In Seattle

We had the honor of riding B.C.'s newest ferry yesterday, the Coast Celebration, on its first day in service. Nice boat. I got started on my new book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, which is not science fiction, as would be implied by the title. No, it's a fascinating account of the American banking system, written many years ago, which predicts perfectly today's banking "crisis". Maybe I'll write more on that later.

Arriving in Seattle after dark, we were unceremoniously dumped by our bus at the Space Needle, far across town from our hotel. I asked Ni if she wanted to ride the glass elevator to the top of the Space Needle. Since we just happened to find ourselves there, it seemed like an OK thing to do.

She said no, and I had a chuckle, since she urges me now and then to do the commercial bungee cord jump off a bridge in Nanaimo. "We'd be tied together by our legs", she says, whenever she brings it up. To me that is a fairly scary idea. I tell her it's better to just be tied together by our hearts, like we already are.

In any case, the idea of this elevator ride scares her somehow. Go figure....

So we paid a few bucks and got on the Monorail instead. As we got underway I started explaining to Ni how this was a technology of the future when it was introduced, and was feeling impressed with the speed of the ride. But before I could finish my explanation, we arrived at the last and only stop. I don't think we were on it more than two or three minutes! I had to laugh at the gap between my expectations and the reality.

This morning we visited Amtrak. They seem fairly certain the train will leave tomorrow morning, that the tracks are expected to be open. I like to give them the benefit of the doubt wherever possible, as I am a big fan of train travel. But there was a really challenging hour spent at the ticket window, with the clerk telling me the 30 day pass now costs more than I paid. After I explained the situation, he was willing to honor our prepaid arrangements, but the computer wouldn't allow him to do so. So his supervisor was called, and then his supervisor's supervisor. And then all our reservations had to be re-booked. The workers sat at two computers, and as one pressed a key to delete us from a certain leg, the other pressed a key to renew us, just to make sure the computer could find room for us. Many codes were entered. Seems like it worked. I give them my compliments for their determination to overcome the minds of short-sighted programmers and their machines.