ah, finally, found access to some wifi. i’m kickin’ back at tully’s near pioneer square, enjoying a hot cocoa, and gettin’ used to my kilt.

yes. kilt.

i kinda like it. very freeing (is “freeing” a word?).

anywho, let’s get to the wrap-up.

sunday

i landed in seattle around 11am. knowing i was going to be in this early, the previous night i purchased a ticket to the seahawks/cardinals game. i wanted to be one of those assholes to walk into the home stadium wearing the visitor’s jersey. they do that us, why can’t i?

the seats were waaaaaay in the nosebleed section. i sat behind a guys wearing a steelers jersey. to say the least, he caught a ton of shit.

qwest field is a beautiful stadium. not quite as beautiful as cardinal stadium. my one big complaint about qwest is the exiting procedure. there is one way in and one way out. unlike cardinals stadium where there are endless openings under the seats, qwest still use the tunnel technique. plus, the stairs only lead one way down instead of instead of going in two directions.

seahawk fans are sore winners. i heard shit left and right about wearing my cardinals jersey. it was to be expected, but i had the feeling some of them were going to try and kick my ass. i started fighting back with “where were you five years ago when the hawks sucked? nowhere, i bet.” somebody described the fans much like the fans here: you win, they’re in. you lose, they’re gone. i’ll be able to rest in the knowledge knowing that the sun devils will whip UW and wazzu’s ass.

i got kind of lost trying to find the right bus line to get back to queen anne. luckily, a really nice woman on the bus, who was heading in the same direction, gave me the right directions.

that night, i headed to a launch party for method arts at two bells tavern in the belltown tavern of seattle. if you look at this photo, you can see me in the background shooting the shit with a designer from seattle. it was an endless flow of mac and jacks beer, and i thank the guys at method arts for picking up the tab.

monday

monday was all about the event. it was cool to see a bunch of web designers together geeking out over some of the best minds in the game.

jeffrey zeldman’s speeches were mainly about dealing with clients: selling them good design and getting them to write good text.

jason santa maria, who, in my opinion, is a brilliant designer, talked about his thought process and methodologies he went to through when he redesigned a list apart. it was very interesting and gave me some great ideas which i will use for both work and freelance.

the one speech i could have lived better without was kelly goto’s speech on the history and direction of mobile media/design/information. my opinion on this is that these third party companies will make a ton of money early, but once the newspapers start figuring it out, those third parties won’t be needed. (side note: azcentral has some of the best minds working in our web IT department, so maybe i’m a little biased.)

the best speeches of the day were those given by eric meyer. he showed how insignificant i am of a coder. i plan on implementing much of what he showed as soon as get back to work from this week off.

the event ended with what can be best described as “frank, dean and sammy live at the palms.” everybody who spoke at the event started picking apart selected web sites submitted by attendees. it seems like they’ve been working on their own for so long that they’ve forgotten what it is to work for the “man.” they’ve forgotten that most web sites require advertising and don’t have much room for art. for most sites, ads are more important than text.

after the event, mobile media company blue flavor treated the attendees to more free alcohol at the alibi room in pike’s market place. no mac and jacks, but an endless supply of seattle lager. i took this opportunity to network at little bit and get my name out there.

tuesday

i walked my ass off looking for the utilikilt guys. i basically walked from end of seattle to other. i turned left instead of right or else i would have been there sooner.

the guys at utilikilt were super cool. the opening of the store was actually in an alley. no dressing rooms, but the guy grabbed a kilt, opened it up, put it around my waist and said, “drop trough.” i snapped it up, walked around, and was immediately in love with it. as a bigger guy, i didn’t feel constrained by tightness in the thighs, gut or waist. i need more utilikilts.

well that’s about it. i don’t know what i keep back to phoenix after visiting seattle. i really love that town. its really kick back and the people are super cool. hopefully someday i’ll be living there and loving life.