Has anyone been to Seattle before? I never have and neither has Kim, but that will change come the end of this month. We’ll be staying in Seattle for two nights before heading off to the Gorge and I need some advice. The most important thing is figuring out where to stay. I’ll probably use priceline to book the trip and therefore I’m betting that we’ll want to be in the downtown zone, but let me know if there are other places to consider. We also need to decide on what we should do while there, taking into account that we only have one full day there. Is the Space Needle worth going up? What about Pike Place Market? Someone help!

Well there was at least one good thing resulting from my trip to Cincinnati, I was able to pickup an extra window air conditioner unit that was sitting in my parents’ basement. I believe that I mentioned before how hot the upstairs of the house can get, but it’s worth mentioning again. The bedroom can stay a little cooler as long as we keep the door closed and fans on. On the other hand, the office is the hottest room in the house. I’m sure the dark brown wall color doesn’t help, and neither do the two computers and the basking light for the turtle tank. So we are in the process of solving this problem using the air conditioner unit. We installed the unit in one of the windows in the office last night. Now we need to decide if it is powerful enough for the entire upstairs, or if we would be better closing the office door as well to keep the cool air in there. This will require some trial and error.

Speaking of the heat, what is up with this summer? It seems hotter than any other summer of the past. And I don’t think it’s just a Kansas City or Cincinnati area problem, just look at this current US map from weather.com. The entire eastern half of the US is colored red! And even when we get a break from the heat, the rain always comes with it and ruins the better temperatures. This is why I haven’t played tennis in weeks, the weather is permanently crappy.