We’re scatter-brained touristas on vacation, so pinning us down to specific times and places is hard. However, we are going to be puttering about in downtown Seattle on Friday, and I think we can commit to one thing: lunch! We’re going to pop into the Food Court at Seattle Center House around noon, and since it promises to be a gorgeous sunny day, we’ll then hang out around the International Fountain, where I will practice calling spirits from the vasty deep.

I still have to get the family to agree to evening plans, and some of my party absolutely refuse to have anything to do with heaping platters of marine invertebrates, which complicates matters. If we can agree on something ahead of time (feel free to make suggestions), I’ll mention our Friday evening plans here, too.

Whoa…there were a lot of people at Drinking Liberally last night, and I was rather overwhelmed with all of the introductions. How about if attendees use this thread to tell everyone and remind me of who you are—pass along links to your Seattle blog, too, or give us links to pictures.

It was a great evening, and the only blemish is that there are now about 50 more people who know that I’m not ten feet tall and that I don’t breathe fire.

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You’re all going to be jealous as you learn who I met last night — the accounts (and photos) are trickling in. Other people at DL were:

• John McKay

• Raven

• Elf Sternberg

• Chris Mitchell

• kat

We made a visit to my boyhood home, the small town of Kent, Washington. It’s changed — it’s been commercialized and yuppified and embiggened beyond all recognition — but I thought everyone would appreciate seeing the shrines erected in my hometown to me.

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Here’s your next chance to intercept me: I’ll be at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally, at the Montlake Ale House tonight at 8:00. Last chance until Friday!

By the way, if you’re wondering which one is me, I’ll be wearing this t-shirt.

We made it safe and sound to Sea-Tac late last night, and bright and early this morning we made a quick trip to the local grocery store to stock up on breakfast supplies, and we discovered that we really are in Seattle.

The grocery carts had cup-holders.

And of course there was a Starbucks inside the grocery store.

Lots of people want to say hello on my trip to Seattle next week, so I thought I’d better let you all know the public parts of my itinerary. This is mainly a trip to relax, eat seafood, meet family and old friends, so there’s a problem of priorities. Most of my time will be spent a bit further south than the Big City—my family lives in Auburn, and I grew up in Kent—so these are tentative times and places where I’ll be available in metropolitan Seattle. I might have to revise my schedule if family events come up—if I do, though, I’ll mention it on the blog.

Sunday, 1 July, 3:00-8:00: I’ll be at the Seattle Freethinkers’ Picnic in Woodinville. I don’t know that I’ll stay there the whole time, though, and might head back early. First day back in the Northwest with Mommy and my baby brothers and sisters, don’t you know.

Tuesday, 3 July, 8:00: I’m planning on dropping in on the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally, at the Montlake Ale House, and which is hosted by Nicholas Beaudrot and somebody named TheHim. As usual, I’m driving a ways to attend a Drinking Liberally meeting, so I’ll have to go easy on the Drinking part and get a double-helping of Liberally.

Friday, 6 July, whenever: We’re just going to indulge in downtown Seattle — cruise the bookstores, maybe hit up the aquarium, see the tourist traps (Ye Olde Curiosity Shop still exists, I presume? Maybe we’ll stop by Seattle Center and stare up at the Space Needle), Pike Place Market, the University district, etc. We’ll need to fuel up at lunch, so there’s an opportunity to catch up with us there, and we’ll definitely want a leisurely evening meal where we can rest our tired feet. I’ll try to name some specific places from the previous Seattle thread when the date gets a little closer—but basically we’ll be somewhere in center city Seattle.

I was also hoping to get a picture taken of me peeing on the Discovery Institute’s building downtown, but I hear that’s illegal nowadays (I also hear they have cement sidewalks instead of wooden slats, and the streets are paved; everything has changed since my youth), so I may have to settle for merely shaking my fist at it and scowling ferociously.

I beheld a strange sight when I stepped out my door this morning: a pair of cute little baby duckies waddling down the sidewalk, all alone and peeping frantically. They passed right by my house (of course—the miasma of evil is not inviting), turned left at my neighbor’s driveway, went up the sidewalk, and hopped up the stairs to their door. It was so peculiar — I haven’t seen any ducks in my neighborhood lately, and these two helpless ducklings were clearly lost — that I went up to the door, frightening the little guys away, to ask if they’d been raising ducks and had a couple of escapees. No, they were as mystified as I was. We caught them and put them someplace safe, but now I’m wondering…

I don’t believe in omens so I don’t really need an ornithomancer to interpret the movement of birds, but being a few miles from the nearest body of water does make me wonder what the heck they were doing here. My neighbor is going to call the DNR to see what can be done with them, too.

Ahh, Seattle.

Seattle is godless.

We are, rather famously, one of the least churched cities in North America. It seems that most of us have better things to do on a Sunday morning than go to church. Seattleites would rather take a hike. Or nurse a hangover. Or fire up the bong.

It sounds like my kind of place…and it should, I grew up there.

So I’m taking a little vacation to the Pacific Northwest, and will be visiting family and taking in the sights the first week of July, from the 1st to the 8th. All you Seattleites can use this thread to tell me how wonderful the place is and what I ought to do in my brief visit there. Is the Science Fiction Museum worth seeing? Any fabulous seafood restaurants that have opened in the last 10 years? Good brew pubs? I think I’ll skip the churches.

And of course, if anyone wants to meet up somewhere, sometime, maybe we can arrange something here. It’s a brief visit, unfortunately, but I should have an evening or two free.