Oh What a Night...

Go Mariners! That was the cry of the night for me & LO as we sat in the Jamie Moyer Suite at the M's game. While the Mariners lost to the Angels, the yellow hydroplane lost AGAIN on the big screen in the outfield, the field crew did dance. That was enough for me. Well, that and the beautiful view from the suite, and the fact that I won the drawing for an autographed Jamie Moyer jersey. My life is sweet.

Here's a sample of the dance that they did... it always makes me smile when the crew dances...


I'm happy that Soriano was reportedly watching the game tonight (after a line drive to the head nearly killed him the night before) and doing well. Seems that we take for granted the dangers of the game. I think that KT put it really well in her entry about the August 29th game. Read more about it here.

Seems that I'm not really a baseball fan... or a Seahawks fan... or a hockey fan... or a Sonics fan... but I can certainly identify with the fair-weather fan feelings of Nathan and Mike. Seriously, when are we going to get a good professional team in Seattle? (Notice how I said "professional..." I'm still a die-hard UW Husky football fan... we're going to better our record from last year, I swear!)

Anywho, I had yet another great night at the ballpark, even if the Seattle Mariners didn't prevail. At least LO was happy that his "hometown" team won for once...

Weekend Wanderings

Man, I had another great weekend! I can't believe how much we packed in this weekend.

Friday
We trekked over to the Kirkland waterfront to watch a boatload of sailing friends prepare for their final Friday night race. While waiting on the dock and watching the boats jockey for positions, we got to watch the Northwest University students in their "people" scavenger hunt. I struck up a conversation with two of the people that they were searching for and gave them the idea of getting the contestants to perform songs and stunts to get "extra" points. (Sorry new NU students!) We waited long enough to see one group do a human pyramid on the dock before we walked downtown to dinner at Hector's. Yum. Then we walked back to the dock and watched a beautiful sunset. Ahh, life in the Northwest, huh?

Saturday
Yeah, I got up at the crack of early (actually, a little before the crack of early) and went up to the Special Olympics state softball tournament. I'll readily admit that I was less than useful, but that I had fun and got a great tan. We went that evening to the always-fun Hawaiian Luau held by our friends in West Seattle. Was great to sit and relax and jabber with friends late in to the night.

Sunday
Finally! I get to sleep in! Yessssss!!!!!! It was great to have a lazy morning at home, I don't get those often enough, I have to say. We took the afternoon to go up to the Evergreen State Fair. This is one of my favorite fairs, as it's smaller and not too crowded. You still get to go and see the baby chicks and the pig races without having to walk a million miles to get there, or to battle a million and a half people on the way to anything. We got to hit all of the highlights -- including the All-Alaskan Pig races, which were definitely funny.

We concluded our afternoon at the fair at the Jars of Clay concert. I definitely like these guys, and they have a great (if not entertaining) stage presence. Turns out that I knew only 55% or so of the songs that they sang, but for the small admission fee, it was worth it. T'was a great summertime activity, I tell ya.

Funny side note: Spirit 105.3 reports that there were 4,000 people at the concert. (Here's some photos for you too.) Not sure if I believe that there were 4,000 people there, but it was a pretty good crowd... especially since my friends and I were there. ;-)

Well, I hope y'all had a great weekend too... and that your weekend wanderings were wonderful. :-)

So that's what I've been doing wrong...

... seems that researchers have found a correlation between marriage and mental health:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lonely? Feeling low? Try taking a walk -- down the aisle. Getting married enhances mental health, especially if you're depressed, according to a new U.S. study.

The benefits of marriage for the depressed are particularly dramatic, a finding that surprised the professor-student team behind the study.

"We actually found the opposite of what we expected," said Adrianne Frech, a PhD sociology student at Ohio State University who conducted the study with Kristi Williams, an assistant professor of sociology. Read more here.

Huh, who knew that marriage could be such a good option for your mental health?

An Open Note to My True Friends (You Know Who You Are...)

To my dear friends, young and old:
Just a note to say thank you for being you. Thank you for being my friend and confidant. I appreciate you for who you are, who you want to be, and who you were.

I love that I can come to you all with my thoughts, fears, emotions, tears, jokes, questions, stories, and more, and you will still call me your friend at the end of the day. You are my rocks, you are my buoys in rough waters, and I appreciate you.

Thank you for allowing me to have weird nicknames, or one-liners that only we would understand (while the rest of the world gives us really funny looks). The fact that you will let me be me means the world to me.

I don't think that we tell people enough these days what we're thinking or where we stand in life. So, here I am being real to each and every one of you, saying: thank you, I appreciate you, and keep being you.

You all rock.

Anti-stupidity Pill -- Seriously Folks!

This is just about one of the dumbest things that I've heard about lately: "A German scientist has been researching an A German scientist has been testing an "anti-stupidity" pill with encouraging results on mice and fruit flies, Bild newspaper reported Saturday."

So a few thoughts and questions for you to ponder:

• How does one test the short-term memory of a fruit fly? Seriously, do they have memories?


• How is short-term memory related to stupidity? Isn't it the long-term memory that counts on this front?


• Along the same lines: how does attentiveness relate to stupidity?

This is just craziness... sometimes I wonder about the scientific research community...

Why I Love Working in Downtown Seattle

In no particular order...

Reason #122: The Blue Angels roaring over the city every summer.
There's nothing better than the rumble of the jets as they pass overhead on the city. And, there's nothing better than when your colleagues have to say on a conference call "No, we're not under attack, that's just the Blue Angels buzzing the city!" Heh heh.

Reason #29: You get to know the panhandlers/homeless people.
Yep, I know the panhandlers by sight now. While I don't know them by name or stop and have in-depth conversations with them, I certainly have made up their own stories for them in my head. There's the box guy who hangs out by the T-Mobile store on 6th (he shoves the box in front of you daily, it's fun). There's the scowling hat guy that I see every morning outside of the Roxy store. He has a new ball cap every day that he holds at his side. He's also always alarmingly clean for a homeless person, I think that maybe he lives in a nice house outside of town, and funds his mortgage with his hat panhandling skills...(I have decided that the day that this guy returns my smile is the day that I'm going to give in and give him money.)

And then there's my all-time favorite guys (I don't know if they're homeless, but they've made this category any way...): "Shoe shine, Miss? Shoe shine!" Regardless of whether or not I'm wearing leather shoes, they bellow out at all of us as we pass that we need our shoes shined. And, I have to say, they do a pretty good job on my shoes.

Reason #63: The Doormen & Security Dudes
Here at my office building, we have a good crew of doormen who are always smiling and always emitting positive energy. No matter how hot or cold it is outside, they are there in the morning to open the door and shoot me a warm greeting. It makes getting to work in the morning very pleasant, and makes me want to spread a little love (only a little, let's face it: I'm not really a morning person...) to the rest of the world at 8 a.m. And, it makes it a lot easier to juggle my yummy mocha (see reason #4 below), my iPod, and personal effects as I trudge in to work each day.

Reason #98: Bike Messengers
Outside of my office building is one of the few local mom & pop coffee type stands where apparently the whole bike messenger community hangs out. No matter what time of day it is, you can find this motley crew of bike messengers hanging out with their coffee and snacks doing tricks on their bikes and generally making merriment. I love it because it's a community that I'm not necessarily exposed to in other parts of my life, but I feel like I get to appreciate them from afar as I'm going about my daily routine. And really, it kind of makes me want to be a bike messenger. (Well, maybe not really, since I don't own a bike, and can't see myself careening through traffic to deliver a package to random businesses...)

Reason #4: Starbucks
This one's very important. There are no less than 20 Starbucks within a 5 mile radius of my office. More importantly, the Starbucks kiosk (a mere 500 feet from a full store) that I frequent every morning knows my drink order by heart. No matter how groggy or checked-out I am in the morning, I know that the kiosk staff will serve me my grande non-fat, extra stirred, no whip mocha the way that I like it. And I love them for it. :-)