As mentioned earlier, we’re moving servers/hosts tonight to increase capacity and reliability – to help ensure we continue to deserve your trust as West Seattle’s 24/7 real-time news source. As part of the process, we have to “freeze” the site at midnight for the database move – so you won’t be able to use our discussion features (comments and forum posting) overnight, and we won’t be adding new items here till we’re sure everything’s up and running on the new server. But remember that we’ve set up two other ways of publishing news/info during the transition if needed – besides our Twitter feed (accessible online at twitter.com/westseattleblog), we also have a backup site (which also would be deployed if WSB ever went down for a significant amount of time) at westseattleblog.wordpress.com. If you don’t see a Labor Day open/closed-info post here first thing in the morning, your ISP may not be seeing the new server yet, and we’d want to hear from you at westseattleblog@yahoo.com – thanks!
(The Michael Jackson original is unembeddable, so we’re showing the Star Wars version instead)
The summer may be over but a thrilling new round of fun has begun, per Lora Lewis from Hotwire Coffee (WSB sponsor), who just announced … she’s putting together a dance team to “join the Thrill the World Guinness Book of World Records event!” — thousands (millions?) of people doing the “Thriller” dance in groups, worldwide. The team’s already got a blog (check it out here; looks like Blayne of “Project Runway” fame is involved too) – plus the date for the first rehearsal: This Wednesday, 8-9 pm, Ginomai (southwest corner of 42nd/Genesee; that’s conveniently right before this week’s PR viewing party) — you’re invited — just RSVP by sending Lora a note at lora@hotwirecoffee.com. Subsequent rehearsals will be the same day/time each week; the Seattle event for Thrill the World, at which time this team will strut its stuff, is 11 am October 25. Lora’s already registered the team so as she puts it — “all you need to do is show up and dance!” (and she has a step-by-step video, so don’t worry if you’ve never done it before). More at the team’s blog (thrilltheworldws.blogspot.com), and the official worldwide website is thrilltheworld.com.
We mentioned this the other day; here’s another heads-up. **If** all goes as planned, tonight is likely the night we’re upgrading/changing servers (after 10 pm), to provide increased capacity and reliability, as we end the third consecutive month with more than half a million pageviews (and a new WSB traffic record). The server we’ve been using for the past eight-plus months has been RELATIVELY reliable but that’s not good enough for our commitment to be your 24/7 source of real-time West Seattle news. Once we point the site at the new server, there may be a lag before your Internet Service Provider (ISP) sees it, – most ISPs catch on within hours, but as we learned last December, not all – if you start to suspect you’re not seeing updated WSB content (between early morning and late night, we seldom go longer than a few hours without something new), please let us know (westseattleblog@yahoo.com will be the best address in this case) and also please bookmark westseattleblog.wordpress.com, a backup site (nothing there right this moment) we will use to communicate any updates on the move as well as any urgent news that happens during the transition time (we’ll also post updates on Twitter – even if you don’t want to join Twitter, you can read our updates any time at twitter.com/westseattleblog – we’ve also added a Twitter-centric page here on the site, click the tab). Thanks for your patience – and for being a vital part of WSB.
Not too long ago, Elise wrote with a question/concern about a van parked in her neighborhood and whether it had the right to be parked the way it was frequently parked. We made a suggestion or two in e-mail; some of her questions had to do with the rules about Residential Parking Zones (city webpage here), and as Elise proceeded to do some research, she thought you might benefit from what she found out:
1) Even if you have a zone permit (or guest permit) you must move your car every 72 hours. Basically, having the permit does not exempt you from those rules. But, you are allowed to park anywhere in your zone as long as you
have your permit.
2) The city is considering changing the rules on the # of permits that can be issued per/household to only 2. I asked when this would be in effect and she said she did not know. City Councilwoman Jan Drago chairs the Transportation Committee, so she would be a good person to contact in order to express support of this proposal (jan.drago@seattle.gov).
3) If you have complaints about habitual “junk” motor vehicles in the neighborhood it’s best to still call the abandoned vehicle hotline at 206-684-8763. This creates an electronic track record of the car(s) movements. Like the guy in our neighborhood with 8 cars – they refer to those people as “car ranchers” (anyone with between 5-30 cars) who constantly move their cars around on city streets to avoid getting tickets. The only way to have the city do anything about them is by creating the electronic track record. The person I spoke with at the Citizen Service Bureau (206-684-8811) also said the UW School of Law offers a free “Mediation Clinic” to help resolve issues between neighbors (obviously for extreme situations), but their # is 206-685-4140.
There’s more tree fruit on the citywide “what’s new” list for farmers’ markets this week, including today’s West Seattle Farmers’ Market (10 am-2 pm, 44th/Alaska). Check it out here (and let us know if you encounter any surprise finds!).
Most days, we get at least two or three lost/found pet reports to add to the WSB Pets page. Often, we get word of happy reunions within a few days. Sometimes, the search is so intense that, after the original post to the Pets page, there are in-progress updates, which we lately have been directing to the WSB Forums – and in one such case, that of Gibs’N the Irish Water Spaniel (photo above), the latest update is a happy ending – forum posts indicate he’s back home tonight. Some West Seattle pets are still missing – and have been for a long time – if you don’t routinely check the Pets page, please have a look from time to time – you never know when you might see one of those long-lost critters and be able to bring her/him home. (We have adoptable pets, and West Seattle pet owners’ favorite photos, on that page too!)
Car-Free Sunday of the summer. Last week, Car-Free Sunday #1 on Capitol Hill was cut short by rain and roiled by controversy, but the 
to provide increased capacity and reliability, as we end the third consecutive month with more than half a million pageviews (and a new WSB traffic record). The server we’ve been using for the past eight-plus months has been RELATIVELY reliable but that’s not good enough for our commitment to be your 24/7 source of real-time West Seattle news. Once we point the site at the new server, there may be a lag before your Internet Service Provider (ISP) sees it, – most ISPs catch on within hours, but as we learned last December, not all – if you start to suspect you’re not seeing updated WSB content (between early morning and late night, we seldom go longer than a few hours without something new), please let us know (
Most days, we get at least two or three lost/found pet reports to add to
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