Wow, the US Passport Agency really got their shit together. After hearing all the news about delays in passport renewals earlier this year, I wasn't sure how long it was going to take mine to get back to me. But I sent it in a couple weeks ago, they received it about 7 days ago (I put a delivery confirmation on it), and I just received my brand spanking new passport in the mail today. Damn, that's fast!

Finally, it's summer. And by summer, I mean fall. The sun is out, it's warm, shorts and a tshirt are required gear. It was a long, cold, foggy winter in San Francisco this year. And by winter, I mean summer. It was getting a little old, this winter/summer thing. I love my city but there are times when I think of moving just to escape the incessant grey. More vitamin D next year, for sure.

Speaking of cities, I got back from Seattle last night. Work sent me up there to teach a class and since Corinne had never been, we decided to make a little trip of it. We left last Thursday and spent three days plus being tourists. Lovely city. I never realized how much I like that place. Of course, it was ridiculously nice weather while we were there so that biased the trip a bit. But it was hard to look past the super, genuinely nice people -- even the bus drivers! --, the great food, the beautiful location, and the much lower cost of living. (It made my wallet hurt to look at what we could get for the same price as our house in San Fran.) We left thinking about ... moving. Seriously.

We'd never do it until the Bay Area market rebounded and Corinne researched the job market. Five years, maybe? It's really tempting. Everyone I know who lives there (including a couple former San Francisco dwellers) says it's incredible. "Best place to raise a kid." "The food is fantastic." "It's cool but it doesn't know it's cool." There's a thread on Yelp comparing the two cities started by a guy like me thinking of moving. A lot of the arguments for staying in San Francisco strike me as snotty -- just the kind of attitude I've been growing to loathe.

But then there are arguments that make a great deal of sense. It's pretty fucking rainy up there. The rumors are true. I might get used to it (I love the rain) but I might also hang myself in the garage. It's got great food and good culture "stuff" but not as much as San Francisco, or so the pundits say. We tasted delicious stuff (I mean, really delicious) but Seattle might lack the depth that our current home town has. I'd be pretty foolish not to listen to all the people who praise San Francisco as the most European city in the United States, the best city to live in, etc. Maybe I don't know what I've already got?

On the other hand, maybe Seattle is just that undiscovered. I gotta say, even knowing that I was in vacation mode, it was pretty easy getting around, getting into places, doing stuff. I saw more racial diversity that any given day in San Francisco. (San Francisco may have more actual diversity but it seems to be very segregated.) Even though it rains however many days out of the year, there was way, way more outdoor seating at restaurants than here. And people used it along with all the outdoor free concerts, the outdoor public art, the outdoor festivals. People seemed to get out more. And eat later. In San Francisco, it's rare to see people sitting down to dinner at 10:00pm. In Seattle, we saw it everywhere ... even on weekdays! How European is that?

Of course, moving to Seattle would mean no more Giants games, no more ocean, no more Golden Gate Park, no more familiar street corners that I've known for almost a couple decades, no more beautiful Golden Gate Bridge, no more Palace of Fine Arts at night, no more memories of where we met and where we married, no more wonderful smell you get when you step off the plane.

Yes, but you're two hours from Vancouver, there's Bainbridge Island, there's friends and family there, too, and Washington State has no income tax.

Well, we're not moving any time soon, that's for sure. But it's really nice to know there's another place we like, that we feel we could live in happily. It's exciting.