Finally wrapping up a busy weekend of birthday festivities for Diana's 40th. I couldn't wait to give her the new MacBook (see previous post), so that got it started on Friday night. I was thinking she could get everything the way that she wanted, but of course all that really has to be done is get stuff transferred from the old computer, so she's already been using it at full speed, and on the same first charge!
But of course we couldn't have her sitting around all weekend looking at Facebook! I felt a lot of pressure to do something "cool" this weekend, but being new in town and not having anything involving adult beverages as an option, I was worried about failing (thus the big deal gift). So we decided together to finally do some downtown touristy stuff during the day, knowing her upper GI may not approve later.
We had a pool of objectives in mind, namely attractions in the city center area and the Pike Place Market, in no particular order and with no requirements beyond that. We parked in a garage at the Science Center, and started with the Science Fiction Museum and Experience Music Project. (Bonus: Only $5 each for both museums with the MS Prime card!) These are places established by Paul Allen, one of the Microsoft co-founders, and financially haven't done all that well (kinda like TechTV). While we didn't have any explicit plan in mind, I very much thought the Sci-Fi Museum would be a good place to start since Diana has always been a Star Trek fan, and they've got quite a bit from there.
Sure enough, just inside the front door is Captain Kirk's chair from the set of the Star Trek TV show. They've got a fairly robust collection of stuff there, including lots of Trek pieces, the robot from Lost In Space, Star Wars stuff, lots of books and posters from all of science fiction, and a couple of really cool video displays. I found it interesting that many of the artifacts were actually owned by Paul Allen.
While she enjoyed the content, I think the highlight for Diana was a couple of Trekkies nearly creaming themselves over Star Trek phasers and tri-corders. It was pretty hilarious, and strange since that show was on long before they were even a twinkle in their parents' eyes. The TV show might have been cheesy, but it obviously resonated with people at a pretty basic level.
The EMP was just OK. Having the Rock + Roll Hall of Fame back in Cleveland, there's a pretty high bar. Honestly the building itself was the biggest attraction for me (a Frank Gehry). They have a big Hendrix exhibit, and an impressive guitar collection in the context of showing an evolution in the instrument. The thing that I found most interesting was the section about Seattle's music scene from the 90's, mainly the grunge thing. That was interesting to me because I was doing college radio at the time. They also have a bunch of interactive exhibits around different music skills, but they're inadequate even for the small crowds. The museum has potential though, and it's really well kept. The big drug trippy room with the lights is pretty cool.
After the museums, we saw what was left of the little mini-amusement park that was being dismantled. They had a coaster there that was recently dismantled. That area seems to be going through a real transition. Starting with the World's Fair that put up the Space Needle, there was some obvious vitality there, but it doesn't have the kind of polish it used to. That Key Arena is now going unused for basketball probably won't help it. I hope it turns around.
We hopped on the monorail south. The signs boast that it's the first public monorail "system" in the country, but honestly it's just two trains on their own rails with a stop at each end. The other end stops in a downtown "mall" and food court, where I was surprised to see a Lush store (organic bath goodies). From there we walked down to the Pike Place Market. It's a huge tourist thing, and you've seen the dudes tossing fish around on TV I'm sure. The market itself isn't that interesting to me, but the day wasn't about me. :) If you lived downtown, I can only imagine how awesome it would be to have access to that much fresh food. There's obvious a lot of concentration on seafood, which makes the market a lot different than, say, the West Side Market in Cleveland, which is more about produce and meat.
The flavor though, for me, is the people. Evangelists are shouting in the street warning we're going to hell, while a young woman sporting her punk rock look is trying to sound sweet and angry at the same time. In fact, it's the street musicians that fascinate me more than anything. I wish I would've had my good microphone.
By the time we got back to the Space Needle, Diana's guts began to protest, so we packed it in. She found a good position on the couch and managed to head off the worst of the discomfort and nausea, and got a good night of sleep for a change. Looks like her key in these last two months is to take it really easy in the evenings.
Joe and Kristen wanted to take us out, so we blocked out Sunday for that. Thank God we have someone local to show us around. They took us down to Tacoma where we had lunch at a place called Harmon Brewery. It was delicious! I didn't have any beer, which is lame I know, but I just wasn't feeling it. They had this awesome hot sauce though that was great on the chicken, and these parmesan garlic fries. It's hard to find places that don't serve greasy fries. So we finally know of a place that we really like, but it's in Tacoma!
From there, we crossed the freeway to the Museum of Glass. You know the cool ceiling in the Bellagio lobby? That dude did a ceiling in the bridge over the freeway, with some big blue glass things that look like giant sugar stick things. The two big collections they have right now are from an Alaskan guy doing what he described as modern native art, and a bunch of pieces modeled after child drawings.
The real action is in their hot shop, where there are people actively making new stuff. It's kind of like kitchen stadium for glass manipulation. Today they were making these big martini style glasses that they're selling in an auction at some point. Diana was really into it, and I'm so glad. We never did get into the glass blowing place at Cedar Point this year, which is amateur hour by comparison, but I'm so glad that she got to see this. I'm sure we'll go back at some point. Thank God we have local relatives to show us a good time, as I would've never known this place existed.
I wish that we could've flown out friends and stuff, because we're both feeling a little disconnected, but we're adjusting to our new home. Diana is lucky to have a brother near by only a couple of years ahead of us in terms of raising children. They're kind of like our cheat sheet to parenting tiny humans, as well as our tour guides to the Puget Sound region.
One question, one followup: Does the EMP still make use of the MEG device, the WinCE-based gizmo with an IR wand, display and headphones that gives you all the audio clips and background data that goes with the exhibits? Geek that I am, I thought that was a really cool idea.
...And have they figured out how to keep the things from crashing? :)
(I went through three during my visit. The battery ran out on the first one, the second one crashed hard, and the third one got me through the rest of the museum)
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Oh, they probably did away with it then. :( It used to be that when you entered the EMP and bought your ticket, they handed you this little gizmo about the size of a 1970's cassette recorder with a hard drive and a battery inside, with a crash-prone touch-screen magic wand and a set of headphones. Sounds like they've replaced most of that with the iPods, which, given the origins of the museum, seems almost sacrilegious.
It was neat, but Windows CE was definitely not up to the task. In fairness, neither was anything else, really...(EPOC wouldn't have crashed, but nobody was taking it seriously at the time). You would have really appreciated it, I think.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Says who? Heck, history suggests that neither could exist without the other! But if Paul Allen is footing the bill, you'd almost expect that given a choice between an Apple product and a Microsoft product, both equally suited to the purpose, you'd go with the Microsoft product, just to honor your patron's legacy.
In a moment of serious thought about it, for doing a tour of the EMP (and SFM), the Zune might actually be a better choice...in fact, with the bigger screen and networking capability I'd think it would be ideally suited, and to take it a step further, a custom software load would make it positively MEG-like, only without the shoulder bag, dead batteries, and crashing.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.