Light it Red

It was World Lymphoma Awareness Day today, and so we were all asked to wear red to work today.  So what better opportunity to debut one of my more recent internet purchases, and also display a little patriotism!

Seattle Sports

Seattle has the Mariners - it's baseball team that currently owns the longest postseason drought in pro American sports.  They had a chance to break the streak this year, but the second half of the season went tits up and so the streak continues.  Even my rubbish team - the San Diego Padres - managed to complete the season sweep of them this year.  That's not good.  Then we have the Seahawks - one time Superbowl winners, but they should have won more and I feel like their chance of winning more has long gone.  Then we have the Supersonics - the basketball team that acrimoniously moved away in 2008.  And the Sounders - admittedly one of America's more successful soccer teams, but this is the MLS we are talking about so it doesn't really count.  But then there is one more professional sports team in Seattle that isn't as well known as the others but is by far the most successful - they just won their third championship in 14 years this week, with a young team and a genuine chance of this being the start of a dynasty.  I am, of course, talking about the Seattle Storm - and what sport is this I hear you asking?  Well, it's the balls to the wall action of professional women't basketball.  Nope, I have never seen them play and have no intention of.  Professional ice hockey can't come soon enough to Seattle. 

Florence

Naturally, a lot of the news over the last few days here has centered on Hurricane Florence bearing down on the East Coast.  In this day and age, it is still sad that they can't definitively and accurately predict the path it will take - so they are just telling everyone to evacuate.  And unsurprisingly, despite an ordered mandatory evacuation, a load of people will stay behind and try to ride it out.  So expect fatalities in addition to a lot of damage and flooding.  I could so easily have been living in North Carolina - I've been there quite a few times for work, I've interviewed with different companies there, and I've been offered jobs there.  Indeed, for the job I took in Texas I actually interviewed in Wilmington - which is the coastal town in North Carolina which looks as though it might be right in the crosshairs of the hurricane - since that is where the company is headquartered, and where they wanted me to actually work.  I have thought about, and still think about, moving to North Carolina for work - the cost of living is good, the food is great, and the people are nice.  My industry has quite a strong presence there, and in fact most of the remote contractors that I work with are based there.  It's only a shame that there doesn't seem to be much to do in North Carolina - you're not really near any big attractions, and to me it doesn't have the appeal that the West Coast does.  At least you know that hopefully the Trump administration will have learnt from the mistakes in Puerto Rico and handle this disaster in a much better way - you'd expect so, cynically, as much of this is Trump supporter country.

A throwaway blog post

I've been watching a LOT of YouTube videos recently.  Everything from British people sampling American candy, to angry dogs, to clips from The Fast Show, to kids reacting to Queen songs.  Here's a good one, that you might already have seen.

 
For some reason, the only video I can include here has Spanish subtitles.  Whatever.

Pants

I finally spent a gift card I had for REI today.  REI stands for Recreational Equipment Inc, and is a shop that sells sporting goods, camping gear, travel equipment and clothing – quite big in the US, and founded in Seattle.  I think I got the gift card from work, maybe from a step challenge a while ago, but I am prone to hanging onto these things for ages so glad to actually use it.  Probably should have done so a long time ago, since their flagship store is within walking distance of work.  I purchased something that I’m not really sure how much use I will fully get out of, but you never know – some convertible pants!  Yes, some hiking pants (that’s trousers in English-English) whose legs can zip off to create shorts.  Probably the kind of thing that would have been useful for me to have 15-20 years ago when I went backpacking, but probably less so now… but at least I can say I own a pair now!

American Football

Sorry, another sports posting!  It's the first weekend of the NFL season.  But I have to confess to an increasing indifference towards what used to be my favorite US sport.  I think this is partly because I don't have a team to support any more (RIP San Diego Chargers), partly because I hate the preponderance of glory fans in Seattle (though the Seahawks will probably not have a good year), partly because the game has become somewhat politicized, and partly because it is just too unwatchable with it's unbelievable number of advert breaks.  Fortunately, I have unsubscribed from some sports channels which limits how much I can watch on a Sunday.  So no excuses for not getting out and going for a hike then!  And even though I haven't been writing many blogs or posting many photos, I have been doing a lot of hiking/walking recently - though not any trails I haven't done before.

Inglaterra 1 - 2 Espana

I still have absolutely no clue about how to regard the UEFA Nations League.  Are these friendlies, kind-of-friendlies, not friendlies?  Should I care about the fact that we lost to Spain?  Can we get "relegated"?  Aren't there qualification spots to be had - in which case might we want to attach more importance to these games?  Very confusing, and I'm not sure how much I like it - certainly puts more pressure and even more playing time on the Premier League players.  I'm sure they love that.  All I know is that none of the main sports channels here were showing the game, so I had to watch it on Univision - a Spanish-language channel.  That was "interesting" - more about understanding the context and lilt of the commentary rather than the actual words.  England maybe a bit unlucky not to get a draw - didn't see anything wrong with the injury-time equalizer.  And as much as I hate Man United, hope Luke Shaw isn't injured too badly as I think he is a good player and has had to endure a horrible history of injuries and Mourinho as a manager.

And just turned over to watch Serena Williams totally implode in the US Open final - 3 code violations and she got a game penalty.  That's right, a GAME penalty not just a point penalty.  She has absolutely lost it.  Reminds me of when she threatened that line judge a while ago.  For such an acclaimed and high profile athlete, that is not a good example to set.  Could you imagine Roger Federer doing anything like that?  I don't think so - he is class.  But the crowd were booing so loudly and treating it like a wrestling match with the umpire as the villain - hilarious.