Seattle: Magnuson Park & Green Lake Park

The day before the recent snowfall was a rare glorious winter's day in Seattle. It was sunny with barely a cloud in the sky so we took advantage of the fine weather and visited 3 parks:

Golden Gardens Park, which has a beach. Note the guy paddling out on a surfboard while standing up. There's no waves here folks.

Green Lake Park, which was very busy. Lots of folks out powerwalking, jogging, cycling etc.

Magnuson Park, which is where the Winter Pineapple Classic is run. There are nice views out to snow-capped peaks when it isn't cloudy.

Microsoft: Campus in Winter (snow)

I've taken a few photos of the campus in autumn earlier and I've also taken photos of the snow around the Seattle region. Well last week it snowed and I also walked around the campus and took a few photos.

My earlier excitement about snow was tarnished a little when I almost didn't make it home because of the snow. I left work a little later than I should have and by then the snow had settled on the road that I take up a hill to get home. My 2 wheel drive was slipping and wheel-spinning as we crawled up the hill (and it took me almost 2 hours to get home). Next time I'll know to head home early if it starts snowing.

The roads were pretty much chaos for the next day but after that the snow was just a nice addition to the picturesque scenery. It has been cold enough that even today when I went out running there was still a covering of snow in the forest. So anyway, to the photos.

Welcome to Microsoft.

Icy trees.

It was a nice sunny day after the snow.

On Wednesday there was still plenty of snow left over. This was taken on the Microsoft sports fields in the morning.

Some crazy folks went out at lunchtime and decided to play a game I haven't seen much since I've been here. That's right, they were playing touch rugby on the snow-covered fields.

OK, I admit it, I'm still a snow tourist. We'll see if the novelty wears off with a few more falls. BTW, I took some of these photos with G's nice camera and some with my partly broken camera. Can you tell which are which?

Sport: Ice Hockey

I've been looking forward to seeing an ice hockey game for a while now. Just before Christmas I went along to see the Seattle Thunderbirds play against the Everett Silvertips.

Let's play. T-birds are in white.

We managed to get some seats pretty close to the ice since the T-birds aren't in the top ice hockey league. I was still really impressed by how fast the game moved and how exciting it was to watch. There was plenty of fast skating, collisions and skaters being bundled into the boards. I was happy to be behind glass and netting as the puck skidded across the ice and thudded into the glass boards.

A minor scuffle is quickly broken up by the umpires. A real fight broke out in the final third.

At the start of the match G was disappointed that it wasn't as rough as some of the games she has seen back home. This gradually changed and in the final third I think she was a little worried to see a fight break out.

Facing off.

It was all very theatrical. The gloves and helmets came off and the Rocky music started playing on the stadium speakers (seriously). The two guys socked it out for a minute or two and then they made their separate ways to their separate penalty boxes. The announcer read a string of penalties including 10 minutes for fighting and then they left the ice because they weren't playing any more.

Skating.

In the end the Thunderbirds were victorious, overcoming the Silvertips 3-0. One minor negative at the start of the evening (and the reason why you only see my slightly blurry photos), was that G wasn't allowed to take her camera in. We were stopped and searched at Key Arena (standard procedure for anyone with a bag) and the lady saw G's camera and said that a 3 inch lens was the maximum. She sent her back to the car to put her camera away!

Sure, G does take good photos, but her camera isn't even an SLR. We were hardly going to have professional-quality photos and we certainly weren't going to sell any.

Watchful keeper. The poor guy let in 3 goals that night.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! For our first year in Seattle we decided to go downtown to the iconic Space Needle for the celebrations. There were plenty of people out looking to celebrate at a decent gathering around the Key Arena just under the Space Needle.

We didn't quite know what to expect from the show so the fireworks were good enough for us. The crowd however seemed a little confused by several pauses and there also wasn't really a great countdown to midnight. It turns out there were problems with the program that was supposed to sync up the fireworks with music.

Some poor person had to manually press buttons as best they could to put on a show for people. Since we were sitting in the free seats we were fine with that, but I imagine the folks that went up to the space needle observation deck (for about $125) or to the restaurant at the top (for about $250) would have been a little miffed.

We were lucky enough to see a few photos of the Sydney fireworks and once again they outdid themselves. Welcome to 2008.