t 'n t luoma

Well I have already described the first part of turning 31 so I won’t bore you with those details again.

Turns out, however, that there was more going to happen that day. No, there were no surprise visits from long lost relatives... or newly lost relatives for that matter... In fact I’m not even sure that we have any lost relatives, unless they are so lost that we’ve forgotten them completely, which would make a surprise reunion somewhat awkward.

The first thing that happened was not long after I had arrived at the church. Tracey called and sang Happy Birthday to me via my cell phone. I tried to put her on speakerphone, but ended up accidentally hanging up (the buttons are very close together). Fortunately Tracey knows me well enough to know that I wouldn’t have purposefully hung up on her while she was singing Happy Birthday to me, or else this entry might have had a less jovial, more lawyerly feel to it.

I was assuming that having a birthday at the end of the month would mean that fewer people at the church would remember it (since the birthday list goes out in the beginning of the month). This would be one of those silly things that you think that if you said them to anyone, they would give you that certain look that tells you your thought process is silly. The number of folks who are glad to know their pastor’s birthday is significant. Several people wished me a happy birthday before service began, and the choir led the congregation in singing “Happy Birthday to You” during the announcements. I shared with them an interesting on this day in history tidbit about Franklin Graham's preaching debut.

After church we went home and had lunch. Tracey made burgers.

Wife to Husband, sitting on two-person deck swing: “Do you want to have lunch out there?”
Husband: “Yes!” In cave-man voice: “Bring me meat and carbonated beverage.”

I was celebrating my birthday by being goofy. Tracey was celebrating by putting up with me. She might note that she seems to experience this part of my birthday on 360-some-odd days a year.

The weather was as perfect as I could imagine. Tracey remembered that she had bought an Atkins cake mix, so she made me a chocolate cake. (Quick review of Atkins’ Chocolate cake: Not entirely un-cakelike, which is a lot better than the Atkins Pancakes, which were not only un-pancakelike but were so vile that I did not even swallow the 1 piece that I put in my mouth. Cake was definitely made better by the addition of Breyers CarbSmart Chocolate Ice Cream which is really quite good.)

Husband: “Thanks for the cake, hon....”
Wife:“You’re welcome, glad you liked it.”
Husband:“You know, I think that’s the first cake you’ve made me.”
Wife:“So what you’re saying is that I haven’t made you a cake for the previous 8 birthdays we’ve been married.”
Husband: (wonders what happened to the calm, sensible version of his wife who was just here a minute ago) “No, what I’m saying is that this cake was really good, and I think it happens to also be the first birthday cake you’ve made me. I was more like an observation than an accusation.”
Wife:“You’re just a lot more direct than I am.”
Husband:“We’ve had this conversation before, you know...”
Wife:“Yeah, well I just like to revisit it every once in awhile.”

After lunch (did I mention it was delicious?), it seemed like a good time to put together the Park Lake 5-Piece Patio Furniture Set since we had cleaned the garage on Friday (see turning 31 part 1. Note: in the pictures of the garage the large cardboard box near the door is the Park Lake 5-Piece Patio Furniture Set).

We purchased the Park Lake 5-Piece Patio Furniture Set at the end of last season. I think that was the day I went to Wal-Mart 3 times in one day. First I went for various items that we needed for the new house, then I went back to get the Park Lake 5-Piece Patio Furniture Set.
After paying for the Park Lake 5-Piece Patio Furniture Set I discovered that the box with the Glass Table Top would fit and the box with the chairs would fit, but they would not both fit at the same time.

By the way, for those considering the purchase of a Park Lake 5-Piece Patio Furniture Set, please note that the 5 pieces are 4 chairs and 1 table. Do not be deceived by the ubiquity of an umbrella in all of the pictures of the Park Lake 5-Piece Patio Furniture Set, because that is just a marketing ploy wherein they try to sucker you into purchasing the Park Lake 9-foot Umbrella for $99 which is yet another marketing ploy because if you aren’t careful you might not realize that THEY SELL THE UMBRELLA AND THE UMBRELLA STAND SEPARATELY... Apparently there are a whole lot of people who already have an umbrella stand and have been waiting like teenage girls before the prom for just the right umbrella to come along and whisk them away from their unfulfilled lives as unfilled umbrella stands. The Wrought Iron Umbrella Base will set you back another $22, meaning that the bargain you got on the Park Lake 5-Piece Patio Furniture Set by waiting for the end of the season (when Wal-Mart was nearly begging people to take it off their hands) could be eliminated if you succumbed to the Evil Marketeer’s Umbrella Temptations.

Fortunately for me, I married Financially Sensible Woman.

Husband: “What do you mean we have to buy the umbrella separately?”
Wife:“It doesn’t come with it. Look at the box, do you think it could fit in there?”
Husband: (ignoring the fact that he clearly thought that it could fit in there, because he thought it was in there) “So how much is that?”
Wife:“What do you want an umbrella for?”
Husband:“Well....” (thinking) “There’s a hole in the middle of the table where the umbrella goes.”
Wife:“So?”
Husband:“Well... it would look dumb to just have a hole in the table.”
Wife:“We’ll tell people the umbrella cost $122.”
Husband:“But what are we going to do if it rains?”
Wife:“Rains?”
Husband:“Yeah.”
Wife:“You mean, what are we going to do when it rains and we are outside sitting around a table on the deck?”
Husband:(silence)
Wife:“I dunno... go inside?”
Husband:“Alright, enough chit-chat, let’s get back to putting this together. I don’t have all day.”
Wife:“Yes dear.” (feel free to fill in what you think she really wanted to say here)

I was going to bring up that the umbrella would block the sun too, which was more important than blocking the rain. Of course it would probably only help at 12 noon, and the rest of the time it would just block our view of the lake.

Those of you who combine excellent memories with too much spare time may remember that we put a two-person swing together last year. There are also the two chairs that Lauren gave us, a picnic table, and a gas grill. Soon we will have more seating on the deck than we do in the rest of the house, but no way to get to it because it will be railing-to-railing full of chairs. But I digress. A lot. You knew that by now.

The chairs were fairly simple to put together:

1. Take chair bottom out of box
2. Take chair top out of box
3. Put chair top on chair bottom

Which is exactly the kind of assembly one wants for a Sunday afternoon. (I did neglect to mention the fact that the top and bottom were both wrapped in that thin foam wrap that probably doesn’t really offer that much protection but is better than nothing. Tracey took care of most of that. Not difficult, but time consuming).

The table also came with a single sheet of instructions, unlike the 42 page manuals that we have become accustomed to in other recent building adventures. It too went together rather easily, except for the legs.

Getting the legs into the pre-sized leg-holders required approximately 1.25 metric tons of pressure per square inch which would allow the pre-formed plastic to bulge approximately 3/8th of an inch (or half a centimeter for you metric nuts). Not having a Binford 1.25 metric ton Leg-Holder Squeezer (patent pending) we were forced to use our fingers, which were then rendered inoperable for approximately 45 minutes after each leg was inserted.

The table also has a glass top. A glass top table is very important because you really ought to keep a close watch on your legs while sitting as a table. Plus it makes it that much easier to misjudge the distance to the table top when putting your drink down, which heightens the risk of broken glass and mutilated flesh.... and what is a relaxing afternoon on the deck without the chance for a little bloodshed?

Given that the legs are metal and the top is glass, there is the need for a mediator to keep these two separated. A middle-child, if you will, there to keep the peace. Enter the Clear Plastic Buffer Tab (or CPBT for short). Simply insert the CPBT into the leg, press the leg against the top of the table, and presto whamo, you have a table without that sound of metal scraping against glass.

The fun part is trying to a) line up the legs into the leg-holder on the table, b) fit the lower part of the leg into the Mid-Table Leg Brace, and c) line up leg to fit into the top support and keep the CPBT from falling out of its spot, rolling between two of the deck boards and forcing you to rip out the entire deck to retrieve it or call the table manufacturing company and try to explain to them that you need a replacement CPBT. If you can get them to understand what you are talking about. Ripping out and replacing the deck would probably be less time consuming and less aggravating. This is the part of the job which really requires two people, especially because your fingers will still be sore from the Leg-Holder Squeezing. This is not the part of the job which requires your undiapered son to walk come over and pee on the glass table top, that’s purely optional. However, undiapered sons may recognize that their skills and abilities are underutilized in most home improvement projects, and may suddenly offer to share them even if unsolicited. (Note to concerned parents of young children: this behavior is only temporary until the child figures out how much more fun it is to pee off the deck onto the grass below. And if he happens to nail one of the dogs in the head as they go out to do their “business” outside, one can only consider that to be cosmic karma.)

Once that is done, we installed the Lower-Table Leg-Brace. This is where you can prop your feet up under the table so you can admire them through the glass table top. There is even a bit of rubber around the poles of the Lower-Table Leg-Brace so that you can put up your feet to admire your legs through the glass table top without marring the finish of the bar on the Lower-Table Leg-Brace. You’ve got to credit them for thinking this through, especially since the table is approximately 7 feet tall and will require a small hop to sit on most of the chairs, unless you are friends with Shaq, in which case he will consider it just about the right height.

The Lower-Table Leg-Brace goes on easily, of course, because the legs are being held in place by 5 metric tons of pressure by the Leg-Holders, not to mention the Mid-Table Leg-Brace. After that is done, simply put the small plastic covers over the screw heads and pointy ends. Theoretically these are meant to a) improve the appearance of your Deck Table [outer covers] and b) protect your legs and ankles from being sliced open while trying to rest them on the Lower-Table Leg-Brace to be admired through the glass table top [inner covers]. In reality these are a last ditch effort to get you to drop something between the boards of the deck and have to rip apart the deck and build a new one. (Have I mentioned that all deck furniture is designed by deck builders to create more business for themselves? Yup, that’s a true theory. Then again I also wonder if anti-virus software companies are the ones who write all the computer viruses. And don’t say “virii” because that’s just wrong.)

These outer plastic covers are roughly 1/10000000th of a milimeter larger than the head of the screw they are meant to cover, meaning that fitting them on means that a) you have to line it up perfectly, b) the plastic must not be warped at all, and c) they will eventually just fall off when someone sits down at the table, probably about the same time they prop up their legs on the Lower-Table Leg-Brace. The inner plastic covers go on fairly easily, presumably because of the chance for bloodshed and lawsuits if they do not.

After all that is done, you are finally ready to turn the table over and sit down at your new Park Lake 5-Piece Patio Furniture Set.

At which point you will most likely come to realize that the Clear Plastic Buffer Tabs have come out of their designated location, and are now wedged under the table top but no longer connected to the leg. Swearing at this point is optional, but completely permissible. Fixing the misalignment would require disconnecting the Lower-Table Leg-Brace and the Mid-Table Leg-Brace.

Husband:“Aww crud.”
Wife:“Are they up against the glass?”
Husband:“Yeah but two of them aren’t in the holes.”
Wife:“The other two are,” (tries to wiggle table) “and it’s steady, so who cares?”
Husband:“But it looks bad” (Sure, but fortunately you can still see your legs)
Wife:“Do you want to take it apart again?”
Husband:“No, but —”
Wife:“Then just leave it. It’s fine.”
Husband:(realizes she’s right, practically speaking, but still annoyed by it being out of place) “Fine.”

I looked around and realized just how many items now live on our deck.

Husband: “We’re running out of room on the deck.”
Wife: “We’ll have to build a bigger one!”

(Didn’t I tell you the deck installation guys were behind all this deck furniture?)

Since there was still a good bit of daylight outside, I decided to grab my laptop and read some email while looking out over the lake from my deck. That, to me, is a pretty close approximation to heaven on earth. There are other things that are equally good, but this is one example. Sunny, quiet Sunday afternoon sitting outside on the deck looking over a lake. Not a bad way to spend the day.

Until I nearly sliced off my thumb with my laptop.

Yup, after completing the construction of a set of deck furniture with nary a papercut, I went to pick up my laptop from the table (an action I have repeated about 8,427,623 times since first purchasing said laptop in July of 2000) and managed to cut my thumb right under the joint. For those interested in cutlery, the corner of the docking station port does a passable imitation of a fine turkey carver as it sliced from one side under the other in a motion not unlike what one would use on a Thanksgiving turkey to separate a turkey leg from the rest of the carcass. Swearing is almost required at this point; however, swearing not so loud as to cause the neighbors go “Is that the minister?” is preferable.

There are several locations on the body which excel at bleeding. If anyone is making a comprehensive list, let me add the thumb just underneath the joint. I actually wondered if stiches were going to be required. “I am not spending another birthday in the hospital,” I thought to myself as I poured copious amounts of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2, however, no relation to R2D2, despite what the tabloids say) over my mangled thumb. My next thought was, “Hrm... I still haven’t written up my thoughts on The Passion of The Christ...”

After applying band-aid and ice and holding my hand over my head to reduce blood flow, I went in search of my wife, the mother of my child and perhaps the most compassionate person I know.

“What was that noise?” she asked
“Me slicing off my thumb on my laptop,” I replied.
“On your laptop? How’d you manage that?” she asked, as if I had just developed a marketable skill that we would be able to sell on ebay for enough to send Ethan to an Ivy League college.

Blood flow subsided, we went out to dinner with some friends, celebrating a year since we had first met them when we first came to Gallipolis to interview for the position. We went to the same restaurant (Mexican!) we had gone to last year and shared a good meal and good conversation.

Afterwards we went to the Drive-In to see Scooby Doo2 and Starsky and Hutch, but that will have to wait for another day, because I really must get some sleep.

Posted by TjL at 05:53 PM | Permalink

This may be the funniest card I have received in my entire life.

What is even funnier is that Sue (Tracey’s step-sister, so my step-sister-in-law) apparently had this card for some time, but didn’t know when my birthday actually was.

Mom called yesterday to tell me that she had figured out why my birthday package had not arrived. She had sent it to the right address, the right city, the right state, and the right zip code... but she had addressed it to me except with her maiden name. Now I’ve had this last name my entire life and I’ve known Mom for my entire life, so she was saying that she is preparing to enter herself into a home for the mentally fragile.

Then there was the phone call yesterday from someone I don’t talk to all that often on the phone, who I originally thought was calling to wish me a happy birthday but then ended up not mentioning it at all, leading me to wonder if the call was purely coincidental or that it has been the reason for the call but had been forgotten by the end of the call.

Posted by TjL at 09:46 AM | Permalink

Gospel of Debbie (printer friendly).

Posted by TjL at 01:25 AM | Permalink

Well today I am 31, which, despite what anyone might tell you, is nothing like being 15½ twice. Ok, so I don’t really remember what 15½ felt like, but I wouldn’t believe them anyway.

I don’t remember what present I might have been excited about at 15½ but I can tell you that if you had asked me to make a list of 1,000 items I would have liked for my birthday, there would have been no appliances anywhere on the list.

Well, a lot can happen in 15½ years. You are now looking at my present for my 31st birthday (not Ethan, behind Ethan). For those of you who are really into appliances, you will recognize this immediately as a Maytag Precision Touch Control 500 Electric Smoothtop. For those of you who aren’t really into appliances, you are probably still thinking it is pretty pathetic that I’m excited about an appliance.

But let me explain.

We have not had a properly functioning stove in seven years, if ever. In 1995 we moved into our first apartment in Princeton (which is another story altogether) and I really don’t remember much about that stove except for the small fire that time I made fried chicken from scratch.

In 1997 we moved to our second apartment in Princeton (technically I believe we were in West Windsor, but we had a Princeton address). This was our singular experience with a gas stove, which was great in that it did not require pre-heating time, but it ran hot and there was much cookie burnage during that year.

August 1998 brought us to our first house in Gainesville house, which we loved in most every way except the kitchen which we eventually painted (before / after) and made a lot better. But there was one thing that remained a problem: the stove.

Let’s talk about the stove for a minute... or more. The stove had one large burner and 3 small ones. The oven ran 50 - 70 ° F hotter than it was set for (but not consistently). Then there was the day that the one large burner exploded.

Yup. Exploded. From the inside out. While Tracey was cooking something. Blew a hole through the burner coil and the skillet.

That was just the beginning. First we tried to replace the burner coils and couldn’t. I mean physically couldn’t. We tried to remove the old recently exploded coil, but the stove would not release its fiendish clutches on the traitorous beast. Eventually we called in an electrician. This electrician took about 3 weeks to find a replacement coil for the stove, and took almost an hour to replace it.

“So if you hated it so much, why didn’t you just replace it?”

A fair and excellent question. Short answer: We couldn’t. Literally, we could not replace the oven. If you look closely at the picture of the stove you will see that it was built-in. Yes, built-in. A horribly bad idea, you say? Why yes, I would agree. What could be worse than a built-in stove? Perhaps a built-in defective (demonically possessed?) stove? Oh no, my friend, you are missing one aspect entirely: width.

Stoves in the USA are 30 inches across. It’s a standard, and standards are good, ever since Eli Whitney we have appreciated standards for one simple reason: interchangeability (I said simple reason, not a short one). I suppose you can already guess that the stove from the nether realms was not 30 inches. Nor 29. Nor 28. Nor 27 — oh wait, yeah, 27. 27 inches. Which is 3 inches less. Even if you were not good at math, home ec, geometry, or interior design, you probably realize that replacing a 27 inch stove with a 30 inch stove poses a slight problem. You have to come up with 1½ inches on either side. It just so happened that there was about 1½ inches between the end of the stove and the beginning of the drawers and cabinets. So no go there.

Apparently this built-in stove was only done in 1967, the year that our house was built.

So we were not able to replace the stove. Ripping it out would have meant totally renovating the kitchen, which we were not ready to do, which isn’t a bad thing, since we moved only about 2 years after the kichen was repainted.

*sigh*

We arrived at the new house with a veritable kitchen-full of new appliances: fridge, microwave, dishwasher, washer, and dryer. Ok, well the washer and dryer aren’t in the kitchen, but imagine if they were, that kitchen would be even more full. We lacked one thing: a stove. The stove seemed to work, it didn’t explode, for one thing. However, the front large burner seems to have a mind of its own, and it tends to be a bit sleepy. Not to mention that burners on electric stoves always look ugly and dirty.

On our way home Friday, Tracey had a revelation as to what she and Dad could get me for my birthday. “A new stove!” she said with discernably glee at having come up with an idea. She had picked up a flyer while we were waiting for lunch and saw that they were having a sale on Saturday. My idea was that we could go on Friday and see if there was anything we really wanted for the Saturday sale, and perhaps they would be willing to sell it to us on Friday since we were there and ready to buy.

Of course there are about 50 different models of stoves which all look remarkably similar.

“I want a smooth top,” Tracey announced. I resisted the urge to point out whose birthday was approaching, mainly because I agreed with her and I say enough dopey things during the course of the week that I thought I might skip one.

“What’s the difference between the $750 and the $650 and the $550 models?” I asked.

“Or the $450 model?” Tracey said, having looked over to the next row and locked onto a different model with her eagle bargain-hunter eyes.

Family members and those who know us will know we’re all about a good deal. I don’t mind spending money on something if it is worth it, but if we can get a good deal, well, all the better.

Tracey spotted a different tag on one unit. Now in Junior High, being markedly different is cause for teasing and scorn, but when shopping for applianced, being marked differently usually means a discount of some sort. Sure enough, Tracey, with the keen instincts of a cheetah preparing to pick off the weakest member of a pack of gazelles, had spotted a slightly injured member of the appliance tribe. There was a small sized section of the porcelain at the top of the stove which had come off, resulting in a price reduction of over $200.

Even after we added the 5-year protection plan (I am all about a bargain, and then not having to worry about if something goes wrong with the item in question) we paid less for the stove than we would have at full sticker price.

So there were really two presents, the stove, and the deal.... actually, three, if you count a happy spouse.

You might think that was enough for one day, but no gentle reader, there is more.

My original plan was nothing more than sweeping out the garage. One side of the garage (and I won’t say whose side, but intrepid readers may guess) had accumulated a pile of sand/dirt underneath one person’s Saturn VUE. Then Tracey told me that we had missed the free dump day where we were planning to get rid of the old dishwasher which has been in the garage since approximately 5 days after we moved into the house in June.

But one thing led to another, and the next thing you know we were cleaning out the entire garage. Things that were thought lost were found.... then again, things that were thought to have been thrown out were also found. Tracey called the trash company to ask if they would haul away the old dishwasher and an old dresser. “SURE!” said the chipper girl who answered the phone.

Then I started wondering if the guys who delivered the stove would take the old dishwasher away, and we ended up moving the dresser so we could use it as storage space (it has drawers). Instead we have several other large and heavy items to be removed, like several 5 gallon buckets of joint compound and other stuff that was left over from the previous owners. Tracey was imagining the conversation with the trash company on Monday when they arrive...

“Yeah, I called to ask if they would take the dresser and dishwasher, and they said sure... and by ‘dresser and dishwasher’ I really meant ‘All this miscellaneous crud that was here when we bought the house.’”

Really, there ought to be a free period to throw away some crud left by the previous owners, and that free period ought to extend to the first time that you really have a chance to clean out the garage 9 months after you move in.

Ethan, as you can see above, was quite the helper. He loves to sweep, probably because he sees his mother doing it all the time. He actually insisted on using the broom that I was using, so I had to go get another one. He saw me wiping off cobwebs from the walls, so he started wiping down the walls too... Of course he was easily distracted by finding various balls and seeing his Big Wheel, which, I am shocked to say, he is now nearly big enough to ride by pushing the pedals. That was quite a sight to see... he just needs another inch or two in leg length and he’ll be tooling around the driveway like nobody’s business. We also put together the slide from the Aiellos and he had great fun playing on that as well.

Anyway, the afternoon of hard work paid off, here is the garage now:

And in fact it’s even better than it appears, because a bunch of the stuff on the right (last picture) is going in the rummage sale, and the big big box to the right of the door (middle picture) has the deck table and chairs that we plan to put together soon. So there will be even more room. There is enough room for Dad to open the passenger door to my car without hitting anything (YAY!).

So that’s the way I turned 31... I bought a kitchen appliance and cleaned my garage... I suppose a lot of folks might find that bland, but at one point on Friday while sweeping out the garage I thought to myself “You know, there are a lot of people who would love to have a garage and a kitchen of their own.” Since then I’ve felt pretty fortunate for what we have, and cleaning the garage almost felt like a privilege rather than a chore.

Posted by TjL at 01:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ok, so Tracey is gone for the night. She is participating in a sleep study (she’s been having trouble sleeping for any length of time). It’s sort of a strange thing, though because they were planning to wake her up between 5 and 6 a.m, which to me isn’t so much a sleep study, as a cruel way to torture someone who hasn’t had a night without listening for her baby’s cry in 21 months.

Nevertheless, we (and by “we” I mean mainly her) got Ethan down to bed around 9 p.m. so she could be there for 9:45, and we’re all just hoping that Ethan sleeps through the night.

Now I have to start out by saying that I’m fully supportive of this study. I fully hope that they are able to help figure out why she can’t sleep better, and I hope the answer doesn’t involve me moving into the guest room. But I also have to say that I am absolutely terrified that Ethan is going to wake up, and I am not going to do a thing for him. This isn’t entirely unreasonable, as Ethan is currently cutting a new tooth and trying to get over the last of a cold that has been hanging on.

Tracey has the magic touch when it comes to getting him back to sleep. He usually nurses for a few minutes (yeah yeah I know he’s a bit old to still be nursing, but you try getting weight on a kid who’s allergic to dairy and can’t stand to eat because he’s constantly teething) and will go back to sleep pretty quickly.

Alright... but what happens if he wakes up tonight?

I have joked that I can sleep through just about anything, so it would only be Dad and the beagles who would suffer. The joke, of course, is that there is very little chance that I’ll be sleeping tonight. I might very well sleep through Ethan waking up, but then again even if I woke up, there’s little I could actually do anyway.

See, I had no doubt that Ethan would wake up.

And I was right.

About 2:10 a.m. I heard him (it’s about 2:20 a.m. now). What am I doing up? I don’t know, but here I am. I have already watched the ring and am now watching Scream. Scary movies? Well yeah, but nothing compares to this. I’m here and pretty much useless.

There was an episode of Mad About You (the best TV show ever for showing what married life was really like) called “The Conversation” which was a 22-minute single-shot episode (no commercial interruptions) which showed them outside their baby’s door, listening to her cry.

I found that episode to be heart-breaking, because you could feel what they were going through. That was several years ago, long before I had any idea what it was really like. I doubt that episode will ever be on again because I doubt any syndication group is going to show it like that. Which is too bad, because it is some of the best acting I have ever seen on television.

Then again as awful as those 22-minutes were, it was still a sitcom, where everyone’s problems are over in a half-hour.

It’s 2:41 now, and he’s not back to sleep yet.

Posted by TjL at 02:50 AM | Permalink

Ok, so we’ve been home like 3 days, and Scout has already gotten into Dad’s trashcan and nearly had himself sold to Gypsies.

Here’s the deal: he gets into Dad’s bathroom and dragged towels off the rack and rub his face in them; or he will manage to get the door closed and then proceed to howl; or he will get into Dad’s trashcan, usually eating Q-Tips; or he will get into the trashcan and chew up diapers (see photo).

So far we have tried modifying the human behavior, because trying to change the dog behavior is useless. This has resulted in endless conversations about why Tracey puts diapers in the trashcan in the bathroom (I know the answer, because when you change 8,437 diapers, it gets tiresome to keep bringing them out to the trashcan outside every time).

This human behavior modification scenario also requires 4 door cycles for Dad to go to the bathroom:

1. Open bedroom door
2. Close bedroom door
3. Open bathroom door
4. Close bathroom door

Oh, and if he wants to go back to the bedroom, it requires the same process in reverse. Failing any step risks either whacking oneself into a door, or leaving a door open for Scout to get into a trashcan either in the bathroom or the bedroom. (There was also that one time when Scout got under the covers of Dad’s bed.)

Have I mentioned Tracey’s “ability” to wake up at the slightest noise? Have I mentioned that Dad generally gets up at least once during the night? Have I mentioned that the doors are not very easy for me to open/close without making a significant amount of noise?

So when Tracey came downstairs tonight after getting Ethan to sleep during which Dad bellowed at Scout to get out of his trashcan, I knew it was time for Tim Luoma, Problem Solver Husband to step in. Fate, nah, providence brought a baby gate catalog to our house. We looked at it together and saw a couple of options, but the Sure and Secure Extra Tall Walk-Through Gate seemed like the best bet. The Center Gateway advertizes itself as easy to use with one hand, but the other is taller and automatically locks when you close it. Plus with the added height (7 inches) it should not only be harder to get over, but it should mean less bending over for Dad when he is trying to get through.

If it doesn’t work, we may send it back for the Center Gateway, or we may see when the circus is coming to town and find out if they need an incredibly dense beagle for some act... maybe to be shot out of a cannon.

Posted by TjL at 11:06 PM | Permalink

“...but we can get a lava-lamp anywhere....” Overheard in a gift shop somewhere in California on our recent vacation.... presumably part of a conversation wherein two people where trying to figure out what to buy, and one had suggested a lava lamp, and another person was countering that they should get something else, because lava-lamps were to be found on every corner.

“Did you not want no ice?” Said to me by a waitress not long after our return to Ohio. My reply was not much better, “Yes, no ice please.”

Logically (and by “logically” I mean “if we set aside the atrocious grammar for a moment), “not want no ice” would be equivalent to “does want some ice” which I did not want, so technically I should have said, “No” as in “No, I don’t want no ice” which would have been a triple negative. However, I knew the question was really asking if I wanted a beverage devoid of ice, which was true, so the context-appropriate answer was “Yes” however I did clarify that I wanted “no ice”

Before anyone starts busting on Southern Ohio grammar, let me just say that I’d rather hear “don’t want no ice” than live somewhere where lava-lamps are commonplace, but that’s just me.

Posted by TjL at 03:09 PM | Permalink

In case you missed anything

• Day 1: Apple, Monterey
• Day 2: Monterey (17 mile drive, aquarium)
• Day 3: Los Gatos (Pictures of Kush and Ethan)
• Day 4: Oakland
• Day 5: Ethan/Beaglefest
• Day 6: I left my wallet in San Francisco
• Day 7: Alcatraz / Ghirardelli Square
• Day 8: Exploratorium
• Days 9-11: Leaving San Fran; Redwoods, Oregon, and Seattle (pictures at bottom)
• Day 12, Take 1 (CityPass, minor snafu)
• Day 12, Take 2 (Harbor Cruise, Space Needle, Pike Place)
• Day 13: Seattle Aquarium
• Day 14: Woodland Park Zoo
• Day 15: Pacific Science Center
• Day 16: Museum of Flight

Posted by TjL at 02:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ok, so we have to leave tomorrow at 6:00 a.m., meaning I have to get up at 5:30 a.m., meaning I have to get to bed at a much earlier hour. So here is a quick synopsis of our last day via pictures. All pictures were taken at the Museum of Flight (Seattle).

This is Ethan and Tim standing near the cockpit of an airplane which used to serve as Air Force One. It is not nearly as impressive as the one on The West Wing.

This plane, the SR71, is faster than missles. It can’t be shot down... at least from behind I guess.

This is Ethan totally ignoring the barrier which was supposed to convey a sense of “Hey, stay out!”

One of the coolest things we have done on vacation was this flight simulator which gave you 4 minutes behind the controls of a fighter jet. In 2 minutes 16 seconds I managed to crash 3 times. The controls are more (over-)sensitive than a pubescent teenager. Richard managed to get us into a successful loop (yes we were completely upside down for a few moments).

I can hear Danger Zone playing somewhere in the background (or is it all in my head?)

“Sure I can fix that.”

Have tools, will travel. (Yes we are looking for a toolbelt for him.)

Next on Fox: “When Toddlers’ Attack”

Had a really nice lunch at the The Metropolitan Grill. We did a taste test between there and Ruth’s Chris Steak House which we visited on Sunday. The steak was better at The Met but the service and atmosphere was better at Ruth’s Chris. It was one of the few places where we didn’t tip 20%... in fact we tipped barely 10%. I sat for at least 10 minutes with an empty Diet Pepsi glass sitting on the edge of the table. The bus boy filled my water twice (thankfully). I’m relatively easy to please when it comes to service in a restaurant, so when you get a lousy tip from me, you’ve earned it. Given a choice I’d go back to Ruth’s Chris in a minute, because once you are at such a high level of quality when it comes to food, the real determining factor is service, followed closely by atmosphere. And parking, which was also easier than at The Met.

We came home and played a game of Outburst, husbands versus wives. I won’t say who won, but I will tell you who didn’t lose :-D

Tonight we went to The Mongolian Grill. Pick what you want to eat, put it in a bowl, add some oils, watch them cook it, add sauce. Very good. Very very good. How good? I ate broccoli stems and enjoyed them. Ask my mother, she’ll tell you how good that means... if she has recovered from the shock. Finished the night at Cold Stone Creamery which now offers ice cream made with Splenda. No word on whether the brownie or Reece’s Cup mix-in were low-carb, but I just shared Tracey’s, so clearly no impact carbs there. (Note to self: [re-]induction starts Monday... although my 38" jeans are still plenty loose.)

Came home and packed (Tracey) and realized how early we need to leave. Think good thoughts for us tomorrow as we leave at 6:00 a.m. for an 8:30 a.m. flight (Pacific Time) which will land in Atlanta at 4:03 p.m. (Eastern time) and then to Columbus, arriving 8:14 p.m. followed by baggage claim and a 2/2.5 hour drive home. And yes I am preaching Sunday.

Good night. See you in Ohio.

Posted by TjL at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After yesterday’s tirade, I decided that today would be much more straightforward, especially with the post title. Descriptive over clever.

Today is Thursday, which means that we have only one more day of our vacation left. Not that we can complain, since we have been gone just over 2 weeks. It has been a really fantastic vacation. I have enjoyed this more than I remember enjoying another vacation in a really long time. The other nice thing is that I’m not overly stressed about getting back into the daily routine. Usually by this point I’m already starting to think about what needs to be done once I get back, but I haven’t done that this time which has been really nice.

This is Ethan bringing me my coat, after he had already brought his momma her coat. He’s a great kid. He also brings us shoes when we are getting dressed. Sometimes he brings them even after we have shoes on, but we cut him some slack because he’s 21 months and cute as a button.

You may recall that on Sunday of this week we looked over the weather for the week ahead. We checked a few different sites and while there was some amount of uncertainly about whether we would get rain on any other day, it was clearly going to rain on Thursday. Every site we looked at agreed that it was going to rain Thursday. The Farmers’ Almanac from 1926 forecasted rain for this Thursday. Not “showers” (as was suggested for other days) not “chance of rain” which was also thrown out there on a couple of other days. RAIN. Simple, direct, clear, unambiguous. That led us to decide early on that we would plan an indoor activity for Thursday, since it was

Therefore, of course, today was the sunniest day that we have had since we arrived.

A member of my extended family has said that if she were married to a weatherman, she wouldn’t tell anyone. I would love to know what other profession you can be wrong that often and still keep your job (not including politics, of course, but we won’t go there). Is there an easier job out there than weatherman? I mean, no one even expects you to be right, and when you are right, people are just right there to say, “Gee they said today was going to be a great day and look!”

Where is the public outcry over the lack of accuracy when it comes to the weather forecast? If we aren’t going to care when they get it wrong, why do we bother listening to them at all? Why don’t we take the money that we were going to spend on salaries for weather(wo)men and allocate them towards re-training of some useful skill like plumbing or drywalling (two professions which there never seem to be enough qualified people to do)?

Instead of employing weatherpeople, all the TV stations could just hire a person who would stand in front of the chart of the weather as it is right now and repeat the information gathered from computers (I’ve always loved that part of the weather report. This is what the temperature is here and here and here and here, and there and there and there and there). Then they can stand in front of the computer-generated re-enactment of what the clouds have looked like for the past 12-24-36-48 hours. Then they will give the forecast for the next 30 days as being “Partly cloudy with a chance of rain.” In fact, the official weather forecast for the entire country will be “partly cloudy with a chance of rain.” In the winter months it will change to “partly cloudy with a chance of rain, possibly mixing with snow and ice, so be careful if you are out on the roads.” (Exception: Nevada and New Mexico’s forecast will be “Partly cloudy with a slight chance of rain.”)

Ok, I feel better now. So back to today... at first, I thought that we had made a giant mistake in going to the zoo yesterday, because now we had this bright and sunny day and wouldn’t that be nice for walking around the zoo?

You might think that, but you would be wrong. Sun != warmth. I know you may think that sunlight equals warmth, especially since the sun is well known for being a flaming ball of gas and fire, but the warmth of the sun can be countered by that sly devil known as The Wind.

The Wind was out in full force today, as a reminder that “temperature” is a meaningless number akin to “gross income.” Temperature does not tell the true story, it is only one small part of the scene. Today may have been sunny and it may have been about the same temperature as the rest of the week, but it felt 10-15° F cooler than the rest of the week.

As we drove into the city today, we wondered what was up with all the traffic. Then we got into the city, and wondered what was up with all the places offering “Event Parking” for $20/day (rather than the $5-$6 we had usually seen). We were unaware that a little thing called March Madness had arrived in the Seattle area. Swarms and droves of basketball groupies invaded our perfectly planned off-peak vacation! How dare they!!

We finally found respectable parking at $7 for a “carpool” rate. They wanted $10 unless you had 3 people in the car. We pulled in and I handed the man $7. He looked at me and then Tracey, then peered in the back window. “What, you got a little guy in there, do you?” “Yup... he counts, right? After all, he’s human.” “Works for me, have a nice day.” (Have I mentioned how nice the folks in Seattle have been? I don‘t know if they have prozac in the drinking water or what, but every service person we have met has been just really pleasant.)

So we made our way to the Pacific Science Center and selected our IMAX movie Bugs in 3D (more on that later) which came as part of our CityPass (see Day 12 part 1 for more on the CityPass). The remarkable thing about today is that I don’t think I took a single picture of Ethan with his tools! They have been clearly inseparable for the duration of the trip, but today there was a lot to play with, including a water table (no pictures of that, too busy being sure that he didn’t drown other children while splashing... plus new digital camera + water = bad idea, so it stayed in the case).

Not having learned my lesson from yesterday’s trip to the zoo where I even said that it was a good thing that he didn’t find the tractor until the end of the day, I led him to a play helicopter which also had a steering wheel.

Ethan played on that helicopter for at least 45 minutes. Mind you, the only moving part was the steering wheel which went around and around and around, but that was plenty for him.

He enjoyed splashing and throwing toys with wild abandon in the water table. His father refused to let his mother put one of those little plastic bibs on him to keep him from getting wet while playing in water. Kids should get wet. It’s OK that he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty (he’s actually quite fastidious in general. My dad calls him Felix) but if he wants to play in water, let him play. He’s a kid.

By the way I have no idea why I felt so strongly about that. No logical reason whatsoever. I remember a friend from high school joking that he was never going to let his kids wear helmets when they rode their bicycles. “You crack your head open, you suck it up and deal with it. And don’t come crying to me.” Same friend now has two daughters. Will have to call and see how he feels about this parenting technique now. But there is something to the fact that life is dangerous, and while I would never argue against kids wearing bicycle helmets or batting helmets (and I find it bizarre that hockey players objected to being made to wear helmets), there is a sense in which it seems that we are protecting kids from so much that at times I wonder if we aren’t robbing them of some experience of being a carefree kid. That said, I would feel awful if he did manage to hurt himself in some way that we could have prevented... so sure I’ll insist that he wear a helmet when he rides his bike... but let him play in the water table without a little plastic bib to keep him dry.

(For those concerned that he would risk pneumonia and imminent death, fortunately the kid has a smart mother who brought him a change of clothes, because he was completely soaked by the time he was done. But he loved every minute of it.)

Anyway, if you start at the picture of Ethan in the helicopter and imagine him making whirring noises for about 15-20 minutes, that was pretty much a good chunk of his day. It reminded me of the toy that he and Kush were playing with (see day 3, scroll down). I asked Vivek, “How long do you think you could keep yourself entertained with that?” [The toy consisted of two tracks. Put a ball in one track and it goes around and came out. Ethan and Kush played with it nonstop.] “Not long,” he said, “but I wish I could. I’d save a lot of money on wood-working equipment [his grown-up hobby].” Same with the helicopter. I deny any adult to be able to sit there for ⅓ of the time a kid can without being bored to tears. (I’m actually trying to figure out if humans actually have to learn how to be bored as we get older. Kids can get engrossed in something so minor for so long... Are we born with an ability to be easily satisfied only to lose it as we get older?)

Ray Romano talked about this with kids. He saw one of his kids in deep thought one day and asked, “What are you thinking about?” “Candy” was the answer. He said, “Try and think about candy for a few minutes as an adult.... ‘Hrmmm... candy... candy.... candy... candy.... cavities... dentist... drilling.... AAAARRRRGHHH!”

It was not for the lack of things to see or do either. There were dinosaurs, motorized and everything, but Ethan didn’t care much for that. Here you can see Ethan’s response to the dinosaur exhibit (yawn).

We all went to Bugs in 3D, which means that I have now seen more IMAX movies in the past 3 days than I have in the past 3 years. There are TWO Imax theatres at the Science Center, which, frankly, I think is a sign that they need to work on their sharing skills.

Anyway, Bugs in 3D was very cool. First of all, you’ve got bugs, which are always good on a big screen (and this was a really really big screen). Second of all you’ve got 3D, which is a technology which really should be used more often. Third you have irony, because Bugs in 3D was sponsored by Terminix, which is a pest control company. Irony makes almost anything better, so that just made me enjoy it all the more. Actually there was even more irony than that. Due to my wearing glasses underneath the giant 3D goggles, I sometimes found that the picture was a bit more clear if I closed one eye. So 3D looked better when it was fooling what was essentially 1D rather than 2D.

If that wasn’t enough, you also get to see a praying mantis totally bite the head off of another bug that it had stalked and killed. There was also a dramatic build up between the life of the praying mantis and the life of a butterfly nee caterpillar which culminated at the end of the movie. I won’t give away the ending, but if you get a chance to see it, by all means check it out. There’s also a very tastefully done seduction scene with a male and female praying mantis. As if dating and courting weren’t stressful enough, the male praying mantis has to be careful or the female may bite his head off, and we aren’t talking metaphorically either. (I wonder if that made it into Sex and the City?)

Afterwards we also went to a very cool exhibit on combustion. Anytime there is a demonstration of stuff being set on fire or blown up, I’ll be there.

At one point the presenter blew up 3 balloons, one filled with helium, one filled with hydrogen, and one filled with hydrogen and oxygen. We were actually a little afraid of Ethan’s response to this, given his deep and abiding love of all things balloons. Tracey was imagining out loud a future conversation Ethan would have with a doctor, “It all started when my parents brought me to this place where they just blew up 3 perfectly good balloons for no reason....”

In case you were wondering, helium is inert and does nothing when exposed to flame. The hydrogen balloon, however, produced a very satisfying “BOOM!” which actually sent a little shock/soundwave through the air, as did the hybrid hydrogen/oxygen balloon. She also lit some sort of metal powder on fire, but I can’t remember what it was called, probably because I was staring right at it when she lit it, rather than looking only out of the corner of my eye as she had cleary suggested to us several times. She also made us promise not to try this at home, but I totally think I could handle it and it would make a great party trick. Will have to look up the name of that metal on the Internet and see if I can order some.... after all, the spots in front of my eyes are almost gone now, and it’s only been 12 hours since the presentation... How bad could it be if it didn’t leave permanent damage?

Oh, by the way, most of the pictures you have seen were taken by me, because when I gave Tracey the camera for a few minutes, she came back and told me she had taken a picture of fossilized poop. I thought she was kidding. Make that “hoped” she was kidding. She wasn’t. She found this highly amusing. I find it highly amusing to share it with people.

After the exhibit Tracey went to the planetarium where they talked about a bunch of stuff about stars. She tried to explain it all to me but nothing really stuck except wondering how she could be 31 and not have known that the North Star doesn’t move. Anyway, while she was there, Ethan and I went back to the play area and back to the helicopter.

I finally moved him to another area to see if he would play with anything else (thus potentially contributing to his development of a shorter attention span). He spotted the slide, which I did not think would be a big deal, considering that he only went down by himself for the first time two weeks ago at the Monterery Aquarium.

He surprised me again by spending the next 30 minutes going down the slide, up the stairs, down the slide, up the stairs. And after landing at the bottom, he would giggle and laugh and run in his little wobbly boy way to the steps.

Do you see that ring at the bottom of the slide (which was there to keep kids clear of the bottom of the slide, I guess)? In 5,273 times down the slide, Ethan tripped over that ring when trying to get back to the steps 5,270 times, and giggled his head off while he was doing it. At first he was trying to step over it, but when he found out it was too high for him to get over quickly, he just started throwing himself over it like a giant body slam

Oh, and this threesome of really cute girls came over to slide with him for awhile and all had great fun. Sometimes a father’s pride just overwhelms you :-D

Tonight we went to a fund-raising dinner for PAWS which was really interesting. Highlight was Roger Fouts keynote address and an auction where a finger-painting by an ape (I think) which had been kept in a cage in an area mall. After several minutes of intense bidding, it sold for $5,000. I wonder if they would be interested in any of Ethan’s early work?

Judy had arranged not only for us to attend, but also setup a baby sitter, so we had an adult night out on the town. We returned home to a report that while Ethan had chanted “mom mom mom” for some time after we left, he had been quite the charmer, as usual, and had conked out around his usual bedtime.

Speaking of bedtime, it is well past mine.

Night all.

Posted by TjL at 11:11 PM | Permalink

. .

Ok I admit that today’s title makes absolutely no sense. I should have written “Today we went to the Seattle Zoo” as the title, but that title is boring, and post titles should be clever, like sermon titles.

Making up post titles is only slightly better than having to make up sermon titles, because sermon titles are not only printed on a piece of paper which is seen/held by 95% of the people who attend worship, but they are also put on the board outside the church building where any passerby can see it.

On sermon titles, a colleague once lamented, “Do we have to be clever every week?” Note that this was not a question as much as a statement of what is generally accepted. Sermon titles, it is felt by an apparently large number of people, should be clever, sort of like the titles of novels. Personally I’ve always preferred descriptive over clever when it comes to something like the title of a book, something which tells you a bit about what to expect, perhaps even a keyword or two that I might find when searching Amazon.com by title. But clever has won the day. And terse. Terse and clever. If you can throw in enigmatic, all the better. Be clever, but don’t let people know what you are going to be talking about (or writing). Make them at least open the dust jacket (for a book) or at least tune in to the opening minutes of the monologue (for a sermon) or scan the text of the article (for website posts). The reason for this is that if you are overly descriptive, people may opt out. They may choose not to listen or read do whatever action you were hoping to entice them into doing.

If you are clever and terse and enigmatic, they may read the dust jacket (which transforms the pressure from 2-3 words to approximately 100) or listen to the first few minutes of the sermon or read the first few paragraphs of the website page. That gives you further opportunity to draw them in with more cleverness and enigmatism.

Which brings me to my next point (or perhaps the conclusion of my first point, or just the vain hope of bringing this to a conclusion), that no one who has any interest in a book being sold should be allowed to give it a title, or write anything on the dust cover, or solicit quotes for the dust cover (which, hopefully everyone knows, are often just put there to boost the visibility of the quote-giver. I’d link to the article I was just reading about that but I can’t find the URL). Book titles, dust jacket descriptions, and quotes should all get to the point of what the book is really about and whether or not it is worth your money, and more importantly, your time. The same is also true for movies, in case you were wondering.

By this point most of you have already stopped reading and are just scanning down looking at the pictures, aren’t you? Well that’s ok too.

For the two of you who are reading (probably my mom and maybe Tracey’s mom), we went to the Woodland Park Zoo today, and had a blast. Judy came with us, which made it all the more fun. Judy is our friend from the beagle list who is hosting us while we are in Seattle, for those of you who have lost track. Since most of you haven’t met Judy, all I need to tell you is that Ethan has taken a shining to her, and if Ethan likes her (and she seems to like him plenty too!) then you know she’s “good people.”

It was a bit drizzly today at the outset, and a little cool as well. Ethan had a long sleeve outfit on, plus a sweater, plus a coat... poor soul could barely bend at the arms. As we were driving there, I wondered if we ought to have a backup plan... what do we do if it starts to really rain down? Should we try for another day? Would another day be better weather? (Wunderground and Seattle Times both said no.) Would there be enough to do to fill a day?

The answer to the last question was definitely yes. We arrived at the park around 11 a.m. and left at 6 p.m. only because the park was closing, and there were still more things that we could have seen. The park actually closes at 5 p.m. and some of the exhibits closed then.

There is so much to see in this zoo it was really amazing. I have never been a big fan of zoos or aquariums, but I think even though Ethan isn’t quite old enough to really “get” some of it, I still enjoy watching him which makes it fun for me.

The first thing we saw was the peacock pictured above (by the way, the pictures look a lot better if you click on them and get the full sized versions). She wasn’t in a cage, just sort of roaming the grounds. She let us get fairly close, but still kept the option open of jumping up and maiming us whenever she felt like it. We saw her again just before we left. Apparently she is the nightwatchman..err...peacock.

We saw, unsurprisingly, a lot of different animals, most of whose names I either did not learn or soon forgot, because there is, after all, a limit to the number of things that one can remember, and I have a hard enough time with things like my keys and wallet, so remembering the name of “the animal we saw that looked like a dog” will just have to wait for another life when I have a flawless and unlimited memory.

What I can tell you is that they were all cuddled up together much like dogs do, and looked very much like housedogs, except they had really long skinny legs. The “dogpile” was especially cute because one stayed curled up when the other got up (“Hey! Where are you going? You were my pillow!”) and then when he came back he decided that he wanted to use the other one as pillow.

The animals were clearly a bit cold except the penguins, who were swimming around like drag racers and making their funny honking-penguin noises.

The hippos, for example, never even got out of the water, except their noses, which they used to take in fresh oxygen in exchange for their spent breath, which was bad enough to make Tracey cover her nose and she has changed roughly 8 billion of Ethan’s diapers which, sad to say, do not get better over time.

There were definitely some animals which kept our attention for longer than the others. The jaguar, for example. We must have stayed there and watched him pace his area for about 20 minutes.

He looked soft a cuddly like many of the other animals. You kinda wish that you could just sneak in there and curl up next to them and cuddle against his big soft fur, because that would feel so nice you might not even notice when he bit off your head as a late afternoon snack.

Two funny things happened with the jaguar.... the first is that there is a small hole in the rocks which look into his lair which you see when you first come around the corner. When we came around the corner, all you see is a hole in the rock and a jaguar sitting there like “Hi, I’m gonna pounce on you now, you made a wrong turn and I’m out of my cage and no one noticed yet. Hope you had a good breakfast because you’re gonna be a great lunch.” I wonder how many other folks have come around that corner to see him sitting there and had that moment of fright before you realize that he’s totally behind plexiglass and can’t really get you, he just likes to play with the tourists.

The other funny thing was Ethan, who stood just on the other side of the plexiglass for the entire time we were there. As the jaguar would walk past they were probably no more than 2 feet apart. Ethan just stood there (as seen in the picture here). I imagined the jaguar coming around each time thinking to himself, “Please let the kid be on the inside of the glass this time.... rats, ok, I’m going to come around again, maybe this time...”

This was funny because people kept coming by to see the jaguar and would see Ethan sitting there like the Aryan poster child and they all commented on his cuteness. What neither the jaguar nor the other tourists knew was that he spent most of that time in that Baby Gap pose totally filling his diaper with something which smelled so bad from several feet away that Tracey and I nearly resorted to Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who would have to change him. I fully believe that had he managed to get into the jaguar lair before we changed him, the jaguar would have cowered in fear from this diaper. [Note: That was after this picture was taken, so no need to let it detract from the cuteness of the moment... after all Everyone Poops.]

This fellow was sitting in the window apparently waiting for someone to come along and sit down to chat.

It was just after lunch (for him) and he was sitting there with such a kind look on his face that you wished he could have told you what he was thinking. He definitely had a look like he had something he wanted to share, and you wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that he had just finished reading a book that he thought was particularly interesting and would you care to hear his thoughts on it?

Or maybe he had an idea for a great book that was unlike anything that had ever been written before, and he even had a good title for it that was clever but not enigmatic.

A little while later we came across the gorillas, and there was some interesting social/family dynamic going on there, let me tell you.

There was a momma gorilla and a baby gorilla. Their roles were pretty clearly defined. Then there was another female gorilla, and we’re not sure exactly how she played in the social structure, but it was pretty clear she wasn’t all that thrilled about the presence of the baby gorilla. We’re going to call this gorilla “Tonya” because she didn’t have a name and it is a heck of a lot easier than calling her the other female gorilla. No offense to any human Tonya is intended, with the possible exception of this one.

When the baby gorilla finally left the momma alone for a few minutes, Tonya came over and started giving her a hard time. Momma didn’t appreciate that, as anyone who has seen a new mother who finally has a few minutes to herself might expect. Momma didn’t have to say much, but Tonya knew enough to not push it too far.

But at one point Tonya got Baby Gorilla away from Momma, and started to act like she was going to harm Baby. Tonya rolled Baby around and generally seemed to be trying to get into a Jerry Springeresque smackdown with Momma, which we all would have liked to have seen because it was a relatively slow day at the zoo and most of the animals were just cuddled up and sleeping. Momma didn’t take the bait, though, she just took Baby back and walked away. Clearly Momma had dealt with Tonya before and felt it was best just to ignore her.

That’s Tonya up there who Ethan is looking at through the window in the picture above — and yes, those are his tools on the ground near his feet. He does occasionally let go of them, but not often.

The next stop was the Tropical Rainforest, which was majorly cool featuring everything from several different kinds of (sorry Mom) snakes and birds and poison spitting frogs (too cool!). Did I mention the toucans? They were also very cool. Well, actually they were fairly warm, as the exhibit was like 70° or 80° Farenheit. That was a particularly enjoyable part of the visit on a cold and damp day.

Oh! I almost forgot about the elephants.

They were in a special building to keep them warm, and there was one elephant that was alternatively dancing from one foot to another (think about a Junior High slow dance and you’ll get the idea) and then trying to hide behind a support beam.

About the only thing that was actually hidden behind the support beam was his trunk but he kept doing it in such a way that it really seemed like he thought he was hiding. Ethan was mirroring the elephant dance and having a grand ol’ time, but he did wonder how the elephant could possibly think he was hiding behind that beam.

(By the way, I totally wanted to Photoshop the pictures of Ethan with the elephant and the hippo and change the colors so that they looked more realistic and see if I could fool anyone into thinking he was that close to the live versions, but my Photoshop skills are fairly limited and it’s already getting late, so just imagine I did it and that you were really fooled there for a minute.)

One of the last things we saw was the little petting zoo area. At least we think it was the petting zoo part. Well, put it this way, there were animals, there was petting, and there was really no one there to stop us, so there.

The goats were really happy to see us, however I’m fairly sure they would have been happier if we all happened to be carrying some carrots or other food items, because while baby fingers are tasty, there’s really not that much meat on them, and these are growing goats, for goodness sake!

Last stop on the tour was this tractor, which was really a good thing because if Ethan had seen this when we had first arrived, we might not have been able to see any of the rest of the zoo, which would have been a shame because we all really enjoyed ourselves and I’m sure we will all sleep extra well from the several hours of fresh extra moist Seattle air.

A good time was had by all, and not once did Tracey mention that the weather was so much better on Monday and would have been much warmer if only I hadn’t forgotten my wallet. But then we would have had to leave early to get to the harbor cruise, and Judy couldn’t have come with us since she was busy that day, so it really worked out OK in the end.

Tomorrow, the science center! I may have to bring my laptop so I can download pictures during the day :-)

By the way, we are totally loving the Canon Powershot A80. This may be enough to sell me on Canon digital cameras for many years to come, and keep me away from Olympus. The Canons have been much easier to use and get good pictures with, while the Olympus models seem to have a lot of features but are just too hard to use.

Posted by TjL at 11:20 PM | Permalink

I had no idea until this vacation how much I would enjoy an aquarium. It never struck me as something that I would really like, not that I had anything against them, but I didn’t give them much thought either.

We had already been to the Monterey Aquarium and so we had wondered whether or not we wanted to go to another one. Actually I think we had planned to see the one in Oregon too except that there was that fiasco and we just ended up driving for 2½ days.

Ethan had such a good time at the first one that it seemed like a good bet, plus it was part of the CityPass about which I have already given my two thumbs up review.

We planned to take the whole day, which is always risky because if you find that you aren’t enjoying yourself then there’s no backup plan. As soon as we walked in I knew there would be no problem filling the day, there was a chart listing all the activities for the day, which seemed to be at least 2 or 3 per hour. Law of averages tells you that you will like some of them. (Insider Tip: Not only do they rent strollers, but they will look after your stroller if you ask them to and put it in a secure back room so you don’t have to keep an eye on it all day and push it around with you, but you can get access to it if you want it. I’m not sure what genius came up with this idea, but I bet they have kids.)

The first was the octopus feeding. Let me just say that an octopus is not an attractive creature. Say whatever you like about them, don’t say they aren’t ugly or everyone will start to think you are either delusional or a liar. They are, however, undeniably cool, and don’t argue or the same evaluation will take place. I mean if 8 legs aren’t enough (and I think we’ll all agree that 8 is enough.... sorry, had to be said), then how about 8 legs with hundreds of suction cups? That’s cool^2, or maybe cool^8....

During the feeding, the guide told us that last week the female octopus had climbed out of the tank during the night. You might ask, “Can an octopus live outside of its tank?” The answer would be no. However, if you asked if the fact that an octoput can climb out of its tank can give you a major case of the heebie-jeebies, that answer would be an emphatic yes. Apparently one of the night crew found it outside the tank and put it into a holding tank. Fortunately for the octopus I was not the night crew member who found it, because I would have either passed out on the floor (most likely after “inking” myself) or there would have been a Tim-shaped hole in the wall ala Looney Toons and I would have stopped running and screaming approximately the same time the Australian Border Patrol was asking to see my passport (also most likely after inking myself). I hope they gave him a raise or a bonus or something, because you gotta expect that being night watch at the aquarium is relatively smooth sailing and here’s a guy who had the wherewithal and intestinal fortitude to pick up this nasty looking beast of suction cup death and keep it alive so that a bunch of tourists can watch it eat fish off a stick and take pictures like it was the lunar landing.

The whole aquarium was just too cool with stuff to see and do. There was a cutout octopus for kids to put their heads through for goofy tourist parents to take their pictures. There were starfish for you to reach out and touch and for goofy tourist parents to take pictures of their kids touching, like they are old enough to know that it’s a bit creepy to touch something that looks and seems docile but could any minute now just jump up and suck your face until your brain turns to lumpy stew. There was an archway with jellyfish (or “jellies” as my dear bride keeps insisting on calling them since that is what they called them in the Monterery Aquarium) which just keep circling around and around underneath multicolored lights for goofy tourist parents to take pictures of their kids under.

Tracey was very interested to see the Sea Horse feeding, which I missed while watching Ethan hammer some random piece of the aquarium into submission. She learned that the male sea horse carries the sea horse babies while they are gestating. She thought that was very cool. I thought that the Sea Horse had probably been watching too much Oprah and probably took a lot of razzing from pretty much the entire rest of the ocean population, including the jellyfish which don’t have a brain but would probably still find a Jelly-specific way of mocking the Sea Horse. Then I read that the Sea Horse “dad” sometimes carries eggs for different females at the same time. They have a name for that kind of behavior, but I won’t use it in mixed company, and by mixed I mean people without a sense of humor and the rest of us who are laughing anyway.

Goofy tourist parent can take pictures of the Sea Horses, but no flash photography, please... he needs his beauty rest, and besides his ankles are swollen with all that excess pregnancy weight and would rather not have his picture taken anyway. (Question: when looking at a species, what is it that decides “male” versus “female” if it isn’t a question of which one bears the young? Cuz that’s usually a pretty good indicator in like 99.999999999% of the cases I’ve heard, and I wonder why they made the exception in this case.)

We saw a ton of other cool fish too, and more sea otters which are just fun to watch. The day went very quickly and before we knew it, it was time to go to the IMAX theatre which had THREE different movies playing: The Eruption of Mount St. Helens, Ocean Oasis, and The Living Sea. They were all cool, although Ocean Oasis was a little heavy handed with the whole agenda of “We are all connected so don’t pollute” which I’m guessing is probably preaching to the choir for 92.5% of the people who actually go to see an IMAX movie called Ocean Oasis. The Living Sea had Sting playing in the background for the majority of it as well, so don’t go if you can’t stand so close to him. It was narrated by Meryl Streep, whose narrating voice could probably put anyone to sleep, especially if you were in a very dark room with a nearly-two-year-old napping on you.

The Mount St. Helens was probably my favorite, although they were all good, even with the social agendas and sleepy narration (I like Sting, so that was a plus for me). It’s amazing to me that I have even a vague recollection of something that happened 24 years ago. I think I’m going to pretend that I don’t remember hearing about that when it happened or anything. After all, who would believe me anyway?

3 IMAX movies and a full day at the Aquarium later, we did go back to the Claim Jumper (and I did make a point to say hello again to the really nice manager lady from yesterday). Food was equally delish. Came home and had a little more of my amazingly good cheesecake, which I have now sampled for 3 days and still have a little bit left. There just might be something to this whole not eating everything all at once thing... instead of having cheesecake for 1 day, I’ll have it for 4, and anyone can tell you that 4 days with cheesecake is better than 1.

Posted by TjL at 10:31 PM | Permalink

Ok, well after a minor (in retrospect) setback, we headed out to the Argosy Cruise Seattle Harbor Tour which is part of the CityPass (if you missed me talking about the CityPass yesterday, take a look, as it’s very cool).

We found our way to downtown Seattle without any difficulties, and found Pier 55/56 without any difficulty (and how did we know we needed that pier? It was on the CityPass website!) which was quite a relief after all the excess driving we have done. We even found a decent parking spot with time left on the meter (apparently there was some sort of a cosmic karmic struggle going on where forgetting my wallet in the morning would result in good parking spaces for the rest of the day). I was even able to run into the restaurant and grab a quick burger before the boat left.

On the way we saw The Crab Pot. In another life several years ago I was there with a group of teenagers after a mission trip to the Seattle area. It was the end of a long week of hard work and as a reward we brought the kids to downtown Seattle. Ask anyone who has led a similar trip and they will tell you that no matter how good the trip has been (and ours had been good) and how good the kids have been (and ours had been great), by the end of the week everyone’s nerves are a little frayed and tensions can run a little high.

It was our last night together before we flew back, and the other adult leader and I were walking around town looking for a place we could take this group for a big send-off meal together. The group of about 15 was pressuring us to be able to eat wherever they wanted to, in separate, smaller groups. We looked at each other and decided that we were going to keep them together. The only problem was finding somewhere we could all agree on, which isn’t an easy thing to do with 5 people, nevermind a dozen-plus teenagers and two adults.

I don’t remember how we decided upon The Crab Pot, other than the fact that it was there and had enough seating for all of us, but it turned out to be the perfect place. We all sat around one huge table together. Several of the kids (a term of affection, not derision) ordered a crab pot, which is, as you might expect, a large pot filled with crab. What you might not expect is that the crab is meant to be dumped all over the table, bibs are handed out, and one is not only allowed to make a mess while eating, it is intended to be a part of the experience.

So while the rest of us were eating like civilized folks, a small contingent was feasting on crab in what would probably pass for a decent reenactment of a Roman pagan food festival on the scale of Marti Gras in New Orleans. And while one might expect that those who were not gorging themselves on crustaceans might object to being hit by the occasional bit of flying crustacean juice (especially if the recipients of said flying liquid were teenagers at the end of a long week of manual labor), there was not one single unhappy sound uttered for the entire meal. In fact there was quite a bit of laughter, happy chatter, and overall merriment around the entire table for the full duration of the meal. It was one of those serendipitous times where everything worked out perfectly. At several points during the night my fellow chaperone/leader and I both found ourselves smiling over the entire scene, and exchanged a look across the table which said, “This was what we all needed as the perfect ending.”

Back to present day, we piled onto the boat and had a very enjoyable cruise around the harbor, and picked up a few interesting tidbits including the high sales level of sunglasses in Seattle (“we don’t need them very often, so we buy a new pair, wear them, then lose them before the next sunny day, so we have to buy new ones” explained our tour guide) and the low level of rainfall in Seattle (about 36 inches, we were told and easily confirmed via Google, which is less than many cities (see the same link for a listing) such as Miami, Dallas, and Chicago. Of course while Florida cities get more rain, it usually falls in torrential downpours measuring roughly 8,500 gallons in approximately 6 minutes around 4 p.m. each afternoon, preceded and followed by approximately 18 hours of sunshine, as opposed to Seattle’s 23 hours and 54 minutes of gray on the average day).

After the cruise we headed to Pike Place Market (note: resist the urge to call it Pike’s Place which is a bar in Wisconsin, not a Seattle landmark). We found yet another great parking space with 1 hour free parking near one end of the Market. We did have to wait for about 4-5 minutes as a group of folks with a combined age of 415 got into their car, but the line of cars behind us was very patient as they all accepted the fact that they too would hold us traffic for such a primo spot, but their karmic balance was just a touch too high to score such a great spot.

In addition to the many ultracool homemade goods which are available, a highlight of the Market is the Pike Place High Flyin’ Fish Market where they toss the fish about the place just for your entertainment (they also have a High Flyin’ Fishcam, err, webcam). It was something of a slow day for business, so there weren’t all that many fish being tossed either hither, thither, or yon, but still it was more flying fish than I usually see during the course of a day.

Ethan enjoyed the opportunity to run up and down the aisles and going up and down the stairs and basically going every which way but loose.

Next up on the fast and furious touristy day (BTW I am not getting paid per use of the word “touristy” but if anyone would like to sponsor the word for a nominal fee, please let me know) was the Space Needle. Another decent parking spot and some spare change later and we were on our way.

Another brief step into the past... when we were in Seattle with the aforementioned teenagers, we arrived at the Space Needle en masse and were greeted by a very friendly (which seems to be common in the city) ticket seller who realized that we were a group and sold us a “frequent rider” pass. With approximately 16 people riding up to see the city from on high, this saved us at least one or two full fares and was a generally really nice thing to do. That trip was also in the month of July, and the line for getting up was quite long. Today there was no line at all, in fact we were the only folks on the elevator (did I mention Ethan loves elevators? He likes to push the button and then insists on standing by himself, even when he was being held, which he almost always prefers. He stands right up against the wall, and is usually the first one out the door when it opens).

It was so empty that we actually wondered if it was closed, which it wasn’t, but there was a sign that said that the observation deck had been reserved for a “private function” from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. We were led to wonder who in their right mind (or otherwise) rents out the entire Space Needle. One of the employees told us that it happens quite often for various functions and that it was actually a fund-raising group that was in town for a conference. Apparently the whole “gotta spend money to make money” is true everywhere. I have already started to think about possible upcoming life events which would warrant my renting the Observation Deck of the Space Needle, so don’t be surprised if the invitations to my next birthday party come with a phone number for a travel agent.

I was surprised on my previous trip to the Space Needle that upon arriving at the outside area of the observation deck, I was panic stricken over the height. I literally had to have someone else take pictures as I pressed my back against the wall, and imagined that I felt the hold structure swaying in the wind. So I was anticipating a similar reaction this time... except nothing happened! I was absolutely fine and had no qualms about it. I’m not saying I wanted to get out and walk around the edge but really it was no big deal to be on the observation deck.

I did notice that if I looked through the safety plexi-glass while I was walking, there was something of a shimmering effect to whatever was being viewed below. Perhaps that is what turned my stomach around last time. I really couldn’t say.

It was a really nice time to be out there, the deck was not overly full and the sky was relatively clear. Ethan was just a little too short to see anything without being lifted up, and kept trying to bite the telescope, so it probably was not a highlight of the trip for him... except, who knows, how often do you get to bite a telescope if you don’t own one?

Upon descending to terra firma, we exited into the gift shop (no flies on those architects!) and located a large-enough-to-not-get-lost-and-small-enough-not-to-be-overwhelming new ball for Ethan. It has the Seattle Mariners logo on it instead of the Space Needle, but Ethan seemed unfazed by the disconnect.

Not wanting to waste any moment of the day beyond the ½ of it we spent in the car which I promise not to mention again, we headed over to the Children’s Museum, which, despite the name, is not a place where they store children from throughout the ages, although I did suggest that perhaps they get together with the wax museum people and get on that.

Some might think that it is silly to go to the Children’s Museum at 4:30 p.m. when it closes at 5, but they would be foolish people who are not wise in the ways of travel. We popped our heads in and asked if we could see a brochure, and the kindly woman let us just go in and look around. This gave us 30 minutes to check the place out, which was more than enough time for Ethan and I to play a little ball and for his mom to totally check out the rest of the joint. It was not something that he would have enjoyed, ergo, it would not be a place we would have enjoyed, so we did not need to plan to go back another day. (Did I mention that Tracey went through the entire day saying “CHECK!” whenever we finished our time at one place, as if mentally checking off items from some travel to-do list? Ok, sure, we do have such a list, but who wouldn’t? Still it was a little disconcerting...)

After that there was little to do but go home, since most of the touristy ($cha-ching$!! <insert your slogan here!!>) places close around 5 p.m. Of course on the way home Tracey started talking about food, and asked me if I was hungry, which I wasn’t and which she wasn’t, except that she started talking about food, so about 10 minutes later my stomach started saying “Food? Really?” So we had to look for a place to eat. The traffic home wasn’t bad, especially compared to the nightmare that would have been San Francisco traffic at 5 p.m. which is why their touristy places probably stay open later.

We stumbled onto a place called Claim Jumpers which is a totally goofy name and a place we had never heard of which made us skeptical. We drove around the area several times without finding anything better which led us to say that we’d try it and see.

There was a bit of a wait, so Ethan got to play ball with Some Random Woman who was also waiting for a table. She very much thought he was adorable, which means that we liked her immediately and had a sense that she must be a good and kind person, and we wish for good things to happen to her. That was fun and all, but now we were both hungry, so it was time to bring on the food!

We did get our table pretty quickly and within the allotted 10-15 minutes our little Plastic Flashing Vibrating Signal of Chosenness started to whirr. It’s as close to winning the lottery as we’re likely to get, especially since we don’t actually play the lottery (which only slightly decreases the mathematically chances that we might win the lottery). Oh, did I mention that when we were handed said piece of Plastic Potential Signal of Chosenness I asked the hostess if it would vibrate when it was activated and she said, “Yes but we’re not allowed to say that”?? Is that not one of the stranger things you’ve heard? Wouldn’t you want people to know that the vibrating sensation they are feeling means that their time has come? I certainly found it strange, along with the fact that they made a big deal out of giving us some random Wild West Sounding Name (something like “Navaho Ranchers”) which, as near as I can tell, served no purpose except that they handed us a little cardboard coaster that had that made up name written on it which they never used for calling us because we had the Plastic Potential Signal. If I owned the restaurant I would skip the random Wild West Sounding Name and instead I’d write “Psst... the little plastic thing vibrates when it’s your turn, but don’t tell anyone!!” on it.

Our time came, we were seated and presented with menus slightly larger than Denmark. Seriously the things were 2.5 feet high and had a wingspan of approximately 6 feet when fully opened. Or maybe I was just hungry, but they were big menus. I ordered the Shrimp Taquitos (yummy) and the Pepperoni & Beef Pizza. Tracey ordered the Whisky Chicken. By the way, you may have noticed that several of the meals outlined from this vacation have been various levels of Not Atkins Approved. This has been pure laziness on my part, but I’ve also worn the shorts that I bought on our honeymoon and my 38" jeans are still a little loose, so I’m just going to keep on enjoying myself until we get back home and then probably go back to being more strict with the way that I eat. Just in case you were wondering. Oh, and Ethan ate most of the crust of the pizza, so that totally doesn’t count.

My pizza was quite delish, as were the shrimp taquitos (and the sauce), but the real star of the evening was The Mashed Potatoes which came with Tracey’s meal. These brought a look of joy and glee to my lovely bride’s face which is pretty much unchallenged for happiest look on her face since the doctor told her to stop pushing because labor was complete. These were, you understand, very good mashed potatoes. And gravy... let’s not forget the gravy, I think I heard her talk about the gravy too, but it was kind of hard to hear with all the mashed potatoes in her mouth. At one point I was fairly concerned that she might lift the plate, scoop them into her mouth and then ask for more.

The chicken, now relegated to essentially a side-dish to the transcendent MP&G of 2004, was stuffed with apples and some sort of a sauce that came as a welcome sequel, which even though it may not have lived up to the original, was still worth seeing... or, rather, eating. It was only a minor disappointment in an otherwise amazing meal when the chicken itself was found to be rather tough. Not overcooked, just generally not a great piece of meat, which is, statistically, going to happen once in awhile. Tracey said she was so stuffed that she couldn’t have eaten it anyway, and with her delicate flower of a stomach, there was no need to push it (she was still suffering some ill effect of something apparently from the Indian food of the previous day).

When the waiter heard that she wasn’t going to eat the chicken, he asked why, and Tracey told him that it honestly wasn’t very good. About 0.002 seconds later there was a manager at the side of the table, asking if she could replace the chicken with a new one at no cost. Here I was nearly sure that Tracey was going to instead ask for more mashed potatoes and gravy, but was legitimately full and assured the manager that she was full and it was really No Big Deal. The manager was clearly trying to make sure that we were not disappointed, and asked if there was anything else she could get us, but I had also maxed out, and Ethan had crutons, crackers, and pizza crust, so unless she was offering to give him a bath and get him down for bed, there wasn’t much more that could be done for us.

“Ok” she finally relented, “I’m going to take that off the bill then.” Now if you had seen this plate, where the stuffing and side orders looked like they had been field stripped by a team of army specialists, you would have no doubt felt that whatever battalion had been served, they had eaten well and were back out protecting the perimeter. (Hey, no judgement, there was nothing left on my plate either, although Ethan did eat the crust.) But she apologized again said that she hoped we would come back, and we assured her we would.

(By the way, to all the restaurant managers out there, this is how you treat customers so that they not only come back but tell others about your service. By taking $15 off the bill for someone who was a little disappointed with the meal, she pretty much assured that we would go away with a good feeling about their concern for the customer, and that if we were going to spend our hard earned money there, we were going to enjoy it all, regardless of how amazing the mashed potatoes were.)

After that there was nothing but a short trip home where we got slightly lost but didn’t really care because we were stuffed anyway, except that there were the 4 Diet Cokes with no ice and lemon that I had with dinner....

Posted by TjL at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So after several days and several hundred miles, I was looking forward to getting back on the real vacation path, you know, stuff to see, gift shops to explore, pictures to take, yadda etc.

As Tracey had done all of the planning for San Francisco, I told her I would work on the Seattle itinerary. Of course the bulk of this work was done by suggestions that people had given us, and the fact that the Seattle City Pass has several really cool places included in it.

Despite their gratutitous use of Flash (a web technology more overabused than the average corporate buzzword), I really must comment the CityPass folks for both their website and their product in general.

Example of City Pass as Generally Cool Idea: The idea is simple, buy a City Pass for several different touristy places and get a discount on them. For example, the Seattle City Pass includes the Woodland Park Zoo, Space Needle, Pacific Science Center, Seattle Aquarium, Argosy Cruises (Seattle Harbor Tour), and the Museum of Flight. All of these places are well worth visiting, and examples of sites that touristy folks are likely to want to visit. You might expect that they would throw in a couple losers, like, say, “Ed’s Belly Button Lint Museum” but these are all places that folks who live in the area would be likely to suggest to friends who are visiting from out of town.

Example #1 of City Pass as Well Executed Good Idea: The cost of all 6 of those places is $82 for an adult, but the CityPass is sold for $42. Of course not everyone will want to visit each place or have time to visit them all, but even a quick look at the individual price list will show that if you visit 4 of the 6, you will save money (not to mention time spent in ticket lines at each stop.

Example #2 of City Pass as Well Executed Good Idea: At least in Seattle (and likely at the other cities as well), the CityPass can be purchased right at each location, which means that if you haven’t ever heard of the CityPass and just show up at, say, The Space Needle, you will see a sign for it and can figure out if it is something that you want to buy and get it right there. Or if you know you want to buy it, you don’t have to make any special trip out of your way, you just pick them up at the first stop.

What makes the CityPass even better, in my opinion, is their website. Like I said, I could do without the Flash animation I’m generally pretty low-tech when it comes to websites... I’m looking for information, and fast... I don’t need or want the “flash” — I want the substance. More importantly the website has very useful information and is very clear. It will show you: a) what places are included, b) the cost [something a lot of sites seem to want to hide] of the CityPass versus if-purchased-separately, c) a clear link to buy online, d) individual links to each of the attractions, which includes hours of operation, location/driving directions, official phone number and website links, and “Insider Tips” which tell you the best time to visit, etc, and e) a note about what additional upgrades are available (for example, upgrade to a Day & Night pass for the Space Needle for $6. What is a Day & Night pass? It tells you that too!)

What do all those bits of information have in common? They are all things that visitors would want or need! There is no superfluous information or advertising/marketing nonsense cluttering the site.

Ok, so that’s today’s unsponsored advertisement for something that was actually really useful...

When visiting Seattle, one must take into consideration not only what attractions one wants to see, but the weather for the week as well. For example if you are going to the zoo, make sure there is no monsoon scheduled for that day. (Actually Seattle gets much less rain than people think, but they get much more gray sky.)

Since Monday was supposed to be the best of the weather days for the week, we decided that we would go to the zoo on Monday. I planned the entire week around the CityPass and the weather forecast. I printed out AAA driving directions for each place and coordinated visits to sites which were in close proximity to one another. Tracey complimented me for my attention to detail and organization in planning the week, and I was happy to have relieved her of some of the responsibility for the planning of the trip.

Just before we were ready to leave, Tracey mentioned that she could not find my leather jacket. My leather jacket is on