Yes, yes, I know, diddly posting the last few days. The aforementioned Calvary cemetery report was taking up a lot of time last week, but then this weekend so far I was. . . . .socializing. Egads, yes, he who is usually in bed by 9:30 every night was actually out doing stuff! Friday I met my cousin who was up for a convention in downtown Seattle. Yes, that meant actually mingling amongst the unwashed proletariat out on a big Friday night downtown. . . .well, mostly a bunch of gaming nerds — said cousin works for a game division of Sony — I saw a Pink Power Ranger and a few other assorted characters, although not that many of the semi-slutty (or occasionally really slutty ones you often see at these gaming-related things.
Kinda nice for a change being around a lot of people out for a night having fun. I don’t do that much anymore, obviously. Mainly because I have a strong association between “out having fun” and “drinking” and since I really don’t drink anymore (although I did have half a glass of a nice pinot noir that night) I don’t really bother. But, eh, it was enjoyable. Probably the second time in my life we’d actually met, the last time being probably 20 years ago when he was a young teenager.
Last night we went to the UW Husky football game, this time at “the CLink” because the UW stadium is being extensively remodeled. I’d been to one game there once a while back, the second of the short-lived Seattle Bowl, so it was. . . .different. We can actually walk to the games at the UW so this involved driving downtown, taking the rail to the place and then finding our way to where we were supposed to be. Decent place for football, although it’s LOUD and I don’t just mean in the rah-rah GO US! sense: it’s just loud in there. Interesting design, too, sort of an open clamshell design with the field open to the sky and most of the seating areas covered. Unlike the old Husky stadium, the sides are steeply raked which makes for good views although the upper decks tend to be very high up.
One thing I’ve noticed recently: More stadiums (technically ’stadia’ I suppose) seem to be built anymore with sort of an awning around the top, for example the Aviva Stadium in Dublin (whence Notre Dame and Navy played yesterday). The reason I mention this is that I hadn’t seen many of these before, certainly not in the US. I was wondering if this had anything to do with the relatively recent discovery that the Roman Coliseum had a similar, probably fabric, awning (known as a ‘velarium”) that, IIRC, wasn’t really discovered until a few years ago. Or maybe they’ve been building those for years and just noted it on the Coliseum. Or maybe that’s the first time I heard of it.
