Late last year Byron and I began working on a business together. That business will be revealed to the world very shortly, but before that happens we needed to meet in person to work out some of the kinks. Sam was aware of this as she has a small role in one of the functions of the business. Since some of our employees will be based in Seattle, we felt it was appropriate to meet in person. Sam made this meeting easier by making the trip a Christmas gift to me so I could see my best friend. It didn’t hurt that she’d never been to Seattle before and this was a great way to kill three birds with one stone (business meeting + see new city + Christmas gift).
The blogs that follow our journey do not mention the business meetings, but the entire trip was a constant flow of discussion about the business between Byron and myself and by the end of the trip we were able to work out some key issues (vendor relations, accounting structure, etc.) that needed addressing.
On Thursday night Sam and I hopped a Virgin America flight to Seattle after work. Our flight was actually delayed by an hour and so when we arrived we chatted for a bit with our hosts, Byron and Christine, but quickly got to bed. In the morning when we awoke we found this note. Earlier in the week they had asked us what type of tea we liked in the morning and we had said “orange juice.”
We drank the juice, dressed and headed off to what we thought was our first destination. Sam had never been to Seattle before, so I was trying to fit in all the touristy spots for her. We thought we’d probably sleep in and then just go straight to the Farmer’s Market to have lunch with Byron. However, as we started walking around 10:30 we realized that the Space Needle was actually not that far from Byron and Christine’s apartment. We stopped at one of the many Starbucks on the route and grabbed chocolate smoothies to drink on our walk to the needle.
On a Friday morning in January there really aren’t any tourists at the Needle. When I visited in August of 2009 Byron and I had to wait in a line that spiraled around the building. On this day there was no wait at all.
After leaving the needle we took the monorail to the Farmer’s Market. I can’t think of “monorail” without starting the song from the Simpsons.
http://youtu.be/jF_yLodI1CQ
Byron actually took the rest of the day off and met us for lunch. This was the first of three trips for me to Beecher’s in four days for mac and cheese. I like cheese.
After lunch we boarded the monorail with Byron and headed back to the Space Needle.
We went to the Pacific Science Museum, stopping first to have some fun with the waterworks.
Inside we were greeted with several sensory tests set up to be “fun” for children, but it only succeeded in reminding Byron that he’s color blind, Sam that her eyesight isn’t perfect and that my sense of smell is all but dead. We were all too happy to proceed to the giant rubik’s cube.
And then to my favorite future pet, the axolotl.
We stopped by the sea anemone touching area. I was the only one brave enough to touch any of them.
Then we stopped by the bug area.
We spent most of our time in the bug area in the Butterfly Room.
Next we visited the Dinosaur display. This was quick walk through for Byron and Sam, but I lingered longer to appreciate the artistry that went into making these monsters. They were hardly “life-like,” but still had to take thousands of hours of craft to produce.
Outside again we walked over to the Experience Music Project and Sci-Fi Museum.
The first thing we checked out was the Avatar Exhibit.
The first stop was the fairy (thing) wall that interactively draws the fairy seedling things to your shadow.
The exhibit had two microsoft surface tables, which was the first time I’d actually been able to use a surface table. We had more fun playing with the interface than actually paying attention to the content.
They had a full size mech prop from the film.
They also had the “experience” portion where you could act out a scene as one of the characters on your own motion capture green screen area. I tried to hold my tongue as best I could that this was really just another user of Microsoft’s XBOX360 Kinect software, and nothing more amazing than what you can buy and play dancing games at home to. But that would have made me a spoilsport, so I tried to keep a tight lip on it, even when one of the museum employees kept repeating how “amazing” it is to people when she shows the video captures of the experience. Sam’s video will appear below her photo. It was easier to see on the big screen, but towards the end the software gets confused and starts ripping the characters arms off.
http://youtu.be/VdxCnXqfEbM
We next went downstairs for the horror movie exhibit. This was very well designed, but mostly featured gross-out stuff that none of us particularly enjoyed (tvs showing scenes from Eli Roth movies about flesh eating zombies, etc.). Something that I DID care about was a chance to meet my old pal. Of course this put an end to the debate about there being a skull behind the dome in the original movie. I was thinking there wasn’t (you can’t see it in the film), but clearly there is. I don’t really like this as it makes the monster too “human” and being “alien” is part of the scariness of the concept.
They also had a facehugger.
And a model from the production planning from the Cronenberg version of The Fly.
