Mid Beacon Hill tried to concede gracefully when the Hood polls were taken over by Diebold. But would we let her? Noooo. Instead we forced her to stay in the race AND submit to an interview by me - drunk and obnoxious spice metroblogger. Why? Because we like her and because we think she’s doing good work. Since J is also extremely nice, she complied with only the slightest hint of arm twisting. Let’s jump right in, shall we…

How many minds are behind Mid Beacon Hill?

Just me.

Are you completely anonymous?

At this point, I’m only nominally anonymous.

When and what got you started in this tawdry blogging business?

A year ago I was doing a lot of gardening and wine drinking and neighborhood picture taking, and I happened to come across a blog by this guy in San Francisco who was doing the same. I loved how his drunken little photo essays captured his love of, and his ambivalence about, the neighborhood where he’d settled down. First I became an obsessive commenter on his blog, and then I decided I had to totally rip it off.
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I had a quick chat with Justin Carder about Capitol Hill Seattle, a front runner in this year’s Blarch Badness tournament.

MB: When did you start CHS?
Shortly after we received the magic beans in January 2006. We moved to Capitol Hill on the edge of a richie rich neighborhood and said jeez, better start a neighborhood blog so we can get some respect from these people and they stop asking us to wash their boats. The rest is history.

MB: How many contributors?
Two. Me and my poor darling wife who has to suffer through my criticism and advice for her every post. Not sure why she continues to participate, really. She might move and get her own neighborhood blog. We’re trying to work through it.

MB: What’s your mission statement? (Why does this blog exist?)
I’ve stated our goals thusly:
1. Get to know our new neighborhood
2. Write about the good stuff in hopes that more good stuff will happen
3. Sometimes write about the bad stuff in hopes that less bad stuff will happen
4. Learn about how the Internet is put together and how people interact with it
5. Make it all last

But that only tells part of the story.
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Without a doubt my favorite local blog (well, besides this one) is Vintage Seattle. Jess Cliffe has created a wonderful look at Seattle’s history in illustrated form. Every new post has something wonderful in it and I love being able to look back at old Seattle from when I was a kid and even further back to long, long before any of us living here now were even born.

Jess is really excited to be part of the Blarch Badness and was gracious enough to answer a few basic questions for me:

MB: What was your impetus for starting up Vintage Seattle?
JC: I’ve been a little obsessed with some of the older architecture in Seattle for quite a while, but I didn’t really know anyone who was interested in discussing it with me. I was constantly boring my friends. As a regular blog reader, I thought a blog would be a pretty natural outlet to find like-minded people who appreciate this stuff who could come together and discuss. I had run websites in the past (mostly gaming sites - I’m a game designer for a living), so I had some experience on the technical side.

MB: Are you from Seattle?
JC: I’m from Seattle in that I consider Seattle “my home.” I was not born in Seattle, though. In fact, I grew up in about 11 different states and never really had much of a grounding. A lot of people scoff when they find out that I’m not a native, but I just chalk it up to the fact that this is the first place I’ve felt at home. Having grown up mostly in suburbs and never in a home more than 20 years old, I’ve come to really appreciate the history Seattle has. It’s something I never knew as a kid growing up and as a result, it’s something I cherish now and approach with a sense of wonder.

MB: Where do you find your content?
JC: All over! Libraries, Ebay, just walking around with my camera, talking to folks who’ve been around for a long time - wherever I can. The problem is that it gets expensive, since I have to procure a lot of it from auctions, rubbish sales, shoppes, etc. I’ve spent far too much money on the blog, but I enjoy it so that’s ok. I have had a number of readers submitting content lately and that’s great. Pushing the community driven content is something I want to do. Someone just recently sent me a late 1800’s photograph of their great-grandfather (who went on to become a supreme court judge) as a kid climbing a light pole on Pike Street, and I just about died. It was beautiful.

MB: Do you have a regular posting schedule?
JC: I try to post every night. When my girlfriend falls asleep at about 11pm - I sneak off to my computer and stay up into the wee hours of the night looking for interesting things to scan and post about. The problem is that sometimes I have to post tons of photographs and I end up staying awake late and show up like a zombie at work the next day. Good thing I work in the gaming industry where 10am is considered “early.” I try to post every day since when I read blogs, I check for updates every day - I’m just obsessive like that. And I try not to post more than that or with overly long posts, because I feel like keeping things succinct and digestible is important.

MB: What types of posts do you think your readers are most interested in?
JC: Well, my stat tracking software tells me that they’re most interested in multi-million dollar houses with great historical architecture. Luckily I am too - so it all works out. I also have a habit of posting tons of images of 1970’s era powder blue uniformed Mariners players, which my stats tell me no one cares about but me!

MB: Do you have a specific audience of readers in mind for your blog?
JC: Anyone who appreciates Seattle’s history and character, or whoever will listen