Merry Month of May
Housework this week included installing almost
all the second floor windows; tower aerie windows will be next. New bike now
has everything necessary to replicate the now long-gone Marin San Rafael of
several thousand-mile DC fame. A few interesting photos of a quick trip to REI
on Monday to get missing bike accessories and some photos of how cool the house
looks with windows - just wait till the siding is installed and the whole thing
painted.
Voila, May has arrived. With the USSR gone, we
no longer have the May Day parade of nukes marching around Red Square - probably
a good thing. So, May has arrived here leaving us the third driest April on
record, actually it was drier than that since this April lost out to second
place by thousandths of an inch and to first place by hundredths of an inch.
Oh, and it's been the third warmest April on record, too. Somehow I think it's
me. Everywhere I go I seem to get the good weather - whether or not it's in
keeping with the actual environment. Call it the "Gaia likes Redmond"
hypothesis (for more on Gaia, see <http://www.gaianet.fsbusiness.co.uk/gaiatheory.html>).
I like Earth, Earth seems to like
me.
Saturday, as an example, was another great, blue-sky, day. At ten in the morning I hopped on my bike, missing a few accessories, and went for a spin around the peninsula which IS West Seattle. Down to Lincoln Park, around the west side through the park and on Beach Drive, over the horn and around Alki Beach on Alki Avenue and then down towards the harbor on Harbor Avenue. At the West Seattle Bridge I went east over Spokane Street to get across the industrial marshland to Delridge Way. Delridge runs southwesterly between Puget Ridge, which separates West Seattle from the Duwamish River, and the rest of the ridges which constitute West Seattle (maybe they have names, will have to check up on that). When I get to Trenton Street I hook a right and head west back toward home - this is the least incline way to go around the peninsula. It's slightly more than a 12-mile ride with an elevation loss-gain of about 500 feet. Once I get my Seattle bike muscles toned again, I'll head up some steeper streets, but for my first ride of this year I figured I'd try and take it easy. Actually, the strain on the muscles was perfectly acceptable and not that uncomfortable or agonizing. I'd completely forgotten about the "re" accommodation which must occur between one's ischial tuberosities - the two bottom end bones on the pelvis which are on either side of the coccyx. For a really fun time with anatomy, use either of these two terms (ischial tuberosities or coccyx) in a Google search - no end of anatomy references, both clinical and anthropomorphic. Well, to put it bluntly, about half-way through the peninsula ride it was much more comfortable to bike standing up than it was to bike sitting down. I'd totally and completely put this aspect of spring training out of my mind and forgotten all about how it usually takes a good three or four long bike rides to get accustomed to the bike seat again.
Such are the trials of a fair-weather cyclist. I probably will bike longer into the year out here than I did in DC, mostly because the temperatures drop more slowly and are still in the fifties through early November. Had I gotten my bike a month sooner I'd also have been on it a month sooner since the weather has been relatively mild and perfect for several-hour bike rides since early March.
I got home and not wanting my legs to stiffen, continued with a four-mile walk around the neighborhood, checking on other construction projects, people's gardens (everyone out here seems compelled to grow a yard full of pretty things the names of which I have no clue). I got home and made dinner and sat down for a few hours of Independent Film Channel movies - I must say that's probably the best movie channel on cable, unless you're into classic movies in which case AMC and TCM (American Movie Classics and Turner Movie Classics) are equally good. Saw a few interesting flicks and off to sleep.
Sunday was just as nice as Saturday but didn't want to push my luck with the ischial tuberosities (butt bones) so decided it was time to clean the crawl space between the two floors. Every worker since the house was originally built in 1947 has used that space to leave behind the debris of their trade. The original carpenters and roofers left behind old-style peg nails and pieces of cut fir lumber along with the odd shingle. There were even some cut pieces of original "knob and tube" wiring - the thick copper wire covered with rubber and cloth. And, there were hundreds of snippets of galvanized tin from the HVAC duct work along with cans of duct sealant and old T-shirts used to wipe the sealant around the ducts. There were hundreds of pieces of new Romex, the little black and white covered copper wires as well as the bare ground wires. There was actually a recoverable twenty feet of untouched perfectly usable Romex (the generic name for this three-conductor plastic-sheathed wire is NM, but Romex has become like Kleenex or Xerox - just sort of lost the lustre of its trademark through use). There were countless pieces of 2X4 which had been cut and discarded, the result of putting in all the support walls for the floor joists above. There was sawdust in every crevice created between the existing ceiling rafters - sitting in little piles on top of the drywall which was the downstairs ceiling. There were a number of empty water bottles - no particular brand seemed in favor. There were the porcelain standoffs of the old "knob and tube" system - also all over the place. And, there were hundreds if not thousands of new nails of every variety from electrical two-prong to four, six and eight penny from nailguns which missed their mark.
All of this I tackled with Todd's industrial-strength shop-vac and a trash can. I emptied the trash can about every ten feet and the shop-vac twice. It took me six hours to move my way across the rafters, crouching or kneeling on the rafters or sitting on some plywood sheets I'd moved into the area. Three times I had to unclog the flexible tube of the shop-vac - even industrial strength versions never work as well as one expects them to. When I was done, though, the five-foot high by thirty-feet long by twenty-feet wide plenum was clean enough to store clothes, food, human hideaways, or anything one might want to keep here. I banged my head about a dozen times - with scars to prove it, mostly on the ducting which I kept forgetting was lower and sharper than the TJI joists of the floor above me. I got completely covered with fiberglas insulation, moving my way back and forth underneath the second floor joists which were perfectly filled with the stuff. I scrubbed my knees good enough that a few folks later thought I had been in a serious bike accident - nah, just didn't think of the wear and tear on the knees from all the exposed fir rafters and was wearing short pants. Also, had probably two or three dozen tiny slivers of fir splinters embedded in all fingers and palms of both hands. Fun stuff, indeed.
To celebrate I walked down to Caffe Ladro with a neighbor who had been gardening all day. We treated ourselves to some of Ladro's rightfully renowned pastries - me the Mocha frosting Devils Food cupcake and her the pecan sticky bun. Ah, the pleasures of work-related celebrations.
Took our time getting back home, inspecting more gardens in the neighborhood and commenting on all the for-sale signs and checking out the prices on the neighborhood housing stock which was up on the market block. Turns out our investment in this house would easily pay off handsomely today should we want to sell. We invested about $437K so far in the original buy plus architect's fees plus contract with Schulte Construction. We could easily sell for a minimum of $650K based on prevailing neighborhood market realities and probably more. That would be a tidy profit of over $200K in a mere eight months. Whatever isn't going right with the Seattle economy, it certainly isn't affecting the housing market.
Mind you we're not going to sell this place for quite some time. Personally, I really want to take advantage of the Monorail and the City Council on Monday approved a next-step component of the system. Things are moving ahead on the mass transit front. And, now that the windows are mostly installed the architecture of the house is easily a neighborhood attraction. The house looks simply too good, and all the interior spaces are working out even better than I had imagined from the drawings. We have a raft of interesting set-asides and private spaces. The flow-through ventilation which we thought we were creating with all the casement windows on all four sides has proven to be phenomenal in practice. We actually can control the airflow through the whole house by opening and closing certain windows. The light which comes in, even in the dead of night, is also beyond expectations. It goes way beyond simply saying so to state that the views have also surpassed our expectations. Katherine and I have discussed this aspect a lot lately because we believe there's something fundamental and quite primitive in origin about what a full-horizon view does to the human mind. Having a view to the horizon in not one, but many or even most cardinal points has a very aggrandizing effect on everyone. Somehow, being able to see clear to the horizon opens up the mind in a way which most folks can appreciate when they climb a mountain or stop at a roadside overlook. But, having this view in one's home, to access and appreciate all the time, does something even more fundamental. All of a sudden it's not just a local neighborhood anymore. There's something quite clearly beyond the neighbor's house, beyond the next street, beyond even the tall trees in the distance. This element of the house - call it a subliminal psychological or underlying metaphysical element - is one which we didn't realize would affect us so profoundly. We knew having a view would be a worthy thing to strive for. We knew having a view of both sets of mountains and Mt. Rainier (and also Mt. Baker, early surprise that was) would be a great thing. What we didn't know was how fantastic it would be to just have all this landscape all around us as background. Amazing how such simple things can have such a deep and lasting effect.
And, the soundproofing is proving to be exceptional as well. Not only are the walls, floor and ceiling insulated with a minimum of six inches of insulation, but between the rooms upstairs there's acoustic deadening material in the walls, and, the windows have soundproofing qualities way beyond their simple appearance. I truly can't wait to test the neighborhood sound levels once I get the stereo up and running.
So, things are going along quite nicely. Monday, Rick and Joe installed most of the windows and today they did a bunch of items on their "punch list," which included making sure all the weird walls (the corners where the two walls are not at right angles) were set up for the dry wall crew which will be here later this week. On Thursday, the upstairs will be filled with 4x8 sheets of gypsum board (sheet rock, dry wall, I'm sure there's probably at least three other common phrases for this stuff).
While the windows were being installed on Monday, I zipped by bus back to REI to pick up the various bike accessories I needed which Gregg's Cycles didn't have - such things as a classic "bell" for my bike (it's the law and it's a nice courtesy as well), the toe-clips I need to be able to ride as freely and wantonly as I like to, the front and rear CatEye lights, and the front bike bag - where I'll put my camera. Also picked up a nice ABS plastic waterproof container which will hold the Canon Digital Elph camera perfectly. Figured it would provide a bit of shock-proofing in the event (let's just say likelihood) I get into another accident and the waterproofing will be necessary given the random number of times it's wet out here. Spent a few hours rigging up the bike when I got back home - much to the amusement of Rick and Joe since I seemed not to be able to get anything to fit correctly or work correctly the first time.
Yes, completely pilot error. I did read the instructions, did follow them, and did have a zero success rate until I'd done everything at least three times. That was true for getting the white LED front light to work, getting the odometer/speedometer system to work (it uses a Hall effect sensor which has to be aligned "just so" with the magnet which is set on one of the front wheel spokes), getting the darned straps correctly threaded through the pedals and toe clips, and on and on and on. Probably had to much coffee or was too excited over all the new toys. But, let's remember, it was an unwarranted act of trust - a crime of opportunity - which I set up which caused me to have to spend all this cash on bike and accessories. I was reasonably conscious of what I was putting out for this bike - roughly a thousand bucks with bike and all the other stuff which eventually was neatly attached to it. That's an important and costly lesson which I'll remember. I'll probably be guilty of trusting the wrong people at some point in my future - if my history is any guide. I still believe in the basic goodness of my fellow human beings. You can call that element of my character the "Pollyanna Blind Side." It's just that I want my fellow humans to be worthy of my trust, I actually believe they are capable of holding that trust, and eventually I wind up acting as if they actually have earned it - and once again I'll get burned. I keep thinking of humans the way I know they can be instead of the way I know they are. To me it's an investment which will have fantastic dividends if it ever comes true. And, the only way to make it true is to invest the trust, and, I guess I'm the one fool in a million who'll make that investment. Makes me feel better, though, to have this high regard for my fellow planetary mates.
While downtown I took some snapshots and captured a few images which were going to be later processed through Photoshop. Such a fun city visually. Never a dull view, so to speak. These few views and a couple of shots of the house with windows are below. Plus, I'm still learning the ins and outs of the comment and trackback server I've signed onto so there will probably be a few glitches with that element of the blog until I figure it all out - everything's a style sheet and I'm still learning how to cut/paste stuff into CSS formats to make it come out the way I want. So, if you use the blog, as I said when I first got that software - have patience, I'll eventually get it right.
I'll probably be on a bike ride or two this week if the weather allows and that will probably result in more random images of life in Seattle. One thing I love about cities, or the country for that matter, is that if one goes out looking for interesting things, they are always found. As an example, one of the photo essays I took while out Monday was a simple set of images of the Space Needle behind parking lots. As I was walking back from REI, I noticed that every block or two there'd be a parking lot which had the Space Needle looming behind it - not much of a theme, but it was a specific theme, and one which I could capture. Like some have said about me, I'm easily amused.
More later - have a great week, behave, be good and be kind. And, unlike me, don't be THAT trusting - as the sergeant used to say on Hill Street Blues - "hey, let's be careful out there!"
chas
Panorama of the south side of Denny Way about 8th Avenue just north of downtown. Denny is a major
east-west crosstown thoroughfare which connects the waterfront area of Lower Queen Anne, the Seattle
Center and Capitol HIll. It's got a lot of elements of interest to drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists and is nearly
always busy. This was taken late morning on the first Monday in May -
or for the alliterative in you - a Monday May Morning.
A 90-degree panorama of the waterfall area in front of the flagship REI store just north of downtown Seattle. The
building inside is gorgeous and uses passive heating and lighting and incorporates as construction materials all
the native elements of the Northwest from the timber to the stone and concrete. The trees constitute the backdrop
for a series of shoe test-walk and bike test-ride areas which meander around the REI grounds.
A closer look at the two-story waterfall. This is a wonderful place to get
a coffee or eat one's lunch and is open to the public during REI's extended
week and weekend days (10am to 9pm Monday through Friday and
10am to 7pm Saturday and Sunday).
Boren Avenue intersects Denny Way at an angle and provides a quick
shortcut from what would be midtown up to Capitol Hill. Both Boren and
Denny climb up and over the I-5 freeway and end up on the crest of
Capitol Hill - Denny in the middle and Boren at the southern end. I love
the way some cities - Washington, DC, and Seattle for instance - have
these diagonal streets - makes city life that much more interesting.
Here's the sequence of photos showing parking lots with the Space Needle looming in the background. In the
photo on the lower right, the Space Needle is hiding behind the trees to the left of the existing Monorail line, just
to the right of the Avis sign. These images were taken while walking along Stewart Street just north of downtown.
This is an image of two of the three sides of a rotating triangular billboard on Stewart Street. Two of the sides were
advertising cars - one a Dodge Caravan and the other a Chrysler roadster. Thought it was amusing that there would
be two car ads on such a sign, usually they're completely unrelated - except for one triangular sign near Lander on
First Avenue which has three different colors of iPod people dancing - and the one further below by Target.
It's a shame when an advertising sign is so cool that one remembers the
sign but not what it's for. This was on Stewart Street and was - I think -
a restaurant which was "Emerald City ... some kind of food..." I'll return
and check out what they actually were selling. I just thought the sign
was too nice to not capture - plus the Space Needle is done in a
hammered stainless steel sculpture - just more art masquerading as
store logo.
This is on the corner of Stewart and First and is just way cool - it's also a triangular sign which changes into these
very subtle images which identify things which Target sells. The only reference to Target is the bullseye logo.
Very clever corporate advertising and damned impressive urban art - dynamic urban art at that. Seattle - for
probably reasons of having a very literate population and a very high proportion of creative types - has as
interesting a set of billboards as New York or San Francisco - one needn't leave town to find truly impressive
creative advertising - one can merely stroll about town.
The corporate logo of my construction contractor - Schulte Construction.
Todd's doing a great job managing and occasionally laying hand to hammer
and saw, but his real talent is in the "just in time" management of his
very high quality subcontractors and in his finding and keeping his crew -
Rick, Joe, Andy, and Aaron. An outstanding group of carpenters who
lay waste to the notion that American workmanship isn't up to the highest
world standard - and - a group of individuals who collectively and individually
have a wry sense of humor, are equal to any post-doc group I've run
across for sheer native intelligence and creativity, and do their work
competently while having a fun time of it. Watching these guys go about
their day gives a keen insight as to why American's still are the most
productive people on the planet. We need to relish that and quit with the wars.
We're so much better at creating things than destroying them.
The east side of the house with tower and Adam multimedia room windows
installed. New door is at intersection of existing house with tower. New
corner windows light the new living room alcove.
North side - main - view of the house with the upstairs hallway/foyer windows (the bank of
four) and corner window-wall windows "mostly" installed.
The most impressive view for the moment, since it shows off most of the windows, is the
corner view looking southeast. The balcony railing is yet to be installed as are the soffets
underneath the various overhangs, as is - obviously - the siding. Pretty sweet house, eh?
Saturday, as an example, was another great, blue-sky, day. At ten in the morning I hopped on my bike, missing a few accessories, and went for a spin around the peninsula which IS West Seattle. Down to Lincoln Park, around the west side through the park and on Beach Drive, over the horn and around Alki Beach on Alki Avenue and then down towards the harbor on Harbor Avenue. At the West Seattle Bridge I went east over Spokane Street to get across the industrial marshland to Delridge Way. Delridge runs southwesterly between Puget Ridge, which separates West Seattle from the Duwamish River, and the rest of the ridges which constitute West Seattle (maybe they have names, will have to check up on that). When I get to Trenton Street I hook a right and head west back toward home - this is the least incline way to go around the peninsula. It's slightly more than a 12-mile ride with an elevation loss-gain of about 500 feet. Once I get my Seattle bike muscles toned again, I'll head up some steeper streets, but for my first ride of this year I figured I'd try and take it easy. Actually, the strain on the muscles was perfectly acceptable and not that uncomfortable or agonizing. I'd completely forgotten about the "re" accommodation which must occur between one's ischial tuberosities - the two bottom end bones on the pelvis which are on either side of the coccyx. For a really fun time with anatomy, use either of these two terms (ischial tuberosities or coccyx) in a Google search - no end of anatomy references, both clinical and anthropomorphic. Well, to put it bluntly, about half-way through the peninsula ride it was much more comfortable to bike standing up than it was to bike sitting down. I'd totally and completely put this aspect of spring training out of my mind and forgotten all about how it usually takes a good three or four long bike rides to get accustomed to the bike seat again.
Such are the trials of a fair-weather cyclist. I probably will bike longer into the year out here than I did in DC, mostly because the temperatures drop more slowly and are still in the fifties through early November. Had I gotten my bike a month sooner I'd also have been on it a month sooner since the weather has been relatively mild and perfect for several-hour bike rides since early March.
I got home and not wanting my legs to stiffen, continued with a four-mile walk around the neighborhood, checking on other construction projects, people's gardens (everyone out here seems compelled to grow a yard full of pretty things the names of which I have no clue). I got home and made dinner and sat down for a few hours of Independent Film Channel movies - I must say that's probably the best movie channel on cable, unless you're into classic movies in which case AMC and TCM (American Movie Classics and Turner Movie Classics) are equally good. Saw a few interesting flicks and off to sleep.
Sunday was just as nice as Saturday but didn't want to push my luck with the ischial tuberosities (butt bones) so decided it was time to clean the crawl space between the two floors. Every worker since the house was originally built in 1947 has used that space to leave behind the debris of their trade. The original carpenters and roofers left behind old-style peg nails and pieces of cut fir lumber along with the odd shingle. There were even some cut pieces of original "knob and tube" wiring - the thick copper wire covered with rubber and cloth. And, there were hundreds of snippets of galvanized tin from the HVAC duct work along with cans of duct sealant and old T-shirts used to wipe the sealant around the ducts. There were hundreds of pieces of new Romex, the little black and white covered copper wires as well as the bare ground wires. There was actually a recoverable twenty feet of untouched perfectly usable Romex (the generic name for this three-conductor plastic-sheathed wire is NM, but Romex has become like Kleenex or Xerox - just sort of lost the lustre of its trademark through use). There were countless pieces of 2X4 which had been cut and discarded, the result of putting in all the support walls for the floor joists above. There was sawdust in every crevice created between the existing ceiling rafters - sitting in little piles on top of the drywall which was the downstairs ceiling. There were a number of empty water bottles - no particular brand seemed in favor. There were the porcelain standoffs of the old "knob and tube" system - also all over the place. And, there were hundreds if not thousands of new nails of every variety from electrical two-prong to four, six and eight penny from nailguns which missed their mark.
All of this I tackled with Todd's industrial-strength shop-vac and a trash can. I emptied the trash can about every ten feet and the shop-vac twice. It took me six hours to move my way across the rafters, crouching or kneeling on the rafters or sitting on some plywood sheets I'd moved into the area. Three times I had to unclog the flexible tube of the shop-vac - even industrial strength versions never work as well as one expects them to. When I was done, though, the five-foot high by thirty-feet long by twenty-feet wide plenum was clean enough to store clothes, food, human hideaways, or anything one might want to keep here. I banged my head about a dozen times - with scars to prove it, mostly on the ducting which I kept forgetting was lower and sharper than the TJI joists of the floor above me. I got completely covered with fiberglas insulation, moving my way back and forth underneath the second floor joists which were perfectly filled with the stuff. I scrubbed my knees good enough that a few folks later thought I had been in a serious bike accident - nah, just didn't think of the wear and tear on the knees from all the exposed fir rafters and was wearing short pants. Also, had probably two or three dozen tiny slivers of fir splinters embedded in all fingers and palms of both hands. Fun stuff, indeed.
To celebrate I walked down to Caffe Ladro with a neighbor who had been gardening all day. We treated ourselves to some of Ladro's rightfully renowned pastries - me the Mocha frosting Devils Food cupcake and her the pecan sticky bun. Ah, the pleasures of work-related celebrations.
Took our time getting back home, inspecting more gardens in the neighborhood and commenting on all the for-sale signs and checking out the prices on the neighborhood housing stock which was up on the market block. Turns out our investment in this house would easily pay off handsomely today should we want to sell. We invested about $437K so far in the original buy plus architect's fees plus contract with Schulte Construction. We could easily sell for a minimum of $650K based on prevailing neighborhood market realities and probably more. That would be a tidy profit of over $200K in a mere eight months. Whatever isn't going right with the Seattle economy, it certainly isn't affecting the housing market.
Mind you we're not going to sell this place for quite some time. Personally, I really want to take advantage of the Monorail and the City Council on Monday approved a next-step component of the system. Things are moving ahead on the mass transit front. And, now that the windows are mostly installed the architecture of the house is easily a neighborhood attraction. The house looks simply too good, and all the interior spaces are working out even better than I had imagined from the drawings. We have a raft of interesting set-asides and private spaces. The flow-through ventilation which we thought we were creating with all the casement windows on all four sides has proven to be phenomenal in practice. We actually can control the airflow through the whole house by opening and closing certain windows. The light which comes in, even in the dead of night, is also beyond expectations. It goes way beyond simply saying so to state that the views have also surpassed our expectations. Katherine and I have discussed this aspect a lot lately because we believe there's something fundamental and quite primitive in origin about what a full-horizon view does to the human mind. Having a view to the horizon in not one, but many or even most cardinal points has a very aggrandizing effect on everyone. Somehow, being able to see clear to the horizon opens up the mind in a way which most folks can appreciate when they climb a mountain or stop at a roadside overlook. But, having this view in one's home, to access and appreciate all the time, does something even more fundamental. All of a sudden it's not just a local neighborhood anymore. There's something quite clearly beyond the neighbor's house, beyond the next street, beyond even the tall trees in the distance. This element of the house - call it a subliminal psychological or underlying metaphysical element - is one which we didn't realize would affect us so profoundly. We knew having a view would be a worthy thing to strive for. We knew having a view of both sets of mountains and Mt. Rainier (and also Mt. Baker, early surprise that was) would be a great thing. What we didn't know was how fantastic it would be to just have all this landscape all around us as background. Amazing how such simple things can have such a deep and lasting effect.
And, the soundproofing is proving to be exceptional as well. Not only are the walls, floor and ceiling insulated with a minimum of six inches of insulation, but between the rooms upstairs there's acoustic deadening material in the walls, and, the windows have soundproofing qualities way beyond their simple appearance. I truly can't wait to test the neighborhood sound levels once I get the stereo up and running.
So, things are going along quite nicely. Monday, Rick and Joe installed most of the windows and today they did a bunch of items on their "punch list," which included making sure all the weird walls (the corners where the two walls are not at right angles) were set up for the dry wall crew which will be here later this week. On Thursday, the upstairs will be filled with 4x8 sheets of gypsum board (sheet rock, dry wall, I'm sure there's probably at least three other common phrases for this stuff).
While the windows were being installed on Monday, I zipped by bus back to REI to pick up the various bike accessories I needed which Gregg's Cycles didn't have - such things as a classic "bell" for my bike (it's the law and it's a nice courtesy as well), the toe-clips I need to be able to ride as freely and wantonly as I like to, the front and rear CatEye lights, and the front bike bag - where I'll put my camera. Also picked up a nice ABS plastic waterproof container which will hold the Canon Digital Elph camera perfectly. Figured it would provide a bit of shock-proofing in the event (let's just say likelihood) I get into another accident and the waterproofing will be necessary given the random number of times it's wet out here. Spent a few hours rigging up the bike when I got back home - much to the amusement of Rick and Joe since I seemed not to be able to get anything to fit correctly or work correctly the first time.
Yes, completely pilot error. I did read the instructions, did follow them, and did have a zero success rate until I'd done everything at least three times. That was true for getting the white LED front light to work, getting the odometer/speedometer system to work (it uses a Hall effect sensor which has to be aligned "just so" with the magnet which is set on one of the front wheel spokes), getting the darned straps correctly threaded through the pedals and toe clips, and on and on and on. Probably had to much coffee or was too excited over all the new toys. But, let's remember, it was an unwarranted act of trust - a crime of opportunity - which I set up which caused me to have to spend all this cash on bike and accessories. I was reasonably conscious of what I was putting out for this bike - roughly a thousand bucks with bike and all the other stuff which eventually was neatly attached to it. That's an important and costly lesson which I'll remember. I'll probably be guilty of trusting the wrong people at some point in my future - if my history is any guide. I still believe in the basic goodness of my fellow human beings. You can call that element of my character the "Pollyanna Blind Side." It's just that I want my fellow humans to be worthy of my trust, I actually believe they are capable of holding that trust, and eventually I wind up acting as if they actually have earned it - and once again I'll get burned. I keep thinking of humans the way I know they can be instead of the way I know they are. To me it's an investment which will have fantastic dividends if it ever comes true. And, the only way to make it true is to invest the trust, and, I guess I'm the one fool in a million who'll make that investment. Makes me feel better, though, to have this high regard for my fellow planetary mates.
While downtown I took some snapshots and captured a few images which were going to be later processed through Photoshop. Such a fun city visually. Never a dull view, so to speak. These few views and a couple of shots of the house with windows are below. Plus, I'm still learning the ins and outs of the comment and trackback server I've signed onto so there will probably be a few glitches with that element of the blog until I figure it all out - everything's a style sheet and I'm still learning how to cut/paste stuff into CSS formats to make it come out the way I want. So, if you use the blog, as I said when I first got that software - have patience, I'll eventually get it right.
I'll probably be on a bike ride or two this week if the weather allows and that will probably result in more random images of life in Seattle. One thing I love about cities, or the country for that matter, is that if one goes out looking for interesting things, they are always found. As an example, one of the photo essays I took while out Monday was a simple set of images of the Space Needle behind parking lots. As I was walking back from REI, I noticed that every block or two there'd be a parking lot which had the Space Needle looming behind it - not much of a theme, but it was a specific theme, and one which I could capture. Like some have said about me, I'm easily amused.
More later - have a great week, behave, be good and be kind. And, unlike me, don't be THAT trusting - as the sergeant used to say on Hill Street Blues - "hey, let's be careful out there!"
chas
Panorama of the south side of Denny Way about 8th Avenue just north of downtown. Denny is a major
east-west crosstown thoroughfare which connects the waterfront area of Lower Queen Anne, the Seattle
Center and Capitol HIll. It's got a lot of elements of interest to drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists and is nearly
always busy. This was taken late morning on the first Monday in May -
or for the alliterative in you - a Monday May Morning.
A 90-degree panorama of the waterfall area in front of the flagship REI store just north of downtown Seattle. The
building inside is gorgeous and uses passive heating and lighting and incorporates as construction materials all
the native elements of the Northwest from the timber to the stone and concrete. The trees constitute the backdrop
for a series of shoe test-walk and bike test-ride areas which meander around the REI grounds.
A closer look at the two-story waterfall. This is a wonderful place to get
a coffee or eat one's lunch and is open to the public during REI's extended
week and weekend days (10am to 9pm Monday through Friday and
10am to 7pm Saturday and Sunday).
Boren Avenue intersects Denny Way at an angle and provides a quick
shortcut from what would be midtown up to Capitol Hill. Both Boren and
Denny climb up and over the I-5 freeway and end up on the crest of
Capitol Hill - Denny in the middle and Boren at the southern end. I love
the way some cities - Washington, DC, and Seattle for instance - have
these diagonal streets - makes city life that much more interesting.
Here's the sequence of photos showing parking lots with the Space Needle looming in the background. In the
photo on the lower right, the Space Needle is hiding behind the trees to the left of the existing Monorail line, just
to the right of the Avis sign. These images were taken while walking along Stewart Street just north of downtown.
This is an image of two of the three sides of a rotating triangular billboard on Stewart Street. Two of the sides were
advertising cars - one a Dodge Caravan and the other a Chrysler roadster. Thought it was amusing that there would
be two car ads on such a sign, usually they're completely unrelated - except for one triangular sign near Lander on
First Avenue which has three different colors of iPod people dancing - and the one further below by Target.
It's a shame when an advertising sign is so cool that one remembers the
sign but not what it's for. This was on Stewart Street and was - I think -
a restaurant which was "Emerald City ... some kind of food..." I'll return
and check out what they actually were selling. I just thought the sign
was too nice to not capture - plus the Space Needle is done in a
hammered stainless steel sculpture - just more art masquerading as
store logo.
This is on the corner of Stewart and First and is just way cool - it's also a triangular sign which changes into these
very subtle images which identify things which Target sells. The only reference to Target is the bullseye logo.
Very clever corporate advertising and damned impressive urban art - dynamic urban art at that. Seattle - for
probably reasons of having a very literate population and a very high proportion of creative types - has as
interesting a set of billboards as New York or San Francisco - one needn't leave town to find truly impressive
creative advertising - one can merely stroll about town.
The corporate logo of my construction contractor - Schulte Construction.
Todd's doing a great job managing and occasionally laying hand to hammer
and saw, but his real talent is in the "just in time" management of his
very high quality subcontractors and in his finding and keeping his crew -
Rick, Joe, Andy, and Aaron. An outstanding group of carpenters who
lay waste to the notion that American workmanship isn't up to the highest
world standard - and - a group of individuals who collectively and individually
have a wry sense of humor, are equal to any post-doc group I've run
across for sheer native intelligence and creativity, and do their work
competently while having a fun time of it. Watching these guys go about
their day gives a keen insight as to why American's still are the most
productive people on the planet. We need to relish that and quit with the wars.
We're so much better at creating things than destroying them.
The east side of the house with tower and Adam multimedia room windows
installed. New door is at intersection of existing house with tower. New
corner windows light the new living room alcove.
North side - main - view of the house with the upstairs hallway/foyer windows (the bank of
four) and corner window-wall windows "mostly" installed.
The most impressive view for the moment, since it shows off most of the windows, is the
corner view looking southeast. The balcony railing is yet to be installed as are the soffets
underneath the various overhangs, as is - obviously - the siding. Pretty sweet house, eh?
Posted: Tue - May 4, 2004 at 08:18 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM
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Published On: Jul 04, 2005 05:41 PM