a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Thursday’s trip home from Denver went without a hitch. There was a shortage of Yellow Cab taxis at Seattle airport, though. The driver told me that they are sometimes kept away from the pick-up points, and then three or four flights arrive at the same time.
Wells Fargo became my bank after my home mortgage had ended up with them some 10 years ago. (This was after the initial mortgage that had been issued had changed hands 3 or 4 times between short-term mortgage brokers. I am very sure all of this was unnecessary, and symptoms of the US real estate bubble of 2007). The bank has been around a long time, founded during the California gold rush in 1852. It survived the collapse of the California banking system in 1855, and hey – it also survived the US financial crisis of 2008. It is Warren Buffett’s favorite bank and getting ever larger (which is not necessarily a good thing!). It has assets of $1.44 trillion and deposits of $1.01 trillion. It’s difficult to comprehend how much money that is!
Soo .. how is the USA today? Well : never mind that it’s day #8 of the US Government shutdown. 1. The debt ceiling deadline is approaching. Will we breach it? What will that do? Here’s erstwhile large animal veterinarian Ted Yoho, now a Tea Party congressman from Florida weighing in today : ‘I think, personally, it [not raising the debt ceiling], would bring stability to the world markets’, since they would be assured that the United States had moved decisively to curb its debt. 2. There’s a story on the front page of the USA today of a 9-year old boy that slipped through three layers of airport security, and got onto an airplane from Minneapolis to Las Vegas. How was that possible? 3. The new $100 bills are officially out. Over lunch time I actually went to the giant branch of Wells Fargo Bank to see if they have the newly designed $100 bill for me to trade for an old one. (No. Maybe by Christmas, said the teller).
I had a window seat this morning and slept all the way to Denver. There was snow in the city and at the airport on Friday (it’s early for snow here), but not a trace of it remained by this morning.
My friend
and colleague Gus arrived in Seattle for a few days of work here this week, and invited me out to lunch today. Since it was a blue sky sunny day, we picked the Seattle downtown waterfront to go to and ended up at Elliot’s Oyster House on Pier 56. Hey! We can order Oyster Rockefeller, said Gus. I did not know that’s a baked (or broiled) oyster. It’s quite good. (I’m too squeamish to eat raw oyster). We also ordered Dungeness crab cakes. I learned something new about the Dungeness crab as well. They are named after Dungeness, a small coastal community right here in Washington State.
I took out the DVD for the recent sci-fi flick ‘Oblivion’, and we watched it on Saturday night. I would have to agree with the ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ website that says its consensus is that the film is ‘visually striking but thinly scripted’. I have trouble latching onto any Tom Cruise character emotionally anyway, but I he did a good job to carry the movie. I see the film was shot in the summer in Iceland, so the spectacular scenery of black lava rock and snow is actually real and not visual effects. It is hard to say what is real and what is not in movies nowadays!
This picture is from Thursday’s taxi ride out to Denver airport. I looked up, and there it was : a cobalt blue horse out on the plains – so out of place it looks like an alien creature. Turns out it has been there for five years already, and despite criticism is likely to stay, as NBC’s Today website reported here.
I don’t come in ‘too late’ from my trips to Denver on Thursday nights (about 10pm), but it’s hard to just step into the house and go to sleep. I’m too excited to be home; there’s a mailbox full of junk mail; and I can make something to eat if I missed dinner. I can also check if there is any worthwhile news of the government shutdown (no, none), or .. I can watch the pandas on Atlanta Zoo’s panda cam on the computer. I sleep like the one on the right, but I love the way that other cub is sleeping on its back. Aw.
Here’s Denver depicted in Starbucks coffee mug format. There is snow for the mountains in the forecast for Friday, prompting speculation that some of the Colorado ski resorts may open earlier than usual this year.
(So the United States government has shut down at midnight last night, and ‘Obamacare’ is open for registration).
Here on the oil company project in Denver we are keeping our heads down and working away to complete the design phase of the project. The PwC project manager came into my office today with two ‘new’ PwC members in tow, introducing them just by name. After I greeted them, I asked :‘And what will you guys do on the project?’ not disrespectfully; but in a chummy kind of way. Oh, said the project manager, Ryan is the quality assurance partner and Reed is the client partner for the project. ‘Ah, very good’, I said, feeling a little awkward that I was so informal with them. Oh well – how was I to know, is that not right?