After a really lousy Continental flight that involved screaming kids, spilled Cokes, and an unscheduled refueling detour to Pittsburgh, I’m back from Seattle and once again on NYC time (some pics of my trip can be found here.) With the aid of high-school, college, and grad-school friends, I was able to explore a good bit of the city — downtown, Belltown, Ballard, W. Seattle, Fremont, Snoqualmie, Capitol Hill — and all-in-all I was quite favorably impressed. Seattle seemed driving-intensive, but then again, where, outside of New York and a tiny handful of other cities, isn’t? At any rate, much fun was had, and hopefully I’ll make it back out to the Pacific Northwest sometime in due course.