Yeah, I know, it’s well past Labor Day but I’ve been busy. Lance and I flew up to Seattle for Labor Day Weekend to enjoy the three-day music-and-arts festival that is Bumbershoot. We flew in bright and early (left Oakland at 6:00 AM) Saturday morning and drove north a bit to Redmond to drop our stuff at Q! and his wife Melissa’s house before we all drove down to Seattle for the festivities.
I’m not going to list every show I saw, but I will give you the highlights.
We saw Blondie, Shooter Jennings (surprise of the weekend, awesome Southern Rock) Zack Galifinakis, David Cross, Tribe Called Quest, Upright Citizens Brigade, Nouvelle Vague, and many, many others over the three-day event. One of the best parts of the weekend though, was Flatstock, a collection of (buyable, as my wallet will attest) concert posters and poster art. I got a few limited-print posters including a nice KINSKI poster and a Queens of the Stone Age poster. Both hand printed using screen printing.

The worst part of the trip? Losing my ATM card. Well, I didn’t actually lose it, I stupidly left it in the ATM I used to get cash from the first day of our trip. Blame it on fatigue I guess, I had about 90 minutes of sleep the night before and I just plain forgot to pull it out of the ATM. Crisis averted (mostly) as I realized what happened about an hour after it happened and I called WaMu to cancel the card. Thanks to the wonders of the intertron, I was able to give the address of the grocery store where I left the card in the ATM and they issued me a new card that I got less than a week later.
Also, on the last day of the trip (Monday) my cell phone decided to not work anymore. No data, no voice, nothing. It was a one pound brick for all intents and purposes.

I got some really good pics, as did Q!, Melissa, and Lance. There’s also a really cool Flickr group with pics from the event you should check out.
Regardless, we had a blast and I can’t thank Q! and the lovely Melissa for letting us crash at their house for three nights, it was greatly appreciated!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot (how could I?)! I also got to visit with my family. My folks picked me up in front of the Space Needle and we met Erik and his wife Nan for lunch at the Crab Pot on the water. We had a wonderful lunch and I got to catch up with them. (Truth be told, there wasn’t too much catching up to do, we’d just seen each other a week before at my cousin Erin’s wedding in Mt. Shasta…)

I also took an hour or two to go to the Sci-Fi Museum/ Hall of Fame at the Experience Music Project or, as my dad calls it, the “Alien Turd.” (Take a look at an aerial picture of it, he’s right!)

And I’m in the office with Tom and Lance. The good news is that Lance and I got our airplane tickets/rental car for our trip to Bumbershoot Labor Day weekend.

That’s good times right there! I’m poorer, but will greatly enjoy seeing The English Beat, Upright Citizens Brigade, Arj Barker and many, many other great acts that weekend!