Saturday, 2012 August 18
A while back my wife signed us up for a "make your own" thing at a local glass blowing studio. I didn't think much of it until the day rolled around.
The glass studio was in Renton, WA. Renton is just a short drive from our house on the south side of Seattle. Krista had been there before and I had passed through but never really stopped. After going there, I was really impressed - despite being a good-sized city in its own right (over 90,000 people), the downtown area felt like a small town and was full of cool things to do.
The glass studio in question was Uptown Glassworks. We got there early but they didn't seem to mind. We were introduced to Tom, with 30 years of glass blowing experience. He walked us through the initial steps - picking a design and picking colors. Then he took us back into the glass blowing area and walked us through actually making the pieces. Obviously he did the parts that required skill, like shaping the glass, but we got to help a little bit. Everything went quickly and both of our finished pieces will turn out well, I believe. (Pictures will go up when we get them - it takes four days).
After that we headed up to McLendon Hardware. I needed some lumber for a little craft project Krista has been asking me to do. I tried to get the lumber at Lowe's, but it involves a 4x4 and really wanted to have the store make the cuts for me. Lowe's was a disappointment - they didn't have a chop saw and so couldn't cut a piece of lumber that big. McLendon, on the other hand, took care of it for me. Their selection and prices seemed good as well. Plus, what's not to like about a store that has both a hot dog stand and a Top Pot Doughnuts trailer out front selling food?
By now it was late enough that we were both feeling hungry. We had noticed The Berliner Pub across the street from Uptown Glassworks. Being a fan of both pub food and beer it got my vote for lunch and my wife agreed. The food was excellent (I had the chicken sandwich, my wife the blue cheeseburger); I would recommend the french fries rather than the house chips, though, as I thought they were clearly better. The beer list was entirely German and they offered a handful of German specialties in addition to basic pub food. The place had a good vibe and I'd definitely like to go back again.
Saturday, 2012 July 21 Thursday, 2012 August 30