Emerald City
The weekend saw us up the I-5 corridor to the Seattle metro area. We dropped the big dog off at the sitter and headed north.
Our first stop was to pimp the wife's ride. I have a friend through a car club board(yes I am or at least was a car club geek) who has openned up his own tinting and performance part shop in Auburn. The wife decided on limo tint for the back for that extra gangsta look. After a dropping the car off and the 1/2 mile walk along the railroad tracks and a crazy busy road we ended up at a pizza buffet. Gorged ourselves and walked back to find the car almost completely finished. I was amazed. They have one of these cutters that look like a poster printer hooked up to the computer and it cuts the film to match any car made in the last 30 years. It used to take him 3 hours to tint a car cutting stuff by hand, now he can do a car in less than hour. I was very impressed.
After that we took advantage of the diamond lane and zoomed past which I can only think of as perpetual Seattle gridlock to my sister's place in Lynnwood. My neice met us at the apartment as my sister was going straight from work to her volunteer position calling Bingo at her daughters old Elementary catholic school St. Alphonsus'. We drove down to bingo and it was a huge mess of families and kids running around. You bought a packet of 7 cards, 3 games per card, for the night, and then they come around to sell for the 8th round blackout game. I came so close in about 5 of the 7 games, and I leaned I the wife's shoulders and proclaimed "I didn't win a damn thing". And then came the all important "blackout game". This is where you have to fill up the entire game card to win. I was getting closer and closer on one of my cards and then I saw the last number put up on the closed circuit tv before it was announced. I was so giddy. It was finally announced and I was able to scream those magic words "BINGO!". It was all mine. $45 was my prize, which the 3 of us promptly blew on food and drinks at the bar immediately after.
The next day found us in the capable hands of a nurse and doctor. No, no we were not hurt. These are our friends C and A would spent the day with us hanging out in Seattle proper. No silly suburbs for us. We had an amazing brunch at a place called the 5 Spot. Our server was a dead ringer for Ron Perlman(City of Lost Children, Alien 4, HellBoy). Seriously this guy must have been 6'5" easy. Anyway the restaurant changes themes and seasons and is the second time we have eaten there. Fantastic. We then went to their apartment which has this amazing view of the space needle and the Sound. Then it was off to the locks and salmon fish ladder, a little frisbee at Gasworks park which is half park/half superfund site as they have left the hulking gas refinery left sitting in the park thus leeching heavy metals into the soil. Fan-frickin-tastic! Oh yeah this is right next to the lake. Then off to Whole Foods for rations for the rest of the evening. 4 different kinds of cheese were procured along with apples, figs, and pears. This made for wonderful snacking through the rest of afternoon through evening. Alaskan black cod and veggies were also purchased for dinner to come later. This was also fantastic, C covered the cod with a balsamic, soy, garlic and scallion reduction. Very tasty. The evening was topped off with warm cookies and vanilla ice cream. We can't thank them enough for such a wonderul evening.
The exciting nerve racking bit of the evening is when the scrabble board came out and C and I locked horns for battle as the womenfolk watched episodes of Sex and the City on DVD in a boggling out of order sequence. C played REVELING for a bingo(different from the bingo above and I did not have to pay him money) which I challenged as I thought it had to have 2 L's. Well both spellings were good. Losing my turn, we were over half way through the bag and now I was down over 100 points. I was able to play a bingo of my own with RETAILER, for a weak 59 points but was able to draw the q and the z from the bag and had triple letter squares to drop them both and I was back in the game. With the board crazy tight in the end I thought for sure I was going to lose as I had both c's on my rack. Were both were able to play only one or two tiles off our racks each turn and it was getting close. I ended up winning in the last as he tried to play a phony which I challenged off and won 396-388.
There was much rejoicing!
Our first stop was to pimp the wife's ride. I have a friend through a car club board(yes I am or at least was a car club geek) who has openned up his own tinting and performance part shop in Auburn. The wife decided on limo tint for the back for that extra gangsta look. After a dropping the car off and the 1/2 mile walk along the railroad tracks and a crazy busy road we ended up at a pizza buffet. Gorged ourselves and walked back to find the car almost completely finished. I was amazed. They have one of these cutters that look like a poster printer hooked up to the computer and it cuts the film to match any car made in the last 30 years. It used to take him 3 hours to tint a car cutting stuff by hand, now he can do a car in less than hour. I was very impressed.
After that we took advantage of the diamond lane and zoomed past which I can only think of as perpetual Seattle gridlock to my sister's place in Lynnwood. My neice met us at the apartment as my sister was going straight from work to her volunteer position calling Bingo at her daughters old Elementary catholic school St. Alphonsus'. We drove down to bingo and it was a huge mess of families and kids running around. You bought a packet of 7 cards, 3 games per card, for the night, and then they come around to sell for the 8th round blackout game. I came so close in about 5 of the 7 games, and I leaned I the wife's shoulders and proclaimed "I didn't win a damn thing". And then came the all important "blackout game". This is where you have to fill up the entire game card to win. I was getting closer and closer on one of my cards and then I saw the last number put up on the closed circuit tv before it was announced. I was so giddy. It was finally announced and I was able to scream those magic words "BINGO!". It was all mine. $45 was my prize, which the 3 of us promptly blew on food and drinks at the bar immediately after.
The next day found us in the capable hands of a nurse and doctor. No, no we were not hurt. These are our friends C and A would spent the day with us hanging out in Seattle proper. No silly suburbs for us. We had an amazing brunch at a place called the 5 Spot. Our server was a dead ringer for Ron Perlman(City of Lost Children, Alien 4, HellBoy). Seriously this guy must have been 6'5" easy. Anyway the restaurant changes themes and seasons and is the second time we have eaten there. Fantastic. We then went to their apartment which has this amazing view of the space needle and the Sound. Then it was off to the locks and salmon fish ladder, a little frisbee at Gasworks park which is half park/half superfund site as they have left the hulking gas refinery left sitting in the park thus leeching heavy metals into the soil. Fan-frickin-tastic! Oh yeah this is right next to the lake. Then off to Whole Foods for rations for the rest of the evening. 4 different kinds of cheese were procured along with apples, figs, and pears. This made for wonderful snacking through the rest of afternoon through evening. Alaskan black cod and veggies were also purchased for dinner to come later. This was also fantastic, C covered the cod with a balsamic, soy, garlic and scallion reduction. Very tasty. The evening was topped off with warm cookies and vanilla ice cream. We can't thank them enough for such a wonderul evening.
The exciting nerve racking bit of the evening is when the scrabble board came out and C and I locked horns for battle as the womenfolk watched episodes of Sex and the City on DVD in a boggling out of order sequence. C played REVELING for a bingo(different from the bingo above and I did not have to pay him money) which I challenged as I thought it had to have 2 L's. Well both spellings were good. Losing my turn, we were over half way through the bag and now I was down over 100 points. I was able to play a bingo of my own with RETAILER, for a weak 59 points but was able to draw the q and the z from the bag and had triple letter squares to drop them both and I was back in the game. With the board crazy tight in the end I thought for sure I was going to lose as I had both c's on my rack. Were both were able to play only one or two tiles off our racks each turn and it was getting close. I ended up winning in the last as he tried to play a phony which I challenged off and won 396-388.
There was much rejoicing!