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!