Month: June 2013

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Tuesday/ another day in the Iron City

We are at it again this week with work sessions to get ready to construct the new SAP system IMG_7002 smthat we will implement for our client company.

Back at the Marriott hotel across the street (very convenient), I picked an Iron City Beer to celebrate the end of the day. From the http://www.pittsburghbrewing.com/  web site : ‘Iron City Beer is a classic American lager established in the rich traditions of Pittsburgh, PA. Built on 150 years of brewing experience, Iron City Beer boasts scents of sweet corn and wheat, smooth crisp pale malt flavor, and a dry finish with very little bitterness.

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Monday/ Seattle to Pittsburgh, via Minneapolis

I’m out in Pittsburgh again, and I arrived via the Minneapolis/St.Paul airport on Delta Airlines.

The MSP airport is a lot nicer than Chicago’s O’Hare (sorry Chicago ..) : not as crowded, more modern inside, and with nice stores and food offerings.

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Here’s what my trek across the country looked like today : Seattle to Pittsburgh with a stop in Minneapolis/St.Paul’a airport.
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This is the early morning view to the outside from the Seattle airport’s food court in the main concourse.
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Sunday/ T-Rex is trying (hard)

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T-Rex Hates High Fives Light T-Shirt from Zazzle.

Here’s a t-shirt I saw on Saturday. It shows two face-to-face T-Rexes and the phrase ‘T-Rex hates high fives’.  Aww.  Turns out there is a whole slew of T-Rex is trying  to (do something for which it needs longer arms). Check out the link below the picture for Morgan German’s collection of pictures.  Some of the ‘T-Rex is Trying’ memes are very funny! http://pinterest.com/morganrosegerms/t-rex-trying/

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Saturday/ Black Jack burger

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Coastal Kitchen’s ‘Black Jack’ (black bean) burger is not bad at all, but not quire as good as the veggie burgers they serve up at The Elysian (our regular Friday night place).
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Coastal Kitchen specializes in seafood and oysters. (The web page is http://coastalkitchenseattle.com/).

On Saturday night we tried to get into the Rione XIII restaurant here on 15th Ave (a reference to Rome’s 13th district), but we were turned away.  We need reservations; they only keep two open tables, explained the host at the entrance.  So off we went, and ended up at Coastal Kitchen a few steps away. I  had a black bean burger and everyone else had something fishy with even a fresh oyster thrown in.

 

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Friday/ to Seattle

It was another very early start to the day for me with a 6.30 am flight out of Pittsburgh airport.  I almost did not make it onto the flight.  The check-in area was swamped with people when I got there at 5 am.  I just had to drop my bag at United, but there was no bag-drop line. So by 5.45 am I was still in line and I yelled as politely as I could ‘Ma’am! I’m on the 6-30 to Chicago!’ .  That got me to the front to dump my bag and I was off to the security line.  Mercifully my return flight was marked ‘TSA Pre’ as well, so I could scoot through there in a few minutes and make a dash for the gate.

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Here’s the obligatory picture of the colorful underpass between Terminal B and Terminal C at Chicago O’Hare airport.
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The dinosaur skeleton at gate B8 is peering down at the humans waiting to board the flight to Seattle. It’s a fibre-glass replica of the 40-foot-high, 75-foot-brachiosaurus that roamed around in Colorado 150 million years ago. The real bones are in the Field Museum in Chicago.
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Here is our Seattle-bound Boeing 737.
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And here is the iconic Space Needle on the display at the boarding gate. 4 1/2 hours to Seattle : a long way to go.
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Thursday/ is this thing on?/ The Pirates

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The Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball team has been around a long time : since 1887 as the shirt says. They are five-time World Series champions.

.. the ‘thing’ being my Prius rental car that makes no vibration, no peep, no nothing as it sits at the traffic light.  Put then you step on the ‘gas’ (cannot say that, have to say step on the ‘accelerator’), and it moves.   It’s magic.

We’re done with the workshops for the week, and heading back home. My flight out to Seattle with a stop in  Chicago is early Friday morning.

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It was Seattle weather all day in Pittsburgh on Thursday. The rain is welcome, though. The locals say it has been a dry spring in western Pennsylvania.
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Wednesday/ coming up for air

The beer! Grab the beer! says the guy in the leaky boat to his diving bud. ‘Lower de Boom1‘ is an 11.5% strong a/v beer from the 21st Amendment Brewery2 from San Francisco CA. (I didn’t drink any, just took the picture in the Giant Eagle grocery store here in the Pittsburgh area).

1Belgian-born ship owner Cornelius DeBoom set sail for San Francisco in the fall of 1848 when the news of the discovery of gold in California arrived.
2The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933.  The 18th Amendment had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol on January 17, 1920.

I have facilitated two days of workshops with one more to go (yay), and by tonight (Wednesday) I feel that I can come up for air for the first time.   We have participants from Sweden and the UK that came in on Monday night, so while I felt the three hour time difference from Seattle on Tuesday, they had to deal with even more jet lag.  But everyone was in better shape today.

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Lower DeBoom is a strong barley-wine style craft beer from California.
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Monday/ TSA ‘Pre’ and Cranberry

It was a shock to my system to roll out of bed at 3.30 am after a fitful few hours of sleep to get ready for my 6 am flight out to Chicago and then on to Pittsburgh.  It helped that I was selected for ‘TSA Pre’ treatment at the airport.  ‘TSA Pre’ is a program for frequent travelers that allows them entry into a special lane at the security checkpoint.  The traveler gets to keep on shoes and jacket, and liquids and computers in the bag.  Wow!  But don’t get too spoiled!  It will not happen every time even if you travel a lot.

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My United Airlines boarding pass says I am ‘TSA Pre’. (Short for pre-checked. You have to opt in, and already be enrolled in a pre-check program such as Global Entry and use a participating airline.   And even then, selection is random and not guaranteed every time ! ).
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Here’s my cranberry-colored Prius hybrid rental car that I drove up to Cranberry Township (a 30 min drive north of Pittsburgh).
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Sun-day

It was a gorgeous day here in Seattle, with the sun out and the temperatures mild and perfect for a walk outside.

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These flowers are on 23rd Avenue here in Capitol Hill. I should know what they are but the name escapes me now, and I have to go to sleep since I am getting up very early !
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And here are some diners on the sidewalk basking in the late afternoon sun on 19th Avenue at the Kingfish Cafe.  They serve Southern food such as crab cakes and hush puppies (fried cornbread balls).   The construction of the apartment building in the background in coming along nicely.
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Saturday/ University District

I went up to Seattle’s University District on Saturday afternoon in pursuit of my out-of-print and not-on-Amazon book from 1966 that the Central Library said they would have here – but it turned out they did not, either.  But it was all worth the trip because I bought two nice books at the Half Price Bookstore close by.   I will write about them in a later post.

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The entrance to the Seattle Public Library’s University Branch.   The library is modest in size, but has a nice atmosphere and a reading room. 
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Here’s Fires Station No 17; it’s located at 1050 NE 50th Street.
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Friday/ black flowers

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I found these little black flowers on the sidewalk a block or two from my house. I don’t know what they are called !
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Here’s the Volunteer Park conservatory at dusk (9 pm) on Friday night, its little lights turned on to add a little festivity to its appearance. It was long closed by 9; I will try to remember to get there before closing time one of these days.

 

Is there such a thing as a black flower? I wondered as I found some on the sidewalk Friday night that certainly appeared black.  Alas, no – there is not – says Interflora’s web site.  ‘Black’ flowers merely have very dark shades of purple or red.  So soot-black flowers are the stuff of fantasy and fairy tales.