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Well I just managed to finish a long weekend after having today off. It has been good with my friend Kinny coming to visit for some good Avgeek Times. But I have also tried to be the good host and show him some good touristy things as well.

On Saturday we did 1 or 2 of the usual touristy things, Pikes Place Market, Post Alley, the first Starbucks store

From Seattle Life 2013

you know the usual, but then we also added in some time spotting at SeaTac and being chased off by the cops, which was the first time that has ever happened to me, even back home in Australia it never happened.

Sunday Morning we headed out into “rural Washington” which was really just 10 mins down the road from me towards the East. We went and had breakfast at one of the top breakfast spots in the Greater Seattle area, Maltby Cafe (funnily enough at the end of Maltby Road). It was DAMN awesome and I took the cinnamon roll challenge (not that there really is a challenge but more that eating one is a challenge on its own). It was gooooooood. Way more cinnamony than the one at Skillet but this one didn’t have as good frosting as what the Skillet one does with its warm cream cheese yumminess.

From Seattle Life 2013
From Seattle Life 2013

Kinny got to try his first real American classic being Biscuits & Gravy. Reports were that the biscuit was a bit to heavy. But he still managed to put a good dent in the meal. After that we headed off to Everett for some spotting, then onto Museum of flight and eventually round out the day at Kerry Park for some sunset shots of Downtown Seattle.

From Seattle Life 2013

More spotting today but this time a little bit different. It was actually snowing! The snow was falling but it was so worth it! To be out spotting in the snow as it fell (and at one time was coming down pretty heavy) was pretty neat! But the photos of the snow were not that easy to get 🙁

From Seattle Life 2013

All in all, a pretty awesome weekend! (A post later in the week on the spotting goodness)

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This book was an absolute shocking let down… this is going to be a major rant… be prepared

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The book is Satire TV by Jonathon Gray, Jeffrey P Jones & Ethan Thompson. The amount of “Authors” should start to ring wedding bells. This is not really a book, its more like an essay. I had originally bought this from Comedy Central back earlier in the year after seeing it online and seeing the description. It kind of read like it was a look at how Daily Show and Colbert report were affecting life. WRONG! So very very wrong. This is more like a bunch of essays on Satire TV. It uses plenty of big words I have NEVER heard of and to be honest it felt like it was mocking the people who don’t are “below” them.

Either way I think it was crap, absolute crap. Just to much like a college thesis about certain parts of television and references to South Park, Simpsons and other unknown reasons what you would consider Satire? If you come across this book for less than $1 give it a go, anything more than that… Forget it!

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I was chasing down a UPS 767 Freighter this afternoon (it left about an hour after I did) and managed to snap a few rare birds flying about. A Southwest 737-700 at Paine Field & a US Army Blackhawk. Add in the Dreamlifter and it wasn’t a bad hour or so.

From Seattle Spotting 2013
From Seattle Spotting 2013
From Seattle Spotting 2013
From Seattle Spotting 2013

But once I left the Future of Flight I moved over to another side of the field and got a few parked aircraft shots including a truly epic sunset.

From Seattle Spotting 2013
From Seattle Spotting 2013
From Artistic 2013

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New Years Eve I was a pansy, I will fully admit that. I piked out of watching the fireworks for spending time in my nice warm bed since it was cold outside. Yes that was a lame decision, but my warm sleepy body overruled spending time in the cold outdoors.

New Years Day though I awoke to what was going to be a fantastic day of sunshine! One thing that is sometimes rare to find is sunshine in winter in the PNW and the first day of 2013 did NOT dissapoint. In fact even though it was freezing cold outside (in the 40s but that did not include wind chill) it was mighty nice to have no rain, no cloud and just brilliant blue sky. I was going to take full advantage of it and get 2 things done.

1. Get up to Kerry Park and take some photos of the Skyline with the Space Needle
2. Spotting at SeaTac since Paine Field is shut down pretty much for the Xmas/NY break.

So that’s what I did, although I did #2 first and #1 on the way home. The weather held, I froze my butt off and the photos turned out pretty damn good if you ask me. The Kerry Park photos got a bonus with Mt Ranier in the background.

While the spotting photos were near perfection as they were landing on 16C and got some of the shots I was hoping for including Emirates, Korean and Lufthansa (though ANA was early… as usual).

From Seattle Spotting 2013
From Seattle Spotting 2013
From Seattle Spotting 2013
From Seattle Spotting 2013