Seattle, day 19

When I’m bored I like to make city equations. Does anyone else do this? You take a city and decide which other cities compose its makeup. For example, Seattle = San Francisco + Burlington VT + Chicago. Austin = San Antonio + Los Angeles. New York = Donald Trump + Newark + Moscow. Still working on that last one. Anyway it’s a fun game, in the same vein as “Mapquest This!”, the title of which speaks for itself (most recent Mapquest: 40 hours from Seattle to Juneau. So tempting. This is why you don’t play Mapquest This with cities you’re in or are in close proximity to).

Changing gears — If you’re looking for a new blog to read, I enthusiastically recommend Inside Higher Ed’s Confessions of Community College Dean. It’s the blog I wish this one to be.

Seattle, day 7

Really into mountains right now. Not like, mountain ranges or climbing mountains or really doing anything physical at all on mountains, but rather seeking out individual “celebrity” mountains and looking at them from afar.

Since arriving in Seattle I’ve been in relentless pursuit of a glimpse of Mt. Rainier, but the city’s haze has thus far thwarted my efforts. So I sit, comforted by my pictures of other mountains home and abroad. My favorite mountain has always been K2, the second-highest mountain on the planet on the border of Pakistan and China. Such a good-looking mountain. Domestically I like Mt. Sneffels in Colorado. Any other mountainphiles out there?