(Have you guys noticed over the past few years that every trip, project, etc. always seems to get a title after it's been in my life a while? By naming it, I bring it into existence. Or something.)

Why a six a.m. flight, you wonder? Sanity. Limited number of vacation days + the prospect of catching a 2:00 brewery tour next Thursday afternoon == determination to get up at something like four a.m. and sleep on the plane. If I only have X floating holidays to take, why fly out at noon and arrive at 9 p.m. Pacific time, having wasted the entire day, when I could get up earlier, be equally bored a bit earlier in the day, snooze fitfully on the plane, then touch down in Seattle in the early afternoon?

See? It sorta makes sense that way. Insane, yet vaguely sensible.

My working theory is that I'll just mainline coffee for the rest of the day. I mean, I've heard they've got that sort of thing in Seattle. I'll ingest enough caffeine and sugar to kill a couple of small rodents, top it off with good microbrew, and by the end of the day I probably won't know whether to sleep, stagger, or vibrate at high speed.

My flickr account has been seeing more of a workout than my weblog account. We picked up a new lens for the camera recently, and I'm pretty stoked about taking the setup out West. My photography is competent at best -- it is literal, reasonably-well composed, but not art -- but stalking good shots is going to be a recurring theme of the visit.

Tis the season of holiday gatherings, when you get together with friends you haven't seen lately: (links go to larger versions of photos, or you can go straight to the entire set here)

...and if someone is saying "'tis the season," that means there's a slew of Christmas concerts, which means Jeff is somewhere out there in a tux, mastering the art of accidentals: (link goes to album)

The last portion is one I'll put in a separate post.