Author: Willem

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Thursday/ mail from China 🇨🇳

Stamps (from South Africa) that I had bought in March (on Ebay) from a seller in China, showed up in my mailbox today.

The sender used a greeting card envelope with a preprinted red stamp on (far right).
The cancellation mark shows that the envelope was sent on June 14 from the city Anqing (pop. 4 million) in Anhui province.
Anqing is some 250 mi due east of Shanghai.
My name and address were very neatly written in print style.
At the end, a nice reminder for me as to how to write ‘USA’ in Chinese: 美国 Měi guó (or ‘Beautiful country’, literally translated).
Let’s take a closer look at the stamps:
Insects (II)  
From a set of 4 stamps issued Aug. 23, 2023 by China Post in the People’s Republic of China
Perf. 13 with syncopated perf. left and right edge (one larger hole) |40 x 30 mm |Offset lithography printing
Colnect Code:CN 2023.08.23-01 |80 分 (fēn) |Multi-colored |Atlas moth (Attacus Atlas)
Special Greeting Card Stamp
Issued Aug. 8, 2013 by China Post in People’s Republic of China
Perf. Die Cut 13½ x 13 with syncopated perf. left and right edge (one larger hole) |30 x 30 mm |Photogravure printing
Cat.Code Mi:CN 4501 |3 ¥ (yuan) |Multi-colored |Bamboo plant
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Wednesday/ a rough week 😵

It’s only Wednesday, and it’s been a rough week for the Biden campaign.
How long will this go on? This is not sustainable.

So far:
Nine House Democrats and one Democratic Senator have publicly called on President Biden to drop out of the presidential race;
Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker emerita, said this morning ‘The President needs to decide what to do’ and avoided expressing explicit support for him;
George Stephanopoulos (news anchor that interviewed Biden after the debate) appeared to say to a passer-by on a New York City street that he does not think Biden can serve four more years (per a video clip from TMZ);
Actor and filmmaker and Democratic fundraiser George Clooney calls for Biden to drop out, in a very direct and brutally honest op-ed for the New York Times.

Clooney writes in the op-ed: ‘But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate’.

This ‘Double-sided Big Head’ yard sign is from the Joe Biden campaign website ($25).
Biden with the laser eyes is called Dark Biden. Biden’s team has embraced “Dark Brandon,” reappropriating a right-wing conspiracy meme* that depicted the president as a menacing force and used a nickname, “Brandon,” that become an in-joke among conservatives for insulting him.

*meme \MEEM\ noun. an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media.

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Tuesday/ a crescent moon🌙

We had 97°F  (36°C) here in the city of Seattle today, record for this day on the calendar.
The sunny weather and clear skies will persist, but the high should come down by some 10°F (5.5°C) tomorrow.

Picture posted by Ted S. Warren @tedswarren on X. (I reduced the pixel size of the picture).
He says: ‘Thanks to a great heads-up from @NWSSeattle Sunday, I was able to get the crescent moon and Mercury in a frame looking west in Idaho’.
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Monday/ it’s hard to stop 🛑

.. being President of the United States*— or to collect stamps.
*President Biden sent a cease-and-desist letter of sorts to House Democrats today, telling them to support him in the election.

In the mean time it’s Christmas in July for me, because my latest two purchases from the UK landed on my porch today.

These are old labels used for registered letters or mail pieces in South Africa.
(Obsolete: printed barcodes without the sending city or town’s name on the label, are used nowadays).
I am still deciding if some of them will make it into one of my stamp albums.
Look for the label VERWOERD- BURG  1 at the bottom of the picture.
Verwoerdburg in Gauteng Province, now goes by Centurion. It was named for H.F. Verwoerd, prime minister of South Africa widely seen as the architect of apartheid. Verwoerd was assassinated in 1966.
Then there is TECOMA— not to be confused with Tacoma, Washington State 😁— a post office in East London, Eastern Cape Province, that has been permanently shuttered.
This is just part of a massive collection of mint issues from the 50s , 60s and 70s for South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia).
I have almost all of these already, but some in my album are used stamps with heavy cancellation marks, and I can add a few control blocks to my collection (four stamps with the margins from the original printed sheet).
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Sunday ☀️

The weather forecast now says the heat here in the city will top out on Tuesday at 95°F (35°C).
I like to take a picture or two of my hydrangea’s bloom every summer before the hot weather scorches the little flowers.

My hydrangea is almost in full bloom.
In South Africa, hydrangeas are typically in full bloom in December.
That’s why we call them ‘Krismisrose’ in Afrikaans, which translates to ‘Christmas roses’.
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Saturday/ 9 days, and still a crisis 🚨

I watched the much-anticipated George Stephanopoulos interview with President Biden, and thought: no, that won’t do it.
To the question “Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?” Biden’s answer was, “I don’t think I did, no.”
About getting out of the race, Biden offered “If the Lord Almighty came down and said: ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race”.  That does not do it for me, either.

Reporting from today’s The Washington Post.
This piece ends with the following:
The House returns to Washington on Monday, and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) is looking to rally fellow senators to call for a change. Multiple people publicly vouching for Biden, at the behest of the White House and campaign, privately say there’s no path.
His family is still with him. The race is still single digits. And Biden remains hopeful. As he likes to say, America can do anything if its people work together — “There’s not a single thing we can’t do.”
But in private, people around him have detected some shift. He admits the danger now, can sound more somber at times.
One person who spoke to him over the Fourth of July holiday said, “I think he is focused on recovering, but I personally think he’s still in the denial phase of grief.”
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Friday/ hot in the city 🔥

I don’t have an installed sprinkler system for my new lawn, so it’s the oscillating sprinkler or moi with a watering wand in hand that will keep the lawn watered.

 

It is hot – Seattle ‘hot’ – here in the city this weekend, with 87°F (30°C) today.

The highs are forecast to climb to 94°F (34°C) by Monday.

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Fourth of July 🗽

Happy Independence Day.

These are from my small collection of US stamps.
These coil stamps were still printed with engraved plates. Nowadays the vast majority of American-issued postage stamps are printed by using offset-lithography.

Flag Over US Supreme Court
Coil stamp Issued Dec.17, 1981
Perf. 10 vert. |Engraved |No Watermark
1895 A1281 20c Black, dark blue and red

Flag Over Capitol Dome
Coil stamp Issued Mar.29, 1985
Perf. 10 vert. |Engraved |No Watermark
2115 A1498 22c Blue, red and black

Flag Over Mt. Rushmore
Coil stamp Issued Mar.29, 1991
Perf. 10 vert. |Engraved |No Watermark
2523 A1878 29c Blue, red and claret
[Source: Scott 2003 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 1]

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Wednesday/ here’s the beer 🍻

Happy Wednesday.
Four amigos played a little pickleball late this morning, and afterwards we went for a beer and a bite in Columbia City.

This beer truck was parked across the street.
Some office workers are making it a long weekend, with the Fourth of July holiday falling on a Thursday this year.

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Tuesday/ here’s Wimbledon 🎾

Wimbledon 2024 is underway.
The world’s top tennis players are resplendent in their bright whites (no colored attire allowed), and their pimple-soled white grass court shoes.

On Monday, reigning Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz (🇪🇸, 21) took on qualifier Mark Lajal (🇪🇪, 21), and came out on top in straight sets 7-6(3), 7-5 and 6-2.

I was wrong about Djokovic (🇷🇸, 37) : he is in fact playing, with a knee brace (he had meniscus surgery on Jun. 6). In the first round he took out Vit Kopriva (🇨🇿, 27) with ease, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2.

Here are Alcaraz and Lajal, deadlocked at 6-6, and in the first set tiebreaker.
There is no kitchen* in tennis.
You can go right up to the net— as long as you have the reactions of a cat, and especially so if your opponent is up there as well.
Alcaraz does (have the reactions of a cat), and got his racquet on this hard ball from Lajal. It went up in the air, though, and Lajal put it out of his reach on the next shot.
That made it 3-3 in the tiebreaker, but then Alcaraz took four points in a row to close out the tiebreaker 7-3.
*A zone by the net from which volleying is forbidden
[Still from highlights of the match at wimbledon.com]
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Monday/ the Supreme Court rules, finally 😡

From the Washington Post staff:
Former presidents are immune from prosecution for their official actions taken while in the White House, but they don’t have immunity for unofficial acts, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.
“A former president is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his ‘conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,’ ” the ruling says. “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”
It seems highly unlikely that the 45th president will go to trial on charges of trying to subvert the 2020 election before voters cast ballots in this year’s presidential contest, in which Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.

So .. what is an ‘official act’, and what is not? The Supreme Court did not say and Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged it could raise “difficult questions.”

The reality is that this Supreme Court with its three Trump-appointed justices has already provided de facto immunity for Trump prior to the November election. The Court dragged its feet as long as it possibly could, before issuing this ruling, thereby delaying the start of Trump’s other three criminal trials (the Jan. 6 case, the documents case, and the Georgia election interference case) by at least six months.

Cartoon by Dennis Goris @DennisGoris on X.
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Sunday/ back to the city 🛳

Our weekend on Kitsap Peninsula was over, and we took the Bainbridge-Seattle ferry to get back to the city late this morning.

The Agate Pass Bridge (steel truss bridge built in the 1950s) on Highway 305 connects Kitsap Peninsula with Bainbridge Island.
Here is our departure from the Bainbridge Island Ferry Terminal. The new overhead pedestrian walkway for walk-on passengers (on the right, middle of picture) opened in February. The seismically safe steel-fortified walkway set on concrete and steel columns replaced a 50-year-old wood-supported walkway.
We could see this seagull’s nest from the ferry (in one of the terminal pillars) but it was hard to see all of the spotted chick/s in the nest.
Approaching the Emerald City and there is the rainbow flag on the Space Needle.
The annual Pride Parade was underway in downtown as we arrived at the Seattle ferry terminal.
This year is the 50th anniversary of the first Pride parade in Seattle in 1974.
🌈 Happy Pride!
A view of the city skyline from the lower car-deck on the ferry.
We sailed on Marine Vessel Tacoma. She is a Jumbo Mark II class ferry, constructed in 1997, and can accommodate 2,500 walk-on passengers and 202 vehicles.
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Saturday/ drive to Port Townsend 🏰

We drove up to Port Townsend from Hansville today— about an hour’s drive.

Port Townsend (pop. 10,148) is a city on the Quimper Peninsula (on the greater Olympic Peninsula) in Jefferson County. 
[From Wikipedia]
The view this morning from Hansville on the Kitsap Peninsula across Hood Canal at low tide. Across the canal is the Olympic Peninsula, with the Olympic mountains in the distance.
Crossing the Hood Canal Floating Bridge (constructed in 1961) to get to the Olympic Peninsula.
A quick stop at the Chimacum Corner farmstand and nursery, on the way to Port Townsend.
These are Sunny Days Ruby Echinacea, basking in the sun.
We stopped by Saturday’s farmer’s market in Port Townsend.
This little marina is by Sea J’s Cafe just south of Port Townsend’s downtown.
This is the beach at Point Hudson, with Whidbey Island in the distance.
The pebble and stone beach at Point Hudson also features a few uprooted trees and driftwood.
For thousands of years before the settlers came to Port Townsend, the S’Klallam (“strong”) people lived in villages along the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula.
These little wildflowers by Point Hudson are mallows (Malva sylvestris).
The Mount Baker Building in downtown Port Townsend was built in 1889 and renovated in 1999. It was sold in 2020 for $6.8 million.
At the time of its construction, negotiations were underway for the railroad to link Port Townsend to the rest of the country. Real estate price skyrocketed, the population of the town doubled, and Port Townsend dubbed itself “The Inevitable New York.” The railroad never arrived and the boom went bust. As a result, Port Townsend was left with many spectacular buildings and residences, some of which were never finished.
The James & Hastings Building with its carved stone trimmings from the Victorian era was built in 1889, and restored in the 1990s and early 2002.  It is at the corner of Tyler Street and Water Street.
The ornate N.D. Hill Building (constructed 1889) at 635 Water Street was designed by noted Seattle architect Elmer H. Fisher.
It is principally Italianate in design, but also shows Grecian and Romanesque influences.
Here is the elegant four-story Hastings Building at 839 Water Street— built in the Victorian style, and completed in 1890.
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Friday/ Mr Squirrel 🐿

Happy Friday.
I am on Kitsap Peninsula with my amigos.
Here’s a Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii) that looked down at us from its perch in a western hemlock (fir tree). These little brown squirrels are different from the Western gray squirrels we have in the city. 

Later on it sat on a tree down on the embankment, and we could see it from above (thanks to Bryan for the picture).

 

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Thursday/ about the debate 🤷‍♂️

‘Not to belabor the point, but this was a Biden campaign strategy, to have this debate’
– MSNC talk show host Alex Wagner to California governor Gavin Newsom, discussing President Biden’s poor— disastrous?—  debate performance that was painful to watch.

Governor Newsom pointed out that the Biden administration delivered on many of the Democratic Party’s priorities and that voters should not write off the Democrats based on one debate’s performance by President Biden.

Reporting by the New York Times.
‘You have the morals of an alley cat’ says Pres. Biden to Trump, after listing all Trump’s sex scandals and his conviction.
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Wednesday/ curbside charging ⚡️

The City of Seattle has set a goal to reduce transportation emissions by a whopping 83% by 2030.
Providing more public charging options for EVs is part of a comprehensive portfolio of transportation electrification investments.

This wood pole charger on 15th Ave East on Capitol Hill is one of the first batch of 24 such chargers that had been installed around the city. These chargers are open to the public, available on a first-come, first-served basis and cannot be reserved. 
A Tesla supercharger* it is NOT: these are Level 2 EV chargers that can charge at rates up to 9.6 kilowatts (kW). Fast chargers in off-street locations such as parking lots can charge up to 50 or 60 kW. 
*Most V3 Tesla superchargers can charge at rates up to 250 kW.
The charging rate is $0.21/kWh.
Let’s do the math:
For an Electric Vehicle (EV)
To ADD 30 mi of range to a small EV, it takes about 1 hr of charging at 9.6 kWh.
Therefore $0.21/kWh x 9.6 kW x 1hr comes to $2.02.
For an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE)
In Seattle, gas is close to $5/gal.
Let’s say a compact ICE car gets 30 mpg.
To ADD 30 mi of range to the ICE car, it would need 1 gallon.
Therefore 1 gallon x $5/ gal comes to  $5.00.
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Tuesday/ mild weather ☀️

There were more scenes of devastation from flooding, and from damaging winds, in the Midwest, on the news tonight.
We are counting our blessings here in the Pacific Northwest, thankful for the mild summer weather we have had so far.
There was a high of 79 °F (26 °C) today, and temperatures will only reach 70°F (21 °C) tomorrow.

Here’s 7.42 pm today with 15th Ave East up ahead, on Capitol Hill.
Look at the blue sky reflected from the parked cars.
Sunset is still some 90 minutes away, now at 9.11 pm.
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Monday/ direct flights to Africa 🌍

Airbus has released the results of a study that documents which air routes to African cities are underserved (extracts from the report below).

Factors at play are constraints on the number of flights due to bilateral agreements that are in place, challenges with capacity at airports, and economic variables such as the profitability of these routes.

Just in general, Airbus reports that the expectation is for air travel worldwide to increase by about 4.1% over the next 20 years, which would mean some 1,180 new aircraft need to be built, and 15,000 additional pilots would be needed.

It looks like Johannesburg is seen by Airbus to be adequately served by direct flights from Europe, but that a few more direct flights from Europe to Cape Town should be added.
Is it technically possible to fly direct from Seattle to Cape Town (10,200 miles)? I’m not sure it is. Maybe.
From cabinzero.com, as of Aug. 2023: At the moment, the world’s longest nonstop flight is the route between New York and Singapore. With a calculated distance of 15,349 km (9,537 miles) and almost 19 hours of flying, the route operated by Singapore Airlines is the longest in the world.

 

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Sunday/ taking the crown at Queens 👑

Tommy Paul (🇺🇸, 27) played spectacular tennis today in London to beat Lorenzo Musetti  (🇮🇹, 22 ) in the men’s final of the 2024 Queen’s Club Championships.

The qualifying tournament for Wimbledon starts tomorrow, and the main tournament starts Jul 1.
Carlos Alcaraz (🇪🇸, 21 ) is the favorite to win the men’s 2024 Wimbledon crown —even though he was not at his best here; he lost in the quarter-final at Queens, against Jack Draper (🇬🇧, 22).
Novak Djokovic (🇷🇸, 37) had knee surgery just two weeks ago— and I don’t believe he will play.
Rafael Nadal (🇪🇸, 38 ) has already confirmed that he will not play at Wimbledon this year, so that he can better compete in the 2024 Olympics.

That’s a king-sized trophy, for sure!
Tommy Paul will see his ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) ranking improve to No 13 come Monday, making him the new top US men’s player on the circuit.
[Post from Queen’s Club Championships on Instagram]
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Saturday/ new digs 🏡

I like to peek into the new townhomes that appear around Capitol Hill when I go for a walk.

Here’s the first floor of the model townhome, one of 12 built in two blocks of six, at Capitol Hill’s 13th Ave E and E Roy St.
Prices range from $900,000 (2 bed, 2 bath, 1,195 sq ft) to $1,285,000 (2 bed, 2 bath, 1,930 sq ft).
This building is in a great location but one would have to be able to afford it— and accept features such as the galley kitchen (on the left, at the back of the first floor), and the flights of stairs connecting the three floors.
Reflected in the window from across the street is 1910 landmark building The Maryland, a co-op with 20 units. Right next The Maryland it another 5-story building is under construction.
The open space between the two buildings will feature lovely. I love this cute woolly thyme ground cover plants. Maybe I’ll get some for my own yard. It looks like I will have to find a spot with ‘full sunlight’, though.