Category: Seattle

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Wednesday/ night mode

I took these pictures on 15th Avenue here on Capitol Hill tonight with my iPhone 13Pro. Perfectly lit and sharp night pictures are really hard to take with my big Canon EOS 7D Mk II  DSLR camera— even when using its automatic program mode.

Here’s how Apple described what happens in ‘night mode’ when it debuted on iPhone11 (it’s a lot!):
‘Night mode comes on automatically when needed — say, in a candlelit restaurant. When you tap the shutter, the camera takes multiple images while optical image stabilization steadies the lens.
Then the camera software goes to work. It aligns images to correct for movement. It discards the sections with too much blur and fuses sharper ones. It adjusts contrast so everything stays in balance. It fine‑tunes colors so they look natural. Then it intelligently de‑noises and enhances details to produce the final image.
It all adds up to night shots that stand apart — with more detail, less noise, and an authentic sense of time and place’.

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Sunday/ darkness comes quickly

There was a break in the weather by 3 this afternoon, and I went down to Pike Place Market just to get out of the house for a while.
It is skull cap, scarf and glove time: 44 °F (7 °C) with a little wind chill.

Here comes the marine vessel (ferry)Tacoma from Bainbridge Island— it must have been the 2.55 pm sailing. The crossing is about 35 mins, and the time stamp on this photo was 4.38 pm*.
*Which is really 3.38 pm Pacific Standard Time. I forgot to turn off the Daylight Saving Time setting in my big Canon DSLR camera (it has no built-in Wi-Fi).
Upstairs from the viewing deck at Pike Place Market. The Mountain is not out (Mount Rainier), but there is a little blue sky. Finishing up the waterfront space that opened up with the demolition of the Alaska Way Viaduct is coming along. That speck at the top left is a Delta Airlines plane on the way to Seattle-Tacoma airport.
Now I walk down First Ave. for a bit. Here’s the Seattle Art Museum. See the 3-D optical illusion/’please slow down’ island in the intersection? I like it, but I wonder how many motorists notice it.
Qualtrics Tower, formerly known as 2+U and 2&U, is looking good, sitting on its massive V-shaped pillars. Its 37 floors were all leased out by September 2019, but I’m sure it has yet to fill back up again with workers and tenants.
There is a variety of ‘Welcome Back to Your Seattle’ signs adorning the lamp posts in downtown. This one is cute.
I like this one, too. A leaf happened to be stuck right on the swoosh line running around the Space Needle and skyscrapers.
The ten-story building (at 400 University St, on the southwest corner of the city block with the new Rainier Square Tower), is now complete as well.
Hey! Macy’s the store is gone, but the building is there*, and so is its iconic 160-ft tall star. If I’m not mistaken, it was switched on early this year.
*A real estate firm bought the building for $580 million earlier this year.
These lights lining Fourth Avenue came on just as I turned around (and just in time to better see those approaching e-scooter riders).
I was aiming to catch the No 10 bus at the old Convention Center building, but it rumbled by me while I was still a block away from the stop. I didn’t want to wait 20 mins for the next one, and ended up walking up to Capitol Hill.
Here’s Broadway. It’s 5 o’clock and the sun has been gone a good 15 minutes. A fat rat scurried away from me up ahead and disappeared into the little bit of greenery on the sidewalk.
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Monday/ a closer look at Climate Pledge Arena

Sunday was a beautiful blue-sky day.
I took the No 10 bus to Westlake Center, and from there, the Monorail to the Space Needle, so that I could walk around  Climate Pledge Arena.

Just departed West Lake Center on the monorail train. Look for the Space Needle in the distance.
Arrived at the Space Needle. Climate Pledge Arena is just a short walk away.
I walked through the Seattle Armory building on the way to the Arena. Originally built in 1939 as the old Armory Building, it housed the 146th Field Artillery and its half-ton tanks. It now houses a food court and a little bit of some entertainment for families (games to play and a few TV screens).
The trees are bare — and the shadows are already long, even though it’s only 3.15 pm or so! The Pacific Science Center in the distance.
Food vendors at Seattle Center are connecting their offerings to the new Seattle Kraken franchise.
All right, here is the first view of the Climate Pledge Arena, this from its southeast corner.
Looking back at the Space Needle. The Arena and the Needle were both conceived and constructed for the 1962 World’s Fair.
Rounding the corner to the side facing 1st Ave N in Uptown, the neighborhood just south of Queen Anne. The roof looks heavy and is heavy: 44 million pounds or 22,000 tons (20 million kg or 20,000 metric tons).
Mt Baker (10,781′/ 3 286 m) is up north in Washington State near the Canadian border. The mosaic artwork is by artists Laura Hadad and Tom Drugan. That would be the Stanley Cup, and ribbons and rainbows morphing into tentacles, lashing at an ill-fated wooden ship on the oceans.
The center support beams, seen from 1st Ave N.
These black window frames (and window panes, I think) from the old Key Arena were salvaged and reused.
From the north side, one can stand on a low wall and peer into the bowl with the ice-rink bottom. The enormous LCD screen (46 ft wide by 25 ft high) is playing clips of local interest, and commercials. Just a few hours later, at 6.00 pm, the Seattle Kraken took on the New York Rangers right there on the ice. The Kraken lost 1-3.
Almost back to the corner where I had started.
Looking back at the Arena, as I enter Seattle Center park to walk back to the Monorail station.
Beautiful Art Deco entrance to the Armory building.
And here is the monorail train that will run back to Westlake Center. It’s just 1.3 miles, and there are two trains, so they arrive and depart every two minutes or so from each end.
Arriving at Westlake Center, and peeking through the skylight before stepping off the train. On the right is the new 58-story Rainier Square Tower, 850-foot (260 m) tall.
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Friday/ walking along Broadway

I took the No 12 bus to the hairdresser today. We only got to 51°F (11°C) today, but the rain had stopped, and I walked back home from there. Here are a few pictures.

Pay to park, and pay by phone only. I guess the city saves money by not installing parking meters, and I guess you cannot park here if you don’t have a smart phone :). At the back are two new apartment buildings going up. One is at 1400 Madison Avenue, a 7-story, 365-unit apartment building with retail.
The ‘Knights of Columbus’ building at 722 Union St. Before it was sold to real estate investors in 2018, it belonged to the Catholic Church’s namesake and largest lay organization, a fraternal order founded in 1882 to support church programs and serve charitable causes. This building from 1913 held notable lunches, dances and other events. The gym and swimming pool in the basement were used by servicemen during World War II. It is getting rehabbed and retrofitted to withstand earthquakes, and the two parking lot parcels adjacent to it will be used for constructing apartment buildings. (Note to new owners: that red entrance canopy needs to go).
Tuesday Nov. 2 is when the election for Seattle City mayor and other positions take place*. Nikkita Oliver (pronouns they/them) runs against Sara Nelson for a position on the Seattle City Council.
Says local public radio station KUOW on their website: Nikkita Oliver is an educator, attorney, and activist who wants deep systemic change to move the city further to the left. Sara Nelson is a small business owner who thinks the current City Council is already too far left and needs to move closer to the center.
*We vote by mail, so many votes are already in; mine is as well.
There are lots of empty storefronts in the city. This Broadway State Bank building opened in 1913 (see photo below). In recent years it housed a Tully’s Coffee and a Starbucks Coffee. This Broadway & Pike Street corner is a little rough, though. Just a few weeks ago while I walked by, a guy that was on drugs or mentally ill— or both— rolled around in the street, resisting attempts by a Good Samaritan to drag him to safety. The police showed up just a minute later.
Here’s a 1937 photo of then-Broadway State Bank, constructed in 1913. I’m sure business from the auto dealers nearby was still booming in 1937. About its construction, the Seattle Times wrote in 1913 “Absolutely fireproof” and “Built of steel and concrete, with cream glazed brick finish”; “the new Broadway State Bank will be one of the finest in this rapidly developing district.” (Information obtained from the Capitol Hill blog).
Just half a block up on Broadway, and what have we here? Well, an 8-story, 118-unit apartment, retail, and institution building (community center) under construction. The Seattle-in-Progress website says ‘Project includes renovation of the Atlas Building and Eldridge Tire Building. Atlas Building façade to be rebuilt. Eldridge Tire Building façade to remain’. Looks to me like ‘reconstruction’ and not ‘renovation’.
A fake/ gag poster for Seattle mayor. (The two candidates in the Nov. 2 general election for Seattle mayor are Bruce Harrell and Lorena Gonzalez). And who or what is McSweats? Urban Dictionary to the rescue: ‘McSweats is the ill-desired after-effects commonly felt after gorging on McDonalds burgers to unnecessary extremes’.
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Thursday/ soaked

It has been a good day for pluviophiles: it rained all day around Puget Sound. We had recorded 1.58 in. by early evening here in the city, says NWS Seattle @NWSSeattle on Twitter. 

Update Fri 10/29: The final numbers are in. For Sea-Tac, it was a daily record-setting reading of 1.99 in. on Thursday. It was the wettest October day since the all-time wettest day in Seattle history (5.02 in. on Oct. 20th, 2003).

Here’s the view from the WashDOT camera over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, today. The pair of suspension bridges connect the city of Tacoma with the Kitsap Peninsula, and carry State Route 16 over a strait in Puget Sound.
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Tuesday/ Denny Way construction

Here are a few pictures that I have taken today— of the ongoing construction on Denny Way.

I’m on Melrose Avenue up on the terrace, overlooking Interstate 5 towards the south. I believe construction on those twin 45-story apartment towers on 1200 Stewart Street have topped out. (In the left corner is the 545 Redmond bus, running from 6th Ave & Royal Brougham St to the Bear Creek Park and Ride in Redmond).
A telephoto view from Melrose Ave and Denny Way taken at the top of the I-5 overpass. Looks like the 1,179 apartment units of 1120 Denny Way are ready for renters to move in. I was hoping the Space Needle would still have the Seattle Kraken flag on, but no, the flag has had its turn on the Needle for now.
Now I’m on Denny Way, looking up at the 1200 Stewart Street towers. From this angle it looks as if they are leaning in are conspiring with each other.
The 42-story apartment tower called 2014 Fairview Avenue is just about complete, as well. There’s a bright rainbow in the distance. I hastened around the block to get a fuller view, but by then it had already faded a little.
Making my way back on the south side of Denny Way. The new building on the right is the 44-story, 393-unit apartment tower at 2019 Boren Ave. The brick building on the right is the Puget Sound Notion Building, designed by Seattle architect Louis Svarz (1886-1976) and constructed in 1930. It has a lecture hall and rehearsal studio and was used by the Cornish College of the Arts, but Google Maps says the building is now ‘Permanently Closed’.
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Friday/ Climate Pledge Arena opens

The new home of the Seattle Kraken (ice hockey team) opened today, officially. There was a concert tonight: the first live performance of Coldplay’s brand-new album, Music Of The Spheres. This was the band’s first arena show in nearly five years.

The crews now have 12 hours to turn the arena into an ice hockey rink for the first home game of the Seattle Kraken (against the Vancouver Canucks).

The new Climate Pledge Arena with the intact roof and windows of the old Key Area (architect Paul Thiry; built for the 1962 World Fair). Private equity groups invested some $1.15 billion in the facility’s make-over. The arena will use on-site solar panels and off-site renewable energy power to be powered 100% by renewable energy.
[Picture Credit: Ken Lambert / The Seattle Times]
Workers dug an extra 15 feet downward to form a new arena floor some 53 feet below street level. In addition, the steeper seating grade now makes for double the seating capacity that the Key Arena had.
[Picture Credit: Oak View Group]
The ice rink will not have the traditional center-ice scoreboard, but dual scoreboards, one on each end, and high enough not to interfere with the sight line of the spectators.
[Picture Credit: Daniel Kim/ Seattle Times]

Wow. This wish-I-was-there picture of tonight’s Coldplay ‘Music Of The Spheres’ concert, tweeted by Ross Fletcher@RossFletcher1 on Twitter.

These are stills from the live-stream. The ‘spheres’/ planets and the lighting looked great.
[Source: Amazon Prime Video livestream]
Coldplay front man, vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and pianist Chris Martin (44 yo). Coldplay are a British rock band formed in London in 1996.
[Source: Amazon Prime Video livestream]
South Korean boy band BTS (make that SUPER-boy band), also known as the Bangtan Boys, also beamed into the concert.
[Source: Amazon Prime Video livestream]

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Thursday/ my vote is in (for Seattle mayor)

ANYWAY, even though the bad president isn’t sitting at the top of the ballot this year, the results of the November 2 election will determine the future of this bright little capitalist jewel that none of us can really afford to live in.
– The Election Control Board of the very progressive, ‘alternative’ online newspaper ‘The Stranger’

I filled out my little bubbles on my ballot for Seattle mayor and other officials, and walked it down to the drop box on Broadway yesterday afternoon.
I voted for the candidate that will I believe will try harder to clean up the graffiti and trash from the city’s streets, and that will not further gut the Seattle Police Department (‘defund the police’).

Graffiti at Republican and 15th Avenue. Unintelligible garbage.
A moose on a caboose. OK, I just wanted to say ‘caboose’. A moose on a U-haul truck. Saskatchewan Province in Canada has some 45,000 moose. We count our moose in Washington State’s northeast counties only in the hundreds (about 400).
I think the pink cosmos flowers on 11th Avenue brightens up the day for everyone that walks by.
I’m on Broadway, getting close to the drop box by Seattle Central College. The Ander North apartments offer studios, 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom apartments, and sits literally on top of Capitol Hill light rail station. There are still plenty of open retail space the ground floor along Broadway in this building.
There goes the street car along Broadway, by Seattle Central College. (Little Saigon, in the Chinatown-International District, is the social, economic, and cultural hub of the Vietnamese community in the Puget Sound region).
Here we go again, with more graffiti to clean up, this on the reflection pool’s wall in Cal Anderson Park. The City did a great job to clean up Cal Anderson Park of graffiti, trash and illegal encampments, after a rough 2020. The park is right by what was the Capitol Hill Organized Protest/ Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.
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Wednesday/ sights along Minor Ave & Broadway

I had my biannual eye check-up at the ophthalmologist today.
I walked there along Minor Avenue from the No 12 bus stop on Madison Street, and back along Broadway.

This is the Southwest Tower of Swedish Hospital’s First Hill campus. It opened in 1976 and was designed by architecture firm NBBJ. It may be an example of form of Brutalist architecture (my opinion; I could not verify it explicitly)— with its exposed poured concrete and its straightforward structure. The Brutalist movement started in the 1950s; has had severe critics, and was largely over by the late 1970s and early 1980s [Wikipedia].
Looking west from Minor Avenue, towards 707 Terry Avenue: two, 33-story towers with 440 apartment units above a 3-story podium. That skybridge should provide bird’s-eye views of the city and the Sound.
A nice turquois (teal?) Ford F-150 truck. Surely it’s a custom paint job. I cannot imagine Ford selling them in this color. ‘I brake for farm stands’ says the sticker in the window.
On Broadway, near Madison Street: the Museum of Museums is a contemporary art center (opened in 2019), created and managed by curator, artist, and entrepreneur Greg Lundgren. This is a three-story mid-century medical building, also designed by NBBJ, on the Swedish Medical Center campus.
The neon artwork is by Dylan Neuwirth and is called ‘All My Friends’.
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Tuesday/ the northern lights

Posted by Tim Durkan @timdurkan on Twitter: Some beautiful Aurora borealis over Seattle tonight.

He says the further out of the city, and to the north, the better, for pictures like this. It needs to be clear and dark (places like Whidbey Island, Anacortes).

The camera that he used is a Fujifilm GFX 100S medium format* mirrorless camera (with a monster 102 MP 43.8 x 32.9mm BSI CMOS Sensor, able to catch faint variations in color in the night sky).

*Medium format means larger than the standard 35mm film format, which is 24mm x 36mm (864 mm2 of film surface). The Fujifilm GFX 100S’s sensor size is 1 441 mm2. By comparison, the new iPhone 13 Pro’s built-in camera (that takes spectacular pictures, by the way) has a sensor that is all of 35.2 mm2, which is 40 times smaller than the one in this medium format digital camera.

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Sunday/ it feels like fall

It was only 56 °F  (13 °C) when I went out for a walk at 6 pm today.
Still not scarf & glove weather, though. I’d say those are for 45°F  (7°C) and below.

This is 17th Ave East here on Capitol Hill. The leaves are falling, the way they always do this time of year. When fall comes, the green chlorophyll of summer breaks down in leaves and its nutrients go back to the trunk and roots. These leaves turn yellow. The leaves on some trees turn red, and botanists are still not 100% sure why they turn red.  The red color is due to a new pigment in the leaf called anthocyanin, which has to be made afresh as autumn takes hold. It may contain antioxidants to help against harsh winter conditions.
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Friday/ another U District run

Wow, the U District station has served me well just in its first week after opening.
I made another run up there to today on the train, to get to my doctor’s office for my annual check-up. And I got my flu shot today, as well.

I am very happy to see the Neptune Music Company on the corner of Brooklyn St & NE 45th St is still there. It’s basically right next to the U District light rail station. The large basement is overflowing with collections of vinyl, CDs, DVD movies, VHS tapes, the works.
And just around the corner, the Neptune Theater is open as well. The Neptune is a performing arts theater with about 800 seats. It opened in 1921 so it’s 100 years old. (Google says The Front Bottoms are an American folk punk band from Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. I don’t think I will like their music. ‘That’s not my bag’, as Austin Powers would say).
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Wednesday/ U District to Capitol Hill in 6 mins

It was nice to have the U District train (instead of the No 48 bus) to take home today after my visit at the doctor’s office.

The 22-story UW Tower (completed 1975) is a nice beacon to use, to navigate to the new U District train station on Brooklyn Ave (teal canopy to its left, on the street). The UW Tower house the head offices of the University of Washington.
Here’s the station’s entrance. I would call the color of the lining of the glass canopy turquoise, but it’s officially teal. (Between teal and turquoise, teal is the darker one).
Inside the station at the platform level, looking at the Fragment Brooklyn art installation. The woman in the window is doing embroidering.
Here comes the south-bound train. This train has the older train cars from Kinki Sharyo Co., Ltd. (also known as Kinkisharyo, one word), based in Osaka, Japan. It’s a 6 minute ride from here to Capitol Hill station. I think the No 48 bus to Capitol Hill takes 3 times this time (it has many more stops than the train, to be fair).
Outside the Capitol Hill station two stops down from U District, I can catch either the No 8 or the No 10 bus to take me the 8 blocks up the hill close to where I live. This electronic board with the next arrivals that are due is new, and a nice addition to this bus stop.
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Sunday/ the new U District & Roosevelt stations

The light rail train was much less crowded today, and I went to check out the new U District and Roosevelt stations.

Capitol Hill station, just boarded. This is a new Siemens S700 car, with the blue light lining the closed door. The light strip is green when the door is open, and starts flashing as the door is about to close, and amber at the close. This sign above the door is not animated to show the train’s current location, but there is another overhead LCD panel in the car that does that.
U District Station, just arrived. The art installation on the wall by the southbound track (by Lead Pencil Studio) is called Fragment Brooklyn: ‘an imaginary streetscape of building parts’. One of the streets bordering the station is called Brooklyn Street.
U District Station. An element of the Fragment Brooklyn art installation. (Could that be an 80s Dunlop Maxply wooden tennis racquet in the window?).
U District Station. More of the Fragment Brooklyn art installation. Nicely done, the faux air conditioners, window frames and canopies.
U District Station. One more of the Fragment Brooklyn art, this part with a classic New York City fire escape ladder. (The copper wires are not part of the art installation! Those are for the trains.)
U District Station, outside. I know my way around U District, but it’s still disorienting to come up from below and suddenly be outside on the street, because the immediate area around the station had been closed to the public for so long.
U District Station, outside. I cannot read Chinese characters, but I am 99% sure the mat says ‘Welcome’. I like the teal color scheme. I learned later that following the teal from the platform up to the street, gets one to this exit on 43rd Street.
U District Station. Going down to the platform again, to catch the next train to Roosevelt station. Following the orange markings on the escalators will get one to the north exit of the station on Brooklyn St.
Arrival at Roosevelt station. Here’s the explanation of the moose symbol for Roosevelt station on the station name signs & light rail maps.
Roosevelt station. A southbound train arriving as I take the escalators to the street. Yes, that’s the hindquarters of the moose in the previous picture.
Roosevelt station. Glancing up towards the top of the escalators leading to the exit.
Roosevelt station. A little public space with a large art installation (Pascal’s triangle of sorts, a mathematician might say). I did not make a note of the artist.
Roosevelt Station. I walked a block to this entrance on the south side of the station, on  65th Avenue.
Roosevelt Station. Ticket stations just inside the south entrance, with retro neon sign artwork overhead.
Roosevelt Station. Heading down to the platform. One of several sculptural mural art installations by Luca Buvoli. This one is a cyclist on an 1880s Penny Farthing direct-drive bicycle.
Roosevelt Station. Waiting for the train.
Roosevelt Station. And here’s the southbound train that will take me to Capitol Hill in 10 minutes. Cannot beat that, not even if I had a Tesla Model S Plaid.

 

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Saturday/ three more stations

Today marked the opening of the 4.3-mile extension of the Seattle area’s Link light rail system towards the north, with three new stations: U District, Roosevelt and Northgate. These are the final stations in the system that was proposed to voters in 1996. So it took twenty-five years to get it all planned and built, a lot longer and much more expensive than planned, but it’s here at last. The price tag for this last phase was $1.9 billion.

Central Line is now called Line 1 with its 19 stations. Line 2 to Bellevue is under construction and will open in two years in 2023.

Bryan, Gary & I made a run to Northgate and back. (I will stop at the Roosevelt and U District stations some time later and take some pictures. These latter two are both underground).
Here’s the elevated platform of the Northgate station. There are escalators and stairs to street level, and a connection to a new, large pedestrian/ biking bridge across Interstate 5 to the Seattle North College campus.
Roosevelt and U-District are underground, and Northgate is above ground. Construction to the north continues, with the extension to Lynnwood slated to open in 2024.
The Kraken Community Iceplex (the training facility for the Seattle Kraken) is nearby Northgate station. The Northgate shopping mall is getting a make-over, and some 4,000 new apartment units are under construction as well.
Northgate station is elevated above street level. Changes to existing bus routes have been made to stop at the three new stations.
A new train with four cars entering Northgate station. Sound Transit has started to purchase these newer technology train cars from Siemens Mobility (they entered into service in May 2021). The model name is S700, and these cars cost around $4.5 million each.
The new John Lewis Memorial Bridge (pedestrian/ biking bridge) across Interstate 5 to the North Seattle College campus spans some 1,900 feet.
This weird rotary-dial phone was set up as a curiosity (I think), at the entrance of the bridge.
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Tuesday/ grocery run

I made another run to the Amazon Fresh store tonight.
Every time I go there, they give me a voucher for another $10.
So will I have to go back again :^).

These paper bags work better in my high-tech cart than my heavy canvas bags (that cannot stand up, opened). Amazon Fresh gets bonus points from me for carrying my hard-to-find Irish oatmeal. Shockingly, though, they were completely out of plain whole milk tonight. (Got milk? No.) So I settled for a half-gallon of Amazon brand lactose-free Happy Belly Whole Milk. I am sure my belly will be happy. 
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Friday/ got my bookstore fix

It was lovely outside today (76°F /24°C), and I walked down to the Twice Sold Tales bookstore on Harvard Avenue.
I browsed around in the store but did not buy anything this time. (It’s just fun to look at all the books, so mission still accomplished).

Sunflowers (Helianthus, from helios, Greek for sun) is a genus comprising about 70 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the daisy family Asteraceae. Before blooming, sunflower plants tilt during the day to face the sun in order to gain more sunlight for photosynthesis, a response called heliotropism. Sunflowers are thought to have been domesticated 3,000–5,000 years ago by Native Americans who would use them primarily as a source for edible seeds. [From Wikipedia]
The plywood boarding is still in place at Twice Sold Tales, a little curiously. Maybe the owner likes the artwork with the cats on. (The cats inside are still there, as well). I like the T-Rex sign, myself. The sign on the door says that the store is not buying books right now. Seattle fire marshal ordered the store to stop piling up so many books inside. (It makes it harder for fire fighters to navigate the inside, and for customers to get out).
The little plaza by the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station is in good shape: no graffiti and no trash lying around.
This 20-foot tall public art sculpture of silent speakers in the shape of an X (or a positive sign on its side) is part of the artwork commissioned for the AIDS Memorial Pathway (AMP) project, a tribute to the missing narratives of women and Black people lost to the AIDS crisis. It is called ‘andimgonnamisseverybody’.
The artist is Christopher Paul Jordan (b. 1990), and he used bronze, aluminum and stainless steel.
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Sunday/ Denny Triangle walkabout

There was a break in the rain today, and I walked around the Denny Triangle (in downtown Seattle) to check on the construction projects there.

Broadway in New York City reopened this past week, and the Paramount Theater here in Seattle is, as well. ‘City and Colour’ is the alias under which the Canadian musician, singer, songwriter and record producer Dallas Green (40 yrs old), records under.
The $1.2-billion expansion of the Washington State Convention Center has been three years in the making, and will be completed in summer 2022. Interstate 5 is just on the other side. The 10th-floor ballroom will provide views of Puget Sound.
The Cornish College of the Arts building on Boren Ave (constructed 1915, traditional Norwegian Style, architect Sonke Englehart Sonnichsen), holding its own between the Seattle Children’s Research Institute: Building Cure at the back and The Ayer on the right, a new 45-story luxury apartment tower.
The two apartment towers of 1120 Denny Way are complete, two stacks of white floors going up 41 stories. I’m trying to work up enthusiasm for the appearance of the black & copper structure in the middle – and not quite succeeding.
A brand new Porsche 718 Cayman T* on Denny Way, waiting at the red light. (*I say it is a Cayman T because the double tailpipe & wheels match the picture of one on Porsche’s website). Even though the Cayman is sometimes called ‘the poor man’s Porsche’, this model starts at $70k. What a beautiful car, but it burns fossil fuels. Come on Porsche— make haste, and make it electric.
Now I’m in the Cascade district north of the Denny Triangle. This is the skeleton of the old Seattle Times building where the newspapers used to be printed. Two office blocks, 16 stories, and 18 stories tall, will be built here. The three apartment towers at the back with the curvy sides are all on Denny Way.
Looking west from Thomas Street and Boren Avenue North, and using my telephoto lens. Look for the golden elevator cage going up to the observation deck, in the middle of the Space Needle.
The Gold Bar on 9th Avenue serves up cocktails and small plates & tacos. Kudos to them, for opening up their pandemic street space as soon as the rain had stopped. (That’s an active bike & e-scooter lane running along the pavement: something that patrons and the servers have to keep an eye on).
There’s the sun, peering through the leaves in Denny Park alongside Denny Way.
I took this picture (on the pavement by Denny Park) to remind me to look up/ determine how long the lever would have to be, to move Earth, in this famous statement from Archimedes.
A discussion on physics.stackexchange.com provides the answer. The principle of a lever in balance is that on the one side, distance times weight, is equal to distance times weight on the other side: d1.W1 = d2.W2. Earth weighs 6×10^24 kg. Let’s make the load arm length (opposite of Archimedes’s side) 1 m long, and assume he can push down with the force needed for 60 kg of weight. Say that gravity where he stands, is equal to that of Earth’s, and that Earth’s weight is concentrated where it meets the load point on the lever. Then the lever’s force arm length (on Archimedes’s side) would have to be 10^23 m. That is a distance of some 10 million light years. (About 4 times the distance between our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest one to us).
If Archimedes pushed down on this intergalactical, perfectly rigid lever for 3 or 4 feet, Earth on the other end (10 million light years + 1 m away), would move by the diameter of an electron.
Snapping a picture while crossing Westlake Avenue near Denny Way, and looking south towards downtown ..
.. and the McKenzie luxury apartment tower nearby is a cylinder of blue, gray and white tiles.
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Thursday/ required: proof of vaccination

Health officials here in King County are clearly worried that the pandemic will get even worse, now that summer is over.

Beginning Oct. 25, customers will have to show proof of vaccination— or a negative COVID test— at most establishments and events here in King County.

It’s not clear at this point, if any smartphone apps* will be available to help with the process, or if businesses will get any help or compensation for enforcing the rules.
*I registered months ago for the MyIR (My Immunization Record) Mobile app, but it still says the link to the State Health Department is not in place.

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Wednesday/ awaiting the rain

The Puget Sound area had less than 0.1 in of rain the last 90 days.
Rain is finally on the way.

My lavender asters with their golden buttons are in full bloom here at the end of summer.
The rain will start on Friday, and continue through the weekend (1-2 inches in the city). The mountains will get the most, and above 6,000 ft there will be snow.