Tonight was the opening of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) and a publishing house sent me an invite to a reception and then onto the opening gala. It was extremely thoughtful of them and really it would have been rude it turn it down.

For those who don’t live in Seattle SIFF goes on for three weeks and this year has almost 450 films being shown in a dozen venues. It’s a major festival, by some measures the largest in the country, and has seen the premiers of some big name movies in the past, including Alien and the Hurt Locker. Also there tonight were a few members of the Sounders, including Sigi, Patrick Ianni and Tyson Wahl as the team announced a partnership with SIFF and a couple of local kids charities.

When the invite arrive a couple of weeks ago I did have a search through the SIFF site and grabbed tickets to a number of films that grabbed my interest. As the Edinburgh Fringe has been taken over by comedians since I first went. The SIFF has a lot more documentaries than I recall from 10 years ago, and there are a couple of those among the tickets I picked up.

The film tonight was “The First Grader”. A British film shot in Kenya by director Justin Chadwick, who previously directed “The Other Boleyn Girl”. It’s about an 84-year-old Kenyan villager trying to go to school for the first time, with flashbacks to his time with Mau Mau insurgency prior to Kenyan independence. It’s a very powerful story of hope, while it enjoys a few movie clichés and of course has the inevitable happy ending, it was well told and certainly worth the time this evening.

Of course what would a gala opening be without a good reception and after party? A couple of drinks, some excellent food and a lot of very, very good conversation afterwards. A big thank you to Mark for the invite, it was a lot of fun tonight.

It was an early morning to finish a couple of things off for today, this was the view from home as the sun came up.  It’s a beautiful looking morning.

This is a post I’ve composed in my mind 50 times today, I’m still not sure I’ve got it right, but please bear with me it’s been a brutally long day.

One of the things that has been so freeing about the last year has been the reestablishing of a couple of very important friendships, these are people I can talk without feeling like I need to justify myself, and I think we all like that.

Yes they will happily challenge me, and what I have said when it’s justified. In fact they seem to take delight in doing that, but in a way that is really asking me to look deeper and understand what I’m saying rather than putting together an argument about why I’m wrong.

As I evolve and change, and it’s change I’m very happy with, I’m understanding more about responsibilities I have, those I can put to one side and those that have to stay close. And as I learn more about the writing process I understand better and better that the people who read what I have to say have a wide variety of views and mindsets. I’ve spoken before about not grasping how interactive this medium could be, and I still have occasional “oh yeah moments” and try to go on a journey with that viewpoint.

I’m in a place in my life where I’ve put a lot of work, a lot of therapy and many, many hours into really understanding myself. And I am seeing how that was a great investment.

And so I’m finding it harder to write about that lately, in part because I’m taking opportunity to do something wonderfully cathartic away from this site. A because of that some of the more personal stuff will be put on another website, ungroundable.com” to be worked on and expanded into a long format. It’s not going to be accessible to all, you need to have registered here and ask for access, and that’s by choice as I work on my writing and attempt to find “my voice” as an editor put it.

I will continue to try things out here and love the feedback I get, all of it. I have discovered that I enjoy writing, and after getting a “could try harder” in every English class I’ve ever taken that came as something of a surprise to me.

But now, picture of the day. I spent an hour working in the garden today, feeding the lawn (turning very nice and green) and planting a couple of young Japanese Maples. They are not terribly mature trees, but will grow into something wonderful.

…is brought to you by the stuff under the oven. I was preparing the kitchen before I put down some new flooring in the kitchen and was about to move the oven when I noticed there was a few things under there. I got a broom handle and to my surprise pulled this little pile out…

I’m not sure what the green thing that was once in the dog bowl was, but it had long since putrefied, it really was disgusting. But it was in good company with all the prescription bottles under there (none of which had my name on them). It’s rather bizarre what people will do, but the new floor will look spectacular.

I’ve been working on some interesting stuff today, part of it putting together some thoughts on writing and publishing for a friend. It was an interesting exercise.

1.   I believe that writing is life affirming and changed my life for the better

2.   Writing is journey that has changed, being published in whatever form is no longer the destination

3.   There is strength in community, and that community is strengthened by sharing

4.   This community can only enhance creativity

5.   Technology has the ability to empower and amplify, but it is also capable of masking the message

6.   Writing is first done for ourselves, then for others

I spent some time today sitting reading and looking out over the deck. Today I look at an exciting world with an interesting tomorrow and this evening was working outside and saw an interesting analogy about water beading on the freshly sealed deck rather than soaking in. I liked it, sorry if I bored you.

There are a number of talking points that I’m sure will be picked up elsewhere from last nights game.

• The tifo from ECS was outstanding; there was no other way to describe it. Nine large panels that involved all incarnations of the Sounders teams over the years. I’m sure there are plenty of better pictures on the net, it’s worth looking for.
• The weather was awful. It started raining about 45 minutes before kick off and at lunchtime the following day it’s still pouring down. A plastic pitch that wet does not improve a teams passing game.
• There were no yellow cards handed out, this is startling. I’m not sure the ref had a good night and I think he missed a few things, including a solid looking hand-ball off a Levesque cross with about 15 minutes left to go, but the two teams were very disciplined.
• Injuries continue to decimate Seattle. With Friberg spraining his ankle on Friday and the rather injury prone Brad Evans coming out before half time with a groin strain that will keep him out a couple of weeks. This is on top of the injuries to Zakuani, White and Rosales. That’s five attacking starters who have scored 8 out of the 12 Seattle goals (and 10 out of 14 assists) unavailable last night.

The atmosphere was everything you’d hope it was going to be, loud, passionate and 36,593 people were treated to a proper rivalry game. While it ended 1-1 it does feel a little more like a loss in the cold light of day. The first half was very even, both sides had chances but no one was able to take advantage and find the back of the net.

Seattle came out after the break playing a far more assertive game and on 52 minutes it paid off when Fernandez got on the end of Montero flick that was started by Roger Levesque pass (who else would set it up other than the two players Timbers fan hate the most?) and finished it beautifully.

The building erupted, not just from the goal but from the weeks of build up, nervousness and anticipation that got released. It felt really good.

However it took less than 10 minutes for Portland to come back, and predictably it was from a set piece. Danso headed home a Jewsbury free kick.

The second half of the game opened up and ended up being a rather entertaining second half after the stalemate of the first. Overall it was a good game to watch, but I still came away as unsatisfied as I was wet (and I was soaked through).

Some more thoughts, this time on Seattle’s play.

• Jaqua was totally anonymous last night, he has no first touch and is seemingly unable to win 50/50 balls. I get that with Seattle’s impressive injury list he may be the best option left, but the team needs to so something.
• Fernandez was excellent again, and after the last couple of games has hopefully cemented his place in the starting 11.
• What does Fucito have to do to get into the game? OK, Levesque is the default next option with the injuries, but how does Neagle stay ahead of Fucito in the pecking order?
• Seattle has very little presence in the air, this goes beyond Jaqua and to the entire defence. They had the chance to clear the free kick that lead to the Portland goal, but got beat to the ball.
• The ball is getting to Keller way too much. The central defenders need help in stopping the balls into the box and relying on Keller to keep us in the game.

I think Seattle has very knowledgeable fans who understand the game. I’ll give a certain amount of latitude to the coaching staff with all the players out right now. Having said that, there really does not seem to be that much intensity or consistency on the pitch for long periods. And it’s being noticed in the seats.

Saturday is one of the games a lot of people circled when the schedule was released on February; the build up has been exactly what one would expect from a derby game. Lots of sledging, trash being talked and of course all this generates a lot of media hype.

It’s another big night out under the lights at Qwest field.

Former Sounder player and manager (@alanhinton11) sent out a tweet yesterday that said “Bigger the crowd the better for me. Sounders players playing in front of 35000 SFC fans and 15000 timbers would be a real soccer experience.”

I tend to agree with Alan Hinton, a huge, passionate crowd does add to the experience. This is the first year and I think the three Northwest teams are going about this the right way as this is a largely new experience for the US. A little caution is reasonable, but if everything goes well we could see this grow into something unique in the US sports calendar every year.

Timbers manager John Spencer has been part of the nastiest rivalries in the game, namely as a Rangers player against Celtic. It’s a game I’d love to experience one day. Today he proved once again he knows how to needle an opponent by saying the atmosphere at Qwest is second only to that in Portland.

He followed that with “First and foremost, Seattle is our fiercest rival. We know that, but you still can’t hide away from the fact that they’ve done a tremendous job up there from top to bottom. You’ve got to give credit where credit is due.”

While not every team has a game that rivals the Old firm in Glasgow, every team has games that mean a little more, even today with mercenary players and foreign ownership. For Coventry it was playing Birmingham City. Aldershot it was Reading and for Woking Town it was Farnborough.

The atmosphere should be outstanding and like many I’ve been looking forward to this for months. It’s not going to be easy, derby game never are, and recent form means almost nothing come Saturday night.

Many with long memories may get that the rivalry with Vancouver is perhaps a little more important to many, in the USL days they were always little more charged. But it’s always a little special to beat up the neighbours. I had a little look through the history books and the fixtures during the last year of they played each other in the USL resulted in 12 yellow cards, 1 red and Seattle knocking out Portland in the playoffs. This is going to be fun.

This is going to be fun and once the whistle blows the hype stops and it’s down to 22 players and the ref to make it special. I hope we get to see a good game, with no trouble and a Seattle win.

The weather was rather stunning today, by the standards of he last couple of months. Still a little distance to go for a warm May day, but the trend is good.

Got sent this link today – www.portscumtimbers.com/index.php

So a couple of weeks ago the league made it clear when it dropped a 10 game suspension and $5K fine on Brian Mullan for “that” tackle of Steve Zakuani that reckless challenges were going to get hit hard.

Last week there was another hard “playing the player” tackle by Marcos Mondani of Chivas USA on Javier Morales. Morales is one of the most skillful players in the league and has been at the center of everything that RSL has done. He’s out indefinitely with a broken ankle and torn ligament, probably a season ending tackle. Looking at the replay the real difference is there was not the intent that seemed to be present in the Mullan tackle, but the tackle itself made little attempt to cleanly play the ball.

The league announced a 4 game suspension and $1500 fine for Mondani. The message of protecting the skillful players from the hard tacklers by imposing a 10 game suspension has been diluted by the same group of people. As a fan I want, more than anything else, consistency from the officials. It does not matter if they are in the league office or the referee in the middle of the game, I want it to be consistent first. Secondly I want the skillful players protected, but without a consistent message that’s not going to happen.

The league can do better than this, I’m not asking for superstar-calls from referees, I’m asking basic protection from over the top tackles.