Puget Sound

The United States' second largest salt water estuary after Chesapeake Bay. Named after Peter Puget, it is a deep water, island strewn inlet (fjord) of the Pacific Ocean flanked by two mountain ranges. Located in the state of Washington, Puget Sound is an active body of water where leisure boats wander amidst cargo ships arriving and departing, while ferries cross back and forth between cities. Cities on the Puget Sound include, Bellingham, Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and Bremerton. Puget Sound has an abundance of wildlife, some of which is threatened, including the endangered orca (killer whale). The Puget Sound region is the most populous region of the Pacific Northwest.

Puget Sound (pronounced PYEW-jit). When it is not cloudy, mostly cloudy, partly cloudy, foggy, misting, showering, raining or overcast grey, Mt. Rainier and the Olympic Range are visible from Seattle's Elliot Bay on the Puget Sound.

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yupster

A professional working hipster. Yupsters are generally in their middle 30's to very early 40's. At the leading edge of Generation X, yupsters came of age during the first wave of indie rock and hip hop. Informed by their teenage-twentysomething, DIY, cheap and chic style, yupsters have incorported their edgier pasts into a new form of an extended youth culture of hip clothes, avante rock, indie hop and creative class professions. Yupsters have successfully opened sleek boutique hotels, cool bodegas, retro diner style restaurants, vintage clothing stores, kitschy bric-a-brac retail spaces, tongue-in-cheek bars and lounges, haute hair salons, trendy record stores and labels, hip coffee bars and bakeries, plush pet shops and ironic graphic and design firms. Other yupsters are employed by corporations that are drawn to the creative talents of a casually styled, slightly aged, still youngish, urban workforce. Yupsters live everywhere, but in the United States, they tend to gravitate to the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. Yupsters who have children fashion them to look stylish and trendy (e.g., skater, mod, late 1970's). Yupsters who have pets adorn them with trendy collars and accesories (e.g., modernist collars and couture pet bags). Yupsters who drive, own vehicles that range from the modern and savvy Volkswagen Passat, Mini Cooper or Vespa to the well kept, vintage Volvo or Vespa. Yupsters define their style by combining the high and low of the vintage and modern. A yupster would deny being a yupster for fear of questioning originality, admitting to ridiculous hair and aging into middle age.

I realized I was a yupster when my friends and I opened up a hip bodega in an old storefront. We sell PBR alongside Veuve Clicquot, imported cigarettes, organic produce, free range meat and snacks from Mexico, Germany and Japan. We hired a DJ to play nostalgia music from the 1950's on Wednesday afternoons and another to play no wave and hip hop on Friday evenings. Our delicatessen is open late and features macaroni and chesse, Indonesian street food, Southern-fried chicken and burritos. Our bodega has a Myspace.com account.

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