Hello, hello! Been awhile, and I’m back with something other than a movie/book review. Although I did see Real Steel on Thursday and that was good… more on that later. I also visited Fredericksburg, TX for my semi-annual wine trip, and boy was this trip a doozy! More on that later, too.

So now I’m in beautiful Seattle, WA, waiting for the infamous Zombcon to start on Friday. Since I’ve never been here before and have always wanted to visit, I thought I’d come up a couple days early to see the sights and check out what I’ve always believed could be another home for me.

Although Hawai’i will always be my spiritual home.

Anyway, the flight wasn’t bad. Four hours and sixteen minutes, as they told us no less than 7 times (yes, I counted). Bit of turbulence over the Rockies, but I was prepared for that so no worries. Then I landed in the Great Northwest, and boy was I glad I’d turned around for the jacket that I left at the house. It’s 50 degrees here right now and just a tit bit nipply, as my buddy would say.

I didn’t get to see Mount Rainier today from a distance, which I expected to given the movies I’ve seen. There’s also a bit of a letdown in that I found out the monorail is only about 1 mile or so long. It doesn’t go all over the city, just back and forth through downtown. Kinda like the light rail in Houston, except this one hasn’t killed anyone.

The Hilton Seatac is one of the nicest hotels I’ve stayed in, comparable to, if not better than, the Hilton Americas in downtown Houston. Except without the smog (even within spitting distance of the airport), heat and humidity. Yeah, so there’s that.

I got to see my breath for the first time in nearly a year tonight; last time was when I was freezing my nuts off in Iowa for my brother’s graduation last December from IU. Or is it always spelled out as University of Iowa? Doesn’t matter; when it’s too cold for me, it’s just too damned cold. And that was bone-chilling, clean out your nose-hairs for you, weenie-shriveling cold.

Like my buddy K last weekend in Fredericksburg when he got a bit drunk. “I am the Lizard King!” Thanks K, we didn’t need the dance at the top of the slide. Again, more on that later.

 

So I’m here in Seattle, two hours behind the normal world for me, fading fast at a mere 8:30. Got to get up to go see Mount Rainier tomorrow – and they’re picking me up at 7:30! In the AM. They better have coffee, is all I’m saying. I’m really geeking out about the trip though; I get to stand on the spot in the real world where Bunker One is in my book. How awesome is that?

Maybe I can have someone take a picture of me pretending to pose next to a sign, and have a photoshop-skilled friend fake up a sign for AEGIS BUNKER ONE. That would be swell. At least until the movie gets made and I can have a real propmaster do something similar.

Yeah, they need to make a movie out of this book. It would kick major ass, although I don’t know if it’ll ever happen, because I’d rather there was never a movie made than have them take it and World War Z the thing. Bastards.

More tomorrow from the slopes of North America’s largest volcano!

  – The Hitchhiker