Category: Seattle

These pictures were all taken with my iPhone.     I’m still learning how to use it.  Today I discovered the zoom function is activated by brushing one’s finger across the bottom of the preview picture !  And my fat finger is in the way in the photo of Caffe Vita Coffeehouse’s neon sign.   (I had dinner earlier in the week next door at the gastropub* restaurant Quinn).    Neon signs and night scenes are tricky and the lighting has to be adjusted manually, something the phone camera cannot do.   But I had better luck with the Pilsner Urquell beer sign.   The two apartment buildings are on Denny Way.  I stayed for two years in the newer yellow and tan one when I first came to Seattle in 2000.     The Twice Sold Tales bookstore is just up the block from there.   And then on Broadway – as always when walking by – I checked on the progress of the construction of the Capitol Hill light rail train station.   There is a yellow-clad human figure on the left in the middle of the picture.

*term used in a review; I guess it means fancy pub food : )

The view from my front window upstairs early this morning : lots of sunshine but frost on the ground.    After some early snow in November we have been spared any more.  Today there is a massive snow-and-ice storm system moving over Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri (St Louis) and Illinois (Chicago) .. up to 20 inches expected in Chicago!   Of course Egypt is an even bigger story.   Friday when the religious services for the end of the week start is now seen by some as the big test for what the outcome of the protests will be.

Thursday was sunny but very cold, and today (Friday) is much the same.    The Space Needle picture is from across the barber where I had my hair cut (I’m looking west toward the mountains on the Olympics peninsula), the downtown picture from across Westlake Center (chess, anyone?) and the Olive 8 hotel-condominium tower is still waiting to be filled up.  ‘Recharge, reset, repriced’ said a billboard ad on a bus I saw a few days ago, but I think it’s still going to be a tough sell.   The chatter yesterday on CNBC was all about the real estate market which is still very weak with a lot of foreclosures expected for 2011.

The stout-hearted* little fellow in Pacific Place Mall is advertising the Nutcracker ballet that is in town.   I bought a shirt at Nordstrom and was shocked to pay $9 for parking in the garage downstairs (that should teach me not to spend 2 hrs at the mall !).    The parking garage is in trouble financially, since its use fell by 18% over the last 5 years.   So : will hiking parking prices help?  A tough call.

*Google’s translation of the Afrikaans word kordaat which I struggled to translate to English

The other picture is from Broadway’s new Panera Bread next to the Seattle Community College (I recommend their turkey and artichoke panini sandwich).   I bought some Sumi ink, brushes and paper at the Blick art store next to it – to try my hand at brush-writing in traditional Chinese.   Of course I will have to report how that goes.

It’s Christmas Day, but that doesn’t mean we all have to stay inside, right?  The streets were very quiet, but I still got some worthwhile pictures on my Capitol Hill walk.

1.  As far as I can tell the car is a Pontiac Silver Streak from 1948 or so;  2. The T-Rex is terrifying the humans, but it’s a tall tale at the Twice Sold Tales bookshop : there is no fossil evidence that dinosaurs and humans co-existed on earth; 3. Bottle-cap artwork at the construction site of the Capitol Hill Light Rail station (Jim Morrison of The Doors?);  4.  The digging for the station looks like it’s now 5 or 6 stories deep (see the faint yellow backhoes or scrapers far down?;  5.  Mr Squirrel was stealing bird seed.

Here’s a nice bit of artwork on a card that arrived in the mail to introduce Seattle residents to Umpqua bank.   Click it to enlarge it.  They got most of Seattle’s icons in : salmon, kayaking, sailing, a few Boeings, Pike Place Market, a woman holding an umbrella, the Pink Elephant carwash sign (see it?), the Space Needle (OF COURSE) – but how about a coffee bean or the Starbucks lady? Speaking of the Pink Elephant carwash sign – I need to go and buy myself a proper tripod for night photography for once and for all and go shoot the pink neon of the elephant next week when I have a little time.

I dialed into the China conference call again today and they all yelled ‘Merry Christmas! for the Americans on the call’ and giggled.

Here are some more Christmas decorations, these from homes in the North Beach/ Blue Ridge (Ballard) neighborhood last night where I had dinner at my friends Bill and Dave’s house.

Here is a picture of my house in Seattle (thanks for sending it, Bryan !).   The snow drifts on the roof is something I have not seen before with snow there.   I am sure the beautiful blue sky means the temperatures dropped to well below freezing at night time !  

Lots of rain !  My neighbor put the lights up in the tree on the sidewalk, the way he always does this time of year, and it brings some nice cheer to the darkness that descends on us already by 5 pm.  I’m starting to put my clothes out for my upcoming trip to South Africa on Monday.

These clocks indicating the time at some rugged landmarks in the world are at the Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) store, a store that sells gear and equipment for the Great Outdoors.

• Lava Falls, Colorado River, Grand Canyon, USA
• North Face of Eiger, Jungfrau Region, Swiss Alps, Elev. 3970m
• Denali, Alaska, USA, Elev. 6194 m
• Mt. Everest, Nepal, Elev. 8848m
• Mt. Rainier, Washington, USA, Elev. 4392 m
• Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia, Coral Sea
• Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, East Africa, Elev. 5895m
• Vinson Massif, Antarctica, Elev. 5140m
• China Bowl, Vail Mountain, Vail, Colorado USA

It was a beautiful blue sky day with perfect temperatures, as the second picture shows.   That’s the Space Needle in the distance, between the office buildings outside the REI store in Seattle’s South Lake Union area.

Our Democratic Senator in Washington State will survive this election, it looks like.   Washington State voters said no no NO to State Income Tax Initiative 1098 (about 65% to 35%).    We said no to private stores selling hard liquor (state-owned stores will continue selling it).   We repealed a tax on certain grocery items such as soda.   We approved a measure that requires a 2/3 majority in the State legislature to increase taxes.  Soo .. how to close the $5 billion shortfall during the remainder of the 2009-11 budget period? Washington state will spend about $74.8 billion in this time to provide programs and services to citizens.   Looks like there will be fewer policemen, higher tuition fees, less health care for state employees, higher public transport fares.    Something’s got to give.

Here are the sources of the State’s money –

 

.. and here is how the money is spent.

 

What happened elsewhere?  Too many results to list but here are some others ..  Meg Whitman ex-CEO of Ebay lost the California Governor’s race against Jerry Brown along with $160 million of her own money spent on her campaign. (Yes, it’s a record amount).  Californians nixed Proposition 19 that would have legalized marijuana.  Harry Reid, Senate majority leader won against a Tea Party upstart.

What on earth are those things in that storefront window?, I thought- and discovered it was a huge collection of vintage sewing machines for the new AllSaints Spitalfields clothing store in downtown Seattle – a British ‘High Street’ retailer which produces clothing aimed towards a younger clientele. (I didn’t go into the store tonight but I want to go back and take a look).  AllSaints name refers in part to 60’s TV icon Simon Templar, aka The Saint – and in part to All Saints Road, in Nottinghill, notorious for its artistic and musical associations.

The three pictures were all taken within a few blocks around my house around 5 pm today.  The interlocking lizard pavement is at the St Joseph School close by.  It is no doubt inspired by the drawing called ‘Reptiles (1943)’ of the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher.  (It’s a coincidence that I had to post more of his artwork, so soon after the one called ‘Three Worlds’ from a few days ago).

I went out for a walk-about over lunch, walked over to the King County Administration building to make a property tax payment (ouch! it dented my bank account).  The next picture is the Seattle Library, and then the Columbia tower from the corner of Cherry St and 5th Ave.   ‘A Christmas Story’ is showing at 5th Avenue Theatre (is not a little early?).

The last picture was taken from the 19th floor of my office building just before I left, showing the ferry from Bainbridge Island steaming in.

 

The remodeled Starbucks on Olive Way opens at 5 am Monday morning.  I like the red-brick and black color scheme.   I will not be there at 5am! (yikes), but I will go there later.  It was another clear and cool day and the night temperature will dip down to 42 F (5 C).

I have my mail-in ballot, my voters’ pamphlet and my post card urging me to vote.  Here in Washington state we have a record number of initiatives on the ballot and I will dedicate another post to what they are.     One of our incumbent senators is up against a Republican in a close race, too.

I stumbled on a print ad for ‘Die Antwoord’ (Afr. for ‘The Answer’) in the newspaper here .. oh! what do you know, I thought – a South African band.  Well, it’s more of a hip-hop crew.  They did pick Seattle as the first city for their North American tour.   But 1. I hardly ever go to musical performances (yes, I should try harder to go), and 2. it appears to me their white trash “zef” aesthetic, crudeness and gimmickry will NOT appeal to me.   But maybe I am not open-minded enough, because here is what Jonathan Zwickel wrote in the Seattle Times : Gimmickry is only one facet of the group’s art-school conceptualism and culturally-plundering spectacle. Husband-and-wife duo Ninja and Yo-landi Vi$$er — backed last night by tour DJ Fishsticks — are one of the most nuanced developments in hip-hop this year. Their videos demonstrate a jarringly grotesque visual aesthetic; their major label debut “$O$,” released earlier this week, obsesses about miscegenation and deviant sexuality.   And Wednesday night’s 50-minute performance revealed undeniable star power.

The skyline is of our twin city Bellevue on the ‘east side’ of Lake Washington.  We in the city of Seattle just say ‘on the east side’ for any city or neighborhood that is east of Lake Washington.   I took the picture from Bellevue Square, a nice shopping mall.    Hard to day if mall traffic is light or not given that I don’t go there regularly and it was a week night.  A new Microsoft store is about to open there – almost right next to the Apple store, no less.     And I’m posting a picture of the old logo for The Gap (on the left), a casual wear clothing store, and the new logo (on the right).   Management unveiled the new logo to such a storm of protest from customers that they ditched it and stuck with the old one.

P.S. Very heartwarming to see the Chilean miners coming out from 700m below ground, one by one.

I attended a little Oktoberfest party at my friends Ken and Steve’s tonight.  The stein below is one of Steve’s collection of some 30 steins and was mine for the evening, and I got to take it home.   I will post a picture of me when I get it .. but rest assured we did not put any Germans to shame with our meagre consumption of beer !    The town of Leavenworth in Seattle hosts a three-weekend Oktoberfest as well.   Of course, the real Oktoberfest is in Munich this time of year – and is the largest folk festival in the world, drawing about 6 million visitors (granted, many of them from Bavaria itself).   2010 actually marks the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest, the original one held by Crown Prince Ludwig on Oct 12, 1810 to celebrate his marriage to Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, five days earlier.

I bought a new TV at Best Buy on Saturday and it was delivered at 7.30am.  Part of the deal was a free pick-up for recycling of the 36″ 185lb Sony monster circa 2002, replaced by the Samsung 55″ 1080p / 120Hz / LED-LCD HDTV that is 1″ thick and weighs 55lbs.  I love the Touch of Color glass bezel and it’s amazing, all the connections that have been built in.    What did it cost?  Do I have to tell?  OK – I thought it was a steal at $1,800 .. a price that would have been three times as much just 5 years ago, and down from $2,200 just a few months ago.   Best Buy’s geek squad will come by on Wednesday to connect the cable company’s HD TV box .. all part of my strategy to get myself to spend more time in front of the TV to relax.   I think I watch all of 5 hrs of TV a week right now.

P.S. I see the new TV needs to move slightly to the left so that it is lined up with the window above it.