Tag Archives: UW

GlobalX Takes UW Students to Texas

The arrival of new airlines is of interest until they become a common sight. When they are still small, they will be picking up all sorts of jobs to get their utilization up and bring in some revenue. This includes odd charter jobs. The University of Washington football team had made it to a bowl game that was being held down in Texas. GlobalX was taking a bunch of the students down to the game. A load of coaches dropped them off on the ramp and they slowly boarded the jet. They certainly took there time about it but, eventually, everyone was on board.

As with all unscheduled flying, the wait for departure seems to take far too long. The doors had been closed for ages but the jet was still sitting there. I can imagine that a plane full of students was not happy waiting to get going (or maybe they couldn’t get everyone to sit down and strap in). Finally they taxied and departed for Texas. I don’t think the game went well for UW but the kids probably had a good time anyway.

Return of the Racers

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The races at the rowing meet I covered in this post tend to overlap from what we saw. The length of the course and the time to complete it is such that the next race was started before the last was finished. Consequently, there is not a way for the crews to return up the cut as the next boats are heading towards them. Apparently, they all wait in the next bay. Then, when it is clear, they all row back up together. The cut was full of crews rowing back to take their boats out of the water. It made for an impressive sight!

ASUW Shell House

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A short walk from the campus of UW takes you down to Montlake Cut. This is the home of the university rowing team. Having read The Boys in the Boat, we had read a lot about this location. The Shell House from the book is still there and is in great shape. George Pocock is no longer building his shells there, but it obviously has a place in UW rowing lore and it looked interesting on a sunny weekend day. It looked even better from one side but the giant cherry picker in front of it kind of ruined the chance of a photo from that direction.

Racing on Montlake Cut

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It was purely by coincidence that we happened to be at UW when a rowing meet was taking place. We had read much about UW rowing in The Boys in the Boat (well worth a read if you have the opportunity) and were planning on walking down to the Cut to see the Shell House but there were plenty of boats and crews in the parking lot when we came through. We actually got there almost at the end of the meet. I guess they row early to get the calmest conditions?

A few final races came through as we walked along the cut. The crews were working hard but still had some way to go when they came past us. By that distance, the strongest crews were showing themselves clearly. We watched them disappear up the cut and towards the finish line. As the last race past by, you could see the course boats start to disperse so we knew it was done. What we didn’t know was that we would get a nice finale. That will be another post.

Cherry Blossoms at UW

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Spring is springing in the northwest and that means lots of trees in blossom. The University of Washington campus has cherry trees in the Quad that were gift from the Mayor of Tokyo in the early 20^th century. When they come in to bloom, it is a popular attraction. We went a little early in the day but the place was already heaving with people. I had gone with the thought of taking the tripod and getting multiple shots to blend in post and average out the individuals to hopefully result in a cleaner shot.

I quickly realized that this was not going to be possible. There are so many people there in so many places that having any time with a clean background is unlikely. I had shots a few shots but decided this was going to be futile. You need to have enough time with clear space for each element of the shot and that was not going to happen.

Instead, I focused on a) enjoying the scene and b) getting a few different shots to either isolate the blossoms and trees to to show just how crowded it was. The number of people there was interesting in itself. Most were there to enjoy the trees but there were some who were using it is a backdrop for their own pictures. People in flowing gowns were being photographed and we came across a ballet dancer who was having her picture taken while adopting various poses that I don’t think I could achieve.

It was both fun to see the trees, enjoyable to see people enjoying the trees and frustrating to see how many individuals couldn’t help themselves but grab the trees. Plenty of signs asked people not to climb on trees and grab branches but a few were always doing so. I guess some people are just dopes.

Stadium Over the Water

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This post was originally going to be based on a shot I got of the University of Washington’s football stadium that I took while were hiking in the park nearby. However, things moved on a bit and I wasn’t too bothered by the shot. Then, as I was coming home from a trip, I was sitting on the left side of the plane as we made our approach over Seattle. I was looking straight down on the university campus and the stadium. I figured this would be a more interesting view for a post so finally the topic makes its way on to the blog.