Caught with your pants down - running and Boeing

After a week of early starts (6am every day) and late finishes (midnight with a depressing regularity) it was wonderful to be able to get up at 8. However, that was a precursor to driving to Magnuson Sports Field in Seattle, to go for a run.

Adverse Weather

All week Bellevue has been shrouded in fog. Not the death-dealing stuff that's festering in Beijing currently, just cold wet air that saps the warmth out of you if you're dumb enough to walk the mile and a half from the hotel to the office. As the days have passed, the runs I've taken from the hotel have got shorter and shorter, until I fled for ten minutes this morning, before returning shamefacedly to the lobby.

Happy happy joy joy in Bellevue

Everyone is very cheerful in the shops in Bellevue. Being English, a sunny disposition is something I view with a great deal of suspicion. It juust doesn't seem reasonable for a person to enter a semi-orgasmic state of bliss just because I've purchased a bottle of pre-shave oil from them.

Or a jar of yeast.

Or a tube of toothpaste.

Or made no more than an enquiry about the roaming ability of a particular Nokia smartphone.

Well, writing those things down will ruin any hope of surprising my wife on her birthday this year, but too bad: I've been seriously freaked out by this over-overt display of friendliness from the shopkeepers of the Greater Seattle Area.

Special Delivery

To the hilarity of my workmates, I took delivery of a large cardboard box full of packets of shredded wheat today. It is expensive to eat well in Singapore, and it turns out that shredded wheat is three to four times more costly in Singapore than if you buy it in the US, so we ended up ordering a vast amount of it for me to bring back from Seattle.

It's not just shredded wheat, mind. There are some teabags in the box too, and a container of washing up liquid. All things that it should make no economic sense to fly across the Pacific Ocean in my baggage, yet by the greed of a few shopkeepers in Singapore is made so.

Back inside

I woke up at six today, feeling refreshed and happy with life. No longer was I so exhausted that all I wanted to do was cry. I was alive again. Hurrah!

So I went out for a run, and got ten yards down the street before I realised that I'd left my gloves and hat behind.

Sleepy in Seattle

Jet lag is a murderous thing, or perhaps it's just the sleep debt I incurred through being an idiot on Friday night. Either way, I can hardly keep my eyes open and it's only 8pm local time.

Locked out

It wasn't so hard to get to my friend's house: a 70 dollar taxi ride with a driver who kept nodding off, but a beautiful sunrise and the sight of the Olympics partially shrouded by mist was compensation enough. I got out of the taxi, took my bags up the stairs, and then spent ten minutes trying to figure out where the keys were, without any success. Finally, I admitted defeat and texted my friend, who called me back with the (fairly obvious) location, and I was in.

Unhappy travels

What is it they say about it being better to travel in hope than arrive in Seattle?

EMP in Seattle

Today we drove to Seattle and visited the EMP, the Experience Music Project, near the Space Needle. It's a beautiful building, but the contents are a bit odd.

Last day at the office

The last day in Bellevue passed quickly. I woke up at 5, couldn't sleep, got out of bed and ran at 6, got back to the hotel, fought my luggage for an hour, went to the office.

I had meetings, ate doughnuts, avoided coffee, had possibly the worst Thai food of my life, went back to the office, formatted spreadsheets, deleted emails, considered the bleakness of my existence, drank three cans of Talking Rain, modified a powerpoint presentation, left the office. Much as per usual, I guess.

I'm staying with friends in Issaquah tonight and tomorrow, a small enclave of houses on a mountaintop, complete with what looks like a fortress wall around them. In case the 99%/the 75%/the 50%/the zombies attack, I guess. There's also a bear that wanders the streets up here, which will make for a fun run tomorrow.

We went for Mexican food tonight, about a mile from the house. Didn't see any bears. Drank much too much. Came back. Watched Tucker & Dale Vs Evil. Now I'm in a 17 year old's bed. Thankfully, he's sleeping somewhere else tonight or it would be very wrong.

Long day

I got out of bed at 6:15 this morning, pre-empting my alarm clock by twenty minutes. Maybe I was just excited to be trying out my new shoes.

Blue skies over Bellevue

Today I went to the mall. That wasn't very notable. I bought a laptop (also not very notable) and stopped for a cupcake on the way back to the hotel (which was most pleasant, but enormous). Then I took a taxi to Fremont to reach my friends who were waiting for me at the bar.

I got to the bar. I was half an hour late. There was no sign of them. My phone doesn't work on this side of the Pacific so I figured I'd wait: perhaps they were delayed. I had a pint of Pyramid Smokey Smoked Lager. It didn't taste very smokey. No sign of my friends. I use the bar's phone to call my friend. I got a message saying I had an invalid number. I had another beer. Still no sign of them. I began to panic.

Some people, when they panic, shake, or sweat, or swear compulsively. I'm reconciled to those things I have no power to change, so I ordered a felafel sandwich and deliberated on whether to have a third pint or not. It was only 2 o'clock, after all. Still no sign of my friends.

Early morning run

I was a little amazed to wake up at 6:30 this morning feeling fine and dandy. Either the melatonin worked last night, or I haven't actually adjusted my time zones at all. No matter: it was time for my run.

Leaving Bellevue

Exhausted, I went to sleep at 10:30 last night, which of course meant I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I've given myself jet lag.

Wintermission

The snow continued to fall today - we were promised nothing but warm(er) rain, but instead there was pretty snow bedecking all the buildings. Cajoled by a colleague, I went to the office, to find a ghost town of abandoned cubicles. Every meeting was cancelled, something that provoked me to paroxysms of rage. It was as if nobody else had ever thought of using the telephone to communicate: like emus, if they can't see you, some people in the office think they can't hear you either.

The wrong kind of snow

Another day passes, and Seattle inches closer to Snowmageddon, or Snowpocalypse, or Holofrost, or some other world-ending event with a chilly theme.

Snowing, working and sleeping

Today I looked out the window, to see snow, glittering on the trees outside the hotel. I had my breakfast and then got driven up to the hotel, with the dread warning that there would be no car to ferry me home in the evening, because of the snow.

Like driving on ice

They don't salt the roads in Seattle, because the run-off would pollute the water and harm the fishing industries. Which is good for the environment and the salmon, but it means that with a little bit of snow like today, the roads get rather slippery.

Seattle Museum of Art

After not getting much sleep on the plane to Seattle, I managed to stick it out until midnight before going to sleep, and then woke up this morning feeling almost normal. I worked my way through a bowl of porridge and then went to get my beard trimmed. After that I was at a loss as to what to do next, so I strolled down the street, rain blowing in my face, cursing when I stopped by an awning and got dripped on the top of my head.

Not wanting to walk back to the hotel and sit around all day, and not feeling like spending my day in the shops, I walked round to the Seattle Art Museum. As I approached, I recognised the Hammering Man from Seoul outside. Or rather, I suppose when I went to Seoul and saw the Hammering Man statue there, I was actually looking at a copy of the statue outside the Seattle Art Museum. The one outside the museum has a number painted on one leg, apparently so the artist can track which one is which.

The number is at least 6 digits long, which suggests there's an awful lot of Hammering Men somewhere.

In flight

I woke at 5:30 this morning, struggled with my life for a short time, and then got up and had breakfast. All week I've been eating porridge (rolled oats in American nomenclature) and the staff at the hotel restaurant seem more and more amused by this, as though I'm some strange European eccentric that eats something fit for a horse. Every day the bowl seems a bit bigger, as if they're experimenting to see exactly how much porridge they can feed me before I admit defeat. Five days wasn't enough - I'll have to go back and try two bowls next time.