seattle – A Biotechie's Life

Seats At First Base| Night At A Mariner’s Game

Published on July 22, 2019July 22, 2019 by abiotechieslife

Weekend of July 20th was a very busy weekend not only for the Refuse to Abuse Mariner’s Care 5K, but the weekend where all baseball fans turn their attention to Cooperstown for the Baseball Hall of Fame inductees. This year the Mariner’s own Edgar Martinez was inducted into the class of 2019. For both Saturday and Sunday the Mariners celebrated this monument milestone with Funko Pop heads of Martinez, replicate plaques and a live streaming of the event to all fans in the ballpark before the afternoon game on Sunday. Oh how exciting to be a part of history-baseball history.

The game on July 20th was against the LA Angles (yep saw them in June) and this was the night to celebrate not only getting a free collectable Funko Pop of Martinez, but to celebrate all the hard work leading up to me crossing the finish line earlier in the day at the Refuse to Abuse 5K (more on it later this week). Originally I was going to go with a friend, but the friend ended up bailing on me last two weeks before show time. In the end I found someone else to go with me in the end. Hence my Dad enjoying a beer, Mariner dog and watching baseball live in action.

The Funko Pop up figuring was handed out to the first 20,000 fans entering the stadium. At one point while walking to our seats, a guy bought (yes bought) one of the Funko Pops off us for $20. I still cannot believe that happened to us! Apparently theses Funkos’ will be worth some money on the eBay market once Edgar Martinez is established in the hall of fame.

Our seats this time were the best! I had picked them out back in May after the discount tickets were available from Refuse to Abuse 5K. The seats were along the first base line, and had a great view of the action. Throughout the game, there were so many foul balls flying into our section and at one point a person in the first row did get hit pretty hard by a foul ball. The kicker, those where my original seats before Ticketmaster timed me out for taking so long to pay! I could have ended up with a ball!!

There were a good few people who were Angles fans sitting near us. At one point there were some crazy comments going on around us over one of the players on the Angles team. Mike Trout is the name. At one point a few of the Mariner’s fans started to call him “salmon” as if something funny. There were three Angles fans with jerseys with Mike Trout’s name on them sitting in front of us.

There were a lot of crazy moments in the game, and a few moments where you could not believe you just witnessed some funny thing a player did. I have always loved baseball when it is not being serious all the time, but has some humor to it. I even got to see my favorite third baseman Kyle Seager. Man I love baseball pants!

At the beginning of the 9th inning, it was time to start making our way home before the large crowds started. At this point the game was a tie with 2-2 since 4th inning. When I got home, the score had changed to 2-6 with the Angles beating the Mariners. At least the game was good and not watching a team loose without a fight.

As you read this, by the beginning of the coming week, another Mariner player will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Maybe one day the Mariners will make it to the World Series. There is always next year!

Inside The Amazon Spheres

Published on June 13, 2019June 16, 2019 by abiotechieslife

Every first and third Saturday of the month Amazon lets the public tour inside the spheres and on this particular trip, the Corps flower was ready to bloom!

I will admit, I am jealous of the employees of Amazon for having access to an amazing space to work and wish more companies would utilize more nature in their buildings. The Spheres exterior is made up of 2,636 panes of glass, making it a greenhouse/bio dome effect. For the plant nerd in me I was in heaven!

This living wall in 60 feet tall and expands all the way up to the fourth floor of the middle sphere.

The Spheres have over 40,000 plants from cloud forests around the world. The plants inside are native to mid-elevation cloud forest ecosystems at altitudes of 3,000 to 10,000 feet. The plants are a remarkable testament to biodiversity found in nature around the world with 3,000 of the plant species coming from tropical forests. All plants present in the Spheres are sourced through collections at universities, seed growers and are not taken from the wild.

There are orchids, epiphytes, succulents, and carnivorous plants hidden among all the other tropical plants. The Spheres even houses ethnological species that cure disease and some are endangered in the wild.

Now this rather large plant is the Corps flower which when it blooms it will give off a smell described at rotting flesh. If you are reading this live, the flower at the time of visit was just days from opening. The flowering plant is a rare sight to behold since it takes years for the flower to fully form to bloom.

The canopy walk and the birds nest are crowed favorites! The wooden boards give the effect of an old tree house when taking across them!

As a scientist and a nature nerd, I highly recommend going to see The Spheres and learn more about Amazon’s innovative thinking about the how workplace spaces in urban offices should have a direct link to nature. Also on weekends the public parking garages under the Amazon buildings close by are free.

Girls Day At The Ballpark| Mariners vs. LA Angles

Published on June 7, 2019July 17, 2019 by abiotechieslife

What more could be perfect then spend a birthday at the ball park? After all I did spend two months hammering out a four part series about it. The birthday ballgame was the Seattle Mariners vs. LA Angles, and it was little league day. During game pauses, the camera caught many of the kids dancing to the music on the jumbo screen. This made for a very entertaining day.

Thirty two years never looked so good! And a great start to another year of anything possible when you looked at this view from the beginning of the game. Just by the view we had great seats! Even eating one ballpark brat, countless handfuls of white cheddar puffs, and a few peanuts, I just could not beat how good it felt to pig out for once (training for the 5k is hard at times). Next month I will be running around this field for 5k so I look forward to “running” the bases.

I’m so thankful for these wonderful friends who made the day fun and exciting! Even with the seats being in the sun, we all some how survive the heat and may have sunburns to prove it. Also the arrow pointing to me is in reference to the other girl on my left is my birthday twin.

The game was interesting with at least one home run by the Mariners, but alas, the Mariners lost to the Angles. Maybe at the next ball game I attend the Mainers will win! Keeping fingers crossed!

Spring Has Come Finally!

Published on April 1, 2019March 31, 2019 by abiotechieslife1 Comment

Spring has finally arrived here in Seattle! As the cherry trees blossoms awash the area in whitish-pinkish color, there are many signs of spring has finally here! The tulips are starting to come out of their slumber, and the yellow heads of daffodils are shining brightly through the gray days of spring. Finally after a roller coaster ride of a winter season, spring has come.

While large crowds crammed themselves into the University of Washington’s quad full of cherry trees, the Washington Park Arboretum and the Japanese Garden’s cherry trees where in bloom minus the large crowds. For four hours I walked the winding paths through the different gardens soaking in the spring sunshine with the cherry trees and dogwood trees in full bloom.

Unexpected find in the rhododendron garden! These beauties are Camellias. They are a broad leaf evergreen shrub with pink, white and red large showy flowers. I want to have these in my garden one day!

Photography done on a Samsung Galaxy S9 phone.

The Seattle Snow Apocalypse

Published on February 11, 2019February 12, 2019 by abiotechieslife

The storm had a name. Like a hurricane, the snow storm was called Maya. Maya had come to this part of United States, just as Lucian did in the Midwest and the East Coast. Our polar vortex, and one which involved ice sheets on hills.

The first round of the snow came Sunday evening during the Superbowl game. At this point, people were already at home either watching the most boring Superbowl game in history or like myself taking a nap with the cat after a busy morning at church. I did not miss much, only the fact the only entertainment came during the half time show when Adam Levine took his shirt off. As the game slowly progressed to the end with the enviable of the Patriots winning again (insert eye roll), the snow was starting to stick to the ground and piling up. Even Maddie the Maine Coon did not even want to go out in the snow (Maine Coons are built for snow!).

Come Monday morning there was snow still falling on the roads and low viability for many trying to commute to work early in the morning. I decided to stay safe and worked from home. There was no way I was going to get out of the driveway on a hill with an ice sheet under without crashing into a neighbors car. Come Tuesday morning I braved the cold icy roads to get to work. Yet this snow storm was not going to let all of us in western Washington off the hook easy. Nope! Another snow storm was coming our way again Friday afternoon.

For the rest of the week leading up to Friday, there was a lot of checking the weather reports, consulting The Weather Channel app, and checking Cliff Mass’s weather blog for updates on what was deemed “the snow apocalypse” of 2019. Thursday afternoon I was getting updates from Instagram and Facebook showing the crazy long lines at area grocery stores of people stocking up on supplies to ride out the storm heading our way. By the time Friday morning rolled around there were empty shelves and one Safeway completely trashed from people going crazy.

Image result for seattle grocery store snow — Photo: The Seattle Times

Makes you think vintage/ homesteading skills need to be tough to children and adults after witnessing this chaos.

Friday morning I did not have the luxury to stay home, so I went in to work at 6 am to get stuff done before the snow was to hit. The lab I work in has these large windows that see out into the parking lot and at roughly 12:30pm the large flurries of snow started in Bothell. The food truck schedule that day was only there for 45 minutes before it left in a hurry. By 1pm our building and lab had a few scattered people around trying to finish the days work before leaving. One co-worker snagged the last show shovel on her way to work that morning and was ready to conquer the snow at this point as she carried it around with her the whole time. When I finally left at 1:30pm the snow was starting to stick in the parking lot. By this time the roads in and around Bothell Canyon Park area were packed solid from everyone trying to leave all at once. It took roughly 30-40 minutes to get out of the area as the snow kept coming down. It became an hour and a half commute home in the end.

Saturday I woke up to a little bit of snow coming down. In the afternoon it was time to clear the driveway and the vehicles of snow. The neighbors around started to shovel the drive ways and even their patch of the street out front to help with traction.

All the snow shoveling called for a nice cup of homemade hot chocolate and some nice homemade shepard’s pie.

Sunday church was cancelled, but our pastor was creative in recording a condense version of the sermon for the day. After digging out the driveway on Saturday, we managed to drive to the grocery store for some necessities. Eggs and potatoes were still out of stock, and people were still freaking out and buying a months worth of food (which will go to waste in a few days!!) after a third storm was coming through. We managed to get some milk and English muffins knowing we still had food at home.

Woke up Monday morning to an email from work saying they were open, but please use extream caution when coming in. With another round of snow heading into the afternoon, I decided to work from home.

The snow has been piling up over the last couple to days to the point that some of the snow drifts have a total of ~~eleven inches to~~ one foot of snow in some parts of the yard!

After this week is over I will probably not want to see snow again for some time! Having semi cabin fever is taking a toll. There is only so much I can do at home when it comes to work (I work in the science industry-lab work) on a laptop. Hopefully storm Maya decides to head out of Western Washington for good.

Good thing out of all this snow, having a lot of water for summer months!

Christmas Of Years Past

Published on December 11, 2018December 22, 2018 by abiotechieslife

This girl may have been watching too much Hallmark Channel Christmas movies and now it may have gone to her head… a little. Christmas time for some reason makes past eras (1800s anyone?) seem closer than any other time of year (except for baseball season).

Last year a friend told me about the Meeker Mansion being all dressed up for Christmas in a Victorian theme. Every year the Meeker Mansion opens its doors day after Thanksgiving through eighteenth of December to the public for a special holiday exhibit. This special Christmas showing raises funds for the Puyallup Historical Society’s upkeep and repairs of this old historical home.

It has been a very long time since I have been down in Puyallup (last remembered 2011). When you have all the Christmas shopping done early, and need to get out of the Seattle holiday madness, go further south.

The Meeker Mansion sits in the old part of Puyallup as a relic from a time long gone, and every year the mansion is decorated for Christmas in the late Italianate Victorian style. Ezra Meeker the man the Victorian mansion is named for was a leading pioneer (physical parts of the Oregon Trail exists today because of him), first mayor of Puyallup and the “Hop King” of his day (Washington Hops).

Related image — Photo Credit: bookwormhistory.com

During Christmas season the house is dressed up for a Victorian Christmas. Each of the seventeen rooms on the tour are decorated ready to receive guests for a Christmas house party at any moment.

Even the kitchen is decorated for the holidays!

Today the mansion is still undergoing painstaking work to bring all the rooms back to original decoration during the time when the Meeker’s were in residence. At the time the first and second floors of the house are completely finished to include period era furniture with all the trappings of grand house at the turn of the century. The third floor, unfortunately, is not open for exploring.

The house around the time of it being built had modern convenience of having electricity and running water. As you can see the tree is plugged into an outlet in the wall that is original to the house.

Cannot have a real Victorian Christmas without a piano. This one was waiting to for Silent Night to be played.

Scene out of many of those Christmas cards!

A little crowed at the beginning to day, but my the time I got to the first floor most of the people were already gone. I would recommend coming a little later in the day as it is not so much crowed.