Have You Noticed This Place?

I walk past this place every time I go to visit squirrels in Denny Park.  It's on 7th & Denny, right next to the old liquor store, which is now a new liquor store.  I'm all for this "tasting room" concept.  It's a great way around this state's stupid and rigid liquor laws.  In other tasting rooms I've visited, families are welcome and a good time is generally had by all.  That's not to say that bars and taverns don't have their place in the world.  It's just nice to take the stigma out of consuming alcohol.  And having a few beers with friends and kids in tow doesn't mean you're an alcoholic.  Anyhow, I'm gonna visit this place soon.  It might be fun, it might be a drag, but it's open now. 

Your Sunday Squirrel

This last week was kind of rough.  At work, we're sending lots of people up to Alaska.  I get to call and tell them their flight itineraries.  I ended up calling around 250 people.  Most people are fine, many are even gracious and thankful that I'm calling to explain their travel plans.  Some are not fine at all.  I have people hang up on me, people pretend that they can't speak English, people pretending not to be themselves, people with terrible phone manners and people who genuinely can't speak English.  There was even a guy who went all psycho and swore at me for half a minute before I could get him to stop.  Next week, I get to do more of the same.  But the best thing about it is that I get to set up in one of the company's conference rooms.  It has a great panoramic view of Elliott Bay and you can also see my apartment.  I'll be done with all the calls by next week and I can't wait to not talk on the phone for a long time.  But I'll miss the view.

Above is a squirrel that I hope I haven't posted yet.  He was obviously out digging and I managed to get him reasonably in focus for the two seconds that he stood still.  

Your Sunday Squirrel

Once again, we have a snacking squirrel.  I've posted a lot of those lately.  I think it's because there's always so much foot traffic through the park when I'm there that the squirrels are pretty overwhelmed and won't hold still under any circumstances until they've gotten paid.  It might be because squirrels can't count any higher than one.  That's my theory.  See, if you approach them, you're just one predator offering a peanut for some unknown reason.  If there's more than one person in your vicinity, regardless of whether they've with you or not, you become many predators.  You may be offering the world's most delicious peanut, but the squirrel doesn't really care.  Many predators are frightening and they'll generally run up a tree in that vexing way where they keep the entire tree between them and you, so it's like they've disappeared.  Goodwill may be in your heart, but squirrels don't care.    

Rhodo-Rama!

I was just walking along in Denny Park the other day, searching for squirrels as usual when something pretty dazzling caught my eye.  It was this rhododendron:

It's gigantic and completely in bloom.  It's a shame rhododendrons don't smell nice like their cousins, azaleas.  Plus, they don't stay in bloom for long.  But for a short time, they're spectacular.  Then they go back to being a large plant that smells weird and likes gloom. 

I Saw This Movie and It Was Fantastic

The Cinerama is having their occasional sci-fi fest.  It is always terrific.  Sure, there's a lot of stuff that you don't want to see, but there are some tremendous films.  OK, so I've seen Forbidden Planet at least half a dozen times, but seeing it on the big screen makes it a new movie.  Yes, it's corny and the romantic sub-plot is almost as bad as Attack of the Clones and all the psychological mumbo-jumbo wears a little thin, but the special effects are really something to behold.  I mean, it's a 58-year-old film that holds up pretty well as an artifact to how we saw space travel/colonization before the space race even started.  Plus, the costumes are pretty cool.  All the crew members look like they work at some vintage gas station. It really was a visionary film.  And there was Robby the Robot before Lost in Space messed him up.

Oh, and I saw Wrath of Khan.  It does not travel well.  i remember it as an action-packed space-faring saga.  It is not.  

Your Sunday Squirrel

Hey, it's just a squirrel eating a peanut next to a patch of sunlight that was there only momentarily and then went away.  That's all!  I was finally able to retrieve photos from my camera courtesy of iPhoto, which has been for me generally completely useless.  Well, if it lets me share squirrels, then I suppose it's not so useless.

What Would You Do?

I was recently kicked out of my basement storage space.  I had been putting stuff down there for around the last 10 years, so it was a major pain to make space in my apartment for stuff that I don't need but can't throw out.  It's all up here now and I'm starting to look like a hoarder.  I did have to sacrifice my 78 record collection.  I had about 700 records.  None of them was particularly valuable, but once they're gone, they're gone.  And now they're gone.  Some of my neighbors got a few, but the overwhelming majority of them ended up in the trash.  There was just no place for them in my apartment.  And that's a sad thing.

It was only after I'd gotten the notice that I found out why I was getting the boot: they're going to grow weed in the former storage space.  I thought that maybe the nightclub was expanding, because the building management was deliberately vague about what was going on, saying that it was being rented as a "commercial space."  I should have known.  Now, I don't smoke weed.  I hate the smell and find that people who smoke too much of it tend to be idiots.  But otherwise, I have no moral objections to it.  In fact, I think that the upcoming legalization is a good thing.  I just don't want it anywhere near me.  Which is why I'm vehemently against this operation in my building.  I simply don't want it growing where I live.  It's a bad idea.

So they're going to grow it in the basement, which isn't exactly ready-made for something like this.  There's no drainage, no ventilation, scant electricity and barely any water.  So they're going to have to make fairly extensive modifications to the space.  This means that there won't be any actual growing happening for quite some time.  This is not such a bad thing, as I want to kill this thing before it gets any further along.  My question to you, sweet people, is what would you do to shut it down?  Keep in mind that pot is legal.  Also keep in mind that I have no intention of vandalizing or sabotaging anything.  I want to know if anyone has any good and legal ways of making this terrible, terrible idea go away.  Hey, if somebody wants to grow weed in an industrial or rural area, more power to them.  I just think that a commercial grow op in a residential building is stupid.  I mean, if something like this was happening in your building, how would you feel?  Not only that, but it's taking place directly below me.

I recently got some very good guidance from city zoning, so I might be able to shut things down for quite a while.  I'm more interested in something more permanent.  Let these dudes grow their weed somewhere else.  Any additional advice would be most welcome.        

Your Sunday Squirrel

OK, so I'm still having troubles getting my computer to recognize photos on my camera.  It's getting a bit frustrating.  I'm pretty sure it has to do with my recent operating system upgrade, which has been kind of a challenge.  Every program that I use regularly has needed modification or just plain doesn't work.  So once again, I give you an archival squirrel.  I'm hoping to have this resolved by next week, so I can break out the more recent squirrels, because they're very good.