West Seattle, Washington
15 Tuesday
You know how it’s done on public TV, big ballyhooed episodes of Dr. Who or Riverdance or a Dr. Christiane Northrup lecture or something, interrupted every five minutes by Wheedling For Dollars? Read More
The website for Washington State Ferries wi-fi service now says wi-fi for the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth run is delayed yet again and now not scheduled to start until September 17th. (The same WSF page allows you to check the service status on individual ferries where it’s installed.) However, commuters driving through West Seattle on their way to the Fauntleroy dock can get a wi-fi fix at yet another stop along the way — the Corner Inn at Fauntleroy/Cali now has huge signs in its windows announcing FREE WI-FI.
A WS blogger woke up today to discover his old-ish truck gone. Got us wondering how much of this is going on. Seattle Police posts crime stats online by census tract; we for example are in #116, and the newest monthly report is for May, which shows 4 auto thefts in our census tract. (514 total for that month in the entire area served by the SW Precinct.) If you want to check your area — the citywide report is here; find your census tract number on this map.
We are working on a list of who’s got wi-fi access around WS, besides the obvious (coffeehouses), for anyone who really can take the advice of West Seattle’s Most Famous Politician and telecommute to avoid the I-5-related trauma expected during FF ’07. The latest addition, if you weren’t aware: Public library branches. West Seattle has four of ’em: Southwest, High Point, Delridge, and of course, WS (north of Metro Market).
Two things to tell you about quickly, before we run out to implore the current sunbreak to hold long enough for Blue Angels and hydros and all that:
-The semiweekly city Land Use Info Bulletin revealed a plan for a new 2-story building, described as “restaurant on the ground floor and offices above,” at the site of Pegasus Pizza. A Design Review Board meeting is already set for August 23rd. This would be the first big building project in that part of the Alki business district since the revamp of the former Alki Market (now Cactus and future All the Best Pet Care).
-Many potential WS projects we hadn’t previously heard about are listed on this message board we just discovered (along with many we HAD heard about). No clue what those folks’ sources are but we are trying to find out!
Yes, the blog was shown for a few seconds on King5 News at eleven o’clock Wednesday night (part of actual tv screen shown below), when their anchorguy announced that the station’s excellent site collecting Seattle blogs, Citizen Rain, had picked WSB as “Blog of the Week.” Makes up for losing the “Best Neighborhood Blog ’07” title to our witty and talented pals at Capitol Hill Seattle (though we didn’t even know there was a competition till we heard they won; maybe we’ll have a chance in ’08).
With about an hour and a half left in July, this has become WSB’s first month with six-digit “traffic,” as they say in internetland. 101,099 “page views” for July; double what we notched as recently as February; 12 times July ’06. Without marketing or gimmicks — people are just discovering WSB online, or hearing about it from friends/relatives/co-workers. By “people,” we mean YOU, so we want to thank you not just for coming by to look at what we’re posting about, but especially for e-mailing us with rants, raves, questions, photos, tips, whatever you are seeing/hearing in, and about, WS. That’s what makes this so much more than we imagined possible when we launched it on a lark, yet it’s barely a shell of what it can become … with your continued help. Thank you, thank you, thank you, 100(thousand) times thank you!
Our WS “live” cams page has long featured links to city and state traffic cameras in and near WS. In time for this morning’s commute, we tweaked the page to add images from those cameras: Each time you check the page, you will see the newest images from all the cameras we link to. They won’t automatically refresh (nor do they on their source sites), but every time you “refresh” or return to the page, you will get updated images for all cameras. Let us know any other cameras (the city and state have a ton) you would like to see added.
From Creighton Space (one of the 75-plus sites featured on our Other Blogs In WS page): A poster near his home promises a reward for solving an arson, but where was the fire? (We’ll check with our police contacts in the morning if no one solves this sooner.)
#1 — Our fly-fishing-blog friends at thee a** hooked whitey (one of the 75-plus blogs linked from our Other Blogs In WS page) report the first much-awaited Pink Salmon has been caught in West Seattle waters.
#2 — Here’s something pink you can catch without a hook or a net (just a checkbook). The famously pink Park Apartments just north of Lincoln Park are up for sale. Less than a million bucks!
Yet another tidbit from last night’s Alki Community Council meeting, big changes ahead for the semi-monthly Alki News Beacon: Its webmaster Cami MacNamara will take over as editor, as Christine L’Ecluse moves on to “a new adventure”; plus, toward the end of the year, subscribers will receive the Beacon by mail instead of by carrier. (If you pick it up at local businesses, don’t worry; Cami tells WSB that copies will still be made available at Alki/Admiral-area businesses.)
A local internet-service pioneer (we remember hearing about his company way back when we got online in the early ’90s) keeps a blog about UFO sightings and ET encounters, after experiencing one himself. Today he has posted a photo he took at Alki on Monday, saying he thinks it shows a “teardrop-shaped UFO.” (Hmm, taken the same day it was reported a new “X-Files” movie might finally come to pass. The truth is out there … somewhere.)
In June, the state said wi-fi service would be on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth ferry run by July 16th. Didn’t happen. Now there’s a new date: August 13th.
The first banner to appear on the Fauntleroy overpass since its last cleaning has also appeared online, thanks to the birthday girl’s proud dad.
Pardon the redundancy if Beach Drive Blog is already on your list of regular stops, but BDB’s Rhonda has a must-read and a must-see on her site right now: first, her beef about bikes (we know we’ve got bicyclists in WSB-land, so we anticipate other sides to the story); second, a wonderful photo of the moon over a ferry the other night.
Happened onto this post from a local “parkour” star who’s in the commercial we mentioned below.
Two weeks after we first contacted our site host with concerns about site slowness … four days after we started a full-court press via phone … the saga has reached hair-pulling stage. Click ahead only if you want to read our vent. (If you can even get to a second page. Again, we promise to get this fixed one way or another …)Read More
We thought it was just happening as we tried to add content to the site … but now we’re getting e-mail from WSB readers about difficulty getting to the site or going page to page. Please forgive us; we’re on the phone right now with the hosting company trying to figure out what the problem is.
As Rhonda reminds us at Beach Drive Blog, part of the money you spend at Tully’s today goes toward the J.P. Patches statue that will help raise money for Children’s Hospital. (Two Tully’s in WS: Alki and Morgan Junction.)
Is it really the dog they’re looking for, or perhaps its owner? Check it out at BDB.
-Buried near the end of this article about wi-fi on state ferries is the note that it’s expected on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth run by mid-July.
-We’ve talked before about the city’s crackdown on unlicensed pets; here’s a case where it appears to have gone way too far. HERE’S A LINK YOU SHOULD CHECK TO SEE IF ANYTHING IS PENDING AGAINST YOU. (Mentions your past history, too.)
Looks like we have to drop Mischiefblog off our Other Blogs In WS page — he’s moved to Mill Creek, and just posted about getting ready to FSBO his WS house “cheap-cheap-cheap.”
Amusing high-tech tidbit about our County Councilmember Dow C on Slog.
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