Westlake and Mercer - progress!

Wow, the Streetcar tracks at Westlake and Mercer are really starting to shape up! It looks like they might even be fairly close to re-opening the segment of Westlake between Mercer and Valley that's been closed for nearly a year... (Actually, I can't remember when they started the roadwork there, but it has been many months, if not a year.) But they've repaved the non-tracks segment and even painted lane lines, which I consider to be a strong sign of imminent opening to car traffic. I can only hope that this might help relieve some of the constant congestion this neighborhood has had recently.

Northbound:


Southbound:

Whale sighting in Hawaii

Check out this awesome animated GIF PL put together from a sequence of pictures I took of a humpback whale in Hawaii last December! Thanks PL!

Seats

Seats
Originally uploaded by gecko_12.

I have a short, shameful confession to make. I want more people to view my flickr photostream. To this end, I have implemented a two-pronged Plan. 1) upload some of my coolest pictures from over the years (not just recent ones), and 2) add them to groups in hopes that they might get some more notice. I think #2 is the general strategy of most popular flickrites. I also noticed recently after browsing through the explore/interestingness pages that if I comment or favorite some random person's picture, sometimes they comment on one of mine too. It's a nice reciprocity thing.

In other news. Seattle was hot today. It's midnight and my apartment is still overly warm. Of course, I will forever be shunned by my family (in CA) for claiming that mid-70s is hot, but I've been here for 7 years... I can't help it. I've acclimated. Fortunately for me (as I have a LOT of work to do in the next 6 weeks or so) the weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse in a few days. Can't have too much sunshine and happiness mocking me while I spend all my time in front of the computer.

Moon over the Blue Flame

Waiting for the bus last night, I noticed a waxing moon over my building (and its adjacent construction site). Upon examining the EXIF data, it appears that I took the picture at 7:44PM (and the sky was not yet pitch black). I'm glad that the days are so much longer now! Winter really appears to be over. :)

Lightness

Up here in Seattle, we have pretty significant swings in the number of daylight hours over the course of the year, compared to most other parts of the country (except, of course, Alaska). The upshot of this, for me, is that certain parts of the year are marked by odd behavior on my part. The most alarming one is that in the summer, when it doesn't get dark until the 10:00 hour, I frequently forget to eat dinner at a normal time, since the darkening sky is a cue to me for most of the year. More pertinent to this time of year, though similar in mechanism, is that I tend to work much later in the evening when the light/dark transition moves later and later. At some point towards the summer, this stops, because even I can tell that it's time to go home before 10:00 (usually). But right now, when the sky is staying dusky till nearly 8:00, I find myself looking at the clock and being amazed at how late it has gotten and I'm still at work. This effect is made possible by the fact that we have windows in our lab and offices, a feature that was completely foreign to us just over two years ago when we still worked on main campus and were imprisoned in the center of the building, the lab completely window-less. In the winter, though, the reverse effect doesn't seem to happen quite so much. Unfortunately, one can't justify going home at 4:00 just because it's dark outside - on the contrary, since it's already dark, you just end up working till you're done and then go home. But in the spring, it's always like this, and it always catches me off guard.

FTV

Somehow, despite being out of the country (and away from internet) in between the final two "sweeps" weeks of our most recent fantasy teevee league (and thus unable to update my lineup for the 2nd week), I managed to pull out a win in the end. Roomie kc's boyfriend came in at a veeeery close 2nd. I think the surprise showing by Sam Winchester of Supernatural helped me immensely. Last season I came in second to kc. We're already setting up a new league, so we'll see if the Seattle contingent can continue to do well or whether totoro and his contingent will dominate this time. One of these days we'll get a second league set up so my sister can play - she's dying to have her own "fantasy" league since her boyfriend loves to play all the more traditional fantasy sports (baseball, football, basketball, whatever).

Busy March

Well, I returned from a great trip to Germany and Austria, was home for a few days, and then turned around and went to a conference in Canada for a few more days. I plan to eventually blog about both trips, but in the meantime, you can check out my flickr set as I slowly add more pictures from Europe.

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

I'm off to Germany (Munich as the hub) for 8 days, traveling with roomie AS for 6 of those! I'm pretty excited, especially now that I'm done packing. Hopefully I'll be diligent and post interesting photos from the trip in a timely fashion when I get back!

Auf Wiedersehen!

Valentine's Cactus?

After three years of careful watering (well, most of the time), a bit of fertilizer every now and then, and not much else, my Christmas cactus really came into its own this year. Last year it bloomed with just one flower. This year I came home from the holidays to find it chock-full of beautiful pink flowers. Then, a week or so later, another flower bloomed. I should explain that my plant has two different types of "Christmas cactus" in the same pot. The second type has a much redder and more dramatic bloom. Then, lo and behold, just the other day, I got yet another bloom! Perhaps it should be called a Valentine's cactus or a President's Day cactus?

Actually, it looks like the one that bloomed first is a "Christmas cactus" and the one that bloomed a bit later is a "Thanksgiving cactus" - backwards! The main thing to getting them to flower (besides overall age) is to make sure they're exposed to increasing darkness in the winter (no problem here in Seattle), and I think colder temperatures help too. In some climates this can be achieved by placing the plant outside, but my kitchen windowsill seems to work just fine. My plant was made by taking cuttings from other mature plants - one from a coworker, and the other from (I'm a bit ashamed to admit) the floor of the garden center at Home Depot (I asked if it was ok to take it). Now I guess I just need to add an "Easter cactus" to the mix and I'll be all set!

Seattle Symphony goes high tech

I went to Benaroya Hall this evening to hear the Seattle Symphony perform Grieg's Piano Concerto and Bruckner's unfinished 9th Symphony. I liked the latter more than the former, perhaps due to my partiality towards wind instruments, which were much more prominently featured in the second piece. The audience, on the other hand, disagreed with me and preferred the former piece. Having not been to the symphony since the end of their amazing 100th anniversary season in 2003-2004, I was amused to see their new way of reminding people to turn off their noisy electronic devices. I snapped this picture right before I complied. I've been so spoiled with Seattle Symphony's Campus Club tickets ($10 for a ticket right before the show, best available seats in the house, for currently registered university students) that I worry I might not want to pay full price when I become a non-student someday. Tonight I was in the Founder's Tier, where the tickets normally go for $75 each. Had it not been for the fact that I wanted to sit on the left side of the hall so I could see the pianist, I could have had a seat in the Founder's Tier Box section, which is normally $99 a seat. 90% off... not bad!