Enter the Kirkland Matrix

One nice part of having visitors is doing a lot of fun touristy stuff. Another fun part is after you've gorged on adventures and you and your guests are content to hang out a bit with their remaining time with you. I think we'd reached that point with Lydia's dad.

We ate at the Ivar's by the lake. It's nice to eat nice seafood within view of the water.

Evan was excited to show us his new toy: Meta's Quest 2 virtual reality headset. He had a bunch of extras and stuff too that went with it, such as a carrying case. It reminded me of when I was a kid and had a bunch of games and stuff for my Sega Game Gear. Anyway I have only used a VR headset on a couple rare occasions so this was fun. Plus the fact that we got it set up so easily in my own living space made it feel more accessible. One game he had that was memorable was SUPERHOT which had gunplay and bullet dodging that reminded me of the best film of all time: the Matrix.

We stopped by Snowy Village. Lydia likes this place a lot.

Pike Market Tree Lighting and Other Stuff

Luckily we still had some Thanksgiving leftovers to fuel the adventuring I was about to embark upon. Blessed be the pie.

We took Doug and Linda to check out the Museum of Pop Culture. There's all kinds of fun stuff here, from music to scifi to video games. It's pretty much all of my favorite things in one building. This is a costume from 1982's Tron, for example. The museum was started by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and many of the pieces are on loan from him as well.

"Kurt Cobain with Colonel Sanders in Singapore, circa February 10, 1992"

"Severed heads from The Walking Dead, 2012

Prop heads made for the Governor's fish tanks, used in the season 3 episode, "Walk With Me.""

I take any opportunity available to abuse the metro pass my night job gave me, so I gave everyone a ride on the monorail.

We love the Pike Market don't we folks?

The gum wall was looking extra gummy today.

The Pike Brewing Company is fun because in addition to the delicious beers they also display an impressive collection of breweriana.

Every time I see King Gambrinus now I think about that night I got weird with it in Milwaukee.

Doug and Linda I think were feeling comfortable and so we left them to see Santa and the tree lighting back at the market.