Go East, Fairly Young Man!

Well folks, it's that time again! I'm heading off to Ukraine here in the next few weeks. I need to spend some time where nobody speaks English and everybody believes in bizarre conspiracy theories. So yeah, my relatives await me - and they have lots of vodka. OK, so that will be nice for about a week, then I'll head down to Turkey, which, unless you're new to this crappy blog, you'll know is my favorite place to visit on this Godforsaken planet. After around two years of writing a crapload of music, recording two poorly-selling albums and having to deal with Belltown's various drawbacks, I need to spend some time staring at the Mediterranean. After doing that two years ago, I came back, wrote and recorded Greater Seattle and subsequently wrote a lot of music that was on Instant Classics. For those of you not keeping score at home, those are my two albums. As you may know, I have an extremely dim view of Ukraine, but I like my relatives very much and there's always a lot of drinking that happens. Plus, I'm incorporating my birthday into this whole mix, so things should be fairly interesting. I'm looking forward to it. Till then, despite the fact that I'm working full-time, I'll try to notice things about Belltown.

Your Sunday Squirrel

I was lucky enough to run into a mess of squirrels yesterday. This is the best shot of the bunch. It's the first time I've seen a squirrel hug a tree. I guess that's what the anti-social tree rodents do. Except for holding still long enough for me to take this shot, this guy wanted nothing to do with me. I did see a very curious sight, though. I saw a squirrel hopping along the ground kind of funny with something in its mouth. Believe it or not, it was a mom-squirrel with one of her pups (that's the correct term, right?) in her mouth moving it to another tree. I tried to get a picture, but they were just too far away. Still, it was pretty cool to see and it was just a small part of the general squirrel activity.

Your Sunday Squirrel

I ran into this fellow on Saturday. OK, so it seems that the Denny Park squirrels are getting friendlier. Hooray! Sorry for the lateness. I was at a barbecue pretty much all day yesterday. Plus, I was pretty hungover, so thinking about squirrels climbing trees wasn't a refreshing thought. But today is a new day and everything is fine. So enjoy this little guy.

Your Sunday Squirrel

OK, so here's the same squirrel from last week and two weeks ago. Yes, I know that there's a distracting leaf in it, but it's a squirrel nevertheless. The trend continues; I went to Denny Park yesterday morning: now squirrels. I was there this morning: no squirrels. They have to be on vacation. I'm sure of it. I'll try to find more soon.

Founders' Days!

Well, it's back after taking last year off. And the weather was perfect. Once again, they blocked off 2nd from Battery to Blanchard and set up booths like so: It may be my imagination, but I'm thinking there might have been fewer booths this year from two years ago. Things like this are supposed to evolve into bigger things. Anyhow, I suppose it's the thought that counts. Here they are building the stage yesterday morning: Today there was a soul cover band that played for damn nearly two hours (or so it seemed). I didn't go down and see them, as it seems that I've contracted a cold - yes, in the middle of summer. But those guys sounded pretty fantastic from where I was languishing. One of the most unique things about this is that there are people wandering around dressed in 19th-century costumes and playing up their parts in the foundation of Belltown. Yeah, that was fun. And the really great thing is that many of the neighborhood's crazier folk stayed away. So hooray for Founders' Days!

Your Sunday Squirrel

OK, here's another shot of last week's squirrel. I worked all week at a temp job, so my only opportunities for squirrel photography were yesterday and today. There were none. Another week of full-time faces me again, so I'll be out there next weekend. Let's hope they come out of their trees, avoid the many, many bums and don't freak out in front of my camera.