a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
The Tuesday & Thursday social tennis sessions for spring / summer at the lower Woodland Park tennis courts, has started.
I was the only one of the 12 in our group playing that wore a mask on the court, and it did not bother me one bit.
It’s impossible to consistently stay 6 feet away from your doubles partner, and we brush by the others as we change sides, or courts. Why be careless, now that I am so close to get my second shot of the vaccine?
I found a great deal on a rental car for four weeks, and went down to Hertz on 8th Ave to go pick it up. I hope to get my new car early in June. These pictures are from my walk down to Hertz on Friday.
Here’s the QFC grocery store on 15th Ave, that had closed its doors for the last time on Saturday.
The store’s owners, the Kroger Co. based in Cincinnati, Ohio, says it was not profitable enough. The $4-per-hour hazard pay to grocery workers, mandated by the City of Seattle, ‘had forced their hand to close it’.
I took my rental car back this morning. The plan is to go carless for a week or so, and then get another one. There is still a good number of weeks to go before I get my new car.
It was a pleasant day, and I could walk up, up along Pine Street to get to the other side of Interstate 5, and to Capitol Hill where my house is.
It’s about 30 mins of walking with no stopping, but I took my time, and took some pictures as I went.
From the National Weather Service Seattle @NWSSeattle on Twitter:
Average high temp. in Seattle, April 15-21, 2021: 75.7 °F (24.3 °C)
Normal average high temp in Seattle, July 11-17: 75.7 °F (24.3 °C)
Our little Indian summer has come to a close today (temperatures will drop back to the 60s tomorrow), which is a good thing.
It’s way too early on the calendar to have mid-70s highs.
Firefighters from the Washington State Dept. of Natural Resources have responded to 91 wildfires this last week.
We had 75 °F (24 °C) in the city today, a record high for the day on the calendar. I made it out of the house just as the sun was setting at 8 pm for a walk around the block.
At 7.45 am, I joined the social-distanced line of a dozen of so, outside the nondescript little building at the back of Harborview Medical Center— thankful that I was wearing my padded jacket (47 °F/ 8 °C).
By 8.00 am I was in the door. Hey, you and I have the same birthday, said the young woman that checked me in. I filled out a form with a few questions, and then went to one of the 5 stations with a nurse, for my shot. (I got Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine, not Moderna’s).
Three weeks to tick by, and then I can get the second shot. It feels good to have the first one.
The Gonzaga Bulldogs lost in their bid to win the 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball title, 70-86. Congrats to the Baylor Bears.
We got to 61 °F (16 °C) here in the city today.
Late afternoon I braved the rush-hour traffic on I-5, to get to West Seattle for a little doubles tennis.
It’s now optional to play with a mask — outside or indoors (at Amy Yee Tennis Center). I decided to keep mine on until I get vaccinated.
The governor announced today, that here in Washington State, from April 15th on, everyone 16 & older will qualify for the vaccine.
I have walked by the Ellenbert Apartments many times, on the way to Broadway market’s grocery store, and finally looked up its history today.
The architect is Max A. Van House, a Minnesota native (born in Moscow, MN). He spent time on Vashon Island as a youth, and picked up on-the-job experience by working for a variety of architectural firms, including a stint at one in Tacoma.
co·ro·na
/kəˈrōnə/
From the Latin word corona, mid-16th century, meaning ‘wreath, crown’.
Architecture: a circular chandelier in a church, or a part of a cornice having a broad vertical face.
Astronomy: the rarefied gaseous envelope of the sun and other stars.
Biology: the cup-shaped or trumpet-shaped outgrowth at the center of a daffodil or narcissus flower.
Medical: coronavirus is any of a family (Coronaviridae) of large single-stranded RNA viruses that have a lipid envelope studded with club-shaped spike proteins.
Physics: the glow around a conductor at high potential.
Smoking: a long, straight-sided cigar.
It was only 45 °F (7 °C) for my late-afternoon stroll around the block today, but hey, now there is an hour more of sunshine.
I went on a beer run today to track down some of my favorite German beer. (The grocery store was out of stock, and my own supplies were running dangerously low).
On the way back there was a break in the rain, and so I stopped at Denny Way and 5th Avenue to take a few pictures.
Washington State has published new dates and target groups that qualify for getting the vaccine. I’m not making the cut, yet.
President Biden has promised that there will be enough vaccine doses for all Americans by the end of May*. It takes a lot of logistics to get that vaccine injected into people, of course.
*For example, Merck and Johnson & Johnson will collaborate to ramp up vaccine production, with the help of the federal government.
I saw only today (it had been announced in early February), that the gay bar called R Place will not be able to renew its lease at its 619 East Pine Street location, after 35 years there. Apparently it’s not due to the pandemic. The owner of the Pine Street building had died and the estate did not renew R Place’s lease.
The managers of R Place vowed to find a new location, but the loss of the four floors at the Pine Street location is a very big one for the LGBTQ community.
It feels similar to the loss of the beloved CC Seattle complex’s entertainment venue and bars, at the corner of Madison & 15th Avenue. (This was in Sept. 2010, to make way for the office building called the Bullitt Center).
There is a lot of snow on the slopes of Washington State’s mountains this year, in some places already 10% above normal.
These pictures of the Paradise visitor center at Mt Rainier were posted on the Twitter account from the National Weather Service (Seattle) @NWSSeattle.
On Sunday, it will be 20 years since the magnitude 6.8 Nisqually earthquake that occurred here in the Puget Sound basin, on Feb. 28, 2001.
We’re soon getting a smartphone ‘shake alert’ system that will produce as much as a 30-sec. heads-up, that earthquake tremors are on the way (see diagram below). Thirty seconds or less — so this is not the time to panic and freeze.
My plan is to duck under my dining room table — or to run into the smallest room (the guest bathroom). The upstairs bathroom would be the plan for the second floor.
And if you’re driving?
US Geological Survey (USGS) recommends :
– Move your car as far out of traffic as possible.
– Do not stop on/ under a bridge or overpass or under trees, light posts, power lines, or signs.
– Stay inside your car until the shaking stops.
– When you resume driving, watch for breaks in the pavement, fallen rocks, and bumps in the road at bridge approaches.
Here’s the apartment building called 1005 East Roy, here on Capitol Hill.
It was designed by Fred Anhalt (1896-1996), officially a developer and never an ‘architect’. Anhalt moved to Seattle from the Midwest in the early 1920s.
This apartment building was completed in 1930 (one of about 40 by him), and the first one in Seattle to feature an underground parking garage.
One of the ground floor residents has two Sphynx cats (the hairless ones). They sit in the window and check you out as you walk by.
It was back to the dentist for me this morning, to have him replace a filling in one of my teeth (n.o.t. fun).
It’s still very quiet downtown, and I just parked on the street close the Amazon biospheres — only $1 for two hours.
It was dry and warm enough (49 °F/ 9°C) this afternoon, for a nice walk down to Denny Way, to take my customary pictures from the Interstate 5 overpass.
