Reflection

I'm sitting here in Wisconsin today watching the first real thunderstorm I have been through in 4 years arrive from the west [there typically aren't any t-storms in Seattle] after taking a long adventure from Seattle to Lawrence to Wisconsin in 6 days and I am thinking to myself "it is so quite here." No loud buses, no screaming students, no planes flying overhead...and then my silence is broken by a loud crack of thunder that puts the sound of the #48 bus at 5:00am to shame.

Missing Seattle #1: The Space Needle

It may seem a little obvious but one thing I will miss about Seattle is The Space Needle. It is simply nice to live in a city that has a monument that grabs your attention every time you see it. Although I feel this way, I only recently went up to take a look at the view from the top.

This last one is of the University District and the University of Washington where I live and went to school.

If you want to see a great movie, check out The Parallax View with Warren Beatty. The opening sequence was filmed in and on top of the Space Needle...



Maximo Park -- By the Monument
From the Our Earthly Pleasures album.

Funtime's Over

So I finished up my grad school degree yesterday and so Funtime is over...the job hunt begins and in a few weeks I am moving from the Emerald City to....drum roll please...Lawrence, Kansas. From the home of grunge rock to the home of....well, after a quick search Lawrence's got the Mates of State [who I actually saw in concert here in Seattle] and The Appleseed Cast.

The Appleseed Cast -- Sunlit and Ascending
From the Peregrine album.

Mates of State -- These Days [Nico Cover...written by Jackson Browne]
From the European Tour 2003 EP.

In honor of my eventual exit from Seattle, I am going to do a series of posts highlight the things that I am going to miss about the city that I called home for four years.

By the way, here's the view of downtown Lawrence...I think it was taken last week.

Fleet Foxes

Considering it's 50 degrees and rainy in Seattle today, this is the hottest things coming from the Emerald City today.

Fleet Foxes -- White Winter Hymnal
This is from the new self-titled album.
To find out more about Fleet Foxes, go here.

D.B. Cooper

They always have the best news in Seattle when I'm not there:

AMBOY, Wash. -- A parachute that could belong to famous hijacker D.B. Cooper has been found and is being analyzed by the FBI in Seattle.The Cooper case has been surrounded by mystery since 1971, when he jumped from a Northwest Orient Airlines Boeing 727 with a bag of money containing $200,000 ransom.

The parachute, which the FBI said is the same type that was used by Cooper, was found between the Clark County towns of Ariel and Amboy, near the center of the original jump zone, according to KOIN News 6.The parachute was unearthed in a field that was being plowed by the property owner and was found by the man’s children while they were playing. The children pulled the cloth until the chute’s shroud lines appeared and their father recognized it as a parachute.

The man notified the FBI in Seattle. Part of the chute, which is white and conical shaped, remains buried in the field.Seattle Agent Larry Carr said he will analyze the parachute and look for a label, which could match it to a reserve chute left behind by Cooper on the plane.

More information on D.B. Cooper can her found here, here, here, and here.

Alice Cooper -- School's Out
From the Dazed & Confused soundtrack.

Timezones

Aaaaaahhhhhh....final exams are over....I leave for spring break tomorrow...and all is right with the world...I am sorry to everyone that has sent emails recently. I will be working through them this week.

I am visiting my family this week in Wisconsin which is two hours ahead of Seattle in the time zone department...My fiance is in Latvia which is normally 10 hours ahead of Seattle time...America just had day light savings time last week [roughly a month earlier than we normally do] but Latvia doesn't do their "spring forward" until mid-April...so whenever we try to coordinate a phone call while I am in Wisconsin, we sound like this:

Rocktober

This Sunday was a great day for sports TV...early and late football games, the Sunday night game and Game 7 of the American League Championship Series...although one of the things I won't miss when I eventually leave Seattle is having to get up early for football...pre-game at 9am, what is the NFL thinking?...just tape delay it for the West Coast...I know I wouldn't check the internet for the scores...

Anyway, I enjoyed the Red Sox's game and I am really looking forward to the World Series...which leads me to the point of this post...the Colorado Rockies are trying to trademark the word "Rocktober" which they have been using to describe their end of the year run of winning 21 of their last 22 games....that's it...that's all I wanted to say...no biting commentary here...just alerting you to some important sports news three days after it was news...enjoy some Aesop Rock...

Aesop Rock -- None Shall Pass

The new Aesop Rock album, also called None Shall Pass, is available here. Pick up your Aesop Rock shoelaces here.

2 Tim Burgess-es

Here in Seattle, we are in the middle of a City Council campaign that has a candidate running by the name of Tim Burgess. Now all you music buffs out there know Tim Burgess as the lead singer of the great Britpop band The Charlatans [known as The Charlatans UK here in the United States].

Apparently, they are not the same person.

You decide which is which:

Tim Burgess [Seattle] has some bad news today...his campaign is $115,000 in the red.

The Charlatans UK -- Love is the Key

The Charlatans UK have a new single coming out October 22nd called "You Cross My Path. Get it here.

Always Stay With Your Boat

A sign on a light pole in Seattle:

Harry Belafonte -- Banana Boat (Day-O)

Harry's site is here and you can get his albums here.

Vern Funk

This is Seattle...this is what it is all about...this is real...it is not a parody...well, it is a parody...but this is a real insurance company...and a very successful one at that...

Living Dangerously in the U-District

Reason #1,366 why you shouldn't walk around the University District at 2:00AM and reason #765 why I won't miss too much Seattle when I leave...

On Saturday, September 22, 2007 at about 2:00 AM the victim was standing at NE 45th and 15th Ave NE. when approached by a male suspect who asked for a "light".

The suspect displayed a handgun and told the victim to get on the ground and hand over his wallet, which the victim did. The suspect took the wallet and told the victim to walk in the opposite direction. The suspect then fled the area. The victim was not injured. Responding officers were not able to locate the suspect. This incident was assigned Seattle Police incident number 07-391783. If you have any additional information about this crime, please call the Seattle Police at 206-625-5011.

Interestingly, this is from a Wikipedia article about the main street in the University district, The Ave:

Another factor contributing to the Ave Rats' decline was the extension of organized, gang-related criminal activity on the Ave in recent years. Several groups, whose signature graffiti "tags" can be seen throughout the U. District, contributed to the transition in drug sales from marijuana (formerly sold by Ave Rats and transients) to include the organized sale of methamphetamine and cocaine. This transition has resulted in multiple incidents of gun-related violence, as well as obvious deals occurring in broad daylight.[10] Regular visitors to the Ave could often recognize the same individuals standing at or "patrolling" the same areas, day after day.

The U. District has seen these problems recur. As reported in the University District Herald in 1921, librarian "Miss Mary Baker ask[ed] for police protection from gangs of boys" who were causing what is today described as vandalism and harassment. Librarian Clara Van Sant wrote: "Men hang outside the door to smoke, gossip, and pass comments to ladies coming into the library," behavior that apparently continued through the early 1920s.[11]

Ryan Adams -- City Rain, City Streets

Buy Ryan's albums here.

In Case You Wondered

I'm bracing, coping, expecting delays, congested, jammin', having nightmares, and ready for some havoc playing.

Bring 'em on:

Oscar Lives Here

Washington: on the cutting edge of graffiti laws.

Further Thoughts

I've been thinking about gun violence and the events of Monday and I am struck by the idea that the man who was shot four times didn't die...the ambitious member of my graduate program (health care administration) put together a book club which will begin meeting when school begins in September and for the first book we are reading Better by Atul Gawande...in one of the chapters he tackles the improved nature of military hospitals and also the incorrect notion that a lower murder rate means that we are safer:

Little recognized is how fundamentally important the medical system is -- and not just the enemy's weaponry -- in determining weather or not someone dies. U.S. homicide rates, for example, have dropped in recent years to levels unseen since the min-1960s. Yet aggravated assaults, particularly with firearms, have more than tripled during that time period. A key mitigating factor appears to be the trauma care provided: more people maybe be getting shot, but doctors are saving even more of them. Mortality from gun assaults has fallen from 16 percent in 1964 to 5 percent today.

Monday, Monday

After work on Monday I was waiting for the bus as usual when the bus I usually take just drove on by my stop without slowing down. As they went by what I saw looked something like this:



The same thing happened with bus #2 and #3...they were full and they weren't stoppin'. My work is on 9th Avenue in downtown Seattle and I knew my bus route follows 3rd Avenue before turning towards my direction. Walking the six blocks would take some time but in the long run it might save me if the buses just continued to drive by.

I made my way to 3rd Avenue and was pleasantly reminded how many psychopaths inhabit Seattle during the summer and how many seem to love hanging around the Pikes Place Market area. I made my way to a bus stop out in front of the Macy's and right across from a McDonald's.

I got done with work that day at 4:45pm. By the time I missed three buses and made it to Macy's it was 5:45pm. If I had been a little less patient and started walking right after missing that first bus, I could have nearly made it on time for the attempted murder that happened at that bus stop. Read about it here. More here.

It is these little twists of fate that I think about a lot here in Seattle where things like this happen more often than they should.

UPDATE:Gay Pride isn't Free

Where are all the gay millionaires?

UPDATE: Seattle Out and Proud is bankrupt...