a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Mr. Blue Sky please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long (so long)
Where did we go wrong?
– lyrics from Mr Blue Sky, by Electric Light Orchestra (1977)
Here’s a flock of pigeons – and yes, I’m looking directly at the sun – at 6.00 pm today.
The air quality here in Seattle has improved from ‘Hazardous’ to ‘Unhealthy’. There is a weather system moving in on Friday that should finally bring back blue skies.
There was no good news in the weather forecast tonight.
A low-pressure system in the Pacific will continue to bring in smoke from the south, and the little bit of rain tonight is not going to clear the the foul air that is blanketing the city, either.
It’s going to be a few more days, at least.
It’s 1.15 pm here in Seattle, and there is an eerie orange haze outside.
The sun has yet to break through the combination of marine layer fog and thick smoke from the west coast’s man-made fires. (Calling them wildfires seems like a cop-out, as if humans had no part in it).
There was a place in the greater Los Angeles area that hit 121°F last week. That’s 49.5 °C. And so many fires— the fires that get worse every summer— in California, in Oregon and in Washington State.
Mostly sunny & smoke haze (87 °F/ 30.5 °C) for the city of Seattle tomorrow.
The 2020/21 school year has started here in the Seattle school district, all online. It was a ‘soft start’, so as to allow for connectivity issues to be resolved, and for everyone to get settled in with the technology that will be used.
My car needed new tires, so I went down to the Les Schwab tire center in Georgetown this morning.
They needed some time before they could get to my car, so I went for a walk.
By the time I got back at 11 am, there was already a line of people at the St. Vincent de Paul food bank across the street.
There was also a King County mobile medical clinic (big van) right next to the food bank building that provide a lifeline to homeless people.
I made a quick stop at a clinic in Harborview Medical Center this morning. (All is well).
The hospital was founded in 1877 as King County Hospital, a six-bed welfare hospital in a two-story south Seattle building.
By 1906, it had moved into a new building in Georgetown, with room for 225 patients. Another move occurred in 1931, when the center wing of the present hospital on First Hill was completed, and the hospital’s name was changed to Harborview.
The 2005 ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy ‘Seattle Grace’ Hospital was based on Harborview Medical Center.
My friends were here to celebrate my birthday tonight.
We sat a social distance apart from each other for beers, and pizzas from Olympic Pizza around the corner.
I really hope by this time next year, we can let our hair down a bit when we socialize and not worry too much about the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
We only got 72 °F (22 °C) here in the city today, but it looks like Sunday will be warm: 90 °F (32 °C).
There was a little crowd tonight in front of Uncle Ike’s on 15th Ave, chanting ‘Black Lives Matter!’ and ‘Defund the Police!’.
There was no visible police presence, but it seemed the organizers of the gathering designated a handful of ‘marshals’ that kept an eye out for vandals and troublemakers.
There was a little welcome rain this morning, with mild highs later on (70 °F/ 21 °C).
There is rain on the way for Thursday, says the meteorologists.
Yes! I need it to dissolve and disperse the dry moss treatment that the gutter cleaners had left on my roof.
The dry summer weather continues here in the city (79 °F/ 26 °C today).
There were clouds and a chance of drizzle on Saturday morning, but it stayed dry.
There was nary a cloud in the blue sky today, and at Seattle-Tacoma Airport a high of 94°F (34.5 °C) was recorded.
The white stuff on my garage roof will kill the moss that had taken hold on it, but it needs a little rain to dissolve in.
The crew that had put it on (it’s environmentally friendly, they assured me), will be back in 4 to 6 weeks to brush off the moss and clean out the gutters.
I will have to be patient: July and August are the driest months in Seattle, each with about 1 in. of total rainfall, on average.
Some 45 people were arrested here in Seattle today, and several police officers were injured in scuffles with the protestors.
We could hear the helicopters hovering, sirens that were wailing at times, and loud flash-bang explosions, a dozen times or so.
A handful of people vandalized a Starbucks on 12th Ave and set fire to construction trailers at the site of the new juvenile detention center nearby. It seems to me that the vandals are doing serious damage to the Black Lives Matter message of the peaceful protestors, as well.
It’s offical: the name for Seattle’s National Hockey League team is The Kraken (rumors had been swirling for months). The kraken is a legendary cephalopod-like sea monster of gigantic proportions in Scandinavian folklore (per Wikipedia).
Fans will have to wait until next year’s NHL season to cheer for the team in the remade Key Arena, which will be called the Climate Pledge Arena (the world’s first certified net-zero carbon arena).
I mailed in my ballot for the Washington State primary election today. Washington uses a top-two primary system, in which all candidates appear on the same ballot, for congressional and state-level elections.
So the top two vote-getters move on to the general election in November, regardless of their party affiliation.
To any candidate that dares having ‘Prefers Republican Party’ behind his or her your name on my ballot: You are automatically disqualified.
Your party is a disgrace — as is that ‘President’ that you had foisted on us in 2016.
I walked down 19th Ave after dinner.
A few people were lined up, socially distant, for ice cream at Hello Robin.
Zeeks Pizza had a smattering of diners inside, as did Monsoon, the Vietnamese restaurant.
No Friday night music and dance at the Russian Community Center; its doors were shut.
The No 12 bus rolled by. Its scrolling letters now say ‘Masks Required’— an upgrade from ‘Essential Trips Only’, I guess.
Businesses in Washington State are required to turn bare-faced customers away from tomorrow, Tuesday.
No mask, no service.
