Sorry for the delay, I've been busy. We now return to our feature presentation...
We ended up being the only people in our tour for Safeco Field. It was early, and kind of nasty outside so I imagine people wanted to stay indoors. We followed the tour guide around as he told the story of Nintendo chairman, Shigeru Miyamoto and other local businessmen, saved the Mariners from being sold out to another town. As usually happens once a day Microsoft was causing problems for me. They were holding a pep rally, I imagine something like this happened during that day:
One can hope. We went around to all the various features of Safeco Field, including the press area and the VIP lounge. It was an interesting experience, but not overly exciting. I think it'd be a neat thing to bring a child to, or any huge baseball fan. We were a bit let down that neither the Seahawks nor the Mariners were playing that weekend. Our tour guide was nice and they went out of their way to make up for not being able to get on the field. (Damn you, Microsoft! Damn you!)
After Safeco, we were going to scope out the Seattle Underground Tour - but there are some stairs leading down to it, so we decided not to attempt it with the fragile Christina on board.
So we went onto the Argosy Lakes cruise which was disembarking shortly. It was on the other side of downtown Seattle, so we charted the course and got on our way. We got there without about 20 minutes spare time, so we scouted out possible restaurant spots. We ended up in a deli down the road from the harbor. It was a small place, that had teriyaki and sandwiches for the office buildings surrounding them. We both got sandwiches and tried to hurry to get back to the boat.
There was a few hectic moments as we tried to hussle back to the boat. We made it right on time, and were off and about 2 minutes after getting seated. The Lake Cruise was interesting, they have a tour guide that points out the various attractions that are being passed as you go off in a little yacht. The lake included a bunch of houseboats which are smaller than most apartments I've ever lived in, but that cost millions of dollars to buy and maintain. The tour goes past Medina, which is renowned for not only Bill Gates' estate, but also many other corporate executives ranging from dot-coms to Starbucks. They take special care to point out Bill Gates' house, which ends up being more uncomfortable than entertaining with the invasion of privacy. But anyway, we got pictures, and ended up moving off of the windy top of the yacht to the front end and had the whole trip back to ourselves in the front of the yacht. The weather ended up being really nice.
We headed to the Space Needle next. Again, using the GoCard we got in for free. The Space Needle wasn't as interesting as it should be for a $15 admission to the top. They cram a bunch of people into the elevator, with some luck you get a good view going up. The staff was relatively rude, as well, it just wasn't that wonderful of an experience. Once we got up top, we attempted to get a good view. Christina was green, not with envy but with sickness. In case you aren't aware, the Space Needle is pretty high, like in space but not really. I got a couple good photos of the sun escaping through some clouds and some neat pictures at the ground and at a news helicopter on the roof of the news building. It gives a good depth, if there's demand for it who hasn't seen it at other places, I'll post a few shots here just leave a comment. Towards the end of our Space Needle, it started sprinkling so we headed back down.
After the Space Needle, we headed to the Experience Music Project, which is down in the Seattle Center across the way from the Needle. The EMP is a huge draw, built by resident millionaire Paul Allen. We got in about 15 minutes before they closed, in a stroke of luck we got 2 free tickets to the EMP valid for a year, because they had already shut down their GoCard machine. We took the 15 minutes and walked around it to see if we should make a point to come back with our free tickets prior to leaving town. We walked through the Jimi Hendrix experience, which was neat but not all that exciting. I think in the 15 minutes there we saw all that we would have been interested in.
After EMP we tried to get into the Sci/Fi museum but they had already closed the doors. We'll have to save that one for our next trip. All in all we got a good amount of fun out of the GoCards. I think the best value is having at least 2 days, which gives you enough time for making much more than your money's worth out of them.
We headed back to the hotel, then to a nearby McDonalds for dinner. Then we turned in for a crazy early morning as the American Idol auditions truly begin.
Stay tuned for crazy umbrella attacks, crazy nervous auditions, and the make it or break it time for almost 2000 Pac NW Idol Wannabes.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Friday, October 06, 2006
Seattle - Part 2 - Free Night
Alright, so it wasn't really that traumatic. We arrived around 11am for check-in at the Sixth Avenue Inn in downtown Seattle. We had anticipated that we wouldn't be able to check-in until later that afternoon. I believe check-in was at 3pm, so we were obviously early and ready to accept the wait.
Christina went in to check to see if we were lucky enough to have a room ready and came back with good news. We were set to get into the room with no extra charges. But there was one factor that we were unaware of until we arrived - we were booked in a smoking room. We accepted the fate, and proceeded up an elevator that is either possessed or has various mechanical problems to the point of it attempting to open the doors after it's started moving. We hit the button for the smoking level, and waited for the elevator to decide to let us leave the lobby. The doors opened (sooner or later) and we walked into a haze of decades worth of smoke and nicotine built walls. We scurried to our room hoping that the smell was just the rooms near the elevator.
We got into the room, and immediately considered trying to book another hotel. We walked into a room with walls of bad spackling that has been tarnished with a layer of nicotine. A bedside lamp had mold growing on it, and the bathroom looked like what you would expect a prison's does. I have a pretty sensitive allergy to smoke smells in general, but Christina confirmed that it was pretty bad. I couldn't bare to stay in the room longer than a few minutes, so we set off to try to get another room or scout out other hotels for vacanies. The front desk said that they were booked completely, but that we could try back later to see if they had any openings. We opted to hang in there for the afternoon and left to find oxygen.
We left the hotel, and aimed for an eatery and a grocery store to buy some odor eating items in case we were stuck in that room for the night. We ended up out of downtown Seattle, so we made a path to the Northgate shopping mall, and the largest Target I've seen ever. We bought our stink-be-gone materials and then went across the street for some faux Mexican food at Azteca. Christina got something healthy looking and I ordered up a platter of grease and cheese.
We got back to the hotel a few hours later and luckily they had another room available. It was relatively smaller, but it had fresh air. We lugged in our luggage, and attempted to settle into our home for the next few days. Internet access was existent only for $10 a day, that can be spendy considering it almost 10% of the hotel room just to access your email. Hotels that I've installed Internet at allow their guests to browse from the lobby area for free or at least use the kiosk in the lobby for free. The Sixth Avenue Inn has made a deal with a vendor that only allows you to browse Amazon.com for free. Why Amazon, you might ask? They embed their own affiliate key in so that if you do make a purchase, they get a sizable kickback. Nice of them, now if only Amazon sold maps or a conceirge service. We decided to go scout out the area, grabbing pamplets from the hotel. I spotted one that is for the Seattle "Go Card" - we decided to go scope out the area and pick up one of these cards.
The Go Card is an all (or multiple) day pass for various attractions in Seattle and other numerous other cities (Check out GoCard.com for the other cities. It is one of the best ideas I've seen in awhile, and I wish I would've came up with it. In Seattle, we purchased the card from the Space Needle ticket admissions. The clerk at the Space Needle didn't understand the full usefulness of the card and actually almost convinced us not to buy it. See, with some venues there are restrictions on when you can visit the various attractions. With the Space Needle, they only allow 9-5. So his assumption was that every place would only allow you to use it between 9-5. But anyway we decided to pick up the card and wait to activate it until the next morning. You activate the card on your first use. 2 Adult cards were around $90. With the cards, you are supposed to receive a nice booklet that has hours that the attractions are opened and more. We didn't receive one of those, so I plotted our destinations and then Christina followed each up with a phone call to make sure that they were available.
Our plan included:
Safeco Field tour (Home of the Seattle Mariners)
Argosy Lakes tour Cruise
Experience Music Project
Science Fiction Museum
Space Needle
In order for us to make a profit, and yes I checked, we need to do 3 of the attractions in a day. So we rested the rest of that night, grabbed some fast food and bought "The Devil Wears Prada" on PPV. The movie was much better than I expected. If you have a bored night and nothing to watch it's worth a rent. Stanley Tucci rules in any role and Meryl Sheep is hilariously evil.
The next morning, Seattle proved to be stereotypical, it was raining. It's really Seattle best kept secret that it really doesn't rain as much as people think it does. During the winter there is a lot of rain, but that's how it is everywhere in the Pacific NW. If you don't have snow, you have rain. But to return to the point, it was raining in Seattle. We embarked towards our first destination: Safeco Field.
Christina went in to check to see if we were lucky enough to have a room ready and came back with good news. We were set to get into the room with no extra charges. But there was one factor that we were unaware of until we arrived - we were booked in a smoking room. We accepted the fate, and proceeded up an elevator that is either possessed or has various mechanical problems to the point of it attempting to open the doors after it's started moving. We hit the button for the smoking level, and waited for the elevator to decide to let us leave the lobby. The doors opened (sooner or later) and we walked into a haze of decades worth of smoke and nicotine built walls. We scurried to our room hoping that the smell was just the rooms near the elevator.
We got into the room, and immediately considered trying to book another hotel. We walked into a room with walls of bad spackling that has been tarnished with a layer of nicotine. A bedside lamp had mold growing on it, and the bathroom looked like what you would expect a prison's does. I have a pretty sensitive allergy to smoke smells in general, but Christina confirmed that it was pretty bad. I couldn't bare to stay in the room longer than a few minutes, so we set off to try to get another room or scout out other hotels for vacanies. The front desk said that they were booked completely, but that we could try back later to see if they had any openings. We opted to hang in there for the afternoon and left to find oxygen.
We left the hotel, and aimed for an eatery and a grocery store to buy some odor eating items in case we were stuck in that room for the night. We ended up out of downtown Seattle, so we made a path to the Northgate shopping mall, and the largest Target I've seen ever. We bought our stink-be-gone materials and then went across the street for some faux Mexican food at Azteca. Christina got something healthy looking and I ordered up a platter of grease and cheese.
We got back to the hotel a few hours later and luckily they had another room available. It was relatively smaller, but it had fresh air. We lugged in our luggage, and attempted to settle into our home for the next few days. Internet access was existent only for $10 a day, that can be spendy considering it almost 10% of the hotel room just to access your email. Hotels that I've installed Internet at allow their guests to browse from the lobby area for free or at least use the kiosk in the lobby for free. The Sixth Avenue Inn has made a deal with a vendor that only allows you to browse Amazon.com for free. Why Amazon, you might ask? They embed their own affiliate key in so that if you do make a purchase, they get a sizable kickback. Nice of them, now if only Amazon sold maps or a conceirge service. We decided to go scout out the area, grabbing pamplets from the hotel. I spotted one that is for the Seattle "Go Card" - we decided to go scope out the area and pick up one of these cards.
The Go Card is an all (or multiple) day pass for various attractions in Seattle and other numerous other cities (Check out GoCard.com for the other cities. It is one of the best ideas I've seen in awhile, and I wish I would've came up with it. In Seattle, we purchased the card from the Space Needle ticket admissions. The clerk at the Space Needle didn't understand the full usefulness of the card and actually almost convinced us not to buy it. See, with some venues there are restrictions on when you can visit the various attractions. With the Space Needle, they only allow 9-5. So his assumption was that every place would only allow you to use it between 9-5. But anyway we decided to pick up the card and wait to activate it until the next morning. You activate the card on your first use. 2 Adult cards were around $90. With the cards, you are supposed to receive a nice booklet that has hours that the attractions are opened and more. We didn't receive one of those, so I plotted our destinations and then Christina followed each up with a phone call to make sure that they were available.
Our plan included:
Safeco Field tour (Home of the Seattle Mariners)
Argosy Lakes tour Cruise
Experience Music Project
Science Fiction Museum
Space Needle
In order for us to make a profit, and yes I checked, we need to do 3 of the attractions in a day. So we rested the rest of that night, grabbed some fast food and bought "The Devil Wears Prada" on PPV. The movie was much better than I expected. If you have a bored night and nothing to watch it's worth a rent. Stanley Tucci rules in any role and Meryl Sheep is hilariously evil.
The next morning, Seattle proved to be stereotypical, it was raining. It's really Seattle best kept secret that it really doesn't rain as much as people think it does. During the winter there is a lot of rain, but that's how it is everywhere in the Pacific NW. If you don't have snow, you have rain. But to return to the point, it was raining in Seattle. We embarked towards our first destination: Safeco Field.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Seattle - Part 1 - American Idol Registration
So it's been a couple weeks since the American Idol Auditions. Christina and I made a trek from Salem, OR to Seattle for the auditions there.
How it was supposed to work:
Sunday 9/19 - Begin lining up at 6am, provide proof of id, get your AI wristband (one for you and one for your guest), and tickets
Tuesday 9/21 - Begin lining up between 6-7 am and enter Key Arena to audition, get judged yay or nay and walk
How it actually worked:
On the way up to Seattle, we stopped at Fry's and picked up a digital camera. We just so happened to have showed up while they had a one day sale on an off brand 5M camera. We debated upgrading, but ending up getting it, then fought through the hassle that is purchasing something from Fry's. And like Willie Nelson, we were back on the road again. For the duration of the trip, I took random pictures of everything, so there will be quite a pictorial representation of the trip.
Our trip was planned pretty extensively, as I'm completely anal about itinerary. We were to stay at La Quinta close to the Bellevue/Kirkland border on Saturday night, then move to a hotel downtown after the initial registration. We arrived at LQ shortly after 8. The staff was courteous and quick with the limited interaction that we had with them. After getting settled into LQ, we went driving around for dinner. Besides steakhouses there weren't any easily accessible restaurants, we ended up in Bellevue, just shy of downtown at a Denny's. It was definitely Saturday Night as full families were just wrapping up their meals, and stoned, tweaked out people arrived to throw down their change for a cup of coffee. The food was alright, but it was Denny's so we weren't expecting anything to extravagant.
We decided to scope out Key Arena, for the different parking venues so that we weren't looking for them half-asleep the following morning. We did alright navigating downtown Seattle, with the trusty American Idol parking information and Yahoo maps. We arrived back at the hotel around 12:30 or so. In what seemed like 15 minutes, it was time to get going.
Not so bright and shiny on Sunday morning (around 6:15am) we approached a line of around 500-800 people. Most people had arrived between 1:30-6:00am, despite the various warnings of following all of the rules in regards to lining up. The weather was decent, so that was a plus. A lot of nervous, sweaty people standing around wondering what trick American Idol was going to pull on them.
A couple of people attempted to make contact with us, their prospective line friends. I attempted to be cordial but it was god awful early in the morning and the last thing I wanted to do was talk to complete strangers. There was one particular person who went out of her way to talk to us. She was a Southern girl, which had actually flown into Seattle to audition from Roanoke, Virginia. She went on for about 20 minutes about her "costume" problems and how she had been working with a voice coach and was just so darn excited. And thus she was dubbed, Ms Roanoke for her beauty pageant-Esq attitude and costumes. I attempted a conversation, but for the most part my responses were grunts and nods. She was the first of many that thought that she was onto a broad American Idol conspiracy that the actual singing auditions would be on Sunday. She ended up being herded a bit behind us, where she started talking up some other people. Throughout this time, we were shuffled closer and closer together, thankfully most were all gussied up and were at least showered.
Once people started waking up from the daze, the singing began. Many a pop icon was represented, Josh Groban being the big hit amongst the dudes, where the women were busting out anything from Tina Turner to TLC. Our good friend, Ms. Roanoke, was amongst the last of the people behind us to sing. It took much coercing, she was obviously saving her voice for the secret auditions that were to come. Finally, she relented and began singing something that I did not recognize, either because I'm musically challenged or from the reactions all around she butchered the song. Keep in mind, that we are surrounded by people who have either been singing all their lives or that are just hanging out with someone who did. A hush fell over the crowd, and the musical stylings of a cat being sat on spewed across the morning air. Christina witnessed the group of boys that were hanging around our fair Virginia belle take a huge step backwards and to the side. Obviously, her game was too big for them.
The line continued as we were herded from one section of the Seattle Center concourse to another. Christina picked up a line friend (Gabrielle) along the way, who shared our sarcasm with everyone taking themselves too seriously. We ended up sticking close to Gabrielle and her mother throughout the rest of the journey through the line. Around 10am or so, we got to the front of the line where we were shepherded into Key Arena to obtain our wristbands, tickets, and verify our IDs. We ended up being amongst the last of our group to sign up, mainly due to our lack of pushing. After 4 hours, what's another 10 minutes? We finally were shuffled to a table, where the AI intern checked IDs. This is the last year that Christina could audition, so her birth year was flagged. We had a similar scare earlier that week when checking the final restrictions, so I quickly pointed out the correct dates. And we were given wristbands, tickets, and additional instructions. My wristband was red, and Christina's (the actual singer) was blue. They were made out of paper similar to the old paper that you'd buy to feed through a dot-matrix printer. Keep in mind that we have to keep the wristband on until Tuesday in order to get in.
So it was 10:45, and we made our way back to the car. The first American Idol day accomplished. Now we can settle into our classy downtown hotel for a couple days and be tourists. Heaven knows, that's what we thought when we were walking to the car. But then, Murphy's law reared it's ugly head....
How it was supposed to work:
Sunday 9/19 - Begin lining up at 6am, provide proof of id, get your AI wristband (one for you and one for your guest), and tickets
Tuesday 9/21 - Begin lining up between 6-7 am and enter Key Arena to audition, get judged yay or nay and walk
How it actually worked:
On the way up to Seattle, we stopped at Fry's and picked up a digital camera. We just so happened to have showed up while they had a one day sale on an off brand 5M camera. We debated upgrading, but ending up getting it, then fought through the hassle that is purchasing something from Fry's. And like Willie Nelson, we were back on the road again. For the duration of the trip, I took random pictures of everything, so there will be quite a pictorial representation of the trip.
Our trip was planned pretty extensively, as I'm completely anal about itinerary. We were to stay at La Quinta close to the Bellevue/Kirkland border on Saturday night, then move to a hotel downtown after the initial registration. We arrived at LQ shortly after 8. The staff was courteous and quick with the limited interaction that we had with them. After getting settled into LQ, we went driving around for dinner. Besides steakhouses there weren't any easily accessible restaurants, we ended up in Bellevue, just shy of downtown at a Denny's. It was definitely Saturday Night as full families were just wrapping up their meals, and stoned, tweaked out people arrived to throw down their change for a cup of coffee. The food was alright, but it was Denny's so we weren't expecting anything to extravagant.
We decided to scope out Key Arena, for the different parking venues so that we weren't looking for them half-asleep the following morning. We did alright navigating downtown Seattle, with the trusty American Idol parking information and Yahoo maps. We arrived back at the hotel around 12:30 or so. In what seemed like 15 minutes, it was time to get going.
Not so bright and shiny on Sunday morning (around 6:15am) we approached a line of around 500-800 people. Most people had arrived between 1:30-6:00am, despite the various warnings of following all of the rules in regards to lining up. The weather was decent, so that was a plus. A lot of nervous, sweaty people standing around wondering what trick American Idol was going to pull on them.
A couple of people attempted to make contact with us, their prospective line friends. I attempted to be cordial but it was god awful early in the morning and the last thing I wanted to do was talk to complete strangers. There was one particular person who went out of her way to talk to us. She was a Southern girl, which had actually flown into Seattle to audition from Roanoke, Virginia. She went on for about 20 minutes about her "costume" problems and how she had been working with a voice coach and was just so darn excited. And thus she was dubbed, Ms Roanoke for her beauty pageant-Esq attitude and costumes. I attempted a conversation, but for the most part my responses were grunts and nods. She was the first of many that thought that she was onto a broad American Idol conspiracy that the actual singing auditions would be on Sunday. She ended up being herded a bit behind us, where she started talking up some other people. Throughout this time, we were shuffled closer and closer together, thankfully most were all gussied up and were at least showered.
Once people started waking up from the daze, the singing began. Many a pop icon was represented, Josh Groban being the big hit amongst the dudes, where the women were busting out anything from Tina Turner to TLC. Our good friend, Ms. Roanoke, was amongst the last of the people behind us to sing. It took much coercing, she was obviously saving her voice for the secret auditions that were to come. Finally, she relented and began singing something that I did not recognize, either because I'm musically challenged or from the reactions all around she butchered the song. Keep in mind, that we are surrounded by people who have either been singing all their lives or that are just hanging out with someone who did. A hush fell over the crowd, and the musical stylings of a cat being sat on spewed across the morning air. Christina witnessed the group of boys that were hanging around our fair Virginia belle take a huge step backwards and to the side. Obviously, her game was too big for them.
The line continued as we were herded from one section of the Seattle Center concourse to another. Christina picked up a line friend (Gabrielle) along the way, who shared our sarcasm with everyone taking themselves too seriously. We ended up sticking close to Gabrielle and her mother throughout the rest of the journey through the line. Around 10am or so, we got to the front of the line where we were shepherded into Key Arena to obtain our wristbands, tickets, and verify our IDs. We ended up being amongst the last of our group to sign up, mainly due to our lack of pushing. After 4 hours, what's another 10 minutes? We finally were shuffled to a table, where the AI intern checked IDs. This is the last year that Christina could audition, so her birth year was flagged. We had a similar scare earlier that week when checking the final restrictions, so I quickly pointed out the correct dates. And we were given wristbands, tickets, and additional instructions. My wristband was red, and Christina's (the actual singer) was blue. They were made out of paper similar to the old paper that you'd buy to feed through a dot-matrix printer. Keep in mind that we have to keep the wristband on until Tuesday in order to get in.
So it was 10:45, and we made our way back to the car. The first American Idol day accomplished. Now we can settle into our classy downtown hotel for a couple days and be tourists. Heaven knows, that's what we thought when we were walking to the car. But then, Murphy's law reared it's ugly head....
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