Category: Seattle

It’s the Green Bay Packers 12, Seattle Seahawks 7. It’s the final play in the 4th quarter.  Seahawks rookie quarterback Russell Wilson pass deep left to Golden Tate (blue #81 shirt) for 24 yards.  It is ruled as a TOUCHDOWN (check out the animated picture from SB Nation).  The replay assistant challenged the pass completion ruling, but the play was — upheld. Place kicker Hauschka adds a point.  Seattle wins 14-12.  There’s more : the regular NFL referees are still ‘locked out’ due to a contract dispute, so the replacement refs had to do the best they can.  Today (Tuesday) the NFL admits an error was made but upheld the outcome of the game.  Even President Obama weighed in on Twitter (see below).  So we will see if the contract dispute with the referees get resolved soon.  My view : the NFL is awash in cash.  What is so hard about it?

This afternoon I went to check out our new and own little ‘London Eye’ Ferris wheel right here in Seattle.  (The Great Wheel has been in operation since the end of June, actually.  Also see seattlegreatwheel.com).  The Wheel was a $20m investment (funded privately) and is designed to draw visitors to the Seattle waterfront, in part to address concerns that the construction of the waterfront tunnel nearby will keep visitors away.

I finally got my car back on Monday: brand new radiator, water pump, timing belt and all.  Still, I walked to Volunteer Park by my house for a little exercise on Monday instead of driving to the gym.  The conservatory there is 100 years old, says the signs on the lamp posts there.

The Wilcox footbridge connects the Seattle Arboretum (botanical garden) with the Capitol Hill neighborhood.  It gets pedestrians across the busy Lake Washington Blvd. below.  Weather-wise : still no sign of rain here in Seattle after a very slight sprinkle a week ago.  The Cliff Mass Weather Blog states that the first rain-bearing Pacific front usually reaches us around the third week of August.

It was just too perfect a day not to go outside for a walk, and so I did.  I walked down from my house to the Japanese Garden, adjacent to a much larger park called the Washington Park Arboretum.  It’s no more than a mile or so.   The pictures are all from inside the Japanese Garden.

I always look for the posters for Seattle’s annual music and performing arts festival called ‘Bumbershoot*’.  This one was one a newspaper box on the street.
*Bumbershoot means umbrella! Bumber- (alteration of umbr- in umbrella) + -shoot (alteration of -chute in parachute).  First Known Use: circa 1896. [source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bumbershoot].

We still have blue skies here and dry weather here in Seattle’s late-summer, with mild day temperatures (68°F/ 20°C).  In fact, it is clear that August 2012 will the driest in Seattle history with less than .01 inch of rain to show.  (Information from http://cliffmass.blogspot.com).

This is an old house close to 15th Avenue and Republican Street that is now all covered up in embroidered and knitted cloth.  It used to be a second-hand and antiquarian book store.  If the house is meant as a public work of art, no mention of it is made on the fencing around the house.   And it’s about to start raining every day here in Seattle – better take the cloth down before it becomes bedraggled with rain water, no?

This is the back of my house, on a beautiful late-summer Saturday evening in Seattle. The happy faces in the picture have not had their burgers, apple pie and ice cream yet .. but they will soon. (We are all happy because I made it up into the picture without knocking the camera over, or falling onto my face as I ran around the table).   Nothing like having guests over to motivate one to clean your house and fill up your fridge with some beer and food, and so that’s what I did !

I was running late for a meeting downtown and had to park near the Seattle library.  With no time left to search for parking,  I turned into a downtown parking garage; thought the parking would be similar to that for Pacific Place a few blocks away – $6 for 1½ hrs.  But no-o-o : 1½ hrs cost 17 big bucks.  Ouch – and oh well.   (Yes, I saw the rates on the board going in, but I couldn’t back out!).

I was just leaving the Half Price Books store on Capitol Hill on Sunday night when the sun was setting, etching out the Space Needle in the distance.  I tried to get a good picture with my phone camera, but the contrast between the bright sky and the dimly lit foreground was too great to get it all in one shot.  So here’s what you do: you take TWO pictures, and then use Photoshop to combine them.  Yes, it’s a little work, but didn’t the combined picture come out great?

I guess that’s like saying glass half empty, or glass half full?  The USA today says the terms are synonymous, weather wise.  But Seattle is right up there with the most cloudy days per year in the country : 226.

Here is a current picture of the Bullitt Center*, Seattle’s ultra-green building. Denis Hayes, the center’s owner, says it’s like the first Prius that was built, so it’s appropriate that a Prius scampered by just as I took the picture.  Note that there is no parking in the building for cars, though. Yikes.  Not even for Priuses; only for bicycles.    *There is another blog post about it on June 28, 2012.

I open all my junk mail – and there was a lot piled up this time – to make sure there are no personal information printed inside by the overzealous marketers that get one’s address from .. where? Facebook? Google? Amazon? Some shared address list?  Most of the offers are completely off the mark.  So forgive my ranting that is about to follow.

How about a new Mickey Mouse credit card ‘for my family’ from JP Morgan Chase? – a bank with $2.3 trillion in assets that wants to lend me money at credit card rates.  Money it gets from the US Government almost at 0%.  Or should I fill out the 2012 Presidential Platform Survey from the Republican National Committee?  I am very sure they will flinch and quickly crumple up the form I send them.   Maybe I can attend the Seattle rally for 2012 independent Presidential Candidate Dick McCormick?  To tell him : it’s just not going to happen for you, man.  The Democrats and Republicans are collectively spending $1 billion dollars – that’s with a B – on campaigning in this most-moneyed-EVER election.  How much money do you have, to spend?  Finally, got to love the environmental non-profits (‘Environmental Defense Fund’) that send whole brochures, or almanacs for 2013 printed on glossy paper.  How many trees were used for that?

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms!
It was a perfect weather day here in Seattle.  The blossoms are from close to my house.

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.