Coworker and friend Andrew has been showing us around town, taking us to fascinating sightseeing locations, and introducing us to tasty meals from donuts to crumpets to pastas. He seems to have the same quiet idea of fun that we do, so we get along quite well. Since Andrew is a [photographer][1], he knows all sorts of places with lovely views. This particular photo, which shows off Seattle’s multi-layered structure, was taken from the observation deck of [Smith Tower][2], Seattle’s first skyscraper. [1]: http://people.omnigroup.com/andrew/ [2]: http://www.smithtower.com/History.html

Each year these boats sail through the city, making stops where they blast a choir’s performance of holiday songs. The lights were pleasant, even if the music was painfully loud. Several unexpected elements of the Seattle cityscape are decorated for the holiday season, such as these boats, the tops of some buildings including a tree-like formation on top of the Space Needle, and even the cranes and scaffolding of buildings in progress. This journal is on a several-week lag, which means I don’t get to write about things happening right now in my life for quite a while. On one hand this means I get extra time to think about them before I divulge them to the population of the Earth. On the other hand it means I don’t yet get to tell you all what a great Christmas we’re having. Oh well, in the meantime, I hope yours is going nicely.

Seattle likes posting flyers and such; some advertise shops or rock shows, some don’t seem to advertise anything at all. Either way, those staples really add up, especially in hip areas like this one.

Roko really likes the American breakfast, so pretty much every weekend we go out to one of the greasy-spoon joints in Seattle’s happening Fremont or Wallingford areas. Lately my head has been clouded with a ton of stuff, and it was actually kind of hard to just sit down and enjoy something like a bowl of oatmeal with my girlfriend, without getting distracted about what I wanted to go work on next. I’m getting better at that, though. Jules has explicitly told me to take a break from Soft Landing, and I haven’t touched any other personal projects very much for a while now. Finally deciding to retire from [URD][1] has taken a six-year load off of my shoulders; it was long overdue. That’s another story, I guess. [1]: http://urdrawing.com