I was told by neighbors that the city has been coming every 4 years or so to prune it back, since it is near a power line – which is strange, since the pruning involved topping the tree, which I know is not recommended at all. I was looking up details, and here’s the story:

www.seattle.gov/trees/expertsArchive.htm

09/05/2008

Trees under powerlines

Q:Years ago someone planted 2 cedar trees on the strip between the sidewalk and curb in front of my house. These trees are huge and are under power lines. The city at some point topped the trees and continues to cut and butcher them every year. It is a shame but I think these trees are better to be cut down. Is the city able to help me take care of this?

A: Our City Light experts had this to say:

It sounds like the trees are too big for their location and have to be trimmed to maintain a safe clearance around the power lines. Seattle City Light maintains a 10 foot clearance around the high voltage electrical lines by having electrically qualified tree trimmers safely prune the trees (www.seattle.gov/light/neighborhoods/nh4_trtr.htm ).

Long term, it makes more sense to replace trees like this with smaller trees that don’t require such extensive pruning to protect electrical safety and reliability. Seattle City Light will replace trees when we are working in a neighborhood so you may have to wait until we come back. When work is upcoming, we leave door hangars for residents whose trees are going to be pruned. Use the contact numbers on the door hangers to discuss opportunities for potential removal and replacement of your trees through the Urban Tree Replacement program (www.seattle.gov/light/neighborhoods/treetrim/tt3_replace.htm ).

Planting the right tree in the right place is key to keeping Seattle green.

On a related note, Detroit proper is having major problems with the census; it’s not in any of the counties I am comparing below, but I really hope they find a way to get Detroit properly counted so it gets the federal funds it so desperately needs – for a good article, see www.freep.com/article/20100324/NEWS05/3240326/1322/Few-in-Hamtramck-Detroit-mail-census-forms. This article got me interested in checking out the participation in general.

From 2010.census.gov/2010census/take10map/

Looking for another good food for “eat with hands” and pureed consistency, we ventured over to Cedar’s on Brooklyn today for some Indian food. She loved this one – sharing our full meal, she went to town on the Naan, Channa Massala with Paneer (chickpea simmered in spices with paneer), and Dal Maharani (lentil in spices). Pictures, as always, tell the full story – including watching Aviva get messier and messier as she eats; not an uncommon occurrence, of course.

BTW, for a great read about feeding babys/toddlers the various culinary delights of Seattle, I highly recommend reading Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton. Joelle and I loved this book, and it’s given me lots of great ideas.

(Might need to visit actual post if you are in an RSS reader, as usual)

Looking at these now, it is hard to believe how much Aviva has grown in the past month; she looks so little here!

(Via Stick Figure Family)

In all seriousness, here’s a picture we took on our walk yesterday up to Kerry Park – one of the great viewpoints in Seattle; conveniently, it is only a few blocks away.

This game surely provided that excitement for the rest of the year – we looked much better than the Red Bulls (last year’s championship runner up) across the board, dominating the offensive end, and clearly being faster and more physical. The weather was a crisp 45 degrees, and the fans were fully enjoying themselves. A great start for the franchise! Right as the game ended, I remembered I had my portable video camera on me, so here’s a sense of the ambiance.

(you’ll need to visit the actual post to see the video).

One present I wish I had received was a shovel; having one would have made our snow easier to deal with, especially, as I pointed out in previous blog posts, the city did nothing to deal with it. Friday of last week, I drove around to quite a few stores, looking for a snow shovel, so that I would have one for the future, if not this storm. Being unsuccessful (everyone was out, at least for a week), I decided to place an order on Amazon, especially since I have free 2-night shipping due to Amazon Prime. This way, we will have one for the next storm (3-4 more years?), and I won’t be caught shovel-less again. I figured if I waited for the stores to get stock back, I would forget about it, so ordering online it was. The box finally came today – and the FedEx guy said to me: “Wow, that’s a weird sized box – and strangely light – what is it?” Informing him that it was a shovel, he just laughed – and mentioned it was a great idea – he’s going to order one now too! He’s right – the box is strange – and very, very tall – look at how much it dwarfs Molly. At least I am prepared now for the next snowstorm!

Let’s count the ways:

• Football – Seahawks (4-11, after being favored to win the division, and of course, us having season tickets), Huskies Football (0-12 – first BCS team to lose all of its games), Cougars Football (2-11)
• Basketball – Sonics are now in Oklahama City, so no NBA team left – and even they are 2-24
• Baseball – Mariners were a woeful 61-101, firing their general manager and coach
• Hockey – No NHL team here, unfortunately
• The senseless loss of Ed, the Tuba Man :(

Not a good one – on the upside, there’s a new soccer team coming to town – Sounders FC!

To add on to the pain for us, I am primarily a Detroit Lions fan, and they’ve hit 0-15, the worst record in NFL history… not a lot of good times watching football this year.

Quoting the article:

“Has any city ever endured a year in sports like the one the Emerald City is just completing? A 101-loss, last-place baseball season, despite a payroll of $117 million; a 62-loss, last-place NBA season; a 12-loss, last-place college football season (the first 0-12 season in the history of the Pac-10); an 11-loss (and counting) NFL season; four coaching/managerial changes; one general manager dismissal; and, of course, the hijacking of its basketball team to Oklahoma @$&%ing City. Sure, other cities have lost their teams or endured epic losing seasons, but for it all to happen in one calendar year? To end December without a single head coach or manager who was employed in January returning for the next year?”

A run down of how it’s impacting us:

• Mail, which usually falls under the motto of “Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet“, has come to a halt by us – we’ve received mail once in the past 5 days, and we’re not expecting it to really resume soon. Turns out, we’re not the only ones having problems here – according to the Seattle Times, about a tenth of the city didn’t get mail on Monday (225,000 delivery points out of 2.5 million), and UPS and FedEx aren’t faring much better.
• The city and county are asking people to stay off of the roads, and use mass transit – but then again, the bus system is not really working. They claim half service, but if you look at the cancellation list, many, many routes are canceled – including all of the routes that go up to the top of Queen Anne (the 2,3,4, and 13). The last few days, we’ve had to hike down to the bottom of the extremely steep and icy hill (on a good day, this take 10-15 minutes – it took us 45), and wait for a different route.
  • In fact, on the way down last evening to meet Joelle, so we could walk up again, I had to stop and call 911 to help a gentleman who had fallen and could no longer get up (it was a hip/leg problem). The fire department responded immediately (see dispatch number F080118221 at the Real-Time 911), but there was at least a half-hour wait for an ambulance at the point I left the man in the capable hands of the medics. The fact that all of the roads around us were closed due to the ice likely didn’t help.
• Road Closures are still all around, including Queen Anne Ave (the Counterbalance), as I’ve mentioned, but also quite a few of the streets through downtown. Partially, this is due to Seattle’s environmental policy - no salting, and rubber plows only – which is now starting to cause quite a debate. The official city policy is to “pack the snow down, and wait for it to melt” – usually, this works, but then again, usually there’s not a week-plus of snowfall.
• Garbage, Recycling and Food/Yard Waste is on hold indefinitely, until the roads become clear. Thankfully, we don’t have too much of any of these, so it’s not a huge deal – though our yard waste bin is now full after I learned to use a saw in breaking apart the branch that fell off our tree the other night. As one of the local newsman said this morning, “thankfully, it’s cold out there – so the garbage is being refrigerated, and won’t smell so bad”
  • The neighborhood kids have been sledding non-stop, which is cool to watch, but one of them took our garbage can’s lid to use as a sled (we leave our garbage/etc… in the alley year-round). Hopefully, the city has replacements when it does pick up again.

On the positive side, working from home has been really easy, and the dogs sure love the snow :)

Some of the facebook comments on the snow have made me laugh; some of my favorites (just from the last day) from my friends are: (Names withheld to protect the innocent)

• …has decided, as a Michigander, this snow is serious. The snowboarders have now constructed a jump!
• …All Queen Anne busses canceled yet again; shock! – bit.ly/129vj Not so easy to follow the advice of “please use mass transit and stay off of the roads.”
• …is amazed at the way Seattle is resembling Schweitzer, except without ski lifts.
• …is wishing she had a snowmobile to drive through the streets of Seattle, no really, they were just outside our building!
• …will be hiking in to work tomorrow.
• …uploaded some photos of Snowpocalypse. Now it’s bed time.
• …says Holy Snow Batman!
• …is really happy he had an emergency Channukah party and thanks everyone who trekked out and brought latkes and applesauce. Happy Channukah! and happy snow day!
• …is …more snow? Are you kidding???
• …is going to scream…they are now saying 6 more inches of snow in Seattle this pm, not sure we can take much more, Seattle just isn’t equipped for this.
• …is cross country skiing around Green Lake!!! So much snow!! seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/zoom/html/2008540508.html.
• …just got in from watching people sledding, skiing, and snowboarding down the Ave.
• …is not interested in fighting the bus system for chanukah parties. Got something on cap hill?
• …is dreaming of a white hanukah.
• …is going to snowshoe to find a sports bar.

(If any of these are yours, and you’d like me to delete it from my post, just say the word, by the way)

Dogs love the snow – so of course, they were out to play a lot. Videos were taken. (If you are in a RSS reader, you might need to visit the page to see these).

Today is actually my birthday, but we had to cancel my birthday party due to the  treacherous conditions; we didn’t want anybody to have to drive. Instead, my sister brought over a cake to the house, and we celebrated with me and the girls (Joelle, Elana, Little Hobey (to-be), Molly and Shay); I actually rather enjoyed it!

FInally, to cap a great weekend, Hannukah started tonight, so we took a walk over to Kavana’s Hannukah Party, which met just down the street.

Pictures tell the story:

A couple of updates from the real world, many through the blogosphere.

• We spent time this weekend hanging out with our friends Mike and Elisabeth (and their son, Rudy). It actually was really great seeing them, and it was great to get a chance to have Molly hang out with Rudy; as any amount of training and getting her comfortable around babys will make our lives easier once Hobey is born. (and for the record, Molly’s not ferocious!)
• Congratulations to Carrie and Josh on the birth of their beautiful daughter – Ayelet Nomi Hearshen. The baby naming ceremony on Sunday was wonderful, and a great testament to the love you have for your new baby girl.
• A few weeks late, but congratulations to Aaron and Julie on the birth of Eytan Henry – we can’t wait to meet him when we are next in DC (or overlap in Detroit).
• Stephanie started blogging on the FidLorb life up in Lynnwood – welcome to the crowd! Abe has also been blogging, on a great foodie idea – there’s a tremendous amount of restaurants up on Hwy 99 (also known as Aurora) by them, some sketchy, but theoretically, some good – so their goal is to eat at all of them, and write up the experience. (in fact, we joined them for one: Spartas Pizza)
• On a completely unrelated note: Seahawks and Lions and Michigan and U-W – wow, the football teams I like are awful. Combined record: 5-30. Not a fun year on the football side.

Pictures (as always, click on the pictures for larger versions)

Is that a pumpkin in your stomach, or what you’ll look like come early next year?	Little Hobey is about this big right now!
Thankfully, the ultrasound shows Little Hobey to be a person, not a pumpkin!	Riding the hay ride with Stephanie Lorber (née Fidler)

Tonight, we decided to get a head start on carving – as it’s election season, we’re showing our support via the patterns up at yeswecarve.com/

(and yes, for Friday night, we’ll use Shabbat candles and make the pumpkins our candlesticks…)

As with other posts, click on each picture for a larger version.

Pictures – one of the practice fields:

Locker room:

Draft room – (i.e. preparing for my fantasy draft)

Look – they use Cisco products!

Other fun pictures :)

Video – running, running, running (with a little ickey shuffle while we are at it) – yes, I am a fool:

Aaron on the Seahawks Practice Field

1. It is close, only an hour or so away (including ferry time), so it was easy on my back for travel.
2. Our friends Shannon and Damon have an amazing house they built on the Island – and by that, I mean built by hand: “hammer, hammer, saw, saw”. It was great to see them and spend time with them, and their new son, Griffin (and their dog, Ebey). They are great college friends, who we do not spend nearly enough time with.
3. Because we stayed with them, I knew I could rest as much as my back needed to; taking breaks regularly to lay flat, etc… and not feeling obligated to do too much.
4. We happen to just really like Whidbey Island – artsy, beautiful, friendly, and close.
5. And of course, get Molly away from the loud bangs of illegal (and legal) fireworks.
6. In particular, Greg and Clodagh had called out, on a past trip, the wonders of Double Bluff Beach’s off leash dog park on Whidbey – a few mile long open beach for off-leash access. We wanted to get Molly into the water again.
7. I have been cooped up in the house for a while now – I was looking forward to just getting out of here for a weekend as I move back into working more.

It was just what we needed – it fit all of those goals above, and we are really super-appreciative of the Arndt’s for hosting us. Molly had a fantastic time too – she got to run around their property, go swimming, get lots of fun new treats, and just be one happy (and tired!) dog.

Pictures – click for larger ones as usual:

People:

Dogs:

Arndt House:

Videos – might need to visit the actual blog post to view:

Private use, sale, or possession of fireworks is prohibited in the City of Seattle. The private use of fireworks without a permit in the city of Seattle is punishable by a fine and possible time in jail.

www.seattle.gov/fire/pubEd/homesafety/july.htm

(Not just Seattle by the way – most of the rest of the state of Washington also bans fireworks).

Happy 4th! Enjoy your safe, public fireworks. And stop annoying me!

There’s nothing showing our house directly, but as we have the West Queen Anne Playfield just across the street, they have a bunch of photos that show our house (albeit small). Here’s a sample – for all of them, see the Seattle Municipal Archives Photograph Collection

1965 tinyurl.com/3q2kva	Jan 26, 1968 tinyurl.com/6hwhxk

If you notice on the top of these pictures, there’s a community center across the street. There are some awesome pictures from the late 1930s during the Works Progress Administration construction of said community center (or shelter, as they called it then)

Dec 21, 1936 tinyurl.com/3pvdpr	Mar 24, 1937 tinyurl.com/4kx2t5	Mar 24, 1937 tinyurl.com/3stwdj

Also, I found the Sherwood Park History Files, which has a pretty cool pdf of the old plans for the playfield – see www.seattle.gov/parks/history/QueenAnnePF.pdf for it in all of the full glory.

And for final good measure, here’s a 1938 view of Queen Anne Ave (the main street by us) just a block or two from our house (i.e. right in front of Blaine):

1938 tinyurl.com/6elhdl

I love this old stuff – can you notice I am not working yet? Spending 15-20 minutes at a time surfing the web, and this is what I end up with :)

I knew we didn’t drive a lot, but after looking at our paper work to figure out when we last changed our oil, this is getting ridiculous:

• My car: It had been 9.5 months since my last oil change, and I only went 1800 miles. My manufacturer (Saturn) recommends every 3 months/3000 miles. So on the mileage number, I still had a while to go.
• Joelle’s car: It had been about 14 months, 3500 miles. Her manufacturer (Scion) recommends every 5 months/5000 miles. So she also had a ways to go, and it had been a year-plus (a little before we were married!)

How do we drive so little?

• Both of us bus to work every day
• Grocery shopping is mostly done around our neighborhood (Queen Anne, Seattle) – Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and Metropolitan Market (and 7-Eleven, while we are at it, though we never go there) are all within 4 blocks – so we walk to all of them
• Most dinners, by ourselves or with friends/family, are on Queen Anne Ave or at our house
• Even our doctors are either 5 blocks from home or right by work. Some of the specialists I saw were a little farther away, so for those, we did drive.
• Given my back situation, I haven’t driven a car in 3 months! That helps keep things down :) Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things…

Needless to say, the rising gas and oil prices hasn’t had a major impact on our direct budget, thankfully. Chalk one up for the urban density crowd!

Rather than always going back there, I spent some time looking up additional places around Seattle that are dog-friendly. Found a couple of a articles with good links

• www.chowhound.com/topics/520235 – recommends Norm’s, the Islander, Tutta Bella, and Volunteer Park Cafe (so far, more likely coming). (Note: Broksonic, who replied, is me – I use that name on some sites. I think it was the brand of a TV I had a while ago, or something like that – I’ve been using it forever)
• community.livejournal.com/seattle/5202948.html – recommends White Horse Trading Company, Norm’s, Wayword Coffeehouse,  C+P Coffee, Lava Lounge, Tin Hat, Stumbling Monk, Summit Public House, Edmonds The Dining Dog Cafe & Bakery. But then digresses into arguments over dogs and food, also links to DogFriendly’s and Citysearches list, but I called a few of the places on there – I wouldn’t trust those lists.

Good to have options!

And a good map of all of them: www.coladog.org/olas/COLOR_MAP_MUDBAY07.pdf

We’ve tried Golden Gardens and Woodland Park, as I stated previously. Northgate’s is also really close. Once I can walk well again (more shortly), we’ll have to try that one out…

But more importantly: Come on Lower Kinnear Park – get the dog park built there already! (I just sent an email to Citizens for Off-leash Areas to find out more on the status of this – the last public info is circa 2006).