Simulating Seattle winters
If anyone peruses this who has not yet lived in Seattle, try this experiment to see if you would like the winters here:
Put a thick layer of translucent gray plastic over all of your windows in your house. At 4:15 pm (or at least no later than 5:30, given that 4:15 is about the earliest sundown in the middle of winter) close all of your blinds and draw your curtains, do not open them until about 8:30am the next day (no, we don't do this in Seattle, but it's to give you an idea of how little sunlight you'll see)
Get a humidifier and run that sucker until the house gets really dank and musty, but keep the heat low (or, if it's summer, turn the AC to about 65).
Watch the movie 2001 a Space Odyssey at least once a day (for some reason, Seattle reminds me of that movie, dim light, slow pace, very little dialog).
Try that for 2 weeks and then imagine living like that for about 5 months of the year.