Seattle

Tomorrow morning I fly home... If everything goes according to plan (and that's a big iiiiiff) I will be home on Friday morning.

Since I last wrote, I've attended a whole lot of talks, and there's not been much else. I did go for a long run on Saturday morning, which was a whole lot longer than intended as I got lost for a while. Out before dawn, I went around Lake Union, and some of the University of Washington campus, before accidentally ending up at Green Lake, Seattle's popularly overcrowded running/jogging/biking/rowing/etc. spot, which was quite pleasent early in the morning. Unfortunately I'm still suffering from that over-long run on too much concrete; I had never realised how lucky we are to have such soft pavements at home...

I went for a wander today, again around Lake Union to take a few photos, in particular of the old Gas Works.

Looks like I was lucky with my travel dates, missing the big initial disruption of the latest terror fuss. Hopefully things will have settled down by my flights back, and I'll be able to travel sanely.

The workshop started yesterday, and I gave my talk. I suppose it went okay; I had laptop problems, and my presentation wasn't as clear as it could have been, but there did seem to be considerable interest in the work, which is rather pleasing.

I managed to use the hotel gym this morning, which for a moment made me wonder whether it is such a good thing there is nice beer available... I've been eating really nice food since I got here. Of course the seafood is good, and I had some excellent buffalo fajitas last night (far too much food for not much money). To go with the food, I cannot resist sampling the great range of local beers, with microbrews being served in resturants and brewpubs. It's possible to find such things in Scotland, but I never stumbled upon so many so easily, and in such a range of styles.

In Seattle!

Yesterday I got up at 5am to get to Edinburgh airport and catch a 9am flight. That was about 8 hours, a long time over boring sea in order to reach bustling Newark airport. After the fun of US Immigration (was okay), a shorter (under 6 hours) flight to Seattle. A young boy sitting next to me was impressed that I came from Scotland; he hurriedly imparted this information to the air hostess, and later drew a picture of the Loch Ness Monster. After flying over many hours of flat flat land divided into neat little squares in a variety of colours, suddenly there are mountains, and then soon Seattle. We arrived in around 5pm.

Lots of flying. I'm now a little past half-way through Quicksilver.

I checked into the hotel, had a wander around, ate some dinner at a cool little bar/club place, and flopped into bed exhausted around 9.

This morning I easily woke up and went out for a run around 6. I ran around Union Lake, as shown in the picture above. After changing, I wandered down to Pike Place Market for a look around, and a tasty breakfast.

I then headed over to the Seattle Center, and went up the Space Needle for a (cloudy) view. Then I headed into the Pacific Science Center. They are currently running the Game On computer gaming exhibition. They have a huge collection of machines set up to play; I was most interested in the old stuff they have from before my time. A myriad of space invaders (variations and clones/successors), and a version of Spacewar, the vector-graphics space warfare game that started it all. It seems they have a representative of everything you might think of.

I wandered into the Science Fiction Museum too, before heading back through town, having another coffee and read of a paper, grabbing a couple of new books, and heading up here to sort stuff and write this. The conference starts tomorrow, and I give my talk late morning; I'll let you know how it goes. For now I'm off for dinner.

Recently I have mostly been preparing for going away, including writing my talk for Thursday. Saturday quickly disappeared while I bought new running shoes and tops, did my yearly clothes shop (to be very optimistic), bought new boots and books, and went for a run (4 weeks to go). On Sunday we went to the climbing wall, and then since the busses seemed to be taunting us decided to walk home. About 3 1/2 hours of strolling down the Water of Leith built up a nice appetite to go out for dinner to the wonderful Nepalese resturant, The Gurkha.

Tomorrow morning I am flying to Seattle as mentioned earlier, arriving back in Edinburgh on the 18th. I expect to post more frequently while away than I have been recently, it's all very exciting.