Seattle!

On Monday, Sarah and I visited Seattle. I’d never been to the city before and I must say I was pretty impressed. We happened to go on a sunny afternoon, so we lucked out in that regard. On the drive up we stopped by Mt. St. Helens, but sadly it was too cloudy and the road was too snowed in for us to get a close look at the mountain. Once in the city, our first destination was the Experience Music Project which is an awesome interactive music museum at the base of the space needle. It’s adjacent to a sci-fi museum, so it’s safe to say that Sarah and I had a pretty awesome time at both.


Mike D. at the Space Needle with excessive hair action.

One added bonus of going to Seattle was that we got to hang out MikeDiDonato.com readers Patrick and UUIG (hereafter referred to as ‘Gina’). They are Seattle residents and happened to have an afternoon free from work.

Patrick and Gina
Patrick and Gina at the ‘wall of gum’

We strolled up Post Alley and saw the throwing of the fish and enjoyed walking through the shops. We stopped for some coffee and baked goods and rocked the day to pieces.

I really liked Seattle. It had a modern feel without the feeling of oppressive overpopulation like you see in New York. It was right on the coast which made for beautiful views, and the people had just the right amount of alternative feel to them so that you felt appreciated, but not surrounded by waves of hipsters.

It was a pretty awesome day. Special thanks to Sarah for the photos above and to Patrick and Gina for taking some time out of their days to say hi.

OR. Part 1.

Hello!

I’m back from a week in Ohio and a week in Portland, OR. When I left Ohio there was a pretty raucous illness wreaking havoc on my internals, but that too has passed. Despite that illness being followed immediately by a nasty cold, I still had an awesome week in Oregon. I arrived Friday night. Saturday consisted of some healing and some karaoke and Sunday, the adventures got underway.

Sarah and I started the week with a trip Westward to the infamous Cannon beach. It was my first time to the Pacific Ocean. Talk about a really cool location. Apparently, a scene in Goonies was filmed there, though I don’t remember which. After the beach we hit up some pretty epic little craft stores and the like which stand just off the beach. Included in the bunch was a fun kite store. Check out these kites!

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When we were out there the wind was blowing pretty ferociously out to sea. I wonder if Kiteboarding is popular here when the wind is a bit more favorable. Stay tuned for more adventure stories tomorrow!

Project Purge.

Warning: some of this may be considered T.M.I.

Yesterday after a long, strenuous, and trying day in Ohio I got back to my hotel room and pretty much just wanted to go right to bed. I did so, but woke up around 1:30 with a pretty rotten stomach ache. I couldn’t really fall asleep, so I was pretty much just lying awake and being all miserable until about 3:30 when my stomach decided to begin project ‘purge.’ I made it to the bathroom just in time to heave into the bowl. awesome!

Stage two of project purge was a bit more traditional in the way of emptying my digestive track, though it wasn’t much more pleasant. Stage three took place five minutes ago with another vomit session. I am really uncool with this.

I’m having trouble standing up at all without nausea and dizziness. Ugh. this is annoying – especially since I’m due to take a plane flight tomorrow to Portland OR.

Ohio part 4million.

Once again, I’m zipping out to Ohio for some work this week. I’m at Bradley Airport at this very moment. This is the first time I’ve flown Southwest since they changed their boarding methods from ‘first come first serve’ to ‘find your place between the priority markers.’ It’s nice to fly on an airline that doesn’t require baggage charges, but it was kind of annoying to arrive for my flight 90 minutes early and find that the airline kiosk folks had not yet arrived.

Oh well, I don’t mind so much.

I’m flying out to Baltimore and then from Baltimore to Cleveland. Keep on the look out for an exciting roller derby recap sometime within the next 24 hours or so.