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!

A Quick Note to Mike

Who's the biggest Back to the Future fan now?

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.

Diane's Cat Cake

We're pretty proud of the cat cake we made for Diane's birthday. The inspiration was our Lucy, who was on the tail end of her stay with her evil aunt Tinker. Lucy and Diane didn't get along very well, probably because the goop that often drains out of her ears (Lucy's) seemed to find its way onto all of Diane's walls. We didn't include any frosting goops in the cake's ears. Any cat cake must have candles as whiskers. I think this is also a great time to point out how gigantic the veins on Randy's arms have become. Look at those things. It's like the Venice of appendages.

Lunch Brake with Randy (pun intended)

Our little Zoe very much loves her Grandpa Randy. Here they are enjoying a lunch break together back in September of 2009 (yes, I truly am that far behind in my blog posting). Every time Zoe sees a blue and white semi truck she insists that it's Grandpa's truck, and the only grocery store she ever wants to go to is Grandpa's store. It's a good thing we live in Seattle now, where Albertson's trips are a possibility, or else we'd have to become subsistence farmers. Do any of you know any other two-year-old that loves her lobster shirt as much as our Zoe does? There's something so lovable about multi-legged pinching crustaceans.

St. George Rocks!

Blogging about St. George in the middle of the winter makes me feel all warm and sweaty inside. While we were enjoying our little jaunt to southern Utah, we took some time to get in touch with our inner mountain goat and did a bit of photographic rock climbing. The red rocks of St. George provide an excellent back drop for a family photo, and I'm so glad to be married to a lady who finds a series of single-toned caves and sees a photo opportunity.

Those same red rocks also provide great toys for two-year-olds. By this I mean that Zoe wouldn't quit climbing on anything she could get her hands on. It was like we had entered a vortex where the law of gravity was reversed for all living creatures less than four feet tall. The smaller rocks were also perfect for throwing and licking...it was a veritable stone nursery for our little Zoe. Here she is fixing to leap from one cliffside to the other like a desert flying squirrel.

I tried to climb as high as I could up the little cranny under which my Sara is posing, but I was too wide to get all the way through. I did, however, find much success in banging my head and elbows on the rocks, so it wasn't a complete bust. We now know where Zoe got her climbing abilities from. Sara was smart enough to stay on the ground. I was amazed at how many ways she was able to prop up the camera just right so that the self-timer feature got all of us in the shot.

A Summer Walk Among My Progenitors

Yep, it's another graveyard visit for our little family. This time we were on a quest for relatives in the St. George cemetery, most specifically, that of my grandma on my dad's side, who died back in 2001. After a bit of searching we finally found the plot, and had the pleasure of visiting the final resting places of some of my direct relatives who helped to settle Utah's Dixie. I really like the picture of Zoe in the middle of the cemetery with the trademark St. George red hills in the background. Boy was it a hot day...I often wonder why I always end up in St. George in the summertime.

Here's a 5-generation shot with my dad and daughter, along with dad's mom, Erma, and dad's grandpa, Wilford Woodruff. About two months ago my grandpa Rudger passed away. That's his headstone on the right, with the date of death still as blank as can be. How strange it is that I was writing about the St. George cemetary at the same time period that Grandpa Rudger died. I'm so glad that Sara and I went to visit him a year before he passed away. When I finally get to the pictures of Rudger's funeral I'll have plenty more to say, I'm sure.

This is Zoe spending a bit of quality time with the great granmother she never knew. I'm very sad to say that I never really knew her as much as I would have liked either, since my mom's mom died when I was only 11 years old. I wonder if we should have given Zoe the middle name Lilly in her honour. Zoe Lilly is kind of a mouthful.

Here's the headstone marking the grave of Daniel D. McArthur, one of the original settlers of St. George, Utah and the surrounding area. Daniel D. led the second handcart company that entered the Salt Lake Valley, and is generally thought of as the biggest stud among all my forefathers. Do you see any family resemblance? Yep, same classic family scowl. I guess we should be relieved that the scowl survived the passing generations instead of the scraggly beard.