TRON

Paul Allen is a multi billionaire without anything to do but spend money on things he likes, it must be a great life. He owns two sports franchises, one of the largest yachts in the world, his own rock and roll musesum, and a movie theater. That's just the stuff I know off the top of my head but I'm sure there is tons more stuff out there. I've written about his theater before but I really like it. The precursor to IMAX and HD was something called Cinerama. Cinerama involved 3 projectors showing films on one massive screen with 6 channel sound. It might not sound like a lot but seeing movies in this format is pretty unique, according to Wikipedia there are only 3 places in the world capable of showing films in the 3 strip format. This week I went and saw Tron at the Cinerama in it's 3 strip projector glory.

Tron is not the best movie, in fact, it's probably an average movie with some pretty dated special effects. It also has interesting graphics and some very humorous pop culture references. I don't know if it was worth movie theater prices but seeing movies in a massive, restored, theater is pretty special. I'm more excited about seeing Lawrence of Arabia in this restored format in a few weeks than anything else.

I saw a 3D movie at the local IMAX theater. It was a recording of a live U2 show in Buenos Aires from a year ago I think. I'm not the biggest fan of IMAX but for $3 it was worth the price of admission. I don't know if I like IMAX enough to go out of my way for movies but it's so close to my place I should probably partake more frequently.

I've decided to join the digital music era and start getting my music in digital format. Putting CD's into a digital format takes a while per CD and it's pretty addicting. I need to go to bed before 2am tonight. Next on the list of things to buy is a digital music player of some sort... Ipods seem to be the way to go but as somebody who roots for the underdog I have to wonder if maybe an alternative player might not be the way to go. Then again Ipods are popular because they work so it might just be whatever goes on a deep sale first.

National MU day is this weekend. I'm not even sure what that means but we have a big mens home game so there should be plenty of people out to watch the game. Go MU! The Georgetown Hoyas are evil and should be destroyed.

Key Arena

I live 4 blocks away from Key Arena, where the Sonics play, and I went to my first game last night. I'm not a huge NBA fan by any standard, I rarely went to game in Milwaukee and that trend continued onto Seattle as well. I got a free ticket for a suite which is always nice because usually suite tickets mean free food and free drinks and last night was no different.

It was depressing. The place was half full on a bobblehead night (and bobbleheads are a major draw) and that is a terrible sign. The Seattle Supersonics are in a terrible spot the owner is openly trying to move the team and the city is suing the owners to make them honor a lease that will keep them in town for another 2 years. They traded away their marquee player, Ray Allen, and didn't resign another key player in Rashad Lewis. The owner, Clay Bennett, will only keep the team in town if he gets a new arena and the people of Seattle are a little taxed out. A football stadium, a baseball stadium, and MASSIVE road and infrastructure plans either already built or on the docket have burned a lot of people out. When I moved here I thought the Sonics would stay but no I'm not so sure. It's a sad state of sports franchise right now.

They are testing MacGyver myths on Mythbusters tonight. Who knew they were relatively realistic with that show. I'm kind of excited because Deadliest Catch is going to be starting soon. I keep waiting to see Sig or Edgar Hansen walking around town but no dice so far. A few of the Alaskan crab boats are based out of Seattle during the off seasons in the Ballard neighborhood. Someday I see somebody from the show.

Photos!

I know I've told some people about making wine when I went home for Christmas. Here is the "cask" we used. It was a simple recipe involving grape juice, sugar, yeast, and well, that was about it. A milkjug was used to store the liquids and my dad was diligent in keeping track of the dates activity occured. Like moving the wine from the fermenting milkjug to the aging milkjug.








So I went to my buddies place over the Christmas break, maybe I should refer to him as a partner in crime. This is a picture of the bottle of homemade wine we drank while I was at his place. We have no idea what kind of alcohol content we ended up with but a good descriptor of the wine would be tart.













When I was done drinking the wine I put on this hat. I know I'm not an elf but I was amused with myself. I ate a bowl of spaghetti, syrup, and M&M's when I was done. Then I sang baby it's cold outside... or not.










Seattle had a few clear days in a row and these are pictures I took of the course of a few days. This is looking to the East at the Cascades from the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Seattle isn't the capitol but the top has good views in almost every direction if you know where to go.










This was taken of the Olympics looking back to the West. Note the Space Needle in the lower left corner. The Olympics seem huge at times and at others they seem very accessible. I think it depends on how high up or obscured your view is.










This looking to the Southwest. My building is the tall black one on the left. A new office is in the works but it won't open for several years yet. I guess it takes a while to build offices for 3000 people. I work on the 13th floor so the view isn't the best but it's pretty solid.









There is a former military base turned forest preserve by the name of Discovery Park. It's on Puget Sound about as far West as the city of Seattle goes. It's a pretty cool piece of real estate and it has some native residents. This is the Eagle who lives at the top of an evergreen tree. Eagles make a lot of noise... I had no idea they were so vocal. I don't have a picture of the Coyote yet.









My attempt at being artistic includes the driftwood in front of the Discovery Point lighthouse. It's not the most imposing lighthouse but it qualifies.












The sunrise out my office window. Pretty nice on a clear day. This is a pretty common occurance in the summer but in the winter this is even more amazing.











I moved a little closer to the window to get a shot of the Olympic Mountains across Puget Sound.












Later that day the sunset somewhere to the Southwest and gave off this purple coloration. I thought it was pretty and someday I'll go up to the observation deck at the top of my building to get the panoramic view.

Can seagulls have high cholesterol?

So long since my last post! While I have now solved the issue of wireless internet by purchasing a broadband card my computer is on the fritz. I'll get that fixed soon but until then there will be no new pictures uploaded and there are some good ones on deck. Worst case I need to reinstall windows and then some might be lost but most are still on my camera. Those random clear days out here are pretty amazing with mountains everywhere.

I went to Kentucky a few weeks ago for work and it was a pain. Two days of traveling for one day worth of meetings seemed a bit excessive but things were accomplished so I guess it was a productive trip. Did you know there are still dry counties out there? In KY 53 of 120 counties are dry and we happened to be in one of them, which would have been bad enough but 4 of the 5 surrounding counties were also dry. It's like Friday's during lent normally I wouldn't care but since I couldn't have a beer I wanted one more than ever. Aside from the dry county part this part of KY reminded me a lot of North Dakota. It was a pretty small town with only a couple of major employers and a lot of service industry jobs but the people seemed happy.

I feel like I did something exciting the week of Feb 3rd but I can't seem to remember what it is. When you don't post often you tend to forget these things I guess. Maybe I'm turning into my parents? Ah yes. The Super Bowl. Blah for the most part. The game was good but after 2 weeks of hype I was ready for it to be over and the commercials were pretty bland this year.

This weekend happened only a few days ago so I can remember it pretty well. Saturday was caucus day in Seattle and lots of people were out and about but I did not partake. I went to the Seattle Aquarium instead with my friends Brandon and Lisa. The aquarium was nice but not $15 nice so that will be reserved for visitors instead. I hate people who insist on bringing these massive honking strollers everywhere. I understand the need for strollers - but if you don't even keep your kids in them - leave them in the car!! Color me annoyed.

We continued our journey down the Seattle waterfront until we hit Ivar's fish bar. Ivar's is great because they somehow have trained seagulls to like eating their French Fries. It sounds a little weird I know but when you're there it's wild. You might as well be in the movie The Birds with seagulls swarming around your heads and making a lot of racket. This feeding prompted my dietitian friend Lisa to ask, "Can seagulls have high cholesterol?" and that sealed the day.

Later that night we cooked up some steaks, played Cribbage, and went bowling. Good times indeed.