West Seattle Blog…

New neighborhood-news roundup from our Seattle Times partners

WSB’s informal partnership with The Seattle Times, now in its third year, is pretty low-key. In case you missed our original announcement in August 2009: It’s a casual relationship that means the Times sometimes links to WSB stories from its home page – as well as highlighted stories from some the dozens of other news websites from around the region that are in the partnership (which started in 2009 with just a few of us – including WSB, our site to the south White Center Now, Capitol Hill Seattle, and My Ballard), and we do the same if there’s a story of interest on their site, plus they will grant permission to use a Times photo on request if they happen to have one that would enhance our coverage. (Here’s an example.) No contract, no money, no behind-the-scenes involvement on either side. Our favorite part of it is the fact that many times, when we have a story about somebody in West Seattle doing something great, it might be linked from the region’s biggest news website, meaning even more people will hear about it beyond the 120,000+ homes/businesses/offices that read WSB anywhere from once to 100 times each month.

SO, that all said, something new: Today in the paper version of the Sunday Times, a new section called “Around the Sound” debuts, featuring quick blurbs from some of their partner sites. The first version includes one they chose from WSB, a short mention of park safety on the agenda of last Tuesday’s West Seattle Crime Prevention Council meeting (here’s the full story, with video, if you missed it). Just thought we’d mention it in case you read the Sunday Times but missed this (which is on page B3 – here’s a PDF version). They decide what to feature, same way we decide what – and if – to feature any Times content here, but once in a while, you just might see something from our peninsula go by.

Local travel writers’ global charity gets boost from Expedia

Story and photos by Keri DeTore
West Seattle Blog contributor

Did you notice the lights and cameras set up at Cupcake Royale in The Junction on Monday?

That was a crew from Bellevue-based Expedia, interviewing local travel writers who have applied their storytelling and outreach skills to fundraising for international projects.

West Seattleites Beth Whitman (photo left) and Pam Mandel (photo right), along with Debbie Dubrow (center, from Mount Baker), are longtime travelers and writers who publish blog-format sites where they share their experiences, and their tips and tricks for smarter, easier travel. Along with Michelle Duffy (not pictured), they found each other through their writing, and began meeting regularly at Cupcake Royale to share stories and support.

At one point, they wondered, “What MORE can we do?” They wanted a way to bring together the travel-blog community, and unite it around a cause. After doing some research, realizing that others in that community wanted “something to latch onto,” and finding other groups with strong fundraising models, the four women created Passports with Purpose.

Click to read the rest of Local travel writers’ global charity gets boost from Expedia…

West Seattleite Bill Schrier to retire as city Chief Tech Officer

Much of what we report on WSB includes, or originates from, information made available online by the city – the 911 log, the police-report map, DPD permit status/filings to list a few – and the city has put it all out there for the public under the leadership of its Chief Technology Officer, West Seattleite Bill Schrier. Now, the city sends word he’s leaving that job (one year after the City Council reconfirmed his appointment):

Mayor Mike McGinn today announced that Bill Schrier is retiring from City service as the city of Seattle’s chief technology officer after 30 years.

“Bill Schrier has been an effective and innovative leader in helping Seattle use technology to support our residents, our businesses, and an open government,” said Mayor McGinn. “Under his leadership Seattle has begun to connect more of our neighborhoods to high-speed fiber broadband, set national standards for accessing information online, and helped create and improve other innovative and effective ways to get the people of Seattle better engaged with their government.”

During Schrier’s tenure as chief technology officer and head of the Department of Information Technology (DoIT), the city of Seattle was named as the best large city government website in the nation by “Best of the Web” in 2001, 2006 and 2011. Schrier led the development of data.seattle.gov, an award-winning website that increases access to datasets generated by various departments of Seattle city government. DoIT also oversees the city’s television station, the Seattle Channel, which was named best municipal TV station for large cities in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010.

Schrier’s retirement from City service will be effective on May 2. Erin Devoto, deputy director of DoIT, will serve as acting chief technology officer until a permanent director is chosen.

According to his Twitter feed, Schrier is at a conference in Minnesota – but we’ll be asking for comment. Via Twitter, of course. (Where he just promised “more in a while.”)

ADDED EARLY WEDNESDAY: Retirement in this case does not mean actual “no more paid career” retirement; here’s where his new job is revealed – deputy director of the Center for Digital Government.

Attention, night owls: Brief Comcast outage likely overnight

After finding out from this WSB Forums post that Comcast had issued a warning of an overnight internet-service outage tonight (actually early tomorrow), we checked to see how widespread it would be. Here’s the reply from Comcast’s Steve Kipp:

We will be doing maintenance on the vast majority of our service area in West Seattle. The work will take place between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. We anticipate that service will be interrupted for about 5 minutes. The time of the interruption will vary depending on when we do the maintenance work on the equipment serving that neighborhood.

All of the work will take place at our headend facility in Burien and won’t involve construction crews working out in the individual neighborhoods.

This morning’s site outage: Please accept our apology

We apologize to you for WSB having been all but inaccessible for more than an hour and a half this morning – the longest outage in years. Our server-management company, the usually impeccable WiredTree, had what they described as a “complex” problem that affected not only our site, but many others elsewhere. They say it’s fixed now. One reminder – Whenever anything goes awry, we step up our already intensive reporting on Facebook (here) and Twitter (here), so that we can continue keeping our 24/7 news-coverage commitment, so during this outage, we reported breaking news there – and we also had just started to post WS stories to our White Center site, whitecenternow.com, hosted by a different server company, so NOT affected if WSB’s host company has trouble. Again, sorry about that, and now on with the rest of the day …

Yes, WSB is on Pinterest – and here’s where else to find us

With all the wonderful photos that we’ve been fortunate to be able to publish, it seemed that the new image-viewing site Pinterest was a place to be. We signed up a couple weeks ago and just now created our first board – West Seattle Wildlife (note – we respect copyrights here, and will NOT pin contributors’ copyrighted photos unless they have given us explicit permission). If you use Pinterest too, see you there. Since it’s a quiet Friday night (so far), seems like an opportunity to remind you about some other places you can find, and collaborate with, WSB, since this is our fifth year of using “social media” to be where you are, when you’re not here:

Facebook page
facebook.com/westseattleblog

Flickr group
flickr.com/groups/westseattleblog

Google+ (jury’s still out on this one)
gplus.to/westseattleblog

Pinterest
pinterest.com/westseattleblog

Twitter (human-powered)
twitter.com/westseattleblog

Twitter (automated stream of WSB story links)
twitter.com/westseattlenews

Twitter (West Seattle Crime Watch links)
twitter.com/wseattlecrime

YouTube (where we upload most of the video clips we use in stories)
youtube.com/westseattleblog

If you don’t use any of those services, no worries – you won’t miss anything; WSB on the Web is the main place to be. (With a handy mobile format that automatically kicks in if you check the site via smartphone.) Then, there’s the good old-fashioned stuff – the simplest ways to reach us, whether or not you’re on the other services too:

24/7 phone (text or voice)
206-293-6302

e-mail
editor@westseattleblog.com (news)
patrick@wsbsales.com (advertising)

Metro tweaking its website, wants your opinion on new homepage

If you look up Metro Transit info online, Metro wants to know what you think about a new homepage they’ve put up for a test drive. They say it highlights the most popular features – route schedules, announcements, trip planning – and works better on mobile devices than the current site. Check it out here, and then answer a survey that you’ll see at the very top of the page. This is just for the home page; they plan to roll out other changes later this year.

Speaking of telling people you appreciate them … THANK YOU!

The theme of our most widely circulated story this past week was – don’t miss an opportunity to tell people how much you love/appreciate them. We keep trying to find the right time to tell you exactly that, but there’s always one more story that needs to be written, one more e-mail to answer … but finally here in the middle of the post-Super Bowl night, we’re going to just stop and say: THANK YOU.

The occasion: January’s final numbers for WSB readership are in, and it was a record-setting month:

*First month ever with more than 1,100,000 pageviews (final total: 1,165,345 pageviews for January 2012)
*First month ever with more than half a million visits (final total: 500,844 visits for January 2012)

The previous WSB records were set last October, the first month ever with more than a million WSB pageviews, part of a big 2011 that we never just stopped down for a second to mention either: Click to read the rest of Speaking of telling people you appreciate them … THANK YOU!…

Helping your street-tree knowledge branch out: New city map

The City of Seattle’s online map lineup has a new addition. Not only can you find development projects, traffic times, and 911 calls on city maps, you can now look up street trees. For example, if you zoom to 35th SW, you can click on the dark-green tree cluster and find out about the famous European Hornbeams (the trees, shown in our 2009 photo above, just before getting special attention a couple years back from a group of professional arborists who donated their time and talents). The new map (explained here) comes just as the city gets ready to consider a new street-tree ordinance (find it here), as we reported here and here.

West Seattle wildlife: Out on a limb in Lincoln Park

Danny McMillin spotted this barred owl during a New Year’s Day walk in Lincoln Park. (Is he/she one of these two? Would take keener eyes than ours to tell!) Thanks for sharing the photo!

2011 in review, first installment: Most-commented WSB stories

Some Decembers have been too busy for the traditional “Year In Review,” but we’re bringing it back for 2011, in installments that will roll out, topic by topic, between now and, well, the end of the year (11:59 pm Saturday), at least one per day. Today, we’re beginning the rollout with a site-specific topic – most-commented stories of the year. (Obviously, with five and a half days to go, there’s always a chance this list – and/or any other one published before Saturday night – will have to be updated …) A few of these stories will of course also appear in our subsequent 2011-in-review roundups later this week. Here goes:

#10 – 125 COMMENTS
West Seattle traffic: ‘Worst morning in 5 years’ – but why? (May 11)

#9 – 126 COMMENTS
Close Junction streets for trick-or-treating? Mom’s campaign (November 6)

#8 – 127 COMMENTS
Zippy’s Giant Burgers moving from Highland Park to White Center (February 3)

#7 – 136 COMMENTS
West Seattle speeders: SPD stops a 42 mph bicyclist (July 27)

#6 – 137 COMMENTS
West Seattle traffic: 1st morning of Viaduct-closure workweek (October 24)

Click to read the rest of 2011 in review, first installment: Most-commented WSB stories…

Just got an e-reader? Free ‘clinics’ offered at Southwest Library

For anyone and everyone whose holiday presents included an “e-reader,” the Seattle Public Library‘s Southwest Branch in West Seattle (35th/Henderson) is offering special clinics each of the next four afternoons, 1-3 pm. (Yes, the libraries ARE open today!)

Virtual ridealong: Officer Luckie tweets from the streets

Southwest Precinct Officer Scott Luckie admits he wasn’t using Twitter till he was “volunteered” for today’s “tweetalong,” the latest in a series that Seattle Police have done around the city – first one in West Seattle. Until 8 pm, he is “tweeting” what happens during his shift patrolling eastern West Seattle and South Park, starting with the routine – a mention of roll call (11 am, just before we stopped by the precinct to talk with him – the photo at right is the one WE took for Twitter), followed by this:

What will the rest of the day bring? You can follow along at twitter.com/seattlepd. Officer Luckie told us calls he answered in the past few days including a man trying to break into a house by using a chain saw. (We’re looking for the report on that one.) He has some ground rules to follow, including no photos of suspects’ faces, but otherwise, he’s the one doing the tweeting (which surprised us – we figured he might have someone from downtown along for the ride, helping out).

Scam alert: E-mails that look local and legit, but aren’t – PSE, and now King County

Just got an e-mail pretending to be from “King County Ecommerce” regarding property taxes. We are 100 percent sure – even before we check – that it’s bogus. So we wanted to warn you not to open it, if you get it too! The telltale flaw: It is formatted just like an e-mail we received yesterday pretending to be from “Puget Sound Energy,” which definitely wasn’t, and led to a warning from PSE itself. The dangerous part about these e-mails is the attached zip file. DON’T OPEN IT. Ahead, read the alert that PSE sent out late yesterday (and, ADDED 2:52 PM, a warning from King County about the new one): Click to read the rest of Scam alert: E-mails that look local and legit, but aren’t – PSE, and now King County…

New kids’ game, free cupcakes: West Seattle event today

Two West Seattleites have just developed and released a new iPad/iPhone game for children, and are inviting families to drop by Cupcake Royale in The Junction this afternoon to give it a try – with free cupcakes and book giveaways for the kids. The game is called Tiny Tiger and Friends; its developers are Aaron Hedquist (left) and Steven D’Amico (right). According to the online notes, Hedquist’s firm The Curio Dept. developed it with the intent of not talking down to kids – “Children are way smarter than we adults give them credit for!” Here’s a kid-presented trailer for the game:

The game’s developers have serious pedigrees: Hedquist has been an interactive designer for a decade, with past projects for clients from the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum to the BBC. He is a partner at Curio Dept. with Fremont resident and software-industry veteran Scott Dierdorf. D’Amico is the illustrator of the “Ella The Elephant” picture-book series, for which he says a TV series is now in development. He’s also produced illustrations and designs you might have seen on websites for PBS Kids, Nick Jr., and the Disney Channel. Just bring your would-be game-tester to Cupcake Royale between 3 and 6 pm today (during CR’s regular “DIY” decorating party) to give Tiny Tiger a try.

Where’s the ferry? WSF offers new ETA feature online

If you use Washington State Ferries, from Fauntleroy or anyplace else, you probably know about Vessel Watch – the GPS-enabled online feature that shows you where any given ferry is at any time. WSF just announced it’s added a feature to Vessel Watch: The estimated time of arrival (ETA) for whatever ferry you’re keeping an eye on. Read on for the details: Click to read the rest of Where’s the ferry? WSF offers new ETA feature online…

‘Upload Your Grandma’: West Seattleite gets the non-online, online

Wisdom, humor, history … our elders have a lot to offer. But you don’t get to see/hear/read much of it online, at least not from the very oldest among us. West Seattleite Shanna Christie noticed this, particularly in regards to her own grandma, and decided to address it with UploadYourGrandma.com. She announced it on the WSB Facebook wall last night:

I’ve started a blog for my Grandmother, a 96 year old West Seattle resident, so that I can share the thoughts of someone who is not online, with the rest of the world. … As part of this project, if anyone else has elderly relatives who has ideas, opinions or perspectives too good not to share, I invite you to “upload” them to this site! It’s been a fun experiment so far and it is great to hear from a generation who is often left out of the digital world.

Here’s a weather-appropriate sample of what Shanna’s grandma has to say – screengrab from a recent post:

Of course there are some 90-plus’ers online, and Shanna speaks to that point today. But if the one(s) you know and love isn’t – go upload her/him, while you still can! (P.S. You can find Shanna’s site, and The Grandma, on Twitter, too.)

Hood Web Management: Welcome, new West Seattle Blog sponsor

Today we welcome a new sponsor, Hood Web Management, an Arbor Heights-based business that specializes in website design, website management, site maintenance for existing websites, search-engine optimization, and online marketing services. Owner Kane Jamison says he’s committed to helping local businesses: “We offer effective online marketing solutions for local businesses, and we’re great at what we do! We have years of experience in building and managing websites and that experience is what makes us such a great value to our clients. We offer a full spectrum of web solutions for business owners including website design, website management and maintenance for existing websites, search engine optimization, online marketing services, and more. We support our community and do our best to support local businesses and keep our dollars in the community.”

Kane says there’s some real advantages of having someone manage your website. “The majority of our clients come to Hood Web Management because they recognize that we can save them time, money, and headaches. Instead of spending four hours trying to figure out how to make a change to their site, we can do it in an hour or less, and more importantly, we know the best way to complete the task. Our clients are frequently delighted to find out that we can take their existing website and improve it by making it faster, by reducing website errors and other issues that cause visitors to leave the site, making small site changes that increase their search traffic, and a number of other similarly beneficial changes. We have yet to run across a client site that couldn’t be improved, and it’s typically something the website owner just isn’t aware of.”

Hood Web Management has done pro-bono work for such community organizations as the Environmental Science Center, Sustainable Burien, and Ballard-based SeaChar. He’s also a member of the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

DEAL: For a limited time, West Seattle Blog readers can get 25% off their first invoice with Hood Web Management! Start here.

We thank Hood Web Management for sponsoring independent, community-collaborative neighborhood news on WSB; find our current sponsor team listed in directory format here, and find info on joining the team by going here.

Thanks a million! We’re grateful for a great October

Before the first day of November ends … we wanted to say thank you for October.

For one … it was the first time ever that WSB registered at least one million pageviews in a single calendar month. Certainly, there was a lot of news this month … October started with the Amanda Knox decision and ended with a week of “Viadoom” traffic-tracking, with a sunken vessel and fuel slick at midmonth. By the last moment of Halloween night, the counter (per Google Analytics) hit 1,081,362 pageviews, more than 100,000 past the previous record back in August.

For two … we wanted to thank you for the votes that topped the “Best of Western Washington” category for the second consecutive year. We aren’t much for campaigning, so hearing that so many people still found the contest and took the time to vote for WSB was heartening.

For three … this marks the start of our fifth year as a business, a milestone many small family businesses aren’t lucky enough to reach. WSB is what some call “bootstrapped” – no investors, no grants, no co-owners, no rich relatives/friends, no day jobs. The 24/7 community-collaborative news, information, and discussion you find here is made possible by the local businesses that choose to gain exposure to more than 100,000 people each month by sponsoring WSB; we thank them for their support.

Your newstips, your reader reports, your comments, your photos, your presence are the indispensable ingredients. Thank you so much for choosing to be here (same goes for those in the WSB communities on Facebook and on Twitter) and to share information with your community – whether it’s a crime report, a crash, a lost/found pet, or a breathtaking sunset photo – via WSB. We could go on with more gratitude … including a huge thanks to the reporters/photographers who work with us … but there’s a story waiting to be written!
– Tracy (WSB editor/co-publisher, on behalf also of co-publisher Patrick)

Site glitch earlier today; fixed now. Please forgive us!

If you kept checking the WSB home page earlier today and wondered why we hadn’t seemed to update anything after 7-something am – no, we were NOT slacking off! Some people were stuck with a “cached” version of the home page that refused to show the newest information, even though we had continued to update the morning commute story and then followed it up with several new stories. One browser seemed to be immune to this problem, Chrome, and since that happens to be the browser we use for most of our work, we weren’t aware of the problem until a few hours had gone by and a few people finally sent notes asking what was going on. Then it took a while longer to fix. Thanks to expert tech help, we finally know what was wrong (though not WHY it went awry), and all should be well now. As soon as we realized some people couldn’t see the updated home page, though direct story links worked just fine, we did get the word out via Facebook and Twitter, so if you use either of those services, please make note of where to find us, and consider “liking” or “following” WSB there, even if just to get updates in situations (rare as they are) like this. Sorry again – we try to make sure WSB hums along relatively trouble-free!

New way to check West Seattle Bridge traffic: See it live

Something new turned up on the city’s Travelers Information traffic-info map: Links to live video from the two main cameras on the West Seattle Bridge. There’s no direct link so far as we can tell, so here’s how to get to them: Go to the map, scroll till you see “Live Traffic Video” on the lower right, click that, and it opens a list of 12 cameras around the city, including the two on the bridge. The video seems to stop after 30 seconds, though, requiring another click to resume. We’ll be checking with SDOT later this morning to find out more about this new addition.

Phone-scam alert: West Seattleite gets the ‘Windows’ call

Not a new scam, but in case you or someone you know hasn’t heard about it – Maria wants to make sure you’re aware the scammers/”phishers” are out there again right now, trying to get you on the line. Read ahead for her report: Click to read the rest of Phone-scam alert: West Seattleite gets the ‘Windows’ call…

Need more computer know-how? 2 West Seattle chances tomorrow

Vicky sends word this morning of two open houses tomorrow at public West Seattle computer centers you might not even know about, part of the city’s Get Online Week, which starts tomorrow:

Did you know you can attend classes for free or low-cost at computer learning centers in your own neighborhood? Come in, have a snack, learn about our labs and the workshops and classes offered for teens, adults and seniors. Stop by one of these centers and GET ONLINE!

October 3, 3:00-6:00 PM
High Point Mobile Lab
6400 Sylvan Way SW

October 3, 6:00-8:00 PM
RecTech Delridge Computer Lab
4501 Delridge Way SW