St. Louis: Old Stuff, Foosball, Mini Golf

We visited the good ol Missouri History Museum.

There was a great exhibit on St. Louis Music.

I’m “my favorite rapper is in the history museum” years old.

The girls were so jelly on the fun times that I had last night at the Armory that they demanded I take them tonight. It's sad when the Jelly School is full and doesn't have any room for new jelly girls.

Seed when they should have sawed.

No one can withstand the whirly fury of my little foosball dude.

They had giant pizza paddle ping pong with a giant ball.

One thing on the very short list of things that St. Louis has that Seattle does not is a local franchise of Puttshack. It's kind of a cool twist between mini golf and Top Golf, where the computer keeps track of your strokes and offers some silly ways to get more points as well.

Sure, I'm great at mini golf in North America. But I'm even better at mini golf in Australia, due to the upside down gravity situation that they have going on down there.

St. Louis Goofin'

I, Lydia, and the Troll all flew to St. Louis, MO for Lydia's baby shower. There was some discussion as to whether I would attend at all but I'm a true gentleman and scholar.

I had a dinner date with the boys in Central West End. On my way there I walked past my first St. Louis apartment on West Pine. I first moved into the very regal Parcade in 2010! 150 years ago. Strangely I don't seem to have thought moving to St. Louis warranted a blog post at the time... but I guess I only wrote 7 posts that entire year. Now I write a blog post every time I blow my nose. Curious.

I had some real ass southern food at Juniper. It's funny what you end up missing when you move away from a place.

Hank and Seago were today's victims. Someone Seago tricked me into wearing my Big Lebowski Pendleton sweater and then he also wore the same. Everyone thought we were twin boys.

They pimped out the Armory, which had been a derelict scary looking place full of who knows what as long as I've lived here. I was super excited that they renovated the place and turned it into a place where I could whip strangers' monkey asses at some giant foosball.

It's sort of like a fun version of Ballpark Village.

I Got in Kevin Hart's Pants

We were in the Seattle Center area for a show and we stopped in at the Armory beforehand to see if there was any action.

They had a pretty substantial model train set up happening that was fun to take a peek at.

Kevin Hart's show was another one of those Gestapo situations where they force you to put all of your electronics into a magnetically sealed bag. So I have zero pictures of any of it. How can I laugh at jokes when I am so very sad. I have a... history of taking my phone to Climate Pledge when I'm not supposed to so I really felt personally attacked by this signage.

Kevin has a sponsorship deal with Fabletics and there were a few fun promotions to do in the arena's lobby. One of them was amazing, you just gave them your email address and they gave you a coupon for a free beer at the concession stand. Beers here cost legit $20 so we hopped on that one. Maybe Kevin isn't so bad after all.

The next day Lydia started to get sick. I think those dirty St. Louis people gave her something. Getting sick when you're pregnant is especially unfortunate because you aren't allowed to take any medicine.

My First Seattle Basketball Game

Today we started our adventuring with a hike around Bothell, north of Kirkland HQ.

Later it was time for me spread more joy and hospitality at Climate Pledge Arena in the city.

The armory had a cool Lego exhibit happening.

Today was actually something a bit different for me at the arena: a Seattle University basketball game!

Idaho State were the bad guys today.

It was fun to see how the basketball court wood panels were set up. Fun fact is the ice for hockey stays underneath and concerts/basketball flooring are just stacked on top. 

The different tunnel clubs are more or less identical but some of them have unique art pieces or other little flair to them. 

"Tyrrell Winston

Wearing Me Down, 2021

Used basketballs, liquid plastic, steel, epoxy

Tyrrel Winston is known for his assemblages of old basketballs that he frequently arranges into grids so they become studies of material, culture, and history.

Self-taught, Winston began his art practice creating collages using paper scraps he found while roaming the streets of New York City. He also collected debris like basketballs and cigarette butts, both of which now serve as foundational material for his works.

His artworks all explore what the artist calls "embedded history": the narratives perpetually lodged in other people's discarded objects."

Seattle U is a tiny little Jesuit school so I'm honestly a bit confused about this arrangement. It seemed to me that there were barely enough people in attendance to bother keeping the lights on. One benefit to me was that there were way fewer rich people, and some of the tunnel clubs were completely empty. It also meant that I could check out some of the upper areas during my breaks and they would be devoid of people.

I believe this was the Space Needle club which was way outside of my zone. There were a section of lesser, higher up suites called the Pitchbook suites that another chunk of our team worked at. Also a fancy area called the Moet Club. I never did get stationed at any of those places and I wonder if that was a conscious choice or just a fluke that my masters decided to stick with.

This is the area that the announcer people stand at during Kraken games. They will also often have famous people come up here to wave to the crowd.

It was homecoming court... presentation time which was fun. One notable thing was that even a Catholic school out here on the west coast was so liberal that they didn't have homecoming king and queen, but rather two "royals". I believe they were both women.

It was clear that the production values were suffering a bit during these games.