The best place in the world is here and now
The picture-a-day project has rather miraculously made it to month three, I’m quietly impressed by this and the feedback has been very positive, thank you. There is not much in the way of spring in Seattle yet, but the front lawn may need to be cut this weekend.
I still love the view.
I now have a new definition of cold. Forget Jack from Titanic and his puny not much bellow freezing hypothermia. Today in Winnipeg it was -21 with the wind chill taking it down another 12 or 15 degrees, and these are in new world Celsius. This is manly hypothermia weather. Walking out of a building into that takes your breath away and gives you an immediate ice-cream headache. It’s quite something to experience and the locals say you never really get used to it being this cold.
It’s been a great trip, very productive, fun people and from what we’ve seen of it an interesting city. Tonight there is curling going on, it was described to me today as the perfect Canadian sport; you can do it while drinking beer. It will be fun to go along and watch for an hour and have a drink.
One thing of interest is that there are far fewer SUV’s and 4WD than you’d see in Bellevue. And despite piles of snow around the city that are the size of a small office block and people having to use their snow blowers to get back into their garage an hour after they last used it, the factory here did not shut down for a single day this winter. Yes there are no hills, and yes live here and you know it’s coming, but somehow they survive.
This has been fun, I really like this new role I’m finding myself in at work. Plus I’ve discovered the local Fort Garry Pale and Pilsner is really good.
This weekend there was lots of great sport on TV. BBC America had England against France from Twickenham in the Six-nations championship, this was a great game and a wonderful advert for rugby. Both sides played flowing rugby and while there was only one try, it was a game that could have gone either way.
Then there was Liverpool getting beat by West Ham (on any given day…), Manchester United hammering Wigan and of course Arsenal getting beat by an inspired Birmingham City performance.
But there was one that stood above all others, and I get that I’m in a minority here.
I purchased the Willow TV package for the cricket world cup, I’m not going to get a chance to watch many of the games live, but I did watch the England-India game Sunday morning from Bangalore and it was worth every penny. England looked very ordinary against Holland last week and did what good teams do on their off days, Just about enough to win, but it was unconvincing at best.
Ultimately the England India game was not an incredibly important game, both sides should progress to the second round with out too much trouble. However, if you don’t watch or follow cricket you may as well move on now, it’s going to get a little “masturbatory fanboy” here, deal with it.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this may have been one of the best limited over games ever, not just in the World Cup. This game went back and forth, either side could have won comfortably. The England captain said “These are the kinds of occasions cricketers dream about”. Although I think when he imagines this while laying in bed he does see a slightly different ending.
On one side you had an England team led by Andrew Strauss, on the other India captained by the legend Sakin Tendulkar. These were two great teams who had a little form coming into this and this looked to have the makings of a good game on paper.
When someone gets round to making a cliff hanger movie about Cricket, this game will mirror the way that story will unfold. The captains were at the center of things, each played a wonderful innings and led the twists and turns of what was a remarkable game. In 30 years of following and watching this game I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
England did not do well in the recent one-day series against Australia, but that was something of an afterthought to the Ashes victory every Englishman (and at least one Scot I know) cared about. However they played good consistent cricket over the winter and looked about as settled an England team as any I’ve seen. They have the players and in Andy Flower the manager that has worked out how to get best out of this team.
Arguably India is the best one-day side in the world at the moment, and as hosts for this world cup clearly the favorites to lift the trophy.
India batted first and it seemed to be about Tendulkar, he did what senior players are supposed to do in the one day game and led by example. He scored 120 off 115 balls, with 15 boundaries. This was the innings all of India knew he could play and if he keeps up this form for the next three weeks India may just be unbeatable.
The ball was hit all over the ground on what was a totally benign, flat wicket that made great bowlers look very ordinary, there was no movement in it. And India duly put together a huge total for England to chase, and chase they did. The experiment of Strauss opening the England batting seemed to come good, he scored 158 off 145 balls to lead the chase.
After 99.5 overs of enthralling cricket it came down to the final ball. England needed two off the final ball to win, nothing and India collects the three points. England of course did the sporting thing and only got one.
Eight hours, two magnificent batting displays and it was a 338 to 338 draw. It was not just the result that was remarkable, it was the twists and turns over the proceeding 100 overs that made it so enthralling.
This was not just cricket at it’s best, this was sport at it’s finest.
Another week, another trip, this time it’s Winnipeg to carry out a production audit. It’s about 20 years since I was last there, and that really was just passing through briefly. I don’t have my diary handy, but I don’t know if we even stayed over night. I think it’s going to be a good trip. Though cold, any time the car rental agreement warns you to plug in the engine heater at night it’s not a good thing. Tonight may get down to -12.
It worked out 3 or 4 hours quicker to drive to Vancouver and fly direct from there rather than change in Chicago or Detroit. However I did not anticipate the drive north. It’s typically less than two hours to drive to Vancouver; it’s been a semi-regular weekend destination in the past. I knew the weather was iffy, I left plenty of time and was glad I did.
At one point it slowed to a crawl with the snow coming down and sticking heavily to the freeway just north of Mount Vernon. There were a number of cars pointing the wrong way or even worse in the ditch at 6 this morning and the state patrol every where. It was very localized, but horrible to drive in. A couple of miles later it was clear and dry.
The rest of the drive was fine and I was greeted by blue sky in Vancouver.
It’s been a couple of days of weather. First was Friday night, it was cold but beautiful evening out. Any break from the oppressive grey cloud is appreciated and all the snow in the front of the house was gone.
Saturday on the other hand was a return to last week… More snow fell, it started mid morning and kept going until mid evening. It was rather slick to drive in this evening and I did get the Land Rover to slide in the really slick places, a couple of times intentionally, other times not so much. I think this winter has been the coldest and most snow filled since I moved to the Northwest.
I saw this in Tulsa Airport this morning, as advertising slogans go it’s not the most obvious one for an airport. An airport that certainly has many nervous flyers passing through every day…
I’d be interested to have sat through that focus group “Yes it’s hinting at death, but it’s also a word for airport buildings! Lets go with it.”
You have to think someone said “Hang on a moment, what about that death thing? Don’t you think that’s important? And what about the angel wings on the smiley face?”
With which the ad executives sensing they might have to do some work, perhaps even miss a dinner, convinced them to go with it.
I get my sense of humour is not to everyone’s taste, but I thought it was funny at 5:40 this morning.
The weather in Tulsa yesterday afternoon was very pleasent, maybe late 60’s when we left the factory. When I landed in Seattle today, the pilot said it was 26 degrees, this was the Miata as I was scraping the snow off it before leaving the airport.
In return for getting an earlier flight (12 minutes between getting off one flight, being rebooked and getting on the flight to Seattle, Delta was impressive) into Seattle I gave up my expensive seat up front, but still got an exit row. The over-wing exit handle was held in place by a piece of folded paper wedged into the cover. Not the most confidence inspiring repair I’ve ever seen on an airplane, but it works for the “it’ll do a trip” adage.
