Following a pretty massive reorganization (a reorganization in the computer
business?
How unusual!) my marketing team was packed up and delivered to the Timberline
Lodge on Mount Hood for a team building exercise.
The lodge was used for the exteriors of The Shining
(a movie that left me less than impressed, not that that's relevant to
my visit). The interiors
were shot at a much larger hotel in Denver and there's no labyrinth in front
of this hotel. In fact, there's a rather precipitous drop in front of this
hotel. In any event, here are a couple of views from the lodge. The first
is the view from our meeting room. In August. Really. The second is from
the front door. See? No labyrinth.
On arriving at the lodge we took the chair lift up the mountain and
had lunch. I took these on the walk back down to the lodge. As you can
see, the trail is mildly steep. (I was walking wounded for a couple of
days afterward.) The views, on the other hand, were spectacular. And
the team building exercises had their moments of interest. Did they
help build us into a team? Not so far. Just how long is this team
building supposed to take?
Ashland, Oregon is a pretty little town near the California border.
Known mostly for its annual
Shakespeare Festival, it is
full of craft shops, trendy restaurants, backpackers and other
reminders of just how far back into the mists of time were my own
college days. (Not that you would ever see me with hiking shoes and
a backpack; hell, no!) From the looks of things the town has done
very well by old Will. Things are clean and well maintained and
orderly and not so cute you want to spit up. Although the English
pub loses a lot of points for authenticity. The food was
way too good and the Guinness
too far below room temperature. (That was not a
complaint. An observation but definitely not a complaint.)
Walking around, you can imagine pretty easily what Ashland must have
looked like before it became a Mecca for theatre buffs, back when the
downtown shops sold more hardware than gourmet foods and the Varsity
still ran popular movies instead of art films. Do the locals regret
what has happened to their town? Do they wish the mountains at the
state line were just a little higher, the better to keep Californians
like yours truly on our side of the fence? (Heading back into
California you are stopped by agricultural inspectors to keep you
from bringing contaminated produce into the state. Do Oregon and
Arizona and Nevada ever think of putting up inspection stations to
keep unwelcome attitudes from infecting their way of life?)
Seattle is a pretty important area for those of us in the computer business. It's home to Boeing, one of our best customers; Microsoft, our most persistent competitor; and Nintendo, which is both a good customer and major source of stress relief. It's also an extremely pretty place, at least in the parts that Billy Gates hasn't despoiled. Yet.
Snoqualmie is a small town less than an hour's drive east of
Seattle. It's home to some impressive old railroad engines and
cars, an outlet mall, a Nintendo plant behind the outlet
mall and this: Snoqualmie Falls. Not exactly Niagara (somehow I
can't picture
the Three Stooges
doing "Snoqualmie Falls! Slowly I turned, step by step, inch
by inch...") but a pleasant stop on the way across the
mountains. (Assuming of course that you can get across the
mountains.) And it's only a short and not too terribly arduous hike
down to the bottom
for a closer look.
Some of my favorite pictures are studies in contrast, like the view
of a snow-capped mountain from Snoqualmie's outlet mall. It
certainly improves the look of the mall, but what does it do for the
mountain? Or a local station for the Bellevue police, which was
designed to fit in with the decor of the local shopping mall. To me
it screams Keystone Kops. But that's certainly a better image than
L.A.'s former police chief Daryl Gates and his storm troopers
beating up on innocent motorists.
Now there's something you don't see every day: a suburban
office park with valet parking. As I understand the story,
Microsoft was allowed to build this site in Bellevue with the strict
understanding that it wouldn't expand beyond an employee population
agreed to by the city. Parking was limited to the agreed size,
which proved grossly inadequate when Microsoft grew its staff way
beyond the agreed limits. The parking situation got so bad (think
shopping mall at Christmas) that they had to hire a company to help
employees find places to park. If it helps, Bellevue, a lot of
Microsoft's partners know exactly how you feel.
Not all of Seattle's charm is in the suburbs. Downtown near the
harbor is Pike's Market, a popular place for both locals and
tourists. Where else can you buy fish, vegetables, baked goods, hot
sauce, tee shirts and all manor of tourist junk to the sound of a
pair of hammered dulcimers? Pike's reminds me a little of Quincy
Market in Boston, but without the gentrification. No Gap or Sharper
Image here; just natural foods and old and new books and a very cool
magic shop.
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