The Ottawa Rabbit Hole

I imagine most of my faithful readers already know that I am in Seattle this week for a work conference. I am just hanging out in my hotel room this evening, so I decided to write up a blog entry on the laptop I had to borrow from work. I don't have an internet connection, so I'm doing this up in a notepad file and will post it online tomorrow.

Friday night my boy Purdy stopped by and we had some drinks on my balcony and Saturday morning we headed out for breakfast at John's. I probably won't see him again for six weeks as he is heading out on vacation the same day I get back to Ottawa, so we got in one more bullshit session. He probably won't survive his trip either, so I may never see him again.

My flights were uneventful, and my brother was at the Seattle airport to pick me up as promised. On the way back to his place we stopped and looked at his workplace and grabbed a pizza for supper. At his house I said hello to his wife and we ate some pizza. Sunday we all headed out to downtown Seattle where we caught a Mariner's game at Safeco Field, checked out a couple local establishments and ate some Thai lunch. It was an exciting game, but sadly my boys couldn't pull it out. After the game they dropped me off at my hotel in the heart of downtown Seattle. I grabbed some Subway and played it cool the rest of the night.

Monday was conference day. I gave my talk in the afternoon and it went fairly well. It's hard to flub up a 15 minute talk too much. After a hard day's work, my brother picked me up again and we went out with some of his friends from work to 'Drinks on the Links', which is an organized miniputt league. It's a pretty good idea and I wish there was something similar to this organized in Ottawa. I got along with his teammates pretty well, so when it was over I went out to a karaoke bar with them while my bro headed home. I sang 'Dr. Feelgood' by Motley Crue with a couple of his team members, but sadly none of us knew it too well and it came off terrible. I requested a few more songs I knew better afterwards, but the DJ kindly lost my requests.

Tuesday, I attended the conference in the morning, but took the afternoon off to relax. First I met my brother again for lunch and got beef briskets at a local butcher shop. They were delicious, and much better than the ones at Lone Star Cafe in Ottawa. After he left, I explored some of my surroundings, including the local shopping malls. I picked up a nice pair of shorts at Nordstrom, then I grabbed a tall Java Chip Frappachino from Starbucks and chilled out in a little square for a couple hours people watching and listening to my mp3 player. I grabbed supper at a Chinese Deli my bro recommended and then just played it cool again in my hotel room, watching some television.

Wednesday, I again took the afternoon off to walk around Seattle. I had some pho at the only vietnamese place I could find which was in Pike Place market (I later found one right around the corner from my hotel). After that I went down to the waterfront and checked out the Seattle Aquarium. It's not overly extravagant, with the most exciting thing being the octopuses. I'm not sure it was worth $12.50. After that I walked up to the Seattle Center (home to the Space Needle) and walked around a bit. I didn't pay to go in anywhere since I was getting to be a hungry little fella. I came back to my neighbourhood and ate a greasy burger and fries at Johnny Rockets in the mall next door. It hit the spot and was just what I needed. I sat at the bar and watched numerous people get pissed off as they were ignored by the overly busy staff while they waited to order food to take out. One lady waited for at least 10 minutes, and was still there when I left. I guess she really wanted a Johnny Rocket burger and none of the other 10 food places in the mall would have cut it. During my travels today, I talked to two strangers and both were creeps. One lady approached me at an intersection and told me how upset she was when she saw a dog with a penis and no testicles. I did not want to get in a conversation with her so rather than saying 'He was probably neutered' I said 'huh'. Later I was approached by a homeless guy with one arm and one eye. He promised he wouldn't hit me with his cane, so I gave him a dollar.

Well that's all. Tomorrow is the last morning of my conference, then I check out of my hotel and spend the next two nights at my bro's before heading up to Canada for the rest of the week. Keep it cool everyone.

Posted by WRMB :: 4:33 PM :: 0 comments