Tag: seattle
Cinerama’s Anime Festival
I’m pretty excited that the good folks at Cinerama are hosting their first Anime Movie Festival. They’ll be featuring twenty-three genre favorites including Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Paprika and Cowboy Bebop.
If you like Studio Ghibli, they’ll be heavily featured including ten masterpieces from famed anime grand master Hayao Miyazaki. These titles include Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle and My Neighbor Totoro.
Also included in the festival is 2017 Oscar-nominated The Red Turtle.
All movies will be shown in Japanese with English subtitles (the choice for discerning anime geeks). One exception: Ponyo, which will be dubbed in English, and The Red Turtle, which is dialogue free.
It’s hard for me to choose one, and the time/commute to Seattle factor makes things painful. Dream world: I’d take next week off, stay in a nearby hotel and binge. However, that’s not to me.
Which is your favorite? Are you going? Which films are you going to see?
Anyway, all the details are here, with the schedule and reservations here.
Rain upon the skylight
Inside these blank walls
Rain falls upon the skylight
I stare at a screen
Enjoying the cherry blossoms at UW
We wandered around campus last weekend. Stunned by the masses of tourists…I heard that there were tour buses. Very cool l guess. But out wasn’t the most lovely thing. Still, the blossoms were a lovely site. I always enjoy walking campus while they bloom.
Another thing I enjoy about the U district: food. An interesting blend out food types, styles, ethnicities. No matter what you like, some one the ave, most likely, serves it there.
I experienced so much life there, learned so much. A let part of development centred there. And I didn’t study there much. Yet I still love it, and expect I says will.
Seattle, Life Twists, the Navy and Home
My life has taken a few strange twists. One of the strangest: my time in the Navy.
I joined the Navy, ostensibly, to get away from Seattle and western Washington. Most of my life was spent here, and I missed the journeys to more exotic locales. With my early childhood spent wandering the US, along with a stop at two different Navy bases in the Philippines, there was a certain attractiveness to wandering inherent in the military.
Goal # 1: extensive time in Europe. Other global stops would be welcome bonuses. When I was stationed in Orlando for bootcamp, I thought I was well on my way.
One of the training steps for the nuclear power program is to spend six some-odd months at a prototype facility. An actual operating reactor based on the specs of fleet deployed reactors, it’s a great place to get real-world experience without the distractions of normal ship-borne life, and the life-and-death risks inherent in being at sea, on a combat ship.
When I was in (a couple of decades back), the prototypes were in Connecticut, New York, and Idaho Falls, ID (though the prototype in South Carolina had been established, hurricane Hugo knocked it offline for a few months). Well, when I was sent to Idaho Falls, I was a bit nervous that my European plans were messed up. My final orders to the fleet: SUBBASE Bangor. At that point, with a 30 minute ferry ride, I was less than an hour from the house I grew up in. I was rather frustrated.
At the end of one of my patrols, though (it might well have been the first one…which is how my memory portrays it…but I’m not sure), I had an epiphany of sorts. I had a break while we were transiting in through Hood Canal, so I popped my head up top side (at that point the sub was on the surface). The weather was classic western Washington, high grey clouds and misty rain. Mesmerized by the mists pulling through the fir trees, the strings of the fluff pulled apart by the brushing branches. I had visions of cotton candy. A sense of connection, of belonging, of love washed through me. I deeply felt my connection to this region then. A full spiritual awareness; hauntingly beautiful. My relationship with the region changed at that moment. This became, in a richer, fuller sense, home.
That feeling’s only grown over the years. Studying my family’s history in this region, exploring the arts and culture, the natural history…all that’s connected me deeper.
Even with years of dedicated work to learn the region better, working at key Seattle area institutions (Starbucks, Amazon and Microsoft being the biggest ones), and exploring my region, I still feel weak with my knowledge. I’ve never set foot on a San Juan Island, nor been to the Petrified Forest, nor seen the Grand Coulee Damn, nor…well, you get the picture. There’s so very much more I have to explore.
With the above, I’m starting to plan out my summer. I’m thinking about hikes and areas to explore. Considering:
- bike/walk on to Friday Harbor (San Juan Islands, fyi)
- Hiking Mt. Pilchuck – great photo opps there
- A long weekend to Spokane
- Definite: a weekend camping on Camano – this is a yearly thing we’ve done with dear friends
- It’s been a few years since I’ve been down to Portland.
So, what are some unique and delightful trips I should add? Comment below with your ideas.
Another rainy day in Seattle: a haiku
Rain falling calmly
Continuously, not hard
Strange tranquility
Any of you going to #Seattle’s “Network After Work” Event this Wednesday, March 22
Hey Seattle-based chums,
Any of you planning on attending “Network After Work Seattle at Amber“? It’s Wednesday evening right by Pike Place Market.
For me, driving to downtown mid-week/evenings is a bit of a pain. Back when I worked at Starbucks it was easy (it’s only a few minutes north, and, ostensibly, on my way home). Even when I was at Microsoft, heading into downtown was pretty straightforward. Marysville, though…well, with traffic, construction and all the other events in my life make these sorts of things challenging.
So, let me know if any of you are planning on going, or even just thinking of going.
When Seattle Has Your Heart
Seattle has your heart
When you claim the rain
And the rain claims you
Grey skies flow
In your veins
A blog post where I babble about a vision and such silliness
I love Seattle. At one point, in my blogging career, I thought it grand to use the web, my accumulated knowledge, writing prowess and free-time to explore Seattle. As a writer, putting these explorations into text, editing them, and crafting something remotely readable seemed the best way to proceed. With my mind’s propensity towards wandering, and the recklessness of the use of my time, the effectiveness of that aspiration has been rather questionable at best.
As the site’s host was clamoring for their next payment, I wondered about this crazy project. What the hell am I doing? And why am I paying for it? Weighing many options: rebooting as a real estate site, just killing the whole thing….all kinds of options on the table, so to speak. At one point, my desk was an actual table, so I guess that’s apt. But now I’m much more high-class, with a desk from Goodwill, or ValueVillage, or one of their kin. But I digress.
So, the site’s still up (hope you noticed). Now I have something of a vision, of a plan for my quirky little homestead on the web (thinking of singing “home for the strange” to “Home, Home on the Range”). “Something” leaves a great deal to the imagination. Probably a good thing.
Upon the deepest reflection, and a few cups of coffee, and perhaps a deep lack of creativity, I return to the original notion: exploring Seattle…and more. Or do I mean “beyond”? Well, what do I mean?
Though my life intersects with Seattle extensively, I’ve lived far longer in the suburbs to the north. Also, a few other places in the “greater Northwest”. And, of course, my insider-outsider status. And, of courser, I like to write. And, even more of coursing, this being the web and all, I should drop in imagery (photos, videos, drawings and all that sort of thing). Multi-modes of communication and all that. Better creation of a narrative. Ah, communication analysis and strategic language. Some of us love it, even it runs drier than the Scablands in August.
Choosing to dive back into Seattle’s history, and, by extension I guess, the Pacific Northwest’s, I opted to jump back into books. Growing up, Emmett Watson’s columns were a delight. His understanding of Seattle, having lived through key parts of it’s history (we really aren’t that old of a City), captivated me. He’s one of the first names that comes to mind when I think of Seattle, especially understanding it’s culture before the birth of the tech sector, before the glass, steel and scraping of skies. Before the Space Needle, Emmett lived in this city.
My favorite library had a copy of Watson’s book Emmett Watson: “My Life In Print”
I love Seattle, I love this region: western Washington and the Pacific Northwest. From the skies mottled with infinite variations of grey, mists strung out, cotton-candy-like by fir-boughs, to the fascinating characters that have been birthed picking fir needles and pine sap from their hair, this is home. Thank God!
Wacky weather and fitness
The notion of micro-climates solidly describes Seattle area weather. Marysville, today, had the occasional flurry of snow, several moments of rain dumping hard, intermixed with moments of sun. Just a few miles east was pretty heavy snow. Wacky….
Our crappy weather impacts my activity levels. Getting outside and the requisite motivation became depleted when buckets of ice water G pelting down. Bleh!
Funny to see cars heavily laden with fresh snow next to cars that are, at the worst, very damp. Travelling a few miles any direction will see fantastic variations. My 20 mile commute, especially in winter, can see a number of different systems. I’ve traveled through sun, snow, rain and freezing fog on a single commute.
Out unique geography helps craft convergence zones, which are the fundamental roots of our wacky weather patterns. We lack consistency throughout the region. It provides some charm to the area.