Seattle, Washington

Dear Friends:

This week, I'm in beautiful Seattle, Washington.  Usually, Seattle is overcast and a bit chilly.  Every once-in-a-while, the sun shines and the entire area is gorgeous.  This week was one of those times.

I'm here on business, attending an industry event.  This time, it's the Mobile Games Forum:

I arrived in Seattle late one night.  Because so many of my regular hotels were full, I decided to try a Kimpton Hotel - this is a chain of small boutique hotels with very unique personalities.  To give you an idea - here's what I found in my room, when I finally arrived:

Seriously...that Bill Murry pillow is awesome.  If they didn't keep track of things like that, I would swipe that!!  In the lobby of the hotel, they have several paintings that look like they came from the Victorian era.  One caught my eye:

Then next day was the start of the conference.  Not only was my company going to have a small stand in the "expo area", but I was actually one of the speakers at the conference.  The main theater was nice to present in.  I don't have any pictures of my own presentation, but this is what it looked like inside:

The presentation went well, and I heard positive feedback from several who attended my particular session.  I love constructive feedback - it means that people were actually listening.

The location of the event was right on the waterfront.  The view on the first day was really nice...blue skies and all...

On the first evening, the even organizers held a party for all conference attendees.  They rented out a part of the Seattle Space Needle.  Traveling to this part of Seattle at night was beautiful:

We rode the elevators to the very top, situated above the revolving restaurant.  The view, as you can imagine, was breath-taking.  Due to some of the barriers - preventing things from falling on people below - I couldn't get a panorama shot.  However, looking towards the Seahawks stadium and Pike Place Market was gorgeous:

 Inside, there were several interactive exhibits to learn more about the Space Needle.  One display allowed you to indicated where you were from.  It then projected a map to show the distribution of visitors from across the globe:

Below the Space Needle is the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum.  From the top of the Space Needle, we could see some of the incredible glass sculptures that Chihuly is famous for:

that little sculpture is probably 25 ft high!  I decided that I wanted to go see them close-up.  Unfortunately, a security guard informed me that there was an event taking place.  So, here's a picture that someone else took, showing just a portion of the gorgeous museum:

At the end of the second day, I was tired of the marathon meetings and presentations.  On my walk back to the hotel, I came upon a beautiful sunset...and it lit up the waterfront:

I'm glad to have spent time in Seattle - because it's a fun city.  However, it's always good to come home!

Thanks for reading ; )