a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Hmm .. I see The Economist has given Vienna the nod as the world’s ‘best city’ to live in. (Melbourne had been at the top of the list for seven straight years). No American city made the top 10 .. but of course: Seattleites scoff at the notion that Vancouver is better than Seattle. That number 6 pointer on the map should move south to just below the Canadian border!
We did another little walk in the woods today – just through a woodsy area near Paul’s house here in the Hansville area.
We went for a little hike along the beach to the lighthouse at Point No Point today.
A few of us went out to Paul’s on the Kitsap Peninsula on Saturday night, to stay over for a quick visit.
It’s Labor Day weekend – the unofficial end of summer here in the States.
The days are getting shorter, and the temperatures are getting milder (72 °F/ 22° F today).
Labor Day weekend is approaching, with the Bumbershoot music festival at Seattle Center. I feel am not a big enough live music fan to go to the festival*, but I like to check out the promotional posters every year.
*Single day ticket: $130, so one has to stay awhile – or most of the day – to make it worth the money. For the money-is-no-object aficionados there is a 3-day Emerald Pass for $750 with exclusive access to lounges and viewing areas, and complimentary cocktails.
Here’s an article in The Atlantic that confirms that I was on to something, when I resisted turning on Amazon’s one-click option. (Needing only one click to make a purchase; so no final confirmation, no entering of an address or credit card – it’s all stored on Amazon and ready to go).
I browse, and first put stuff I want in my Amazon cart, and most of the time, I let it stay there overnight. And then I still make myself walk through a few clicks to buy it. There are a lot of things in my cart, that I end up not buying .. and that’s a good thing.
It was a beautiful late-summer day here in Seattle (78 °F/ 26 °C).
Friends and I attended a WNBA* women’s basketball game in the Key Arena by the Space Needle.
*Women’s National Basketball Association, founded in 1996. There are 12 teams that play in the league.
This brown woodpecker is called a ‘northern flicker’ (Colaptes auratus). It spent a little time foraging for insects on my front lawn this morning. (Yes, the poor lawn is yellowed out from the three dry months of summer, but it will slowly start to green up, now that the rain is returning).
Australia has had a turbulent week in politics, one that saw prime minister Malcolm Turnbull ousted on Friday. Scott Morrison was voted in by parliament as the country’s 30th prime minister.
Morrison’s political views are socially conservative (he abstained from the vote for legalizing same-sex marriage earlier this year). I read in Wikipedia that Morrison is from the Liberal Party of Australia, ‘a major centre-right liberal conservative political party in Australia’ .. a description which I find confusing! Anyway: the centre-left party in Australian politics, is the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
*There was that famous midnight thumbs-down for the ‘Skinny Repeal’ of Obamacare. But the reason McCain gave, was that it was not done by ‘regular order’. Or it could have been motivated purely by revenge against Trump, for disparaging him as a war hero.
There are many more revealing details about his life in this article that Tim Dickinson wrote for Rolling Stone in 2008 when McCain ran against Obama.
I lucked out and caught the last day when these LEGO ‘Americana Roadshow’ models were on display at Bellevue Square mall, last Sunday.
I don’t think I aspire to build giant LEGO models like these .. but maybe that is just because I don’t have hundreds of thousands of bricks to work with!
The smoky, unhealthy air that had blanketed the city since Sunday night, finally cleared up today.
There was a sprinkle of rain this morning, but I watered the garden later on in the day, as well.
South African sports legend John van Reenen (71) passed away on Tuesday at his home in Calitzdorp, South Africa. (He suffered from diabetes). He studied art right here in Seattle at the University of Washington until 1971, and was a world-class discus thrower at the time. He wanted to attend the 1972 Olympic Games, but was barred as a South African citizen. South Africans were barred by the IOC from the Games from 1964 to 1992, due to the South African government’s apartheid policies.
At an event in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in 1975, Van Reenen set a world record with a throw of 68.48 m. Discus throwers studied and imitated his technique, known for a long time as ‘the South African drill’. Perfecting a good technique is notoriously difficult – which may be why the world record of German Jürgen Schult of 74.08 m, set in 1986, still stands today. It is the oldest record in all of men’s track and field.
Whoah. There is now irrefutable evidence that Trump conspired to influence (read: steal) the election in November 2016. (And this does not even involve the Russians or the June 2016 Trump tower meeting).
Per sworn testimony in court today: Trump instructed his ‘fixer’ personal lawyer Michael Cohen to pay hush-money to two women in October of 2016, so that they would not reveal their sexual relationships with him. This was in the wake of the tape with the infamous Billy Bush ‘locker-room’ banter. Then Trump lied about it on Air Force One, saying that he doesn’t know anything about it. (Sidenote: Trump lies to everyone, and his supporters lie to themselves).
Meanwhile, over in Virginia, the jury found Paul Manafort guilty on 8 of 18 charges today. There are now five close Trump associates that have plead guilty or have been found guilty. (‘I hire the best people’). They are National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Campaign Aide George Papadopoulos, Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, Deputy Campaign Chairman Rick Gates, and Personal Lawyer Cohen.
What should happen next, is that the Republican-controlled House and the Senate hold hearings, and then start impeachment proceedings.
I’m not holding my breath, though.
Mister Blue Sky please tell us why
You had to hide away for so long (so long)
Where did we go wrong?
– Lyrics from ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ (1977), by Electric Light Orchestra
The air quality for today (and expected for tomorrow), for the Puget Sound region, is pretty much the worst on record*. Winds from the north and from the east have carried vast plumes of smoke and PM2.5 particles from the raging wildfires in Canada and Eastern Washington, to the region.
*An air quality value of 218 is reported tonight in my neck of the woods, which is in the ‘Very Unhealthy’ category.
The way we write dates in America – Month/ Day/ Year – made all the dates this week palindromes (sort of). So one can write 8/19/18 as 81918 by dropping the slash characters.
Here’s the No 10 bus stop closest to my house, that I frequently take to go to downtown.
Oaxaca (say ‘wa-HAH-ka’) is in southwestern Mexico and best known for its Zapotec and Mixtec indigenous peoples and cultures.
Look for a Grumpy Cat helium balloon carried by the child in the bottom middle of the picture.
As it happens, helium was discovered 150 years ago to the day, on August 18, 1868, by the French astronomer, Jules Janssen, during a total solar eclipse. There is a strong case to be made that helium balloons be banned.
We have a limited helium supply in Earth’s crust; we cannot manufacture it, and we need it for superconductors and MRI scanners. So putting helium in balloons is a frivolous waste. Once helium ends up in the atmosphere, it is lost forever into space – it is too light to be contained in the atmosphere by gravity.
.. in the Manafort* case. They have been deliberating for two days, and will resume on Monday. Court-watchers say that if the deliberations drag on into Wednesday, there would be cause for concern.
*Paul Manafort (69), Trump’s ex-campaign manager. The jury is deciding his guilt or innocence on 18 tax and bank fraud charges, related to his consulting work for pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine.
The evidence presented against Manafort is very strong. His defence lawyers really did not have much to work with. So why did Manafort not make a plea deal with Special Investigator Robert Mueller? is the question. He very well might spend the rest of his life in jail.
President Trump could offer him a pardon (which would be pretty outrageous, to be sure).
Asked about it, Trump said ‘I don’t talk about that. I think it’s very sad what they’ve done to Paul Manafort’.
Below is the used LEGO Castle #6075 set from 1981 that I had bought from a Craigslist seller in Tacoma.
I had to fill in quite a few yellow brick pieces of my own. I bought it knowing there were no knight or horse minifigures. (Aw). The red drawbridge is also missing its pulley and rope, used to draw it close.
Fun as it was, to build this set, it’s really outdated. The modern medieval sets from LEGO use gray bricks and not yellow, roof tiles, and add in a lot more detail to the castle walls and roofs, and to the minifigure characters (see the picture of ‘Kingdom’s Joust’).
