West side story

Sometimes the road takes you to unexpected places. This afternoon, I transported NatDog and TomCat down to SeaTac; they were flying out to San Diego for a little bit of spring break sunshine. Otis had an afternoon appointment scheduled and I had tentative plans to hook up with Ned, but she didn't answer the phone when I called. So, I came back north via the west side - up 509 to 99 - wanting to keep in easy striking distance of West Seattle in case she called back. Well, she didn't, so I found myself working my way back via the waterfront and Ballard and like that, and so I am now here killing time at Makeda Coffee on Phinney Ridge, since by the time I got home Otis would have been getting into the zone for her session anyway.

This has been a wandering and indolent break anyway. I have done the minimum amount of prep work necessary for the next quarter, and allowed myself suitable time for naps and other affairs of state. It's been nice just to be off the clock, even though we didn't go to San Diego (or Hawaii or Japan or Colorado) like my colleagues. I haven't been able to sleep in, though; I wanted to start switching to swing shift, but the cats still say the day starts at 6:30 am.

There has been a new distraction this break: Otis and I decided to beat the clock and get a new TV before the projector lamp burned out. So, we trundled around for an afternoon last week and picked up one of those new-fangled flat screen jobs and a table to put it on. We've been running off one of the laptops for now, but I have plans to pick up a used Mac Mini and use that as our media player. In addition to the DVDs and Hulu and iTunes and all that, we have actually been watching some of the new DTV channels, mostly for the novelty. RTH, the Retro Televison Network, shows stuff like Simon & Simon and Kate & Allie; it's amazing how dated that stuff is.

Here's some stuff that's not dated:

This one is for O:

Credit.

This one is for Soapy, in the spirit of creativity that he has recently exhibited:

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And this one is just cool:

Credit.