The wives and I are hosting an impromptu party at the Ballard Burrow (our apartment) tonight for the season premiere of The Office. If you want to watch the hour-long episode in HD on the new 42" widescreen TV, come on over! The show starts at 9 p.m.
I missed the news last week that The Stranger has a new Editor In Chief, Christopher Frizzelle. Similar to his predecessor (promoted to Editorial Director) Dan Savage, Frizzelle is that uber-gay hipster type who got his writing chops in the weeklies circuit rather than the classroom.
(Don't worry, Savage retains his sex column and will remain alpha-gay at The Stranger.)
What I found most interesting about this story, which I got from P-I Art Critic Regina Hackett's blog (tons of interesting reader comments there), is that Frizzelle first worked at Stranger competitor The Seattle Weekly but was fired for leaking information to The Stranger. Frizzelle found refuge at the ever-ethically-sketchy Stranger, which rewarded him the title of book editor in 2003.
This explained the unusually large, but expected jab by the Weekly in this article that reports Frizzelle's promotion and points to no fewer than 36 Frizzelle articles in the last three years that have some basis in The New Yorker, boldly asserting a tone that Frizzelle has no original opinions or commentary.
Gotta love local media competition, like when Seattle P-I staff took a leak on the Seattle Times lawn after the latest JOA agreement.
My new shoulder...
Also, this month was announced "Vince's Italian Restaurant Month" by Seattle mayor Greg Nickels. As many of you know, Vince's is the Seattle-area restaurant chain started by my grandfather, Enzo "Vince" Mottola. This month, Vince's is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Read the P-I and Highline Times articles about the anniversary.
I'll be making a special appearance at the Rainer Beach location this Sunday, if you'd like to see the tattoo in person.
As Jay-Z said, "I'm back, been around the world..."
I have approximately 1,200 photos of the trip, and the wives will have to sit through seeing all of them tonight! Mu ha ha ha! I will be getting to post-processing and resizing them asap so that I can begin to post them here.
I have been catching up on news today as I'm taking a break from reading my 800+ emails at work. So far I've found:
Any other news I should know about from the last few weeks?
Aside from unpacking and doing laundry, I'm hoping to catch up with you all soon. I'll be in Tacoma Saturday to attend Michelle's wedding (and possibly get a tattoo???). Aside from that, I'm going to pick up a new TV for Halo 3 and all the wonderful Fall sports -- Serie A soccer, college football, Seahawks, etc. Who's down for an Office Season 3 marathon?!
OMFG, canyoning was amazing, and I made it back in one piece. We (18 people total) decended 900 feet in about five hours. We repelled a few times but mostly jumped 30-40 feet into small pools and slid down 80-90 foot chutes. SO DOPE. My knee gave out a bit at the end, but I figure the adrenaline of it all kept any pain out of mind most of the way. I would definitely do it again.
Today I took it easy and hung out up at Grimmelwald, a small village way up in the mountains. Tonight I'm heading back to Zurich to catch my plane back to the States.
I can't believe the trip is over, but I've seen so much. I've kept MUCH more detailed notes as I've journaled through this trip than I've posted on this blog this far, so when I get home I'll furiously type them up and post them incrementally with photos.
Now I have a few thank you's to hand out:
Sorry if I forgot anyone. Thanks for keeping up here and commenting. I'll see you all on the other side.
- Paolo