dirtylibrarian

Its so funny. I was delighted to remember to go to the 25th Annual Great Wallingford Wurst Festival. I forgot I was supposed to pig out...but I did it anyways!

Here is my delicious meal, minus salad (beer and soda...so decedent!)  Plus I had an extra braut, and all three of my friends' corns.

Here are my three friends holyoutlaw, juliebata, and gryph (all eating salmon!  at the wurst festival!):

And me, with my wurst:

Afterward, I found I had missed a wad of phone messages, and was compelled to go see Knocked Up (finally!)

Same day.  Also fun.  Also sad to think about how much fun we had together, that will be no more.

Tuesday technogreek and I enjoyed my time off from work and went and caught a matinee at the Columbia City Cinema of Ratatouille.  The theater was nice, though not fancy.  Very old school neighborhood place, locally owned with a reasonably priced early show ($6).  The film however was just delightful...it captured the beauty of Paris, the passion of foodies, and had more excitement by my hand-squeeze-omiter's (my poor fella) measure than Transformers (though not by a ton).  The theater is perfect if you live in South Seattle and want to support someone a bit less corporate, and the film I recommend to everyone :)

Another thing I was able to get done off my 101 list this last weekend while my mother was visiting, was go to the Wing Luke Asian Museum (there is my mom again, in the photo...isn't she a sweetie?).  It was a sweet little museum, particularly informative about Asian immigration history of the Pacific Northwest.  There was a nice exhibit about different New Year celebrations, and a moving one about internment camps.

I was however disappointed by the heavily promoted show: How the Soy Sauce Was Bottled: Uncommon Stories of Common Objects.  I guess I didn't pick up that it was an art show, and was sincerely hoping it was a scientific type exhibit about the bottling of soy sauce and other invention type things relating to Asian culture.  As far as I could tell, it didn't really even have anything to do with soy sauce.  I hate to come off as a lame-ass uninformed white girl, but not only did I not get this show, I still really want to know how soy sauce was bottled.

When one is driving Eastbound on the West Seattle bridge, or better yet if one is a passenger in a such a car, if you look down to your right before crossing over the river, you sometimes can see glowing orange bands of steel coming out of a plant.  It took me ages to notice this, and once I did, I was fascinated.  I became curious as to what was going on down there, and kept thinking of those old Sesame Street short films about how things are made.  And then I thought how cool it would be to take a tour of the steel mill.  But didn't get much past that idea.

Then one night, we are out to dinner with a big crowd of people, including the fellows from my band.  Somehow the topic of the steel mill comes up, and my obsession with touring it, and Collin, our lead guitarist announces that he works there!  It turns out he is one of the IT guys for the very place I've been dying to tour!  He said it would be no problem to set up a tour, and we discussed best days to go, and after months of talking about it...finally technogreek and I made it down for a tour!

We had a really great time.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to bring our cameras past the front office.  But we did get to wear bright orange coats, helmets, safety goggles, guest badges and earplugs!  It was really exciting walking around and seeing everything up close.  We saw giant magnets picking up huge piles of scrap metal.  We saw the huge pots in which things are melted.  We got to go into the control rooms for the different process.  Unfortunately, we did not see the metal being poured, as the crane for the section had just broken before we arrived.  But we did see giant steaming fresh pieces of metal, which we  then saw heated up to glowing orange hot, and then worked down into re-bar.  It was awesome!

Later technogreek's brother asked us what we had learned.  I'm embarrassed to say not much came to mind.  Basically, it was this:

1) this particular steel plant is all about RECYCLING (hooray!)
2) this company is the biggest recycler in the country!
3) chemicals can be added to make melted metal right for rebar
4) melting steel involves both heat and electricity
5) there is always demand for rebar
6) giant magnets are very cool
7) glowing orange metal is incredibly hot
8) anyone who asks can tour a steel mill
9) technogreek is an excellent date for all sorts of dorky adventures

Sounds like fun, eh?  Well if you want to go someday, let me know.  We plan to go back when the pouring part is working someday!

It was only natural, after walking for miles around Phinney Ridge going to yard sales to hit the Red Mill for lunch.  It had been pretty hyped up in my mind, but luckily it did not disappoint.  technogreek got some sort of double cheese burger and a peanut butter and banana shake (his favorite), and I got a caramelized onion burger with some bacon thrown on, plus a peach shake.  We shared an order of onion rings, which he doctored up for us by mixing catsup, black pepper and tabasco...tasty!  For the price, this is great food, and I recommend it to any burger lover.

While we were there, I also noticed this sign on the wall for the Aqua Follies...something I had never heard about.  An older coworker of mine confirmed that this was a big deal when she was a kid, and I found an article on it here.  How awesome is that?

Possibly the least exciting thing on the list, but made for a very peaceful walk, and a nice time to catch up with my friend Isaac.



The park is a surprise...much bigger than I expected and quite lovely. You can't even see houses much of the time. We did run into a bunch of kids with duct tape armor, but I chickened out snapping their pictures. They were armed, after all.

This afternoon I made it to the Burke Museum with my friend qtilla. It was a nice little museum, with every thing seeming to be of high quality and nicely put together, but not very large. My favorite thing of the day was this contemporary Native drum design:



I love how it incorporates that layered silhouette thing that you see all over the place now days (but I haven't gotten tired of yet), and that the wolf is frisky and appealing. The whole balance and colors of it really delights me.

Overall, I recommend this museum for families who don't want to be exhausted, but want to share good quality stuff with their kiddos.