The Return of The Blog

It has been well over a year since I posted in this blog. Lately I've had the itch to hone my writing a bit more, so I am going to continue it. I know most of my audience will be Facebook friends and Twitter followers, but I hope to reach out to others who find my walkable life in Seattle, Washington worth closer inspection.

In addition to topics covering walkability and transit, I'm going to veer a bit into politics and general thoughts. While a marketing professional would decry such thin spreading of content, I merely wish to explore some ideas banging around in my head. But for now, enjoy this tale of nightly hikes and meats for sale!

This evening, just after the sky became completely dark, I headed up Phinney Ridge for a walk. I live at the bottom of the hill, and it takes about 10 minutes to walk up the steep climb. Right now, it's a perfect time for an evening stroll because temperatures have been higher than normal and conditions unseasonably drier. This is that time of night when the darkness allows walkers-by to peer into businesses that, while already closed, still have their lights on, allowing pedestrians to see almost everything inside. People are enjoying dinner at the 74th Street Ale House and strolling around Greenwood Avenue. I hop into Ken's Market.



Publix, back in Florida, got me spoiled on wandering the aisles of supermarkets, taking joy in the brand diversity and array of fine meats and produce. Ken's Market excels at charging more that average store-wide, but not more than people are willing to pay. In a walkable neighborhood, people love the convenience of a smaller grocery store they can reach, and they'll pay extra to not drive and fight crowds. Plus their meat selection, in my opinion, surpasses quality at the major chains like Kroger's QFC and Fred Meyer and Safeway. Tomorrow I'll return for a pork shoulder that I'll braise in my cast-iron dutch oven for dinner.

As I walk home, down the ridge, I listen to my podcast, Peter Day's World of Business, a BBC production. Halfway, I spot a chimney that my neighbor has sawed off halfway. Why would someone do this? If anyone has any ideas, please respond in the comments.

Well, that's it for now, but I'll write some more tomorrow. Maybe something on the price of oil or how my pork shoulder turned out...

Neighborhood Hopping, Seattle Style

I am a neighborhood hopper.  I live, work, and go to school in Queen Anne, like to eat at restaurants all over the city, and go out mostly in Downtown or Ballard.  On the occasional day, I’ll find myself venturing to Fremont or Capitol Hill for entertainment or even to Green Lake in an attempt to stay in shape by running around the lake.  I love that, even without a car, I am so close to an abundance of neighborhoods that offer a wide variety of things to do and eat.  I am never bored.

Queen Anne is over to the left, kind of in the middle. See how close it is to everything?

A typical week begins and ends with grocery shopping.  Because I spend the majority of my day either at work or school, I try to get my weekly cooking done over the weekends.  For this, I head to my friendly neighborhood Whole Foods or to Fred Meyer (if I’m lucky enough to convince someone to take me shopping).  I’ve been working on remembering my reuseable bags and can finally admit that walking to and from the store isn’t the chore I once thought it was.  City Girl 1 – Paper Bags 0.

My FAVORITE breakfast spot, Skillet Diner, just opened a second location in Ballard, so I've been spending a lot of my weekend time waiting in line to feast on the Little Rob!  

For you Seattleites who don’t know what that is, do yourself a favor and order one for Sunday brunch.  Ask for the breakfast potatoes instead of the side salad.  You can thank me later. 

Most of my weekdays are spent over near the Seattle Pacific University campus in North Queen Anne.  I work out at Stoneway Crossfit right off of campus and get my caffeine fix at Tully’s.  I'm going to Thailand in a few short months and love having this gym close to home so I can voluntarily get my butt kicked as often as I want.  Now that it’s getting a lot colder, I find it harder to make it to Crossfit and easier to make it to Tully’s for a steaming hot Americano and a pastry.  I'm sure I was meant to live in Paris with that attitude.  I guess that’s the next challenge for me to face!   

This week is Thanksgiving, which means family, food, wine, and...Apple Cup!  I'll be spending the holiday on Bainbridge Island and venturing over to Husky Stadium on Black Friday to watch my beloved Cougs defend their title.  Who really wants to shop on Black Friday when Washington rivalry football is happening anyway?

Butch says it all!

Soaking It All In (Even On Rainy Days)

When I tell most folks back home in Florida that I've moved to Seattle, they ALWAYS say something like, "Doesn't it rain a lot there?". I usually reply with, "not as much as in Florida". Even though these folks often have never visited the Pacific Northwest, they sometimes think they know better. The truth, according to climate statistics I gleaned from weather.com, is that there are more rainy days and hours than Florida, but Florida dumps almost twice the participation on the state in certain towns (like my home of Crestview).



I try my best not to let the rainy days spoil my enjoyment of my neighborhood, Phinney Ridge. Even when it's rainy outside, I can't help but enjoy walking to my favorite cafe, Cafe Vita, and letting that sweet, sweet java assuage my drenched soul. After I'm done there, I pop over to Ken's Market across the street to get my groceries for the evening.



On occasion, I like hang out with my buddies at the pub and kick back with a pint of the German stuff. Pröst has never failed in delivering such an order, and it too is withen a block of Cafe Vita and Ken's. My girlfriend and I even enjoy the local pizza joint, Ridge, named after our neighborhood. It's adjacent to Ken's Market.



While I may not live right by all these great spots in my neighborhood, and I actually have to walk a little under 10 minutes to get up the ridge to them, almost everything I need for daily life is right around my geographical niche. Even when it's rainy, I put on my windbreaker and find the gumption to get out it the world! A little Vitamin D3 never hurt anything either.

-Jimmy

How To Survive the Seattle Grey

As I alluded to in my last post, we have entered the illustrious grey season that Seattle is all-to-well known for.  The weather drives you to stay in bed longer, give up on your workout schedule, and drink a LOT of coffee (Hello Starbucks!) 

In an effort to battle the Seattle blues, I find ways to remind myself why I love this city so much.  Everything I adore is encapsulated in this time-lapse video created by a very talented friend of mine and fellow Coug, James Whelan, at F-Stop Seattle Photography.  If this doesn’t remind you why this city is so amazing, I don’t know what will.

You can also go to his website at www.fstopseattle.com to check out more mood boosting photos.

Enjoy!

Not Quite Ready to Live Without 4-Wheels

Getting around Seattle is fairly convenient if you live close to a bus line.  Walking is another option, but really only favorable on days without rain.  Sure, you can bribe friends with coffee and gas money to let you borrow their car or drive you places, but that is a tedious task that often doesn’t pan out.  I tend to fall on the side of walking.  Only on rare occasions do I catch someone who needs to go run errands and lets me tag along…in exchange for coffee, of course.

Now that the grey season is upon us, I am beginning to rely more heavily on a car-share program called Car2Go.  For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a program similar to Zip Car.  You sign up for an account and, once your driving record is verified, they send you a card with an RFID chip built in.  This is linked to a personal account and tracks the amount of time you spend in the car.  Car2go is extremely convenient for those of us without a car as your gas, insurance, and maintenance fees are all wrapped up into the bargain price of $0.35 per minute (more like $0.42 per minute with tax).

I love that you can reserve the car for 30-minutes before hand to give you ample walking time, and that they can be parked in any 2-hour parking spot within their defined city limits.  For Seattle, that goes out past North Seattle and as far south as the Georgetown neighborhood.  The best part - you don’t have to pay for parking! 

Pick a car, any car

When a Car2go isn’t available, I use the Uber of Lyft apps.  Both of these operate using a phone app – you enter your location, request a driver, and they pick you up.  You can see where the car is, a picture of the driver and their name, and the license plate number.  The apps track the trip and charges you at the end.  You can also rate the drivers.  Lyft is interesting in the way that they don’t automatically charge you.  Instead, they give you a suggested donation price at the end of the trip and you have 24-hours to make a payment and rate the driver.  Beware though – lowballing the drivers gives you a lower rating and you may not get picked up.

Lyft cars have cute, pink mustaches on the front to let you know that they are part of the program!

This is what the Uber app looks like. Similar to the Lyft app above!

Jimmy and I choose to get around Seattle very differently.  His way is really much more cost effective (and something I should adopt), but I’m not quite ready to give up the convenience of personal transportation!

A Streetcar Named Seattle

Living in Seattle often lends itself to walking from one place to another for daily life. After all, in the days before widespread use of cars and buses, residents got around just fine through a variety other means. They usually walked to the store, home and work. Additionally they took the street car from the extreme north of the city to its very south. Boat travel was also a must when needing to get from one of the islands to the Seattle Isthmus or navigating across the lakes.


 



These days, you can still navigate a lot of neighborhoods via walking, and Seattle is pursuing a revitalization of the street car in the South Lake Union, Capitol Hill and North Seattle neighborhoods.



 However, most people drive their cars to work and those who cannot tend to ride the bus. As a result, you have a lot of congestion on a few main arteries: Interstate 5, Interstate 90 and WA-99 (Aurora).
Aurora might be one the ugliest stretches of road in the entire city. You can almost feel the automobile's growing pains since its very invention along this stretch of tarmac.










 For those of us without daily access to a car, we usually take the bus to get to work. I ride 20 minutes north and south each day to reach the community college where I teach. Most of the time, it's not so bad. I swipe my ORCA Card, a prepaid plastic card with advanced electronics embedded, to pay my fair. For those without one (a minority for locals) they can purchase them online or at transit centers where they can put funds on the card or purchase a monthly pass. This monthly pass proves a better option for heavy users.












I find this daily habit fairly painless. But recently I have made the trip to work in my girlfriend's car, when she dropped me off. I will certainly and readily admit that a car ride is a more pleasant and comfortable experience. Sometimes on the bus you'll hear crying children, loud teenagers and weird conversations. The waft of weed might even drift your way. Also, I am prone to motion sensitivity. For many the opportunity to work on the bus would be welcomed, but if I read while moving I get nauseous.

I don't really want to ride a car every day to work, and, quite frankly, I would like to see most people either live near enough to their work to walk or use public transit. However, please, OH PLEASE, let's get away from the bus mentality and return to streetcars. The modern models are incredibly smooth. I believe I could actually work on them. We could even make them more comfortable if there were the political will and public financing available. I'm ready to spend my life advocating for such a transition, and I'm glad Mayor McGinn has made streetcars and rail transit a main priority.

I have thought about biking, and I may still purchase a bike one day and give it a go. My main contention, Seattle has hills galore. BUT, they have many bike trails for commuting throughout the city.


Maybe I'll get myself motivated to make the leap towards bikes. They say you never forget how to ride one...

Be on the lookout for a post from Kirsten about how she sometimes gets around Seattle, in a car. But... it's not what you think!

-Jimmy

Ditching the Car for a Reusable Bag

I’ve lived in Washington State for the better part of my life, moving from the frozen tundra of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to beautiful Bainbridge Island at the tender age of 14.  I was so excited to live anywhere that didn’t have snow, and gladly traded it for the grey days of Seattle.  From there, I went on to Washington State University and, after graduation, to San Francisco.  It wasn’t long before I heard the Pacific Northwest calling my name and returned home to Seattle.

Until this time, I had been reliant on a vehicle.  You can’t get around a secluded island or ice covered town with ease by walking.  I even found myself relying on it in SF – crazy because BART is such a great public transit system.  My car, nicknamed “Lulu the Malibu”, had been with me through the college years and my brief stint in California.  It was shortly after my move home that I sold her.  I had money in my pocket and I felt liberated!  That is, until I realized that I had sold my car and was living back home on Bainbridge Island.  I was living a repeat of high school.

The only logical remedy to this problem was to move into the big city.  Since moving to Seattle, I have lived in both the Capitol Hill and Queen Anne areas.  Each place has provided me with close proximity to grocery stores, gyms, parks, bus routes, and nightlife.

Like Jimmy, the biggest changes for me all revolve around grocery shopping.  I routinely forget those re-useable bags in my kitchen drawers and end up paying for the paper bags that break half way home.  On the days I do remember them, I end up buying the heavy stuff – milk, flour, spaghetti squash – the stuff I seem to live without on regular weeks but find oh-so-necessary when I have the proper carrying vessels.  Either way, walking home from the store ends up being a bit of a battle. A battle I plan to win one day.

In the next few weeks, I’ll let you in on how I made the switch to a walkable lifestyle and how I’m still working on that transition.