Roads, buses, and so on

We haven’t been out driving but wanted to remind you that our West Seattle cams page has the city cameras for the bridge and for Fauntleroy/Alaska and Fauntleroy/35th. As for buses, we’re not seeing specific alerts but there’s a lot of great info on the Metro page including where the buses are and when. If you’ve got road info, feel free to post it in the comments here.

Snow day, AGAIN

Seattle Public Schools will be closed today, as we all deal with Snow, The Sequel.

Cafe’s days numbered

Reader “The House” tells us the Design Review Board meeting for the project (described as a “one-story retail building”) proposed at the Charlestown Cafe site is coming up next week. The applications with the city say this architecture firm is involved. If you’ll recall, the P-I hinted this maybe possibly might be the mystery Trader Joe’s site, but we haven’t seen anything public about what’s planned for the project — should find out at this “early design guidance” meeting, if not sooner. (As for the Charlestown operators, one site visitor mentioned an unverified report they might have been seen checking out the Alki space next to Cactus; anybody got more on that?)

Where the snow belongs

January 15, 2007 9:16 pm
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 |   Environment | West Seattle weather

Can’t resist sharing another beautiful photo, taken from Alki, sent to us by Bob Bollen. The Olympics’ most distinctive peaks, The Brothers, completely white … would rather see the rest of the season’s snow there than down here!

thebrothersandferrybybbollen.jpg

Road report, Monday afternoon

January 15, 2007 4:26 pm
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 |   Transportation | West Seattle weather

If you have Monday trash pickup, watch out for collection trucks, which are still trying to make their way around here on the south end of WS as of right now … The side streets on the higher hilltops are still very icy, but after a sunny slightly-above-freezing day, spots of blacktop have started to appear — ah, such a welcome sight, like the green tips of crocus leaves poking up in spring. But we digress. The arterials are just lovely, though the left edge of the westbound WS Bridge remains iced over, and the ramp to it from 99 has lingering slick spots. Enjoy it while you can, since the forecast for tomorrow hasn’t mellowed out yet (we’ve now got a “snow advisory” for 4 am-10 am, go to work late if possible) …

Now it’s clear, this is the snowiest spot in town

January 15, 2007 4:16 pm
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 |   West Seattle news | West Seattle weather

Has to be so. My gosh, there’s a tv news truck parked at the top of Cali Ave hill (near Ida), with its phone-pole-height antenna up in the air. The snowbound citizens of south West Seattle must be about to star on the 5 o’clock news.

Chains, anyone?

January 15, 2007 10:35 am
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 |   Transportation | West Seattle weather

Snow is still in tonight’s forecast. Didn’t know chains (if any are left for sale) cost as little as $35. Never HAD to know!

Who gets the snowplow first

January 14, 2007 10:42 pm
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 |   Transportation | West Seattle weather

Figured a list like this had to be out there on the city website somewhere — and it is: The 2006-2007 Snow and Ice Routes. Zoom in and take a close look at the WS streets — it reveals, for example, that here on our end of WS, Cali is only considered a “primary” route as far south as Holden; that leaves a half-mile stretch at the highest elevations identified as “secondary.” Elsewhere, heaven forbid we ever get major snow down to the water — no part of Alki Ave or Beach Drive or even Harbor is considered primary OR secondary. Part of the info on this page explains how the routes are prioritized.

The s-word again

Snow is back in the forecast, this time for Monday night/Tuesday morning. At least those of us with Monday trash/recycling pickup will stay on schedule; for those who asked, here’s the latest for people who got skipped the last few days of last week.

Is it REALLY going to get above freezing today?

Looks like the “overnight” low was 18 degrees at 7 am. By 8, we were up to a balmy 20. Forecasts claim we’re headed for the upper 30s today. Meantime, the new discussion point around town seems to be, do you hate this, or do you love this? We overheard one woman yesterday afternoon chatting into a cell phone that she “feels energized by snow.” But we’ve been hit by a wave of comments and e-mails from folks on the other side, expressing the opinion many shared by day 3 or 4 into the post-windstorm power outage, “we are so DONE with this.” As for us, we’re trying to continue enjoying it on the premise that we aren’t likely to see anything like this for a long time, given it’s been 10 years since the LAST time. So we will cherish photos like this one in which we captured the Thistle Hill From Hell on Thursday afternoon (BEFORE city crews got to “secondary arterials” like this; sorry, no video of hapless folks sliding into poles):

thistlehillofdoom.jpg

Not just us

Seems the afternoon “flurries” hit elsewhere too. Some of the bare spots that were finally starting to emerge on our closest non-arterials are now frosted again. That’s supposedly over but now the latest warning … AIR STAGNATION ADVISORY! Which gives us an excuse to show one more photo from the incredibly CLEAR conditions back on Thursday — this one is NOT ours, but reader Bob Bollen gave us permission to post it (thanks!):

bobalkiphoto.jpg

Name that snow(man?)

Spotted this afternoon on the curb in front of The Kenney along Fauntleroy, the best West Seattle snowman we’ve seen. However, we’re wondering, what is it supposed to be? Snow squirrel? Snow raccoon? Snow rat?

mysterysnowman1.jpg

No business like shoe business

January 13, 2007 12:16 pm
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 |   West Seattle businesses | West Seattle online

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!)

Mars Hill move-in status

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.

How low did it go?

Checking the Weather Service’s “hourly observations” for each hour back through last night, looks like the low was 22 (closest measuring station to us is Boeing Field), 2 am. Up here in the iced-over hilltops of south West Seattle, we’re ready to see it melt. One of us is now laughing riotously about having been excited many years ago, as a child, to see frost on rooftops when the temps dipped unusually low — 40s!!!! — in the warm, sunny hometown. Oh well. Time to go see if we can make it down the hill for a latte without turning into a tv news clip.

What’s up this weekend

January 13, 2007 12:51 am
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 |   WS culture/arts

The ice-driving-crash-course forced by Winterfest ’07 delayed this roundup a bit, but we also wanted to mention, we’ve morphed the former Holiday Stuff page into a new WS Events page, and that’s where we’re stacking up calendars and links so you can bookmark the page and check what’s up any ol’ time. (Please e-mail us if you’ve got anything coming up!) Meantime, a few of this weekend’s highlights: Kenyon Hall starts a new “Rainy Day Film Series” (how about dubbing it “Icy Day Film Series” for starters) on Saturdays with one movie this afternoon and one tonight … the 8th annual MLK Hip Hop Show, tonight (Saturday) @ Youngstown Arts Center … The second Winter Farmers’ Market in The Junction, 10 am-1 pm Sunday (even if you’re watching the game, drop by at halftime!) …. just a few of many things happening as we all come out of the post-holiday haze.

Wind-whipped waves

A few people have written to mention the amazing wind-whipped waves at Alki yesterday afternoon … we couldn’t make it down off our icy hills to see them, but now a kind soul has sent video (QuickTime required) that sounds as wild as it looks!

Friday afternoon road report

Viaduct and high bridge still in pretty good shape, but that ramp from 99 to the bridge is still dangerous … Once in WS, where the surface arterials such as Fauntleroy are fine, we checked out 35th today instead of Cali. It’s clearly been plowed (dirty snow stacked up on the center line) and sanded, but there are some danger spots. Still gotta go really slowly uphill. And there are some icy spots around the summit (Myrtle/Holden). Oh, and those side streets, still ice-sheet nightmares. It’s not really warming up for a few more days, either … hey … wait … now there are FLURRIES in the forecast????

Sight in the sky

OK, enough about the weather. Did you see the comet yesterday? Supposedly we’ll get another chance today. Look west toward Vashon around sunset. We think that’s what was visible from WS Blog World HQ — although we couldn’t see the “tail” — so we wondered if it might have been Venus instead — check out this cool photo from Mischiefblog (be sure to click for the large version).

From the papers

January 12, 2007 3:33 am
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 |   West Seattle news | West Seattle politics | West Seattle weather

Our state rep goes high-profile in a push for equal rights.

-One of West Seattle’s hilliest streets gets the spotlight in a P-I urban-sledding photo. (We can barely dare to drive down that section of Charlestown just west of Cali in dry times, can’t imagine sledding OR driving on it now!)

New year, new WS businesses

January 11, 2007 6:25 pm
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 |   West Seattle businesses | WS beverages

-Back in September, we discovered that the former Cat’s Eye Cafe north of Lincoln Park would be transformed into the Four Aims Center. One of its owners — who  mentions having been an original Cat’s Eye owner — just wrote us to say they’re finally in the home stretch with city signoff and so forth, and planning the grand opening Feb. 4.

-Several people have written to make sure we know about a milestone for  something else we caught wind of last year, the new West Seattle microbrewery Schooner Exact (named after the Denny Party’s ship). Its licensing process is just wrapping up and its creations will debut Jan. 20 (a week from this Saturday) at Beveridge Place Pub in Morgan Junction — its founders say everyone’s invited.