Totally spontaneous thoughts from Kristoff

The Space Needle is the most amazing piece of architectural design that I have ever laid eyes on. It is much much much better than the Sky Tower. For sure.

I have now met a lot of Satellites and my favorite by far is Meredith who is beautiful, intelligent, sweet, irresistible, and who is in fact not in Americorps but still cool none the less.

I've decided that I am going to go to UW Med. Because Seattle is awesome. Yes.

Yeah okay, this isn't actually Kristoff but assume it is because I'm going to brainwash him into thinking all of these things by the time he goes back to St. Louis. I mean, West Point has made him pretty susceptible to brainwashing right? :-)

The aforementioned 40s

Two more for Seattle

1. Flexcar - a car sharing system originated in seattle- you sign up for the system and thereafter can rent a car for $9 an hour as needed - cars are prepositioned all over the city, so you just take a short walk to your reserved car. A system like this would eliminate any need for me to have my own car in a lot of cities, I think.
2. They sell 40s here. Nothing more needs to be said.

More points for Seattle

That they need this sign speaks volumes.

Amusing

For some strange reason, i've not yet been offered a single copy of the socialist worker magazine or been asked to save a child...

Now this is a downtown

Saint Louis, take note - tall buildings *with* lights on! On the other hand, Seattle has finally shown a weakness - downtown is a huge point for congregation of homeless people - Saint Louis probably just hides them better - more abandoned houses...

Reading room

Amazing - a giant reading room and not an angry law student in sight! This is in one of the UW libraries. While they may suck at record keeping, they do have some nice buildings!

Chain gang

These kids are all attached by their hand to a rope held at each end by the adults with them. Probably actually a good idea, but still a bit wierd looking - very reminiscent of a chain gang, or maybe a sled dog team!

Cool bench

This bench is out in one of the parks here - whole thing is carved from one piece of stone.

Anatomy exhibit!

So I was on my way downtown to do a little anatomy review, when what should I happen to see but the "Bodies" exhibit of plastinated prosections... Took me about a half second to decide to go in, even though entry was a bit steep at $25. Well worth it for anyone, I'd say, and certainly a good time. Took a few photos, although it seems I wasn't supposed to, as when I was emailing someone something totally unrelated a staff member came over to check on me... Oh well - didn't get caught, no signs prohibiting pictures, so I feel no guilt!

Very nice dissection of the hands - superficial and deep arches.

Nice demonstration of the muscles.

This is an incredible dissection - the entire (somatic) nervous system. Absolutely amazing.

Another amazing dissection - the vascular system. All of it. Absolutely ridiculous. The dissection is suspended in water, since it's so fragile. The only defect I noticed is that it seemed that a lot of the portal circulation and the mesenteries were missing - not exactly sure why they would be - maybe because they don't have the nice tissue support the rest of the system has?

Some old-looking pedicle screw construct in the lumbar spine. This specimen had a wide variety of implants added postmortem, including tibial plateau plate, tibial nail, total knee, total hip, clavivle plate (superior aspect), a cranial bone flap, and a cranial plate. All of it except for the total hip looked like it was probably pretty old hardware.

A special treat for me - the thoracic duct! I spent probably two days digging around for that bastard during first year, and was never entirely certain that I'd found it. This has inspired me to look again this Jan...

Another first

First crosscorner starbucks.

Wow

Smell of a fresh fish market - yet another thing they don't have in St Louis.

Seattle update

So it's now day 2 of overcast, and day 1 of rain, which is projected to go at least through tomorrow. Not too bad, though. The one thing I've noticed is that the constant overcast makes it hard to keep track of the progress of time. Kind of like being in the hospital all day. Guess is I end up here I'll just have a few more days when I don't see the sun. Not a bad tradeoff, given how large that number was already likely to be! Oh, and have I mentioned, Seattle is so much better than Saint Louis?

Look, ma, eatin' gear!

Who knew? REI sells sporks with built in carabiners! Of course, this one is called a foon, but whatever. I'm just proud I managed to resist buying one of the titanium models...

Mr Foeger goes to the woods

Yes, it's a portable expresso maker. There's a portable hand grinder too, so you don't have to suffer the indignity of using old ground beans. I mean, could you imagine the horror? What'd be the point of even going into the wild? So Nick, if you were to ever leave the confines of civilization, at least now you know you can take coffee with you...

Quote of the day

"Needless to say, all drug and serum treatment must be accessory to surgery, not a substitute for it." - Trueta, Principles and Practice of War Surgery

Yet another thing

Seattle has that Lou doesn't - tri gear at rei

Who'd have guessed?

The planned parenthood in Seattle doesn't have a 12 foot high fence around it! Shocking.

What would Kristoff ride?

I think tbat question has been answered.

I just remembered

A point for St Louis - these vaguely run down 2 or 3 bedroom houses run about $400k... Easily twice the cost in the Lou. On the other hand, Seattle is twice as good...

Now this is more like it

Yesterday was a beautiful day here. Today is more what I expected. Went for a run this am and found that due to the foggy quality of the air, I was much colder than I would have been in equal temps in saint Louis. Still overcast and cool at 1020. Off to find food now - at least I can go to a safeway again!

Seattle 1, St. Louis 0

Today I left my relatively affordable housing, walked for 10 minutes along relatively safe streets, and passed 4 ethiopian restaurants, 1 teryaki place, 2 pizza places, 2 mediterranean places, other random restaurants, and got an inexpensive, yet awesome Vietnamese sandwich (thanks for the recommendation, Greg the Canadian Post-Doc, wherever you are). Not doable in St. Louis - yes, Grand has some good restaurants, but I'm sure as hell not signing up to live there.

Also so numerous people on bikes, a smart car, and people from other cultures who were mingling as opposed to retreating to ethnic enclaves - more points for Seattle, without a doubt.

Public health goodness

What a great idea - a single pack cigarette!

Edit: It's not obvious since the photo was resized, but this is a picture of a little plastic case that holds one cigarette.

Ouch

It's been a while since I carried 100 pounds of anything, let alone 2 miles over hills - can you tell?

My first Seattle fixie

Yes - bike racks aaand fixies.....

Holy...

A hospital with bike rack? I'm stunned.

WTF

This stupid place has hills! Forgot about that.

So...

The bus system seems pretty good, but i'm packed in here like i'm in freakng Bangalore which is ok for normal travel, but with 2 giant bags, not so much.

Clearly no longer in Missouri

I'd almost forgotten what a real mountain looked like. Serious points for the West coast. Or even North Carolina. Too bad DW is weak sauce and can't come here early to see what a real mountain looks like.

Great seat

This sign=you are not getting any sleep on the Chicago to Seattle flight. Awesome.

On the road

Well, on the street, anyway. Think I almost maxed out my baggage allowance, but at least I won't be without t-shirts or scrubs; seems I have somehow accumulated 10 sets...

Left behind

How terrible is it that my 'cross bike is staying here while I go to what's essentially one of the cross capitals of the world? Poor guy...

First post

Leaving beautiful big Barnes tomorrow morning, so I figure it's finally time to figure out how to do this mobile blogging thing so I don't waste everyone's time with emails of my various pictures of Seattle. Hope someone finds it interesting.