Seattle Metblogs » sea_guest

Winter Wonderland? Only in Seattle

sea_guest — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 23:59:36 +0000

My wife, Goddess that she is, let me sleep in this morning. With snow on the ground, there was no way we were journeying from Redmond to our Unitarian Universalist church in Bellevue; that short trip involves taking the Lake Hills Connector, which is a fright-fest even in decent weather. Since I didn’t pass out until 2am the previous night, I welcomed the snooze.

My kids burst in a mere hour later. “Daddy, there’s SNOW!” my daughter Neve proclaimed. “Look outside – it’s a winter wonderland!”

I rubbed my eyes and pushed aside the blinds. An inch on the ground, perhaps two on the car. This was the Great Seattle Snowstorm of 2005? Didn’t this child remember when she was two and we lived in upstate New York? Had her little brain forgotten the three-day blizzard of 1999 that left us buried under 44 inches? That was a snow worth waking your father up for! This? This would probably melt before our hash browned.

But it clung to life for a few more hours. Not wanting to be a Snow Scrooge, I helped the wife suit everyone up so we could head out and pelt one another in the butts with mushy snowballs. After 30 minutes, I took our baby back inside while my wife helped the kids with their final winter’s day mission: building a sad, doomed “snow fairy”. Look at the poor thing; you can see the pall of Death in her button eyes.

tsunami relief

sea_guest — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:23:14 +0000

I have been thinking about the tsunami that occurred last Sunday, and how modern society will remember this event. This is the type of event that accounts for all the creation and flood stories seen throughout every culture. As technical people, we have a concept of what is occuring, and can explain that a tsunami is created when an uplift, vertical movement, occurs between two plates. We understand that these events are normal geological processes of our planet, and not the works of vengeful gods.

This understanding does not stop the need for help and money in these areas. While I don’t have much money to give or the ability to fly to these ravaged parts of the world I do have the ability to help generate donations via the web.

“How can you do that?” you ask.

Well, after being one to eat bad things, take pictures of them, but never post them… and seeing Steve, Don’t Eat It (via kristyk) I have decided to test out odd things from the asian and russian grocery stores. I will be going to visit the stores later tonight, picking up items that no sane human would eat, and then eat them right in front of you.

Okay, you said what you are doing, now why are you doing it?

I will be eating these things, and posting them, until I see that my reader’s have donated a total of $500.00 to the tsunami relief effort.

Please, go to the following link: http://www.google.com/tsunami_relief.html
Select your favorite organization, donate your desired amount, and then send an email to mikeycofer@gmail.com telling me how much you donated. I will update the total as people donate.

Why not just do money collection through paypal?

Paypal would be taking a cut both ways, and I want you to have the choice of where you donate. I’m trusting you to donate what you tell me.

Does this sound like a good idea? Will you help?

I’m taking request for items you would like me to eat until the end of the day.

Posts and photos will be at thenyoudiscover.com

Walking down Westlake last night…

sea_guest — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 19:21:07 +0000

on my way home from work, I passed a elderly-looking man waiting by the bus stop. Not at all an uncommon sight. About five minutes later I was nearly run over by said man on his unicycle. Peddling like mad, and not riding much faster than I was walking, this was clearly a man on a mission.

Has anyone else spotted this mystery unicycler around the Lake Union/QA/Fremont area? (And this was not the same young guy I’ve seen on many occasions riding around downtown.)

Seattle sure has one craaazy music scene…

sea_guest — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 21:17:31 +0000

I spent the beginning of last night crammed in a room with 99% of Seattle’s under 16 population in complete agony in that it’s-so-hot-I-can’t-breathe sort of way. But then, suddenly, it all melted away the moment Death Cab For Cutie took the stage at The Paramount.

Love them or hate them (“They’re too popular with the hipsters!” “They are amazing and write songs that seem like they were written just for me!” blah blah blah) they were AMAZING. With my ever increasing work schedule and usual 10 pm bedtime (stupid work stealing away my social life, and therefore, anything relevant to post) they managed to keep my attention throughout the entire show and encore – no mean feat. Despite the cries that emo is dead (or was it ever alive?) I can’t help but feel that without them Seattle’s music scene just wouldn’t be the same.

Voting

sea_guest — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 04:08:58 +0000

My polling place was very comfortable, nobody pestering me for my opinion, and full of information about each candidate right at my fingertips. Yes, I voted from home with an absentee ballot two weeks ago. I like the idea of having the ballot mailed to your house, and being able to avoid going to the actual polling booth.

Is that wrong? I don’t think so. In some ways I feel better informed about issues when I can look up information on each candidate before voting. It doesn’t really matter on the headline grabbing races, but it does help for the smaller local elections. At least for me, I would always forget which judge I wanted for which seat.

Anyway- I rather feel like all the hard work that went into this election by me and many of my friends was wasted. I’m still trying to figure out what the majority of Americans were thinking. How could they be so easily fooled?

Oh, wait! I forgot we’re talking about Americans.

The Homeless Count

sea_guest — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 05:29:58 +0000

Tonight is the homeless count at the agency I volunteer at. Every year the city has volunteers go around and count all the homeless they see. They count the people under bridges, in doorways, alleys or but not the people squatting in condemned buildings. So our tiny little agency has one slumber party for all those kids and adults squatting to come get food and sleep where it’s warm. As of right now it’s twelve thirty four at night and I roughly count around 20 people that are sprawled out. The total count is currently in the lower seventies. We need these events to get demographic information to give to the United Way or the city so we can get funding. It’s fun to see some faces I usually only see on the street and hear their story.

A Typical Day on Capitol Hill

sea_guest — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 20:02:04 +0000

A typical day
on Capitol Hill.

A visit to Dick’s for
a greasy, cheesy burger.

I scare the pigeons
making my way back
to the car.

They want my fries,
but I don’t share.
Not with the
likes of you.

A few blocks down the cops
harass my indigent
indian friend.

Stoic and silent,
just as his daddy taught,
he sits.
His mind revealed
in a stare.

I saw Ric Ocasek cross the road,
and almost asked if this was a photo op.

It was indeed a typical day on Capitol Hill.

Halloween Dancing Fun!

sea_guest — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 18:24:29 +0000

Courtesy of The Stranger and Craigslist:
Be a Thriller zombie in a giant dance reenactment party on Halloween weekend. I have some friends who went last year and had the time of their lives. Anyone, whether they can dance or not, is invited and the first rehearsal is tomorrow afternoon in Sand Point, with two more the next week.
I’m going to try my best to be there. What about you?

Art Trek to the South Sound.

sea_guest — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 19:30:46 +0000

I recently discovered the monthly Third Thursday event in Tacoma. It’s much like First Thursday of Seattle. You get free admission from 5:00pm – 8:00pm to the Tacaoma Art Museum, The Museum of Glass, Washington State History Museum, and Union Station.

This month Third Thursday will fall on October 21st. The Tacoma Art Museum has an excellent exhibit of Hudson River School Artists going on. It’s a must see, and it’s free.

Also, there are many galleries and shops open late on Third Thursday. Be sure to check out Rampart gallery. The will be having a Halloween party from 5:30 – 8:30, with free food, drinks, and several bands. You can also check out some of my work at the gallery.

Looking for Y. Trabet

sea_guest — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 23:36:29 +0000

Shamelessly ganked from the Seattle Livejournal Community, because I think this is a wonderfully fun little harmless prank. Just who is the mysterious Y. Trabet?

Bizarre series of incident… the bookstore where I work, Queen Anne Books (1811 Queen Anne Ave N), is being pranked by a rabbit. Not a real rabbit, of course, but someone who clearly has a rabbit fixation. Started about a week ago with the discovery of The Joy of Cooking Rabbits sitting on one of our tables. Since then, we have discovered on the shelves of our store books such as Da Bunny Code, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Rabbits, When Bad Things Happen To Good Bunnies and many other lovely books. They’re all old Reader’s Digest books with squares cut out of the inside pages and treasures tucked inside, but the flycovers are really amazing. Very well done. In addition, we’ve gotten 2 letters from Y. Trabet with nothing but pictures of people in bunny suits inside of the envelopes. Oh, and of course each book is “ex libris Y. Trabet” and some of them are “written” by Y. Trabet (except those written by “authors” such as John Steinbunny, who brings you The Rabbits of Wrath.

We have yet to catch the bunny prankster, but we are keeping all the books behind the shelf. Anyone heard of anything similar going on around town?

No further information has been supplied in the comments to the thread yet. I’d love to see some pictures of the books themselves, and some more information on the “treasures” contained therein.

Anyone have connections at Queen Anne Books to further investigate this mystery?