Rants from the Burgh

I finally made it in to work! Go public transit!

Here are my snowy seattle photos:

So, I want to blog about something. Something incredible, improbable, and, simply crazy. In fact, I want to blog about something that has created such a visible spectacle that (almost) needs to be seen to believed.

Yet I cannot.

I cannot blog. Why? Because I have many photos of this amazing spectacle on my camera, but I cannot upload those photos anywhere, because my camera cable is at work, and I have not been able to get to work for 6 days now. 6 days.

Seattle has been shut down for 6 days. Due to snow. Snow is never supposed to arrive in Seattle. Let alone something like 6 inches of snowfall that does not let up for over 6 days. Seattle and Seattleites are completely unprepared for such an event. By 3 days into the storm, most streets were barely plowed, salted, or sanded, and the city was in complete lockdown. By now, most main streets are mostly clear, but most side streets are still impassable. Of course, I live on a slightly hilly side street, so my streets are basically sheets of ice. So I cannot get my car into or out of my apartment (I tried a few times, but will not be doing so again until the snow has cleared). Even though almost all the main streets are clear, the buses around my house that go to work haven't been running for 6 days.

This snow would have been a non-event in almost any other city in the country. Seattle, however, has been shut down, because it's been like 11 years since it's gotten any snow.

The ramifications are sort of cute:

1) Stores are closing, businesses are closing, etc. Pizza places have even stopped delivering to many locations! Buses have stopped running, or, at the best, have been significantly rerouted away from any vaguely hilly route.

2) Even with a dusting of snow, everybody in Seattle puts chains on their tires. I didn't need chains even when I was driving over Donner pass in the middle of a massive snowstorm, with winding, mountainous roads, freezing rain, 2-3 inches of wet slush on the roads, and 2-3 feet of snow on the side of the road. In fact, the "Do not drive this road without chains" signs weren't even turned on. I saw it as daintily cute. I even laughed out loud the first couple of chains I saw. As I've learned, however, chains seem to be essential in Seattle when it snows.

2) Any vaguely hilly side street has been closed off. Little signs are out, suggesting that people do not drive them. Instead, people are going sledding down the streets!

3) Snowmen abound. Strange, and bizzare snowmen, with lipstick and god knows what else. Terrifying, really. But I forgive the makers, since they are clearly inexperienced. It is the effort that counts.

4) Everything is pretty. The snow is amazingly beautiful. I am so grateful to have gotten so much snow after I moved here. It reminds me of Pittsburgh :)

The snow is a huge inconvenience --- It has kept me from being productive for like a week, canceled scores of events, closed stores, and so forth --- But its prettiness is a reward of its own. Hopefully I'll post some photos when I finally get into work.

PittStop Lindy Exchange 8 was this past weekend. It was a fascinating trip back to Pittsburgh for a number of reasons.

First, it was quite fun to visit Google Pittsburgh, and work there on Thursday and Friday and some of Monday. I think I like the fact that my employer has many offices throughout the world, and will hopefully take advantage of that more in the future. Google Pittsburgh's culture has brought them to fill the office with nerf weaponry. I felt like such an action hero with my gun sitting at my ready during builds that I have decided to buy a nerf pistol to import the idea into Google Seattle.

Second, it was nice seeing everybody who I've been missing from Pittsburgh --- all sorts of friendly faces and good times. Thoroughly enjoyable. I also got to visit a lot of my favorite restaurants and coffee shops, which was also enjoyable.

Third, PittStop itself --- was pretty fun, with great dances all around. It was a struggle to dance again in Pittsburgh, as clearly my dancing has changed to adapt to the Seattleites, or Pittsburgh's dancers have forgotten all of my wackiness :)

The only really painful part of the trip was the travel. Airports are starting to suck from my estimation. I cannot think of a flight that I've had in the past 6 months that hasn't had a delay which caused a missed connection, resulting in countless extra hours en-transit. This time, USAir kept our plane on the tarmac for an hour, before flying us to Pittsburgh just in time to miss my connection to Seattle. Then, the best USAir could do was leave me to wait 8 hours in the Philadelphia airport for the next flight to Seattle. Meanwhile, I am still tired from PittStop, and had to get up especially early just to make the (delayed by an hour) flight out of Pittsburgh. Grr.

Well, I am another year older. And it is still charming that I still get carded. And as this new year begins, so does my DJ career in Seattle (hopefully it can be called a career and not a spectacular failure).

3 weeks later, and my thumb is still healing, and it is still painful, but it is doing much better. Cuts are best to be avoided --- they are terribly inconvenient.

Fortunately, I am back to many of my routinely shenanigans, going swing and blues dancing, cooking, exercising, and some new shenanigans, like improv. Healing has gotten to the point that I no longer have to pay too much attention to the thumb, but some care still needs to be taken.

I am currently amazed and mystified by the spectacular engineering feat that is the Intel Xeon microprocessor. Oh the things it does! You give it a sequence of hundreds of instructions, and it divines from those instructions your intent, and Makes It Go Fast. It almost seems like it doesn't matter what sequence of instructions you use to accomplish a task, or what extra instructions you may add, it simply figures out the best way to do it. It is truly the Magics.

Meanwhile, my birthday is coming up, and luck would have it that my sofa is being delivered on the very day --- months ahead of schedule. No longer will I have to sit awkwardly on the floor of my apartment! Life is difficult, at best, when one does not have a place to sit.

It amazes me that my cheap $4 knife cannot manage to cut through chocolate, but manages to cut through my flesh with the greatest of ease.

I spent all night in the emergency room. I got to test out my medical insurance for the first time. Shots, stitches, and several bloody bandages later, I am back home. Fortunately, I am in no pain, because I cannot feel anything on my left hand.

UPDATE: I spent the very early morning in the emergency room too! Apparently, as I slept, one of my stitches came out. So, after calling the advice nurse, I found myself chatting with all of the very same people I chatted with 6 hours earlier. At least the people at the hospital are friendly. Still, now 8 hours later, my hand is still numbed all the get out.

So, my next investment is in a chocolate pick.

And these had better be the better chocolate chip cookies ever.

I've been walking around everywhere I can the past day or two, looking for native plants that I might want to steal...er...collect cuttings from to grow on my balcony. I found some berries that look like they could be raspberries or blackberries, but I am not quite sure. What if they're poisonous? Could I start growing what appear to be lovely "blackberries" and then make some "blackberry" jam, give it to my coworkers, and see if they survive (before trying some myself)? Would that be immoral?

What I really need are some plants that will be all thrivey and growy and flowery in the winter time here in Seattle. I'm pretty sure the berries will soon be dying back or something, as will my clematis. Perhaps I'll be able to spot some natural thrivers as the weeks progress and the season actually turns.

Meanwhile, I am getting my very first visitor from back in Pittsburgh in the next day or two. I am looking forward to it, especially since it will force me to look at Seattle and the area around my house from a different point of view, and force me to try some more of the restaurants and bakeries around me.