 |
| On Seattle's 4th Avenue, Looking North (Hawaiian Odysseus photo) |
Thank God it's Thursday!
At 6:30 AM, my shift was over at the bagel shop, and I quickly made my way over to the bus stop across the street from the all-stop Fred Meyer store in Redmond, WA. A bit fatigued from a very challenging week and not enough sleep, I was so happy to nestle into my seat and catch a few winks.
About an hour later, I emerged from the bus like a drunk man. There was a bar across the street, so I guess I didn't look too conspicuous. Stumbling around for just a few seconds, I finally got my bearings and headed west from the Chinatown/International District Station.
I was carrying my umbrella around because the weatherman on Northwest News had said last night that there'd be a good possibility of cold, wind, and rain this morning. Well, it was a little chilly, but there was virtually no wind, and the sun was out! I'm so glad I had my camera with me.
Have laptop, cellphone, and camera--will travel! is my new lifetime motto. Blogging has changed my view of the world. I'm more attuned to the people, places, and things I once took for granted. Simultaneously, I'm looking for the unusual juxtaposition of X, Y, and Z as well as organized patterns in the universe. I freeze-frame potential photographs and immediately have key words and sometimes even a complete paragraph in mind with which to construct the next day's blog.
Occasionally, I will even have a comprehensive post mapped out as I commute by bus, train, or foot, especially for the lighter subjects that I draft for the sister blog to this one,
I love the fact that new life has been infused into my blogs with the addition of my brother's gift to me, a hand-me-down digital Fuji FinePix 440 camera with a cracked and inoperable viewfinder. I wouldn't have wanted nor have understood the high tech parameters of a new and more expensive camera. The instrument in my hands is a metaphor of me--a broken man utilized by a Creator who lovingly sees the potential, not the damaged goods.
As we approach that time of year when we celebrate the resurrection, it seems fitting and all the more lovely that both camera and I are rising to our potential.
And as the sun bathes me through a window at the World Trade Center Starbucks located at 2200 Alaskan Way along the picturesque Seattle waterfront, I am delighted to share the following photographs with you. I never claim to be a professional photographer and I like my mushroomness--you know, the simple, down to earth substance that, even in a pasture full of manure, speaks with a voice of truth.
 |
| Qwest Stadium Home of the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders (Hawaiian Odysseus photo) Compare these day photos, if you will, with their evening counterparts of my last post.  Sidetracked in Seattle (Hawaiian Odysseus photo) I remember experiencing a fleeting phobia about dropping my camera or--worse yet--falling to the tracks below.  King Street Station (Hawaiian Odysseus Photo) This is our Emerald City Big Ben. The King Street Station, once called the Union Station, was built in 1906 and has since gone through several remodels. Of the eighteen stations in Washington that serve Amtrak, this is the busiest. In 2010, it was documented to have boarded or detrained 1,850 customers on a daily basis. It also serves the regional train, Sounder (photo below), at a rate of over 1.2 million riders a year.  The Arrival of a Southbound Sounder (Hawaiian Odysseus photo) Across the street and to the east of the King Station, I was inspired to photograph the building below. I love glass buildings. Check out the reflection of the King Station spire in the skyscraper mirror.  Multi-faceted Glass Building (Hawaiian Odysseus photo)I took one more photograph, this time facing north on 4th Avenue. Again, you can compare this day image to its equivalent night image of my last post.  4th Avenue, Looking North (Hawaiian Odysseus photo) See the tallest building in the photo above? It is the Columbia Center, and it stands 937 feet tall. That's like three football fields high, folks! In 2010, I wrote only my third post while sipping a venti Caramel Frappucino at a Starbucks shop located on the 40th floor of this impressive skyscraper.  Starbucks on the Alaskan Way Waterfront (Hawaiian Odysseus photo)I bought a cup of coffee here this morning during my walk. It's a great place to pause for refreshment and conversation after enjoying a brisk and picturesque walk along Seattle's quaint waterfront. However, I decided not to stay there to work on this post because tI did not see any plug-ins in this particular shop. And now I come to the final photo of this blog post. I took about three photos from this vantage point, but only one showed up in the camera's memory. Like I alluded to before, I'm not a high tech kind of guy. Most of the time, I'm surprised to see what progress I am making just by stumbling along. Anyway, like the title suggests, like iron ore to a magnet, a Hawaiian will always be drawn to the water. Shucks! Where's my fishing pole when I need it?  Puget Sound (Hawaiian Odysseus photo) That's West Seattle in the distant left--more specifically, it is an area called Alki Beach. In the near future, I hope to do a post about that area. In the central background, you can see a ferry boat headed southeast across the sound. Usually, I'm peeved about the weatherman getting it wrong. But today was a weather prediction mistake for which I'm very grateful. The glorious sun, at least through a quarter after 1 in the afternoon when I drew to a close in my post, has prevailed! |
Awesome pics!
ReplyDelete