Month: March 2023

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Saturday/ Westlake & Lenora 🚋

Here are a few pictures from along Westlake Avenue and Lenora Street.

We still don’t know what will happen to the Cinerama movie theater, even though it’s been more than three years since Paul Allen had passed away.
The swank new apartment building on Lenora Street is The Modern.
Sample rents:
1 bed, 1 bath, 499 sq ft: $2,791 – $2,986.
3 beds, 2 baths, 1,666 sq ft – $8,830.

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Friday/ pitching in 🌧🎾

The Indian Wells Open (BNP Paribas Open) tennis tournament is underway in California.

Friendly fans pitched in to help dry the court tonight, after a burst of rain early in the evening. I like those spongy squeegees— they will come in handy for drying up the tennis courts here in Seattle.

It’s a team effort in Stadium 4 to get the courts dry. An official coaches some fans using the squeegee rollers.  The rain interrupted the match between Denis Shapovalov (age 24, Canada) and Ugo Humbert (23, France). In the end Shapovalov prevailed 7-5 6-4.
[Still from a video clip posted by Bailey Arredondo @BaileyKESQ on Twitter]
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Thursday/ war and peace ✌

This poster on a lamp post calls for Peace in Ukraine, a cause which we can all support— but when one takes a closer look, it quickly gets very complicated.
Yes, the US should not have invaded Iraq in March 2003.
Does that mean the US should also not supply weapons to Ukraine? Only food and shelter with heat, now that all the cities are getting destroyed by Russia’s invasion?
I don’t think so.

There’s a logo at the bottom of the poster that says ‘Party for Socialism and Liberation’. Is that an American political party? Yes.
Wikipedia: The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a communist party in the United States, established in 2004.
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Wednesday/ a geodesic dome 🗻

The New York Times posted pictures shared by their readers in California, of the snow there. I like this one.

A geodesic dome in the Santa Cruz mountains. The snowpack in the vast Sierra Nevada mountain range is the deepest it’s been in decades, exceeding 200% of the normal snowpack depth in some areas.
[Photo by Karrie Gaylord]
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Tuesday/ around the Sound ⛴

I tagged along with Bryan and Gary to Hansville on Kitsap Peninsula today.
We did the usual drive-around south of Puget Sound across the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge by Gig Harbor, and then came back across the Sound on the Kingston ferry.
The Space Needle picture was a telephoto lens shot (on my big camera, not the phone) from I-5 South, looking across Lake Union.

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Monday/ not too late for a worm 🪱

‘Early bird catches the worm’
– Proverbial saying first recorded in English in 1605

Mr Robin* found an earthworm on my front lawn this afternoon, and promptly made a meal of it.
Robins can actually eat as many as a dozen earthworms in a single day.

*American robin (Turdus migratorius)

 

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Sunday/ downtown 🏢

I took the No 10 bus to downtown, and here are a few pictures.

On the No 10 bus and Approaching the stop at Pine At & 9th Ave.
Hello to the red Tesla Model 3 (it’s a 2022 model).
John Mellencamp (he’s 71) is coming to the Paramount Theatre. It made me look up and play ‘Hurt So Good’ on YouTube. 😁
We now have our own Uniqlo* clothing store here in downtown Seattle, in the Macy’s building (there have long been Uniqlo stores in Southcenter Mall and in Bellevue Square).
*Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer.
The Terminal Sales Building on 1st Avenue is an 11-story historical landmark designed in a terra cotta and brick Gothic-inspired mode by architect Henry Birman.
Built in 1923 in an open loft format, it served as a sales and display warehouse that serviced department stores in Seattle’s retail core for decades.
[From website historylink.tours]
Here’s the windows of the Patagonia store (outdoor clothing and gear). Hanford is a site in southeast Washington State where 9 nuclear reactors had been built during World War II and the Cold War to produce plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program. To date 6 of the 9 reactors have been cocooned (sealed off). Cocooning lasts for 75 years, and allows radiation levels to decay to a safer level for future dismantling and disposal. Leaks of radioactive material have already occurred, though. Every now and then there seems to be another exposé on King5 TV about the challenges with the cleanup of Hanford. During the World War II and Cold War years, the site’s focus was on plutonium production. Now, efforts are geared at cleanup of one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the world.
The corner of Virginia St and 1st Avenue is the site of a bistro and full bar today.
I see on Google Maps that the State Route 99 tunnel’s route happens to run by right below it.
Here’s Second Avenue between Pike & Pine. The brown building on the left is going to demolished at some point not too far into the future to make way for a 46-story, 531-unit apartment building with retail stores.
The State Hotel building on Second Avenue was constructed in 1904 by the Eitel brothers David and Fred, and called the Eitel building. It was renovated in 2017-19 at a cost of $16 million.
I had dawdled too long on Second Avenue, and here comes my No 10 bus rushing by— the one that was supposed to take me home. I ended up walking back to Capitol Hill !
Welp. The sun’s gone again, and it’s getting cold. Time to go home.
The site of the erstwhile Starbucks on Olive Way now has fencing and barbed wire to keep the riffraff out.
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Saturday/ a locomotive 🚂

Yesterday’s envelope with my stamps had this 1987 stamp on the outside.

In 1839, a big locomotive was ordered by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, with the specification that the engine burn anthracite coal in a horizontal boiler. The result was the Gowan & Marx, one of the most famous locomotives ever built. Extraordinary tractive power was generated by the 42-inch driving wheels.
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Friday/ the Big Five 🦏🐃 🦁 🐆 🐘

It was dark by the time the mailman came today, but he dropped an envelope with a bunch of stamps I had ordered from a seller in California.
So it was all worth the wait.

The Big Five* (Rhinoceros, Buffalo, Lion, Leopard and Elephant) is a very popular and recurring theme on South African stamps and barely a year or two goes by, before yet another set of stamps with The Big Five on them is issued. The strip of Big Five animal stamps at the top of the picture is from 1996, and the ones in the foreground are from 1998.
*Must-see animals to spot when going on safari in southern Africa
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Thursday/ here comes the EDV 📦

Rivian has delivered some 1,000 electric delivery vehicles (EDVs) to Amazon since July of last year— for deliveries in cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, San Diego and here in Seattle.
This is only the start: the goal is for Rivian to deliver 100,000 of the EDVs to Amazon.

Amazon-branded delivery vehicle by Rivian, parked on 19th Avenue here on Capitol Hill.
The headlights are in hazard mode, flashing on and off. It’s a matter of form following function for the truck. It is not sleek and sporty, but it has spacious cabin and cargo areas, superior visibility with the wrap-around windshield, automatic emergency braking, 360-degree cameras, and ventilated seats for fast heating and cooling. It goes 150 miles on a full charge.

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Wednesday/ getting a charge🪫

When I go to Elysian’s Capitol Hill brewery, I check the out the vehicles at the Electrify America charging station across from it.
Tonight there was a Volvo XC40 Recharge compact SUV and a Rivian R1T pickup truck (Montana plates) getting a charge.

The Electrify America charging station off Madison Street (it has 4 charging bays). Website Elektrek reports that there are currently more than 160,000 EV chargers in the United States (charging bays). They project that the United States will need to quadruple the number of public EV chargers between into 2025, and double that again by 2030, to meet the charging needs of EVs— even taking home charging into account.