Today we headed downtown to meet friends and see a concert.
The venue was Benaroya Hall, and the performers were the Seattle Mens Chorus.
A choral group of about 250 men. Quite good – as they already are.
Christmas focus, some serious, some funny. And their traditional Silent Night that they finish in complete silence, performing it in sign language.
There is a light rail station is right under Benaroya Hall, so we did not get too far into the shopping district and see all of the decorations. On the way home we did get to see the packed trains arriving from the north, full of Seahawk Fans. The game is being played just south of downtown, starting about an hour after the concert (a matinee) ended.
On the way to the light rail station we saw a raptor flitting from street light to street light. (Can raptors flit?) Here is my best picture. I am thinking peregrine falcon, it seemed a bit small for an osprey. But I could be completely wrong. Notice that it is sitting on this light in spite of the “No bird spikes”.
And in the Rey report – the fire was a lot closer to his apartment than I had imagined.
I had been looking at a Tennessee newspaper map that showed burned business, but it was not focusing on residences. Tonight Rey pointed me to a map put together on the Sevier County website. It shows that the fire essentially stopped at the road in front of his building. The trees across the road are charred. In the picture below – it shows in red the houses that burned. Green had minor damage. Rey’s apartment is a blue dot.
Here is a closer view. He is not sure whether the road and gravel parking lot were enough of a fire break, or if it was active firefighting that saved his building group.
Tomorrow he is going to the work building in the area that was heavily burned. He will likely be driving in amoung a lot of damaged and destroyed houses. They are also having a full staff meeting at the Park Headquarters, where I am sure they will be given an update on park services. He had considered volunteering to drive supplies around this weekend, but they wanted people with pickups, not Corollas.
[The one day weekend is because I worked Saturday. I got a lot done, and can’t imagine trying to fit 8 hours of straight undisturbed work into the regular work week.]
And it is supposed to snow tonight.
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