Search Results for 'lD'

[credmond]

Of course, a super-lightweight, super-strong and crash-absorbent vehicle which ran on solar or wind or rain would be cool, too. Maybe use your rain car in the winter and your solar car in the summer and your wind car in the spring and fall. What we need is about a thousand innovators and outside-of-the-box tinkerers and a community or region willing to experiment.

[credmond]

And anyone who’s seen “Who Killed the Electric Car, would have some thoughts for the 500-gallon coin and the thousand-gallon coin, too. Remember when “What was good for GM, was good for the Country.” Different era, different media, but – hey, we all got suckered in then. That was the heyday of the late 40’s and ’50’s when it was drive everywhere on gas so cheap it must have made your head spin. As a teenager in PA, I used to fill my mom’s car with Gulftane – I think it was 85 octane, but it was only 12 cents a gallon and her tank only held 13 gallons. All I needed to do after a date was make sure I had a dollar left in my pocket. We all fell for it then, too. And now we argue over how to replace the Viaduct. How ’bout electric cars? At least our electricity is “mostly” renewable and does a small amount of damage (fish) and its cost is pretty darned predictable.

[WSB]

Thanks, Jan.

But hmm, where would Huckabee or Romney come in on the lineup … haven’t studied them too closely yet.

[Kata]

I have to say that I find this discussion pretty amusing, but then I’ve spent most of my life in Minneapolis, where the whole idea that drivers should yield to pedestrians in crosswalks is a strange and foreign concept. I am continually amazed by how easy and safe it is to get across the street here, by contrast, and how very deferential most drivers are to the rights of pedestrians. (Perhaps if one is used to more civil behavior by drivers, the exceptions stand out more glaringly and cause more anger.)

[Kata]

I’ve had a membership at ASF since September, and have been pretty happy with it. The pluses, to me, are the quantity and variety of equipment available (aerobics machines, weight machines and free weights), and the fact that I’ve never seen it so crowded that I couldn’t get on the machine I wanted. I do wish they kept the women’s locker room cleaner, and had staff available on the 3rd floor to deal with problems that might arise. But on the whole, I’ve found it a really good deal for the money.

[acemotel]

Peewee worked very well for my boys. I was disappointed that they had to go through “tryouts” at some point, I think it was when they were about 10 or 11. They all made it through the tryouts, but I thought it was a bit brutal for the little ones. All the various coaches were there watching them catch and field and hit balls, and then the coaches would pick the kids they wanted for their teams. I don’t know how it works with little league, but I’ve always heard that they are far less competitive, maybe more easygoing. (but I’m not sure?)

[JayDee]

Dear All:

I just bought a HD TV and it is being delivered tomorrow. I have normal Comcast Cable, but I dislike Comcast (Value, Customer Service are my beefs), and would like to explore other possible HD sources.

My main concern is how well these work in West Seattle in terms of HD picture quality (PQ) and the local vendors. Secondly comes price. My sister pays $100 plus for her Comcast HD and that seems steeper than the real (not intro) costs of Dish or Direct. If Dish is $59, Direct is $49 (for instance, for similar lineups) then PQ and equipment/service would be the deciding factor. From my exploration on the web, I’ve seen that PQ is a local thing, and connected to quality of installation, and cable equipment, dish set-up.

If Comcast is really superior in PQ (Because, with HD, PQ is key) then maybe it is work sucking it up. But my experience has been less than Comcastic and I am willing to change.

Thanks for your advice – JayDee

[JayDee]

Todd:

You would be missing a great opportunity if you didn’t visit the West Seattle Farmer’s Market and talked with Wade of Rockridge Orchards, one of the vendors.

Rockridge sells Bamboo, and Wade is a great resource. Now, he may not have some with him right now, but he can bring them on the truck if this is the right time to plant. I’ve been sharing my bamboo stories with him for the last couple of years and with his advice about mulching, mine have reached their species height.

Secondly, look into “Clumping” rather than running bamboo. A great resource is a local distributor’s brochure “Discovering Bamboo” by Boo-Shoot Gardens. It is $16 ordered off their website, and it is a great, up-to-date reference if you are looking to buy (Well, in addition to Wade.).

Good luck – A Bamboo “Foamer” (rabid about them)- JayDee.

[Aim]

<i>Can anybody recommend a good bottled salad dressing that isn’t $14 a bottle or loaded with sugar, HFCS or MSG?</i>

Kayleigh, we use balsamic vinegar. Get a hig quality one and heat it in a saucepan for just a few minutes, until it just barely begins to thicken. It will still seem too “thin” but it will continue to thicken, so take it off the heat earlier than would be instinct.

As it cools it thickens more, and you will end up with a nicely textured dressing that’s got all the sweetness of balsamic and no “vinegary” taste. If you like the vinegary taste, add a few drops of uncooked balsamic back in.

You can cook up a couple of teaspoons at a time, and it’s so easy and delicious.

Lower-effort alternative: extra virgin olive oil and balsamic. Go half and half in an empty glass jar, put the lid on and shake. Add salt and pepper to taste.

[Kayleigh]

I guess the HFCS is a thickener in the salad dressings. Maybe this is why all the low-cal bottled salad dressings and most of the regular salad dressings I’ve tried were awful. Why would you put corn syrup on vegetables?

Can anybody recommend a good bottled salad dressing that isn’t $14 a bottle or loaded with sugar, HFCS or MSG?

[SA]

eigenwijs,

I recently joined ASF in my quest for triathlon glory. :) The price of $50/month is accurate and is even cheaper if you pre-pay for the full year as they give you an extra three months free… thus 15 months for $600.

I’ve had the chance to try 24HF a couple of times and much prefer ASF. I’m a big fan of the pool, the spin classes (Ed and Stacy are great instructors) and the weights/strength equipment although I think the cardio equipment is old and mostly crap… my tennis club has better cardio equipment.

Other than for spin classes I rarely use the club during peak hours so I can’t tell you how busy all the equipment is. However, parking is limited during these times so you can expect to park on the street.

Hope this helps. :)

[credmond]

I love Peet’s in Fremont and forever rue the day that Starbucks bought Seattle’s Best since the Caffe Torrefazione (also at Fremont) was such a wonderful place to sit and sip and as soon as Starbucks completed the acquisition, that location and the other one in Occidental Square disappeared. One more reason I try diligently to never grace the threshold of a Starbucks store. Having said that, I would like to say that the only decent Starbucks in the entire city is the one at 23rd and Jackson – very cool and very hip baristas. But, that’s the ONLY Starbucks I ever enter.

[credmond]

Julie, I’m on the”rapid” ride advisory board, as are 24 other West Seattleites. From what we’ve learned so far, the California routing would go at the same speed the 54/22/128 go now and would basically stop all traffic when the bus stops because they would build bulb-outs from the curb to meet the bus in the travel lane. This makes for easier and faster ingress/egress but definitely will stop traffic on California because it has only one travel lane. On Fauntleroy it wouldn’t stop through traffic since that arterial has two travel lanes per direction. The time savings would be on the order of a few minutes to as many as 10, depending on time-of-day and day-of-week. The safety factor is one we have only previewed and is clearly one thing folks should bring up at the scheduled “rapid” ride meetings.

[Julie]

The California alignment would be better for me personally, but I’d support the Fauntleroy alignment for speed improvement, depending on how much speed. credmond, do you know the differential? One of my concerns about this “rapid” ride is safety of pedestrians, bikes, and cars sharing the road with these buses. (That grade-separation problem, again!) Seems to me this need for safety will surely slow the buses down. How would the safety compare California vs. Fauntleroy? I have a hunch California has fewer accidents, and if that hunch is correct, I’d guess it has to do with the lower speed on California. How would the “rapid” (I plan to keep quoting it to remind everybody that this is NOT a Rapid Transit solution) buses affect both streets? Would it make less difference on Fauntleroy because it’s already faster?

[k]

Looks like Peet’s fans may get their wish! I would not doubt if one of the many locations they are looking to open will be here in West Seattle. There was an article in the seattle times on Dec 28th speaking of their expansion.

[eigenwijs]

I’d be interested in hearing more about All Star Fitness. I belong to 24 Hour Fitness and am considering a switch. I currently pay about $21/month at 24HF and was quoted $50/month by ASF. There are way more options at ASF, which makes the extra $$ almost worth it – pool, women’s only workout area, climbing wall, etc. The 24HF facility is small, and at peak times (5 PM – 7 PM) is VERY crowded – members are asked to limit their time on the cardio equipment to 20 minutes when it’s busy. I’m sorry – but if I am going through the effort to get to the gym, I want to work out for how long I want to work out and 20 minutes just isn’t worth it!

Some other things I am not satisfied with are the temperature – it’s very warm at 24HF. Often I am sweaty before I even get on a machine! They also don’t seem to have any cell phone policy, and I have had to listen to someone’s lengthy conversation about what they did last night a few too many times. With the demand on equipment, you can’t really just pick up and move to another machine, so you are held hostage listening to the phone call.

So any input on ASF and whether making the switch is worth it would be appreciated!

[Keith]

John, that’s what really burns me the most about the monorail fiasco – not that it wasn’t built but that all the land was sold off immediately, making it so much harder (impossible?) to ever have decent public transportation here.

[JanS]

I used to live on Genesee Hill..54th near Charlestown…and we would periodically see Red Foxes running down our street in the wee hours of the morning. I assumed that they were going from the greenbelt above Me-Kwa-Mooks over to Schmitz park. They’ve been sighted at WS Golf Course, and Camp Long, too. They’ve been here a long time, and will probably be around for just as long…protect your pets…

[WSMom]

I’d like to see a crossing light at Dawson and Fauntleroy. Trying to cross the street to get to Fairmount playfield for soccer games is scary, especially in the dark.

[JohnM]

Too bad Metro didn’t buy all the property intended for monorail stations. Then they could have had the route all aligned, and wouldn’t it be great if they built an elevated busway from Morgan to the Junction to 35th. I’m sure the schematics and designs could be found somewhere.

[thrasher]

About 18 months ago I had to have all of water service lines replaced – from the meter on forward. I ended up going with Collier Plumbing and have been very satisfied with their work. They installed all new PEX water service lines and installed an outdoor shut-off (which I didn’t have). I’ve since learned more about plumbing and have double-checked their work and am still impressed. Everything is to code (as it should be) and they pulled necessary permits. I recently called them for a blocked sewer line which they said they don’t do but they referred me to Rapid Rooter who were very prompt and reasonable. I was pleasantly surprised by their promptness and reasonable price.

I know this isn’t water heater related, but that’s my $0.02.

[credmond]

Jan, – Ah yes, Tastykake – I think they were out of Philly and everyone I knew wanted the three-pack of caramel icing-covered cakes. You could eat the whole package in – like – six bites. Perfect for teenagers with no sense of diet (that was me, btw). I used to work in the Harrisburg Farmer’s Market and sold souse, scrapple and tons of other “exotic” items. Scrapple wasn’t that bad if you fried it and poured real maple syrup on top of it. But then, Spam wasn’t that bad either if you sliced it thin and fried the dickens out of it. Almost had a bacon (cheap, albeit) taste and with the addition of maple syrup was totally edible.

[credmond]

I know the option I mentioned is presently not on Metro’s list, that’s why a number of RapidRide advisory members are trying to get a sense of which would be better. Metro never did a route analysis, merely mirroring the existing route of the 54 (not the 54X). A strong showing from residents for the entire alignment being on Fauntleroy would go a long way toward convincing Metro to take another look.

[Keith]

credmond, the map on the Metro site shows both alternatives going up California and turning right at Alaska. The difference comes at Fauntleroy, where the bus could either take Fauntleroy to Avalon or continue down Alaska to 35th.

I agree with you, it probably would be much faster to travel up Fauntleroy the whole way, starting at the Morgan Junction (and keep the Alaska Junction free of a big new bus station) but from what I’m seeing your option is not on the table… unless I’m misinterpreting your comments.

[credmond]

Heard about King Corn, but didn’t see it. This is a result of improving my skills at reading the NY Times science section and reading food labels. Think about it. Since I was a kid, in the ’60s, I’ve been eating Hostess cupcakes. Since that same time I’d been reading the label and two-thirds of the ingredients were things I didn’t recognize as real food. Over the years, as studies into these strange chemicals have come out, I’ve reduced my consumption of items containing them. Much as I loved that gooey white stuffing in the middle of a chemically-tasting chocolate cake covered with two different kinds of frosting which you could peel off, I just can no longer eat them. Many of us baby boomers grew up drinking Strontium-90-laced milk (Northeast US from atmospheric tests and rain on then farm fields used by cows), it’s no wonder our body systems are in such disarray.