Culture: Employed Lifestyle

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Today is not only the last day of calendar 2010, but the last day of my working for my employer of the last two months.

Regular readers of this blog may not even have been aware of the fact that I was working again. I made no announcement on this forum. Careful re-reading of the last two months of entries will reveal only a few very oblique references to e-commerce, but also a lack of references to being unemployed, which were never especially common here in the first place.

It wasn't that I wasn't proud of what I was doing, that I wasn't enjoying the customer service position, or that I was anticipating that I would be switching jobs so rapidly, which wasn't at all obvious to me until well into December. Instead, I had long structured many aspects of my life such that returning to a regular 9-to-5 job, as this one was, would have minimal impact on my activities. Sure, I wouldn't be going railfanning in winter daylight hours, or listening to daytime radio live, but little else needed to change. This blog had for many months generally been written in the late evening intentionally so that my routine would not need to change when I became employed. Sure enough, I started a job, and the impact on my blogging was nearly imperceptible.

One thing that I learned in the past two months is that, indeed, I could have a very comfortable lifestyle in Toronto working a 9-to-5 job. A look at this blog will see that I attended not only events at the CBC (a very short walk from where I was working) but also evening community events around the city. My social life, such as it is, was not suffering as a result of the position. My weekend activities had no need to change whatsoever.

I had long suspected that commuting by subway to downtown, which took me only about 45 minutes each direction, would be far more sustainable than my previous mostly-bus commute into the suburbs, which could take 80 minutes on a bad day. Even when the subway was disrupted, as happened at least three times I remember in the past two months, it never took me much more than an hour to complete the commute. During the winter, especially, it was quite nice to be mostly underground.

Fundamentally, the job that I held for my first two years in Toronto always felt unsustainable, even in the beginning. The hours and the commute were always draining; I slept in significantly on Saturday by necessity. For the last two months, I've instead been getting up earlier on Saturday for volunteer work than on weekdays. There's no way I could have done that before.

I could have kept going in my recent job for a long time; I could easily imagine staying with that employer for years. However, when one is aggressively pursued by an employer in a potentially-growing industry, it's pretty hard to ignore and turn down an attractive offer.

My cushy, predictable lifestyle is over, at least for the foreseeable future. I will now be in field service, with unpredictable travel. I have no idea what this will mean for the publishing schedule of this blog. Yet, I am satisfied that I have demonstrated that blogging can be part of a sustainable lifestyle. It's not inconceivable that I might miss that.

Culture: 20 Years, 59 Million Later

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Twenty years ago, I filed the following Student's Notebook report from Bellevue, Washington:

This year, the US Census Bureau started out with a rather aggressive attempt to make sure everyone was counted. The bureau sent out extensive forms to each permanent residence, requiring the forms to be returned by April 1st, but later extending the deadlines well into June and making radio commercials to prod people into sending in the materials as early returns were pathetic.

Meanwhile, local bureau employees were supposed to take to the streets to count the homeless. Though their attempts were well-documented, urban special interest groups contested the figures almost from the start, claiming the bureau had mis-counted by as much as one-half.

The census takers also had the duty to visit households where forms had not been returned. These visits resulted in rumors that some houses had been counted twice, or that others had sent in two forms and been visited but still hadn't been tallied.

Regardless of the objections, the census bureau has now released its final figures, subject only to appeals. Our population in the United States is now 249,632,692, an increase of 23,086,887 from 1980, meaning that each of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives should have 572,466 constituents.

Here in Washington state, our population has gone from 5,346,818 in 1980 to 6,216,568 now, meaning that our state has earned another seat in the House of Representatives, to be carved out of Rod Chandler's 8th and John Miller's 1st congressional districts.

The states that really will gain in influence, though, are California (7), Florida (4), and Texas (3). Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia also gained seats. New York lost 3, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania 2, and Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey and West Virginia all lost a single seat.

What does this mean in political terms? The gains were primarily made in Republican areas, but in the primarily Democratic Hispanic population. We'll have to wait and see.

Change the exact numbers, to a population of 308,745,538 in the United States and 6,724,540 in Washington state, and the number of seats changing hands (Texas gained four seats, Florida two, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington one, while New York and Ohio each lost two seats and Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania each lost one), and the story looks almost exactly the same in 2010.

Margin Notes: Travel, Fountain, United, Flags

The International Fountain at the Seattle Center puts on impressive shows, though in this 27-December-2010 view it was far from its peak 120-foot height

TORONTO, ONTARIO - As a final follow-up on my recent visit to the Seattle Center, the most interesting scene at the Seattle, Washington tourist attraction is likely the International Fountain. This isn't the fountain I remember from my youth, but a 1995 installation by WET Design that shoots water up to 120 feet in the air in patterns coordinated with music. It may not be the Bellagio in Las Vegas (also a WET installation), but it's worth seeing if you're at the Center--and it even keeps performing in the rain.

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While rain may be the defining characteristic of the Puget Sound region, militant secularism is another. Thus, perhaps it is not surprising that I think I heard "Merry Christmas" or even "Happy Holidays" uttered less often in public that in any time in my lifetime. People were definitely shopping, celebrating, and giving to the Salvation Army, but they weren't greeting each other much when I was around.

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The holiday spirit did not seem to be missing at Customs and Immigration. Both entering the United States and returning to Canada were far more straight-forward than usual in the past few years--some of the basic questions weren't even asked, and the US agent was even polite for the first time in recent memory.

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A United 777 in the new paint scheme prepared to depart Denver, Colorado for Zurich, Switzerland on 22-December-2010

While I also have no complaints about United Airlines for the first time in recent memory (I still had frequent flier miles to use), I encountered a United plane in the post-Continental merger paint scheme for the first time. Frankly, I thought the 777, bound from Denver to Zurich, looked terrible. When the same paint scheme was used by Continental, at least the airline name was in a serif, sophisticated font. The sans serif, all-caps font used by United with the colors looks terrible to me.

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As a final transportation note that I keep neglecting to make on each trip to the Pacific Northwest, the city of Kirkland, Washington deserves credit for the pedestrian flags it places at crosswalks. A holder on each side of the street is filled with flags that pedestrians can use to signal that they want to cross the street and stop traffic. It seems to work quite well--though I still think that Toronto's directions to simply point at the other side of the street seems to accomplish the same thing without all the infrastructure used by Kirkland.

Culture: Seattle Consensus

An outdoor portion of the Fun Forest in Seattle, Washington near the Space Needle was observed dormant on 27-December-2010; the site will now apparently be split between KEXP studios and a Dale Chihuly glass museum

TORONTO, ONTARIO - I've long stated that Seattle rarely recognizes just how much it was culturally influenced by native peoples. The environmental influence often receives recognition, with Chief Sealth of the Duwamish tribe's famous speech taught in Washington state schools, whether he actually gave it or not. The far greater contribution, in my opinion, is primacy of consensus in decision-making. Building consensus--no matter how much it slows down progress--is more prominent in Seattle politics than anywhere else I've spent time in the United States, sometimes to an almost comical extent. A member of one of the Salish tribes inhabiting the area three hundred years ago might well recognize the process.

A case in point has surrounded the Fun Forest at the Seattle Center. Seattle Center itself was created for the 1962 "Century 21" World's Fair, and its various infrastructure largely re-purposed afterward. The Fun Forest has been a set of indoor and outdoor amusement rides that have existed outside the Center House for my entire lifetime. As the years have gone on, revenues at the Fun Forest have declined, and it was announced in 2009 that the Fun Forest would close before the end of the year.

Instead, the Fun Forest was still open earlier this week (though it will close within days) as debates have gone on within the city of Seattle about what would take its place. In the end, two alternatives emerged--new studios for world-famous alternative radio station KEXP 90.3 FM and a new Dale Chihuly glass museum. Exactly why Seattle needs a Chihuly museum when the Museum of Glass exists in nearby Tacoma has never been clear, and parodies of the proposal included the well-publicized Sir Mix-A-Lot proposal.

So what was the Seattle solution, after nearly a year of talks? Earlier this month, Seattle mayor Mike McGinn announced that the city would build both, along with a kid's playground as a partial replacement for the Fun Forest. If every problem could be solved this way, Seattle would do it. If it could build a replacement Alaskan Way viaduct, a tunnel, and a surface solution all at the same time, it would. When the city really has to make a choice, it takes even longer than when it does a grand compromise as with the Fun Forest site.

Somewhere, I think Chief Sealth and his peers are smiling.

Holiday: Winterfest

A model train passed a scene including a school yard at the Winterfest display at the Seattle Center House on 27-December-2010

BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON - For as long as I can remember, there have been two significant model railroad displays around Seattle, Washington during the holidays. One is in a store window at the Bon Marche (now Macy's), where one puts a hand on a designated spot on the window to make a train move, and the other has been in the Center House at the Seattle Center.


People gathered around the Winter Train and Village display at the Center House in Seattle, Washington on 27-December-2010

Much has changed in the Center House over the years. The Bubbleator, left over from the 1962 World's Fair, has been gone since the 1980's. Shops on the lower level have given way to the Children's Museum. Yet, there's still a Pizza Haven (see photo above) near the walkway to the Monorail (another World's Fair holdover, this year decorated for the Harry Potter exhibit at the Pacific Science Center), and the "G gauge" setup of the Winter Village still appears during Winterfest.


A train based on a Colorado narrow gauge prototype passed exited a tunnel at the Winterfest display in Seattle, Washington on 27-December-2010

Winterfest itself has varied over the years. The ice skating rink (in recent years in the Fisher Pavilion) and Winter Village train display have been staples, but there have been various other activities over the years. Back when KING television was a sponsor instead of KOMO, there was a "Holiday Sleigh Ride" in which local television personalities would introduce you riding Santa's Sleigh--easily my favorite VHS tape of my family.


A model of Seattle's King Street Station was where the controls of the Winter Train display were located on 27-December-2010

The train display itself has been interactive in recent years. For a $2 donation, one can become an engineer for a few minutes of one of two trains that run through the display. The trains aren't the only things that move, either, as a hot air balloon regularly takes off from the village for a trip through the sky, and ice skaters rotate through the center of the well-detailed town, amongst other scenes.


Both of the model trains operating at the Winterfest display in Seattle, Washington passed the Engine House on 27-December-2010

Winterfest continues through 31-December-2010 at the Seattle Center, with ice skating extended through 2-January-2011; see the web site for details.

Photos: Holidays in Toronto, Part II

A portion of the Toronto, Ontario Christmas Market was found in an alley of the Distillery District on 9-December-2010

BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON - This week's update to my photo site features more coverage of the holidays in Toronto, Ontario. The German-style Toronto Christmas Market, the Trail of Lights in Downsview Park, making mulled wine, store windows, and more scenes taken between 3-December and 20-December-2010 are shown.

Culture: Pole Position II

Gunnar Stenseth continued a holiday tradition of playing Pole Position II in Bellevue, Washington on 26-December-2010

BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON - It's hard to claim anything other than a spoiled childhood when there was a full-size arcade video game in your room. Granted, my mother won it in an Atari contest in 1983, but it's still not normal to have such an expensive and physically large toy completely at one's disposal.

When she won the contest, there was a choice of three games--one was a Star Wars game of some kind and I don't recall the third, and I remember going to a local video game parlor to try them out. There wasn't much question that Pole Position II was going to be the choice. Not only did both my father and I prefer racing games, but it was pretty clear that there was a timelessness to a driving game, while the other games would be somewhat dated.

Fortunately, I do not know how many hours of my life have been spent playing the game, because the number would be scary. It rains in the Puget Sound region, and many a rainy summer day was spent driving the four virtual race courses--Fuji (from the original Pole Position game, with a mountain in the background), Test (a basic oval), Seaside (with an amusement park background), and Suzuka (in many ways the most twisting, challenging track). After many years of trying, I would earn the Pole Position on all four courses in qualifying, and would earn over 64,000 points on each course after the four-lap race.

While driving might be a universal game theme, some of the details of Pole Position are quite strange. In what kind of real race are all the other cars so slow that you pass them going more than twice their speed? How can be that all the sets of cars on the course take on the same lane configurations, so that if one remembers what the last set of cars looked like, the ones around the next corner can be anticipated? And how is it that when driving the Suzuka course, which crosses over itself, there is no sign of this crossing in the scenery at all? Never mind the fact that one immediately receives a new car in the same track position after having a catastrophic, explosive wreck with another car or a roadside sign, at least until time expires!


Three complete races led the leaderboard on the Pole Position Fuji racetrack on 26-December-2010

Over the years, the game has fallen largely into disuse, and it has spent many years with its accelerator pedal in disrepair. Today, though, the game proved to be in mint condition when younger members of the family decided to give it a try. When it was idle for a moment, I decided to jump on, and was shocked to manage a 60,000-point race on Fuji in my first attempt. A couple races later, I not only had driven from the Pole Position on Fuji, but I had broken 63,000 points, which would have been respectable even in my prime gaming days. At the other end of the score board, a five-year old "nephew" had a score well under 10,000. If the game lasts, he might be beating me someday.

A quarter-century later, Pole Position II is still providing the same entertainment it did on day one.