I'm going to try and keep the text in this post relatively brief, as I just spend time writing captions for all of the 85 photos I took at the Seattle Convention Center Summit building's public house yesterday, along with two more exterior shots I took of the building I took during a brief walk down there and back, for use in "before & after" comparisons I placed at the end of
the full photo album on Flickr. Including two "before" shots from 2020 to compare with today's two shots makes four photos to add to the 85 to make 89, right? Well, I decided to add another 12 contruction photos from between 2019 and 2021 to the
beginning of the album, so the whole album now has 101 shots in it. As if 85 from yesterday alone weren't more than enough already.
That also includes two brief video clips.
After I panicked yesterday about the event being "at capacity," I texted both Shobhit and Alexia to warn them about the possibility we could get turned away. But, we all agreed we would meet there anyway, and just see if we could still get in.
Getting in turned out to be ridiculously easy. The online registration may have been closed, and their official position on Twitter was that it was closed to registration, and no one encouraged people to come anyway, probably just to prevent too many people from coming. We were later told, during a surprisingly lengthy chat with a sales rep on the top level (level 5), that about 5,000 people had come to this open house. That was spread over the five hours of the event between 1:00 and 6:00, mind you, and this building is humongous, so there was never any space anywhere that was particularly crowded, unless you counted the few free food stations they had. I tried to limit my sampling, but I did have a small "
samosa pie," a snickerdoodle cookie, and a little slice of pizza they offered in the huge ballroom on the top floor.
Anyway! About getting inside. I got to the building several minutes earlier than Shobhit and Alexia, who walked down together from home, after I had caught the Monorail to cut my walk probably by more than half. I took a few exterior shots while I waited for them, making my way around the building from its northeast corner at Olive & 9th, over to the main entrance at the southwest corner at 9th & Pine, then up to its southeast corner on Pine & Boren. When I passed the main entrance, it looked as though people were just wandering in, and I could not see any people getting turned away.
Within minutes of my getting to Pine and Boren, I saw Shobhit and Alexia walking down Pine across the street,
engaged in animated conversaton. I cross the street to join them, and the three of us walked the length of the huge block that was once the below-grade Convention Place Station for King County Metro busses, and is now entirely occupied by the massive Convention Center Summit building.
We walked right into the front entrance, and saw no one checking in anyone or anything. We were immediately distracted by how beautiful it was anyway. After several minutes meandering around the huge entry hallway space, we eventually did discover that guests had wristbands supposedly needed to get to other levels of the building. Much deeper into the building from the main entrance and then over to the right, there were indeed people manning tables checking people in. Shobhit went over there to ask about it, and a lady happily took each of our names and zip codes to register us, and gave us all wristbands. Easy peasy.
Honestly, it was pretty clear we could have just walked in without even registering. No one once asked us to show our wristbands anyway. We proceeded to go down to the huge basement level Exhibition Hall, from which we worked our way to the top, spending the next roughly ninety minutes there, until just after the event ended at 6:00. We spent extra time on the third level, where there is a truly beautiful Garden Terrace with spectacular views of both the city and looking back at the Summit building itself.
And I must tell you, I had a fucking
blast. I said so while we were there. These kinds of public events for grand openings, especially for signature buildings in my city (such as the
Central Library grand opening in 2004,
nineteen years ago), as very much my jam. Honestly I don't think I have been this wowed by a new building since then.
The Summit has several very, very cool design elements, chief among them the aforementioned Garden Terrace, and the so-called "Hillclimb," a continuous set of escalators and stairs that stretches up from levels 2 to 5. One side of it is regular stairs, and to the right, between the stairs and the windows overlooking Pine Street (and walking outside, you walk beneath the underside of the Hillclimb's architectural element), are bigger "steps" designed for people to sit on. They even have electrical outlets.
The original Washington State Convention Center building, now dubbed "The Arch" as it stretches across Pike Street with a truck bridge, opened in 1988, and is still in use; the Summit was built simply to double the convention center's capacity. I've never had an opportunity to tour that building the way I did Summit yesterday, and I have long wished I had. Really the only way I could would be if I ever attended any of the conferences that I don't ever attend. The same will be the case at Summit in the future, which is a big reason why this open house event was so awesome.
When I first learned of what initially was just being called the "Washington State Convention Center Addition," I was a little baffled by its location, with a full block of other buildings between it and the Arch building. Was there going to be, say, an underground pedestrian tunnel between the two? I wish! But, nope: any conference using both buildings would necessitate attendees walking outside between the two.
The sales rep we wound up chatting with for a while on level 5, outside the massive (and beautiful) ballroom and right by the charming SUMMIT sign, told us that about five events are scheduled over the coming year that will use both buildings. But, most of the time, each building will host separate events. And, depending on their size, they will either occur simultaneously, or on alternating sets of dates during which one building can be used for setup while the other is actually hosting an event.
I was so, so happy it worked out and we were able to attend this event, especially since the vast majority of the spaces were still either completely empty or barely furnished—we would never see the building like this again.
And, once 6:00 rolled around and it was time to make our way back outside, I parted ways with Shobhit and Alexia, who walked back home together, while I went in the opposite direction, first to the southernmost Seattle Streetcar stop at Westlake & Olive, where I caught the streetcar and rode it up to South Lake Union Park. I then walked the few blocks over to Tanoor, where I met up with Tracy and Scott for dinner.
I didn't even see until this morning scrolling through Facebook Memories that last night's dinner was all of one day short of occuring on the one-year anniversary of the goodbye dinner we all had, at the very same spot, on Scott's last day at PCC. Noah ate with us then; Tracy and I didn't think to invite him this time and maybe we should have. Oh well. Maybe another time.
So, this was a dinner with now
two former PCC coworkers, Scott from a year ago, and Tracy from early last summer. Getting together was Tracy's idea, but she was uncomfortable with the idea of going out with Scott just the two of them, not because of any discomfort with him personally but just because she was more comfortable with the idea of a group outing. And so, I had suggested I contact him to suggest an outing for the three of us.
We sure still spent a lot of time talking about PCC, and people still at PCC, and other people who have left PCC. But also, Scott actually got laid off from his job earlier this month, all of one single year after being hired—after working 21 years at PCC. He made way more at this new job though (for less responsibility, something he noted more than once), so he's in a comfortable position to spend some time finding another job that is a comfortable fit. Tracy left her own job she left PCC for not long ago as well, and is set to start working a contract position for Pokemon in the coming week. So, plenty of those sorts of things were discussed as well.
Scott had some choice words to say about a few people he really didn't like that he left behind, so that was kind of entertaining.
The food at Tanoor is delicious. Just like I did last year, I had the falafel sandwich, but I only ate half of it. Tracy wanted to share an appetizer order of french fries, so I had some of those too. I was a little concerned about the food after already having a bit at the Convention Center, but at least a) I had a blackberry soda rather than anything alcoholic, and it was also spectacular; and b) as usual, I had skipped lunch. To my delight, my weight was up all of 0.9 lbs this morning. I weighed in at 164.9 lbs. Still under 165! Woohoo!
Tracy gave me a ride home after dinner, which I expected but still really appreciated, and we chatted for a while in the car as usual, but not for quite as long as we often do. I thought Shobhit might start texting me about when I'd be getting back, as we spent about three hours at dinner, right until the closed at 10:00, and then chatted for a while outside on the sidewalk as well. Scott seemed actually to miss us, plus there's the fact that he's just been working from home for the past year. Now he and I just need to follow up with Elin about having one more lunch with her before she moves to Georgia.
Shobhit was evidently too distracted to be all that concerned; he was glued to the TV when I came in. I later learned he had watched is SAG Awards screener of
The Whale—and had been particularly impressed with the acting in it. Whatever! I have a sneaking feeling Brendan Fraser will win the SAG Award for that performance, but maybe not the Oscar. Shobhit talked about how much the obese character Fraser played reminded him of my mom and Bill. He wasn't too far off the mark, honestly. That doesn't make
The Whale a good movie, or an adequately respectful representation of fat people onscreen.
Anyway I think I've reached the heights of all the commentary I have for this blog post today.
[posted 8:27 pm]
