Not So Shoeless in Seattle.

So we made it to Seattle and the place is lovely. Cold as all hell, but I'm told that's a passing thing. Supposedly the fog is to burn off sometime around noon, and after that we expect a real scorcher of a day at 76. Remember, it's the humidity that gets ya. We interviewed a guy who refers to himself as the Passion Catalyst, which makes him only slightly crazier than Brett. It's nice to know that that person exists.

 

I forgot to mention we made it to the NIKE employee store. I walked out with three pairs of shoes (AF1/Dunk/Women's Converse w/ roses ((don't ask))) and some Oregon shorts for $133. It was sweet. The place sells everything NIKE makes for half-price and no sales tax. It's like the Factory store but full of good stuff. We interviewed the director of design for the Jordan brand and the dude was incredible. At 18 his guidance counselor suggested that as a black man from Inglewood he would do well in the Army. Needless to say that is advice he did not follow. Even the deepest cynic finds inspiration in a story like this.

 

I mentioned in the last post that we went to the bar-first-Chinese-restaurant-second Shanghai Tunnel with Jay's cousin Tony in Portland. The name of the restaurant comes from the very true story of the secret underground tunnels in Portland. These tunnels, some years ago, were traps for drunks to fall into, where there were subsequently anesthetized and shipped to China to be sold into slavery. Shanghaied as it were. Needless to say when this happened to Jack Bauer on 24, I hardly knew the history of such Sino-treachery, but now am impressed by the ingenuity of the plan.

 

We have an appearance on the Northwest Afternoon show tomorrow, taping at 10:00 am and airing at 3:00 pm on the local ABC affiliate KOMO. It is a six minute spot during which we will be discussing some of our favorite interviews during the trip. I am charged with discussing the 26 year old, very attractive epidemiologist studying HIV in marginalized populations in San Diego. This is all fine and dandy save that we have no video/audio/written notes of the interview. Actually, I was mostly wondering why the former model became a Johns Hopkins educated epidemiologist during our lunch at a trendy sushi restaurant in SD.

 

Needless to say, I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow. Until then.

 

xoxo