Other ways of communicating life's changes

When Ed and I moved here a little over 3 years ago, I started this blog in order to help keep in touch with family and friends back in the-middle-part-of-the-country, and on the East Coast. since that time, I've made over 400 blog posts, ranging from the raging to the banal. I doubt I'm particularly unusual in all that.

Things are starting to change for me in a number of ways, living up here in the PNW, and how I choose to communicate with the world is changing as well. As a trite, meaningless example, I now interact far more frequently with friends -- both absent and local -- via Facebook. I seem to be the only Casey Hamilton on Facebook in the Seattle, WA network, and my avatar looks a little bit like me, so I'm not too horribly hard to find if anyone else who knows me wants to add that method of interaction.

What I'm ultimately getting at here is that I'm completely back-burnering this blog. I may have a thing or two to say here from time to time, and if so, I'll make a Facebook announcment. Toodles.

Curtains for civil dawn

I've written in the past about the length of days up here in the PNW, especially for those of us who live north of the 45th Parallel, what I call "past the curve" of the globe.

I've gone on and on, at quite some length, about how late it is before it gets dark. Tonight, for example, sunset does not occur until 9PM, more than half an hour later than in Austin. Ed's not a big fan of the daylight, so how late it gets before it gets dark has been a bit of a focus around these parts, especially during May, June and July.

However, there is another major issue related to the sun, and the length of days: the time of day that it starts getting light out. It's called "civil twilight:" it happens before dawn and after sunset, and I first became acquainted with the notion when Ed and I went to visit Long Beach, WA, and stayed at a B&B with an uncovered skylight in the bathroom.

Civil twilight, according to the Wikipedia peoples:

"This starts in the morning when the geometric center of the Sun is 6° below the horizon (the point of civil dawn), and ends at sunrise. Evening civil twilight begins at sunset and ends when the center of the Sun reaches 6° below the horizon (the point of civil dusk)."

"During this period there is enough light from the Sun that artificial sources of light may not be needed to carry on outdoor activities. This concept is sometimes enshrined in laws, for example, when drivers of automobiles must turn on their headlights, [...] . A fixed period (most commonly 30 minutes after sunset or before sunrise) is typically used in such statutes, rather than how many degrees the Sun is below the horizon."

On the day I laid down the foundation of this post, 5/27, civil twilight began at 4:40 AM in Seattle. In Austin, TX, on the other hand, it didn't begin until 6:04 AM. If you're trying to sleep, I assure you, there is a VERY large difference between shortly after 4:30 in the morning, and after 6 in the morning.

This morning's data regarding civil twilight continues to be painful. Seattle: 4:36 AM; Austin: 6:02 AM.

When one considers these facts, along with the fact that the bulk of our apartment windows face east, one can easily understand my reasons for purchasing blackout curtains for our bedroom.

The upside is, they block out 99% of all sunlight. The first downside is that 1% of all sunlight is a whole hell of a lot more light than one might imagine. The second downside is that they also block out most of the airflow, so it can get stuffy unless the windows are very wide open.

I think my dream condo will have to have light blocking blind/shades/curtains, just so's Ed and I can function in the 3 months surrounding solstice.

6/2/09 P.S. What I didn't mention -- but is of utmost importance up here in cloudy land -- is that during the other 9 months of the year, everyone (including us) does everything they can to maximize the amount of light they can get into their house. But right now, man, is it bright.

NOT too good to be true

For a very long time, since just about the time Ed and I first visited Seattle, so's I could find us a place to move to, both of us have felt like living in Seattle was just too good to be true.

I'm in no way trying to say that living here is idealized perfection -- not even close. But comparing to anywhere in Oklahoma, or anywhere in Bastrop County, Texas, well, we ARE talking miles better than that. At least to MY way of thinking, which is pretty much all we ever talk about here in this space.

The bad thing about that "too good to be true" sort of feeling is, among other things, that one is continually waiting for the other shoe to drop. I mean, we've all had it beaten into our heads since we were kids, if something SEEMS too good to be true, it probably is.

But if the thing that seems too good to be true is the place where one lives, where millions of other people live, how does one, then, live? In our case, it was a constant subliminal fear that somehow, for some reason, Ed and I would not be allowed to stay here in the Pacific Northwest, In the Puget Sound region, in Seattle, in Capitol Hill.

Just this past week, I finally realized that there is no reason for us to feel this way. Yes, moving to Seattle may have come as a "gift" from his former employer, but that "gift" was revoked when Ed quit without a new job. By finding his new/current job, Ed proved that -- like the old Smith Barney commercials -- he had earned his place here. And by somehow managing, by hook and by crook, to keep us in our apartment and fed while the job search proceeded, I earned my place here as well.

So now, the promise Ed made to me as we drove north out of Texas is truly true: I will never have to live in Oklahoma, ever again, unless -- for some unknown reason -- I actually want to be there. But for the foreseeable future, I'm pretty sure I'd rather be here.....

Regarding Star Trek

Last Friday night, as self-respecting scifi geeks, Ed and I went to go see Star Trek, the reboot of the sporadically popular space opera franchise, first brought to the wide world in the mid-60s.

Now, I am not actually a huge Trek fan, in any of the Trek incarnations.

I remember watching the original series (TOS), back in the 60s, after we had returned from Tokyo, when my mother dragged me off to Weight Watcher's meetings, on a black & white TV, in the lobby of the Olean, NY, YMCA. I had to be talked into watching The Next Generation (TNG) because I'd seen the first few completely sucky episodes, and was not convinced that anything good could ever come out of that mess. (The talking into involved something about me being like a female Klingon character, K'Ehleyr, who was rather emphatic in her approach to life.)

The later series: Deep Space Nine -- Brooks Avery, Rene Auberjonois, Colm Meany, Armin Shimerman -- pretty good for about 4 or 5 of the 7 seasons; Voyager -- 7 seasons, of which I did not watch more than 1.5, did not like, and never saw the sexy Seven of Nine; Enterprise -- complete and total suckitude, full stop. And thus we finally got rid of Rick Berman, who "chose" not to renew his contract around the time Enterprise was circling around the toilet bowl.

I like the ideas of Star Trek just great -- I mean, who doesn't like the idea of an optimistic future, in which racism, poverty and need are generally things of the past. But the execution of those ideas hasn't always been as well-done as might have been hoped. So when news (aka marketing) if a reboot movie started percolating, I was at least curious, and planned to go.

Ed, of course, was good to go as soon as he heard about it, and was salivating on almost every trailer and news article. Hearing about the sneak preview at Austin's Alamo Drafthouse with Leonard Nimoy was near geek-heaven. For him, the only question was opening Thursday night, or opening weekend.

We chose opening weekend, at the Cinerama, which really is the best venue for something like this. It's also where we saw The Dark Knight and Superman Returns. And we took R, our apartment manager, with us, because we'd been discussing the movie with him for several weeks.

Now R likes science fiction, and he's a big fan of TOS. I mean, a BIG fan, and he doesn't like the notion of anyone monkeying around with his Trek. Canon (that what has gone before) MUST be adhered to. So the news that somehow Kirk and Spock were going to be meeting in a wholly different manner than in TOS, well, that was just anathema.

I even told him that Wil Wheaton, aka Wesley Crusher in TNG and blogger-extraordinaire, had just loved it. In fact, Wil said, and I quote:

Speaking both as a member of the Star Trek family, and as a fan of what we do, I can tell you that it is fucking incredible. As I said on Twitter: Star Trek has been reborn, and it is SPECTACULAR.

The story is such a perfect Star Trek story, the cast is pitch-perfect, the visuals are brilliant, and the sound design will blow your mind. I loved it so much, I wanted to watch it again RIGHT AWAY as soon as it ended, and I hope they do eleven movies with this cast and creative team.

Ed and I were kinda with Wil. We wanted to see it again, RIGHT AWAY. But we decided to be responsible human beans, and waited until today. When we're going to see it again, this evening, at one of the two multiplex theaters we can walk to.

R is still deeply unhappy about this movie. He doesn't like the different timeline angle, because everything is changed, but it's somehow still the same.

I've tried explaining to him that this approach simply encompasses the notion of the multiverse -- the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including our universe) that together comprise all of reality. The multiverse is postulated by a number of different scientific disciplines, and is damned near required by quantum mechanics. R is not a fan of the notion of mutable reality, despite being a scifi fan.

Since I am a fan of science fiction, of Star Trek, of Wil Wheaton, and most especially of quantum mechanics, I have less than zero problem with the whole notion of alternate timelines and universes. Gosh, I'm looking forward to seeing it again.....

Frustratingly gratifying

I've said before that I've lost a little bit of weight, wherein we discussed different jean sizes and a doctor's office scale. In fact, when the doctor asked if I was doing anything in particular to try to lose weight, I mentioned that I was trying to completely avoid as much high fructose corn syrup as humanly possible.

His response? An extremely emphatic, "Good!!"

So I'm gonna continue staying away from high fructose corn syrup. My doctor thinks it's bad for me.

At this point in time, we're going through the changing of the seasons up here, and wet and cold is giving way to wet and warmer. Pretty soon we may even get warmer and dry. Yoo-hoo!!

In any event, I needed a few things: a skirt and a couple skorts for warmer weather, and a rain jacket that isn't also designed to keep its wearer warm. I make enough warm, all by myself, that my rain jacket doesn't need to help out; well, unless it's wet and cold outside.

Went to the REI website and placed an order to pick up at the store. The order came in, and this afternoon I went to REI to pick it up, and try everything on before I took it home.

It was ALL too big. The size XL REI skorts nearly fell off my hips; the Large Columbia Sportswear skirt DID fall off my hips; the XL North Face rain jacket had enough extra room that I could have gotten Ed in there, too.

The skirt/skorts I could swap out for a better size from the stock there in the store. The rain jacket is on backorder, and I won't get the size Large for another couple of weeks. The REI skorts were swapped for size Large, and I'm pretty sure they're not too big. The Columbia Sportswear skirt was out of stock in the Medium, so for the hell of it I pulled a size Small on over my jeans.

I brought home a size Small skirt. Way to go, me!!

5/13/09 P.S. --- Really, I should also have thrown in that my sleeping tee shirts, which fit well, are size XXL. The dichotomy is mind-boggling.

Three years and counting

Before we moved here to Seattle, I was told that it generally takes 3 to 5 years to completely acclimate to a new place, to genuinely feel at home. Having now been here for just over 3 years, I think I'm beginning to understand what that means.

As Ed and I were saying the other day, the rhythm and substance of general chit-chatting is quite different here than in the middle-of-the-country, although I'm far from certain I can articulate how. What I know is that when we first got here, I continually felt as though I was talking at cross-purposes to everyone I met. Now, not so much.

I've heard more than one instance recently of someone's friend who joined them here in Seattle, but just could not adapt to the Pacific Northwest's way of doing things and approach to life. Overall, the first rule of getting along up here is "don't be a dick." Beyond that, there's a strong presumption toward approaching things on the most rational basis possible. If something makes no rational sense, it''s not going to be very popular up here.

One thing I've noticed -- over and over again -- is how much people in the PNW tend to appreciate the celebratory aspect of living. Life should not simply be endured or just gotten through. Rather, life should be celebrated, as often and in as many different ways as possible. Again, I couldn't tell you why, but I do know it's an approach to life that I can certainly endorse. If nothing else, it's definitely more fun this way.

After 3 years, things that were once unutterably strange have become our new normal, and notions that once were fairly reasonable -- like driving 40-some miles one way to get to work -- are now simply bizarre. I'm far more likely to walk someplace than drive, if only because finding parking in the city is never the easiest prospect, and walking is FAR better for me.

Seattle and its environs have in no way lost their ability to astonish us, though. This past Sunday, Ed and I went walking in the richer, northern section of Capitol Hill. While it's only a little over a mile from our part of Capitol Hill, Millionaire's Row with its major-league mansions is a world we will never truly inhabit.

Then to discover that just a bit north of that -- still less than 2 miles from the apartment -- is a little pocket park, with an overlook view of acres and acres of parkland at Interlaken and the Arboretum, Lake Washington, the University of Washington AND the Cascades; well, I suspect I will continue to be gobsmacked by my new home on a semi-regular basis. I can certainly hope so, at any rate.

Ed and I have agreed, on many occasions, that moving here was one of the best things we've ever done. If I have any say in the matter, it's where we'll stay.

Picturing Spring, Take 2

These two posts have been split apart, so as not to be too insanely long and hard to load.

So, anyhow, while I was mainly taking pictures of the flowering trees and things (see Take 1), other, man-made, things caught my eye as well.

Like this. Technically, I think it was the giant roller shade that first caught my eye, but that shaded bay window is pretty darned amazing, too. I can only imagine the views these people have.

This side of the building faces more east, so these guys are gonna be looking at the Cascades, Lake Washington and the Eastside. Residents of the earlier penthouse would have a westerly view, of the Olympics, the Bay/Sound, and Bainbridge Island.

Pretty darned amazing gingerbread work on this building of gaudy penthouses. Seriously, very cool looking.

Home of the penthouses, the Gainsborough (note the proper British-y spelling) Building. Doesn't this just look like the entrance of a magnificent building, I ask you?

While I don't know how insanely expensive buying a condo/apartment in the Gainsborough would be, I do know that very nice condos in other insanely expensive buildings in the immediate vicinity run well over $1.5 million.

Even given West Coast insanely expensive real estate prices (as compared to, say, Oklahoma, or middle-of-nowhere Central Texas), that's a whole hell of a lot of money, and not something Ed and I are likely to be venturing anywhere near in this lifetime...

Then there are the cool-looking things that don't cost an arm and a leg. Like a neighborhood church's oddities:

I haven't the vaguest notion what the hell these three things are located next to, and in the same style as other stone work on, the First Baptist Church.

Distinctly related style of stone work here on the porte-cochere. Too bad no one has coaches anymore to be able to watch those things rolling in and out

And again here on the entrance. Definitely a cool, Gothic-y looking church...

And finally, because I can't seem to NOT take pictures of it, here is the Needle with the snow-capped Olympics providing the backdrop.

Happy spring, everyone!