There were blue skies today.
I took these photos at Volunteer Park, and along Capitol Hill’s 14th Ave East.
Sunday/ after the storm 🌬️
The heavy winds knocked the power out for tens of thousands of Seattle metro residents last night. The power was still getting restored across the city and Western Washington today.
There was a break in the rain this afternoon, and I walked down to Elliott Bay Bookstore on 10th Avenue.
The store was still without power, but customers were allowed in.
I looked like they used their phones to pay for their purchases through the store’s website.
Saturday/ rain 🌧️
Laurin Girgis reporting for the Seattle Times:
Friday’s rain and gusty winds will continue through the weekend, with somewhere between half an inch to 1 ½ inches of precipitation accumulating in Seattle over Saturday and Sunday.
National Weather Service meteorologist Dev McMillian said Friday’s torrent of rain and wind came from an atmospheric river: a long band of moisture stretching across the Pacific Ocean and resulting in large amounts of precipitation. Saturday and Sunday, despite more precipitation coming in, will not be an atmospheric river, McMillian said. Rainfall rates Saturday through Monday are expected to be less than Friday.
Thursday/ Halloween ghost 👻
The Halloween decoration in the window of the Pacific Supply hardware store on Capitol Hill’s 12th Avenue is nicely done.
Today’s corruption scandal (it seems there is one every day), as reported by Associate Press:
President Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who created the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and served prison time for failing to stop criminals from using the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism.
The pardon caps a monthslong effort by Zhao, a billionaire commonly known as CZ in the crypto world and one of the biggest names in the industry. He and Binance have been key supporters of some of the Trump family’s crypto enterprises.
Monday 🍂
It was not to be— the Seattle Mariners playing in the World Series.
They lost 3-4 in Game 7 tonight against the Blue Jays, in the deciding game in the American League Championship Series (ALCS).
The Toronto Blue Jays will now take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
Beautiful fall foliage surrounds the playfields at Miller Community Center on 19th Avenue East on Capitol Hill.
Saturday/ another No Kings march 👑 ❌
Four amigos attended the No Kings* march in Seattle today.
We walked alongside the monorail on Fifth Avenue, and the train would honk at us with a whoop! whoop! every time it passed overhead.
From local TV broadcaster King5 news:
Organizers with Seattle Indivisible reported preliminary counts of nearly 90,000 people taking part.
The demonstration began beneath the Space Needle and poured into downtown streets, part of what organizers call the largest coordinated protest in U.S. history.
*The No Kings protests is a series of demonstrations, largely in the United States, against what the organizers describe as authoritarian policies of Donald Trump and corruption in his administration.
Friday/ at the new pickleball courts 🌊
Happy Friday.
The new pickleball court facility called Sideout Tsunami Center is open for business (but the official grand opening will be in November).
This weekend, the center is hosting the finals of the National Pickleball League team competition in the “Champions Pro” division for players aged 50 and above.
I stopped by this afternoon to check out the new courts and the action there.
P.S. A win for the Mariners in Game 5!
From the Seattle Times:
Cal Raleigh and Eugenio Suárez delivered eighth-inning homers to send the Mariners to within a win of the World Series, and send T-Mobile Park into a frenzy.
The facility is at 2300 26th Avenue S in Seattle, in a non-descript building (a former Pepsi bottling plant) with a large, newly-paved parking lot outside.
Here is the No 1 team for Austin Ignite (left) facing off against the No 1 team of Coachella Valley Scorpions. It’s best out of three sets, first to 11 by one point.
Coachella Valley Scorpions won this match.
Monday/ M-momentum ⏩
Tim Booth, Seattle Times staff reporter, concludes his analysis
“ALCS: Three impressions as Mariners take 2-0 lead vs. Blue Jays” as follows (this series is best of 7 games):
.. but general playoff history, momentum, belief, maybe a weird witch-induced aura are all on the side of the Mariners.
The opportunity is there for Wednesday night to be one of the most important games in the history of T-Mobile Park.
Win and put a stranglehold on the series.
Lose and the Blue Jays are right back in it.
It was clear and felt downright cold to me here— 6.00 pm (and 53°F/ 12°C) with 24 mins to go to sunset.
It will be clear and cold here in the city through Thursday (‘cold’, because I’m not yet used to October’s normal highs of only 58°F/ 14°C or so).
Thursday/ a terminator 💀
Whoah! was my reaction as I rounded the corner and came up against this giant Halloween skeleton with blinking eyes. It made me think of the Terminator*— even though the terminator had red eyes, and a metal skeleton.
*From the 1984 American science fiction action film directed by James Cameron. It starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, a cybernetic assassin sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to assassinate Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose unborn son will one day save mankind from extinction by Skynet, a hostile artificial intelligence, in a post-apocalyptic future.
[From Wikipedia]
Wednesday/ a resounding defeat 😖
The Mariners crashed to a 3-9 defeat in Game 4 today in Detroit.
Game 5— the deciding game— will start at 5:08 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday night in Seattle.
Tuesday/ Mariners 8-4 ⚾
There was a rain delay to the start of the game in Detroit.
Once the game started, though, the Mariners were the first to put several runs on the board. They held off a late attempt by the Tigers to come back in the 9th inning.
[Photo by Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times, caption from The Seattle Times]
Monday/ don’t stop believin’ 🌇
Just a small town girl
Livin’ in a lonely world
She took the midnight train going anywhere
Just a city boy
Born and raised in South Detroit
He took the midnight train going anywhere
A singer in a smokey room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on
Strangers waitin’
Up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searchin’ in the night
Streetlights, people
Livin’ just to find emotion
Hidin’ somewhere in the night
Workin’ hard to get my fill
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin’ anything to roll the dice
Just one more time
Some’ll win, some will lose
Some are born to sing the blues
Whoa, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
Strangers waiting
Up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlights, people
Livin’ just to find emotion
Hidin’, somewhere in the night
Don’t stop believin’
Hold on to that feeling
Streetlights, people
Don’t stop believin’
Hold on
Streetlights, people
Don’t stop believin’
Hold on to that feeling
Streetlights, people
– Lyrics from Don’t Stop Believin’, a song by Journey from their album Escape (1981)
Go Mariners!
The Mariners* are in Detroit for the third and fourth games (Tuesday night & Wednesday night) in the playoff series against the Detroit Tigers.
The Mariners and Tigers are drawn 1-1 in the series.
*Baseball team from Seattle that competes in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) West Division.
“The M’s,” named for Seattle’s nautical heritage, have never won a World Series. They have won the AL West Division four times and appeared in the playoffs in 2000, 2022, and now this year, 2025.
The graffiti on the ‘Stop Sign Ahead’ sign reads “Don’t Stop Believin’ “, likely a reference to the 1981 classic pop song with the same title, from Journey.
Sunday/ at the Ballard locks ⛵
Three of us ran out to the Ballard locks* this morning.
Even though the salmon runs for the season are over (there were none to be seen in the windows by the fish ladder), there was still a lot of activity to look at.
*The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, or Ballard Locks, is a complex of locks at the west end of Salmon Bay in Seattle, Washington’s Lake Washington Ship Canal, between the neighborhoods of Ballard to the north and Magnolia to the south.
[Source: Wikipedia]
It looks like the Salmon Bay bridge (drawbridge) had to be opened just for the little sailboat with its tall mast! (in the middle of the picture). There are seagulls in the sky above the sailboat, and a speck that is a seaplane, as well.
The gates are just closing behind the two vessels. We chatted briefly with the owners (an elderly couple) of the larger vessel at the back that goes by De Anza III.
She was built in 1958, and this was the first summer they owned her.
So even though the salmon runs for the season are over and done with, there are still a few of them in the water. I wonder if the fish are fatigued (from their swim upstream), and easy to catch.
So there are distinct times for the peaks of the runs of the different species of salmon.
Q. And how do they count the fish?
A. Fish are counted at the Ballard Locks through daily visual counts by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and Muckleshoot Indian Tribe staff using the fish ladder itself. Fish are observed passing through the ladder during specific periods, and these visual counts are converted into daily and weekly totals to estimate the overall fish run for the year.
[Google AI Overview]
Friday/ a beautiful fall day ☀️
Happy Friday.
It was a beautiful fall day here in Seattle (the high 70°F/ 21°C).
I walked to Volunteer Park late in the afternoon, and took a few pictures of the Black Sun.
Tuesday/ Takara Tomy animals 🦁
September is a wrap.
We had rain yesterday and today here in the city of Seattle.
The Republican Party is shutting down the United States government at midnight.
This afternoon I opened my remaining Takara Tomy animal figures that I bought at Yodobashi Camera’s toy department in Tokyo.
There are actually two species of gorillas: the eastern gorilla (Gorilla beringei) and the western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla). And yes, wild gorillas eat pineapples, skin and all.
The Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) is native to freshwater habitats in Africa, where it is present in 26 countries (including South Africa and Botswana).
Chameleons (or chamaeleons) are a distinctive and highly specialized clade* of Old World lizards with 200 species described as of June 2015.
The members of this family are best known for their distinct range of colors, being capable of color-shifting camouflage.
*Clade: a group of organisms believed to have evolved from a common ancestor
[Source: Wikipedia]
The lion (Panthera leo) is a large cat native to Sub-Saharan Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; a short, rounded head; round ears; and a dark, hairy tuft at the tip of its tail. Adult male lions are larger than females and have a prominent mane.
The meerkat (Suricata suricatta) or suricate is a small mongoose found in southern Africa. It is characterised by a broad head, large eyes, a pointed snout, long legs, a thin tapering tail, and a brindled coat pattern.
[Source: Wikipedia]
The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is a large cat and the fastest land animal.
It has a tawny to creamy white or pale buff fur that is marked with evenly spaced, solid black spots. The head is small and rounded, with a short snout and black tear-like facial streaks.
[Source: Wikipedia]
Sunday/ clouds at sunset 🌥
Golds, silvers and grays in Elliott Bay in Puget Sound at 5.56 pm tonight— an hour before sunset (at 6.54 pm).
This is a view from the top of the pedestrian bridge in Myrtle Edwards Park, near the Queen Anne beer hall.
Saturday/ Seattle at night 🌃
Here is the city of Seattle skyline, as seen from the Kaleetan at 7.37 pm tonight.
(The Kaleetan is the ferry from Bainbridge Island to the Seattle Ferry Terminal.)
Friday/ the mountain is out ⛰
Happy Friday.
I went up the Space Needle with my houseguests from South Africa, from where we watched the sun set.
Sunday/ out goes summer 🌞
That was it .. the last day of the summer of 2025, here in the North.
There was rain last night here in the city, and into the morning— about a half inch.
The sun came out this afternoon, and I put my new Sony Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA Lens on my camera and took the first pictures with it. I bought the lens at Yodobashi Camera in Tokyo.
Out-of-camera .jpg downscaled to 2400×1800 pixels.
I used Adobe Photoshop Express to bump up the exposure of the shadows by 40% and to decreased the exposure of the highlights by 20%.
Out-of-camera .jpg downscaled to 2400×1800 pixels.
Friday night/ arrival in Seattle ⛰️
It’s Friday night in Seattle.
The flight on All Nippon Airlines out to Seattle went without incident (8h 33m total travel time).
In Seattle I picked up my checked bag, and made a quick stop at the Global Entry kiosks for a facial recognition check. (The check takes 5 seconds flat.)
I even told the immigration officer I had brought back items to declare in my bags, but he waved me through.
Majestic Mt Rainier seems to float above it all.