Daily - Feb. 21, 2026

Previously…

Today’s recap

Up early and out the door by 7:30AM. My son has an incredibly close friend group who live all over Washington State. They coordinated a meetup in downtown Seattle and I was the chauffeur for my son. The trip consists of a 90 minute drive to the light rail station, a 40 minute train ride, and then a 15 minute walk to their meetup location. I would drive and park in downtown, but the rates and the traffic are astromical.

While he was having his hangout I did some random stuff to kill time. As soon as we parted ways it started raining. The rain was still light enough that I went up to the park on top of the Seattle Aquarium and got a look around the area. The ferries were coming and going with the PNW standard low clouds and light rain. It was nice and very few people at 10AM. From there I walked to the main city library.

The walk was long. First up the 154 stairs from the waterfront to Pikes Place Market. Then, up 5 blocks and right 6 blocks, all uphill. I was soaked from the rain and me sweating inside my too thick jacket. The library was nice. I found a table and posted up for about an hour and half. While there I needed to make some updates to the biz website for the season change. It also gave me a chance to test out hister. More on that below.

From there I hoofed it back down to the waterfront to peek around at the tourist areas near Pier 54. The rain picked up and I found a coffee shop near the harbor steps to get a drink and hang out for a bit. Inside the barista was busy, but didn’t stop them from loudly singing along to the Alien Ant Farm song playing in the cafe. They were singing like it was part of the cafe experience, but it is not. They were just really, really enjoying the song.

By now it was 1PM and I was thinking my son would be getting close to wrapping up their meetup, so I wandered back towards the aquarium. As I approached I could see 4 people dressed as clowns walking around talking to folks and waving to kids. I speed walked closer to see if I could get a selfie with them, but I barely missed them as they went up an elevator and I didn’t feel like chasing them that much. The only reason I wanted a selfie is because Wife is deathly afraid of clowns. I can’t even mention them around her, let alone show her a picture. So of course, I needed to get a selfie 😅.

He was not ready so I went back up to Pike’s Place and grabbed lunch at a Thai place. It was okay.

We hit the road back home about 2PM. All in all a good day. He had a blast with his friends, who he only gets to see in person a few times a year. As you can tell, I am extremely comfortable in a big city. I grew up spending all my time in San Fransisco. Even before I could drive I would take BART to the city and just goof around. For a while I was going to The Warfield about once a month for a concert. I was also right at home in Phoenix, even though it doesn’t feel like a big city as it is just a huge suburb. Its Wife that doesn’t like big cities and is at home in small towns.

It was fun, I only wish I didn’t have to do it alone. But, I find myself in these scenarios often. Almost no one I know likes the same things I do and I end up doing them alone. Sometimes that’s okay. Most of the time I’m lonely with no one to share my experiences with.

One note about Seattle. In the US, MAGA folks love to shit on the city. They call it a “hellhole” where liberal policies have destroyed the city. This is all partisan politics because Seattle is a progressive blue city. I love Seattle and never once did I feel unsafe. I know I was downtown so things are a little cleaner than say, Rainier Beach. Every city has its rough areas. But, Seattle is an awesome city. I posted on Mastodon to ask about things to do in Seattle and I got some folks discussing how bad Seattle is. I didn’t want to get involved in that conversation so I left it alone. But, they’re wrong. Seattle is a great city. Don’t like it? Leave. Bye. Go move to Idaho. No one will miss you.

Got home and relaxed the rest of the day. Tonight we will finish the Back to the Future trilogy.

Projects

While at the library I played around with Hister. This is a CLI program plus browser extention that saves your web history, while it is running, and caches every page and makes them searchable. You can then go back through every page you visited, even offline. This is a super handy tool while doing research or projects. Then you can reference back to pages you might have closed or can’t remember which page you saw what. You don’t have to have it running all the time. The key is to turn it on when you are in research or troubleshooting mode. I don’t know how often I’ll use it, but glad I tried it out.

Daily gratitude

• The cafe barista singer was a joy.
• Grateful for libraries. A free, dry place to hangout, do work, and explore their collection for free with no expectations.
• Glad I got to wander the city, even if I was alone.

Tomorrow’s big thing(s)

Prep my truck for the work week. I completely emptied it because I was leaving it in a open parking lot at the train station. The train station is in Tukwila, so not a cut on Seattle but on Tukwila. Now to put it all back together.

Loose thoughts

My EDC bag is too heavy. I need to reduce the weight without losing too many preps.

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