This Week I Will Post Photos

This week's post is all about things you can see. That's right - if the title wasn't enough of a hint for you, I'll spell it out for you: P-H-O-T-O-S! I'm going to post them here! These are pictures I took during my first week here that didn't make it into the first post.

BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE!!!

I'm gonna get all show-and tell on ya, dawgs. Not only am I giving you pictures; I'm giving you context. Am I a nice guy or what?

Here's the view from an overpass I cross on my way to town.

Take a few more steps and you see this. I'm not entirely sure about what city that is in the distance. My first guess was downtown Bellevue, but my roommate insists that it's Seattle.

Here's an exciting one. When I moved here, I didn't have any furniture, so I was on the lookout for garage sales, and this sign definitely caught my attention. I spent a few hours looking for it. Couldn't find it. I've now lived here for... what, five weeks? The sign's still there.

I don't know what this is. Looks like some sort of ordinary office building to me.

Oh, that's right! It's Microsoft. Or, at least, part of Microsoft. Microsoft rules Redmond.

And where do all the Microsoft employees live? Why, in beautiful mansions! This is a pretty standard example of the incredible houses that can be found here. You'll walk around see dozens of street signs for Private Road. It's not enough to have an amazing home, you have to have an amazing, secluded home. Still, with 75% of the people here working at Microsoft, not all of them live in extravagant palaces. Some of them live in the same apartment building as me. Take that, Microsoft! Your employees live in the same place as me! And I'm a poor college kid!
This is sort of a weird one. Before I moved here, when I was visiting my school's Website and talking to the people in my apartment complex's office, I kept hearing about the 7-Eleven across the street. Now that I'm here, I keep hearing about it, and I still don't get it. It's the most successful 7-Eleven in the northwest, so that's something. I guess. I've gotten a few Slurpees. They're pretty good.

This is my school. This picture's not very good. I took this picture and the last on my first night in Washington, when I was more excited about visiting my school than I was about taking good pictures. I'm going to cover DigiPen Institute of Technology more extensively in the future.

This is my Space Needle. I love the Space Needle.

It's so tall! What do they put under there? Besides pricey gift shops, obviously.

Duh. A pricey theme park. And what about that weird pink reflection?

It's coming from the Frank Gehry-designed Experience Music Project museum. It's a tricky building to photograph. Clearly, I didn't get the pink side at all.

This is the Ronald McDonald-designed Super Size Combo museum.

This fountain is enormous! See those "children" splashing in the water? They're fully-grown adults; easily six feet tall. This fountain is the size of Pluto. To be honest, I wonder if it is Pluto. Like, what if Pluto fell out of space? And... and the government captured it a shiny globe and made to spray water? Right? That could happen, right?

Starbucks Stage. I can't wait to see a concert here.

All of the things between the first photo of the Space Needle and the Starbucks Stage are under the Space Needle, but there are plenty of cool places in Seattle otherwise. Even this picture of nothing is pretty cool.

Ocean + Mountains + Bike trail + Railroad
Me like.

This is... I dunno. It's the headquarters for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which is some newspaper I've never read. The top of the building was pretty cool, but I only took a picture of the boring part. Anyway... Jaime, you like newspapers, right? I'm going to pretend that I put this picture here for you so that all of the people who are exaggerating yawns and looking down at their watches will be tricked into thinking that there's some reason for these boring pictures to be here.

Aw, Lincoln Logs! I love Lincoln Logs!

A nice view.

This picture was taken from the same place as the last, but this time you get to see a naked statue fountain. Fortunately, this is pretty zoomed-out, 'cause in real life, I could see his statue-butt. Gross!

This is from the same spot. No butts.

If you click on this one and look in the middle, off in the distance you'll see Mt. Rainier. You'll also see a guy with a parachute. My camera's quality isn't great, so he looks like a parachuter and more like Gonzo in that fair scene from the Muppet Movie. Hey Gonzo, what are you doing? About seven knots!

A boatload of boats.

This picture and the next are of the historic Pike Place Market. I don't know what that history is. It's some sort of hippie mall.

Most of it was closed when I visited. Everything closes really early in Seattle. It's bizarre.

My city is so nerdy.

Here's where it gets really strange. Seattle is overrun with mutant pigs, but anytime you take a picture of one, it looks like an inanimate statue. No, seriously, though, they're everywhere and I don't know how much longer we'll be able to hold them off. Reports say that if we can't find some way to turn the tides soon, the mutant pigs will run Seattle in just four short years. Fortunately, one of the local weekly papers has proposed a solution.

The Seattle streets weren't very busy on day that I took these pictures. Then, early that night, the streets exploded with people. They poured forth from everywhere and they all headed in the same direction. I followed along until I saw their destination - Young Frankenstein: The Musical. It's gotten pretty rotten reviews, but that theatre is pretty nice.

You know what I like about Washington? Even my apartment's parking lot is nice.

This golf course surrounds my apartment complex. It's the place to go if you want rub elbows with Microsoft's elite.

I should eat lunch here some time. We're still in my apartment complex, by the way.

I live in a nice place, but my fountain can't compare to the radioactive steam-jets of Pluto. On the other hand, we don't have mutant pigs in Bellevue, so I suppose it's a fair trade.

Those of you who don't live in Texas may not be blown away by this, but having only recently moved from the desolate wasteland of Katy, seeing an abundance of green plants is astonishing to me.

A little creek. A couple things for the Texas residents to note: Not only is the water clear enough to see through, it's been outside for more than ten minutes and it hasn't evaporated. How surreal, this Evergreen State.

I live here. Wasn't Hampton the full name of the Porky-equivalent from Tiny Tunes?

Here's another Microsoft campus. I'll have to give you a tour of the Internet division some day. It's a great hang out. By the way, does anyone have Mrs. Nash's e-mail address? She'd freak if she saw where I was living.

Remember that stuff about me not having furniture? I meant all my stuff went on the floor. Messy!

That's the end of the tour. Next week I'll pick up with a look at my clean, furnished apartment. Well, uh, furnished. My stuff isn't on the floor.