a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
I found these very very blue trees today in downtown Seattle, across from Westlake Center. The blue was applied by Australian artist Konstantin Dimopoulos and is a mixture of powdered azurite (a vibrant blue copper mineral rock) and water. The big chess game took place close by.
When the sun shines in Seattle, I feel I have to get out of the house. And so I did on Sunday, went out the Space Needle, walked around it and thought I could take a few pictures of its orange-golden painted dome (it is 50 years old this year). But I was too close and so I will go back another day, and go up Queen Anne hill so that I look down onto it.
The ‘secret aardvark’ sauce is from the Kingfish Cafe on 19th Ave here in Capitol Hill in Seattle. I had dinner there on Saturday night with my fiends Bill and Dave. Aardvarks are very special from a classification point of view : the only living species of the order Tubulidentata – and genetically speaking a living fossil! Check out the entry in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark.
Since it was May 1 and International Workers Day (which is not officially observed in the USA) there were peaceful protesters marching in Seattle yesterday. They protested against broken immigration policies and income inequality. There was also a mob of anarchists (that actually sounds too philosophical, l think vandals and criminals describe them better), out to do property destruction and lash out at people on the street and reporters. Some were arrested but I have seen no reports of serious injuries.
This poster on 15th Ave here on Capitol Hill in my neighborhood is for a recording project (a music CD) of Seattle songwriter Scott Roots.
I drove down to our state’s capital city Olympia at the southernmost end of Puget Sound today to meet a colleague from work for dinner, about an hour’s drive. On the way I stopped by the capitol building. The Olympia waterfront and downtown are are both a stone’s throw from the capitol building.
I don’t have a membership card for Seattle’s Costco store*, but I have friends that do, and I went with them to the store today. The store is no-frills and looks like a warehouse inside.
*A warehouse ‘club’ retail store selling a wide variety of merchandise, but only in large, wholesale quantities.
From the New York Times : ‘The Seattle Mariners rode a wave of Ichiromania in Tokyo to beat the Oakland Athletics in extra innings Wednesday in the opening game of the Major League Baseball season’.
Attendance at the Tokyo Dome was an overflowing 44,227 (officially 126% full), so it was great that Ichiro Suzuki gave his fans in Japan a performance to cheer about. He had four hits, Dustin Ackley a home run and a single in the go-ahead run in the 11th inning, which had the Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland Athletics 3-1 on Wednesday night’s season opener.
There is a second game Thursday night in Tokyo. Major League Baseball and the players’ association are using the series to assist rebuilding in Japan following last year’s earthquake and tsunami. On Tuesday some players and coaches traveled to the disaster area to conduct a baseball clinic.
I braved the steady rain yesterday to go downtown and pay my property taxes. (I’m not putting a check for several thousand dollars in the mail!). The offices on 500 Fourth Ave have a diamond pattern on the exterior. And where does my money go? Only 17 cents on the dollar go to the county, and 50 cents to schools. Where in the country would property taxes be the highest? Westchester county in New York State. On this side of the country on the west coast it is Marin County in the San Francisco Bay area. The artwork is from a construction site close by. That must be an Ursus arctos horribilis (grizzly bear) with the American buffaloes (bison), but the curly clouds and background images are definitely Asian.
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
