park where they stand today.
I'm not sure why the orange construction barrel and netting were installed underneath the hat. I can only assume that the ne'er-do-well teenagers that live in the area had been messing about below and on the hat, and this netting was a sure fire way to keep them out. Or perhaps the city had to make the under-hat less appealing to the local transients seeking shelter from the rain. And what a glorious shelter that would be! I'm very glad they kept the construction eyesores the exact same color as the giant western eyesores.

Aside from being raised in the semi-rural west, I'm not a person of cowboy heritage, so I'm not sure if wearing such colorful cowboy boots would result in a colorful cowboy pummeling. I'd really like to get a pair...which is exactly what the local bullies would probably tell me to do if I actually wore this style of boot. Beware to all that may visit us up here in Seattle, the "Hat 'n' Boots" have now been added to the required itinerary.

Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Into My Belly!

I really like hamburgers a lot. I consider eating burgers one of my sworn civic duties as an American, and I've spent a lot of time in my adult life being patriotic in a culinary way. Our family's favorite burger place is Red Robin, partly because of the gourmetness of the burgers (as measured in dripiness), but mostly because of the bottomlessness of the fries. It's sort of an oxymoron that those fabulous steak fries are called "bottomless" when they truly are the cause of much more bottom...especially after they've been dipped! I know there's about a million other classier places to dine here in suburbia, but I've never met a Red Robin burger I didn't like, so we're kinda hooked. I proudly tout myself as the 21st century Wimpy.

Now, I don't bring all of this up because of my perpetual hamburger hunger, rather, I wanted everyone to know how important it was for us to go the world's first Red Robin before it closed on March 21, 2010. Fortunately, the cradle of burger civilization was just up the road in Eastlake, so no long trek was necessary. Sam's Tavern opened up in 1940 at the far south end of the University District. Sam must have known the direct link between college students and alcohol. He also knew how to sing, and did so in a local Barbershop quartet, as well as behind the counter. He fell in love with the song "When the Red Red Robin" so much that he changed the name of the dive to Sam's Red Robin. The place was bought out and turned into a burger joint in 1969, and eventually became the mother of 450 franchise children. We'd have come to this location more often if we'd known about the great view of Portage Bay out the window! I'm not really sure why the original location closed down, I didn't want to know. I can only assume that it had something to do with red bird droppings.

Our culinary mecca was well worth it when I saw the picture of Red the Robin from back in his college days (below). I'm really glad he cleaned up and got his life back together. I'm also really glad that we moved away from the Red Robin desolation of Wisconsin (we only found one location within driving range from our house) into the land of Red Robin bounty. Thanks for being a shining beacon of hope, Red, I owe you big time! I'm sure I'll eventually pay you back, so long as you continue to fill up the fry basket.

Hangin' with the 27 Club

Unfortunately, the famous "27 Club" just claimed a new inductee, and it got me to thinking about its seven main members. The 27 Club is a group of musicians who found overwhelming fame early in life, but whose future was cut short due to their death at the age of 27. It may be a result of my odd fascination in the graves of the famous, or it could be a strange coincidence, but I've seen the final resting place of 4 of the 7 main members of the club. Well, one of them is sort of a stretch, but I'm still going to count it. Here's my list:

Jim Morrison - France has national holidays almost weekly over the summer, and during one of them (Saint Somebody's day) my good friend Bruno and I hopped onto line 3 of the world's best subway and headed to nearly the end of the line. Pere Lachaise cemetery is a fascinating place full of fascinating dead people, including the lead singer of The Doors. The stories behind his death and burial are very interesting and worth a few minutes at Wikipedia, or perhaps a few minutes in Paris. Yet another good reason to go back to France.

Jimi Hendrix - Before I said yes to the job offer in Seattle, I considered how awesome it would be to live in the very city that spawned the world's greatest guitarist. Needless to say, there were very few days between our move to Seattle and our pilgrimage to Jimi's final resting place in Renton, Washington. Don't worry, this shoddy paragraph is only a preview of an upcoming post that will have some tacky title like "Jammin' with Jimi", or "Cold as Love". Our Jimi Hendrix grave experience was pretty groovy and you'll hear all the electric details, in full swirling color, once I finally get around to it.

Kurt Cobain - I'd say Kurt Cobain had more influence on post 80's music than any other person. Western Washington is chuck-full of Cobain history, as he was born and raised in Aberdeen, died just south of Seattle on the coast of Lake Washington, and is currently floating about in ash form through the creeks and rivers of Olympia, Washington. Since we've driven through Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle loads of times over the last two years, I'm considering this 27 Club member as officially visited. One of these days I'll make my way to the house in which he "commit suicide" just so I can say I've been there.

Janis Joplin - Shamefully, I really don't know much about Janis Joplin, except that she died at the age of 27 only 16 days after Jimi Hendrix. Her ashes were scattered from an airplane into the Pacific Ocean, and I've been to the Pacific Ocean, so I'm counting it. It looks like its time to go put a Janis Joplin CD on hold at the library.

My 27 Club grave count will likely stay at four, as I'm not enough of a fan of the remaining members to visit the graves of Brian Jones and Amy Winehouse in England. Sara and I are dreaming of a nice little drive through the South, during which I think it would be cool to stop and see what's left of Robert Johnson in Mississippi. It would be super cool to write a book about famous gravesites. It would be just macabre enough to grab a reader's attention, and historical enough to hook the nerds. Maybe it would end up getting produced into a super famous cable television show, which I would be able to exploit as host in order to get a lot of free trips to the middle of nowhere. At the rate I'm blogging, I could easily get that written by the time I retire.

The American Drum Horse

After we watched Drummer strut about the Arena, Marlan came up into the stands to ask if we wanted to come take a ride on the cart. We didn't hesitate a moment to clean up our Cheetos mess, fish the dirt out of Olivia's mouth, and head out toward the barns. Now, we had previously learned that the small horses at the show are not to be called ponies, rather, they are miniature horses. Turns out that the owners of these tiny equines are a little touchy about semantics, and I can't blame them because when people refer to me as an accountant I get pretty huffy, too (I'm a miniature actuary darn it!). The reason I bring it up is that watching my little Sara trying to get in that wagon made me wonder if I had married a miniature human. Fortunately, Marlan showed her how to hoist herself up there. If there's anything a horseman must be good at, it's hoisting himself up into things.

Zoe and Sara did four or five laps around the horse trailers behind the barns, and during the last couple times around Marlan handed over the reigns, and my girls got to do some pleasure driving of a world champion pinto. Sara says she was pretty nervous, "but fortunately the horse is a lot smarter than me". The pictures don't really show it, but Zoe was having a ball up there, and tried to mimic the whistle noises that Marlan made to get the horse moving. Marlan's been training horses for decades, and he has a very special way of communicating with them. It took a lot of coaxing to get the two of them off that cart. That was super nice of Marlan to let them take a ride and drive the horse, that's the kind of thing a little girl never forgets (and neither do mommies).

While my girls were out trit-trotting through the parking lot, Olivia and I had a good conversation with Linda, the owner of the horses. We learned all about where Drummer came from and what he was bred for. It was absolutely fascinating, and I can't quit reading about drum horses on all the websites I can find! The way I see it, these horses are pretty much British royalty. The drum horse was originally bred for it's very specific ability to carry the heavy steel drums during royal processions in England, including the yearly Trooping of the Colours, and Royal parades. They have to be strong enough to carry the fully-uniformed rider and the giant drums for long distances. They must also have a very good temperament so as not to be spooked while the drums are being played as loudly as possible. Drum horses must also be very well trained so they can respond to the commands of the rider as he guides the horse through the streets using reigns tied to his feet. He can't use his hands to steer the horse because he's playing the drums!

The Queen's Band of the Guards has but a few drum horses among it's ranks, but you'll notice in all the pictures online that they look just like Drummer and Trooper. In the picture above, the rider of the drum horse is holding up his drumsticks in an "X" as a salute as he passes by the Queen. If you click on the picture, it will enbiggen and you can see the reigns tied to the drummer's feet. Linda's horses are the spittin' image of the drum horse in this picture. I'd never heard of such a neat thing as this...a horse specially bred to play music! I think if I had a pair of English drum horses I would name them John Henry and Keith, after my two favorite British drummers. Linda was telling me that there's a pretty big movement now to bring the thoroughbred drum horse to America. In fact, Drummer and Trooper are officially classified as American Drum horses, as their mum is American and their daddy is British. This was accomplished via a method they refer to as "stud in a box". Let's just say that if those Fed-Ex guys new what was in that box, they probably would have asked for hazard pay.

If I had a pair of American drum horses I would have to name them Don and Dusty after Don Henley and Dusty Hill. Those are some good horse names inspired by some good drummers. Notice I'm not naming either of them Phil! If they were mares, they'd be Meg and Karen. What a great Saturday it turned out to be, getting back in touch with our western roots. There's something really special about being around horses. I truly consider it a spiritual occasion whenever I watch horses, and horsemen, do what they do.

Meeting a World Champion

Our little family shuffled off our city-slicker coils today by paying a visit to the Big Six Pinto Show of Western Washington. Sara's blood is one quarter horse wrangler (Quarter Horse?), as her mom was raised by professional race horse raisers. It's really cool to think that Diane (Sara's mom) spent a lot of her youth working with, and playing with, these majestic animals. It was that same blood line that led us to Spanaway, Washington this afternoon to drop in on Sara's uncle Marlan, as he showed his World Champion American Drum Horse. I've always been amazed by horses, and this animal was breathtaking. You could tell he was a World Champion at first glance. Needless to say, Sara has grown tired of my constant requests for a horse of our own.

"But Sara," I say, "it will be an inside horse, and I promise I'll braid his tail every day." To which she replies, "Grrrr".

The people at the horse show were all so friendly. They'd let Zoe and Olivia pet the horses and they'd tell us all about what they'd won and how the horses had behaved. Zoe was a big fan of Fernando, the miniature pinto, who had been brave enough to be shown among his standard-sized counterparts. Fernando was just as friendly as his handlers, but nowhere near as kind-hearted as Marlan's horses, Drummer and Trooper. It seemed to me that Drummer acted differently towards the little girls than he did to myself or Marlan. When we first got to the stalls Sara and I were talking to the people there and then I looked over to see Marlan and Zoe petting Drummer. Before I knew it, Marlan had effortlessly hoisted Zoe up on top of the gentle giant, the whole time Zoe giggled like it was the best day of her little life. My daughter has ridden a World Champion horse!

Eventually it was time to get Drummer ready for his big show, so we made our way back up toward the main arena and set Olivia down to graze in the grass while the tractor drug the chain around inside to smooth out the dirt. We watched as the Showmanship class came in and out of the arena, and both Sara and I were very curious where those girls found jeans the exact same color as their sparkly shirts.

We really enjoyed watching Drummer trot around in the arena with three other horses while the judges made their marks. Marlan's cart was the only one with real wagon wheels, probably because it had to be tall enough to fit comfortably on Drummer. We weren't surprised that Drummer won first place. I felt like he was my horse, which is good since Sara still refuses to get me one of my own (I just asked her again).

Woohoo!

It's my 500th post! I should have some kind of free prize giveaway, but all you're getting is this picture of fireworks, and a cool slug that we found in the Hoh Rain Forest. That should be good enough. Hopefully cyber technology will have advanced far enough by the time I get to the thousandth post that your computer will spit out a celebratory peanut butter cup. Thanks for being my blog friends over the last 500 posts.

Gas Works Park

As if the Puget Sound didn't make the place wet enough already, Seattle also has a couple of gigantic lakes within its limits. Lake Union is just north of downtown, and is most famous for being the body of water upon which Tom Hanks' floating house became the set of a movie whose title has been quoted on far too many Seattle pajama pant and coffee mug souvenirs. Lake Union went down in local pop culture history when it lent it's name to the South Lake Union Trolley, whose actual inaugural motto was "Come ride the S.L.U.T". I swear I'm not making that up.

There's a big park on the northern bank of Lake Union that is just oozing with Seattle history. I should use the word "ooze" with a little more disgression, seeing how the history of the park has to do with gas and some mysterious process called "gasification", which I can only assume has to do with something very smelly. Aside from the sweet smelling smoke coming out of the lungs of some of the park-going youth, the smell has subsided, and all that's left is the huge factory chunks which have been relabeled as "art" thus being rendered completely safe and ultra attractive.

And speaking of things that are attractive and don't stink, how 'bout my wife, daughter, and the cityscape behind them! Don't worry, I'll eventually post a more sunny version of this same picture, we've been back to the park many times. This is the same view that we enjoyed last 4th of July as we watched the Seattle Family Fireworks, which are shot off of a barge in the middle of Lake Union. When I was a fledling firework fan I was always told that the best show in the country was at Logan Utah's Romney Stadium. Yeah, I was very misinformed. The Seattle fireworks make the Logan fireworks look like a bunch of sparklers on a football field. "But Kason", you say, "the Logan fireworks always feature patriotic songs like Man, I Feel Like A Woman, and You Can't Touch This...I bet the Seattle fireworks don't have that!" You're right, they don't. Which proves my point. I've never seen such an amazing pyro display! We're definitely going again next week. I'll tell you all about it when I catch up with my blog postings. Seeing how this Gas Works Park visit was in October of 2009, it might be a while.

Oh and a few more things I gotta mention about the park. For all you Amazing Race fans, this was the starting line of Season 10. And the giant hill in the middle of the park with the big sun dial on top is actually a bunch of the old factory pieces stacked up and covered with dirt and grass. I'm planning to follow the same landscaping scheme when finishing my yard, which is why I haven't put the garbage on the curb for the last three months.

Trip Trap Trip Trap

A fierce volkswagen-eating troll has been terrorizing the hills above Lake Union for the last 21 years. From a few rare photos we know that at least one Volkswagen, with California plates, has fallen victim to his monstrous appetite. While walking through the area engaging in some innocent tourism activities, my family has often been attacked by said troll, but each time we have been able to thwart him due to his being a gigantic piece of public art.

Our good friend Donny, told us about the Fremont Troll long before either of us had ever been to Seattle. He hadn't come to Jet City on a troll crusade, rather, he happened upon the beast while touring the city after running the Seattle marathon. A few days before Donny told us his tail of troll tourism we had made the three-hour drive to Wisconsin's Mt. Horeb to visit the legendary trollway (and the National Mustard Museum). We must have still been in some kind of troll trance because I remember thinking, "I must see the giant troll as soon as we roll into town!" And we did. The troll tried to eat me twice, probably because I still had the faint scent of National Mustard on me.

The internet claims that the Fremont troll was born in 1990 due to the city's desire to rid 36th street of ne'er-do-wells, who had apparently began to congregate under the Aurora bridge to do 1990-style criminal activities such as recreating Ninja Turtle moves and listening to Sinead O'Connor. Something had to be done, so the city turned to it's most exemplary citizens, the public artists. The winning idea was to build an eighteen-foot cement troll below the bridge to frighten away the loiterers. This genius idea worked just long enough for the bad guys to take the bus to Bartel's and back with brand new cans of spray paint. Soon thereafter big spotlights were installed, and everything came up roses. Problem solved.

This is exactly what the internet wants you to believe. The real reason that the troll was built was a result of Seattle's horrible blackberry bush infestation. The non-Northwesterner is usually not aware of the great problem Seattlites have trying to rid their city of the wild blackberry bushes that show up from nowhere every summer offering to work for food and wash your windshield. Each year the city of Seattle rents hundreds of goats to lounge about the city eating away the problem (I'm totally serious about this one, http://www.seattlepi.com/default/article/Goats-make-quick-work-of-weeds-1215680.php). The goat population got larger and larger until 1990 when something simply had to be done. The obvious answer was to bring in something to eat the excess goats. As we all do when faced with goat consumption problems, the City Council turned to Scandinavian folk lore, one thing led to another, trip trap trip trap, and now there's a giant troll under the Aurora Bridge.

Here's a troll's eye view (his eye is actually a hub cap) of the Aurora Bridge. Does anyone else think it's strange that the Fremont Troll isn't under the Fremont Bridge? I bet it's because he's in the Fremont neighborhood. I remember the first time we went a'hunting for the troll and spent a long time looking under the wrong bridge.

Our Full-sized Dollhouse

I've received many requests from both of my loyal blog readers to post some interior pictures of the house that we rented in Lynnwood during our first six months in Washington. As described in realtor lingo, "this suburban cottage is delightfully cosy and full of character". Translation: "This joint's so tiny there's not enough room to blow your nose without going outside." In particular, you couldn't open the dishwasher, oven or fridge in tandem without having a major collision. The "full of character" part was spot on though. There were little nooks and crannies all over the place for us to display our objets d'art, and there were really cool windows in the living room. We've always called it our little dollhouse since it was so tiny and compact. It was the character that made the coziness tolerable...I actually miss that place quite a bit. I also loved how the master bedroom was the entire upstairs (there were no hallway or doors, just our bedroom), and the bathroom had a neat skylight. I was always a little nervous in that bathroom for fear that I would be spied upon by astronaut perverts. You can't tell me there's no such thing as astronaut perverts...remember the diaper driving incident?


By far, the finest feature of our little dollhouse was the great big exposed attic above the Master Bedroom. We were able to store all of our non-displayables up high and out of the way...the only problem was that there was no way to access the space. We had to buy an 8-foot ladder to get up there (that's the green line on the right side of the picture), and we sweat away many evenings trying to haul heavy boxes up the ladder and into the attic. Of course, by "we" I mean "Randy", who we always con into helping us out when moving. Randy is blessed to be about 9 feet tall, so he always ends up putting stuff on high shelves for people. Avoiding having to help people move is the reason that I maintain my pygmy-like height. For this same reason I doubt that I will ever be the owner of a pick-up truck. Although, having a pick 'em up truck would have proved very beneficial when trying to get that 8-foot ladder home. Over our 6 years of marriage, Sara and I have have managed to cram many pieces of furniture into our passenger cars, and the giant ladder was no exception. I got that sucker into Nermal, my Honda Civic, and was still able to shut all her doors and windows. To this day, I continue to tell this story at dinner parties and award ceremonies.

I was sorting through the pictures of our little house, looking for those few photographic gems that could be deemed blogworthy, when I came across this one of the little bathroom downstairs. Check out how cool Zoe's potty poster is! During those dreaded few months of potty training, Sara drew a giant incentive poster of Elmo on Zoe's shoulders and she (Zoe) got to put a sticker somewhere on the page every time she had a successful potty venture. Aside from the creepiness of being observed by a muppet while in the bathroom, this ended up being a great idea thought up and brought to pass by my perfect little wife. I bet none of your kids had a personalized Elmo potty poster! I'm also very proud of my wife for having always decorated our bathrooms with Van Goghs.

Rachael Returns to Pike Place

It may not mean very much to you out-of-towners, but this picture of the underside of a bronze pig below the Space Needle is quite the rarity. When we found out that Rachael the Pig was going to take a small site seeing tour of Seattle before being replanted on her pedestal at the Pike Place Public Market, we had no choice but to visit her as she visited the Needle. Rachael was at the Space Needle on a Sunday morning in March, so we had to rush down there, snap some pictures with our porky pal, then get back to Puyallup in time for church at 1:30. These are the kinds of extremes one must go to in order to have such a rare photo. Let's just say that it's not likely that Rachael, being a 550 pound bronze cast piggy bank, will ever be so itinerant again, so we couldn't stand to miss out.

Since 1986 Rachael has been hanging out just to the left and underneath the famous Public Market sign at the end of Pike Street in downtown Seattle. Her main function is to collect donations for the market to maintain it's social services function, which she does successfully to the tune of around $7,500 each year. She also serves as a great place to set your kid for a pig jockey photo opportunity. There's usually a line for that picture, especially when the cruise boats are in town. The Public Market that Rachel presides over is a lot of fun. This is where the fish get thrown from one side of the store to the other, and you can buy any type of seafood or produce you could ever imagine. Not only that, but all the craftsmen and florists that line the halls have provided me with many Birthday, Christmas, Mother's Day, Anniversary and Valentine's Day presents over the last year and a half. There was a great episode of Frasier ("Frasier Crane Day") where Niles and Frasier were walking through the market and Niles nearly got hit by a tossed fish. Great stuff. Here's the Zoe standing by Rachael in October of 2009.

A horrible tragedy befell Rachael on February 5th, 2011, when a taxi driver hit the gas instead of the brakes and ran her over. The impact knocked her down and scratched her up really good, which required about a month's worth of repairs. No one really knows if the cab driver survived the crash, but if he did shame should be on him. SHAME! I was so glad to hear that Rachael was to be re-installed to her prior prominence so quickly after her accident. Rachael's bodyguards during her stop at the Space Needle probably thought we were some kind of psycho pigophiles as we posed in front of her for many pictures all the while asking her if she was feeling okay. Zoe only held still for a few minutes while we visited Rachael, and we were lucky to get this picture of her. Look how much she has grown in just a year and a half...like a weed! I wish they had turned Rachael's green truck around so that we could have gotten pictures of her face with the Space Needle in the background. My current profile picture is of all four of us with Rachael, it's nice to have the entire family in one picture.

Emerald City's Famous Needle

Seattle's Space Needle is far and away the city's most recognizable landmark, and definitely the worst building in the city to step on if you were a barefoot giant. Since my office is located on the Northwest side of the city, I work literally in the shadow of the famed needle, and get a great view of it when I'm in my boss's office...not that I'm ever in there or anything. I also get a big kick out of watching all the tourists taking pictures of the building as I walk to my train station. There weren't many tourists to dodge when I walked to my bus stop in Milwaukee, probably because most people don't photograph cheese and beer, at least not before consuming most of it.

It wasn't until he came to help us move into town that I was told that the 4-year-old version of my father-in-law, Randy, was actually at the Seattle World's Fair of 1962 when the Space Needle was "unveiled". He was one of the 20,000 people per day that took the elevator to the top of the needle and enjoyed the view from what was then the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. The Space Needle, along with the monorail that was built to transport tourists from the World's Fair grounds to the heart of downtown Seattle, were such popular attractions in 1962 that it was one of only a few World's Fairs to actually turn a profit. We now get the priviledge of escorting all our visiting friends and family to the Seattle Center for the requisite picture with the Needle as the background. The International Fountain from not too many posts ago, is also part of the Seattle Center complex that was once the grounds for the 1962 World's Fair.

The design for the Space Needle was a hybrid of the ideas conjoured up by a businessman and an architect. One wanted the building to look like a giant hot air balloon tethered to the ground, and the other wanted to stick to the World's Fair theme of 21st Century innovations by creating a giant flying saucer. The ultimate design was meant to cater to both ideas. It took so long to find and purchase a suitable piece of land for the tower, that the entire thing had to be built in less than a year in order to complete it before the fair started. The Flying Saucer at the top is an observation deck and restraunt. The restraunt does a complete rotation every 43 minutes, providing a complete panoramic view of the area during one dinner setting...or four complete panoramic views if you happen to be a European tourist.

Not to cast a negative shadow on the Great Needle, but there are a few things that I was surprised to find out as I made the transition from tourist to local. The Space Needle is about a kilometer away from the rest of Seattle's downtown (see the picture of the Seattle skyline above). This is why the monorail had to be installed for the World's Fair, the planners wanted to make sure that Fair visitors would spend their money in Seattle's shopping district, and none of them would have been willing to make the trip from the grounds to downtown unless there was a super cool way to get there. Also, it's been a while since the building has been the tallest anything. It's only 184 meters tall, which ranks it as the 9th tallest in the Seattle skyline, compared to the Columbia Center, Seattle's tallest building, which is 1.5 times the height of the needle at 285 meters. The tallest building in the U.S. is the 442 meter Sears Tower (I still refuse to call it the Willis Tower), and that's nearly 2.5 Space Needles tall. I remember watching an episode of Conan O'Brian once where he had an argument about which is better, the Space Needle or Toronto's CN Tower...it's clearly the CN Tower, which is 553 meters tall. You'd have to stack 4 and a half Space Needles to get to the height of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. Please refer to the handy height chart to the left, which for some reason includes Las Vegas's Stratosphere in the comparison.

It may not be the tallest building out there, but it is still dear to my emerald heart. It's nice to be welcomed to work each day by the Space Needle, and it's a lot of fun to see it from the freeway as you come into the city. Thanks to Zoe, I still struggle to say Space "Needle" instead of Space "Noodle". We have big plans to watch the Space Noodle firework show this coming New Year's Eve from my office. Surely this will not be the last posting with needle pictures. Come to my city and see the giant noodle!