Show Us Your City - Seattle!

Sorry for the brief hiatus. I've been in Atlanta for a tradeshow. Now I'm back, and Jax at The Roaring Twenties is was hosting a "Show Us Your City" bloghop, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to rant about Seattle a bit. Better late than never!

Seattle is most definitely home to me. I grew up on the "Eastside" (read: Microsoft suburbia) and promptly returned to the Emerald City upon finishing school in North Carolina.

When people think Seattle, they think coffee and rain. My pitch: Yes, it rains. But the summers are GORGEOUS!! and in the winter when it's raining in the city, it's snowing in the mountains. That means great skiing/snowboarding about 45 minutes away. Can't beat that!!!

This past summer, we actually had multiple days of record heat (100+) but not the nasty humid kind you find on the east coast. This past winter, we also had LOTS of snow in the city ... which was great for skiiers, but terrible for NW drivers. It usually never sticks, so just an inch or two on the roads, and people are abandoning cars on the freeway. No joke.

Some pics:

Here's one I took from a boat we chartered for my friend Jeni's bachelorette party.

Here's one I took of the Space Needle during Folk Life Festival last spring.

This is the view of Elliott Bay and the Olympic Peninsula from the roof of my apartment building in Belltown.

There is so much I could say about where I live. But Belltown most certainly deserves its own post. Anywayyy... I could go on and on about how much I love Seattle... but instead, I'm gonna go off on a tangent and tell a little story about a class I took in college: Rap and Hip Hop Music Appreciation.

Believe it or not, this was a full credit course that pretty much involved listening to and discussing rap/hip-hop for a few hours each week on Friday. Oh, and our final grade was based on a group assignment to record in studio a rap or hip-hop piece of a given genre. (Yes, rap has 'genres' haha).

I forget the categorization of our assigned "genre" but it was defined by the musical stylings of 'artists' including Lil' Kim, Sir Mix Alot and company. Or whatever. For our final project, we came up with was a rap/song with a "story line" about an Airline that "serviced" its passengers. I sang the hook. The lyrics included "Destination: Cloud 9" etc. You get the idea. Not something I would play for my parents/children.

What was I saying? Oh yes... this class. One of our first "assignments" was to write a rap about our home town or city. I can't remember all of the lyrics I came up with, but here's a sampling for your amusement:

I'm from the 206-

Home of the 747,

Microsoft & Starbucks.

Seatown is just like heaven.

... something about "where the air is clean"

... something about "people love the green"

....{{insert some other terrible lines here}}...

My favorite part:

People always saying

"Yo, does it always rain?"

Well we're lying when we say

"Uh YEAH like every day"

Cuz we chill and keep it real

without traffic like LA

And if you came you'd never leave

So stay the f*ck away.

Anyway, no worries - not quitting my day job to try and make it big in the rap industry anytime soon :)