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Tuesday/ 600,000 lives lost

We’re at 600,000 reported Covid-19 deaths in the United States. The real death tolls in the U.S. and around the globe, are probably significantly higher than the official numbers, with many cases overlooked, or concealed.

As for the vaccine, in California, 72% of residents older than 18 had gotten at least one dose, and 70% for New York state.  Both states lifted most of their Covid-19 restrictions today.
Washington State (at 72% one dose, same as California) will follow suit at the end of June.

Text and graphic from the New York Times.

So life is returning to normal in many ways in the United States, but the pandemic is far from over. Some 25% of people that had contracted Covid-19 and survived, or even those that were asymptomatic, suffer long-term symptoms. Millions of people are still grappling with the loss of a family member or a close friend.

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Monday/ BMW’s i3: still in production

Here’s a new BMW i3 that I found this morning, on the way to the Safeway grocery store. (I tagged along for a little test drive of one in 2014).

I see more Tesla Model 3 cars here in the city than I do BMW i3 ones. Or could it be that I have eyes for Teslas only?  That’s definitely possible.

I went to the BMW website and mocked up an order for a BMW i3, and the car actually comes to a few thousand more ($44,450 MSRP as built) than Tesla’s Model 3 Standard Range Plus (cheapest Model 3).
This for a compact car with a 153 mi range vs 263 mi for the Tesla & 42 kWh battery vs. 54 kWh. The BMW might be more suitable for navigating the narrow alleys and cobblestone streets of old European cities, though.

This is a 2021 BMW i3 (color: ‘Capparis White’). There is also a BMW i3s (for sport; increased power, handling, slightly different look). BMW still make both of these with gasoline engine ‘range extenders’ as well. These BMWs are all made in Leipzig, Germany. The first ones rolled off the production line there in Sept. 2013.
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Sunday/ pomp and circumstance

Pomp and circumstance: impressive formal activities or ceremonies (Merriam-Webster dictionary).
Beefeater: Beef + eater. Prob. one who eats another’s beef, as his servant. Could also be from:  hlāfǣta, servant, properly a loaf eater. (Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary).
Beefeaters are the yeomen of the English royal guard, who, since the accession of Henry VII. in 1485, have attended the sovereign at state banquets and on other ceremonial occasions.
The name is also given to the warders of the Tower of London, who wear a similar uniform.

WINDSOR, ENGLAND – JUNE 13: Queen Elizabeth II (center), US President Joe Biden (right) and US First Lady Dr Jill Biden (left) at Windsor Castle on June 13, 2021 in Windsor, England. Queen Elizabeth II hosted US President, Joe Biden and First Lady Dr Jill Biden at Windsor Castle. The President arrived from Cornwall where he attended the G7 Leader’s Summit.
By Sunday night he had arrived in Brussels, for a meeting of NATO Allies. Later in the week he will meet the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. (Photo by Samir Hussein – Pool/Wire Image)

Queen Elizabeth II received President Biden and First Lady Dr Jill Biden at Windsor castle today. ‘President Biden and the first lady seemed relaxed, and there were no obvious diplomatic breaches‘ reported the New York Times.
Yes. Like stepping in front of the Queen. Or tweeting about the Prince of ‘a group of large marine mammals’ (‘Whales’).

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Saturday/ daisies & their little look-alikes

There was a half inch of rain yesterday in the city, and there will be a little more rain tonight.  The flowers are from my walk after dinner last night.

White daisies (genus is Bellis or Chrysanthemum) with their yellow centers, a spiral matrix of stamens.
The daisy flower does not just bud, blossom, and die like most other flowers. Rather it performs a daily routine of “sleeping” at night by closing and “waking” in the morning by opening up again. Because of this unusual trait and the whorled appearance of the flower, the daisy was given the Old English name ‘dægeseage’, meaning literally “day’s eye.” [From Merriam-Webster dictionary].
Some of these pretty little flowers look like daisies, but they are not: they are chamomile. Chamomile is a herb plant with relaxing benefits and a pleasant scent, used to make chamomile tea which can promote relaxation and help with getting a sound night’s sleep.
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Friday/ spectacular tennis

There was spectacular French Open men’s tennis on TV today.
The youngsters Stefanos Tsitsipas (Greece, 22 yrs old) and Alexander Zverev (Germany, 24) went first, with Tsitsipas overcoming a mid-match slump to win 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 4-6, 6-3.

Then the legendary King of Clay, Rafael Nadal (Spain, 35 yrs old, won 13 French Opens* in 16 years) took on the world’s No 1 Novak Djokovic (Serbia, 34). Djokovic won 3-6, 6-3, 7-6, 6-2.

Officials decided to suspend the controversial Covid-19 curfew in Paris, that had them empty out the stands at 9 pm on Monday & Tuesday night, and at 11 pm later this week. The Nadal-Djokovic match was still going at 11 pm. There would have been a French Revolution II in the Philippe Chatrier tennis stadium, had anyone attempted to chase the rabid tennis fans out.

*The French Open is a Grand Slam tournament, with 128 players in the main draw. (Regular tournaments have 32). For 4 of the 128 spots in the main draw, there was a qualifying tournament.  To win, you have to win seven matches in a row, all guaranteed to be against a fierce competitor in the game of tennis.

A Nadal fan waving the Spanish flag, as the players came onto the court. [Still from NBC Sports broadcast].
No ball is too wide, or too short, or too high, for Nadal to run down on the slow red clay courts of the French Open. For this one, he was all the way up at the net, and had to run back to retrieve a high overhead shot. He invented a shot on the fly, lobbed the ball back into the corner of Djokovic’s court, and won the point and the opening game. [Still from NBC Sports broadcast].

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Thursday/ tennis at Amy Yee

I made my way to Amy Yee tennis center again tonight by bus.
It was 5.10 pm and the No 8 bus is notorious for being late, or ‘full’ (half-full, actually: half the seats are still blocked out, in order to create social distance between the passengers).
Plan B was to call for an UberX (cost: $20, quite a bit more than it used to be) if the bus (fare: $2.75) had not worked out.
The bus showed up in good time, though, and had a few open seats left.

Inside the Amy Yee Tennis Center. That’s Court No 5 in the distance, then there’s 5 more indoors, for a total of 10. Outside there are 6 more courts. The tarp ‘door’ pieces for the courts are still removed— so that people don’t accidentally bump into each other. Now and then the tennis balls escape through the opening, of course. And check out the silly little piece of blue tape on the floor warning of a ‘Bump’ (in the floor). Um. It needs to be a LOT bigger!
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Wednesday/ beers .. cheers!

It’s Wednesday, and the amigos went to Thai restaurant Jamjuree on 15th Avenue for our beers and a bite.
The restaurant was still empty at 6 pm, but some people did came in for take-outs. A few more tables had diners by the time we left an hour later.

There is new artwork on the wall of the Neumos music & bar venue at 925 East Pike Street. Yes, the restaurants and bars are reopening .. it’s just that in general, the menus offer fewer items, and prices have gone up by a good 20% or so.
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Tuesday/ whatever it takes

The incentives for getting the vaccine are getting wilder and wilder.
Yesterday, the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) greenlighted state-licensed cannabis retailers, to offer one pre-rolled marijuana joint ‘to adult consumers who receive a vaccination at an in-store vaccination clinic’.

So add the ‘joint for a jab’ incentive to the list of free beers, free donuts, free pizza, scholarships (for kids), cash prizes, free air tickets and who-knows-what-else.

Poster at the corner of 11th Avenue and Pike Street. Yes: your mama and your auntie approve of the vaccine. Go get it.
This graphic shows the consequences of politicizing the pandemic in 2020. It also appears that the J&J pause did damage to people that had been unenthusiastic about the vaccine, or entrenched the views of those that were against it from the start.
I still say: If you’re a SELFISH person, you should think: I don’t want to get sick, I must get the vaccine for myself. (You can get the Pfizer or Moderna one). If you’re an ‘IT’S FOR THE GREATER GOOD’ person, you go: I need to do my part, I must get the vaccine. But large numbers of people just close their ears and eyes, and still do nothing. [Graph by the Washington Post].
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Monday/ the lost wallet

Apple announced today that iOS 15 will enable the iPhone wallet to store ID cards and driver’s licenses (and maybe vaccination records?).
That’s good news for people like me and Willie Geist of NBC. (See below. He lost his wallet today).

It’s great that Willie Geist got his wallet back. The worst ‘lost wallet’ event that had happened to me, occurred in Aug. 2011, when mine was stolen out of my backpack in The Landmark mall in Hong Kong. An accomplice distracted me on an escalator, while the thief stole my wallet. My wallet should not have been in my backpack, of course! They must have watched me withdraw cash from an ATM, and saw exactly where I had put the wallet away. So $400 of cash gone, driver’s license and credit cards. In the hour or so it took me to get back to the hotel and call American Express, the thieves had spent $2,600 at the Louis Vuitton store. (AmEx credited the money back onto my card, dollar for dollar, and apologized for my distress).
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Sunday/ the ‘gas station’ of the future

Here’s a little Chevy Bolt from Oregon getting charged at an Electrify America charging station here on East Madison Street on Capitol Hill.

It’s early days for building out the charging network. There are 612 of these EA stations across the country with 125 more coming online soon. (There are 168,000 gas stations in the United States).

These charging stations are for out-of-town or out-of-state travelers. In general, it’s much, much more expensive (up to 3x, 4x more) to charge one’s car at these stations, instead of at home.
On top of that, we have the cheapest electricity in the country here in Washington State at 8.53¢/ kWh (source: electricitylocal.com). At this station, the charging cost is $0.43/ kWh, or $0.31/ kWh plus a $4 monthly fee.
Tesla cars can be charged here, but Tesla has its own charging station network (cost is about $0.28/ kWh).

P.S. I see that Associated Press reports there are roughly 42,000 public charging stations in the United States, but only about 5,000 are considered direct-current fast chargers. The Biden administration is looking at incentives to encourage companies and governments to build 500,000 charging stations nationwide by 2030.

The Electrify America charging station at 1300 East Madison St here on Capitol Hill. The station offers two charging protocols: CHAdeMO which is a DC fast-charging protocol for Japanese vehicles like the Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi iMiEV, and CCS (Combined Charging System) chargers which is also a DC fast-charging protocol, but for European and American cars. The “combined” term in the CCS name designates its capability to incorporate the Level 2 (J1772™ standard) plug and DC fast-charging connector into the same larger plug.
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Saturday/ allez, légende!

Go, legend!
Tennis legend Roger Federer (39) is into the 4th round of the 2021 French Open, winning a grinding 3 ½-hour match that ended after midnight:
77-65 63-77 77-64 7-5, over German Dominik Koepfer (27).

Federer at full slide, and full stretch, going for a very wide angle drop shot return from Koepfer.
He flicked the ball back over the net and Koepfer was not able to volley the ball back. BY THE WAY: That silly green box with ‘Peugeot’ on it was in the way. With these wide-angled shots, it’s perfectly fine to play the ball back super-low, and into the opposite court, by going AROUND the net post.

Sunday 6/6: Oh no .. bad news, this morning. Federer is pulling out of the tournament. There were hints at Federer’s Saturday night post-match press conference, though.

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Friday/ making it, just in time?

This Sunday, it will be 7 weeks since I had placed the order for my car.
The delivery timeframe is 7 to 10 weeks, so I hope it will not be long now.

Hopefully, everything is running smoothly on the Tesla assembly line in Fremont, California, without a major backlog of computer chips or other parts.
I am sure they use just-in-time manufacturing, also known as the Toyota Production System (TPS). Toyota pioneered and adopted the system in the 1970s. Its success relies on steady production, high-quality workmanship, no machine breakdowns, and reliable suppliers, though.

It takes about 4 days from raw materials (such as coiled aluminum plate for the body panels) to a fully assembled car.

Giant robots on the factory floor in Fremont, assembling the aluminum panels to make the outer shell of Tesla Model S cars. Robots are extremely good at precision and repetitive tasks. Even so, some 10,000 humans work alongside them. Believe it or not, humans are still more intelligent than robots, and can do some tasks better, or offer suggestions for increasing efficiencies. [Still from YouTube video by WIRED magazine].
After the shells had been painted, the car is assembled from the inside out, into the shell. Each car has its own cart that moves on a magnetic track for the assembly. This makes the ‘assembly line’ very flexible and nimble, and easy to switch from one Tesla model to another, with very little set-up time. [Still from a YouTube video by WIRED magazine].

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Thursday/ vaccine pop-up centers

King county now has 75% of eligible residents (12 yrs & older) vaccinated with at least their first shot, and 63% who have completed their vaccination.  Officials will soon shut down the mass vaccination sites here in Seattle (Lumen Field Event Center, North Seattle College and in West Seattle and Rainier Beach).

The smaller locations, pop-up clinics and even mobile units, will have to get people to come in, and find those that still have not been vaccinated (and convince them to get their shots).

Hmm .. if I had played hardball and waited to get my vaccine, I could have scored a Franz goodie bag with bread and doughnuts! Or even a $100 gift card. (Just kidding. I count my blessings, thankful that I have been able to get my two vaccine shots so easily at the Harborview clinic).
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Wednesday/ toasty weather

We had 85 °F (29.5 °C) here in the city today— very warm for early June.
Cooler weather is moving in from the coast, though.

A little artwork across from the sports bar Rookies in Columbia City, where we had our beers tonight. I had to look up who Lindy West. She is a Seattle-born writer, comedian and activist, perhaps best known for her essay collection ‘Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman’ (2016).  She advocates for women to ignore the unrealistic burdens that society can place on them (criticizing their bodies, their appearances, and telling them what to do).
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Tuesday/ ‘an incalculable and enduring loss’

A century ago, a prosperous Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Okla., perished at the hands of a violent white mob.

The mob indiscriminately shot Black people in the streets. Members of the mob ransacked homes and stole money and jewelry. They set fires, “house by house, block by block,” according to a commission’s report (done in 2001).

Terror came from the sky, too. White pilots flew airplanes that dropped dynamite over the neighborhood, the report stated, making the Tulsa aerial attack what historians call among the first of an American city.

The numbers presented a staggering portrait of loss: 35 blocks burned to the ground; as many as 300 dead; hundreds injured; 8,000 to 10,000 left homeless; more than 1,470 homes burned or looted; and eventually, 6,000 detained in internment camps.
…
There is a pending lawsuit and ongoing discussions about how and whether to compensate the families of the Tulsa Massacre victims. No compensation has ever been paid under court order or by legislation.
…
The destruction of property is only one piece of the financial devastation that the massacre wrought. Much bigger is a sobering kind of inheritance: the incalculable and enduring loss of what could have been, and the generational wealth that might have shaped and secured the fortunes of Black children and grandchildren.
…
To this day, not one person has been prosecuted or punished for the devastation and ruin of the original Greenwood.
– Excerpts from a report in The New York Times, May 24, 2021

A composite image shows Greenwood ablaze during the massacre. Composite created with photographs from the Department of Special Collections and University Archives, McFarlin Library at The University of Tulsa.
How it all unfolded. Greenwood Avenue, for years a thriving hub, was destroyed by racial violence in less than 24 hours. [Graphic by The New York Times].
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Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day in the United States, the day when we commemorate our fallen soldiers.

Poppies on 12th Avenue here on Capitol Hill. These red ones with their black centers have long been a symbol for commemorating fallen soldiers.
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Sunday/ stay away from crowds

Well. Surprise (or not): crowds of people are still trouble, even with Covid-19 now receding in many communities.

There was a large crowd on Alki Beach on Saturday night (there was a meetup invite on TikTok). It did not take long for fights to break out, and a drunk man was seen brandishing a weapon. No one was hurt too seriously, though.
‘All parties declined medical attention and declined to participate in an investigation’, noted a report on the Seattle Police Dept. blotter website.

Alki Beach at sunset on Saturday night, at about 9 pm. The beach was closed soon after, and beachgoers were told to leave the area. [Picture from Seattle Police Dept. Blotter website]
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Saturday/ déjà vu, with the blue?

There was a BMW i8 parked on 15th Avenue today.
I might have caught a glimpse of this particular one before, when it was still all blue.

P.S. I was in the passenger seat of a Tesla Model Y as I took these drive-by pictures. 🙂

It’s hard to say what model year this $150,000 BMW i8 coupé is exactly, but it’s an older car. The protonic blue paint was available from 2014 to 2016. Looks like the owner had it wrapped in matt black, and also put on the striking blue wheels (but a blue that does not quite match the protonic blue). The car is a plug-in hybrid. It can be run on gasoline (rear-wheel drive) or electricity from its battery (front-wheel drive), or both. 

 

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Friday/ a walk along Pine Street

Four weeks had gone by, and this morning it was again time for my little rental car to go back to Hertz, on 8th Avenue in downtown Seattle.
The pictures are from my walk back, along Pine Street, and up to Capitol Hill.

The construction of the Washington State Convention Center expansion can probably pick up its pace, now that the weather is better. Hopefully most of the workers have been vaccinated. The Paramount Theater bill board says ‘May you rest in power -George Floyd- May 25th 2020’.
Today in ‘Model 3 spotting’: a matt black one. The matt black is not paint, but an after-market film wrapped onto the car (cost: about $5,000). This car has chrome trim on the door handles & windows. (Looks like the owner put some black on the door handles). The 2021 Model 3’s have ‘chrome delete’ trim (black trim, no chrome).
The stainless steel cladding on the convention center extension’s east side is coming along. Hopefully, its shine will not be tarnished by the Pacific Northwest weather.
There is new artwork on the Sugar Hill bar’s wall on East Pine Street: a Black Lives Matter organizer’s check list, of sorts. (Cute little doggie at the corner of the building).
The Porter apartment building at 1630 Boylston Avenue was built in 1917. Its style is called ‘Vernacular’: architecture characterized by the use of local materials & knowledge, usually without the supervision of architects (source: Wikipedia). The brick building has an open center bay and terra cotta lintels on the main windows.
The oak trees by Seattle Central College on Broadway have their new leaves. On the left, across the street, is 1812 Broadway, a new 7-story, 133-unit apartment building.
A streetcar on the First Hill line, at the end-of-the-line stop called Broadway & Denny. These are Czech-made, model name Inekon121-Trio. This car has a battery, for ‘off-wire’ operation (a section of the First Hill line has no overhead electrical cables). 
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Thursday/ jackal marries wolf’s wife

Jakkals trou met wolf se vrou.
– ‘Jackal marries wolf’s wife’, said in Afrikaans, when it rains while the sun is shining.

There was rain today— and sun, and wind, all at the same time.
My Thursday night tennis was cancelled, but that’s OK. We need a little rain.