Category: Seattle

There is new artwork up on the partition that separate Seattle City Light’s new substation construction site in South Lake Union from the street.   There used to be a bus stop right here, but the sheltered bench and post were removed last year.   But for now I see the No 8 bus is stopping there again .. must be because construction is currently scheduled to start only in Jan 2015.  

I picked up my squeaky new, squeaky clean passport full of blank visa pages on Tuesday. Since I rarely park my car downtown, and still had some time on the meter afterwards, I took a little walkabout to check out the architecture around Pioneer Square.

It was 47 ºF (9 ºC) and rainy in Seattle on Saturday, but not bad weather at all, considering that  snow-and-ice storm Luna* is hitting the Midwest and Chicago area this weekend.

*The Weather Channel’s name. They explain that their goal with naming storms is to better communicate the threat and the timing of the significant impacts that accompany these events.

I took the bus downtown to 5th Ave to hand in my passport for an expedited replacement. I was almost late (you make an appointment), since the office moved 6 blocks and I did not know that beforehand. And inside the Department of Homeland Security does an airport-like security screening, but with guards with guns and dogs and all.  Pretty intimidating, even though they were very friendly.  Weird that these measures ‘protecting our freedom’ actually makes it feel as if you do not have any in there.   Anyway, up on the 6th floor the agent – paging through my fully stamped passport with two sets of added pages – was impressed with all my business travel, and said ‘Wow. Do you not feel like retiring yet?’. ‘Oh, of course I do’, I replied, but I have to work at least ten more years’.

There was some football fan frenziness going on in Seattle on Sunday with a Seahawks play-off game against the Washington Redskins.  The Seahawks rallied to a 24-14 win, after being down at 0-14.   The picture shows the ’12th Man’ flag on the newly painted Space Needle dome (those are pine trees). And what does 12th man mean?  It’s a term for the fans in the stadium during a game.  Several American football used it at one point, then Texas A&M registered it as a trademark, and in 2006 filed a trademark lawsuit against the Seahawks.  The lawsuit was settled out of court, and the Seahawks continue to use it.  (For the life of me, I don’t quite understand why — were we not creative enough to come up with something different?)

I am at Seattle-Tacoma airport for my flight out to Salt Lake City.   I thought it would be busy here because of many Thanksgiving travelers that return home, but no : there are very few travelers out here and the airport is actually very quiet.  It’s only 4.30pm, so maybe the crush will come later.

These Jimi Hendrix posters that are getting touched up lend a little color to the plywood partition that they are pasted on (and to the drab grey environment).  Seattle’s ‘Experience Music Project’ museum has a large collection of Jimi Hendrix artifacts.

Jimi Hendrix is widely considered to be one of the best electric guitar players ever.  He was just 27 when he died of drug-related asphyxiation in Kensington, London in 1970.

I live in the wettest part of the lower 48 states (number of days with precipitation), and the last two weeks of November is the wettest part of the year.  It looks like this year is no exception! The 24-hour totals at Bremerton west of Seattle is at about 4 inches, and one place on the Olympic peninsula had 6 inches of rain.

Here’s a little public ‘sticker art’ I found, drawn on a US Postal Service priority label and pasted onto a street sign in downtown Seattle.  I’m done with my workout at the gym and standing at the traffic light.  It’s only 5.20 pm but the sunlight is long gone.  The sun sets at about 4.30 pm, and the days will grow even shorter for the next month or so.

I ran out to Macy’s in downtown Seattle to get a replacement battery for my Seiko watch ($10.95 for battery and labor, a bargain).  My stop at Nordstrom’s was considerably more expensive, since I got away with a short and two pairs of pants.  At least I did not buy the really classy indigo brushed-cashmere coat/jacket with a removable inner lining that the assistant brought me to try on.  It was $1,400!  Whoah, did you know it was this expensive? I asked her. (And thinking -Man! I’m not Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller*!). Seems it was just a simple mistake, though. She didn’t look at the price before she brought it to me.

*Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was an American businessman, philanthropist, public servant, and politician. He served as the 41st Vice President of the United States, serving under President Gerald Ford, and as the 49th Governor of New York.   He inherited a vast family fortune and a family image that he had to live down in order to achieve his political ambitions.

It is just past 11 pm on Saturday night here in Seattle.  In three more hours, at 2 am, we will turn our clocks back one hour to make them Standard Time again (except the state of Arizona, since they don’t observe Daylight Savings Time).  Watch out if you walk around after dark with traffic nearby!  A Carnegie Mellon University study found that pedestrians are three times as likely to be hit and killed by cars in the few weeks after the time change back to Standard Time.

The maple tree from next door is shedding its leaves the way it always does in fall.  I run out and sweep them up every other day or so, when there is a break in the rain.   I’m also keeping an eye on Hurricane Sandy that is moving up on the East coast.  I am scheduled to fly out to Pennsylvania on Tuesday, to the projected eastern edge of the hurricane.

We went to Columbia City Alehouse in the south of the city tonight for some beers and food.  Check out the cute white pup outside patiently waiting for its masters inside.

Alright : barring a cataclysm of some sort, some serious rain is finally on the way for the Puget Sound region.  We have only had 0.03 inches TOTAL in 80 days! The air here smells dusty and of the dry leaves I swept off the garage roof and cleaned out of the gutters today.   And is that smoke I smell in the air? .. from the wildfires on the other side of the mountains that are still not completely out. All of that will be cleaned out with the rain.

I like this sign across from the grocery store two blocks from my house for two reasons.  1. It has a vintage neon sign that looks really nice when it gets dark.  2. The ‘complete plant’ in the building (see it on the right?) actually points in a way to the 21st century where new buildings may very well have their own complete (power) plants.  As power generation becomes more common from rooftop solar and wind generators, or diesel or natural gas generators inside buildings, the differences between distribution and transmission grids will continue to blur.

It’s the start of Halloween month, the start of the final 2012 quarter (will the Dow Jones crack or not?) and we’re into the final stretch of the 2012 US General Election (will President Obama prevail?).  The sun is still shining brightly almost every day here in Seattle.  I have all but given up expectations for any rain at all to fall down on Rain City this year (I’m joking, but that’s how it feels).