[Adapted from email photo digest, sent Wednesday, January 1 at 9:57 pm]

I took this shot while walking to work, through the Olympic Sculpture Park, from my bus stop downtown early Tuesday morning—New Year's Eve morning. The last New Year to be run in while PCC is at this current office! This is a fun shot because you can kind of see in through the windows: PCC is on the 5th floor, or third down from the top. If you view the full-size image (and then click to zoom in), you can see our south-facing wall of "Office Star" posters, of which I was one this year. Not that I care about that or anything.

Right after getting up to our office floor, I was compelled to take the latest in countless sunrise photos I have taken from this office location. Only one last winter left during which I'll be getting to this office at the time sunrise is happening!

My cousin Jennifer, followed by her boyfriend Matthew (same name as me . . . annoying!), her son Ian, and Ian's girlfriend Bella, on the 3rd floor of the 3131 Elliott Avenue building, on our way to the skybridge over to the building across the street on our way to Seattle Center late Tuesday evening, after parking in front of the building and going up to the office for one last bathroom break.

Side note: PCC moved to this building in 2016. 2025 was thus the ninth, and final, year we rang in while PCC's office was located here. You can see the top three quarters or so of the Space Needle from our office, and I have gone to the office to watch the fireworks show from there when ringing in four of those years: 2017; 2018; 2019; and 2021. For 2017, we made a small party out of it: my parents came up from Olympia and stayed the night at our place, and we took them as well as my friend Danielle to the office to watch the show from there that year. For 2018 and 2019, I went down there with just Shobhit. Ringing in 2020, Shobhit and I decided to shit back to going to Seattle Center—only for the fireworks to be canceled due to high winds; rining in 2021 the entire thing was scrapped in favor of a virtual show due do covid. Ringing in 2022, Shobhit and I went back to the office again, once again jus the two of us, but that year was a hybrid show—they did the virtual thing again, but still did actual fireworks that year.

I have been back to Seattle Center every year since, because ever since ringing in 2023, they have included a pre-midnight drone show that I find completely dazzling, and just would not look as good viewed from the office. So, the office is only ever used as a backup in case the weather is terrible. Which, thankfully, it hasn't been!

This is only the second year since Shobhit and I have been together (over 20 years!) when Shobhit was not with me to ring in the new year. I was without him in 2016, when he was still living in Los Angeles. He wasn't actually in Los Angeles on New Year's that year, though—he was visiting his mother in India, having flown out on December 28, 2015. The same was the case this year; this time he flew out on Christmas Day (he's back January 19).

So! On December 16, I sent my cousin a message: did she have plans for New Year's Eve? I said Shobhit would be out of town and I'd be looking for some company, so would they be interested in coming up to see the the show at Seattle Center and staying the night? She asked if it would be okay with Ian and Bella coming along and I said of course.

I have spent a few New Year's with Jennifer over the years, and she and a then-husband came up to Seattle to stay the night once before—when we rang in 2006. It's been 19 years since she last did that! She was pregnant with Ian then—he's the young guy in the center of the above shot, now 18. That's Jennifer to the right of me; Matthew to the right and behind Ian; and Ian's girlfriend, Bella, on the right. She lives in Tok, Alaska, a town with a population of 1,243 that's about 200 miles southeast of Fairbanks and about an 85-mile drive to the Canadian border with Yukon (I like to be more specific than when she just says "I'm from the interior" of Alaska). I keep thinking of the joke about "a girlfriend in Canada" that guys make up, only this one is from Alaska. And she is real!

This shot cracks me up because it makes Bella and Ian look singularly unimpressed, but that's likely just because we got to Seattle Center at about 10:55 and then had to just stand there for an hour until the show began. Bella said later that she really loved the show.

This just in! After 11 years of T-mobile sponsoring New Year's at the Space Needle—always bathing the Space Needle in their signature pink color—we have a new sponsor: Alaska Airlines. Their signature color is blue, so now there's a lot of blue going on.

This was very shortly after the drone show began, which starts at 11:52. One of the first things we saw: effectively a drone ad, for Alaska Airlines.

I know that airline has many loyal customers. After many years of bullshit they put me through when paying for "escort fees" when I flew my brother's children over from Spokane to visit, I am not one of them.

But, okay, fine! I was still dazzled by this year's drone show—even when this was effectively still an Alaska Airlines ad, but I loved this plane circling around the globe.

It's easy to be ambivalent about America, but I loved this one!

And then: my favorite! Bigfoot walking through the trees!

Also love: this octopus grabbing the Space Needle.

Is this a great shot or what? It's all downhill from here!

So then the countdown happened, and the requisite fireworks show commenced. This is my favorite of those shots.

It took us about half an hour, maybe even closer to 40 minutes, to drive through thick traffic downtown from the office (where there is always easy free parking, then just a roughly half-mile walk to the Space Needle) back to my place on Capitol Hill. We were all amused by this sight on Elliott Avenue: a guy carrying his wasted friend over his shoulders.

And now we reach New Year's Day! This isn't anywhere near as interesting or photogenic but I'm sharing anyway! After skipping it last year, my dad organized the third of his New Year's Day family get-togethers—now that we limit Christmas (and other major holiday) invites to just Dad and Sherri and their descendants (between them, their children, their grandchildren, and their great grandchildren, that alone amounts to 28 people—although given my brother and most of his kids live in either Idaho or Eastern Washington, we don't ever have that entire number together at once, and that number does not count spouses), Dad likes to use New Year's Day as a chance to bring together more of his (still living) aunts, some of his cousins, some of his siblings and some of his nieces and nephews (my cousins). This year he decided to tell everyone it was not a potluck, and he was serving a pasta bar.

You can see I made full use of it. Dad was actually very gracious and suggested I dish myself up first before anyone might stick utensils into the meatballs (for spaghetti) or chicken (for fettuccine). I texted this photo to Shobhit and he immediately asked if there were any vegetables for me to eat. Vegetables? I guess Shobhit leaves town and I forget all about them. Doesn't he know it's Carbohydrate January? Sheesh!

This is my cousin Tammy's husband, Erin. I like to assume he needs a sweater because it's colder at his altitude. Also, he loves the Arizona Cardinals. I only know that's the visual reference there because he won't shut up about them on Facebook. But Erin's a good one in my book; in an extended family of conservatives, he was shockingly vocal about his support for Kamala Harris.

There was another cousin at this gathering who recently finished serving eight years of prison time for manslaughter, and a great aunt who was visiting from a psychiatric hospital, where I heard today her son is also a patient, but he didn't make it to the get-together. You'd think I'd be much more ravenous for all the gossip, but I can't keep up! My dad has two living aunts remaining, and both were there. The other one, Aunt Arless, took a random moment today to just blurt out, "Women should stay home and raise the children! I'm sorry!" This was the same great aunt who, a couple of years ago interrupted Jennifer to say, "That's why you need Jesus!" even though it made no sense to what Jennifer had been talking about.

If these examples are the worst we get out of an extended family gathering, though . . . we're doing pretty well, actually. Well, okay, I guess manslaughter is pretty extreme. But hey, he's paid his debt to society! One would hope that guy is less trigger happy now.

On the left, in the black: Toni Marie, the youngest of my paternal cousins, who is 41, I think. She just had a baby, her fourth kid, which makes him the youngest of my cousins' children. Here I am one of about 10 people gathered around basically just to watch that baby cry. This is what qualifies as entertainment in my family, I guess. We are so low maintenance!

Happy New Year 2025

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