Andy Oakley

A couple of years ago Seattle added another professional sports team to its list – Seattle Sounders FC an expansion team in Major League Soccer (MLS). The last serious soccer match I saw was Manchester United playing Chelsea in a summer game in Qwest Field several years ago and before that it must have been Stoke City in Britannia Stadium a long time before. Suffice it to say, it has been a very long time since I’d enjoyed a proper football game.

It was a cool, clear and dry night and the lights of the stadium beckoned.

I was impressed by the level of crowd engagement (quite different from the previous soccer game at the same venue). Singing, chanting, horns, drums and rowdiness behind the goal; just like England. There are still a few subtle differences, however.

The whole lower level of Qwest Field was filled, a record mid-season attendance of more than 33,000 people. Good to see such a level of interest and support.

It was a good game and all the more enjoyable to see the Sounders win 2-1.

Sounders game set on Flickr.

I love these PEMCO commercials: “We’re a lot like you”.

http://www.werealotlikeyou.com/

Anyone in Seattle knows the Space Needle, downtown monorail and a few other things were built for the 1962 World’s Fair. The World’s Fair is an extravagant event that throughout history has left several major cities across the US with large, oddly-shaped landmarks and a legacy to tell to children for generations.

Asking around, I’d not been able to find anyone who has the slightest recollection of any World’s Fairs since the early 1980s. It turns out that since Vancouver, BC in 1986, all subsequent fairs have been in other parts of the world. The World’s Fair Museum site at expomuseum.com has the full details.

A trip to Shanghai in 2010 does sound rather tempting.

Seafair can mean only one thing: the Blue Angels are back in town and they have been roaring over the city all week during practice.

The contrast is delicious: as a city we’re proud to have recently-passed plastic bag ban (which is a good move) and yet today we’ll all gather and watch a fleet of F/A-18s each burn some 1300 gallons of jet fuel for the show along.

(I know that plastic bags are largely made from ethylene, derived from natural gas, and the petroleum by-product used in the process, naphtha, would probably just be flared off otherwise, but still, the ban is more about changing habits to cut down on wanton excess and wasteful habits.)

Bonus fact: Over the course of a year, the Blue Angels use 3.1 million gallons of fuel for transportation, training, shows, etc. Wow.

We had a great dinner last night at the newly opened Olivar restaurant on Capitol Hill.

The food was excellent. A range of small and large plates of French/Spanish descent, with attention to detail in presentation and an assortment of Spanish wines. I particularly enjoyed the arugula, beet and goat cheese salad, the stuffed pork chop and the hanger steak.

Interior decor was a pretty cool, the place was very busy for only its second week and a visit by a visibly-but-not-overtly-proud Chef Thomelin was a nice touch.

(Footnote: I was mistakenly looking for ‘Olivars’ which seems to mean almost nothing on the web)

Seems it’s not only Seattle seeing the rising trend in tagging. The Kirkland Weblog reports an increase on the East side too.

I am impressed that police departments log every reported tagging event. Combined with some local population information, I wonder what some basic data mining might turn up.

Useful links:

• Seattle graffiti reporting hotline. 206-684-7587.
• The Graffiti Nuisance Ordinance ‘encourages the rapid cleanup of graffiti [...] to prevent its spread through the community’

Promotional brochure, 1976, originally uploaded by Seattle Municipal Archives.

Seattle. You’re going to like it a lot.

Over the last few months there’s been a notable rise in the amount of graffiti in Seattle. It’s a shame for a city that was once almost entirely free of the affliction but I’ve not lost hope. For a while, it seemed like it could be just a neighborhood-specific thing; perhaps some kids getting to the right age to be making trouble. But looking around it seems as though it’s a city-wide problem (supported by the city’s cleanup numbers, up 44% year on year). That brings the local-effect conclusion into question.

To their credit, the city has done an impressive job of cleaning up within a few days. The behavior continues but it’s far better than letting it run unchecked.

Reluctantly jumping onto the bearish bandwagon, I do wonder how much of this can be attributed to a flagging economy. A can of spray paint costs less than a movie ticket, a couple of lattes or an album on iTunes and I wonder whether it’s a cheaper form of entertainment, thrill included. On the upside, if this is the case, it likely ends at some point – either with the city cleanup fund outlasting the taggers assets, or with an economic recovery to more comfortable times.

Perhaps the most unexpected tags I’ve seen are the ‘Obama 08′ messages on mailboxes and underpasses. All I can say is those responsible had better be voting in November.

It’s hard to know exactly what transpired during the altercation at the Critical Mass event this weekend, accounts seems to vary depending on who is talking. I did enjoy reading the driver’s point of view however:

While a some cyclists I’ve spoken with have written Mark off as another indignant road-hog, Mark says he actually used to be a bike commuter when he lived in Seattle a few years ago. “I sympathize with [cyclists’] cause. I ride bikes too. I’m a liberal hippie democrat,” he says, adding “I’m gay, the person with me was a lesbian and we were a attacked by eco-terrorists. It’s the most Seattle thing that could have happened.