Category: Seattle

It’s (apparently) time for the mushrooms to pop out from the ground in my back yard again. The squirrels nibble on them as well, but they are 1. not too tasty or 2. the squirrel get a psychoactive mushroom high from the nibbles and cannot continue.   I let the mushrooms be until they get really big and flat, and then throw them into the yard waste bin with the leaves I rake together.

I voted for the upcoming local elections for the City of Seattle and for King County tonight. (It’s low tech to vote : fill in oval circles with pen, fold up your ballot, stuff in an envelope, and send it in the mail.  I guess it’s sort-of high tech when it comes to counting votes. They run the ballots through a scanner.  Will voting ever become fully electronic? Maybe not, just the same as paper money that will not go away any time soon).

JAMES YAMASAKI

The leaves from the big maple tree next door are starting to come down in large numbers.  If I sweep them every weekend, I can manage to get away with not buying giant yard waste paper bag at the home depot store.   (I put them in my giant yard waste bin).

And luckily, the big dog next door that used to bark at me from the fence while I sweep the leaves, left with his owners when they moved out.  Voertsek!*, I would bark back at it when I could no longer ignore the ruckus.

*An Afrikaans word, from the Dutch ‘voort seg ek’ , commonly applied to animals.  It means ‘go away!’ or ‘get out of here!’

It was a mild blue sky day here in the Pacific Northwest (72 °F/ 22 °C).  So off I went this afternoon, for a little urban walk down hill and up to the Washington State Arboretum.  That took about 40 minutes, and I then I hopped on the bus to get back to the house to get my laundry done and pack my bags for San Francisco.

Saturday was a beautiful cool cloudless day here in Seattle.  I hopped on the No 43 bus that dropped me off on Denny Way, and then I walked downhill across Interstate 5 to the gym.  There I read of the South Africa’s rap-rave group ‘Die Antwoord’ (the answer) that are quite a hit in New York City.  (They have been here in Seattle as well, some time ago).

Well, it’s a good thing that people listen to the music and not the words in Afrikaans!  Let’s just say they speak a different Afrikaans than I do.

Video Killed the Radio Star was the first music video shown on MTV in the United States at 12:01am on 1 August 1981.  Well, now there is something that is killing the video (store) : streaming flicks over the internet with Netflix or Amazon Instant Video.   On 15th Video held out for a long time as the last video store here on Capitol Hill, but it has now also closed its business.  Even its collection of rare and weird cult flicks alongside the new releases and hits could not save it.

The weather is still summery here in Seattle, even though it is starting to cool down at night.   Bryan, Gary and I walked down to The Chieftain on 12th Avenue : a place that is not fancy at all, but offers beer and reliably good pub food.    They were playing a version of Billy Joel’s ‘The Piano Man’ and it sounded to us as if some of the people outside partook in the chorus :

Sing us a song, you’re the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
And you’ve got us all feelin’ alright .. 

‘We’re very busy’, said the taxi driver that drove me home last night.   There’s a cruise ship leaving, there’s a big conference in the convention center, and it’s Labor Day weekend.  So today when I saw people outside the Washington State Convention Center here in downtown Seattle, I checked into who they are and that the conference is about.  Well, it’s a gathering of computer gamers.  The PAX Prime game conference is in its 10th year and now draws tens of thousands of visitors that discuss games, and partakes in game tournaments.

My door bell button was on the fritz after doing duty for some ten years. So : time for a new one.

The choices at the home depot store were somewhat limited, but I settled for the one shown in the picture.   ‘A little frilly and fussy on the sides of the little metal plate, not?’ I thought today while I took the picture.   But on second thought I think it goes with my old house nice enough !

Bryan, Gary and I went for a walk-about in the Pike & Pine streets on Saturday night as the sun was setting.  Here are some pictures.

I need some new shirts and pants for work, and went out to Nordstrom’s here in downtown Seattle the way I normally do.  I like the Nordstrom brand clothes best : not cheap, but still good value for money.  It’s not long before a friendly salesperson comes up and offers to help, which is fine .. but I get my guard up when he/ she brings $220 shirts to the fitting room.  The classic ‘up sell’ strategy, it seems to me. The price is never mentioned, just the brand and the quality of the fabric.  OK.  But the few tailored shirts I had made in Hong Kong when I worked in China – of good Italian fabric – cost $150.   The store should come in way below that for a shirt straight off the rack.

I took a day off from work to go on a hike with my friends Bill and Dave. We hiked a trail up to Lake Twenty Two.  (I’m not sure why this lake has a number!  Most other lakes in the Mt. Baker- Snoqualmie National Forest here in Washington State have names!).   

The drive out there from the city is about two hours. The trail length is 5.4 mi (8.6 km) round-trip. Most of the hike is through forest, but some sections of the trail are out in the open.   The lake is at the high point of the trail, with an elevation gain of 1,350 ft (411 m) to the lake’s surface.   It’s a nice reward after some 90 minutes of trekking uphill !

Across from the lake is Mount Pilchuck’s sheer northern face. The peak is at 2,400 ft (731 m), so about 1,000 ft (320 m) above the lake surface.  Even at this time of the year, thin white waterfalls cascade down on the rock face, and two melting snow packs are still visible on the slopes south of the lake.  

The boom of new apartment construction going on in and around my neighborhood of Capitol Hill is probably the most in several decades.   The Capitol Hill Seattle blog has a map that shows all the construction, current and planned  here.   So it’s nice to see older buildings getting a make-over, or a fresh coat of paint – as was the case with the Canterbury Alehouse on 15th Avenue.   The medieval castle gate in the middle of the building is the best ! .

 

I picked up this awe-inspiring picture below (awe at the destructive force of fire) from King5 News .. and I had to find out exactly where it was.  The picture’s description only noted it to be in Tumwater canyon, but that was good enough.   There is a tell-tale mile marker and ‘left turn ahead’ road sign in the picture.  By zooming all the way in, I could just barely make out that the first digit on the mile marker might be a 9.  Then I did a virtual mouse click ‘drive’ all along Highway 2 with Google Streetview and voila!  there was the combination of mile marker 92 and the left turn sign, shown in broad daylight.  The three tall pine trees on the right was a match as well.   Will those tall trees survive the fire? Probably NOT.  More than a 100 homes have been lost already in other fires nearby.

Bryan and I went out to Hansville on the Kitsap peninsula for Saturday. It’s a combination drive-ferry across the water-drive trip to get there. Either of the Edmonds-Kingston or Seattle-Bainbridge Island crossings can be used, and this time we used the one to Bainbridge Island on the way in.

On the way back we took the Kingston-Edmonds ferry.

A parfait food truck was out on 15th Avenue tonight, and I stopped by. Parfait is a French frozen dessert made of sugar syrup, egg, and cream.  American parfait is the one with layers of ice cream, cream and colored gelatins. 

I went for a walk again later to wait for my house to cool down.  (Many houses in Seattle – including mine – have no air conditioning .. but opening the windows wide for a bit in the evening is usually good enough).

I had to report back at the Superior Court today for jury duty, but spent all morning in the jury pool without getting selected to actually serve on a jury.  We were dismissed early afternoon.  ‘Just don’t knock me down and run me over!’ joked the bailiff as she announced that we were free to go.

So since I was just a block away from Smith Tower, with another beautiful blue sky summer day here in the city, I decided to go up to the observation deck.  The elevator on the 33rd floor opens into the Chinese Room, a large room decorated with Chinese artwork, wall and ceiling paneling and furniture.  Legend has it that the room was furnished by the last Empress of China as a gift to Mr. Smith.  (New York tycoon Lyman Cornelius Smith).

I reported for my summons to do jury duty today here in Seattle today, at the King County Superior Court in downtown.  The Superior Court is where criminal cases* are brought by the State of Washington against defendants.

*[From www.findlaw.com] The American legal system is comprised of two very different types of cases, criminal and civil. Crimes are generally offenses against the state and society (murder, violent crimes), and are accordingly prosecuted by the State.  Civil cases on the other hand, are typically disputes between individuals regarding the legal duties and responsibilities they owe one another. Criminal cases can result in jail time; in civil cases monetary damages are awarded.  A defendant in a criminal case is entitled to an attorney, and if he or she can’t afford one, the State must provide an attorney. A defendant in a civil case is not given an attorney and must pay for one, or else defend him or herself.

Here are some King County Superior Court statistics –
> Serves the 14th most populous county in the nation
> Handled a caseload of almost 53,000 new cases in 2013
> Has 53 judges and 12 commissioners
> Supported by 520 staff in Superior Court and the Dept of Judicial Administration

So did I get to sit in on a court case as a juror? No, but I might tomorrow – on a short case. One of the cases is expected to go for 6 or 7 weeks, but enough jurors were found by the time my badge number was called. (Whew).

I made it out to the Pride Parade on Sunday. The weather was very pleasant, and the rain held off – always good since rain on a parade makes for a lot of trouble!   I had to leave a little early to go to the airport and fly out to Denver.   This is a short work week for me with the Fourth of July coming up.

It is gay Pride week in Seattle (and several other cities in the USA, notably San Francisco and New York City as well).  The first parade – more a protest march, in those days! – was held in 1974.  The parade in downtown Seattle is tomorrow, but the festivities has been on-going throughout the weekend and especially on Capitol Hill here in Seattle.  Bryan, Gary and I took a walk around Pike-Pine Streets and down to Broadway to check out the revelry (after which we called it a night and went home!).