Adventures

I just don’t feel like it

So i have been trying to make myself post something about my day trip to Vancouver last Friday, but i just don't feel like it.

I took some pictures in the train on the way up (i'm now in love with Amtrak, because i can actually sit comfortably in their seats), and i took some pictures of Vancouver and its surrounding mountains (awfully pretty). As usual, you can see them all on Flickr.

It was great to meet raincoaster, and we had a relaxing day wandering around shops, eating Chinese food, and watching other people wandering around.

So there you have it.

Icky!

So i was going along, reading my usual blogs and whatnot when i came across the following Language Log post:

Ask Language Log: The moist panties phenomenon

It's an article discussing "word aversion", a phenomenon experienced by certain people when they hear or read certain words. For many people, the word moist causes a sort of icky reaction, one that doesn't seem to have much to do with the meaning of the word. Moist is not one of my favorite words, and i distinctly remember my friend Jonathan in college having a definite aversion for it (Jon, if you're reading, confirm/deny for me, please).

The only other word i can remember having a definite negative reaction to is crepuscule, the French word for dawn, but i know there are others. I'll add more in the comments as i think of them, but i'm curious if there are particular words that make your skin crawl? Do tell...

Must-see film

Last night, Andy & i went to see King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It's a documentary about the reigning Donkey Kong champ, Billy Mitchell, and an unassuming challenger from Redmond, Washington, Steve Wiebe. The set up and characters in the film are so perfect that people have wondered if it is actually a mock-umentary, but everything in the film is real.

Wiebe is a laid-off Boeing worker with a wife, two kids, and a house in the suburbs that ahppens to have a Donkey Kong machine in the garage. Mitchell is a strutting, Farah Fawcett-hair-wearing hot sauce hawker with his entire identity wrapped up in being the Donkey Kong champion. Mitchell comes off as an evil manipulator who uses his minions in the classic video gaming world to discredit Wiebe's winning score.

I'm not a good enough writer to express how good this film is. What made it even better was that Steve Wiebe, his wife Nicole, and their friend Mike Thompson (who is also in the film) held a Q&A session after the showing. Wiebe is still playing Donkey Kong, when he's not promoting the film, and Nicole wishes the machine would just disappear from their garage. Thompson has known Wiebe since they were children, and he is a fierce defender of the man and his score.

I highly recommend this film. It is full of funny, sad, and amazing moments, and it's coming to Atlanta soon ;-) Those of you elsewhere, keep a look out for it!

Oh, one more thing

My blog stats tell me that someone clicks on the link for my undergraduate thesis every once in a while. I would LOVE to know who you people are and if you actually read it. Pleeease drop me a comment here, if you're willing to go public with your identity.

Updates

I got an email today telling me that a student loan for $18,000 has been conditionally approved for me. That will take care of tuition, but i still need to find housing money somewhere. The email also didn't tell me how to go about actually getting the money...

I am planning a day trip to Vancouver, BC, next Friday. A fellow blogger lives up there and has offered to show me around a little bit. You can read her off-beat blog here: http://raincoaster.com

And that's about it for now.

A metaphor for life

Seriously though, Mum called today and asked what i have been doing with myself while Andy is at work. Surfing the internet is one of those things, and you see the results above. I also have been wandering around Seattle buying cheap t-shirts at the Gap and getting my legs sugared in Fremont. Oh, and i sent my resume to a very cool-looking private middle school today; i figured one year's notice of a fantastic, motivated history teacher looking for a job would give them enough time to find the funding to hire me ;)

More Seattle Pictures

Andy & i went to the Olympic Sculpture Park, part of the Seattle Art Museum, yesterday. It is located in Myrtle Edwards Park, which is a great park that runs along the waterfront north of Pike Place Market.

Today we wandered around Seattle Center, where the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project are. The EMP is a fantastic building for photography, as you will see by the sheer number of pictures i took.

Flickr: Washington Set

Seattle

Finally i have a chance to write something here. I arrived on Monday night after two long flights, and Andy picked me up at the airport. We will be staying in a B&B after Sunday, but this week we have spent in a couple of different hotels. The apartment Andy found should be ready to move into by the end of the month.

We have spent the past few days just getting to know Seattle a little bit. Our current hotel is in the downtown area, just south of Pike Place Market and the Space Needle, and close to the "retail core" of the city. The most interesting shop i have found is the Neuhaus chocolate boutique. I haven't actually gone inside, because i'm afraid of the prices. It's nice to know where it is, though, for when i'm the wife of a successful sound designer :)

I have pictures to prove that the sun does shine in Seattle:

We went over to Fremont, the neighborhood where the apartment is, yesterday, and we took a walk along the trail that runs near the waterfront. There is a really cool park nearby called Gasworks Park:

This 20 acre point on Lake Union was cleared in 1906 to construct a plant to manufacture gas from coal - later converted to crude oil. Import of natural gas in the 1950's made the plant obsolete. The city acquired the site for a park in 1962. The park was opened to the public in 1975. The boiler house has been converted to a Picnic Shelter with tables, fire grills and an open area. The former exhauster-compressor building, now a children's play barn, features a maze of brightly painted machinery.

I was glad to see the park and the funky Fremont neighborhood, because until that point, Seattle was looking rather unattractive to me. The wharf area near Pike Place Market is really industrial, as are some of the major streets around downtown. I think everything will be okay, though ;)

Take a look at my other photos on Flickr.

It’s settled

I'm heading to Seattle on Monday, thanks to Janette & Scott. I think they just didn't want me hanging around the house for two months ;)