Seattle joins the 20th century

The school year draws nigh and alas I must get my brain back in gear for work. With this in mind I headed to Seattle to meet with the Pirate and plan curriculum for sophomores. I haven't taught regular sophomores in about four years so it's going to be a little bit of an adventure.

Speaking of adventure... I took the new Central Link light rail to Seattle. You know that Seattle is ass-backwards when people are talking about this as if it's an event or entertainment. "So-and-so took the light rail last weekend, they said it was really nice." "We should go ride the light rail next week."

So anyways. I get there, buy my ticket on the automated system (which really is not that hard. For one thing, it's in English. Which is more help than I had in Germany). I see the train waiting and hustle to make it so I don't have to wait 10 minutes for the next one.

This makes me look like an idiot. The train proceeds to sit there for the next 9 1/2 minutes. Um, okay, whatever. So I have time to observe the people in my car. Do you know who rides light rail mid-day on a weekday? Old people and kids. So parents are taking pictures of the kids' first "train" ride and all the old people keep saying "isn't this fun?!?"

Fun? We haven't moved yet! If this is fun I'll set up a train car in my driveway and charge you $2.50 to not go anywhere.

(By the way, there are no pictures to accompany the light rail part of this blog because I refuse to be one of the touristy masses).

At some point a daycare got on as part of a field trip, complete with matching little t-shirts. The kids were well-behaved but also very excited. One little boy kept raising his voice and another little girl told him, "use your small voice!" He replied, "what you talkin' 'bout? I ain't go no small voice!"

*****

So anyhow, I eventually arrived in Seattle relatively unscathed. After planning over coffee at the Elliot Bay Book Co. we took to the street for shopping and wandering. Eventually we needed to take another break so we went to Bauhaus for coffee. But look what we found:

Kool-aid! What a brilliant marketing scheme to sell ice-cold Kool-aid on hot days! Low investment, high profit. Of course, we had coffee too.

After wandering I took the light rail back down to Safeco Field to meet Ryan for a Mariner's game. (Note to Seattle: Would it be so hard to mark the light rail stop in the bus tunnel?)

This is why I love baseball:

Oh yeah, and I think we won too.