Why? I need to get away from the stress of owning a big home and yard that I can’t take care of by myself, with my work and travel schedule. And I really need to be closer to my office than the current exhausting 1.5 hr one way commute, now that my kids are done with school. And finally, it really is time for those kids to fly the nest, perhaps with a little help, but definitely find their wings.

My wish list isn’t really huge, but it’s not simple either. Close-to-downtown Seattle real estate in good neighborhoods can be ridiculously expensive.

• 2-3 bdrm, 2 bath condo/townhouse/cottage w/ full groundskeeping

• Sunny, well lit, open, prefer architecturally interesting to apartment-bland
• Usable kitchen for cooking/entertaining
• Hardwood or other non-carpet material floors
• Fireplace
• Deck or patio
• Covered parking or garage
• Laundry room on same floor as bedrooms
• Reasonably quiet location – not end of runway or on major highway
• Within 30 min of downtown

A townhouse is a plus, as is a soaking or jetted tub, a garage, and a view of a slice of green, mountains, or sound. High HOA fees are a minus, as are huge hive-like facilities with long hallways – not very dog-friendly.

I’ve found two I’ve loved but haven’t worked out:

The Bainbridge Condo is lovely. Totally lovely. It’s my gold standard. But, in the recession, not a single unit has sold and they’re all being rented out. This puts any single buyer at significant legal risk both from a underlying land perspective (owned by the developer) and from a HOA/assessment perspective.

The Ballard condo/cottage is a tiny, light, bright jewel. I also loved it. Apparently, though, contravening all customs re: condo ownership, there will be no community maintenance of grounds or building exteriors. Groundskeeping and the relative lack of headache is precisely why I’m looking at condos, so that is strike 2.

I’ve also found many I’ve really disliked, some for rather comical reasons.

The Capitol Hill condo had fabulous photography – and was, indeed, light and bright. It also had amateurishly installed Ikea cabinetry and closets, horrible kludged together bathrooms, and in a supreme triumph of idiocy, no *refrigerator* in the kitchen. Check the photo. There is no space for a fridge. Apparently the previous owner installed 18′ of cabinets and made do w/ under-counter wine chiller units in lieu of a fridge.

The Lake Union condo was in a style I really like – sort of the Dwell design/style, dark bamboo floors, re-engineered stone countertops, window seat, lots of light. Still, it was four stories. Count them. And the first bathroom was on the third floor. The shared kitchen/living room was about 12′x14′, and had about five cabinets; apparently residents have to choose between storing dishes or food.

Then there was the Fremont condo, which was also new and modern, but the copious back windows all overlooked a really seedy 7-11 and its filthy parking lot, and beyond that a head shop.

The inexpensive Normandy park townhouse condos were new and pretty and spacious, and conveniently positioned at the end of one of the SeaTac runways. How thoughtful for my travel schedule! And sleep schedule.

Anyway, I think I’ll take a break for a while, and only look when I see something stellar, avoiding any further emotional investment.

Note: I have a real estate agent. One on each side of the Sound, actually. I am perfectly happy with them, thank you.

Note 2: I am being heavily comment spammed lately. While I do review my comment moderation queue, if your comment disappears into the spam queue, I probably won’t see it to retrieve it, sorry – email me!

One of the reasons I really enjoy the ferry commute.

Back in April, inspired by my son’s slightly insane bike ride, I set a goal – to swim an open water distance swim. The swim I had in mind, the punishing 3.5 mi Puget Sound crossing, is not being held this year, but there are several lake swims scattered around the Puget Sound this summer.

I set my sights on the first one scheduled as a ‘maybe’. I completed it today – the Green Lake open water swim, a mile across the lake and back. My goals for the event were simple – to finish the race, and to not be last. I accomplished both, plus, I was very pleasantly surprised by my time. (Until, of course, I compared it with my 15-minutes faster high school mile time… LOL)

My wonderful mother was my companion, supporter and towel holder for the event – thank you, mom! While mom is not a distance swimmer, she is swimming a few events in August in the Senior Olympic Nationals, held at Stanford, so it was great having another swimmer cheer for me.

One woman she was chatting with while I swam asked, “If this is your daughter’s first open water event, why did she choose the mile instead of the easier half-mile?”

Sheesh. Some people. Why do people climb the TALLEST mountain in north America, or in the world, rather than one that’s half that high? If I could accomplish it – and I routinely swim more than that in training – of course I wanted to swim the longer event.

Shoot, I’d like to try the Puget Sound crossing. Catalina Island. Long Island. Maybe someday the English Channel! (although probably not) These aren’t because I love the activity so much – it’s because they’re the big mountains on the horizon worth climbing.

So, back to today’s swim. In some ways it was harder than I anticipated, and in some ways easier.

Please note that I am not in this picture, but just to the right, out of frame. This is on purpose.

The cold water, at about 68° was more of an impact than I expected. I chose not to get in and warm up, ‘warm’ being a bit of a misnomer. My initial plunge started me hyperventilating a bit and I had a hard time evening my breathing out and establishing a rhythm for about the first 200 yards.

Then I had a tough time staying on track. I know the drill, swim X strokes head down then 1 stroke head up to sight on a point across the lake, and I did 5:1, but I still tended to wander a bit, worse toward the end when I was more tired. The general lack of visibility in the murky water was a bit distracting, I couldn’t see other swimmers until I was nearly on top of them.

I got foot cramps a couple of time, which I never do in pool swimming, bit swam through those easily by just not kicking for a couple of minutes.

The distance itself was only a little tiring – and my shoulders are a bit achey tonight – but I expected that because this distance was unhelped by turns & pushing off the wall every 25 yards, like I do in the pool.

This is our finishing group. The swim went all the way across to the building at the other end, around a buoy, and back.

All in all, I’m very glad I did it. It was a low key event, 120 swimmers in the mile event, and folks were positive and supportive. I’ll do it again – maybe Lake Washington later this summer and perhaps the swim portion of a team triathlon in Olympia in September – both depending how my travel schedule works out this fall.

Zach took this Friday morning from the Bainbridge ferry as it exited Eagle Harbor – all photos and panorama stitching work are his. As always, click for larger versions.

Tom publishes the recipe in his Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen cookbook, and it’s been reprinted several places on the web, so I’m sharing it here as well.

Etta’s Cornbread Pudding

Cornbread:

¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus a little extra for buttering pan
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup medium-ground yellow cornmeal
½ cup grated pepper jack cheese
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons honey

Pudding:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter plus a little more for buttering pan
1 cup thinly sliced onions
¾ cup grated dry jack cheese
2 teaspoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
½ teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
2 ¼ cups whipping cream or half-and-half
4 large eggs
¾ to 1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. To prepare the cornbread: Heat oven to 425 degrees. Melt ¼ cup butter and set aside to cool slightly. Butter an 8-inch square pan with a little softened butter and set aside.
 
2. Combine the flour, cornmeal, pepper jack cheese, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In a second bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and honey. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring just until combined. Add the melted butter and stir into the mixture. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. When cool enough to handle, cut into 1-inch cubes.
 
3. To prepare the pudding: Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Put the cornbread cubes in a buttered 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
 
4. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a sauté pan over low heat and cook the onions very slowly until soft and golden brown, at least 20 minutes; stir occasionally. Remove from the heat. Scatter the onions, cheese and herbs over the cornbread. Whisk together the cream, eggs, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl and pour over the cornbread cubes. Let sit for 10 minutes so the cornbread absorbs some of the custard.

Notes: Dry jack cheese resembles parmesan and is nuttier than regular jack; you could also use parmesan or sharp cheddar but the flavor would change. You can make the cornbread and store it in the freezer, covered tightly in plastic wrap, for a few weeks until you are ready to make the pudding. The onions can be caramelized a day ahead and stored, covered, in the refrigerator. The pudding can be baked a day in advance and stored in the refrigerator, covered – we actually liked it better the second day. Before serving, reheat the pudding, covered with aluminum foil, in a preheated 375-degree oven until warmed through.

The story of the off season for Seattle has been injuries. Oh, and the utter collapse of Shaun Alexander’s career, but that one I sort of saw coming (more on that some other time).

Over the pre-season, guys seemed to be going down regularly. No where is this more apparent than with receivers. Not two years ago Seattle had too many receivers to throw the ball to. At the end of last season, Deion Branch went down; he’s still not back. After a long holdout seeking a contract extension, Bobby Engram came back, and went down. D. J. Hackett went to Carolina. This left Ben Obamanu and Nate Burleson as the only receivers with much experience. Obamanu went down in the preseason and is done for the year. Branch is week-to-week on when he’ll be back. This weekend, Burleson went down for the year. Yikes!

So, on to the game. Matt Hasselbeck, our plucky bald QB of Chunky Soup fame, has apparently developed a bad back, and didn’t play much in the preseason. It showed. The offensive line struggled with multiple guys out during the preseason. Coupled with a new running game (Alexander being gone, Julian Jones having been picked up from the Cowboys as a free agent) and well, the offense partly to mostly sucked.

The defense played ok; two of the touchdowns scored against the Hawks came on special teams. One was an sucker punch of a fake field goal pass to a defensive end who was so wide open even I could have caught the ball. The other was on a punt return on which I swear the Seattle coverage team looked like they were hoping the guy would just trip.

So as often the case when they go back east to play, the Hawks take the loss. I am slightly contented to remember that the Super Bowl season of ‘05 they started the same way with a crappy loss in Jacksonville. We’ll see.

The next two games are at home against two of the poorer teams in the NFC, San Francisco and St. Louis. My prediction? If Seattle doesn’t beat both teams, and soundly, it is going to be a long year.

Coupled with the Washington State Cougs only taking the WORST loss in Pac-10 history, it was a pretty dismal football weekend. I think it can only get better. It better…

This post pushes those limits, so stop here if you don’t want to go that direction.

Yesterday’s Seattle Times ran an interesting article detailing the shutdown of a suburban Seattle swingers’ club.

Apparently, this couple rented a home in a suburb of Seattle, set it up with all sorts of erotic paraphernalia & facilities, and started throwing parties.

They started out at just a couple of events a month, but quickly grew to two or three times a week, with as many as sixty guests at the more popular events. Neighbors continually filed complaints about noise, public nudity and parking violations, not to mention the festivities spilling over onto neighboring property.

Nothing conclusive came from those complaints, but city officers did note a possible issue with operating a business without a license, issuing a warning and then a citation, which finally shut the operation down.

Apparently the club was advertised online, and the hosts solicited donations at the door to help defray operating expenses like laundry service, housekeeping, groundskeeping & utility costs. The combination of advertising and cash exchange made it a business, in the eyes of the city.

As I read through through this, my reactions were mixed.

Naïve me was amazed that such clubs actually exist outside the pages of soft-core novels and magazines.

Practical me wondered why the heck this couple didn’t buy secluded property in the country, rather than rent a house in the suburbs, for their activities. Where was their landlord?

And homeowner me tried to put myself in their neighbors’ shoes. As most of you know, I’m a small-l libertarian, and believe that everyone has a right to do what they want in the privacy of their own home without government interference. “An it harm none, do as ye will.”

But even if my neighborhood is well-treed and somewhat secluded, do I want sprawling, noisy, well-attended sex parties next door, complete with noise, casual nudity, kinky strangers wandering my subdivision, cars blocking my driveway and detritus in my shrubbery?

Absolutely no way in hell!

I think those neighbors were amazingly patient. I probably would have plotted the perfect arson several months ago. Or worse.

Isn’t life in the suburbs grand?

Tent city 3 operates primarily within the Seattle city limits and tent city 4 is located outside Seattle, in the eastern outlying suburbs. Life in the tent cities is hard; the communities of up to 100 transitional residents are strictly regulated and secured, with a single guarded entrance and no drugs, alcohol or fighting allowed. No minors or pets are allowed in the encampments.

The tent cities are are typically hosted on the grounds of local churches, and are sponsored by community agencies, supplied with portable toilets, showers and dumpsters. Residents may use their own tents, or sleep in community tents that are gender-segregated. They are provided with bus passes for job-seeking and employment purposes. Hot dinners are often provided by local churches or charitable organizations, but in general, residents are on their own for daily supplies.

Not all residents of the tent cities are bums. Many of them work, they are simply too poor to afford rent. Unfortunately, the stigma of living in the tent cities is a barrier to getting and keeping a job.

The interesting and disconcerting thing about the tent cities is that they are required to move every three to six months. This, also, plays havoc with getting and keeping a job.

Here is the real point of my post. In my opinion, the tent cities are sad but helpful institution. If people cannot afford a home, and choose to camp, then yes, let’s provide them a safe place to camp and some infrastructure to help them do so in a sanitary fashion. The hope is that these people can someday get back on their feet.

The sad but not surprising fact is that Tent City 4 meets with stiff resistance wherever it goes. “Not in my backyard” seems to be the prevailing mentality. The encampment is currently scheduled to move to a Mercer Island church next week, and a group of island residents has gone to court to try to block the move. This is nothing new; residents seem to organize to try to block Tent City 4 every time it moves to its new location. (Tent City 3, with its more urban location, enounters less opposition.)

Would it make me a little bit uncomfortable to have a homeless encampment at the church a couple of blocks from my house? Honestly, yes. But I deserve to be uncomfortable. The difference between the folks in those tents and my family is as slim as the paper our paycheck is written on.

I am ashamed that the richest communities in Seattle can think of nothing but their property values and complacent lifestyle, and react in fear when asked to care for those who have less, who need help to get back on their feet. Safety and crime fears are unfounded; residents of these encampments are checked and the camps guarded. According to the police in host communities, there has been no measurable increase in crime in neighborhoods near any Tent City. The Seattle Times also published an independent investigation which found that the Tent Cities do not affect crime rates.

Pardon the preaching, but Matthew 25:35 says “Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs? He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’”

I simply cannot understand or respect people who have it in their power to do great good – and choose not to out of small mindedness, spite, fear, or ‘not in my backyard’ mentality. To those whom much is given, much is expected.

Host the damn homeless encampment. Give graciously, and learn from it.

Rain is considered a state-regulated resource, part of the public water system which encompasses rainfall to runoff to rivers to reservoirs. If there is insufficient runoff, then reservoirs, water supply and even fish habitat could be be affected.

Oh-kay.

I understand resource management, but this is rain. It’s falling from the sky, arbitrarily, unpredictably. No one owns it, controls it. Thank goodness, no one bills for it, but it’s probably only because tax-happy Washington state hasn’t thought of a way to impose a rain tax. (Shhhh!)

Does the federal government regulate the sun? And will there be international treaties governing use and movement of the air?

What’s next?