The Sun Sets

Needle and Post

Back at Zoka, and just spent the past hour or so sifting through pictures and prepping them for upload. They’re up now (11 new images, out of 123 taken… the skyline shots do vary more than the thumbs suggest — the curse of automated thumbnailing). I took the evening yesterday and got some Thai food from Tup Tim Thai on Mercer, and kept an eye on the sunlight… as it started getting a yellow-orange saturation, I paid and headed up the hill to Kinnear Park on Olympic (Uri knows exactly where I’m talking about), took a few shots, then walked up the hill to one of the streets above (for those not familiar: Queen Anne Hill is one of the taller hills in Seattle proper, and is a honeycomb of streets winding around it). From there, I had a perfect vantage for catching the skyline and the Space Needle. Very happy with the location, and may go back at some point for future (later in the evening) shots.

Today, I dealt with orientation for my game testing position with VMC (it’s been long enough that I was off the books, so all new paperwork and NDAs and such — wheee), and got signed up for a full week of testing next week (starting Monday). I’m really not looking forward to the morning commute, fighting Microsoft traffic across the lake, but otherwise I’m pretty happy to be back working there. We’ll see if I feel the same way after getting up at 6am to be at work by 7:30 for the next week (I’m not a morning person… I know I can do it, and I will, but the first few days of adjusting are going to be a pain, especially since my current sleep pattern has been keeping me awake til 3:30 or 4 even when I try going to bed at midnight or 1).

It looks like I’m going to actually make my photographic goal this month in terms of pictures taken (fill a dvd a month with photography), but I’ve been sort of slacking on the writing… I’ve been blogging, yes, and keeping up with my “waiting for food” journals when I go out, but in terms of creative/productive writing, I haven’t done as much as I’d like. I’ve been getting a lot of brainstorms for ideas to pitch as books to publishers, but I don’t really have the credentials to pull it off (this doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still write up a pitch and sample chapter and start submitting it, but it does sort of lower its priority in how I spend my time). I need to get into a better habit of writing them down and organizing them, so I don’t forget the good ones (and later separate the ones I thought were good but actually suck, and vice versa, after the initial “cool” has worn off). Haven’t decided whether it’d be easiest to carry an “ideas” book with me, integrate it into my normal journal, or what. Need to think about it. I’ll probably just integrate it… I’d like to finish up this vertical-flip Moleskine anyway (already have a normal book-style replacement waiting, just can’t justify swapping over when it’s still a perfectly good notebook, just not my binding preference).

Most of you already know that I really like watching people… it’s one of the reasons I hang out at coffee shops, to watch the interactions, to be at least peripherally involved in the social dialogue. I find that “distanced immersion” helps me focus on writing and productive endeavors. I’m bringing this up because there is a couple at the table across from me… an attractive blonde student with an accent I haven’t quite placed — initially though a light Irish, but upon further listening, I’m thinking Austrian (how could I mistake the two? *shrug*), and a guy, who gives off a general geek-frat vibe for lack of a better way to describe him. The flirting is hilarious. They banter a little bit, they physically bat at each other, let themselves get maybe 6 inches apart from each other, where it’s so obvious he’s aiming to move in for a kiss — and then she shuts him down, every single time. Maybe they’re dating and she’s just messing with him (well, regardless of the level of relationship, she’s messing with him), maybe they’re friends with some sexual tension (whether bi-directional or not), or something similar. Beats the hell out of me, but it is definitely amusing to watch.