A Run Through the International Fountain

Randy, Diane and Sara were finally able to convince me to untie the box openers from their hands, and loosen their sweatbands so we could go downtown to see a few sites. We did the standard monorail loop from the Space Needle to my work and back, picture taking all along the way. We didn't let the rain stop us from doing a few laps around, and through, the International Fountain, which is a few hundred yards away from the Space Needle. The whole area around the Needle is known as the Seattle Center, and was established as the grounds for the 1962 World's Fair. Now it's pretty much a huge park with a lot of big ol' pavilions, some wacko arches, a needle, and a Science Fiction / Music museum (much more on that later). Oh and how could I forget to mention that the Seattle Center is also home of the Key Arena, the run down remnants of the once proud Supersonics.

We sure like the International Fountain, it's one of those things you can sit and look at for hours as the water goes every which way, and the music of the month plays. Of course, you have to eventually stop staring because your kid is in the water, and you have to devote the remainder of your daily brain juice allotment to think up a way to keep your car dry during the ride home (Hint: use a $25 Space Needle souvenir T-shirt). Sometimes its not just the kids that run through the fountain, how could you not?




Not only is the International Fountain the city's most awesome water feature (aside from the Puget Sound), it's flow has been deemed holy water due to having been the site of a clue box in the final leg of The Amazing Race Season 3. It was from this hallowed ground that Flo employed her genius tactic of intense whining to sneak her way into first place. Zach better have snatched that $500,000 away from her as soon as they got the check. Yoink!

Shag Car-pet

I think it's great that this sign welcomes travelers to the Evergreen state, and the only green in the picture is on the sign. Sure enough, Eastern Washington is not the country's prime vacation destination. This is because the settlers of Seattle were wise enough to put up some mountains to retain all the water. I really like state borders that are along rivers because it makes it a lot more of a destination. There's no question when I am officially in Washington because we're going over the Columbia river, but no one could ever pinpoint exactly which lump o' sage brush marks the crossing into Utah. I recently read a book all about how the states got their borders and it was mostly boring, except for a few really exciting parts. If it were up to me, every state would be shaped like the letter that begins their name. That way you'd know exactly which state you're in as you drive through.

Lucy was quite the itinerant cat in 2009. She clocked in about 4,000 miles in the car during the year. Here she is looking around during our move out to Seattle. She doesn't mind the bumping about, its having to wear a seatbelt that really gets her fur to stand on end. Usually she spends the first 30 miles or so sniffing about and barking, but then she just sleeps on through the day. Not very often you can see a cat chin on a blog.

Another Moving Experience

Just a few days before Randy and Diane were about to kick us out, our little family loaded up the truck and moved to Washington. Finally, my in-laws were able to enjoy a quiet evening and a full fridge, like they used to. By now we've become champion stuff haulers, so there's nothing really exciting to report about this particular move. There was one part where Nathen and I had to cram a huge couch into a tiny hole, but we got it to work somehow. We're lucky that so many neighbors saw the truck and came right over to lend a hand. I swear it had only been a few months since the last time we put all of our stuff in boxes and put them on a truck. Look out Seattle, here we come! Or at least here comes our stuff, ABF hauled it all out there a few days before we made the west coast exodus.

Seattle House Hunt - Day Three

Having come out conquerer of the great Seattle house battle, I moved on to my next mission which was to convince the Sara that Seattle would be a suitable urban paradise to spend the rest of our lives in. Of course, there was a lot of phone calls and paperwork to do in the morning, but the remainder of Day 3 was spent exploring the Emerald City.
Here's my new workplace, the building on the right, across from the circular Westin Towers. The sun shines down upon it as an omen that this will be a divine place to spend 45 hours per week for the next 38 years. 600 Stewart Street is proud of its status as Seattle's 62nd tallest building, and of being the home of a Starbucks ... just like every other building in the city. The building is pretty much in the center of downtown, which I love, and there's like a million public transportation stops right in front of it, including the monorail (see the tracks in the picture). President Obama has stayed at the Westin Towers a few times since we moved in, and he ate at the McDonalds next door. Classy.

This here is a giant metal penguin in the Pacific Place Mall across the street from my work. I like giant metal penguins. It's made up of a bunch of junk, and its fun to try and identify each piece.

My most convincing evidence to support Seattle's livability was that every so often you come across a real live palm tree. Not that Seattle is a tropical or desert locale or anything, but it was comforting to know that there's not some horrible winter every year that wipes out all vegetation in the area. Eventually we'll muster up the courage to plant a palm tree in our own front yard. Maybe we can sell the coconuts and get rich. I think that's how Bill Gates got his start.

Seattle House Hunt - Day Two

Our second day of house hunting in Seattle was a complete 180 from the day before. This is a good thing, because after day one, I was fully prepared to continue living in my in-laws' basement for the remainder of my days. The big difference was that we met the Real Estate agent that we had been referred to a few days before we went to Seattle. Kathi's region is Seattle's northern suburbs, so straight up I-5 we went.

Kathi showed us two houses for rent and we knew almost immediately that the one in Lynnwood would be our temporary abode. Sara liked the place because it was yellow. I liked it because it was full of all sorts of zany little nooks and crannies, including a great big open attic that was only accessible via an 8-foot ladder. I had always wanted an 8-foot ladder, and this was my big chance. I gotta have a picture of that attic somewhere, I'll post it when I find it. The place in Lynnwood was super small (the real estate term is "cozy"), but it ended up being the perfect half-way house for us while we sought for a home to buy. It was such a relief to have a rental that we liked. If there's anything I learned in the summer between Milwaukee and Seattle it was the HUGE benefits of knowing how to network. If it weren't for asking "Who do you know that could help us", we'd be living in one of the spider pits on Beacon Hill.

Seattle House Hunt - Day One

Its taken months and months, but I'm finally to the point of my blog where the pictures posted actually match the view out my window. In early September Sara and I took a little drive Northwest to the Emerald City, which was soon to be our new home. Somehow we tricked our parents into taking care of The Zoe while we were gone, and we had a long weekend just the two of us. Unfortunately we weren't able to enjoy a lot of luxury because we had the daunting task of finding a house to rent in just three days. Ends up Seattle was a lot bigger that we thought, and the houses we had found online were a lot scarier than we were expecting. I was shocked at how misrepresented the rental profiles were on the websites, we had well over twenty places to look into when we got to the Seattle metro area, and in the first day every single one of them were crossed off our list. I kid you not, three of the properties didn't even exist, two were bonafide internet scandals, and the rest were complete dumps in the middle of what seemed like Hilldale after Biff had taken over. I'll never forget the basement in Beacon Hill that actually had a bathtub full of gigantic jungle spiders.

One place merits its very own paragraph. Eric in Bellevue...not good Bellevue, bad Bellevue...seemed like a nice guy over the phone. It wasn't until we visited his house that we discovered he was a psycho. Eric was the spittin' image of Yukon Cornelius, minus the charm, but certainly including the pick axe. Sara, Zoe and I were to live in the upstairs of Yukon's house while he lurked in the basement. This would have been a great arrangement, providing us plenty of privacy, because Yukon had put a very sturdy piece of plywood over the hole where there used to be stairs. Our portion of the house wasn't palatial, but it was far from the worst we'd seen. I mean heck, Yukon even showed us that the fridge could actually hold well over 12 cases of beer. Yukon thought it best we split all utilities in fours, you know, Yukon pays a quarter, I pay a quarter, Sara pays a quarter and Zoe pays the rest. Makes sense. His stories of all the neighborhood cats what had been eaten by all them raccoons certainly didn't sweeten the deal. Very sadly, this was the cream of the internet crop.

Needless to say, we went back to our hotel in SeaTac that night absolutely devastated. There was no way on earth we were ever going to find a house in only two more days. We had just one lead left, a friend of the real estate agent that sold Sara's sister their house. The next morning we went downtown to check out the Space Needle and to do a bit of touristing while we waited for our appointment to meet with Kathi Ogle. Check out how pretty my little Sara is next to the Needle and down by the Sound. I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty more Space Needle pictures over the next many years.