Seattle

Man, I miss travel.

Last week I got to go to Seattle. I can definately see why people want to live there. It was just a bit cool and sunny the entire week--perfect weather for folks like me who want to escape the Houston heat. Without exception, the people were very cool and relaxed.

From the moment I got out of the taxi at the hotel, I felt at-home. There were a lesbian couple crossing the street while holding hands. No uptight, holier-than-thou attitude like the south. Around here, people are nicer than anywhere else as long as you fit their definition of normal.

Anyway, since I was there for a Microsoft conference, I got to stay in a fairly swanky little hotel downtown. And yes, there were Starbucks everywhere. There were 3 within sight of the hotel lobby. (I'm serious)

And Microsoft knows how to throw a party. The last night we were there, they shut down the Experience Music Project. It's a really cool interactive music museum. They brought in a live band that rocked. (although the open bar might have skewed my idea of what good music is...)

And attached to the EMP was the Science Fiction Museum. The geek in me went nuts. I got to see a life-sized Alien queen. I saw the only complete model of the Death Star used in the movie. I saw the original handwritten version of a Neil Gaiman book. (sorry, don't remember which one)

There was stuff in there from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to "Minority Report". And, refreshingly, they also had a lot of books in there as well. They didn't forget that sci-fi existed before movies and still exists on paper today.


Right next door was the Space Needle. One more US landmark down, several dozen to go. It was cool I guess, but regularly being twice that high in a little plane blunted the coolness. The scenery was much better than anything here in Texas, tho.

We even got to take a long lunch from the conference and walk down to the pier. We stopped by to see Pike Place Market. I'm sure you've heard of this place--it's where they throw the fish.

The crappiest thing about this trip is this: I didn't take a single picture. Not one. Yeah, I saw and did all the stuff above, but the pictures came from Flickr. This isn't the first time this has happened to me: I'm traveling and I don't want to carry the big camera with me because we are doing other things than sightseeing and I don't want to be that dork dragging a camera around.

So, as I'm learning, life is helped-along by having the right tools. Most everyone will say that's obvious, but sometimes the "right" part eludes me. To me, the right tool is a camera I don't mind taking everywhere.

So, I did a little research and bought a Nikon S50 yesterday. It's small enough that I can just slip it into my pocket. It's smaller and lighter than my phone, but it takes amazing pictures. And it's got a giant, 3" screen on the back that's beautiful.