Category: Seattle

My home city of Seattle was in the US news with snow this week.  Yes, we are not used to – and cannot handle –  a lot of snow.   But calling it ‘Snowmageddon’ sounds like overblown media hype.  I cannot say for sure since I was not there, of course!  But even the statement ‘A record setting day at Sea-Tac!  The snow total for today at the airport is 6.8″, far exceeding the old record of 2.9″ back in 1954′  is misleading. Wikipedia notes that in the largest snowstorm on record from Jan 5–9 in 1880, snow was drifting to 6 feet in places at the end of the snow event.  It’s just that there was no Sea-Tac airport back then. Then there are the events that just unfolded in Nome, Alaska (red A on map) with one of the harshest winters in decades.  Snow had piled up 10 feet or higher against buildings after a massive storm in November followed by temperatures dipping to -30 F (-34 C).  This storm prevented them from getting their pre-winter barge fuel delivery.  So the U.S. Coast Guard’s only operating Arctic icebreaker, the Cutter Healy, escorted a Russian fuel tanker called Renda through the ice-covered waters in the first-ever attempt to supply fuel to an Alaska settlement through sea ice.  The fuel was delivered last week.

The weather here is mild and very nice .. the picture is from my commute in to work on Wednesday, of the Shenzhen Bright Oil pipeline supplying marine oil to a ship under broken clouds with the sun breaking through.

Here is the 2012 Year of the Dragon ‘bearista’ bear that I got in Shenzhen at a Starbucks.   I have a 2010 Year of the Tiger and a 2011 Year of the Rabbit bear, so I really had to get this fella with his ferocious dragon suit as well !   I will let the three of them pose together for a picture when I get back in Seattle.

2012 is here, also in Seattle! The Space Needle picture is from King 5 TV, and the other one is from my desk.   Happy New Year!  I wish everyone a year filled with health, happiness and prosperity !

Tolling started today on State Route 520’s floating bridge, one of two bridges that connect the city of Seattle to ‘the other side’ or ‘the East side’.   The money is needed for an upgrade to the bridge (see ‘existing’ and ‘new’ pictures .. the option with Light Rail will be possible but is not yet approved or funded).   By the year 2030, our region is expected to grow by more than 1.3 million people and add 700,000 jobs.  (Here’s the link http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/SR520Bridge/questions.htm).

Drivers have to buy transponders (roughly half a credit card size, as shown on the mobile kiosk selling them), stick it inside their cars’ windshields and activate the account.   And then you are good to go.  There is no stopping on the bridge and throwing coins in a basket (aww, that was always fun!) or saying ‘hello’ to an attendant as in days gone by.  The approaching car sends back its signal, and the driver’s account gets debited with varying amounts – free between midnight and 5 a.m. and then up to $3.50 for rush hour (5 bucks if you’re without a good to go pass! .. you will get charged by mail).

I have had my pass for awhile and drove across the bridge and back last night.  Sure enough, back home a check of my account showed an update with the charges and times that I crossed the bridge.   So I can see why there are some privacy concerns out there.   The little transponder enables Big Brother to track you, in places other than the bridge as well.  Yes. The radar is out there and you cannot drive ‘under’ it.

The two pictures from below are from my walk this afternoon. Yes, the sun does shine in Seattle in wintertime! .. and it has been very dry the last few weeks.  Precipitation for Dec 1 to 22 is running 3.61 inches below normal at 0.25 inches (compared to the normal 3.86 inches).  Santa is bringing some wet weather with him tomorrow, though.  (That 39 to 42 temperature is in °F and is equal to 4 to 5.5 °C).

It’s December! .. yikes.   I am not ‘home free’ for kicking 2011 out the door yet, though : got to make one more trip this year to China for work.  So I got my hair cut today so that I don’t have to track down a Chinese hairdresser (and explain what needs to be done with my hair!).    The Right Lane MUST turn Right sign is on Olive Way by Denny.  Seattleites especially the ones here on Capitol Hill cannot leave well enough alone, and leave street signs unadorned with stickers.    And poor Santa is smoking pot on a poster from the Kottonmouth Kings – an American rap rock group from Orange County, California.   They describe themselves as “psychedelic hip-hop punk rock”.    And a little later I stopped in at Smith here on 15th Ave for a beer and a bite with a friend right as the sun was setting (at 4.19pm).   The days are short here!  Go out and do something before it’s dark!

I see ski season is opening today at Crystal Mountain (ski resort in Mr Rainier National Park, about 2 hrs’ driving from  Seattle).   King5 news reports that the snowboarders and skiers are ‘giddy’ and ready to head to the mountains.   (Picture from crystalmountainresort.com).   No snow here in southeast Asia, and none expected any time ‘soon’, of course !   But Japan is starting to get snow in the lower lying areas.    I guess the samurai warrior helps the weather woman press home the point that snow tires might be needed – or at least, to drive carefully.   The Seattle area was forecast to get some spotty snow in the lower lying areas Friday but looks like that has cleared up.

I am checking out the cat through the closed front door, and the cat is checking me out.   The feline looks quite disinclined to make an effort to contain the squirreling going on among the leaves and maple seeds on my back deck !   That’s four days’ worth of leaves.   They were all swept up by afternoon (by me)- but it’s going to be several more weeks before the neighbor’s maple tree is bare.   Those big Canadian flag size leaves keep coming down.

This little display is in the lobby downstairs in my company’s office building downtown.  (I forgot to note the artist).  The State is flanked by salmon (of course), and the Washington State Red Delicious apples*.   The trees at the top of the ‘Evergreen State’are probably Western Hemlock pine trees (the official Washington State tree).    Smith Tower (1914) is on the left, the Space Needle (1962) is on the right.  And I would hazard a guess that the little light bulbs are our volcanic mountains.

*From WIkipedia – In the 1980s, Red Delicious represented three-quarters of the harvest in Washington state.   A decade later, reliance on Red Delicious had helped to push Washington state’s apple industry to the edge.   In 2000, Congress approved and President Bill Clinton signed a bill to bail out the apple industry, after apple growers had lost $760 million since 1997.  Today the Red Delicious crop makes up only about a third of the apple production (still the largest proportion) along with other cultivars such as Cameo, Fuji and Gala.

None of the very early white stuff (snow) they have in the Northeast, to report here in the Pacific Northwest.   It is cloudy and rainy, though – so when the sun does come out, it makes the fall colors of the leaves come alive.   I took this picture here on Capitol Hill.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct is Seattle’s north-south double-decker freeway that runs along the Puget Sound water’s edge by downtown.  It opened in 1953, and is now ugly and earthquake-damaged.  (The Nisqually Earthquake on Feb 28, 2001 was one of the largest recorded earthquakes in Washington state history.   The quake measured 6.8 on the MMS and lasted approximately 45 seconds).

In early 2009, the State of Washington, King County, the City of Seattle, and the Port of Seattle revealed that they had agreed to replace the viaduct with a four-lane, 2-mile (3.2 km) long underground tunnel.   The project is estimated to cost some US$4 billion.   So after a lot of soul-searching and political wrangling, construction of the tunnel has now officially started with the demolition of the south end of the Viaduct.  (Boring the tunnel will only start in early 2013.  Hitachi Zosen Corp. of Osaka, Japan will provide the 60 feet in diameter and more than 300 feet long boring machine.   The company has already supplied the tunnel-boring machine currently used in the Capitol Hill train station construction).

New on-ramps will continue to allow traffic to use the viaduct for some time.    The demolition work has drawn a lot of people, but by the time my friends and I stopped by Friday night after dinner the week’s work that started Fri Oct 21 was ahead of schedule and traffic will be allowed to start using the new on-ramp on Saturday instead of on Monday.

Map from WSDOT website

^Picture by Associated Press

^Photo by Joshua Trujillo, Seattlepi.com

I had dinner in Ballard with Bill and Dave, and the pictures are from Bergen Place Park – the triangular site between Leary Avenue, 22nd Avenue NW, and Market Street.  The ‘trees’ are artist Jenn Lee Dixon’s ‘Witness Trees’.   Bergen (in Norway) is one of Seattle’s international sister cities, and the mural leads me to believe the first Norskamerikanere (Norwegian Americans) arrived here in 1869.  Some eight centuries after Bergen’s founding in 1070 !

On Sunday I took the bus downtown to Pike Place market.  (Yes, the sellers still throw the dead fish to each other at the fish market, PETA)*.   At the little park to the north, I had to do the obligatory peek over the edge onto our infamous Alaska Way Viaduct.  It’s no longer deemed safe, and especially vulnerable to earthquakes.  And just this Tuesday there is yet another referendum to gauge support for its replacement with a tunnel – for which construction has already started (tunnel nay-sayers want a new viaduct).   Also check out the Google street view picture.

*In 2009, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) heard that the American Veterinary Medical Association asked some Pike Place Market fish throwers to be the opening act for their convention at the Seattle convention center, and sent them a protest letter.

Next, I made my way down to Pioneer Square and discovered the Hartford Building, an excellent example of Art Deco style, built in 1929.   And I only discovered after I got home that Smith Tower has an observation deck!  Aw.  Now I’ll have to go back.   It opened in 1914, was the fourth tallest building in the world in its heyday, and remained the tallest building west of the Mississippi River for almost 50 years.   The black Columbia Tower looming behind it is now the tallest building in the city.

What to do if you have a BIG birthday coming up, and almost everyone (including me!) will be away from Seattle on that day?   Why, you jump at it and celebrate it early, which is what a few friends and I did Friday night.   Check out the wild king salmon with fresh dill and lemon, just off from the grill – and the birthday cake.   The cake was from Borrachini’s, a historic Italian bakery on Rainier Avenue –  chocolate with raspberry filling and white Bavarian icing.  Very, very good.   The picture is made out of rice paper and food coloring, so you simply you gobble it up with the cake !

It was nice to be home for a change during the annual ‘Seattle Night Out’ in my neighborhood !  The streets in a group of blocks are closed, and the residents get together right there in the street with food and something to drink and get to meet each other.   The event is promoted by the Seattle Police Department.

I found the crime statistics map on the Seattle Police Dept’s website.  (I live just outside the darkest green area to the east of the city.  Hey – more humans, more crime.  That’s just a fact of life).  The 911 incident map is dotted with symbols that show what trouble humans make for each other.  Serious ones  :  DRIVING WHILE UNDER INFLUENCE (DUI), FIRE, CASUALTY (NON CRIMINAL/TRAFFIC) – MAN DOWN, SICK PERSONS, INJURED, DOA) and less serious ones such as REPORT SUSPICIOUS PERSON, MISCHIEF/ NUISANCE COMPLAINTS, FIGHT DISTURBANCE, PROPERTY DESTRUCTION, SHOPLIFTING, BURGLARY – RESIDENTIAL, UNOCCUPIED.

I stopped by the Starbucks Center today in the SoDo (south of downtown) neighborhood, part of the industrial district.  The world headquarters for Starbucks, it is the largest building by floor space in Seattle, with over 1,800,000 sq ft (167,000 m2).   It is also both the largest and oldest building in the country with a national green certification.    I checked out the washers and dryers on offer at Sears next door, and I liked the LG models (hmm .. are the cherry red models on sale because of the color, or because of other shortcomings?).     The Amazon truck is on Madison Avenue on the way home.   (Odd to see DVDs on the short list with bread, milk and eggs!).    Finally, the quote on the lamp post by my gym is from JFK’s inaugural speech in 1960 — a statement sorely tested this weekend with the on-going talks in Washington DC about the debt-ceiling and the debt and what expenditures to cut.

Here is the inside of the Elysian Bewery on Capitol Hill (photos from their website), where Bryan, Gary and I go many Friday nights.    Tonight I had a Hydra Hefeweisen (wheat beer) and a Golden Boot (lager).   The other empty glasses in front of me were not mine! : )

The first two pictures are mine.  (I found the other two online).   They are of the entrance to the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park a few blocks from my house.   Those are Bactrian camels (two humps) found in Mongolia and China, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey.     We have had blue sky and tranquility out here the last few days .. unlike the massive dust storm that enveloped Phoenix AZ early Tuesday night, or the Orlando FL media storm after the acquittal of Casey Anthony, a mom accused of murdering her 2 yr old daughter in 2008.   (A guilty verdict was widely anticipated in the media and on cable news programs that made reporting of the case their main focus).    The acquittal is also compared to that of the OJ Simpson case from 1995.    That one was in the news not too long after I started working in the USA, and I remember that we all ran down to the cafeteria to see the OJ Simpson case’s verdict.

The USA is 235 years old.  (Or 235 years young, compared to Europe and the East).    Here are a few local Fourth of July fireworks pictures (brought to you from my television!).  A barge on Lake Union, just north of downtown is used as the staging area.  The TV cameras and on-lookers are in Gas Works Park, just about 2 miles from my house as the crow flies, so I could hear the booms as those big ones that fill up the sky were exploding.

Back in 2010, this fireworks display was in jeopardy after the slumping economy and the collapse of Washington Mutual Bank brought an end to the sponsorship of the city’s only remaining July 4 fireworks show.    But Microsoft and Starbucks each kicked in a reported $125,000 to get to the $500,000 needed to put on the display.