Not Intent on Arriving

A beautiful, sunny Saturday in Seattle took me around to three festivals, yummy food and more. Here’s a collection of some of the best images.

We started off the day at the Festa Italiana Seattle, which included music and food from the country. I was the first person to add my pin to the map. Unfortunately, we got there a bit early and there wasn’t much going on.

We survived a bike flat tire going down a busy highway (!) and made it to the opening of Lake Union Park, which is absolutely gorgeous. It was the perfect day for a park opening.

A collection of Native American tribes had a salmon bake, and introduced me to a new way of baking fish.

Kids took model sailboats for a spin around a new pond, with the Space Needle in the background.

From there, we headed back to Fremont and Blue Moon Burgers (@BlueMoonBurgers) for lunch.  Yummy, delicious burgers. High marks.

After that, we headed into Oktoberfest. There weren’t that many people when we first entered, but that quickly changed. More than 100 beers from all over the world were available and we had 12 tasting tokens.

There were some really good beers and some that were less successful.  All and all, though, we were very satisfied with the choices and selection.

At one point, we decided to take a break and stumbled upon the Flying Apron (@flyingapron), a vegan, gluten-free, wheat-free bakery. I was initially skeptical, but was proven quite wrong. We got a corn-berry muffin that was delicious. See below.

A summary of the day: lots of really different, interesting experiences.  High marks, Seattle.

1) House Membership to Shift: After analysis of the 2010 Census, the time-honored tradition of reapportioning seats in the House of Representative will occur. New York to lose 2 seats; Florida gains 2.

2) Tragic Accident Kills One of Britain’s Wealthiest Citizens: Jim Heselden, who owned the Segway brand, died when a Segway he was driving went over a cliff and into a river.

3) F***ing Sweet New Twitter App: Cursebird tracks tweets with swearing in them.

4) Video of Emergency Landing: Ignoring the warnings of a flight attendant, two passengers on Delta Flight 4951 filmed the emergency landing of their plane. Sparks fly.

5) Steve Jobs Responds to E-mail: And seemingly petty ones. A student was shocked that the Apple CEO personally responded (rudely) to her e-mail about a paper.

6) Jaws: Video of several great white sharks eating a whale.

Childhood favorite “Sesame Street” pulled an upcoming Katy Perry duet with Elmo because the singer’s dress was too revealing.  The offensive video below…. you be the judge.

Seattlest gives a nod to a more appropriate performance on the show. One of my favorite songs: “1,2,3,4” by Feist.

1) Netflix Messes Up: What do the movie rental people have in common with North Korea? They used actors at a launch in Canada to promote their foray into the country, just like North Korea used actors at the World Cup. Still, Netflix is doing better than Blockbuster, which declared bankrupcy today.

2) Good Heart or Good PR: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a $100 million donation to the Newark public schools.  Coincidentally, The Social Network, which doesn’t portray Zuck nicely comes out October 1.  Zuckerberg himself was seen outside of Seattle at a screening of the film, in spite of his vow not to see it.

3) Do You Know How Boycott Became a Word?: Well, it was a person first.  Charles Boycott and 24 other people whose names became nouns.

4) An Interview From the 1950s: Watch this interview with Jim Russell, an anti-immigrant, anti-jew, segregationist. Oh, but I was wrong, this interview is from 2010 and he’s running for Congress. He squirms a little.

5) Our Bad: Officials in India apologize for the unsanitary, unhygienic conditions of housing for athletes in the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Dehli. The country was trying to show modernity and how it could compete with China.

6) Twat Convicted for Tweet: One British man was convicted for threatening to blow up “Robin Hood” airport in a tweet. Now, his life is ruined.

7) Free Beer: The makers of Budweiser will give out free samples at a national “Happy Hour” September 29 to promote slumping sales.

8) Now Taking Your Questions: Walter Breuning, the world’s oldest man.