Seattle has an odd landmark: the Wall of Gum near the famous Market. Stranger still is that it seems it is not the original, but rather a copycat of Bubble Gum Alley in San Luis Obispo. Competing walls where people stick their used chewing gum? There must be some sort of odd symbolism there.

And yes, this is a bit of time-marking while I work on another project.

Seattle's Space Needle

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or Flickr know, I just returned from a few days in Seattle. I chose not to mention it in advance here for a few reasons, most of which are purely irrational and superstitious. However, now that I am back, I plan on endlessly boring you with tales of the Sunless City (which was, actually, bright and sunny for almost my entire visit).

In advance I want to thank my hosts, Mary, Dave, and Sofa for their generosity and hospitality, and new Seattle-based Yelp friends Matt, Megan, and Lee-Bay for making it a memorable trip. I could probably have done it without you, but it wouldn't have been as much fun.

I'm not certain exactly why, but for some reason my web host decided to replace the most recent home page with the version from a couple of weeks ago, before the redesign. This isn't the first time they've done something like this, but I can never get a good explanation as to what has gone wrong.

It's particularly annoying when it happens while I'm returning from an out of town vacation. I apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you to those of you who voted for Directions for the SFDB Post of the Month. I am a little bit amazed that I won, given the competition, but it is gratifying to know that my modest effort was appreciated. If you are new to reading Hidden City, having been directed here via links from SFDB and my fellow nominees, I hope you'll continue to visit. I'll do my best to keep entertaining you.

Oddly enough, I've been nominated for the South Florida Daily Blog Post of the Month for April. Not me specifically, I suppose, but my story Directions. Anyway, the final selection is determined by the readership's votes, so if you haven't already done so, you should go and check out the nominations. Voting ends at 10pm Friday night.

Frankly, all of the nominations are good (he says, somewhat immodestly). Balou of Searching for Normalcy — and one of my best friends since I first met her — wrote a great tribute to the Rascal House on the occasion of its closing. The very funny and cynical Man or Maniac serves up some additional options for the Florida legislature to consider, if they are going to make a Christian license plate. And my beautiful and brilliant friend Tere offers up a piece on the trials of balancing motherhood and professional life (which she does marvelously, I might add). Oh, and then there's my story about asking for directions.

Honestly, all of my competitors are deserving of the title, as I always enjoy reading their sites. But hey, if you feel compelled to vote for my modest effort, please feel free to do so.