city of subdued excitment

Bellingham is officially unofficially known as the "city of subdued excitement" - look it up on wikipedia if you don't believe me.  I guess i haven't lived here long enough to know what that means.  We do have a music festival in the late summer called "The Subdued Stingband Jamboree" - they must be related.

Today at dinner, Rowan was trying to figure out how many people lived here in Bellingham and how that compared to the number of people who live in China (she is "studying" China in school - as much as a preschooler can study anything).  Eric and I, the math geeks that we are, figured out that if you place all the people in China (approx 1 billion) shoulder to shoulder, that they would fill the entire city of Bellingham (approx 32 square miles).  How's that for subdued excitement?  Rowan wasn't impressed either.