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08.31.2001 14:19

Potty Rant


The lead story on the local NPR station on the way to work this morning was about the fact that Seattle Mayor Paul Schell had vetoed the proposed installation of 5 "state of the art, self-cleaning and self-monitoring public toilets". Evidently these space-age units (which are all over Europe) monitor whether someone is in them for more than 20 minutes (to eliminate them from becoming a homeless bedroom or brothel) and completely clean themselves after each use (with some sort of self-contained car wash system). They are to replace the port-a-potties in various places in the city. Now, the argument is that they are too expensive -- $623,000 for ten years. What? More than half a million bucks for toilets? I'm all for public sanitation and all, but that is stupid expensive for 5 toilets that I will never use. Schell believes that if you place ads on them (which is evidently how it is done in Boston, New York and LA) then they could be taxpayer funds free, but evidently there is an advertising public buildings law that prohibits the Starbucks mermaid or a Microsoft "Where do you want to go today?" to be there. I guess we could change that law. $623,000 over ten years divided by all the people in King county is only $1.70 per person but combine that all and you have some money you could put into fixing the highway fiasco. What's worse is that we are wasting valuable time making this into some stupid political pissing contest. Maybe we could make them look like giant pigs and have the Art museum fund them instead.

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08.30.2001 12:43

Jumper

On Monday morning, a woman tied up traffic for 4 hours in Seattle by threatening to jump off the 160-foot high I5 bridge. They closed the highway in both directions, causing gridlock of phenomenal proportions and making the city grind to a virtual halt. After those 4 hours, she did jump, landed in the water below and broke her back. But survived.




Normally, I wouldn't care... a passing news story. But there is something that this is bringing out about Seattle that is worth mentioning. Evidently, there were passing motorists taunting her to jump. It's likely that these people are truly fine people and not the malicious sort (although, for all I know they are), but they were likely angry folk having been sitting in that damn traffic jam for hours and I would have been barely able to control my anger too. I certainly wouldn't have yelled "Jump, bitch!" or "Get it over with!" as others did, but I would have thought it to be a terribly selfish thing to do.




So, why is this a statement on Seattle? Well, all over the news are comments that it is hard to believe that "such a nice place like Seattle" has people that are as callous as to yell these things. I think these people are living as much in the past as those people who don't think that the highway system has major issues. Seattle isn't a small town -- it is a city that can have the same mob mentality as New York or Tokyo. Just because this is the Pacific Northwest, doesn't mean that it is immune to big city attitudes. Seattle is a much nicer city than a lot of other places, but we are not Maybury.




And for the record, since 1966 when the I5 bridge "Ship Canal" was built, 10 people have tried to kill themselves by jumping off it. 6 of 10 have survived. My guess is that she didn't want to die, she wanted attention. Well, she certainly got it, whoever she is.

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08.27.2001 23:45

Hiking at Mt. Rainier


On Sunday, Ben and I went to Mount Rainier for a hike and to see some of the alpine flower fields. As it turned out, it was one of the more miserable hiking trips that I have gone on in recent memory. It started out ok – after a long, dusty ride to the Mowich Lake parking lot on Rainier northwest side, we headed down the path. It was quiet, only about 20 cars at the trailhead, and it seemed that most of them belonged to overnight campers. We headed to Sprey Park, a short, 3-mile hike to the alpine fields. About halfway up, the traffic jam started: groups of college age people hiking the Wonderland Trail all the way around Rainier and day hikers. I either felt pressured to hike faster, causing me to get out of breath in the thinner air, or we were waiting around for others to clear the path. Completely unacceptable. Once we got to the fields, the wildflowers were also already gone, but the views of the mountain were pretty spectacular. The sky was perfectly blue without a cloud. A woman a hundred yards in front of us warned us of a mother black bear with cubs in the field nearby, but we didn't see them.



The way back down was horrific. Not only were there the people to contend with (at this point, a steady stream upward) but also the bugs were worse than I have ever experienced in Washington State. Perhaps it was because of all the dry weather that the horseflies have become the size of hummingbirds or the recent rains have let out all the mosquitoes, but I was about ready to go nuts on the walk back down. I actually hit a horsefly with my hiking pole and it made a pretty loud dinging noise. By the time we made it back to the parking lot, hot and cranky from the 7-mile walk, I wanted to jump in the lake to avoid the bugs, but to our surprise, there were close to 100 cars in the parking lot. Little did we know that Mowich Lake is one of the most popular picnic areas in the park (the lake is right next to the parking lot, so tons of kids too).



I guess that I shouldn’t complain too much: I live in a great state with some of the most amazing scenery in all of the US less than a two-hour drive away. It’s just too bad that I have to share it with bugs and people. Or buggy people.

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08.25.2001 18:17

Finally !

After much stalling, delays and various degrees of interest and disinterest, I’ve finally revamped my website. For now, the content is certainly lacking, but I’ll work on that. Tomorrow, Ben and I are going hiking at Mt. Rainier and I will have some pictures for the photo section. For now, you can play with the funny mouse-over graphics and take a look at the website that I (finally!) finished for my sister’s wedding.

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