2006.5.25. Les Miserables at the 5th Ave Theater. Great musical numbers. Surprising that I hadn't heard of these. I especially like "drink with me to days gone by". The stage is a bit too dark.

2006.5.20. Tiger in the afternoon. The sun came out despite the forecast.

2006.5.17. Le Nozze di Figaro at UW Meany Theater. The students did a wonderful job again. Beautiful voices. Modern stage design. Great acting.

2006.5.16. Chinese Disabled People's Performing Arts Troups at Benaroya Hall. The first dance 千手观音 is impressive. Before every number there was a girl announcing the next act in sign language, a bit too lengthy though.

2006.5.14. Verdi's Macbeth by Seattle Opera. Nice chorus. Music is rather cheerful instead of bloody, even when MacDuff was lamenting the death of his wife and children. Very simple stage (unchanged through 3 acts). The running of blood on the white wall was pretty clever.

2006.5.13. Meadowdale Park in Lynnwood. 1 mile decent from parking lot to the beach. Pleasant walk.

2006.5.12. Town Hall. 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi gave a talk on her book promotion tour of Iran Awakening : A Memoir of Revolution and Hope. It started 25 minutes late. The talk was about half an hour. The QA part was more interesting. The book is published in US, because she couldn't publish it in Iran. This came after a struggle. US also prohibited it on the ground that the profit of the book sale to an Iranian author would be against the US economic sanction towards Iran. She won a court battle for Iranian authors, and also Cuban and Sudanese. http://www.fepproject.org/press/ebadi.html

2006.5.9. Pippins at the 5th Ave Theater. In-cohesive plot. Simple, efficient stage design. Off beat ending. A couple of numbers are pretty clever: the war campaign, the bedroom.

2006.5.5-7 La Push on the Olympic Peninsular. Gorgeous view of the mountains on the way there. Plush "Cabin" right on the First Beach. Equally gorgeous view & sound of the ocean, even though it rained at times. Saw a few surfers. Picked some mussels and of course pebbles.