Seattle Windstorm 2006

Last month was the snowstorm. This month brings a windstorm. And we're not even into the wintery portion of the winter season. What gives?

Seattle weathered the storm in various ways, largely dependent on location. Downed trees and power outages were the primary problems, as were flooding and mudslides. Seattle City Light reported 170,000 without power this morning. And, there were places that felt the effects of too much water falling too quickly. The Seattle Times and PI newspapers couldn't print their dailies because of power outages at the presses. The online editions didn't suffer, however. As for us, the central city was fine this morning, as far as I could tell - no power outages, no flooding.

Redmond and Bellevue were another matter. All of the intersections I went through while driving around this morning were without power, which means no functioning traffic lights. Lots of old trees, fences, signs, and the like were uprooted and toppled. Someone calling into KUOW reported the biggest traffic backups in Bellevue to be because of people lining up for gasoline (2hr waits) or Burger King.

Island County and the Skagit Valley are apparently doing worse than King County. The same situation there: power outages, downed trees, and the like. The problem there is that there's more damage, and people are more spread out, which means it's harder to get power and services back up to a lot of people quickly.

It's been an interesting November and December, from the weather standpoint. Who knows what the new year will bring?

Christmas Song Lyrics Are Weird

Radio stations like Warm 106.9 are playing non-stop Christmas songs this month, so I've gotten my fill of holiday tunes. But, I've noticed some songs are rather weird, when you really listen to them.

One example is that festive, merry song, "It's the most wonderful time of the year." The lyrics begin:

It's the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you
"Be of good cheer"
It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Ah, yes - what canonical visions of the holidays! But then things get weird:

There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories
of Christmases long, long ago.

What? Ghost stories? Glories of Christmases long ago? What is this, a song about Blackbeard and stories of plundered treasure? War and strife? What gives, song? I don't think I've ever told someone a ghost story over a Christmas gathering, especially having to do with past glories of some sort.

I must be missing the point...who can enlighten me?

The Darfur Wall

A friend of mine, Jonah Burke, recently launched a web site that smartly combines technology, novelty, and humanitarianism. The Darfur Wall is set up to collect aid money in honor of the victims of genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

The premise is simple: 400,000 gray numbers are on the virtual wall, one for every victim. For $1, you can light one up. From the site:

The numbers 1 to 400,000 cover the 40 panels of The Darfur Wall. Each number represents a person killed in Darfur. By donating $1 or more you can light a number, turning it from dark gray to brilliant white. As we light the wall, we acknowledge the importance of each life lost, we cast light upon a tragedy too many have ignored, and we overcome one barrier to peace.

Better yet, Jonah & co. are paying the costs of running the site, letting 100% of the proceeds go to four organizations which are helping address the crisis in Darfur.

Please help spread the word, and donate a dollar (if not more) when you get a chance.

Bad Video Game Advertisements

Remember those old video game print ads? Remember how bad some of them were? Well, the folks over at 1up.com are doing some round-ups of the worst. What's sad: I remember several of these. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

A Second Snow Storm

It snowed again this week, this time Wednesday night. A lot of people in the neighborhood came outside around 10pm to make snowmen, throw snowballs, and enjoy the winter dusting that made the familiar look unfamiliar. The snow was transient, however: most of it had melted off by the next morning.

Seattle Snow 2006

So we had a bunch of snow in Seattle yesterday. A "bunch" here is just a few inches, but with a city that's not prepared, filled with drivers equally so, that can be more than enough to shut things down. And guess what? That's exactly what happened.

First, some pictures (not mine):

• Pug in the snow!
• Icy roads
• Snowy driveways
• Snow in mid-air
• Snow man...er, snow monster!

The fun began in an anticlimactic sort of way. On Sunday night, the weather reports were wishy-washy. Would we get snow? Would we not? No one was sure. Turns out that we did get some, but it melted before the morning commute was underway. During the workday, snow would intermittently fall, but nothing seemed to stick. People gazed at the snow outside of their windows, and then got back to work.

Then, around 5pm, the bottom fell out. Tons of snow started falling, and sticking. Cars filled the streets and packed down the snow into sheets of ice. Soon, cars were spinning out and traffic came to a halt. On the way out from work, I helped push a car that was having trouble climbing up a rather shallow hill. Looking back, I saw a long lineup of cars waiting to meet this same hill, one after the other. I didn't stick around to see who else would end up being stuck.

I thought I was being smart by taking the bus in the morning. "Surely," I thought, "surely the buses will be prepared to truck folks home in this inclement weather." The short answer: they weren't. The buses didn't have chains on them, and it took hours to deliver the chains to the buses before they could commence their trucking.

After about an hour and half of waiting outside in the cold, snowy weather, a generous soul came by and offered a ride to those going to his neighborhood...my neighborhood! I hitched a ride along with two others. Fortunately the guy had a 4-wheel-drive car, so I felt pretty good about our chances of getting home without incident. Now, you'd think that we'd be home in no time, right? Wrong. It took 30 minutes to get from the parking deck to the highway, all because of traffic jams. Once on the highway, things were eerily fine; sure, there was snow on the road, but there was very light traffic. We arrived in our neighborhood about 15 minutes after hitting the highway, happy to finally have returned home.

Sound bad? Actually, we were some of the more lucky commuters yesterday. Another guy on my team took 4 hours to get from work to home (a trip that likely takes 20 or so minutes, usually), in large part to the other drivers who couldn't navigate the snow and ice. Even worse, I heard of one person who lives in Lynnwood that left work at 5pm, and arrived at 4am. That's right - 11 hours of wintery commuting hell.

The moral of this story? The only one I could glean was: at the sign of a snowstorm with accumulation, leave early. Someone that left before the 5pm downpour got home in a matter of minutes. Ah, hindsight: I shake my fist at thee!

Seattle Toll Study: Don't Mix Apples With Oranges

The results of a recent transportation study were reported on last week. The study involved 275 households being given a pre-paid "driving" account, which was then deducted from based on where and when people drove. If drivers had leftover money in the account at the end of the month, they kept it. The result: people drove less.

Great! But what I fear is an apples-to-oranges translation of this study's findings to defend a traditional toll plan in our region. And I don't think the translation holds water.

• The study had people starting with extra money they didn't have. The incentive was "drive less, and you get to keep some of this money." Toll systems are closer to "have the same as you did before, but now pay up to drive here." That's just not the same.
  
• Certain roads around the region are in very high demand during peak hours. The SR-520 and I-90 bridges across Lake Washington are two great examples. Because of this demand, I believe that, unless you charge exorbitant tolls, most people will continue to use these roads (decreasing the value of a toll as a way to reduce traffic).
• I'm not a fan of tolls costing people of different means and income the same amount. People making $20,000, $200,000, and $2,000,000 annually, and having to pay the same amount to cross a bridge daily, means that the $20,000 person feels a much bigger impact on their bottom line than the other two people.

So, let's implement a system that takes advantage of the study's findings, and addresses some of the disparity issue.

First, let's actually implement a system similar to the one in the study. People get an account (funded from a portion of the transportation budget) that they can draw from when they drive. If they don't spend it all in a given month, kick it back to them (or let it rollover to the next month, at least). The lure of "free money" to cut down on unnecessary trips, or to carpool, will be high.

Second, make tolls proportional to the car being driven. Yes, a person crossing the 520 bridge in a car worth $3,000 should pay less than a person crossing it in a car worth $30,000. To put it another way, don't make the person with less means pay the "full price" of the toll.

Third, make the toll rates simple and easy to understand. Don't charge a toll on every road driven. Make it peak time. Make it only on the roads where you actually want to reduce traffic. Make it easy for someone to understand what & when they pay.

Finally, make the system accessible to all. If folks don't have or want the "deduct from the account" system, or other automatic way of paying the toll, offer other ways to collect money for the peak roads and times (cash, for example). Don't penalize visitors, and don't penalize those who don't wish to sign up for an automated account.

Yes, Seattle has a traffic problem. Yes, tolls are a tool to help address the problem. But let's use this study as a springboard to think about new, creative ways of applying tolls, instead of falling back to something convenient, tested, but not necessarily great.

Uncle George

It's official, you can now call me Uncle George (or Barba Georgis, if you're Greek): we have a niece! Zoe Grace was born early this morning, to my relieved-sounding and happy sister and brother-in-law. She came practically right on time (her due date was tomorrow).

We wish we could be there, but technology will have to bridge the distance for now, until next month. We already have one picture, courtesy of a camera phone. I'm sure we'll have many more (and videos too!) after the holidays.

Now, how shall I start to spoil this niece of mine? Hmm...

No Amazon XBox Deal, And Uncool Consolation Prize

OK, so I didn't get Amazon's $100 XBox 360. Nor did seemingly 99.9% of digg readers who are posting their complaints about Amazon "crashing" or otherwise exhibiting high latency.

I did get a claim code for the Mongoose mountain bike for $60. But I already have a bike. Oh well. Anyone want it? If so, contact me (zorbadgreek a-t yahoo d-o-t com). Note it expires tomorrow, 11am.

Categories, Categories

Administrata: So I switched to using categories to tag posts based on their topic. This means more category pages, and pages that are easier to manage. You'll find the category views as links at the top of the page.

OK, back to your regularly scheduled blog.

Coco La Ti Da

We checked out Sue McCown's new restaurant-meets-dessert-bar, Coco La Ti Da, last Saturday. I was disappointed a few months ago when Fork unfortunately closed, so we were eager to see what the new place was like. Fortunately, we encountered a restaurant that teems with energy, friendly staff, cozy tables, and really, really good desserts.

Coco transformed the dark, brown interior of Fork into a brighter, more whimsical space. While the mural on the walls is preserved, new lighting has been added, and some of the furniture has a more retro-modern bent. The far room has become a sort of lounge, with three couches, small tables, and curtained walls and ceiling. In front of the kitchen is the dessert bar, displaying some of Coco's recent creations for to-go customers.

After a few minutes' wait, we were seated in the far room and were immediately greeted by a friendly waiter. I counted no less than 6 staff (not including Sue) present on Saturday night, each buzzing around, describing dishes to customers in a friendly manner or making order suggestions. The staff seemed quite knowledgeable about the dishes, and were eager to answer questions about the menu.

While the place does serve many savory dishes, we went straight for the sweets. They come in three varieties: plated versions (centerpiece desserts with sauces and powders that surround it on the plate), baby cakes on a stick (just what they sound like), and mini parfaits (tall shot glasses of layered goodness). We ordered a small French Press coffee, a plated Coco La Ti Da (their namesake), and a couple of the mini parfaits.

The pastries are not large, but they make up for their size in creativity, flavor, and richness. You're getting a fairly gourmet experience here: the desserts are creative, the ingredients are unique, the presentation is attended to, and the overall balance of flavors and textures is certainly considered. And, with a large enough party, you can sample many sweets and not fill up too terribly much.

Service was pretty spot-on; we didn't see any mistaken orders delivered around us, and there was only one mix-up at our table (they accidentally brought two Coco La Ti Da's - I now curse myself for rejecting them).

As for price and atmosphere, Coco is somewhere in between everyday place and special occasion. It's a great weekend-evening-after-the-movie-or-show kind of place, but you don't have to get all dressed up to go. We were quite comfy in our jeans, and many others were as well.

So, I'm sad Fork's gone, but I'm happy with what filled its place. Go visit Coco, talk to Sue, and enjoy her culinary creations.

Dear Clearwire, Please Stop With The Light Show

Dear Clearwire,

It's cool and all. You're allowed to set up shop in Seattle and sell your wireless Internet service. That's fine. But what's with the laser light show on the Space Needle tonight? I mean, come on, the disco light effects alone were pretty disturbing. And, considering the storms we've been having, I'm sure several people mistook the lights to be some sort of interstellar distress signal.

So, Clearwire, please stop with the light show.

Oh, and by the way, no one's going to switch to your service until you either a) make it cheaper and faster than cable or DSL, or b) don't require people to carry around a book-sized modem with them wherever they want to connect.

Thanks,
--George

"The Stranger"'s Terrible Election Endorsement

As most people know, next Tuesday is mid-term election day. It's a journalistic tradition for newspapers to endorse candidates and propositions on the ballot. One of Seattle's major free weeklies, The Stranger, has done just that. And, while most of their endorsements are fine by my book, one really stands out as, well, just plain bad.

Here's the background: the 43rd district in Washington State includes some of the more liberal portions of Seattle, which itself is a fairly liberal city. For a while now, Ed Murray has been one of the Democratic representatives to the state House for the 43rd. For 2006, a seat opened up in the state Senate, and Ed Murray decided to run for the seat (which he'll most likely win). This means Murray is vacating a House seat, which will almost surely go to a Democratic candidate.

Our primary last September pitted 6 Democratic candidates against each other. The result was Jamie Pedersen edging out Jim Street and 4 others for the nomination, with 23% of the vote. You could argue that 77% of the Democratic voters were disappointed, but you can also probably bet that most of those voters will vote Pedersen in.

Enter The Stranger. From their election endorsements:

Admittedly, there is one Republican we just can't resist endorsing. In the 43rd District race our Democratic candidate of choice, Stephanie Pure, was eliminated in the primary. As a consequence, the state legislature will once again lack a voice for today's youth. Which is why we're issuing a rare Republican endorsement: vote for Hugh Foskett, the Republican running against Jamie Pedersen for this open seat in the Washington State House of Representatives. Foskett is a sophomore at the University of Washington and, as we've seen over the last few weeks, Foskett is quite literally in touch with today's young people.

Wait, Stranger, you're endorsing a Republican college student? For one of the most liberal districts in Seattle?

I don't want to marginalize Foskett, but he's a sophomore math major at UW. He doesn't appear to have any background in public service (at least, his web site and voter pamphlet statement don't seem to indicate any). He's running on two issues (education, environment) with fairly generic positions. And, for the sake of argument, if he's elected, will he just drop his studies when Olympia is in session each year?

Pedersen is a lawyer, active in many local organizations, and has worked for marriage equality and GLBT issues. He's not my ideal choice, as I believe he's less progressive on issues outside of the GLBT space, but he's the best on the ballot in my opinion.

Since The Stranger's pick during the primary, Stephanie Pure, didn't get nominated, why not recommend that people write her in? Isn't that the best way to cast one's vote towards the person who one feels is best qualified?

I'm Fed Up With Political Ads

The November elections are but days away, and while I know how I'm going to vote, I also know I'll be entering the voting booth with tense shoulders, a headache, and a sneer on my face. The reason? Political ads. They're everywhere.

They show up in my mailbox, as printed multi-color cardstock ads. They appear as pre-recorded messages on my answering machine, from people who I think I'm supposed to relate to, or otherwise trust the opinion of. They appear on television, with large red titles, slow-motion video, and voice overs more appropriate for thriller film previews than anything else. They appear as signage on the side of the road. They even appear online, when I browse to local sites like the Seattle Times, ironically while reading an article about online political ads.

It's sad that there's a drag-race of sorts in the arena of political advertisements. Clearly campaigners must have evidence that these ads work, so they're pouring bucketfuls of money into all these channels, in an effort to sway the handful percent of undecided voters. And, most of the ads lately are much more in the "mudsling" camp, spreading fear, doubt, and uncertainty over anything else.

All I see in the ads is fear: fear that social security will be taken away, fear that terrorists will attack us, fear that immigrants will steal our jobs, fear that the economy will head south, fear that liberties we enjoy today will be gone tomorrow, fear of change, and fear of no change. Yes, we elect people to do certain things, and take certain stands that we want them to. But, I'm hard-pressed to find another job that someone has to apply for that depends so much on spreading fear about what would happen if the candidate was not elected.

So, until election day rolls around, I'll be shutting my eyes and plugging my ears next time I see or hear one of these ads. I've made up my mind as to how I'll vote, and I've done so without these multi-million dollar ad campaigns.

To Seattle's Metronatural, I "Say Wa?"

Not long ago I commented on Washington State's Dept. of Trade and Economic Development's Say Wa? Slogan. You know, I thought that would have been the only stuff about bad slogans I would have had to post. I guess I was wrong.

The geniuses at the Seattle Convention and Visitor's Bureau have spent $200,000 on Exclaim and 16 months to come up with an attractive slogan, to convince tourists and conventions to come and visit Seattle and spend their dollars here. The result?

Seattle: Metronatural

Oh my...

Plastered all over the Visit Seattle web site, the new slogan aims to elicit the combination of urban metropolis and natural beauty that exists in our city. I can't help but think of "Metrosexual" when I hear the word. And I'm sure a lot of others can't, either.

OK, great, fine...but what was wrong with Emerald City to do that? "Seattle: The Emerald City". Emerald, you know: green, for trees and plants and such. Perfect, right?

Here are some other fine ideas:

• Seattle: Please don't hate us because we're beautiful
• Seattle: Not as close to North Korea as you might think
• Seattle: Also a gateway to California!
• Seattle's awesome! It has lots of coffee!! OMG!
• Seattle: We still care about parks and stuff
• Seattle: Safer than Detroit, prettier than Des Moines

One positive note in all this naming mess: according to an article, Seattle's old travel-friendly name was Sea@L. Um, yeah, that one's pretty bad, too.

Seattle Fire Department Ignores Web Accessibility

For a while now, the Seattle Fire Department has been hosting a service that shows you real-time calls that are coming in. Well, recently they switched their "latest calls" view to be an image. John Eberly writes up the before and after and talks about the consequences.

"What's the big deal?" you may be wondering. Well, for starters, images are harder to process than text. You can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to convert the textual information in the image to actual text, but that's a bother and not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.

But there's a worse consequence: images with information, without text alternatives, aren't accessible. In other words, blind or low-vision people can't read this information anymore.

Yes, we have laws and regulations to prevent this. I'm surprised that the SFD decided to ignore these precedents when changing to an image. It's a change that is very easy for someone to workaround who really wants the information in a computer-processable way, but penalizes those that browse with screen readers who are simply after the information.

On John's advice, I've sent mail to the Seattle City Council and the SFD chief. We'll see what their response is.

The KUOW Fundraisers Are On Drugs

Let me explain.

Wait, first let me share that I'm a member of KUOW, which means I give them money because I think they provide a great resource of news, information, conversation, and entertainment. I totally understand the need to do fundraisers, as half of the station's money comes from individuals and foundations. So, yeay to KUOW and yeay to raising money.

Now, let me explain what I mean by "on drugs". In the span of a couple of days, I've heard the following:

• John Moe singing the music from Marketplace that they play when they "do the numbers", to signify that they're raising money. Then, transitioning to a fellow fundraiser singing while John pretends to "do the numbers" and report how the donations are going for that hour.
  
• Stories about how the pledge "premiums" have special magical powers. For example, the knit cap traps your thoughts and prevents them from leaving the vicinity of your head.
• Getting really really excited about pledge gifts' innate abilities. The adjustability of the messenger bag shoulder strap was mentioned with glee and feigned disbelief (aka "Shut Up!").
  
• Hyperactive reactions to phone calls being made to the pledge line while the fundraisers are on-air, such as "...and call in [phone rings], just like that person, yeah!, and donate to..."
• Goal math gone bad. I heard John today say something like, "If one person donates $5,260 dollars, we'll make our goal for the hour!"
  

More often than not, the on-air pledge drive sounds like it's reported by over-energetic, ADD people who are quick to go on a tangent on any old topic that crosses their minds. I'm sure the on-air fundraising isn't very fun, and hats off for sticking with it. But why does it have to sound like everyone's always high?

How We Ship Office and Windows

The New York Times has an article on how the Windows and Office teams at Microsoft are spending their last weeks in the product cycle getting their respective products ready for customers. While it's only a slice of the work the teams do here, it is a fairly accurate picture of the "endgame" of a software product cycle, at least in my experience.

Plus, it's fun to read articles which name people that you know, or get emails from, or both.

Always Documenting, Never Reading

I'm impressed by the number of ways there are to catalog one's experiences. There's Flickr for the photos of the recent party you visited last night. There's YouTube for posting videos of your pets doing funny things. Then, there's plenty of sites with user review sections like CitySearch where you can write a review of the new Thai restaurant you visited last week. There's forums like Craigslist where you can discuss the ins and outs of your hobby. And, you can journal your day-by-day life on your weblog, your video blog, and via podcasts. Heck, there's even ways to quickly record every thing you do in your waking life, with a mobile device and a service like Waymarkr.

With all of these cataloging options, where or when do you stop and read the information, not just your own but from others? I don't consider myself a proficient poster, yet I'm perpetually behind in reading the feeds I'm subscribed to in Bloglines (much like the stack of New Yorkers that taunts me from my bedside nightstand). With a handful of proficient posters' accounts, I don't see how someone who regularly records their thoughts, pictures, and videos online has time to read and view them all, and still have time to live the very life worth cataloging.

A big thing in the business world these days is roll-ups, or dashboards. Quick summaries of lots and lots of business data (sales, earnings, traffic, feedback) in easy to consume charts, graphs, and green/yellow/red key performance indicator displays. This approach (with the right heuristics behind it) can tell you which region is suffering with low sales, or which the most efficient factories are, or what the highest-reviewed product is, at a glance.

The world of blogging could take a page out of this book, and produce a way to view someone's collective blog/picture/video/audio output in one view. The idea isn't to zoom out to the point of seeing detail-less thumbnails and abstracts of what people are posting on their blogs, but instead to help me quickly see the salient bits of what someone is thinking, doing, and cataloging, and to help me focus in on what I want to read.

Not a month goes by without some newspaper, magazine, or blog writing about information overload and information management. Typically, solutions are along the lines of partitioning time and information, in order to see and deal with less at one time. I'm of the opposite belief; more information is great. Just give me a zoom slider so I can spend less time figuring out what to read or view, and more time reading and viewing it.

The Red Line Is No More

While driving by the corner of Olive and Denny recently, my eye spotted something different inside The Red Line, those purveyors of tasty sandwiches and pizzas. Sure enough, the place was undergoing some interior decoration changes, and a sign was up on the window:

Coming soon: Amante Pizza & Pasta

Immediately, scary thoughts crossed my mind. No more Red Line? No more coffee, pizza, and espresso within walking distance? No more Oscar parties? No more friendly staff and customers that you recognize from visits past?

In doing a little research, the Seattle PI seems to have the scoop. Apparently owner Katy Carroll has decided to call it quits (her partner, Derrick Aiona, left some time ago). Amante Pizza & Pasta is a local chain, which, as the name implies, is mainly focused on the pizza/pasta trade.

Now, that's the bad part. There is a good part. According to the PI article:

• This particular Amante will continue to serve Red Line's sandwiches, coffee, and free wi-fi.
• The place will be open 24 hours.
• A bar will be added.

Well, I'm now down from "severely disappointed" to "hopeful". Katy had a great thing going with The Red Line, and I'm sad to see her go. But Amante seems to be catering to local preference in keeping some of Red Line's signature dishes and coffee-shop-feel in place.

I'm anxious to see who wins: local preference (assuming people still dig Red Line's sandwiches and coffee) versus chain uniformity (repeat after me in a monotone: "Everyone must serve the same. We must conform"). I'll report back once we visit the place, but if someone beats us to it, let me know how it was.