2026.10.2. Ennio Morricone Seattle Symphony

10/2, Friday. 8pm. Ennio Morricone: The Official Symphonic Experience. Trailers of some movies are played on the screen while the Seattle Symphony played the sound track. But the Italian and French movies had no image. Not sure why? No trailer or no rights to play them? 2 clips of Morricone speaking, as well as a few directors and actors. I enjoyed the music very much. To prevent myself falling asleep, I took a nap before going to the concert. The sound track of Mission stayed in my head for the rest of the weekend. I decided to download it to my phone.

2026.8.5/7/12/19, 9.2. Art classes resume at Art Love Salon

Wednesdays 1-3pm. Charcoal Drawing with Garima Tripathi Art Love Salon studio, 8 sessions. I attended 5.

8/5 Maple. We pick one of the few printouts. Here's my result and those of my classmates.

8/12 Alder. This time, we had a selection of branches and leaves. Here's my result of a small trig.

8/19 Red Cedar. This time, we did a composition study. 6-8. Then we select one for the final drawing.

9/2 Willow. Today is from prints. Here's my 30 minute drawing.

Garima gave me quite some leftover oil paints. I hope I'll have time and mood to use them.

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Fridays 12-2pm. Gesture Drawing with Ester Ohman at Art Love Salon. I attended 2 out of 6 sessions.

8/7 and 8/21. The pose is 1 minute each. We did one set of 2 minute poses, which is minimun for me to draw. A good excercise.

2026.8.25. AWS for non-profits

Amazon hosts an half-day event to promote its AWS for nonprofits. Testmony from Brain Health of Allen Institute and Data & AI of Gates Foundation.

Afterwards, reception at the Sphere's 3rd floor. We were not allow to access other floors. More speakers shared their experience.

I didn't know that AWS has a non-profic branch. These teams get credits (storage+computing) and technical help from AWS.

2026.8.16. Mt Ellinor

8/16, Sunday. Smokey in all directions except for Olympic Peninsular. Headed to Mount Ellinor, armed with some sandwiches from yesterday.

Well maintained trail with wooden steps. Quite some Cone Plant in the wet forest.

Above the trees, quite a lot of aster, yarrow, ... still blooming. Very cloudy.

A lot of people today. I guess, we don't have much choice. Waited a long time at the summit. The clouds never left. No view.

2026.8.15. Lower Duamish boat tour + Belltown Block Party + Seattle Design Fest

8/15 Saturday. Belltown Block Party. Mural artists live painting on large wooden canvas. They were just starting when we walked to the waterfront around 1pm. By the time we came back, ~4:30pm, some were near finished. It was very lively. Vendors, visitors. One block was reserved for strange bikes and 2 unicycles. Anyone can try one of those. Looks fun.

There is also a block party at waterfront, Pier 62 and 58. Saw a K-pop dance. More vendors. My buddy bought some orange chicken.

2pm, Duwamish River boat tour. Suprised to see all the sandwiches, and spring rolls. Free. Soft drink too. There were also interpreters of ~5 languages.

Various agencies spoke of their partnership in cleaning up the river. The worst contaminants were dugged out (see the left photo where they were piled on, waiting for transport). Some were encased with gravel or other materials. With all the noise of engine, people, food, kids, hard to hear. They were around to answer questions, which I find more useful. A nice day out on the water.

Afterwards, I walked to South Lake Union Park to checkout the installations of this year's Seattle Design Festival.