It's the first day of Fall, but I'm not out enjoying it... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Tanev! As a diehard Blackhawks fan, it took a while before I was sold on my local team, The Seattle Kraken. But they're just such a fun team. They're fun to watch play. And the team leader when it comes to Big Fun is Brandon Tenev, whom is an absolute legend because of his annual team photo. And this year he did not disappoint...

Legend. Of course they unleashed a behind-the-scenes...

There's a reason all my Kraken jerseys are lucky #13. And there he is.

   
• Birbs! Toss those pufflings off that cliff!

Nice to see humans helping with a problem they've caused.

   
• Kids Need a Family! Just want to say to the whole "KIDS NEED A MOM AND A DAD!" crowd... where were the moms and dads stepping up to give these kids a home after they've been shuffled around for FOUR YEARS? I'll tell you where... climbing on Facebook to condemn gay parents while doing fuck all about anything. Well, thanks to these two gentlemen, these siblings now have a home. Together. Where they are loved and cared for...

Anything other than your full-throated support of this family doesn't mean shit, and if you're not wishing them the best of luck but instead hoping they fail, well then this isn't about the children is it? Just your shitty bigotry.

   
• SeaTac Busted! I may die of un-shock as Seattle-Tacoma International Airport comes in 5th place in the "Least satisfying North American mega-airports" poll. To me, that's four places too high. I've flown in and out of a ridiculous number of airports, and Seattle is not just my most-hated in the USA, but is way up there world-wide. So many stupid fucking decisions made, and more being made every year. I detest Sea-Tac, and am glad to see that I'm not alone in that. I dearly wish that the Port of Seattle would stop making so many awful decsions and get to making SeaTac something that Washingtonians can be proud of. Because I'm embarrassed when people visiting our State have our main airport as their first impression.

   
• It's Not Cheating! Way back when the Phil Ivey "cheating" scandal came out, I read the stories and didn't get it. HE. DIDN'T. CHEAT. He played the game that casinos presented to him (and Cheung Yin "Kelly" Sun), but found a way to do it better than other people could. Now I see this fascinating video and am mad about it all over again...

Any time casinos lose money, they blame "cheating." Even when it wasn't.

   
• Will & Harper! Thanks to Netflix for continuing to move the needle of acceptance (even if they did just cancel Deadboy Detectives so they could give a bajillion dollars to Zack Snyder to shit out his crappy Rebel Moon travesties)...

I have a friend who means the world to me that shouldn't have to live in fear for being who she is, and every little bit helps dismantle the toxic hellscape she has to endure is a good thing.

   
And thus starts my Fall.

Planning for a trip over the mountains to the airport is pretty simple. Pull out the Waze app so I can calculate travel time... add a half hour because Waze is always wrong by at least that... then add two hours to that, which should cover any delays and get me to the terminal with at least 90 minutes to spare.

Except...

Sometimes things get out of control before you even step out the door. This morning I decided to empty the trash can before I left, only to have Fake Jake come running in while I was navigating the door.

Needless to say, bedlam ensued. Much running around and hissing were to be had. Real Jake was enraged. Jenny, bless her heart, did not run and hide as I expected, but instead stood her ground. From a distance, of course.

Ten minutes later, I managed to corral Fake Jake with the promise of treats...

I then spent 20 minutes trying to calm my cats down so that I wouldn't be leaving them in a traumatized state. By the time I left... for the second time... they were back to normal as if nothing happened.

Lucky for me Seattle traffic was only horrendous instead of overwhelmingly fucking heinous, so I still managed to arrive with plenty of time to spare.

Annnnnnd...

Now I'm in St. Louis. A city I haven't visited in quite a while. Nearly ten years, in fact (boy, having a blog is handy for figuring out things like this!).

First order of business? Falafel...

Before turning in for the night, I decided to walk across the street and marvel at The Gateway Arch...

Across the street from that is the Old St. Louis Courthouse, where the Dred Scott case was first presented 172 years ago... which is not so long ago, when you really think about it...

I didn't think that any rooms in my hotel had a view of The Arch. Turns out the rooms on the very corner do. And I'm in the penthouse suite, which means I've got the best view possible...

And that's all she wrote for my exciting day of travel. Good night y'all.

I have been a lot of places and seen a lot of horrible traffic. Every major US city has some traffic problems due to the sheer volume of cars and trucks and things that go on the roads. But there are definitely cities worse off than others. Los Angeles is pretty much the gold standard for horrible traffic. San Francisco isn't much better. Boston has ensnared me more times than I can count. Some of the worst traffic I've ever seen was spotted as I was trying to drive into Atlanta one day. New York is an obvious target but, to me, never seems to be as bad as people think.

But, in my humble opinion, none of these cities compare to Seattle.

Seattle traffic is hellaciously bad and in a league of its own.

Most of the reason is simple geography. The bulk of Seattle is surrounded on three sides by water... Lake Washington to the East, Lake Union to the North, and Puget Sound on the West. You can't add "ring roads" around Seattle to alleviate congestion because there's no place to put them. The rest of the problem is just the sheer volume of vehicles on the road. Auto density in Seattle is absurdly high, and no matter how the city tries fix the problem, people love their cars too much to give them up.

And the problem isn't limited to Seattle, as the traffic there bleeds out into surrounding areas as people do whatever they can to avoid driving in the city.

Which makes driving to SeaTac airport a real crapshoot.

Technically, the drive takes 2-1/2 hours for me if the traffic isn't horrible. But since the traffic almost always is horrible and you never know how many times you'll have to stop for road construction, I leave anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes early. Most of the time I'm glad I did. But today the traffic was merely "bad" and not horrible at all...

18 minutes to drive 12 miles is practically lightspeed so far as Seattle traffic is concerned.

And so here I am, sitting at the airport with two hours and 45 minutes to kill before my flight. If only I had known, I would have stayed in bed an extra hour.

But you just know the day I sleep in is the day that a truckload of fish overturns on the 405 and backs up traffic for an hour.

Stupid fish.

The good news is that I have plenty of time to eat at Qdoba for breakfast. Sure the line is always long but, unlike Seattle traffic, it moves fairly quickly.

I woke up.

I finished packing.

I drove over to Seattle.

I made my way through SeaTac Airport (barely, as it was torn to shit as usual).

Then I caught a flight to the Netherlands.

The end.

Or... the beginning?