New Years at the Needle 2009

This year's fireworks display went much better than last year's. The fireworks actually went off this time.

The GF and I watched the fireworks engulf the Space Needle from my balcony while we sipped fake champagne we bought at Target. She described, the taste as, "Not awful," which is pretty high praise considering she doesn't really care for wine or champagne, it wasn't real champagne, and it was form Target.

After we watched the live bursts, we watched it again on TiVo. Now we got to hear the music playing with fireworks. They used popular movie themes like Star Wars, ET, Lion King, and more. It led up to the big show stopping number that played through the climax of the show. And what did they come up with?

Cabaret.

So to celebrate the arrival of 2009 at this icon -- and set tone for the new year, what type of song should the celebration folks choose?

How about one saracastically celebrating the way to live life waning days of a dying republic, as a wave of antisemitsim sweeps through the land, and the Nazi party gradually gains power? Nothing like a seedy nigh club theme in days of hyper inflation that would ultimately drive the people into the arms of one of histories cruelest dictatos. Dark clouds gather on the horizon.

What better way to welcome the new year?

Putting aside the music, these are a few of the picture I took. I shot these using a 2 second timer, 3 second exposure, F22, with a focal length of 133 mm. Two of them are ISO 400, the last image is ISO 280. I'm still trying to get a feel for the best settings for fireworks. I don't get to practice very often.

But all it all, it was a pleasant evening.