Seattle, Day 1

Whadda weekend.

Got into Seattle late Thursday night. As the cab approached the city from the airport, I was slightly taken aback by the skyline. This place was bigger than I thought. The skyline was all aglitter and I was slackjawed looking out the window at the lights and heights.

The hotel is a field-goal kick away from the space needle, likely the best icon i’ve seen for a city. It’s jetsons cool. The hotel, hmm… I think it hasn’t been renovated since the ’62 Worlds Fair. (Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration)

After pondering goin to the pre-mixer in West Seattle, I figured a good nights sleep would be best. I settled in, frustrated that my data port was a dud, and managed to get some work done offline.

I woke up Friday and ate the uninspired hotel restaurant breakfast, used the wireless network uncomfortably nested by the elevators in the lobby, and fired off some emails.

Met up with Mr. Pratt and a buddy of his from San Jose and quickly felt at ease. Bumbling around the city, I found the scale of the place wasn’t as daunting as originally thought. Broken up into neighborhoods and ample greenspace, Seattle is a trick to navigate with steep hills and the strangest street grid I’ve ever seen. Of course, with all that water surrounding the place, I can understand the challenge.

A trip to Redmond, peeked at the future Chalet, drank coffee, trip to the Microsoft company store (dang, they can’t seem to give away them xbox games)… then back to the temp apartment to meet up with Marmot and hit the evenings festivities.

Honda Elements are cool.

Not sure where the evening went, but it was pleasant enough. I decided I wasn’t wearing appropriate undergarments to maintain proper dress-code at the Eagle’s Under-Bear party, but I had a good time.

Lots of new and familiar faces. After being accosted by the most handsome daddy bear as the bar closed, i gravitated to a kind furry faced fella, and we wandered away from the crowd filing into the bus headin back to the hotel. We walked around the city and checked out views of the needle and whatnot, strolled thru a few parks, and gushed in general at our happenstance meeting. Exhausted, it was time to go back to the Best Western.

Day 1 of Spring Thaw was good.

space needle