West Seattle, Washington
19 Friday
Just saw this on tv and couldn’t resist sharing the link – provided you see this in the early afternoon (and provided the cam stays pointed toward Alki): This afternoon’s mega-low tide, from a webcam across the bay.
True, Mt. St. Helens (live webcam) blew up on this date in history. But Beach Drive Blog brings us a different hunka-hunka-burnin’ something: a Kingly memory of May 18.
First, we were called “quirky” and “crazy.” Then we got a marquee moment. Now — Seattlest is charitable enough to label WSB “increasingly kick-ass.” (Wouldn’t be without your tips; keep ’em coming!)
If you haven’t checked in with the West Seattle Birdcam for a while, you have missed a lot. We are purple with envy over their wonderful sightings, but glad they’re posting and sharing pix. Note the difference between the Birdcam blog and the actual Birdcam live feed.
If that mess with the busted water main under the University Bridge has you wondering “hmm, how old’s the big pipe under my street” — there’s a city map resource you can wade through to find out.
A few more miscellaneous notes in the aftermath of the domestic dispute turned SWAT standoff @ 25th/Brandon last night: A nearby resident’s blog reports on the news crew that lingered long afterward and also has an earlier post with some great pix of the police action; the P-I has a fairly basic wrapup; Slog’s got the only truly complete report, including an interview with the owner of the battered BMW, seen below, ax in windshield and SWAT vehicle right behind, in a photo sent to us by a witness. P.S. According to the King County Jail Lookup, the suspect, Robert Joseph James, is still behind bars as of this writing, under investigation for four possible crimes including domestic violence, court-order violation, and malicious mischief.
For those of you who have asked — the city transportation department says the Admiral/Olga cam that popped up a while back will not be providing webpix like other city cams; it’s for traffic-signal “video detection” only.
As Earth Day meanders toward evening … two photo posts from WS-based bloggers:
-At Beach Drive Blog, Rhonda captured the graceful great blue herons often seen at water’s edge (especially at low tide).
-At Alki Beach Walks, Cathy captured some of Alki’s Sunday morning beauty.
Haven’t mentioned these in a while; slow day so far, so here goes.
-When you hear sirens and want to know what’s up, the fire department’s live 911 page is the place to go.
-We’ve added several more blogs in the past week to our Other Blogs in WS page. (58 total and counting.) We’ll reorganize it alphabetically someday soon, but in any format, it’s a fun list to check if you’ve got web-wandering time on your hands.
-If you would like to subscribe to WSB — notification by e-mail every time we add a new post — send us your address.
We like to include pictures with our posts now and then but would never consider ourselves true photographers. Here are three noteworthy examples of new work from people who do merit that label:
-When we posted about the doomed “Mission Revival”-style building at 6053 California, we hoped aloud that someone with photographic talent would get pictures that truly do it justice before it’s gone. That’s what Christopher Boffoli just did.
-A routine blogsearch turned up this item with a beautiful little slide show about a bus stop in The Junction.
-There’s a nice image from this past weekend’s YMCA Healthy Kids Day on this new site launched by former Herald photojournalist Matt Durham.Â
P-I “Internet reporter” Monica Guzman has posted about her Sunday morning stop @ Hotwire.
The P-I’s “Internet reporter” Monica Guzman, who has mentioned WSB a time or two, says she’s stopping by Hotwire at 10 am today to sample WS online culture ‘n’ coffee.
Vente Caffeinato took the Alki Point (and beyond) aerial view we recently linked to and overlaid it with coffeehouse locations, mostly in WS.
First, we were called “crazy” (to our incognito face!). Now, “quirky.” (What’s next, “zany”?)
For those of us curious what Mars Hill changed inside the former Doxa church on 35th, but not planning to attend a service there to find out, they’ve conveniently written it up online.
Just happened onto this rather amazing tale of road rage, or should we say parking rage, near Caffe Ladro.
Since their site’s been on our Other Blogs in WS page pretty much the whole time their son gestated, we want to publicly congratulate The Perrys of West Seattle on their new arrival. All together now — awwwww!
A WSB regular found a weather cam at Madison Middle School. (2 additions to the cams page in 3 days, can we stand the excitement?) Anyway, thanks, and keep the discoveries coming!
Given the natural splendor of West Seattle, we’re endlessly puzzled as to why more webcams aren’t up around here. The list on our WS Cams page has stayed relatively unchanged for months. Last summer, a volleyball group had an Alki cam up for a while, but even that went away. Finally, today, someone put up another live WS cam: the West Seattle Birdcam. Just a backyard and a bird feeder, but we’ll give ’em an A for effort, and add them to the cams page. Let us know if there’s something out there we’re missing — we keep looking!
Our endless online search for West Seattle-related people, places, and things just led us to 2People, thanks to a post at WorldChanging mentioning that 2People was founded by “West Seattle transplant Phil Mitchell.” So what makes it more than yet another enviro-info site? As far as we can tell from our first tour around 2People, it not only challenges you to take action — small steps will do — to help fight the climate crisis, it also points you to WHAT you can do — like something we weren’t previously aware of: Easily and cheaply buying “clean electric power” via City Light. You can sign up here right now, for just a few bucks a month. (And if you join 2People, please add us to your network — we’re signed up as, what else, West Seattle Blog.) P.S. Need motivation? Read this.
… about the Never-Ending Popularity Poll. Today’s the last day to vote. We’re guaranteed to lose; USS Mariner probably gets as many people per minute as we get all day. But if not for some fine folks out there, we wouldn’t have made it to the Final Four as the last neighborhood blog standing … so thanks!
If you live in one of West Seattle’s many older houses and have a bit of curiosity about who lived in your house way back when, here’s an unlikely tool: The city database of “side sewer cards.” Look up your address and you’ll find an image of the hand-drawn, hand-written records showing where your house connects its “side sewer” to the nearest main city pipe and who owned it last time it was inspected (check the back of the “card” for that info). And if yours goes back far enough that the person who originally owned it is likely to have left the planet by now, you can look ’em up on the Social Security Death Index.
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