Photographs...of the Christmas Lights sort
Photographs this time include a few shots taken
from the International District/Chinatown where Leif, Adam and I traipsed around
on Christmas Eve day - it was very foggy but it was still fun and we had a good
meal at a Vietnamese deli up the hill on Jackson Street. There are also more
photographs from West Seattle including the winner of the "best house" category
for the peninsula - can't vouch for the rest of the city. And, photographs of
our tree in the new downstairs alcove - a perfect place. Plus a few of
Christmas morning with the family (well, the two offspring
anyway).
Well, Christmas has come and gone. Called the
grandparents today (or they called here - same thing). Everyone's doing fine.
Both sons had a good time and we were fortunate in catching Katherine's brother
just as he came off work today (yes, Christmas day) and invited him to drop by
for our Christmas dinner - a simple feast, especially so after what we had for
Thanksgiving and our architect-builder "thank you" party. But, Christmas dinner
is Christmas dinner and it was good, filling, tasty, and set us up for an
evening's warm conversation.
Here are a few recent shots from the neighborhood - we did tool around Alki Beach (Beach Drive and Alki Avenue) and got to see lots of lights lining the condominiums on both the Alki Beach side and on some of the larger manses across Elliott Bay on the south side of Magnolia's bluffs. Very pretty, this was Christmas Eve - sort of a tradition we've had - to drive around the 'hood on Christmas Eve and see what everyone's done with their little castles and kingdoms. Both sons are set to do a few adventures around the area before Leif has to head back to DC this coming Wednesday. We may even take the Cascader Amtrak to Portland and jaunt around there a bit - that remains to be seen but at least it's past the "think about" and in the "maybe" category.
Map of the general Chinatown - International District section, shamelessly stolen from
the website of the Chinatown-International District Association. We started on 5th Avenue
and headed toward Uwajimaya Village, spent considerable time in the grocery, bookstore,
and gift store areas and then headed out toward Jackson Street and wandered around.
Hing Hay Park and environs at Maynard and King Streets
This is a shot looking back towards Columbia Tower (Bank of America Building) and was converted to
black-and-white to further enforce the generalized foggy and misty feeling of Christmas Eve. It was very wet out.
Our personal winner for "best Christmas lights" for a house in West Seattle
This house is near the original landing site of the Denny clan at West Seattle along Beach Drive and draws
a continuing crowd along Beach Drive for the nights leading up to Christmas Eve. While we were taking
these images at least a dozen cars drove by, stopped, gazed, and continued on.
A panoramic wide-angle from in front of the house. There were even more lights along the side and down the driveway. There was
also music playing from speakers set up under the front porch. Of note is the fact that no house within two blocks of this house
even bothered with anything more than a green or red porch light - I mean, to what end when there's this house on that stretch
of Beach Drive?
Fire station Number 37, on 35th Avenue SW - the only hacienda-styled firehouse in the city
You can't really tell from this image, but the blue lines depict water being sprayed from silhouetted firemen at the
bottom end of the blue lines - they're flat, unlit, fire fighter figures fighting what is supposed to be a blaze.
The new living room alcove with Christmas Tree
Notice the reflections on the alcove windows from the Christmas tree and the lights from the plum tree outside
in the corner of the yard. This makes a real nice outside display from either 39th Avenue or SW Monroe Street.
Katherine on the right wearing a Santa Clause T-Shirt and Leif checking out some new OR outdoor gear he
got for Christmas. The Kitchen Aid box contains one of their add-on attachments, a slicer-dicer device which
hooks up to the front end of the mixer unit. Although that was a gift for Katherine, I suspect that it will be me who
winds up using it the most, she prefers a Cuisinart and I have a whole history working with industrial meat grinders.
Shot of Adam resting after unwrapping his presents, which are beneath the chair, including a pair of snowshoes
with ski poles and a set of gators. Now, too bad there's no snow.
Wide view of both sons sitting in living room. Santa also brought what for other people might be a year's worth of
chocolates - fancy and fancier. For us, though, I'm predicting they will be gone long before the New Year. I didn't
realize it until recently, but Seattle is home to three fancy chocolatiers - Dilettante, Fran's, and Seattle Chocolates.
I've tried all three and it's a tough call, they're all excellent.
The floor in the corner of my studio - a temporary paint studio. I have begun work on three canvases and am
probably only a third of the way through what I want to do with them, which includes using the mosaics and
tumbled glass seen on the bench-shelf above the paints on the left. I'll need to come up with a better, more
permanent, setup for painting but this will do for the time being. Yes, our rug is treated with Scotchgard™.
Well, that's it for photos for now. I'm working on a long think piece on the world and implications of blogging.
Depending on how things develop, that may be the next posting on this site. And, I'll warn everyone now and
again when I post it, it's only probably half-finished at this point and it's already 5,000 words. It's more a thesis
on how I view blogs as a natural evolution of cave art, diaries, journals, and interpersonal and personal
communication. This new world, like so many previous evolutions of our communication suites and skill-sets,
portends a new sociology and a new level of awareness. It's that angle which I'm trying to explore.
'Til then, have a wonderful rest of the year and a Great New Year - we're approaching the half-way point of the first
decade of the Twenty-first Century.
Here are a few recent shots from the neighborhood - we did tool around Alki Beach (Beach Drive and Alki Avenue) and got to see lots of lights lining the condominiums on both the Alki Beach side and on some of the larger manses across Elliott Bay on the south side of Magnolia's bluffs. Very pretty, this was Christmas Eve - sort of a tradition we've had - to drive around the 'hood on Christmas Eve and see what everyone's done with their little castles and kingdoms. Both sons are set to do a few adventures around the area before Leif has to head back to DC this coming Wednesday. We may even take the Cascader Amtrak to Portland and jaunt around there a bit - that remains to be seen but at least it's past the "think about" and in the "maybe" category.
Map of the general Chinatown - International District section, shamelessly stolen from
the website of the Chinatown-International District Association. We started on 5th Avenue
and headed toward Uwajimaya Village, spent considerable time in the grocery, bookstore,
and gift store areas and then headed out toward Jackson Street and wandered around.
Hing Hay Park and environs at Maynard and King Streets
This is a shot looking back towards Columbia Tower (Bank of America Building) and was converted to
black-and-white to further enforce the generalized foggy and misty feeling of Christmas Eve. It was very wet out.
Our personal winner for "best Christmas lights" for a house in West Seattle
This house is near the original landing site of the Denny clan at West Seattle along Beach Drive and draws
a continuing crowd along Beach Drive for the nights leading up to Christmas Eve. While we were taking
these images at least a dozen cars drove by, stopped, gazed, and continued on.
A panoramic wide-angle from in front of the house. There were even more lights along the side and down the driveway. There was
also music playing from speakers set up under the front porch. Of note is the fact that no house within two blocks of this house
even bothered with anything more than a green or red porch light - I mean, to what end when there's this house on that stretch
of Beach Drive?
Fire station Number 37, on 35th Avenue SW - the only hacienda-styled firehouse in the city
You can't really tell from this image, but the blue lines depict water being sprayed from silhouetted firemen at the
bottom end of the blue lines - they're flat, unlit, fire fighter figures fighting what is supposed to be a blaze.
The new living room alcove with Christmas Tree
Notice the reflections on the alcove windows from the Christmas tree and the lights from the plum tree outside
in the corner of the yard. This makes a real nice outside display from either 39th Avenue or SW Monroe Street.
Katherine on the right wearing a Santa Clause T-Shirt and Leif checking out some new OR outdoor gear he
got for Christmas. The Kitchen Aid box contains one of their add-on attachments, a slicer-dicer device which
hooks up to the front end of the mixer unit. Although that was a gift for Katherine, I suspect that it will be me who
winds up using it the most, she prefers a Cuisinart and I have a whole history working with industrial meat grinders.
Shot of Adam resting after unwrapping his presents, which are beneath the chair, including a pair of snowshoes
with ski poles and a set of gators. Now, too bad there's no snow.
Wide view of both sons sitting in living room. Santa also brought what for other people might be a year's worth of
chocolates - fancy and fancier. For us, though, I'm predicting they will be gone long before the New Year. I didn't
realize it until recently, but Seattle is home to three fancy chocolatiers - Dilettante, Fran's, and Seattle Chocolates.
I've tried all three and it's a tough call, they're all excellent.
The floor in the corner of my studio - a temporary paint studio. I have begun work on three canvases and am
probably only a third of the way through what I want to do with them, which includes using the mosaics and
tumbled glass seen on the bench-shelf above the paints on the left. I'll need to come up with a better, more
permanent, setup for painting but this will do for the time being. Yes, our rug is treated with Scotchgard™.
Well, that's it for photos for now. I'm working on a long think piece on the world and implications of blogging.
Depending on how things develop, that may be the next posting on this site. And, I'll warn everyone now and
again when I post it, it's only probably half-finished at this point and it's already 5,000 words. It's more a thesis
on how I view blogs as a natural evolution of cave art, diaries, journals, and interpersonal and personal
communication. This new world, like so many previous evolutions of our communication suites and skill-sets,
portends a new sociology and a new level of awareness. It's that angle which I'm trying to explore.
'Til then, have a wonderful rest of the year and a Great New Year - we're approaching the half-way point of the first
decade of the Twenty-first Century.
Posted: Sat - December 25, 2004 at 12:35 AM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM