the three most scenic flights in america

1. Punta Arenas - Santiago
Sit on the east side of the plane and soak in views of the Andes for
the entire flight. Highlights are the massive icefields in the south
along with the glacial lakes, Fitz Roy, and Torres del Paine.

2. Los Angeles - east
Views of the Grand Canyon are just as grand from the air, especially
since it takes an hour to fly over it.

3. Los Angeles - Seattle
Sitting on the east side, beaches in SoCal, followed by Yosemite,
followed by the volcanoes in Oregon and Washington.

a few random things

1. By the end of November, I think I would have seen Chinese films at five different theatres in Seattle - 3 within walking distance from my place (Central Cinema, Egyptian, Harvard Exit).
   
   
2. About Windows Phone 7 - a lot of fuss has gone on about how there are only a few thousand apps compared to iPhone's hundreds of thousands. In the end, the ones that I need are there (OneBusAway, Foursquare, Facebook, Google Voice) along with some others that I use sporadically (Flashlight, Fandango, YouTube, Shazam, Yelp, Messenger). The only ones missing are the Seattle Times and Instapaper. If you're looking for a fart app, sorry!
   
   
3. 125 more miles till 200k on the 1993 Honda Accord. Miles driven this month: 25.
   
   
4. Miles biked this month: 250+
   
   
5. I've spend a lot of time wondering how the insane "ramps to nowhere" interchange on SR520 at the Arboretum were intended to be if complete. I finally found the answer.
   
   The plan:
   
   
   The result:
   http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=535+13th+Ave+E,+Seattle,+King,+Washington+98102&ll=47.644466,-122.297047&spn=0.005775,0.013937&t=h&z=17
   
   
6. I live on 13th Ave E, but at one point it was to be called Randolph St.

the worst people to sit by

They come in with muliple bags of fast food
They have a small child
They have an infant
They have a screaming infant
They have a screaming infant with pierced ears and ear rings
He drinks
They fart
They fart a lot
The person sitting behing you hits your seat
They have other people traveling with them handing each other stuff in
front of your face
They need to go to the bathroom three times
They take forever going to the bathroom
They are traveling with some guy who offers them chocolates by putting
his crotch at your face and then stretching so you can see his hairy
orange belly
Their infant throws things
Their infant likes smacking your table
They constantly eat crap (Reeses pieces, chocolate covered nuts, boxed
chocolates, cookies, nuts, several random boxed candies). They didn't
get to the chips
The dad, out of laziness, asks if he "can throw" his son over you into
the aisle. No, there is no one there to catch him.

On the plus side, no throwing up! (yet?)

10 reasons why miami international airport sucks

1. I had to walk over half a mile to get to customs
2. I had to walk another half mile to my gate
3. Half the walkways and escalators were broken
4. Nothing here is open in F terminal except for the overpriced juice
place that has terrible food
5. I had to go through the ticketing area to get to my connecting
terminal
6. Five foot wide corridors that serve as bottlenecks
7. The international baggage recheckin area is a total cluster
8. The show infomercials in the terminal
9. No 2G data connectivity (3G kills battery) and no free wifi
10. There are plenty of bathrooms on the walkway to customs, but none
by most of the gates in F terminal

thoughts on the plane

Good: exit row on an intercontinental flight

Bad: no personal entertainment on the back of each seat
Bad: same movie as the flight last month
Bad: small overhead bins
Bad: pillow feels greasy
Bad: seat belt is attached to the plastic arm rest and not the seat
frame (by design... wtf, boeing?)

another wacky dream - draft

At a concert with ross - amptitheater with seats
Kept moving seats
Eventually lost ross
left
was walking home on the streets
realized naked
Started running back towards venue
I think this is where I saw Allison at a cafe or something, but was in a hurry so kept running.  Hoped I wasn't seen, because I didn't want to seem to be ignoring her.
go back for clothes
cut across this pond area
would have waded across but there was a tug of war competition
had to climb over this rock formation
Seemed like 15' high, but after getting to the top it was suddenly almost 100' high on the other side
WTF.  I've done this before, but this is INSANE
Worked my way down.  I had boots now.
Got back to the venue
They were cleaning up.  I wanted to find my pants
There was a guy on stage asking whose pants where these.  venue was now a grassy area with stage
Not my pants.  I was looking for the REI pants I recently brought. His pants were cargo pants.
Searched in the stream
There was all sorts of weird stuff in there.  I think I may have even come across a console gaming system.

why???

ski season forecast

Looking good! 40% chance of below average temperatures and above average precipitation. No warn dry winter like last winter!

whitetail adventure

status update

weather for the week

Weak. And yes, that's my Lil' John weather theme. He's sleepy. He's
not awake at 6:15.

food court steak

sao paulo sunset

view from my cube for the week

door to the spaceship

rainier says hello

the local news

Where I get my local news:

The Capitol Hill Blog - Roanoke Tavern in "wait and see" mode

Seattle Crime Blog - The Morning Blotter: Creepy-Ass Attempted Robbery On First/Capitol Hill

Publicola - Seattle Proposes Not-So-Green “Green” Street

Seattle Transit Blog - Seattle gets $2.4M in Transit Livability Grants

so close...

Only about 900 more miles till I hit 200,000 with the Accord. Given how much I drive, that should take four months.

scale

Someone asked me the question a month or two back about how big Capitol Hill was compared to Shaker Heights (the town where I grew up). I thought they were about the same size. I was wrong.

Back in Shaker I'd walk to the middle school, which was 1.4 miles away. In Seattle, a walk of the same distance would bring me to to the Convention Center at the edge of downtown.

If I were to do a "long run," I'd head up to Horseshoe Lake, which is about 3 miles away from my parent's place. Here, a 3 mile run would take me to Queen Anne or the middle of UW. I guess a good long run here would be to run around Lake Union, passing by half the neighborhoods in Seattle. I should do that someday.

Some rough equivalent distances:
Downtown Seattle = Shaker Middle School
Seattle Chinatown = The Pearl of the Orient
Safeco and Qwest Fields = Legacy Village
Bellevue = Cleveland Chinatown
Microsoft = MetroHealth
Alpental Ski Area = Canton, OH
Richmond, BC = Pittsburgh, PA
Coeur d'Alene, ID = Scarborough, ON

Not to mention that within the distance it would take to walk to Mercer (1 block away in Shaker), I have pho (four, actually), restaurants, bars, my bank, a farmer's market, three grocery stores, two parks, 10 coffee shops (3 Starbucks), my dentist, and my optometrist.

vis a vis