Category: Seattle

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Sunday/ way to go, Kraken! 🏒

Wow!
The Seattle Kraken knocked off the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche by 2 goals to 1 tonight in Denver, in the seventh and final game of their first-round play-off series.

From the Seattle Times:
A blistering, second-period wrist shot by Kraken winger Oliver Bjorkstrand had stunningly put his team ahead by two and allowed followers of his second-year franchise to dare to dream the impossible.
After being outplayed most of Sunday night’s opening-round Game 7 to that point, the Kraken somehow had found themselves poised to knock out the defending Stanley Cup champions for good. And though the Colorado Avalanche eventually did mount a furious, desperation-fueled comeback, the Kraken and goalie Philipp Grubauer held on for a history-making, 2-1 victory and advanced to a second-round playoff showdown starting this week against the Dallas Stars.
– By Geoff Baker, Seattle Times staff reporter

Seattle Kraken goaltender Philipp ‘Gru’ Grubauer gathers in a loose puck before Colorado Avalanche center Alex Newhook can get off a shot, as defenseman Vince Dunn defends during the first period. Gru successfully fended off 32 out of 33 attempts at his goal tonight.
[Picture by Jennifer Buchanan / The Seattle Times]
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Saturday/ a PSA for the travel season 🔊

Here is a PSA* targeted at the drivers that park their cars illegally on the shoulder of the access road to Seattle-Tacoma airport.
(They wait there for arriving passengers that they are going to pick up, deeming it too much of a hassle to use the cell phone parking lot).

Well— you can stretch your legs in the cell phone parking lot, and it is actually a lot closer to the airport than that shoulder on the access road (by up to one whole mile).
Please use the cell phone parking lot.

*Public Service Announcement

I took this picture from the cell phone parking lot at Seattle Tacoma airport on Thursday night. The cell phone parking lot is right across from the North Terminal and exactly two minutes away from the Arrivals pick-up point at the main terminal building.
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Friday/ cheers 🥂

It was a lovely day with blue skies all around and 78 °F (26 °C)— a high temperature for late April.
We drop back into the normal range by Sunday, some 10 degrees cooler.

‘Cheers from Oregon’ says a little panel on the side of this Hop Valley Brewing Co. beer truck, here on 15th Avenue on Capitol Hill.
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Friday 🤗

Happy Friday.
Here’s another Nineteenth Avenue Tree Canopy report: looking fine, with the green of the budding leaves on the tree limbs just starting to show.

Seattle and western Washington have been locked in a cool, active weather pattern much of the spring, but the days are getting warmer. (Only 52°F/ 11°C today, but the weather people are promising us 72°F/ 22°C by next Friday).
That’s the Microsoft Connector company bus in the distance. Maybe it has employees on that are working on the Bing AI chatbot. I need to check it out— or create a ChatGPT account, to see what the brouhaha over the latest online AI tools is all about. Can the AI bot write me a poem about fossils?  Hmm, I wonder.
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Wednesday/ elegant entrances

These entrances belong to condo buildings that are all on the same street block: on 17th Avenue between East Spring Street and East Union Street.

They were all built in the late 1920s, with views of the city from the upper floors, and close to the street car line at the time that was running along Madison Street.
Behold— the Margola (Mayan detailing, 1928), the Martha Anne (Art Deco art glass & terra cotta, 1929), Carmona Apartments (Mediterranean Revival, 1929), the Betsy Ross (1928), the Fleur de Lis (French, 1927), Mayfair Manor (1928), and the Barbara Frietchie Co-op (1928).

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Saturday/ ferry trouble ⛴

Twenty minutes out of Bremerton, the lights cut out and they could feel the engines stop running. The lights came on a minute later, they said, and the ship’s alarm sounded twice before an announcer told passengers the ferry had lost propulsion and steering. Brace for impact, the announcer said.
There were 596 passengers and 15 crew members on the vessel.
Shortly after 8 p.m., passengers were being loaded onto Kitsap Transit fast ferries to be taken to Bremerton.
The last passengers were being offloaded shortly after 9 p.m.

– The Seattle Times, reporting that the ferry Walla Walla, headed from Bremerton to Seattle, ran aground around 4:30 p.m. Saturday in Rich Passage.

The ferry Walla Walla ran aground Saturday afternoon in Rich Passage on its way to Seattle from Bremerton. Washington State Ferries said generator failure is possibly the cause. (Mike Reicher / The Seattle Times)

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Thursday/ 🌸

The blossoms are out here on Capitol Hill’s 16th Avenue— but the weather is still on the chilly side. We only had 52 °F (11 °C) here in the city today.
(We’re on track to experience the first recorded April without a single 60-degree day, according to forecasters, reports the Seattle Times).

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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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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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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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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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Sunday ⛄️

There was an inch or so of snow on the ground this morning, but most of it had melted by the afternoon (42 °F /6 °C).

This little snowman on 17th Avenue was melting fast by 2.30 pm.
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Thursday/ at the Park: clear and cold 🌬

I ventured out of the house to get a little sun today, even though the high was barely above freezing (34°F/ 1°C).
These pictures are from Volunteer Park.

The bronze sculpture of William H. Seward at the greenhouse in Volunteer Park. The statue was unveiled at the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition in 1909 and relocated to the park the following year. Steward was a determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, and was Secretary of State of the Union during the Civil War.
[Source of text: Wikipedia]
There was a murder of crows on the lawns by the greenhouse.
It’s a good time of the year to get a clear view of the water tower.
Look for the tiny slice of white waxing crescent moon in the blue sky towards the top and in the center of the picture.
These are two of 14 new stone benches installed and placed throughout the park. The benches were commissioned by The Henry art museum, and the artist is Chloë Bass (b. 1984, New York).

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Tuesday/ broken clouds and sun breaks 🌥

There was a dusting of snow on the shadowy side of my garage roof this morning.
It warmed up to 43 °F (6 °C) later on— the bare minimum to going out for a walk.
This Identifiable Flying Object is a Boeing 777-300ER (twin-jet) from Emirates Airlines. It had just taken off at 3.38 pm for its 14 hour 50 min flight to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. [Information from the Flightradar24 app on my phone].

I like the square windows in the gray and turquoise siding. I’m approaching the corner of East Union St and 19th Ave (and thinking brr .. ! it’s time to head back home).
A lamp post sticker promoting I-135. (It’s a special election in Seattle for which the ballots were due today). Initiative 135 asks voters to approve the Seattle Social Housing Developer, an agency that would develop, own, acquire and maintain so-called “social housing” in Seattle.
It’s not clear if this initiative will move the needle on affordable housing. There is no funding mechanism written into the initiative’s language (to prevent it from being tossed out by the courts). If approved, the developer will immediately be able to apply for grants and philanthropic dollars.
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Saturday ⛅️

Here’s a gorgeous sunset picture from photographer Mike Reid. (Sunset is now at 5.28 pm).
Those are the peaks of the Olympic Mountains, peeking out above the clouds.

Photo posted by Mike Reid  at mike@mikereidphotography.com and on Twitter @SeatownNative.
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Thursday/ Happy Groundhog Day ❄️

From the National Weather Service: Those stripes across Texas and Arkansas represent a massive ice storm, and an arctic blast into the Northeast is bringing historic and bone-chillingly low temperatures to the Great Lakes and New York City. 🥶

The groundhog from Pennsylvania says there will be 6 more weeks of winter. (Of course there will be, looking at the weather map).

The 51 °F (11 °C ) and calm weather we had here in the city today felt almost balmy, though.  I walked back to Capitol Hill from downtown, after taking the No 10 bus to get there.

The pesky crowds of Friday were long gone this morning, and I could take a better picture of Mowitch Man basking in the sun (at the new Seattle Convention Center called Summit. This is a type of statue that had traditionally been made by Coast Salish people to invite visitors into their territories. The artist is Andrea Wilbur-Sigo from the Squaxin Island Tribe. She started out with a 20-foot Western red cedar log. The figure is holding a ‘talking stick’ and those are Salish-style salmon emblems on his clothing.
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Wednesday/ a little pickle 🥒 ball

It was warm enough (48 °F / 9 °C) for the amigos to play a little pickleball this afternoon.

The evergreen trees are too tall for much of the low winter sun’s light to make it onto the courts at Mount Baker Park, but that’s OK. There was plenty of blue sky overhead.
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Tuesday/ the last of the 747s ✈️

The sun sets on an era of aviation manufacturing as the very last Boeing 747 lands at Paine Field after a Jan. 10 test flight. The jet was delivered on Tuesday to Atlas Air, which will operate the plane for freight forwarder Apex Logistics. One side of the aircraft is painted in the colors of Atlas, the other side in the livery of Apex.
[Jennifer Buchanan / The Seattle Times]
Somebody told her that there was a place like heaven
Across the water on a 747
Yeah we’re living in
In a modern world
And pretty soon she’s really got the notion
Of flying out across the big blue ocean
Yeah we’re living in
In a modern world
– From the song ‘Calling America’ (1986) by Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)

The last assembled Boeing 747 had left the Boeing’s widebody factory in Everett, Washington, on December 6, 2022.
It was delivered to Atlas Air today: a 747-8F (Freighter) with plane number #1,574 and registered as N863GT.

Pan-American Airways was the launch customer for the first 747 passenger jet created, the 747-100.  The airline ordered 25 of the exciting new ‘jumbo’ jets, and the first one was delivered in January 1970, and christened by First Lady Pat Nixon.