from the plane: so, how did seattle go?

I had a fabulous time in Seattle! My talk didn't go particularly well, especially for the amount of time I spent preparing slides-for-the-talk-per-se as opposed to the paper on which the talk is supposed to be based. But, at least in my assessment, it didn't seem to be a disaster either, so I will chalk it up as being All Good (which is, so far as I can tell, a phrase used on the streets of Seattle more even than the Madison's Whole Foods store).

But I certainly enjoyed the time I got to spend there meeting with various faculty and graduate students. Washington is officially my new Sociology Department Crush (shh! don't tell!). Especially given that they have both (1) a Center for Statistics in the Social Sciences and (2) Perhaps The Most Beautiful Campus Ever.

A downside is that I had bought a new windbreakish jacket for my Seattle-to-Europe travels, and I appear to have left it there, quite possibly in Pepper Schwartz's office.

In addition to my time hanging around their department, I got to spend some nice time off campus with my friend e. When I've been to Seattle before, I've done the various touristy things: Space Needle, the Jimi Hendrix museum, Pike Street Market, the locks, etc.. This time, though, I saw the coolest thing in all my Seattle travels: the Seattle Public Library. If you are at all a bibliophile or publicspherephile, you have to check out (ha!) the library if you are ever in Seattle. (The link to the slideshow at the bottom of this page has some great photos of the library.)