bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
TUESDAY (New Year's Day)

I got up around five to find Gary awake and doing something with his phone. I went to the bathroom and back to sleep until the alarm went off at six. Gary told me he'd been up since 1:30 or so.

We were packed and ready to go about 7:40, and arrived at Colleen's by eight. We each had a banana for breakfast and Colleen put away the leftover soda, applesauce and gelatin cups. We chatted for a half hour or so, then said our goodbyes and left for the airport. We got our bags checked in and got through security without incident, even though I had to do a bit more disassembly and reassembly than usual due to the tablet and my suspenders. We went directly to the gate and decided to wait until Minneapolis to have lunch.

The aircraft was a Bombardier with four seats across, but we both needed seat belt extenders, which was unexpected. A cute cubbish dude in a heavy tan jacket kept getting up with the seat belt sign on. Across from us was a family of four, likely grampa and three grandkids, who were headed to Saskatoon.

When we arrived in the concourse in Minneapolis, I noticed someone sleeping on the floor between the charging station and the people mover. We made our way to the airport mall, but found the food court closed for renovation. Fortunately there was a restaurant just before the entrance to concourse F, where we had lunch (a turkey burger for Gary and a Juicy Lucy with sauteed onions for me, both with coleslaw and surprisingly good unsweetened tea).

The gate area got very crowded and I noticed a couple of bears across the way, the younger with a thick dark beard and the older wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon labeled BEER which was a bear with antlers. I saw them seated together as we boarded the plane. I thought the cute daddy cub with 3 children had the aisle seat, but it remained vacant until a very well-behaved girl of perhaps 6 or 7 boarded with her mother and took the seat; her mother sat a few rows behind us. We got to see snippets of the first half of the Rose Bowl in which Ohio State was leading 14-3 before we landed. I ended up having the same shoulder and back pain I experienced in Tacoma during my last SMC performance there because there wasn't room to "spread my wings", so the wait for the multitudes of children having to get out of the way before we could disembark was agonizing.

When I got into the terminal I sat down to stretch my back before I hit the restroom. We collected our bags and caught the shuttle to the light rail station. The train trip was unremarkable. When we arrived at Union Station bus stop to catch the bus to Everett, we heard a screeching of tires and witnessed a pedestrian crossing against the light and nearly getting creamed by, of all vehicles, a police cruiser. That car and a second police SUV just behind it in traffic lit up, and when we boarded the bus (a Double Tall, where we sat downstairs in the back with our bags) and passed the scene, two officers were still interrogating the hapless pedestrian, who was a rather cubbish dude but clearly not very bright. On the bus back to Everett Gary showed me the final score of the Rose Bowl: Ohio State 28, Washington 23.

When we arrived at Everett Station I called for an Uber but the driver apparently picked up someone else and my phone battery died before I could cancel the trip. So we ended up taking a conventional cab home. I later got the Uber trip straightened out without incident.
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
Due to the anticipated chaos in downtown Seattle for May Day, I agreed to pick up Bob rather early for rehearsal, about 3:30 PM. (The usual routine is that I drive to the home Bob is sharing with Neil and Don, pick up Bob and continue to South Everett freeway station, where we board the 512 together and walk to the rehearsal space, then Bob goes in and I go off to grab dinner before returning to rehearsal.) When I arrived, Don informed me that on Friday nights, the Fireplace bar in Everett has a Bear Night which he wanted to check out. The place is normally considered a biker bar, but the owner is cool with it.

We arrived at the church about 4:30 PM, two hours early for rehearsal, so Bob suggested we enter the church through the main doors and take the elevator upstairs to the rehearsal hall as the doors at the top of the hill would be locked. That accomplished, I left through those doors and went in search of dinner. Since I needed to top up my ORCA card anyway, I walked the three blocks down the steep hill on Seneca Street to University Street Station and took care of business at the machine, then returned to Third Avenue. Since I didn't feel like climbing the hill, I walked down Third and, not seeing anything to my liking, descended to the other end of University Street Station and caught the train one stop to Westlake Center. Unfortunately, again due to the anticipated chaos, not only was the mall closed early for the day (except for Zara which has its own entrances), but also BWW where I intended to have dinner. Westlake Park was still pretty chill then, but dozens of bike cops in armor were just waiting for someone to start something.

So I decided to walk to the Pacific Place mall a couple of blocks away, reasoning that they were far enough away from the commotion that they were still functioning. In the food court on the fourth floor I selected Johnny Rockets hamburger joint, where I was served by a cute, twinkish dude with red plugs in his earlobes and a rather flirtatious manner about him, as well as a cubbier dude with a goatee behind the counter. I had a nice dinner of onion rings (served with a lion head drawn in ketchup on the bottom of a paper "monkey dish" for dipping) and a big burger. There weren't a whole lot of customers but I suppose you take what you can get under the circumstances.

Satisfied, I returned to the rehearsal space via Sixth Avenue, taking my time ascending the hill (which is longer and therefore less steep than Seneca). I suppose I could have used the escalators at the Convention Center but I didn't want to risk going out of my way and finding them closed, adding to my walk. Rehearsal went well if a bit sparsely attended. We rode home with Neil as usual.
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
Well, the Canucks have lost the Stanley Cup, and Vancouver is going apeshit. Watching the coverage on the CBC, I've seen at least three vehicles and a bunch of trash cans go up in flames. As I type, they have just overturned a police car and are jumping on it. Tear gas is being deployed and one of the reporters is having difficulty speaking because of it. One dude has been taunting the cops for some time and getting whacked on the knees with a baton. There has been looting at the Bay (Hudson's Bay Co. department store).

As [livejournal.com profile] gmjambear pointed out, this is over a hockey game. Not police shooting an innocent man to death, not a civil-rights protest, just a hockey game. "What is this, Detroit?" I responded, "Detroit would have done this if they won."
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
It's been an interesting 48 hours or so here in Western Washington -- in the sense of the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

Sunday morning, a man walked into a coffee shop in Parkland, WA just south of Tacoma and shot and killed four Lakewood Police officers. After a two day manhunt the man, identified as Maurice Clemmons, was shot dead in Seattle by an officer of the Seattle Police Department.

From the first reports of the killings on Sunday I suspected the shooter would never stand trial. Killers of police officers have a way of turning up dead. It would be interesting to see if there are any statistics as to the percentage of cases of murder of police officers that are resolved at trial rather than by the death of the suspect.

And the comments on the news sites run very heavily to the opinion that this is exactly the course of action that should be taken in these cases, and that friends and family should be allowed no leniency when it comes to aiding and abetting charges. I think it has yet to be established which family members knew what he'd done and assisted him anyway, and which were simply unfortunate enough to find him on their doorstep in his quest for sanctuary that he would never obtain.

Taken as a whole, this sentiment is all about vengeance, and justice has nothing to do with it. But you know what? Vengeance still serves a purpose in human society, and you are not going to eliminate it by any amount of legal process or pious pronouncements, even if the majority happen to worship a God who reserves vengeance to himself (Romans 12:19).

In the end, Maurice Clemmons probably got exactly what he deserved. But we will never know why he did what he did, and that is the basic problem whenever vengeance takes the place of justice.

March 2025

S M T W T F S
      1
2345678
9101112131415
1617 1819202122
23242526272829
3031     

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 3rd, 2025 02:31 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios