Phantom!!

Last night we went to see Phantom of the Opera. Our seats were second row center. Amazing! When the chandelier came down we were right under it. (Hope that doesn't spoil the story for any of you who haven't seen it...) We got our tickets through our apartment building. They said if we went through them we would get premium seats and they weren't kidding.

Random

There are tons of beggars here. It is sort of hard to get used to. I normally go around smiling at people that I pass, but that seems to encourage them. It is also my natural tendency to stop when someone asks for help, but they always just want money and I'm not going to hand out money so that just makes it feel worse. I haven't really figured out how to deal with this, but I don't want to not smile at people or become so hardened that I don't hear someone ask for help. I will say though - so far my favorite pan-handler sign is "Broke Ninja. Please help." And that guy was totally chill. Just hanging out with his sign.

Here are a couple of pics of some of the amazing sunsets we are getting from our apartment.

Wow! Has it really been over a month?

Ok, Ok - I'll post!

Here are pictures that Michael should have posted. He took these hiking with some friends recently.

This is Mt. Rainier from Mt. Pilchuck. I had to mess with the color a bit to make The Mountain show up and it is still barely there. It always get washed out in pictures for some reason.



This is Hester Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.



More to come!

Bed Sheets!

News update!

They found footage of the shoplifter guy jumping in a dumpster out back and of the Bartel security guard running right past it. While everyone was banging around in our building, he had plenty of time to get away - though he did leave a bag which our maintenance guys retrieved. The big haul? You guessed it! Two bed sheets. I guess he needed sheets.

Local News Coverage

A couple of news items:

First of all, it has been an exciting day here. I was going to the mail room to pick up our mail when I spotted this big hole in the ceiling of our lobby with broken sheetrock hanging down. Turns out, someone was in the crawl space over the lobby, stepped in the wrong spot, and broke through the ceiling! Once of the ladies working in the office called the police and they came right over. The police, along with our maintenance crew and a couple of flashlights that I donated to the cause, spent an hour looking for the guy up there and couldn't find him. The police figured it was this shoplifter they were looking for that had just robbed the Bartel's (drug store). They were concerned that he had gotten away, so they reviewed our security footage. They saw the clip of him busting through the floor, and were able to confirm that he had pulled himself back up into the space while the office lady was calling the police. (There had been concern that he had gotten out while she went for the phone.) They also looked at the footage from the loading dock (the only way in), from the time the ceiling got busted and didn't see him leave that way. So, for a while they were SURE that he was still up there. Then, they looked a little farther back on the security footage and - what do you know - they didn't see him go either. What they did see was one of Bartel's security guards going in and coming out. (Presumably looking for the shoplifter.) The current theory is that it was the guard that busted through our ceiling.

The second bit of news is election coverage. I would just like to highlight the candidacy of Goodspaceguy Nelson. You can read more about his platform at http://colonizespace.blogspot.com/ I would highly recommend it. It is very... er... informative.

I'll keep you all posted if there are any updates!

Vancouver

We got these fancy new driver's licenses that have RFID chips in them so that they function like passports for getting in and out of Canada. Cool huh? Of course we had to check them out, so we took a little trip up to Vancouver, BC last week.

Here are some pics from the border crossing.

This is from Granville Island in Vancouver. It is full of markets and art galleries. There are tons more pictures here: http://www.seegranvilleisland.com/

And these are from the Stanley Park Seawall.


The other important part of our trip was stopping in a little shop where we found clodhoppers! Clodhoppers are these glumps of little bits of graham cracker covered in fudge. Amazing. We discovered them on our honeymoon. It is a Canadian thing - though we could sporatically get them at the Blockbuster in Charlottesville. Random huh? Anyway - they have a new dark chocolate flavor. I'd tell you how great it is - but Michael is hogging them and I can't find the bag now. Everyone write him and tell him how mean he is.

Catching up

Things have been a little crazy here so we are quite behind on the blogging. I was in VA/NC last week defending my thesis, and visiting friends and family.

Seattle is starting to feel a little like home now. While I was gone, Mike starting the laborious task of finding a church. Hopefully we will be able to start establishing a social network soon.

Anyway, let's get down to the fun part of blogging - pictures!

Here are some purchases for the new home:
Duvet:



A hanging pepper thingy:



Funky chairs and a little table to go between them that doubles as a file cabinet:


Notice how the building is now totally blocking our view? Yeah, so did we. I did get a shot of our lake union / mt. baker view before it disappeared.


Sad huh? We are trying to forget that it is there.

Here are some more pics from Mike's trip with his parents:



Here is a video I shot from our apartment on the 4th of July:


We're taking reservations for next year!

Whirlwind Tour

Mom and Dad Williams came to visit last week, which gave us an excuse to do some sight-seeing. With Vicki hard at work with her thesis, the folks and I spent most of the time out and about and giving her some needed peace and quiet. After a "scorching" weekend of highs in the 80s, the rest of the week was great with mostly clear skies and highs in the 70s.

We spent two days on the Olympic Peninsula, visiting the temperate rain forest and beaches. Even with mostly dry weather during the summer months, the wet climate was evident with lots of plant life and moss covering almost every surface. That area receives an average of 140 inches of rain per year! Contrast that with about 35 inches per year in Seattle and along most of the east coast.

We also visited Cape Flattery, which is the northwestern-most point in the contiguous U.S. As we were driving out there we were treated to a whale sighting a couple hundred yards out in the water! We also saw sea lions, a puffin, starfish, and 7 bald eagles.

The rest of the week was spent a little closer to home. We took the tour of the Boeing plant in Everett, WA where they build jumbo jets. We also visited the canal locks and watched boats big and small pass through. And of course no visit to Seattle would be complete without a trip up the Space Needle. We rode up to the top to take in the view, and Vicki and I made the sobering discovery that with a good pair of binoculars you can see right into our apartment! We'd better close those blinds!!

We had a great week, and Mom and Dad arrived safe and sound back in N.C. this afternoon. I'm looking forward to another couple weeks of exploring before I start work on July 28th.