Halloween Sweetspots

For those of you who are gonna go out trick-or-treating, here are some of the hotspots... I don't know from experience, but if the Times says so it has to be true

Bridge

I have no clue why, but whoever the people are that are in charge of this kind of thing, never seem to think to put up signs that tell people like me that the Fremont Bridge is going to be raised for an extended amount of time until you actually get to the bridge. That happened to me last night for the 2nd or 3rd time and it's starting to bother me. I understand that there are going to be times when they have to keep it raised for whatever reason, but I wish they would put signs further then 20 feet away from the bridge so that there is a little warning before you get there. It doesn't take too long going down to and through Ballard, but I think if they gave better notice before people get to the bridge, it would give people like me the chance to take a different route home.

Found this in the Times today

Didn't know Fremont had room for a place with a view like this, but who doesn't enjoy a good park... Sounds like it has some potential. I will update you whenever I get the chance to head up there

One of the best parts...

about living where I do is that the traffic is never really too much of an object, regardless of what part of the day it is. Obviously sometimes are going to be a little worse then others, but for the most part you can navigate anywhere on Aurora in a reasonable time. That being said, I'm going to contradict myself a little bit today because for whatever reason, the traffic on Aurora has been a little busier. I first noticed it last night on my busride home from work. It took what seemed like forever to get from where we merged onto Aurora to across the bridge where we exit off. It was one of those things that we were just inching along, and then all of a sudden it was full speed ahead. I've never understood how you can go from stop and go traffic to wide open in about 2 seconds. That is one of the things that I think will continue to baffle me throughout my life. Traffic was also a little busier this morning when I got a ride downtown from my brother. Now its hard to complain when we were still constantly moving and the people on were just sitting there. I have no idea why it has been this way recently, but I'll check back in later to see if things have gone back to normal.

I'm all for...

supporting local stores that have to compete with national chain stores, but sometimes its just too convenient not to. The other night on my way home from work I stopped by the small market on Fremont Ave. to pick up handfull of items to stock my fridge for few days. I filled up my basket, maybe about halfway up, and walked to the counter to see my total come up to $50. It wasn't like I was buying big name brand products either. It pretty much made my mind up for me that anytime I need more than one or two items, I'm going to go to the Safeway in Ballard. I understand that they can't possibly lower their prices to compete with the large chains cause they will go out of business quick, but for a guy my age who doesn't have a lot of extra money laying around it just makes more sense go as cheap as possible, even if that means going to the Wal-Mart's and Safeway's of the world. The best thing that the little market has going for it is its location. Its hard not to swing by when I'm on my way home sometimes cause it is so conveniently close to my apartment, but for about double what I would pay at a large chain, I will probably keep those trips to a minimum.

Hello World

I figured since I am a recent college graduate and I am living on my own for the first time, I figured this would be a good way to spend some of my newly found free time. I just graduated from WSU (Go Cougs!)and for the first time, I don't live with atleast one other roommate who is around to get me in trouble or stay up late playing video games with, and doing all those things that college kids do. To be honest, I don't mind it one bit. For one thing, after work its nice to sit on my couch by myself and relax to whatever is on TV that night. It was a little bit of an adjustment at first, but the transition went pretty smooth. Also, after recently going back to Pullman and visiting some old friends of mine who are still in school, I can honestly say that I am glad to be moving on and begining a new life in the "real world". Don't get me wrong, I had a blast visiting people and enjoying all those unique things that Pullman has to offer, but I don't think my body could take the college lifestyle anymore. I know it will probably sound funny to a lot of you, but after living there for four years and having as much fun as I possibly could, it really does feel like a different country over there. Obviously, the town is dominated by thousands of 18-22 year olds, most of whom are atleast 4 hours away from home, so that lends itself to some pretty outrageous fun. I'm sure all of you have heard stories, and yes they are probably true. It really is unique in a lot of different ways that you can't really describe unless you have spent a lot of time there. But like I said, I had to move on at some point.

Anyway, I recently moved into my brother's old apartment in the Fremont district and I'm loving every minute of it. It was convenient because I moved over here to find work just when he got promoted to go down to San Francisco for his job. He was looking to move into a condo or nicer apartment anyway and was going to end up getting rid of all his furniture/appliances/etc. So it worked out perfectly that I could take over his lease and inherit all his stuff in what turned out to be one of the more fun places to live in Seattle. It saved me a ton of money not having to go out and buy new everything since I hardly had any stuff at all to begin with.

Before I moved here I had limited experiences with Seattle, only being here for maybe a week or two at a time and most of it spent at my mom's house. It hasn't taken me long to get used to life over here. I thought it would take me longer to adjust to taking the bus, getting used to taking taxi's home on weekends instaed of walking like I was used to, the weather, traffic, getting used to everyday thigns being more expensive, etc. One thing that helped me transition was figuring out real quick that this area was a hotspot for a lot of people my age. So it is nice on weekends to be able to meet up with friends at my place, walk a few blocks down the hill and share in some good times with people who are my age and going through the same experiences. Its also nice because two of my best friends over here live in lower Queen Anne and Capital Hill, two of the other entertaining areas over here. Most of my time is spent exploring Queen Anne or Fremont though. I don't usually leave my house much during the week unless its to the grocery store, so most of my exploring comes on the weekends. Even though I spend a lot of time on the weekends sitting in front of the TV watching the Cougs, Seahawks, rooting against UW, and watching pretty much any football I can, I still find time to find all the fun bars (I've been pretty successful at that) and cool places to eat.

One thing that surprised me is how quickly I have figured out how to get myself around Seattle. When I had spent time here before when I was visiting my brother or my mom, I could not have been more confused on how to get anywhere. I knew just the very basics. I-5 took me N/S, 99 took me to my brothers, 405 is the exit I took of I-90 to get to my mom's, and that was about it. Now I surprise myself at how fast I picked it up and figured everything out. I realize now that it's not really that hard to figure out, but growing up in a small town and then moving to Pullman, it was definitly an adjustment. Whenever my brother would take me places downtown I had no clue where I was and I was just along for the ride. Now I walk around areas that I actually know now and run into those same bars or restaurants or whatever and it kinda makes the whole thing come full circle for me. One of the ways that helped me figure out how to get around here was getting lost so much. A lot of time i was on my own trying to find certain places and I had no idea what street was what or where it was or any of that. So there were a lot of times that I would get myself lost and at some point would luckily run into an old landmark that I recognized. That made things tie together a lot easier for me. I'm sure there were better methods, but that was the one that worked best for me. Thats not to say that I don't have my moments where I get myself turned around and have problems getting back to where I need to go, but it is definitly a lot less frequent now.

Anyways, all my blogs won't be this long, but I figured since it was my first one I would give everybody a little background on myself and give a context for future posts of mine. My plan is to basically provide information and my opinions on anything and everything that has to do with the Fremont area. It could range from weather and my apartment to food and bars or just about anything. Honestly I'd be a little surprised if anybody actually read this whole thing, but if you did hopefully it killed a couple minutes of boredom for you.