One: Dial-up. Frustrating. Hair-tearingly so.

Two: Seattle. Fun. Would be funner without a 4yo sidekick but hey. For the most part we spend each day walking to the Space Needle and doing stuff around there. I have not found a playground downtown yet. Dog parks, yes. Market worth moving thousands of miles west for, yes. But a slide or a swing set or some freakin monkey bars, nope. Today the voice of ancientsong taught us how to play Louie Louie on the guitar and an Alanis Morrisette song I didn't know on the piano. The Experience Music Project was a cool museum; I liked it as much as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was more fun than I thought it would be. The one thing they could have added would have been more music listening stations, especially in the hip-hop and guitar rooms. The guitar gallery was cool, but there was a screen in the middle with a film loop of people playing. Stations near the various guitars would have been a lot more informative. Anyway, the EMP was my favorite thing-with-an-entrance-fee so far. Pike Street Market was glorious; oh, for a kitchen in Seattle!

Three: Work. See number one. I hate being hamstrung by a slow connection and limited remote access. And when I call my coworkers for assistance they say stuff like, "Don't worry about it, you're on vacation," which is what I say to them in the same situation except I hate it. Fortunately or not, my internal clock is very happy to keep EST hours, so I get an extra three hours after everyone else is asleep to work. And I need all three because my connection is at least 25 times slower than I'm used to. I may have mentioned this previously.

I spoke with Jennifer, back from Jordan. She had a fantastic trip and nothing even close to awful happened except that her connecting flight out of Paris flew for three hours across a large body of water before turning back for mechanical problems. All's well that ends well etc.