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.
Wednesday/ a resounding defeat 😖
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.
Saturday/ Seoul Tower 🚡
Seoul Tower is not far from my hotel.
I opted for the cable car to get me to the summit.
A parking lot at the summit can also be reached by bus or by car— or even by walking up all the way with a stairway called the Sam-soon Steps.
This is a 5x telephoto lens picture, so the picture makes it appear closer than it really is.
Lotte World Tower is located to the southeast of Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower is on Namsan Mountain, which is north of the Han River (in the picture), while Lotte World Tower is in Jamsil, which is on the south side of the river.
This a communications tower (can send and receive signals). The antenna on top of Seoul Tower is a broadcast antenna for TV and radio (transmission tower).
Look for the cable car stations at the bottom and at the summit, on the right side of the picture.
Flying to the “other side of the world” is a theoretical concept, but a direct, non-stop flight across the Earth’s circumference would take approximately 20 hours in a commercial jet, though no such flight is possible with current commercial airliners.
[Source: Google AI]
Sunday/ hazy skies ☁️
There goes August.
I walked down to the Melrose Avenue overlook at sunset to take a few photos of the sun setting behind the Olympic Mountains in the hazy sky.
The high was 76°F (24°C) here in the city today, air quality Moderate.
P.S. This is the last of the sunset photos for now!
I will soon travel to the Far East— and take all kinds of pictures with my new camera.
Sunday/ another sunset ☀️
Since it is Sun-day, I guess I am permitted to post more sunset pictures.
And it was too warm to go out in the middle of the day!
This is tonight’s sunset over Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill, that I took from a spot on Bellevue Ave East that overlooks the south end of Lake Union.
f-stop: f/5.6 |Exposure time: 1/200 s |ISO speed: ISO-200 |Focal length: 85 mm | Max aperture: 4.3359375 |Metering mode: Spot
Out-of-camera .jpg (9,504 x 6,336 pixels) reduced to 2,400 x 1,600 pixels.
Shot with Sony α7CR w. Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 lens
f-stop: f/5.6 |Exposure time: 1/2000 s |ISO speed: ISO-200 |Focal length: 85 mm | Max aperture: 4.3359375 |Metering mode: Spot
Out-of-camera .jpg (9,504 x 6,336 pixels) reduced to 2,400 x 1,600 pixels.
Friday/ sailing at sunset 🌇
Happy Friday.
We are into another stretch of warm and sunny days.
The high today was 86°F (30°C).
I went down to the Seattle waterfront for sunset— now at 8.08 pm.
Shot with Sony α7CR w. Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 lens
f-stop: f/5.6 |Exposure time: 1/125 s |ISO speed: ISO-200 |Focal length: 200 mm | Max aperture: 4.96875 |Metering mode: Spot
Out-of-camera .jpg cropped and reduced to 30% of original size.
Thursday/ a bird’s-eye view 🦅
Here’s a bird’s-eye view picture of Seattle’s waterfront, that appeared in today’s Wall Street Journal.
Laura Landro writes: Seattle has largely completed a more than $1 billion redevelopment of the 26-block stretch along Puget Sound’s sweeping Elliott Bay, which includes the replacement of a 100-year-old sea wall that had been badly damaged by an earthquake and erosion. Waterfront redevelopment projects are in various stages of planning, design and construction in large metropolitan areas including New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C., as well as midsize and smaller cities like Norfolk, Va., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Cleveland and Kansas City, Mo.
Tuesday/ The Emerald 🏙️
I take my new camera with me now, every time I go for a walk.
I’m still learning to adjust the exposure and the auto-focus mode.
I also paired the camera with my iPhone (via Bluetooth) so that that the GPS coordinates of my location for each picture can be recorded in the camera on the metadata for the image.
There is a drawback, though: the camera’s battery runs down much more rapidly if it is connected to the phone all the time.
The camera actually has an airplane mode, but it’s a pain to switch it on and off multiple times while walking around.
Better to carry one or two spare batteries to pop into it when one runs out.
It is of The Emerald, a 40-story residential skyscraper located at 121 Stewart Street. Its distinctive glass façade and slightly twisting design makes it stand out in the Seattle skyline. It was completed in 2020.
(This picture is a downsized version, 25% of the size of the out-of-camera picture).
Shot with Sony α7CR w. Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 lens
f-stop: f/5.6 |Exposure time: 1/2000 s |ISO speed: ISO-250 |Focal length: 73 mm | Max aperture: 4 |Metering mode: Pattern
A 600×400 pixel crop of the airplane from the 6,336 x9,504 out-of-camera image reveals that it belongs to Iceland Air.
Saturday/ India’s flag in Seattle 🇮🇳
India’s flag was hoisted up on top of the Space Needle for the first time on Friday.
It is a nod to India’s Independence Day, celebrated annually on August 15 as a public holiday.
The day commemorates the nation’s independence from the United Kingdom on August 15, 1947.
[Northwest Asian Weekly, Dec. 11, 2023]
Thursday/ on Lake Union 🚣♀️
I was near Lake Union for two appointments this morning and took these pictures.
Top to bottom—
Rowing lessons for kids near a flotilla of moored yachts;
Troublemakers (Canadian geese) on the docks;
Space Needle and Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI);
Incoming floatplane;
Departing floatplane— the last one of four in a row— but then the first to become airborne (in the center of the last picture).
Wednesday/ ash in the air 😷
We’re out of the latest heatwave here in the city.
We had 91°F (33 °C) on Tuesday, but only 75°F (24 °C) today.
The smoke and fine, fine ash flakes in the air have not gone away, though. Officials now say the Bear Gulch fire will burn until winter— one of seven large wildfires in Washington State. It continues to grow and is still only 3% contained.
