Lights & Delights
Okay, so next weekend Alexia and I are going to return downtown, being the second attempt for the two of us together and my third attempt, to get screenshots of the augmented reality portion of Downtown Seattle's ongoing holiday "Lights and Delights event.
You can see from the image above, basically, what it entails: once you get the app to work, in five separate distinct spots around Westlake Center and Pacific Place, you see these VR images through your phone. I think it's intended to be enjoyed just in the moment, as the app is so simplified there's no in-app feature to capture images, but of course you can still take screenshots with your phone, which was what Alexia and I both did when we went down there between 4 and 5 p.m. yesterday.
We went to Pacific Place first, just as I had done when heading down there by myself first on Saturday, but on Saturday I could not find the designated spot anywhere in Pacific Place. Logically it would be somewhere on the main floor; second-most logically, it would be on the top floor, looking down through the huge atrium space in the center of the building. It was only yesterday that Alexia suggested checking the basement level, and there it was! It still took way too long for either of our apps to click and start working properly; it involves pointing your phone to the ground, getting the "square" to expand, and then pointing the phone at the image on a small posted sign.
I had spent so much time trying to get it to work on Saturday that it went well past 5 p.m., which is when the app's operating hours end—and that made little sense to me, but I figured that was why I couldn't get it to work, because it was too late. I had suggested Alexia and I leave yesterday at 4:00 so that we would be there early enough before 5 p.m. and still late enough to see the lights in their prime time of evening after dark. Well, after yesterday, and getting the virtual image to work at Pacific Place and nowhere else—and realizing the posted signs were gone from other spots once we reached them—I think we may have finally cracked the code: I bet the virtual images need broad daylight for them to work well in what the app picks up. After all, when I tried it on my own the very first time earlier on Friday in Westlake Park, I got it to work almost immediately—and that was in very bright, broad daylight. So, Alexia and I will return again much earlier in the day next weekend and attempt to get the virtual images in all the other locations one last time.
That didn't stop us from having a good time yesterday anyway, as Alexia still hadn't seen the "light sculptures" at Westlake Park, so we both got several nice new photos there, including this great one she got of me standing inside the giant gift box made of lights. (I only took the mask off just briefly enough for her to get the picture.)
As for the rest of my weekend, since I basically started at the end I guess I'll work backward: prior to Alexia and me taking our walk downtown—our first walk since Halloween, incidentally; we took quite the break there—most of yesterday aftternoon was spent watching and reviewing Mank, which I quite liked: A-. My review was a little long, surpassing 1100 words or so.
Saturday was a bit shifty. I had made plans with Danielle to meet up with her, her mom (who I just realized recently I have not actually seen since New Year's Day, 2017, which is just shy of four years ago!) and her kids downtown, for some socially distanced and masked exploration of the augmented reality that Alexia and I later did. Danielle was all set to keep the plan during a couple of FaceTime calls that morning, but then she texted me at 3:22, I'm having some troubles with the kids we will be late. I replied, Okay, I guess just let me know when you have an ETA? I then got busy gift wrapping at the time, and did not see until about 4:20 that she had sent a follow-up text at 3:33, only 11 minutes after her first: Things went south too fast and I am canceling. Well, crap. So, that's why I went ahead and just walked downtown myself—only to discover the augmented reality too much of a challenge anyway, and as I already stated, by yesterday I finally figured out that it must really only work during daylight hours. This would also explain those operating hours ending at 5 p.m.
I had walked that far and then I caught a bus the rest of the way to the office to swap out paperwork on Saturday evening, before catching a bus back. I am a huge public transit advocate but taking it during a pandemic is always uncomfortable; even though there are signs saying MASKS REQUIRED there is always one or two people on the bus without one and nobody enforces it. On my bus to the office that night, a fat lady got on the bus with three kids and she had a mask on, but was out of breath and so she had the mask under her chin. This of course double defeats the purpose, first with no mask over her mouth to begin with and second with her pushing her breath even further away from herself with her fucking heavy breathing. She put the mask back over her mouth once she caught her breath, but the efficacy of her mask was more than lost by that point, wouldn’t you say? She had already rendered it useless.
I so cannot wait until all this bullshit is over. The people who don't pay attention to these details are crazy making. Not that there weren't always dipshits on the bus, but, you know.
Anyway! Prior to that on Saturday, I needed to take the bus to Costco to pick up this year's crop of calendars. All I have left now is wrapping (which is partially done; I even bought new gift wrap on my way home from the office Saturday night) and mailing out the four packages that have to be mailed. It'll be interesting to see what the Post Office experience is like right now.
As for Friday evening, that night I watched the third Prime Video film in the "Small Axe" series, Red, White and Blue. Solid A.
[posted 12:30 pm]