Storm? What storm?
Maybe it’s only a partial site update, but our friendly neighborhood paper has posted what looks like the weekly update tonight, and the only thing storm-related I can find so far is a bird picture oddly paired with an article about high school schedules.
Weather-related irony is lurking out there somewhere
Whatever national media might have reporters here in town to cover fans reaction to The Big Game, you know someone will write the story, should Our Team prevail, “As the sun came out after months of rain in soggy Seattle, football glory finally broke through the home team’s clouds of trophyless years.” Or something like that.
In other semi-weather-related news, the Beach Drive water woes merited just one little line in this Times report. Blink and you’ll miss it.
Can anyone tell me why even a small paper like the Herald, equipped with a 24/7 online site like just about everyone else in this day and age, can’t add breaking news like a storm damage report? Even a blog, for heaven’s sake. If they want to be the community’s source for news, it would be so easy to do.
As for that hideous WestSeattle.com — which pompously declares itself “the official site for the West Seattle community” (when did we vote; did I sleep through it?) — storm? what storm? Even tiny Caribbean island towns use their community sites for storm reports.
Rant off … for now …
Surest way to attract a TV crew
Urban early-morning power outage! Folks from the morning newscast on Q-13 spent at least a couple hours near the Alki Bathhouse this morning, talking about The First of February Windstorm ’06. My favorite part — the horrifying revelation that Tully’s had to open late because of the outage. You know things can get ugly when you just can’t get that quadruple grande you’re counting on. Might I suggest a dip in the bay, as an equivalent wakeup jolt?
Didn’t think so.
Prediction for next Alki TV sighting: The traditional semi-annual orca pod drive-by. Choppers ahoy!
And the nominee is …
… for Best Community Newspaper in West Seattle, I nominate these folks. Kicks the Herald up one side of the block and down the other. Wonder if we can get something like that going on this side of Cali Ave someday.
Rerun
All the nice folks at Alki Elementary have to go through it all again — the folks who run Seattle Public Schools insisting the only way to save $ is to close school. We doubt they will escape the ax this time. Bummer.
More of us to love
West Seattle could grow if this happens.
Or would that be Southwest Seattle?
Would South Seattle no longer be South Seattle, if the city limits moved so much further south?
White Center is such a gray area, anyway. I dare you to identify, from memory, exactly where the city-limits signs are. I only know of one for sure.
But I would suggest, let’s not stop there. Let’s go ahead and just annex all of Burien. And SeaTac too. I mean, let’s end their miserable run of trying to correct people who don’t get the capitalization or punctuation quite right. We can stretch Seattle all the way to Tacoma … or, at least, Federal Way.
Now what — another bar?
Buried in the aforementioned (well, in this layout, belowmentioned) West Seattle Herald article is the mention that Video Vault, once a hotbed of anti-monorailism, is going to hit the stop button forever next month. I haven’t spent a dime there since they started campaigning against the monorail, and I would hold that against them in perpetuity, for what it’s worth. Then again, we’re not exactly major video connoisseurs, so they’re not missing out on much business. Anybody want to lay odds on yet another bar/tavern taking over the space? Or will it be view condos?
Calm before the …
Quiet night on the west side. Not raining. Seahawks game still four long days away; no overt signs of blue-and-green fever yet. Still not light enough late enough into the evening for beach volleyball. Starbucks’ red-cup season is over.
HELP! I’M BORED!
If you want proof nothing’s happening, check out the banner story at WestSeattleHerald.com: It’s about something that HASN’T HAPPENED … at least yet.
No news is NOT always good news.
Ka-ching!
Good news if you already own a home on this side of the bay, bad news if you don’t. Our prices are movin’ on up, according to a realtor quoted in the second half of this story. (Though the cynic in me notes, he’s likely finger-crossing for a self-fulfilling prophecy, since his company has a major stake in West Seattle real estate.)
Yeah, sure, blame it on the tree
From the P-I’s account of the Friday power outage:
“The larger of the two outages occurred around 4:30 a.m. when a tree fell on power lines at 32nd Avenue Southwest and Southwest Brandon Street, cutting off power to about 7,500 Seattle City Light customers.
The outage stretched from Alki in the north to Southwest Findlay Street in the south and 23rd Avenue Southwest in the east to 53rd Avenue Southwest in the west, City Light spokeswoman Sharon Bennett said.”
Gotta find out exactly how our power grid works — how that outage managed to result in an unscheduled off-day for the kids at Schmitz Park Elementary, but not for, say, Lafayette, barely a mile away, and located between Schmitz Park and the outage source.
As I write this late Saturday morning (as the streets are about to be vacated so that everyone can gather ’round their teevees for the Seahawks pregame, game, and postgame), there’s a definite break to the west. Chances are good it’ll be long-overdue activity-suitable weather all afternoon … right while everyone’s in the living room.
Where there’s smoke …
Radio talk-show host New York Vinnie cited West Seattle tonight while talking about restaurant districts where he doubted the smoking ban was costing businesspeople customers. He talked about being at West 5 and looking across to the Matador — or perhaps it was the other way around. Sure, those joints might be buzzing, but what about the teeny ones like the Poggie Tavern or Be’s Restaurant, where it sometimes seemed you could come down with emphysema just by walking past their doors? I’d love to hear how they’re doing.
Cafe mystery solved
A local TV station told the story tonight of the “TEMPORARILY CLOSED” sign on the Cat’s Eye Cafe north of Lincoln Park. Seems a car crash is to blame. Hard to tell from the outside, but pictures of the inside made it clear why they’re closed. The woman who runs the cafe told the reporter she’s hoping they’ll reopen in about three weeks. Hope so!
Linked by more than geography
This P-I column today tells the heartening story of two West Seattle families with more in common than where they live.
Turns out I know a little something about both families. Anyone who’s been in West Seattle more than a few years will of course recognize the name of Mike Heavey, who had a boffo sign team back in his campaigning days. But it took me a few minutes and a bit of Googling to remember why I recognized the name of John Moe — I’d followed a link once to his blog.
Though she may not have a West Seattle link, the third player in the P-I column is noteworthy too. As we learned back in our early-parenthood days, maternity nurses rock.
Missed all the excitement
Wow, how did we sleep through all this?
That’s one thing about our little peninsula … a whole lot of land where there’s nowhere to run except right into the Sound.
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