800 orders, and it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

I enjoyed this week's Aerospace Notebook in the P-I. Best line:

At this week's Dubai Air Show, the always-entertaining John Leahy, Airbus' supersalesman, said Airbus will pull even with Boeing in orders by the end of the year -- it now trails by about 200 planes.

Not likely, John.

Tutta Bella Due

Our man Joe is opening a second Tutta Bella location on Stone Way. We'll be there Dec. 10th at the grand opening party. I say we round up GM and head there sometime during JPOSEAWIN0506. The place should be experienced before the prices get ridiculous and the quality goes south.

Optimized Charging - Ding!

Recharging the T610 has been obnoxious for the past few months due to a worn-out connection on the original SE charger. Ding! Optimized Charging. Ding! Optimized Charging. Ding! Over and over... I finally broke down today and shelled out the €12 for a new one. At last, I have a charger with a European plug. I went for the off-brand version by Bycom to save €7. The fit in the phone is quite as nice as the OEM, but I think it will do the job.

Stretch It Out

A longer 747 with new 787 engines? Build it. A380? No market for it.

By And By

I'd like to wish New York Alki, later known as The City of Seattle, a very happy birthday (one day early). The Schooner Exact safey delivered the main group of the Denny Party to Alki on November 13, 1851, and the rest is history. Raise your glasses this weekend to the Queen / Jet / Emerald City. There's no place finer.

Gas Tax Repeal

Thank goodness we had the sense to vote NO on this because if we lost the funding for our much needed road upgrades AND the Monorail - I would have really lost it. My name is R Metro Bus - if you want to clog our roads and pollute our air while you run to the store to get some milk - then pay your damn taxes!

Goodbye Seattle Mass Transit

The "Seattle Way" means Seattle's way of never getting anything done. A quick poll around school today revealed that people thought the Monorail was too expensive. That's horseshit. Big public projects cost what they cost. Their value can not be judged versus some worthless cost estimate. You either pay the cost of building mass transit or you don't. The Monorail project was capped at $2 billion and it was to buy us a line from the Alaska Junction to Interbay, connecting two of the city's most isolated neighborhoods with downtown. And we chose NO. What a shame. When are we going to get fast efficient transportatoin from point A to point B in this town?

Hong Kong to London non-stop. If it ain't Boeing...

The 777 is filthy.

Death of the monorail

I hope everyone in Seattle is happy. We now officially have no plan for rapid transit. I heard George Howland from the Seattle Weekly on KUOW's Weekday on Monday, going on about how ridiculous the monorail plan was: "If people really want to pay billions and billions of dollars to run mass transit from West Seattle and Ballard [he said this with a sarcastic tone] to downtown - I think that's crazy. There's not the population base to do that." OK, George. Nobody lives in Ballard or West Seattle, and nobody is stuck in traffic every day, for lack of a better way to move around town.

And the people actually did want to pay billions to run mass transit on the west side of the city, George. They voted yes four times.

I hope everyone enjoys the traffic (both in their cars and on the bus). It will give them lots of time to think of a better solution that could solve city transportation problems. Who knows, maybe Seattle will even build something in twenty or thirty years.

Big Bank Take Little Bank

Dollar Reaches $1.18 Per Euro for First Time Since May 2004.

Cheep Eaters Take Note: The Tamarind Tree

The General Manager peeped me out to this one over the summer and a return visit tonight confirmed it's "just fantastic." The pork satay is delicious and the duck salad - superb. I had the Seven Courses of Beef last time - so amazing and so cheep - under $20 for two people. This place is the beacon of Seattle's best culinary corner - 12th and Jackson.

Paul McCartney thought the Dome was really cool

From the Seattle Times:

Q: We last spoke in 1976 at the Wings' concert in the Kingdome, a significant date in Seattle rock history.

A: Wow! That was really cool, yeah. I still have the award for that [for biggest Kingdome audience].

Signature Bridge

Calling all retired structural engineers... give me some feedback on this.