West Seattle, Washington
24 Saturday
On behalf of your humble WSB team, people who in school would never even have been allowed within 100 miles of a popularity competition, thanks for helping us win the first round of our “bracket” in Metroblogging Seattle’s NCAA-style blog popularity tournament — now it’s Round 2; please take a sec to go here and vote for us (we’re up against somebody really good this time so we’re underdogs). This round is apparently running for a whole week. Thank you! (P.S. We will be especially touched if you tell your friends, neighbor, parents, therapist, whomever to vote for us too. Look, it could be worse, at least we’re not asking you to support our kid’s school by buying The Fundraiser Wrapping Paper From Beyond.)
A great, informative discussion in the comments here, after the Charlestown Cafe site/Petco project Design Review Board meeting, has led to action. Admiral Neighborhood leader Mark Wainwright has set up a Yahoo! group (with a cool logo) as a rallying point for those concerned about the development (and the way things are going around here in general). Go sign up!
As we noted when we discovered Metblogs Seattle planned to run a blog-popularity contest of sorts, it’s contrived … but nonetheless, it’s happening. And our appearance in it is apparently TODAY ONLY (unless we win this round and move on). So please take a sec, click here and vote for us in the first part of this poll. Thanks.
OK, we are completely aware this is a gimmick cooked up by Metroblogging Seattle to try to get more readers, by conning other blogs into a link, though we wouldn’t have known they were running a “Best Blog in Seattle” contest except for the fact one lone person followed a link from there to here. NONETHELESS — we don’t suppose it would do any harm if you drop by MS to vote for us on Monday. Seems the preliminary round is one day only (like those olden-days sales at Bon Marche Bon Macy’s). Even more important on Monday, don’t forget about this (we’ll be there too).
Along with updates on menu items and special events, the latest e-mail newsletter from West 5 features a warning about being careful where you park behind that block of Junction businesses (excerpted in full after the jump):Read More
On one of the e-mail lists where we lurk, list members were forwarded a plea from the folks who oversee farmers’ markets citywide. Please get the word out about the West Seattle Winter Farmers’ Markets (10 am-1 pm on Sunday), was the main point. Fine, we’ll do our part. But here’s the startling part of the e-mail:
We have little yard signs out about the community and sandwich boards that we put out on Sundays – but we can no longer put any banners on the Fauntleroy overpass because the City of Seattle forbids it.
So is that what happened to the big yellow banner, clearly well-maintained, and taken down soon after each week’s WSFM? Not even OK for advertising this type of city-condoned event? Seems kind of grinchy, at the very least.
A brief item at BoingBoing tipped us to the fact that West Seattle author/radio guy John Moe (who snagged the national spotlight last fall with his book “Conservatize Me”) is moving from KUOW to National Public Radio. (The move is confirmed on John’s blog, which is one of the growing list of links on our Other Blogs in WS page.)
Nice writeup for Clementine on nwsource.com. Glad people who love the finer things in life have more places to shop in WS, with Clementine, Divina, and others now on the scene. (Although, apropos to one point in the Clementine article, our personal “freak-out price point for shoes” is $25 … it’s Payless or barefoot for us, baby!)
If you drive on 35th near the summit, you might have wondered lately what’s up with Mars Hill Church’s takeover of the ex-Doxa church building (MH-West Seattle has been meeting for 3 months at Chief Sealth HS). A new post on the MH-WS blog seems to mention in passing (toward the end) that they’re now shooting for Feb. 18.
Nice snowy Lincoln Park pix (including a beach snowman!) in this post from The Perrys of West Seattle.
Alki-based Metroblogging Seattle contributor C Ro posts today that the Casa Feliz Mexican restaurant at the beach appears to have folded. That space has had so much turnover, we can barely remember what was there before — wasn’t there a Cuban restaurant in the space for a while, or was that upstairs?
Staked out your fireworks-watching spot yet? Ours is in front of the tv; much as we enjoy the West Seattle waterfront, we won’t be out on it this night, this year. The internet also makes New Year’s Eve more interesting for us homebodies; here at WSB World HQ, that dates all the way back to ’94, when we shared NYE virtually via the original mainstream chat program, IRC, with all sorts of folks hopping on and off to report on the New Year’s status in their part of the world/country. Now things are more compartmentalized and sophisticated online; already this morning, we can watch video from NYE celebrations already complete, like Sydney, on computers much faster than the one we used in ’94. We’re also still working on our West Seattle 2006 Year In Review, which you’ll find here by midafternoon. First, a few last things to procure for tonight’s party!
If you get internet service from the same place we get internet service, you might also be experiencing this new nightly ritual … sit down at the computer, type a website address, and … wait to see if a Certain Cable Company Starting With C will allow us to access the tubes. The spotty service finally got bad enough last night for us to call and complain. Yes, we were told, there is a major outage (THAT WORD AGAIN) in areas including West Seattle, and it’s due to damage from The Storm. (This article talks about one ongoing since the storm, but ours has been intermittent. Just like, interestingly, these folks back east.) Our next two questions: (a) will this bring a discount on our bill, and (b) is there some more reliable way to get fast internet service (Clearwire? Sprint? aluminum foil around our ears?). Anybody who’s switched from The Cable Company Starting with C and is happier with their new provider, please do tell.
… for a very pleasant story in the new edition about blogs. Reporter Rebekah Schilperoort graciously allowed us to answer questions via e-mail, and we are thrilled to see she spotlighted West Seattle’s funniest blogger, the irrepressible Mona, one of many WS-based bloggers linked from this page. However, for anyone who cares, we did not actually disclose our gender to Rebekah; guess she chose to use the time-honored style of defaulting to “he” when gender info’s not available. (And note we are ASSUMING Rebekah’s a she.)
We started WSB exactly 1 year ago, Christmas Eve morning 2005, so we’re taking this occasion to thank you for stopping by, and also to offer special thanks to the folks who take the time to send us e-mail or leave comments with observations, opinions, tips, whatever. We’ll save the “year in review” for next week; for now, a very merry Christmas Eve to you!
Oh, this is a sad sight. Just found this post (with photos) about Lincoln Park playground damage, by local blogger Matt Rosenberg (on Sound Politics).
Poked around the tubes to see who else is talking about the Semi-Big Chill with a WS spin. The Lone Tomato saw our snow through the eyes of a former tropics-dweller. The Duke mentions crossing the bridge in the midst of the worst of it last night. The Weatherman put up a pic of the view from his walkway, quite the representative WS scene. Period of Useful Consciousness features video of a rare event: a dog deciding it’s too cold for a swim in the water off Alki. Demi has pics including both snow/ice and tonight’s spectacular sunset. Peter writes about leaving work in West Seattle last night to try to get home. Red Kev also had to negotiate the streets right about then. (We personally think the most dramatic and horrifying tales will occur when the utility bills hit the mail slot next month.)
One of the chroniclers linked from our Other Blogs in WS page is sporting quite the photo essay. While having some trouble finding a usable parking space at Jefferson Square, Dustin decided to capture the space-munchers on camera.
The West Seattle Library (Admiral branch) just launched its own blog, after a citywide in-service day where library workers discussed blogging, among other things. We usually wait a while to see if blogs will live or die, before adding a link here, but this is such a worthy one, we’ll add it to our WS Blogs page now with optimism and good wishes. (TUES. UPDATE: As a comment points out, this blog seems to have gone back undercover since we detected it via Google Blogsearch.)
The relatively new shop Divina north of the Junction has a website now (discovered via the Herald). This led us to wonder whatever happened to the plan for a “Divina Cantina” just east of the shop’s location. Owner Julie tells us she’s trying to work out some code issues with the city — if all goes well, the Divina Cantina would be a tapas bar — if not, she’s got “a backup plan to make the space a gallery of sorts.”
Not sure if all this is enough to qualify WS as Geek Capital of the World. (Though we aspiring geeks at WS Blog World HQ think it’s a great place to be.) But two upcoming WS events are noteworthy for those with technotendencies: This Saturday, Alki is one of three spots for Seattle Wireless Field Day; in a few weeks, Youngstown Arts Center will host Seattle Mind Camp 3.0.
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