a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
It is snowing here in Seattle. It started around 6.30 pm, just as we walked a few blocks from my house to the Thai restaurant on 15th Ave. Earlier I understood from the weather forecast we could expect a few flurries and not much more, but the time we left the restaurant at around 8 pm, the snow had already started to stick on the streets. It is powdery and dry, and goes crunch-crunch-crunch as you step on it on the sidewalk.
*the backwards passing of the ball at the start of play from scrimmage
Dan Wentzel wrote on Yahoo Sports just after the game : Seattle plays in the Pacific Northwest, far from the nation’s traditional media centers, lacks many household stars and is led by a coach in Carroll who is rarely credited for his coaching acumen. Whatever doubts were out there, were unfounded. They didn’t need stars or gaudy stats. Seattle had a team – clearly the best team in the NFL.
The Superbowl is tomorrow, Sunday. Go Seahawks! Check out the gorgeous Boeing-owned 747-8 Freighter decked out in Seahawks colors and icons. (The 12 is for the ’12th man’, the Seahawks supporters). Is the plane a gesture from Boeing trying to make nice, though? For the upcoming manufacture of the new 777X, Boeing took US$8 billion in tax breaks from the State of Washington, then turned around and screwed its Puget Sound workers.
From Bloomberg Businessweek, Jan 9 : Boeing won—and workers lost. Boeing’s decision to play hardball comes at a time of record prosperity for the company, which is boosting its dividend by 50 percent and buying back $10 billion in shares. For 2013, the company is likely to post record net income of $5 billion or more. Boeing’s corporate power play is more evidence that in the economic contest between labor and employer, most employees have little power to improve their collective lot.
Go, go, go! get out of the house, I said to myself at 4pm, before it is dark. I didn’t want to go to the gym, and it was bearable outside (only just) to go for a walk. So I took the No 8 bus down Denny Way and to Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood, and walk around there for a bit, and back down to the Space Needle.
The Seahawks will take on the Broncos on Feb 2 in the Superbowl. The Seahawks came out with a 23-17 victory over the San Francisco 49ers today. The Hawks were down 3-10 at halftime, and the game had a somewhat dramatic ending in the final minutes when a touchdown throw from 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick’s to teammate Malcolm Smith was intercepted by Richard Sherman. So my hometown team will take on my ‘work town’ team!
Here’s an interesting excerpt from the Wall Street Journal about the ‘Polar Star’ icebreaker that is based in Seattle.
SEATTLE—The 40-year-old Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star returned to the Arctic Ocean this summer after seven years in semi-retirement, charging into a thinning polar ice sheet that U.S. defense officials predict will give way to new commercial waterways and a resource-rich frontier by mid-century. The Polar Star was originally supposed to be in service for 30 years. Its age and a lack of funding had prompted the Coast Guard to put the ship into semiretirement: afloat but not operational.
This summer, on its first voyage to the Arctic since 2001, veterans on the crew found a very different ocean. “Back in the day there were a lot more challenges, more multi-year ice, you had to pick your spots through it,” said Coast Guard Cmdr. Kenneth Boda, the ship’s executive officer. “This summer we set a course and go…We were teaching our young officers to drive around the thicker stuff but we could have gone right through.”
The changing conditions make the Arctic particularly unpredictable. Lt. j.g. Paul Garcia, on his first icebreaking mission this summer, steered the Polar Star into what the Coast Guard calls a “blind alley.” In the Arctic, moving ice floes can bunch up to form mountainous ridges of ice. When three or four floes ram together, the ice can be so thick that even the Polar Star—capable of 75,000 horsepower—can’t smash through, creating a blind alley.
So the Seahawks got it, with a win of 23-15 over the Saints. The Hawks will host and play in one more game (tickets start at $415). That final playoff game to get to the Superbowl that is in New York City this year, is Sunday Jan 19. Meanwhile, I ran all my errands on Saturday, also tracking down my vacation mail that was still held at my request by the US Postal Service. Boy, did they made me work for it. USPS moved the mail hold location from my local post office to the SODO (South of downtown) district. I finally found the right building, and with some luck, someone that found my mail. There were no signs, no door and no service counter. Come on USPS, you can do better than that! By the time I got out of there, the fans had started to show up for the Seahawks playoff game. The hardy ones had been tailgate-partying in parking lots around the stadium since early morning already, not seeming to mind the blustery conditions.
It was frosty early this morning, but by 9 am the sun was already at it, melting the iciness. The Pacific Northwest is escaping most of the arctic blast that is hitting the Midwest and East.
My bags are unpacked. I like to ‘discover’ the silly little souvenirs that I bought again, as I unpack my luggage and find it in there.
Ada’s Technical Books and Cafe has opened right here on 15th Avenue, so I went to check it out this afternoon. The place has a nice geeky vibe, with electronic gadgets and puzzles on display, and for sale, as well. I wanted to buy one of the puzzles on display but alas, it was sold out. They will get more of the handmade puzzles in by next Saturday, they said.
I bundled up for my Sunday afternoon walk, but it was just too cold to stay out for too long. So I turned around after just 6 or 7 blocks, and walked back along 15th Avenue. The frosty ice crystals in the shadows on the lawns was still there late afternoon, despite a sunny day. But the days are short : the sun disappears soon after 4 pm already.
There has been no snow or sleet or rain here in Seattle this weekend, but it is ice-box cold outside. (Not nearly as cold as say, Denver, but below freezing).
Better grab the scarf and gloves to leave your warmed-up winter cocoon (the house). You’re about to step into a giant refrigerator! The city has opened more emergency shelters for homeless people, and Seattle Police are operating a ‘cold-weather van’ this weekend to help them find places to warm up.
Bertha, Seattle’s tunnel boring machine, is making some progress. Check out the Washington State Dept of Transportation’s web page here.
So Thanksgiving Day behind us, the shopping for Christmas can start in earnest. This year the Black Friday sales events at stores started on Thanksgiving evening already, on Thursday. The ugly face of capitalism clashing with family time? Yes. Should there be a law to keep stores closed? Probably not. Can a store force its workers to come in on Thanksgiving Day? Of course. But then it may have to deal with an unhappy workforce (or maybe it will keep the store in business, and save some jobs?). Doorbusters! 30% off ! screams the headlines. But most items were not meant to sell at the ‘full price’ at any time of the year, anyway. It’s marketing hype and marketing theater. As had been said already in the times of the Roman empire : caveat emptor. Buyer beware.
It’s been awhile since I stopped by the flagship REI store (Recreational Equipment Inc.) here in Seattle. I need new gloves and was looking for a jacket for wearing in Denver. The Hilton Garden Inn is much further from the office, and a 15 to 20 minute walk. Indeed, there were forests of ski jackets to wade through, with inner layers and outer layers and Gore-Tex and all .. but they all seemed a little too much, and too colorful, too sporty to wear as an outer layer for an office job. So I will keep looking. The departments stores are sure to offer blander jackets and coats. It’s just that the Christmas season onslaught of music and displays and the Salvation Army jingling their bell all day long outside the Pacific Place mall have now started.
On Saturday we made a quick day trip to Paul’s getaway cabin on Kitsap peninsula. We drove up to Edmonds, and took the ferry to Kingston. At Edmonds we just missed the 10.30 am departure of the ferry, and walked over to the water’s edge while waiting for the next departure. Immediately to the north of the ferry terminal is Edmonds Underwater Park : an area of seabed stretched across 27 acres of tide and bottom lands. The park was established in 1970 as a marine preserve and sanctuary by city ordinance. The primary attraction for divers is the man-made reefs constructed of concrete blocks, tractor tires, PVC pipes of various sizes, sunken navigation buoys, an old tree trunk, sunken boats & ships, even old pieces of the 520 floating bridge. There were 20 or so divers to be seen on Saturday. It looked deceptively calm and shallow to me, given that a diver died in there 2005 and two more in 2010 in separate incidents. (Malfunctioning equipment, cross currents). Events like these send shock waves through the diving community, since there are so many diving protocols dedicated to safety – but I guess accidents are bound to happen with some 25,000 divers going there every year.
The mushrooms in my back yard seem to favor this time of year to sprout up in my back yard, and I took out about a dozen of the red ones with white speckles today. I wash my hands carefully after I had taken them out, since they might be poisonous. Even edible mushrooms have a tendency to absorb heavy metals, so they should not be harvested in the wild if they are near roads or industrial areas.
So .. Daylight Savings Time has come to an end. It’s time to ‘fall back’ one hour. Today was a blustery day here in the Seattle area with wind and rain. I cleaned up the leaves at the front and the back of the house as usual, knowing that I don’t have to get all of it .. it just keeps coming down, and I will get the rest next weekend.
Here are a few selected pictures that I took at the 2014 Seattle Auto Show that we attended today.
The green in the trees here in Seattle are turning into reds, oranges and yellows, as they are across the United States.
So why are leaves green to begin with? asks Wikipedia in its article on chlorophyll. Wikipedia : ‘It still is unclear exactly why plants have mostly evolved to be green. Green plants reflect mostly green and near-green light to viewers rather than absorbing it. Other parts of the system of photosynthesis still allow green plants to use the green light spectrum (for example, through a light-trapping leaf structure, carotenoids, and so on). Green plants do not use a large part of the visible spectrum as efficiently as possible. A black plant can absorb more radiation. For more, check out Wikipedia : Chlorophyll
We are having a ‘big weather event’ (as the meteorologists like to say) here in Seattle this weekend : lots of rain with gusty winds at times as well. The first big storm of the season can make trouble and bring down tree branches and there was indeed a power outage in parts of the city.