October and November are always busy times for me, and this year was no exception. With four conferences and a half dozen states, the time I spent home was pretty chill and I mostly stayed close to home.
The one exception to my hermit life these past several weeks was the MST3K Live 30th Anniversary Tour, which my friend Steve grabbed tickets for when they went on sale months ago. The timing of the show proved a bit complicated for me, and I canceled on him no less than two times as my travel and conference plans shifted in the months approaching it. Thankfully it worked out, and we met up for dinner at my beloved Anchor and Hope in San Francisco. Now, one of my favorite things about Anchor and Hope is their beer menu, which is off-limits to me these days, so I was really pleased to learn they had Bitburger Drive on their menu, a non-alcoholic brew from Germany which was a fine accompaniment to the meal. From there, we hopped on the MUNI Metro to go over to The Warfield, the same theater where MJ and I saw their live show last year.
They had two shows in each city during this tour, riffing on two separate movies, and we went for The Brain since timing for that worked best. I obviously can’t speak for the other show, but I was very happy with this selection. The show was a lot of fun.
Unfortunately part of sorting out my schedule called for a 6AM flight to Seattle the next morning so I could spend the day as planned with my friend Walt wandering around Seattle. I’ve been to Seattle several times, and even have taken some time to do some tourist stuff, but I’d never been up in the Space Needle. We decided to remedy that on this visit.
Our timing was better than I could have planned. First of all, they unveiled the $100 million renovation of the Space Needle this year, which included a new glass floor!
And glass benches in the outdoor observatory area!
It’s pretty amazing. They were still doing work when we were there, so the indoor area on the observation deck level was still closed to the public. The restaurant is gone (at least for now?), but my experience with food at revolving restaurants has not exactly been top notch anyway so I wasn’t really disappointed.
The second great thing about our timing? The weather! Seattle is famous for being gloomy, and my subsequent days in town were on par, but that Thursday we were granted with the best weather I’ve ever seen in Seattle.
In fact, it was so good that I finally was able to see the elusive Mount Rainier! It’s surprising that such a huge summit can hide so easily, but I’d only ever seen its likeness grace tourist and Seattle-made goodies and businesses. It was nice to finally see it for real.
Aside from the conference itself, which I’ll write about later, my visit mostly consisted of trying a new coffee shop each morning to get my limited allowance of caffeine for the day. It was a nice quick trip though, and my last professional trip before we welcome our little one in January. Right now I’m waiting for a flight to Philadelphia, where we’re going for Thanksgiving, and which will be my last personal trip. We’re planning on getting the room for the little one set up with a crib and changing table, and I’ve started shopping for some kiddo things that were easier to get sent to Philadelphia. We’ve also scheduled some visits with family and friends, including our now regular visit to MJ’s sister’s house for Thanksgiving itself.
More photos from the visit to Seattle here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/albums/72157697606317690