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beige_alertWell, I said that the Starbucks on 124th and Capitol didn't look like a really great location to sit outside and watch the world go by from, unless you want to see the world go by at 45 miles per hour, that is, when the world isn't idling at a red light with the stereo cranked way up, but I was in the area, buying a fan at Home Depot and groceries at Jewel, and I thought I'd stop in anyway.
I'm here to tell you, it was deeply special, sitting outside the shop on a plastic chair on the paved area, looking out on a tiny area of grass, then an unused sidewalk, then a six lane road intersecting with another six lane road. Off in the distance was, well, parking, behind which one could see a TJ Maxx, an Office Max, Target, Home Depot way off in the distance, a gas station on the opposite corner of the intersection (only $2.099 per gallon), and other such places. A utility pole with transformer decorated the edge of the seating area. I actually rather like pole-mounted transformers, switchgear, and the like, but even I do agree that they are not really the most attractive possible objects. (If the government ever investigates my photos, I'll be in trouble. Between pictures of power lines, which must mean I'm a terrorist plotting to blow them up, and the nudity, which is evil because nudity is the same as sex and sex is dirty and bad, I might be answering questions for a long time in a tropical climate.)
I parked by the Jewel and walked across the parking lot to get to Starbucks. It wasn't really a very long walk, but it wasn't a really nice walk. I suppose most people drive from one side of the parking lot to the other. Obviously the parking lot designers never planned on anyone walking all the way across the lot from one store to another. My mother lives just south of Tuscon, Arizona, and they drive across parking lots in the summer there because the heat on black pavement is near-lethal, but here it's just an ugly journey.
I did have a nice chat with my mother by cell phone while the traffic went by and some children played in the tiny bit of grass by the intersection. I switched to a different calling plan with lots of minutes and no-extra-charge long distance, so I'm taking advantage of that. Now that I have broadband Internet I might drop the POTS line at home and maybe get VoIP as a backup to the cell phone. I really don't make many calls and that line at home is over $25 per month just to have and not use.
I'm here to tell you, it was deeply special, sitting outside the shop on a plastic chair on the paved area, looking out on a tiny area of grass, then an unused sidewalk, then a six lane road intersecting with another six lane road. Off in the distance was, well, parking, behind which one could see a TJ Maxx, an Office Max, Target, Home Depot way off in the distance, a gas station on the opposite corner of the intersection (only $2.099 per gallon), and other such places. A utility pole with transformer decorated the edge of the seating area. I actually rather like pole-mounted transformers, switchgear, and the like, but even I do agree that they are not really the most attractive possible objects. (If the government ever investigates my photos, I'll be in trouble. Between pictures of power lines, which must mean I'm a terrorist plotting to blow them up, and the nudity, which is evil because nudity is the same as sex and sex is dirty and bad, I might be answering questions for a long time in a tropical climate.)
I parked by the Jewel and walked across the parking lot to get to Starbucks. It wasn't really a very long walk, but it wasn't a really nice walk. I suppose most people drive from one side of the parking lot to the other. Obviously the parking lot designers never planned on anyone walking all the way across the lot from one store to another. My mother lives just south of Tuscon, Arizona, and they drive across parking lots in the summer there because the heat on black pavement is near-lethal, but here it's just an ugly journey.
I did have a nice chat with my mother by cell phone while the traffic went by and some children played in the tiny bit of grass by the intersection. I switched to a different calling plan with lots of minutes and no-extra-charge long distance, so I'm taking advantage of that. Now that I have broadband Internet I might drop the POTS line at home and maybe get VoIP as a backup to the cell phone. I really don't make many calls and that line at home is over $25 per month just to have and not use.
