(Note: I wrote blog entries earlier in the week, but didn't have a chance to post them until after we got home. I've back-dated the entries for when I wrote them, so make sure you read the last few entries to catch up.)
It's been quite a busy week out in Seattle. Elizabeth and Dorothy flew down Monday morning to Medford for the funeral of Dr. Don Meamber, Elizabeth's grandfather. Dorothy did wonderfully on all the flights, sleeping through much of them. I spent the day working at LiftPort headquarters in Bremerton (across the Puget Sound from Seattle). Dorothy and Elizabeth returned on Tuesday morning, and then we drove to Bremerton for a full day of work for me. On the way, we got to cross the Tacoma Narrows bridge. Above the sign for the bridge was a warning sign saying "High Winds." I imagine they do a lot more wind analysis on the bridges they build around there than your average bridge. :-)
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were full days at LiftPort for me. We had some MBA students from the University of Texas out to work on a school project by helping us with business plan analysis. Also on Tuesday, Newsweek sent a photographer out to take some photos of the LiftPort robotic lifter and the people. We may be in a Newsweek story next week! They didn't have time to take a photo of Dorothy in her LiftPort onesie looking up the ribbon at the robot, but that's OK, because I got a few. Unfortunately, Dorothy wanted to lean forward and grab the ribbon more than she wanted to simply sit and look up along its length. :-)
On Tuesday, I lost my voice to laryngitis. After working hard before leaving Boston, I came down with a cold the Friday before our flight out. It was mostly just post-nasal drip, but after talking for most of the day on Tuesday, my voice went out. So I've had to whisper for most of the trip out here, which is annoying to say the least. It is funny, though, when others unconsciously start whispering back to me. :-) When they do it on purpose, though, it's not funny.
Our friend Yuying from the MIT Ballroom Dance Team now lives in Seattle, and she and her husband Shawn graciously let us stay at their place. Thank you again! It was great catching up with Yuying, who I danced standard with for a little while back in 1997-98.
Overall, Seattle is an interesting place. The population is supposedly less than that of Boston, but it's got a lot more space. The weather was trying to give us a false impression of the area -- it was mostly sunny almost the entire week, and didn't really rain at all that I noticed.
The ferry system is nice. You can drive or walk onto the ferry in Seattle, and it'll get you to Bremerton in about an hour. Not terribly fast, but you can spend that hour up in a comfortable lounge reading, or sleeping, or whatever. Dorothy and I went without the car on Thursday, and got to have fun with some other babies taking the ferry at the same time.
Our flight home left before dawn on Saturday morning, and so far Dorothy has again been a champ. She slept through the entire ascent in our second leg. I think she will have taken 10 flights in her life by the end of the day today (separate legs of a day trip count as separate flights), when she's not even seven and a half months old yet. She's a regular jet-setter!
Posted by Tom Nugent at October 16, 2004 02:27 PM