Book Club

Tonight was book club. We read Persepolis. I highly recommend this book! It's also been made into an Oscar nominated film which is also worth seeing. Our host for the evening has a house in West Seattle with a turret and an amazing view.


Dramatic Seattle skyline spotted on the drive over.



Industrial Seattle



View from our host's window!



The stained glass lamp.



The Turret



What do you do with a turret? Put in a bathroom of course! This is the bathroom window.

Artemis

I tried another new fancy schmancy restaurant last night: Artemis. It is located in a very odd spot on Capitol Hill. Hidden away at the intersection of Bellevue, Bellevue, and Bellevue. We drove around for quite awhile trying to find parking and then the parking Gods smiled on us and we got a spot right in front!!

Fast Girls

This bike was also parked out front.



The ceiling. The decor was dark and intimate and quite appealing. The food came in little portions on little plates and tasted great. The drinks were pretty good. All of it was expensive and eminated a sense of fanciness that seemed out of place for that location (including the waitstaff). But, I guess Capitol Hill is becoming like Belltown with tons of condos and upscale restaurants. I had a discussion with a friend that said they are trying to make Seattle into another Manhatten. Hmmm.

BOKA

I went out for Happy Hour drinks with a coworker on Friday. We went to a snazzy place called BOKA. It is in one of the new swank hotels cropping up around Seattle. The drink I had (the thai-chi) was mighty tasty and expensive. The little Happy Hour bites were also delicious. The service, however, was not so good.


Wine Rack

My Oscar Win

I won both my Oscar pools this year. I got to collect on one of them tonight. We ate at Daniel's Broiler in Leschi (my dinner was paid for). It's extremely expensive, but has undoubtedly the best steak in town. We lucked out that the weather was decent today and had a beautiful view from our table.


You can see Bellevue glinting in the setting sun across Lake Washington as well as a hint of the Cascades in the distance.

A day for the animals

Bird's Nest. Apparently, the spikes aren't working very well! This is just above the escalator coming out of the Pioneer Square Station.



Taken at the Waterfall Park.



There were more dogs out today than I've ever seen at the dog park on Capitol Hill!

Do you see what I see?

This morning I looked out the window and was excited to see FOG. Woo Hoo! I love fog and thought it might provide some good photo opportunities. Alas, it was burning off by the time I walked to work.


This shot shows the sun in the front on the old brick building and the fog behind on the new metal building. The sun is rapidly winning this battle!



This is a "where's Waldo" type photo. Can you spot the Space Needle poking out of the fog? How many cranes do you see?



Palm fronds in the sun. In sharp contrast to the morning, the afternoon had beautiful sunshine and good feelings all around. I stopped on the way home to listen to a man playing classical music on his violin from a balcony. Then I got to pet a beautiful Boxer that I normally see being walked in the morning. It was a treat to see him this time of day when I could leisurely pet him instead of rushing on by to get to work.

Sun? Rain? Wind? Hail?

You name it, we got it today! It was a fun photo day. At lunch it was sunny and (almost) warm. Just before I got off work I was hearing thunder (a rarity in Seattle), and by the time I was walking home it turned windy, rainy, and then it hailed!


A new building going up. You see cranes all over the city. I chatted with an iron worker from San Diego the other day who is moving to Seattle because it's supposedly where all the work is these days.



Hail



I learned from this shot that you can capture hail if you use your flash.