West Seattle, Washington
26 Saturday
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.
We’ve mentioned the Seattle city online photo archives before. Many of these photos were taken for relatively mundane motives, say, documenting big public-works projects. (If you want to look at the Myrtle Street reservoir/tower construction from every angle, for example, this collection could put you over the moon. And check out this view of what preceded the Fairmount Park field along Fauntleroy.) But tucked into the archives are a few surprises, such as this pic that can be regarded as a reminder of the kaleidoscope of differences between wartime then and wartime now.
The site for Clementine is up. (That link goes to the shop’s “about us” page, which is more refreshingly real than most such pages are.)
How could we have missed John Moe? Heard a lot about his new book on the radio while driving around the past few days. The site for his “day job” mentions he lives on this side of the bay; his blog archive mentions some writing sessions at “the West Seattle Uptown Espresso.” (Which one?)
If you haven’t recently checked out our tab (above) with that title, you might want to consider taking another look. Almost every day, our searching (and e-mail-reading) turns up yet another blogger who lives here in West Seattle, and some of the finds are true gems, like Mona’s site, whose work induced a reaction truly deserving of the now-antique online acronym ROFLMAO.
Besides loving our side of the bay as it is now and as it will become — we find it cool to discover more about its history. If you share that interest, city pages like this are fun to play with. Don’t let the “unknown” on the main page fool you; click on the “view” link and you’ll probably get at least an infobit (such as, Luna Park Cafe was once “Pat and Ron’s Tavern”) as well as a pic. You can follow the “new search” link and also try one of your own, such as this search by street name with all results along Cali Ave.
Also on the subject of history, we discovered at the Morgan Junction Festival last weekend that you can still get a copy of the incredible, picture-laden “West Side Story” at the Log House Museum (and its gift shop has other “memory books” too).
In honor of the impending new school year … a shoutout to Arbor Heights Elementary teacher Mark Ahlness. I bumped into his “edtechblog” just now, after a few hops from the Arbor Heights PTSA blog, which I (in turn) happened onto while continuing the search for West Seattle-based blogs to link to. But I’d “heard” about him before — discovering some years back that because of him, Arbor Heights was something of a Web pioneer. (I’ve got a soft spot for 1994 too … that’s when West Seattle Blog World HQ got online, with a good old fashioned 14.4-if-you-were-lucky dial-up account that used the Lynx text browser to “surf” the early Web … oh, stop me before I get geekier.)
A bit more information about something we noted last month, the prevalence of land-use aps around West Seattle for a new wireless-Internet service called Clearwire (headquartered in Kirkland). Info on availability was scarce then, but while walking through The Junction the other night, we noticed a big Clearwire banner in the window at Quidnunc, so we e-mailed to see what’s up. Here’s what Quidnunc boss Bill wrote back:
I can’t give you specific dates yet. I’ve been told ‘this fall.’ I know that some towers will be up and running before the end of August but the full rollout for King, Pierce and Snohomish counties will likely be October or later (but we’re hoping earlier). Coverage will be totally dependent on the ability to receive the signal (like a cell phone). All of West Seattle will be covered, but it is likely that some areas will have stronger signals that others.
OK, this might be the most mundane WS cam yet, but nonetheless, it’s a WS cam. Purportedly out the window of a house near Alki. Just added to our cams page. If you know of any local webcams (family-safe, please) that I’m missing, please advise!
Nearing our six-month “anniversary” (yes, I know, “anniversary” really shouldn’t be applied to anything but increments of one year, so I put it in quotes), we’re thinking it’s high time to start putting together a page of other West Seattle-based bloggers. If you’d like to nominate someone, please e-mail me. Google Blog Search is helpful enough for pointing out who mentions WS in their blog, but it’s a little tougher to sort out who is truly BASED here (like this guy who popped up on GBS for the first time; I love his phrase “all-day dad”). So suggestions are more than welcome.
Or at least, it’s a tactic I haven’t seen before: new blog real estate listing here in WS.
It’s been more than a week since I first noticed AlkiNews.com had this link to an (at the time, alleged) Alki live cam. Each day and night, I’d try it to see if it was worth adding to this site … but it wasn’t working … till now! Hope it stays up; of all the WS spots in need of a live cam, Alki would be top of my list. (And remember I’ve got a cam page on this site; if you know of any suitable-for-family-viewing WS live cams to add to the list, please send me the link!)
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