a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
The nationwide toy store franchise Toys-R-Us is in trouble and is said to be closing or selling all of its stores soon. (Aw. I like Toys-R-Us). The company just has too much debt, and this dates back to before competition from Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart all took their toll.
So I made a run to the store here in the area today, and bought a giant box of special Only-at-Toys-R-Us Lego bricks, for myself, of course.(‘Age 5-99’ said the box, and I fall in that age range, see?).
It was a beautiful sunny, blue-sky day (61° F/ 16°C), and I hopped onto the Bremerton ferry, to go check out the marina there, and the Navy Museum. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bremerton Annex of Naval Base Kitsap.
I walked by a new condo development here on Capitol Hill this afternoon, and wondered what was there before. It turns out there was a stately 1901 home there with triangles and bay windows – which will now become boxes and rectangles.
I saw ‘Black Panther’ (more about it later) in the IMAX theater here in the Pacific Science Center today.
The Pacific Science Center was designed by Minoru Yamasaki for the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, and housed the United States Science Pavilion. It is located right by the city’s iconic Space Needle.
Yamasaki was born in Seattle in 1912, a second-generation immigrant. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1934, and became a very successful architect with his own firm in Seattle.
He was the architect of two prominent buildings in downtown Seattle: the IBM Building (1963) and Rainier Bank Tower (1977). His firm won the contract to design the St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project in 1953, but the project ended in disaster. It was a big setback for his firm and for his reputation.
This utility box from my walk on Sunday, reminded me of the 8½-foot mammoth tusk discovered right here in the city, in South Lake Union, in February 2014.
The water-logged tusk was put in a protective plaster cast, carefully removed from the soil and taken to the local Burke Museum of Natural History.
It belonged to a Columbian mammoth. These were the largest of the mammoths that roamed around in North America during the last Ice Age – as recently as 11,000 years ago. They reached 13 ft/ 4m in height at the shoulders, and weighed up to 22,000 lbs/ 10 tonnes.
These pictures are from my on Sunday afternoon walk-about to check out the construction projects in downtown and South Lake Union.
There is another dusting of snow on the ground tonight. The city of Seattle gets an inch (or more) of snow in February, in about 1 out of 4 years .. so looks like this would be one of those years.
Thu morning 2/22: My unofficial ‘snow gauge’ shows that an amount just shy of 1 ½ in of snow, fell on Wednesday night.
We had a little sleet and snow mix here in the city today – somewhat unusual for February – and the temperature only went up to 38 °F/ 3°C. There was bright sun with clear blue skies in the afternoon. I ventured out for a walk, but the icy wind made me turn around and go home after a few blocks.
‘The Wave’ is one of a few newly constructed buildings close by Century Link Field (football field) south of Seattle’s Pioneer Square district.
The Wave has a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. The studios start at $1,500 a month, and the two-bedrooms can run up to $6,000 a month, depending on the floor space. The Amtrak station with trains south to Portland and north to Vancouver is right there by these buildings, as is the light rail station to Seatac airport and elsewhere in the city.
We spotted a Tesla Model 3 across the street while we were having a beer and a bite at Elysian Capitol Hill Brewery on Saturday night. It’s amazing how much smaller in size, just 11 inches in length can make a car look (185″ long vs. 196″ for the Model S). I liked the styling and the lines on the Model 3 a lot.
It’s still a number of weeks before it is officially spring here in the northern hemisphere, but my potted plants at the back of my house are already flowering.
The colors are very welcome – and I even spotted a hummingbird hovering at the yellow mahonia.
The Seattle Times report that the Amazon biospheres are finally ready. They will open on Monday for Amazon workers to use. The spheres are not open to the public. (Aw). The dead-of-winter days are so deprived of sunlight in Seattle, that is probably beneficial to go into the spheres just to catch some extra light, even if it is artificial.
The Amazon Go store here in downtown Seattle opened today to the public (required for entry: an Amazon account and a phone with the Amazon Go app). I still have to go and check it out.
The main store concept is that there are no check-out lines. There are hundreds of cameras in the ceiling, sensors on the shelves, and bluetooth beacons in the store, to track and update what is taken as the shopper goes through the store. As far as I can tell there are no physical carts that one pushes through the store (I don’t see any in pictures from inside the store). The shopper brings a carry bag/ shoulder bag to put items directly into. So this is smaller volume and higher-end grocery shopping than at say, one’s traditional grocery store.
There was a break in the rain today, and so I took the streetcar to the International District. I took a few pictures at Hing Hay Park, and browsed around in the Kinokuniya bookstore (Japanese).
By then another big band of rain clouds were passing over the city, though, and I got a little wet before I made it home.
I went marching again today (here is 2017), joining friends in the Seattle’s Women’s March (protesting the Trump Administration).
We were not as plentiful as last year’s 100,000+ marchers; the crowd size estimated to have been around 40,000. It was cold and rainy, and the weather might have been a factor. Some 300,000 people packed the streets in Chicago, and 120,000 in New York City. And in Austin and Dallas, Texas, the crowds were larger than last year.
It was a beautiful, crisp, sunny day here in the northwest corner of the United States (56 °F/ 13 °C). I made my way down to Pike Place Market and the waterfront and bought a book at a second-hand book store there. Where are you from? inquired the owner. ‘Oh – South Africa’ I said, simply. My camera bag completed my appearance as an international tourist.
P.S. It’s a white Christmas in Seattle, with an inch or two of snow falling overnight in the city. White Christmases are rare in Seattle, but in 2008 four inches of snow blanketed the city on Christmas Day.
There was a thick fog hanging in the city this morning, but it was dry, and the sun came out later.
Deadlines have to be met, and time costs money – so construction on the new downtown Seattle buildings soldiers on, regardless of the season. The crews do take a break on Sundays, and then I can go check on their progress. Here are two buildings near Westlake Avenue and Denny Way.
I replaced just about all the light bulbs inside my house with light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs this year. It’s amazing: a tungsten-filament bulb that used to run at 60 Watt, can now be replaced with one that run only at 9 W! This is much better still, than the 13 W for compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. General Electric is now stopping production of domestic CFL lamps in favor of LEDs.
So for Christmas lights, many home-owners can now install strings of LED lights as well. Yes, these cost more to purchase, but a lot less to operate. (Every year we see reports of home-owners that set up displays with 100,000 bulbs or more, and that ‘borrow’ electricity from their neighbors to power it all up). LEDs also last longer than traditional incandescent glass lights, and are a safer light source since the bulbs do not get as hot, and are made of epoxy, not glass.
