Tuesday August 4th is the annual Seattle Night Out Against Crime. All over the neighborhood (and the city), folks come out of their doors to spend a evening with their neighbors. Streets are blocked off, lawn chairs are dragged out front, card tables are set up on sidewalks and lawns, kids play, chit is chatted, gossip is passed, potato salad is forked, and wine is paper cupped. For the last several years, I’ve bike toured the block parties of the neighborhood,…
A few years back, my family traveled to Vietnam in the days leading up to Tet, the annual lunar new year celebration. As temperatures crept into the 90s each day, we found eating was something best done early in the morning or late at night, with plenty of iced coffee to tide us over in the middle of the day. It was a routine easily recalled last week as Seattle experienced its string of 90-plus degree days. One steamy evening turned…
If there's one day every year that's "Wallingford Day", that would be today. Here's the line up: 10 to 4: Seattle Tilth's Chicken Coop & Urban Farm Tour. If you're at all interested in bees, goats, chickens, or just seeing cool stuff people build in their yards, this is a great event. I've been on the tour twice and gone on the tour twice. I'm always bummed when they schedule it the same day as the Wallingford parade / Mike Carton…
If you're reading this on a desktop computer, instead of a phone, you must have noticed things look a bit different. After almost seven years without a design refresh, I thought it was about time to clean things up. The new theme also makes it easier for me to add new features to the Wallyhood, and get a bit more creative with some articles (e.g., better use of photos and video). It's still a work in progress, I'll be tweaking it over…
Our Seafair parade enters its 66th year with the theme "Route 66". The drill teams are a lot of fun to watch. My daughter did drill team, so I went to ALL the parades (every weekend, all summer). Try to position yourself near the Wallingford Center, that's where they perform for the judges. If you like it, check out the International District parade, as the Chinese drill team is amazing there (dragons and tight choreography with hundreds of kids). For such a long tradition,…
Rodents killed our hot tub not once, but twice. Plywood isn't enough to protect it; they like the warmth. In retrospect, we should have wrapped the base in galvanized wire mesh, but the tub came with the house and we were too lazy to hoist it out of the ground for retrofitting. Anyhow, thanks to craigslist, at least it's gone (the power of "free!") Now we have 240 volts sitting there plus a hole in our deck. What next? Density of course!…