I tend not to drive too much (been big into bussing and walking), or head in towards South Lake Union’s direction much these days, so I almost never see the new South Lake Union Streetcar (it used to be called the South Lake Union Trolley or SLUT in the Seattle jargon until the politicians figured out the abbreviation).
This evening, on the way back from a friend’s Bachelor Party dinner, I happen to drive by the SLUT, not once, but twice (traffic was pretty bad, so I was stuck not moving in time for it do a back and forth).
Each time, there was exactly one rider on it - trust me, I looked closely to see if I could find anyone else on there. There was also no one waiting at the SLUT-stop.
Which further proves my thoughts on the whole thing to begin with. I love the idea of more mass-transit, and would love to get to a place where cars aren’t needed anymore. But for this mass-transit to make sense, it actually has to go places where people need it - and not between the mishmash of blocks they threw the current lines down on. Expand it to the U-District or Capitol Hill (or Eastlake), and I can see the lines being used. But as is - I don’t even understand why those single riders were even on it.
I know I am not alone among my friends and co-workers (most of whom are frequent bus riders) — no one seems to like the current rendition of the streetcar or understand it’s point. Though to be fair, most of them are secretly wanting to go for a spin, if only so they can scream out "I rode the SLUT and the city encouraged it!"
Actually, I want to be able to say that too! I should go for a ride soon :)
Maybe the name is how they’ve crossed the 100000 rider milestone (according to http://www.seattlestreetcar.org/)… people are so full of laughing about the system they actually want to ride it. Funny how these things turn out.
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For the record, relating to my last post - I also drew up my vision of a house at http://drawahouse.com. Of course, I didn’t read the instructions that this was actually supposed to be our house - just an image a of a house in general.
Plus, my artistic skills just aren’t the same as Joelle’s:
So, no reason to put this one on the fridge!
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Many of my loyal readers have asked me for a picture of what our new house looks like…. Thankfully, Joelle finally took a good photo of our place!
Great job - this one goes on the fridge :)
(from http://www.drawahouse.com - not drawn to scale)
See if you can make out the:
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Wrap around deck
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Bench we put together
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Our chimneys (preserved for legacy sake - we’ve since gotten rid of one of them - damn rains!)
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bird feeder in front, including the cute little birdy :)
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rocks and plants and stuff
Missing, of course, are the raccoons :)
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I love when people having historic photos of their houses up as artwork, so I decided to search for the information on they got these (so we can have one too…)
http://www.raincityguide.com/2007/04/14/historic-photos-of-your-seattle-home/
has all of the info. Sending an email to them now.
Update, February 18, 2008: Pictures are now in (actually they came a while ago, but just posting today).
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Zillow.com recently started posting neighborhood demographic reviews (based off of US Census data). Interesting reading through them for all of the places I’ve lived to see how they compare to the type of person I was at the time. Pretty close, for the most part; I guess it’s true that people live by people like them.
In order:
- Oak Park, MI (very, very young) - http://www.zillow.com/real-estate/MI-Oak-Park-neighbors
- Southfield, MI (lived until high school) - http://www.zillow.com/real-estate/MI-Southfield-neighbors
- West Bloomfield, MI (high school) - http://www.zillow.com/real-estate/MI-West-Bloomfield-neighbors
- St. Louis, MO (”the college”) - http://www.zillow.com/real-estate/MO-Clayton-neighbors
- Redmond, WA (”the apartment”) - http://www.zillow.com/real-estate/WA-Redmond-neighbors
- Downtown Seattle (”the steps”) - http://www.zillow.com/real-estate/WA-Seattle/Downtown-neighbors
- Eastlake, Seattle (”the condo”) - http://www.zillow.com/real-estate/WA-Seattle/Eastlake-neighbors
- Queen Anne, Seattle (”the house”) - http://www.zillow.com/real-estate/WA-Seattle/West-Queen-Anne-neighbors
I’ll use this to read through these more and come up with some uber-analysis in the future, but for now, seemed like it was a good way to save away the full links.
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(this post was written while I was flying and will be posted once I get online later- actual written time, 7:06 PM, Dec 11)
Sitting in the middle seat on my flight back (we got to the airport early so we took middle seats through standby in exchange for getting home an hour early), I realized quite a few things bother me about flying these days, so might as well enumerate them:
- Coach seats (at least on Alaska Airlines) has absolutely zero room for laptops. Seriously, it is so crowded to be typing on these things - the keyboard area is pushing into my stomach, the screen is folded over to be even able to fit, and the tray is at a very unergonomic height, so my arms don’t feel so comfortable. If I were a common business traveler, perhaps a smaller laptop would help - I’ll have to try bringing the work mac-book with me next time, as it’s much smaller.
- Whatever happened to dinner on planes? Especially when they fly from that key 6-9 pm hours. When exactly are you supposed to eat dinner if you need to board at 5:15 or so?
- No two TSA people say the same thing - one says to put your boarding pass away, the other says “reminder: we need to see your boarding pass”, the video playing says both at the same time! Plus, people take way, way too long taking their shoes on and off.
- Middle seats suck!
- Why don’t all planes have that movable headrest so you can make your own personal sleeping area? It can’t cost the airline more than 50 cents extra per seat once at airplane purchase time to put those in. Makes me want to fly Continental, the only airline I know of that has those.
- The food in airports is just not good. Granted they have a captive audience, but couldn’t someone come up with a decent, ubiquitous eating venue? Especially for vegetarians. McDonald’s and/or an awful caesar’s salad just don’t cut it.
- Finally, airlines - stop seating me next to talkers. Really. I am all about striking up random conversations with people in most situations. But there are two I want people to just shut up - airplanes and barbers (cut my hair, in and out, no need to find out my or your lifestory).
On a random note, I did run into the condo upstair’s neighbor randomly at the airport. It has been a good week for my goal of running into people I know at places - 3 or 4 different people at the Seahawks game on Sunday (including Pure’s CEO), and now this. Also found out 2 or 3 more people from high school have moved to Seattle, and I didn’t even know about it - weird; I usually know these things.
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(this post was written while I was flying and will be posted once I get online later- actual written time, 8:33 AM, Dec 11)
(And yes, this is a safe-for-work story even though it may not seem like it as it progresses)
After the last car-magical-starting experience, I thought I should drive the car around for a bit just to rebuild the battery up since I had probably drained the battery a bit by trying to start and stop it so much.
So driving up Highway 99, I made my way up to Shoreline, where I turned around, and decided to grab a latte before heading home.
I pull over into one of those drive-through stands, where you have the person in the booth serving you coffee.
As I pullup, but before I could place my order, I hear the barista-lady say to me: “Oh sorry!” as she pulls off her sweater, and leaves herself wearing a see-through white T-shirt and a flowery bra. I say: “No problem”, but am not really sure what the apology is for yet.
The next comment from her is one that I will remember forever: “Sorry - normally I am not wearing much of anything, but I’ve worked 6 straight days and was just tired today.” I’ll be honest - that’s not something I’ve ever had a coffee barista apologize to me for.
Highly confused, I look around the rest of the booth, and notice pictures of scantilly clad women on the roof of the booth, and all of their specials have suggestive names. I order a generic latte, which Kate, as she informs me her name is, decorates with a sticker of lips on the opening in the cup, along with a sticker advertising the coffee shop on the side. I drive away, highly confused, but determined to lookup the store when I get home.
Turns out the http://www.thesweetspotcafe.com is part of a growing trend in Seattle of barista-babe coffee shops where they use sexual suggestion to sell coffee. Apparently, it does very well in repeat business (i.e. men coming by every morning), and pulling people away from Starbucks, getting press recognition from USA Today, Northwest Cable News, MSNBC, and Fox News. They also get a ton of inquisitive (men, I assume) people stopping by “just to check it out.”
Fascinating (albeit strange) branding strategy - I wonder what the long term success rate will be. That said, the brand is highly, highly confusing when you are just an accidental drive-by customer. I somehow suspect I won’t get too many waitresses apologizing for wearing too much clothing elsewhere in the future!
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(And yes, I am finally blogging after a bit of a break. Decided there were some pictures I needed to get off of my camera, plus people keep bugging me)
A week or so ago was a weird weekend of weather in Seattle; a couple of days of snow, followed by the second worst rain-storm in the city’s history (more on that another time). As it was the first snow storm in the new house, Joelle and I decided to check out the snow.
Turns out the new neighborhood is fantastic for this - good hills, people like to sled, and since it’s higher up in elevation, it tends to snow just a little bit more.
All of the pictures are up at: http://picasaweb.google.com/ahaverbuch/SnowDay2007
My favorites of us:
My favorite “nature” shots:
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Ever since Joelle and I moved into our new neighborhood, we’ve seen quite a few racoons running around the streets. We haven’t thought twice about them, other than to avoid swerving into them on the road.
Saturday night, between Hannukah parties (Happy Hannukah to all by the way!) we stopped home for a bite to eat. As we walked up the front steps, we saw a racoon run around our deck. A second one soon followed, but this one decided to climb up our tree and hang out on our roof. Of course, not knowing what else to do, I immediately ran and grabbed the camera. It was a little dark out, so apologize for the contrast on the pictures below….
I still haven’t been able to find where the deck-bound critter ran to. Hopefully far away!
