I made it to Volunteer Park today, all bundled up.
It felt colder than the 42 °F (5 °C) reported on my phone’s weather app.
Sunday ☀️
Friday afternoon/ east, west, home best 🏡
The world traveler is home.
We were bused out to the Airbus 350-900 sitting on the tarmac, so that we could clamber aboard with the stairs. Let me just stipulate that the guys wearing t-shirts may create the impression that we had summer weather out there. We did not— it was freezing!
We were international arrivals, and so we walked across the skybridge to the baggage claim and passport control, which is where I stopped to take this picture.
Tuesday/ rain ☔
It has rained all day in Rain City.
It will rain on and off all week here, in the run-up to winter solstice.
Monday/ holiday cheers🎄
The five amigos went to the Irish pub called The Chieftain on 12th Avenue for a beer and a bite tonight, but found it closed for the night.
We ended up right next door, at the German beer hall-and-restaurant Rhein Haus Seattle, where we found this cheerful Christmas tree.
Friday/ rainy and dark ☔
Happy Friday the Thirteenth.
It was rainy and dark all day outside (but not quite as dark as in the forest from The Nutcracker in the picture below).
A ballerina from Pacific Northwest Ballet performs “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” on Wednesday evening at McCaw Hall in Seattle. [Photo by Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times]
Thursday 😘
Happy Thanksgiving.
Wednesday 🌇
Sunset is now at 4.21 pm.
Tuesday/ a lot of gray 🌥
The rainy weather has stopped, and the forecast for the next week or so can be described as ‘morning fog, and partly sunny the rest of the day’.
The lows will be mid- to high 30s (3 °C) and the highs 46°F (8 °C) or so.
(Stevens Elementary School was on a list of schools to be closed, but Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones announced just yesterday that he and the school board will no longer pursue school closures and consolidations to solve the Seattle school district’s multi-million dollar budget shortfall.)
Tuesday/ going home 🛫
The time came to bid Beantown goodbye on Tuesday afternoon, and fly back to the Pacific Northwest.
There was a rainstorm with strong winds as we made our final approach into SeaTac Airport, which made for a rough landing, but once we started taxiing on the runway, everything was OK.
Pictures:
Looking up while waiting for my Uber driver on Main Street across from the MIT campus in Cambridge; in Uber car in the Ted Williams Tunnel again; at the gate at Boston Logan airport (dry and calm); arriving at the gate at Seattle-Tacoma airport (wet and stormy); restaurant PF Chang’s dragon at Seattle-Tacoma airport’s North Terminal.
Friday/ arrival into Boston 🛬
It was a direct flight to Boston, just over 5 hours of flying.
At Boston Logan airport, the Silver Line bus took me to South Station on the MTBA’s* Red Line. I went four stops to Central Station, close enough to walk to my hotel.
*Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
The Ted Williams Tunnel (TWT) was the first major link constructed as part of Boston’s Big Dig. When the TWT opened in 1995 it was only available to authorized commercial traffic. Later, non-commercial traffic was allowed to access the tunnel on weekends and holidays. In 2003, with the substantial completion of the I-90 portion of the Big Dig, the tunnel was opened to all traffic at all times.
[Source: Wikipedia]
Wednesday/ mushrooms 🍄
Herewith the 2024 fall edition of the mushrooms in my yard.
Sunday/ a little architecture 🏙
I took the No 8 bus to Westlake Avenue and walked from there to the Amazon Spheres, and back up to Capitol Hill.
If my research on the mathematics of polyhedrons is accurate, this is a Kepler-Poinsot polyhedron. This one is called a small stellated dodecahedron. It consists of twelve pyramids with pentagonal bases that are mounted on the faces of a regular dodecahedron.
Its construction was completed in 1930. Today the building belongs to Cornish College of the Arts. (The 1914 date in the window is the founding year of the Cornish College).
To my right is the 1200 Stewart Street apartment towers that are still under construction after six whole years (construction started in 2018).
On May 10, 1968 The Jimi Hendrix Experience performed two shows at the Fillmore East in New York City, with support from Sly & the Family Stone and the Joshua Light Show.
(Jimi Hendrix is James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix, an American guitarist, songwriter and singer. He is widely regarded as the greatest guitarist in the history of popular music and one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He was born in Seattle on Nov. 27, 1942 and died tragically young at the age of 27 in September 1970 – from Wikipedia).
Saturday/ squares ⬜
Here’s a sneak preview of the public art installation at the junction of 14th Avenue and Madison Street on Capitol Hill.
(Is it a time machine? Can I enter the big square and emerge four years into the future at the far end?).
Even though it’s only 5:20 pm in the picture, night has already cast its inky blacks.
Friday/ indoor pickleball 🥒
Five amigos played a little pickle ball at the Sandman’s Courts in Columbia City.
It was 52 °F (11 °C) outside when we started— not too frigid for playing outside, but we have come to like the indoor courts with their clean lines and bathrooms right by the courts.
Monday/ voter turnout is key ❎
Happy Monday. So here we are, with Election Day tomorrow.
About 50% of likely American voters have already cast their ballots. The rest will all vote tomorrow.
(New Hampshire, Alabama and Mississippi do not allow general early voting—an eligible reason is required to vote early, by mail).
Only about 2/3 of eligible American voters vote in presidential election years, and only about 1/2 in mid-term elections.
The turnout percentages have gotten bigger in recent cycles, though.
From pewresearch.org under a page heading ‘1. Voter turnout, 2018-2022’:
The elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022 were three of the highest-turnout U.S. elections of their respective types in decades.
About two-thirds (66%) of the voting-eligible population turned out for the 2020 presidential election – the highest rate for any national election since 1900. The 2018 election (49% turnout) had the highest rate for a midterm since 1914.
Even the 2022 election’s turnout, with a slightly lower rate of 46%, exceeded that of all midterm elections since 1970.
While sizable shares of the public vote either consistently or not at all, many people vote intermittently. Given how closely divided the U.S. is politically, these intermittent voters often determine the outcome of elections and how the balance of support for the two major political parties swings between elections.
Overall, 70% of U.S. adult citizens who were eligible to participate in all three elections between 2018 and 2022 voted in at least one of them, with about half that share (37%) voting in all three.
Make sure you drop your ballot in an official ballot box. 😆
(Garbage can on Capitol Hill’s 15th Avenue East relabeled by graffiti sticker prankster).
Sunday/ back to Standard Time 🌇
We set our clocks back one hour last night. Daylight Saving Time that had started in March, ended.
So all of the United States is now back on Standard Time, and the sun sets a whole hour earlier than it did on Saturday.
This is 3.46 pm, and there is just an hour of sunlight left (sunset is now at 4.47 pm).
Here comes Marine Vessel Puyallup, arriving at the Seattle Ferry Terminal, in from Bainbridge Island.
Sunday/ 19th Avenue 🌳
It rained for most of the day here in Seattle, but there was a break right before sunset (now at 5.58 pm).
The trees lining Capitol Hill’s 19th Avenue East still have most of their leaves.
Nice yard sign (also from 19th Avenue East).
No doubt: there are many millions of girls and women (and men) across the United States hoping that the country elects its first Madam President.
Saturday/ more fall colors 🍁
Leaves near Capitol Hill’s Broadway, revealing their beautiful carotenoids and anthocyanins (orange-yellow and red pigments).
Friday/ Halloween is coming 🦇
Happy Friday.
I was out and about in U-District as night was falling, and saw several people dressed up for Halloween parties.
As I settled in and looked around, I found myself sitting next to a mouse 🖱, a cow 🐮, a tiger 🐯 and a leopard🐆 in the train (young people in their Halloween costumes).
Monday 🍂
Fall colors, and a scooter, on the corner of 16th Avenue East and Republican Street in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
