My plane arrived in the evening, and I went out immediately to start taking photos of the city. Just as I was getting into a groove, I received a text to come over to Neal Stephenson's house to help build a unique steampunk BBQ Grill. To this, I cannot say no.

So I arrived and then spent about four hours with Neal, Chris Young (master chef who wrote Modernist Cuisine), Nels Peterson (paleontologist++), and a few other people to build a crazy BBQ setup. Neal has this crazy BBQ every year and they try to do something off-the-wall. For this one, instead of spinning the pig over the fire, it was decided that the fire should spin around the outside of the pig.

Many hours later, the creation was assembled, and we turned it on to watch the giant columns of metal begin to spin around the central base. It felt a little like a wormhole generator that would enable fully-cooked pigs to come into our world.

Then, the next day, when the BBQ officially started... here is a photo of the festivities. You can see Neal there in the middle, looking like his usual inscrutable self.

Seattle, Washington