Category: Seattle

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Thursday/ Amazon is making waves 🌊

Amazon is laying off 16,000 employees. That’s on top of 14,000 that were let go in October.
The company is America’s second-largest private employer, behind Walmart. It has over 350,000 corporate employees, so these recent rounds of cuts represent about 9% of the company’s overall office staff.

Amazon also announced just this week that they are closing all of their Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh grocery stores. (The Whole Foods franchise stays put and will be expanded. Grocery delivery for orders placed online will continue as usual).

Finally, there is the troublesome matter of Amazon foisting a documentary about First Lady Melania Trump on America.
Oy, Amazon. What the hell?

Here is what Nicole Sperling and Brooks Barnes write for the New York Times about it:
The film’s rollout is huge — a $35 million marketing campaign that includes television commercials during N.F.L. playoff games and a premiere simulcast in 25 theaters in the United States.
Starting Friday, the film hits 3,300 theaters worldwide.
Amazon’s all-hands-on-deck handling of “Melania,” follows Melania Trump, the first lady, in the days leading up to her husband’s second inauguration.
Ms. Trump produced the film, which was directed by Brett Ratner, who has not made a movie since 2017, when multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct. He has denied those accusations.
Amazon paid Ms. Trump’s production company $40 million for the rights to “Melania,” about $26 million more than the next closest bidder, Disney.

The front page of today’s Seattle Times.
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Wednesday/ rain ☔

Dry January has come to an end, with rain last night and today— about a quarter inch here in the city today.
There will be more on Thursday and Friday.

The cloud cover made for elevated temperatures as well: 48 °F (9 °C) in the morning, with a high of 52 °F (11 °C).

Three amigos ran out to Rookies Sports Bar and Grill (on the right) on Ferdinand St in Columbia City.
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Sunday/ Super Bowl-bound 🏈

Sam Darnold threw three touchdown passes, and the Seattle Seahawks outlasted the Los Angeles Rams 31-27 in a thrilling NFC (National Football Conference) Championship Game on Sunday to advance to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 2014 season.
They will face the New England Patriots on Feb. 8 in a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX.
– Nate Atkins and Michael-Shawn Dugar reporting in The Athletic in the New York Times

That’s Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold, speaking into the microphone.
Darnold has been with the Seattle Seahawks only since March 2025. He signed a multi-year contract after his strong 2024 season with the Minnesota Vikings.
To the right of Darnold, his face hidden somewhat behind his clapping hands, is Seahawks head coach Mike McDonald (age 38), himself hired just the year before in January 2024.
In just two seasons, Macdonald took a 9-8, middling team to 14 regular season wins and a Super Bowl berth.
[Headline from the Seattle Times. Photo by Nick Wagner/ Seattle Times]
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Saturday/ sunny and cold ❄

This January here in the city, has now seen a record-setting stretch of over 10 consecutive days without rain.
Every day has been sunny and cold, and the massive storm system playing out in the rest of the country is also passing us by.

Late afternoon, I ventured out for a quick walk (39 °F/ 4°C).
The ’12’ flag is up on top of the Space Needle.
(The 12 represents the “12th Man” —a tribute to the dedicated fans of the Seattle Seahawks NFL team.)

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Friday/ Japanese postmarks 🗾

Happy Friday.
It is a major sports weekend for Seattle— the Seahawks face the Los Angeles Rams this Sunday for the NFC Championship and a spot in Super Bowl LX.

I spent a lot of time this week sorting the hundreds of loose stamps I had bought in Tokyo, by year.  Here are some ones with nice postmarks and a sports theme.

International Table Tennis Championships, Tokyo
Issued by Japan Post, Apr. 2, 1956
Perf. 13¼ x 13½ |Litho. |National Printing Bureau
618 A369 |10 yen |red-brown |Table tennis players
Postmarked 31.4.5 which means 1956 April 5.
The 31 refers to the 31st year of Emperor Hirohito’s reign (1925 + 31 = 1956).
Softball at 33rd National Athletic Meet, Nagano Prefecture
Issued by Japan Post, Oct. 14, 1978
Perf. 12¾ x 13 |Litho. |National Printing Bureau
1348 A938 |20 yen |multi-colored |Softball Players and Mt Yari
Postmarked 59.7.3 (let’s say) which means 1984 July 3.
The 59 refers to the 59th year of Emperor Hirohito’s reign (1925 + 59 = 1984).
Badminton at 36th National Athletic Meet, Nagano Prefecture
Issued by Japan Post, Oct. 13, 1981
Perf. 12¾ x 13 |Litho. |National Printing Bureau
1485 A1064 | 40 yen |multi-colored |Badminton player and Lake Biwa
Postmarked 86.2.6 8-12 which means 1986 Feb. 6 8am-12 noon
The 86 now refers to the Gregorian calendar year 1986.
Handball at 40th National Athletic Meet, Tottori City Sports Arena
Issued by Japan Post, Oct. 19, 1985
1665 A1233 | 40 yen |multi-colored |Handball Player and Mt Daisen
Postmarked 89.6.21 12-18 which means 1989 Jun.21 12 noon- 6pm (Chofu is a city in Tokyo prefecture)
The 89 now refers to the Gregorian calendar year 1989.
[Sources: 2021 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue Vol. 4A, stampworld.com]
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Friday/ an orca show 🦈

Manuel Valdes writes for The Associated Press:
With breaches and tail slapping, a pod of orcas put on a show near Seattle on Friday.
The close encounter attracted dozens of people to the shore of the West Seattle neighborhood. Whale watchers identified the pod as Bigg’s killer whales, a group that hunts sea mammals and lives in the Salish Sea. The pod was seemingly hunting.

An orca whale breaches the surface of the water off Seattle on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. The whale was part of a pod that swam by the West Seattle neighborhood, attracting onlookers to shore.
[AP Photo/Manuel Valdes]
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Thursday/ happy birthday 🎉

Three of my amigos have birthdays this week.
We went out for something to eat and drink at Bai Tong Thai Street Cafe on Capitol Hill’s Pike Street.
The food was great. After the table was cleared, the staff came out with a cake and props, and delivered a rowdy rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’.

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Thursday/ another day at sea 🌊

The Diamond Princess was still plying her way through the waters of the South China Sea towards the port of Cam Ranh today.
We are due in at 7 am in the morning.

The plaques with artwork on them are from the walls on the Promenade Deck. They commemorate the dates when the Diamond Princess called ports around the world.

The inaugural call for the Port of Seattle was May 29, 2004. This is the very year she was delivered from the shipyard of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Tokyo, Japan to the cruise line.

The other two plaques are from Nha Trang. (Passenger cruise ships stopped calling directly at Nha Trang’s main port starting around late September 2024. The pier was closed for urgent repairs and safety issues, forcing cancellations and rerouting to alternatives like Cam Ranh Port. Some ships are scheduled for returns for 2026 after the completion of the repairs.)

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Saturday night/ at Haneda airport 🛬

We arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda airport at 6.25 pm Saturday night local time (well past midnight, Friday night Seattle time).

It’s 9 hrs 45 mins from Seattle to Tokyo, crossing the International Date Line (IDL) flying westward.
There are two methods to calculate the arrival time in Tokyo:
Method A
Depart Seattle Friday 15.40 pm
Fly 9 hrs 45 mins
Arrive Seattle Saturday 1.25 am
Arrive Tokyo Saturday 6.25 pm (Tokyo time = Seattle time +17 hrs)
Method B
Depart Seattle Friday 15.40 pm
Arrive Tokyo 6.25 pm
Is it Friday or Saturday in Tokyo?
It’s Saturday (+1 day) because the IDL was crossed flying west to east
Our All Nippon Airlines ‘Inspiration of Japan’ Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner after arriving at the gate at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. There was a steady rain as we taxied in from the runway.
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Wednesday/ welcome home, sailors 🗺️

Aircraft carrier USS Nimitz* returned to her home port in Bremerton yesterday after a 9-month deployment— her very last one, after being in service for 50 years.

*Named after World War II Pacific fleet commander Chester W. Nimitz, USN, (1885–1966), who was the Navy’s third fleet admiral.

The stills below are from a video posted on kitsap.com.

From navytimes.com:
The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier docked in its homeport of Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington, on Tuesday for what is scheduled to be its final visit there. The Nimitz returned from a nine-month deployment to the U.S. 3rd, 5th and 7th Fleets that began March 21 when it set sail from Kitsap.

“We have traveled more than two-thirds of this planet during this nine-month deployment, and I cannot overstate the positive impact Nimitz Strike Group has made as part of our mission to maintain peace through strength by sustaining credible deterrence alongside our allies and partners,” said Rear Adm. Fred Goldhammer, commander of Carrier Strike Group 11, according to a release.

The world’s oldest aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1975 with a service lifespan of 50 years, is set to return to Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, in 2026 and be decommissioned.

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Monday/ more rain ☔

The rain has started again, and there was a failure in the levee alongside the Green River in Tukwila at around 11:30 a.m.

King County emergency officials sent out a warning of ‘life threatening flash flooding’ for the nearby low-lying area of some 46,000 residents.
There were no injuries as a result of the breach, though. Soon thereafter the area under threat was narrowed down and involved only about 1,100 people, who were urged to evacuate.
The county’s flash flood warning ended by 6.30 pm.

A crew moves sandbags into a gap where a levee was breached along the Green River in Tukwila on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025.
From the Seattle Times:
Repairs were underway for the breached levee and were expected to be done Monday evening, said John Taylor, director of the county’s Department of Natural Resources and Parks. But the risk isn’t over. Whole sections of the levees were soaked through after more than a week of heavy rain and high river levels. Already other spots were seeing water seeping through, and county officials expected to monitor the structure through the coming days, with even more rain in the forecast.
[Photo by Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times]
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Sunday/ The Nutcracker, at large 🎄

From the ‘At Home in the Northwest’ supplement to the Seattle Times
[Photo by Jiajing Grygriel]
From the ‘At Home in the Northwest’ supplement to the Seattle Times
[Photo by Jiajing Grygriel]
Jiajing Grygriel writes for this Sunday’s ‘At Home in the Northwest’ supplement to the Seattle Times:

The mail carrier slows his van down to a crawl and gapes. “Is that you folks’ statue?” he hollers out the window. “This is amazing. I love it so much!”

A jaw drop is the typical response for people passing by this storybook home in Ballard. The 1936 house looks straight out of the pages of a fairy tale, with its steeply pitched roof, rustic stone chimney and turreted entryway.

During the holiday season, it’s decked out in Nutcracker figures designed by Maurice Sendak, of “Where the Wild Things Are” fame.

Pacific Northwest Ballet commissioned Sendak to design original art for “The Nutcracker,” which ran from 1983 to 2014.

It was Seattle’s own wild rumpus, a one-of-a-kind “Nutcracker” production.

A 15-foot-tall figurine stands at the end of the driveway. In the front yard and on the deck are three small nutcrackers and two rats – and by small, we mean 8 feet tall.

Three original Sendak ornaments hang in a nearby tree.

It’s the 11th year John Carrington and Scott McElhose have displayed the Sendak Nutcracker at their home, on the corner of Golden Garden Drive and Loyal Avenue Northwest in Ballard.

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Thursday/ the waterfall roars 💦

Here are updated pictures of the Snoqualmie Falls from the Seattle Times.
The Snoqualmie river was at major flooding level for much of Wednesday and Thursday.

Visitors to Snoqualmie Falls get soaked by a steady mist kicked up from raging Snoqualmie River waters Thursday morning.
[Photo by Ken Lambert for The Seattle Times. Caption from The Seattle Times]
Snoqualmie Falls roars on Thursday.
[Photo by Nick Wagner for The Seattle Times. Caption from The Seattle Times]

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Monday/ a lot of rain ☂️

Kai Uyehara and Paige Cornwell write for the Seattle Times: 

The opening salvo of a major atmospheric river hit the Pacific Northwest on Monday, drenching much of Western Washington with heavy rain that is forecast to continue at least until Thursday.
The National Weather Service warned of a high risk of widespread and significant river flooding.
South of Puget Sound, the Puyallup, Nisqually, Cowlitz and Carbon rivers were already seeing waters about to spill over their banks by 7 p.m. Monday, with serious flooding expected within hours.

Post by National Weather Service Seattle @NWSSeattle on X.
Even though we are in somewhat of a rain shadow here in the city, 2-3 inches over 3 days is still a lot of rain.

People visit Snoqualmie Falls, which is raging, on a rainy Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, in Snoqualmie. The area is under flood risk.
[Photo by Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times]
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Sunday/ a little architecture tour 🏢

I braved the cold wind outside to do a little self-directed architecture tour on First Hill today.
I wanted to take a look at the The Graystone Seattle on Columbia Avenue and the Museum House complex with its twin towers.

The Graystone at 800 Columbia St was actually built in 2021 (how time flies). It has 31 stories and 271 units. This is the view from the parking lot on 8th Avenue, looking northeast. (On the right, just a block or so away, is the Museum House complex with its twin towers).

Now I am on Columbia Street, walking up hill. I should have taken a picture without the tree! but there is a waterfall feature on the right that obscures the street view into the condo’s gym somewhat. There are several other amenities of course, such as a rooftop deck and meeting rooms and all that.

Here’s the view of the downtown skyline, looking towards the west. Interstate 5 is close by, but at a much lower level which dampens any traffic noise one might hear.

Now walking to the Museum House complex on Terry Avenue.
This apartment building opened in March, and features a north tower and a south tower, each with 32 stories. It offers 506 rental units.

Looking up at the main facade of the building. The skybridge is all the way up on Floor 31.

First Hill has several hospitals and buildings with clinics and doctors’ offices inside. This is Cabrini Center on Boren Avenue, completed in 1973 with 18 towers.

St. James Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral located at 804 Ninth Avenue. It was dedicated in 1907.

All right. The sun is going to set soon and I am heading to the waterfront.
Here’s a look at the traffic on I-5 (looking south).

Beautiful colors reflected by the windows of the Crowne Plaza hotel in downtown. The hotel was completed in 1980 and has 18 floors.

Seattle’s weird library with its faceted frames of glass and steel has 11 floors. It opened in May 2004 to the public.

Further south along 4th Avenue is the Columbia Tower, at 76 stories still the tallest structure in the state of Washington. (Getting squeezed out of view from here a little bit by the F5 Tower in front of it that opened in 2017).

Heading down to the waterfront now. It’s good that I snapped this picture of the sun behind the clouds, because it was gone for the day just a few minutes later.

Seattle has 33 fire stations and the one on the waterfront is No 5. The original Fire Station No. 5 building opened here at this location in 1902.

Here are the first cars rolling onto the Walla Walla ferry at Colman Dock (Seattle Ferry Terminal), for its departure to Bremerton.
Look at the windsock and choppy water: there is a strong breeze.

On my way back to the G-line bus stop. Here is “What Goes Up Must Come Down” — the giant paddle-ball sculpture by Catherine Mayer at 2nd Avenue and Spring St. It is about 42 feet tall and made of fiberglass and steel.

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Saturday/ blustery 🌬️

There was a break in the rainy weather today here in the city— with a powder blue sky, a little late afternoon sun, and blustery conditions.

Looking south along 19th Avenue East by Stevens Elementary School (3.10 pm with sunset coming at 4.18 pm).
The leaves are all gone now, on the trees that line the street.

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Friday/ AI embellishments 🦍

Happy Friday.
I embellished some of my pictures from last Sunday with Google’s new Gemini 3 (“Nano Banana Pro”) image editor.

It is as easy as saying “Add Bigfoot (Sasquatch) crossing the street into this picture”.
(The Cybertruck in the last picture was real, and not added).

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Thursday/ the year’s last supermoon 🌕

Tonight the last supermoon* of the year— and the third in a consecutive sequence— is out. (There will be a fourth supermoon in this same celestial series in January 2026).

We have cloud cover and lots of rain here in the city in Seattle tonight, so for now I can only look for pictures of the supermoon online.

*A supermoon is a full moon that occurs when the Moon is at or near its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit, a point called perigee. This proximity makes the Moon appear slightly brighter and larger than an average full moon, although the difference may be difficult to notice with the naked eye. The term can also technically apply to a new moon, but it is typically associated with the visible full moon.
[Google AI Overview]

A supermoon, the last full moon of the year, rises behind the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025, in San Francisco. This one is called the Cold Moon.
[Associated Press Photo/ Godofredo A. Vásquez]

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Tuesday/ frosty mornings 🧣

I thought it too cold to go for a walk today—44°F (6°C)— then changed my mind at the last minute before dark.

It’s 4.00 pm on the nose, and I’m on 22nd Avenue East looking out towards the east. Sunset is 19 minutes away. There’s the moon in a bare sky, not quite full. (The full moon on Thursday will be the Cold Moon.) No cloud cover means temperatures will dip down close to 0°C in the early morning.