It's Valentine's Day, though I didn't have a girlfriend or the 4th wife to celebrate with, I was happy to see my nephew and his newly wedded wife enjoying their honeymoon. It might be because I had worked for my employer for almost 8 years, I never thought about to bring any visiting relatives or friends to visit our factory and museum. I hadn't done this for my nephew's father when he came to visit us last year. Hadn't my nephew mentioned it to me yesterday, I wouldn't have taken them there today.
As soon as we parked the car and walked to the entrance of Future of Flight, I suddenly felt very proud of our company. Showing my badge, I got two bucks discount per ticket, which made me feel so close to the company. The next tour would be half an hour away, we went to the cafe inside the museum and I ordered large latte for each of us and a sandwich for my niece-in-law. I had never known if I could have a discount at this cafe as an employee but did ask when I paid. Asking for my badge, the sales girl gave me 5 bucks discount, which was very deep. I was a little bit overwhelmed and more than happy to put 1 buck into their tip jar.
The tour was similar to the one I took my buddy at CUMT who came to Seattle to see me from Australia three years ago. My nephew and his wife were pretty attracted. At the end of the tour, the tour guide ended up with that famous phrase: "If it is not Boeing, I am not flying."
After the tour, we went down to the gallery for 15 minutes, then my nephew and his wife went up to observation deck while I went outside to wait for them. Looking at Paine Field, I still remembered the day we were observing 787 officially taking off. Though we had divorced for a couple of years then, my ex-wife and I sat in a car parked on a road close to the field to witness it together. Yes, it was everyone's excitement. Looking back from now, I realize we concluded our interesting life with a wonderful period at that moment of time. I can't deny it was a happy ending actually.
Arriving at Seattle Premium Outlets, we parked a couple of hundreds feet away from Ram because there were too many cars today. Walking into Ram Restaurants and Brewery, we just noticed the crowds waiting for the tables. Without the patience, we went over to McDonald's to have a quicker lunch. During the lunch, my nephew and I discussed about how to build up Multivariate Non-linear Regression Model for his project at BOE Technology Group Co. Ltd.
While waiting for them to shop, I appreciated a group of artists performing Chinese traditional musical instruments in front of the table by which I sat.
Later on, the performers started lion dancing from that point and paraded through the entire outlets, eventually ended back at food court. It's an amazing show.
My nephew bought some gifts for each of our family members to appreciate our hospitality, then we left for Space Needle. I had a big plan to buy them a memorable dinner at Skycity on top of the needle.
When we drove by Tulalip Casino, I heard very bothering noise spread from the bottom of the car lasting several seconds, then lost the control of the steering wheel. Parking along the road, I called my neighbor Dennis to consult. He figured a belt must be off to driving the system losing the power and thought he could fix it tomorrow. Since it was so close to the Casino, I decided to park the car in its parking lot, then called a cab at the front entrance. A very nice African drove a caravan as mine to pick us up.
On our way home, I had a very pleasant conversation with this young guy. He came from Ethiopia and lived in Edmonds. He enjoyed the life in Seattle and is studying nursing at Seattle North Community College. Since I knew the direction to our house so clearly, he didn't need to use GPS. While chatting with him, I thought it might be a wise decision to hire him to drop my nephew and his wife to the airport tomorrow morning. Because I normally didn't bring my laptop home, I would like to go to the office after dropping them at the airport to take care some urgent requests within 10 or 15 minutes, then bring my laptop back home. I made a deal with this driver when we arrived at our house. At that moment, I thought it might be a good idea to have a wife who could help under this circumstance with a second family car given my parents and son not driving. However, you can't expect to have a wife only for this purpose. Of course, Dennis had promised on the phone earlier he could do it if needed, however, I don't like to bother neighbors or friends for this kind of stuff.
Going over to talk to Dennis, I reached an agreement with him to have him driving me back to the Casino after lunch tomorrow, then he would replace the belt there. It sounded a piece of cake for him.
My son had waited for us to pick him up to go for a wonderful dinner but the broken car failed all of us today. I am seriously thinking to buy a new cheap small car while still keeping this big van. Anyway, I would spend the money prepared for a fancy dinner on cab fares and repairing cost tomorrow. Life is wonderful because you can experience new things everyday, no matter if is it pleasant or frustrating.
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