Bill's rantings

It's the first day of December and the first snow is falling on the ground.  This is the outside of our apartment as we just walked back from the shops.

It's hard to believe that summer has already been and gone since our Italy trip.  I had a great summer, and I notice I've hardly written about any of it.  We had a great time at the Sasquatch music festival at The Gorge in the middle of Washington, an amazing weekend kayaking and camping around the San Juan islands, a beautiful hike around the Mount Rainier national park, and much more.

The highlight of summer though would have to be Kickball.  This is an extremely non-competitive excuse to dress up, act silly, get drunk, and supposedly play a 'sport'.  It's basically baseball with a big fluffy ball, and you use your feet instead of a bat.  A typical game consists of turning up in your team's "theme" (ours was Varsity) early enough to get a few drinks in beforehand, having the "taunt" before the game (where you try to out-ridicule the other team), potentially a "boat-race" before starting (where each time lines up 5 players for a relay beer drink to see who finishes first), and then attempting some semblance of a game.  Our team also had our amazing "Solid Gold Dancers" who would perform a number at half time, and then after we lost (which we did every game this season - way to go!) you hang around for the BBQ and/or more beers before heading to the pub. 

It was a lot of fun with a lot of great people.  The season finished with a day long game/party with a drink stand on each base (the infamous "panty-dropper punch"), a karaoke tent, a private party in a bar downtown, and finally stumbling out of a team members house when the police came to complain about the noise at 4am.  Everyone was very sad when the end of the season came, and we're all hanging out for next year's to start!

I've put some pics in the "Summer 2007" gallery.

So as the snow falls another great time is starting.  It's silly season, with parties and events galore, and the nice problem to have of having to choose which ones you CAN'T make it to.  My good friend Gavin flies in from London just about now, and in a couple of hours we'll be starting the last month of the year with a bang in the very hospitable surrounds of Ballard.

With that I'll bid you all a merry Xmas with perhaps the only version of Xmas carol that is a true classic in every sense, by two of the greatest voices there ever was.  Give it a couple of minutes for the tune to start - it's worth it. Enjoy!

What delicious serendipity!  Absolutely one of the greatest rock bands ever that I've always wanted to see live is The Black Crowes.  Driving home from work tonight an ad comes on the radio; they're playing in Seattle, at the Paramount (about 10 mins walk from my house), tomorrow night, and they just opened up some more premium tickets!  I logged on a got a couple - 10 rows from the front!  It's going to be a kick ass gig to remember.   Now if only I win the lottery tickets for the Led Zepplin reunion gig I put in for I'll be in heaven (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6990704.stm) 

Speaking of great music, and following on from my last post having a dig at YouTube and copyright, it turns out it is a great preview location.  I mean, lets face it, anyone who's serious about their entertainment isn't going to be happy watching or listening at that quality.  So I was on there to see the full video to that infectiously catchy song on the new iPod Nano ads.  The video is awesome, and appears to be done in one full take.  Anyway, after listening to the full track and browsing a few of Feist's others on the site, I liked it so much I went out and bought the album.  So is YouTube's blatant disregard for copyright hurting or helping artist sales?  (Note: That's is a question.  I'm not taking a position here).

p.s. If you haven't seen the video or heard the song, check it out below.  Warning: It'll be stuck in your head forever!http://youtube.com/watch?v=d3vIv1EwO5A

One thing I do love about Seattle is the quality of the radio here.  KEXP (http://www.kexp.org) plays some kick-ass tunes 24x7 in a range of styles with none of the usual segments that stations seem to feel obligated to always include; such as news, weather, traffic, annoying jingles, etc...  But if you are in the mood for top quality news, current affairs, politics, etc... then KUOW (http://www.kuow.org/) is about as good as it gets.  Both of these are often on at home as well as in the car, and with the beauty of the Internet, you can get them too!

I had quite a profound experience with both stations a few days ago.  KEXP played one of those rare songs that just blew my mind with it's lyrics, music, originality, etc...  It's called "Thou Shalt Always Kill" by Dan le Sac VS Scroobius Pip. It's been out a while apparently - so maybe I'm just behind the times.  Anyways, it rocks, and I sat in the car after arriving at my destination for several minutes as I couldn't switch it off.  Rather than go over it in detail, I'll let you decide for yourself and just link to it here with the beautiful marriage that is the World Wide Web and copyright infringement.  (Of course I expect you to just "preview" the song below.  If you like it, then go and buy it you stingy mongrel!).

That was KEXP on the drive in.  On the way home I flicked to KUOW and they had an excellent talk by Sam Harris, the author of the books "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation".  I've personally always had a hard time understanding how so many people can have such unwavering faith in the various religions due to a number of reasons, and Sam articulates many of these well in his talk.  I don't expect it will change anyone's opinion, as it's one of those polarizing topics that people will defend their position on no matter what the evidence (kinda like talking to Mac users about Windows, baseball fans about cricket, or SUV drivers about hybrids), but I thought it was a fascinating talk none the less.  Check it out at http://wordforword.publicradio.org/programs/2007/09/14/ .

At the start of July I started the long drive down from Seattle to San Francisco, to meet my wonderful son Marcus who was flying in from Sydney for us to have a little road trip together.  The drive was 900 miles, so it took me a couple of days, and my bum was ready for a rest from my car seat by the time I got there!  It's a beautiful drive though, and southern Oregon & northern California have some stunning natural beauty. I'm glad I did it and may well revisit those places at a later time.  (Check out Crater Lake and Mount Shasta to see what I'm talking about).

Marcus arrived early on a Monday morning.  Everyone was worried about him taking the long flight by himself (over 14 hours in the air!), but on arrival he said it was fine.  He just watched a few movies, chatted to the girl next to him, and tried to get a little sleep.  It sounds just like any of my flights!   I guess he is nearly 7 now, and growing up fast.  He did look a little 'out of it' coming through arrivals though, so the rest of the day was nice and relaxing; playing in the hotel pool, getting some room service, and watching a movie.  Plus of course lots of catch up chats and pillow fighting on the bed! 

San Francisco is a beautiful city, with lots of water front, bridges, sunshine, and things to see and do.  I was surprised it was so built up downtown for all the earthquakes it's famous for.  Luckily our trip was earthquake free.  We spent a couple of days in San Francisco checking out the museums and walking around before Crystal flew and joined us on Wednesday - the 4th of July.

The 4th of July was a packed day.  We went out on the Duck tour - the old amphibious war vehicles that drive around the streets and then head into the bay itself.  I thought it was a little disappointing and not as good as I'd hoped.  The most exciting bit was when the engine overheated in the middle of the bay when struggling against the current!  Luckily the driver got it going again and we got back on land safely.  The best bit of this trip was probably the little yellow plastic duck quackers you get.  They're quite addictive and I still quack around the house occasionally 

After the duck tour we walked down the promenade to the ferry terminal for Alcatraz - the infamous prison on an island in the middle of the harbour.  It was interesting to walk around the facilities and prison cells, and certainly would have been a rough life if you were a 'guest' there. It was super windy being in the middle of a large harbour, and extra cruel to be able to see in the distance the buildings and cars of all the free folk on the mainland going about their lives.

One thing the 4th July is famous for is its fireworks, and San Francisco harbour is supposed to be spectacular.  But the crowds were getting crazy early, everyone was tired, and we all agreed that fireworks are boring anyway, so we went back to the hotel.  Marcus and Crystal had the luxury of sleeping in the car as I tried to navigate my way back.  As the driver, I decided to try and stay awake.  Once back it was more room service, more swimming pool & hot-tub, and an early night.

That was San Francisco, and we still have Yosemite National Park and Los Angeles to go!  I'll write up those 2 places in a later post.  I've already put up most of the pics in the "California 2007" photo gallery.

If you're reading this Marcus, thanks for a fantastic trip!  It was great having another holiday with you and I love you very much.  Leave me a comment and let me know if I missed any of your favourite bits of San Francisco!