what was your first clue?!?!

From the Department of Redundancy Department, I am revisiting yesterday's post because I found this article about the Tiger escape in the San Francisco Zoo that killed 1 and injured a few others. According to zoo officials, the wall seperating the tiger from people was too low. YA THINK! The tiger escaping and killing someone wasn't evidence enough of that fact? My favorite part of the article is right under the headline where it says that the wall being too short MIGHT have contributed. Really? I also enjoyed the part where it said the wall was "far shorter" then they thought it was. Little bit late to come to that conclusion isn't it? I'm sure that makes the vitcim's parents feel better too. And not only were they off, but the wall was about half the height that they thought it was! Not like it was a foot or two either. They were off by 8 feet on what they thought was a 20 ft. fence! I would think that someone would have wandered by on the way to feed the damn tiger and noticed that the wall seemed a little low. Lets hope that after these guys lose their jobs at the zoo that they aren't in charge of building the suicide-prevention fence along Aurora.

Tigers Oh My!!

By now I'm sure most people have heard or read about the tiger that escaped from the San Francisco Zoo. This story has made the rounds at very newspaper and broadcast. I haven't had a chance to go to the Woodland Park Zoo, located in 98103, and I assume that they don't have any tigers there, but I'm sure they are looking into all their safety barriers after this news broke. Imagine enjoying a leisurely stroll through WPZ and enjoying all that comes with it, only to have tiger escape and maul you to death. Equally as crazy, think about witnessing that from inside or some place else. All I know is that there are probably a lot of people who have some explaining to do.

Dad Watson's knows best

Surprisingly I made my first trek to Dad Watson's today. It's in a great location on Fremont Ave. across from the Dubliner. Also a surprisingly large crowd for a day-before-Christmas lunch. Obviously the work crew was caught off guard as their 3 person staff was struggling to keep up with all the customers. It was probably worse for the one cook that they had working and putting together an almost full restaurant's load of orders. I'm going to to reserve my judgements on the service until I get a chance to come in when they have a full staff working. The food was great though. I also didn't try any part of their large beer selection, which includes nitro beers. I'll revisit those aspects next time I find myself there.

revisiting...

an older post regarding a new park they were building in Fremont, I stumbled across actual park Web site. It has a name now too, the Fremont Peak Park. Apparently it is now open for business. I found this link while browsing a neighbor blog in Ballard. I had actually forgot about it, but now I have a renewed energy on trying to make it there to check it our for myself. I'll cut this post short now, not only because my last one was so long, but because since I haven't been there yet I don't have any worthwhile comments to make.

Where do I begin...

So I was doing some local blog browsing in the local papers and came across this article in the Seattle Times. I'm not sure where to begin with this article because there are so many things worth mentioning/venting about. Anyways, the story is about the Aurora Bridge that connects Fremont to Queen Anne. Long story short, our state government is dedicating $1.4 million to building a suicide-prevention fence along the bridge. Without trying to sound insensitive, why?!?!? Not because I am in favor of people killing themselves, cause I'm not. It just seems like there is a better use of tax dollars than blocking one method of suicide and presumeably leading them to another. I'm no expert in suicide, but it seems to me that building this fence is just going to delay the inevitable. What person, who is obviously down on his luck is going to go the bridge for that fateful jump only to realize that a fence has been built and then all of a sudden realize that their life is worth living? Not saying it won't/can't happen, but I'd be willing to put my money on the fact that they will be able to think of another method finish the job. I'm not doing a real good job of being sensitive, I know, but I like to think of it as being realistic. My point is that people who want to kill themselves for whatever reason it may be... are probably going to find a way to do it no matter what our government tries to do to prevent it. That's all.

The peak of amazement, however, came from reading the part of the article that talked about previous suicide-prevention methods which included putting up signs encouraging people to seek help and installing phones on the bridge to call whomever helps with these kinds of things. My mind was pretty well blown after reading that. I would love the opportunity to sit down over a nice frosty brew(I'll even buy) with whomever thought that was a good idea and ask why. Thats it. Nothing else needs to be talked about. Just for my own curiosity. Just think of the man power that was wasted making and putting up these signs and installing these phones, and the problems that it could have been put towards. One possible alternative would be organizing support groups for depressed people, among other possibilities.

The one part of the article that was interesting to me from a fact standpoint, was the part that the bridge is the second most suicide committed bridge in the U.S... only behind the Golden Gate Bridge. Suddenly the time I was driving across the bridge and there was a lone woman walking along peacefully with police chasing after her made sense to me. Maybe she saw one of the signs or used the phone, I have no idea, but it looked from my standpoint that she was just minding her own business and the police were chasing for no reason.

Also, 2006 interestingly enough was tied 1972 for the 2nd deadliest year with 9 suicides. 40 people have jumped over the last decade, but compare that to the 25 at the Golden Gate Bridge and we're getting dominated (thankfully I might add).

Well I just reread through this whole thing and I suppose I should end this post/rant now and stop talking. Anybody who reads this(if anybody even made it all the way through), I would be curious on any feedback/opinions.

Fat Facts

I was doing some browsing for other 98103 related blogs and came across this article in the PI archives from September. With all the talk about the ever growing obesity rate across the country, the residents of 98103 can be proud that we are the thinnest zip code in the Seattle area. According to the article, a lot of it has to do with the close proximity of fresh markets and the availability of fruits and veggies. Central Seattle and Bellevue are under 10% obesity rate, while residents of south Seattle are over 20%. Burien, Kent, Renton, and Federal Way zips all check in with over 25% obesity rate. Check out the map to see info on the whole area.

kinda makes you wonder

I was browsing the P-I today and came across this article about some of the restaurants in the Seattle area who have been cited for health code violations. The article is a little more in-depth then I would even care to know. It got me thinking of how many times I have eaten at a restaurant that had less then ideal food handling practices. The article talks about cockroach infestation, sick workers, amongst other violations. Anybody who has watched Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey has seen some of the disgustingness that can happen. Luckily, none of the restaurants in the Fremont area were cited in the article. For now I'm going to stick with my food policy of "...see no evil..." when it comes to eating out. Seems like to best way to make sure I'm not paranoid.

its never too early...

to think about your New Years plans. Even though I hardly know what I'm going to be the following day most of the time, this is just one of the activities going on around Fremont for New Years. Nectar will be hosting its annual "Off The Hook New Years Eve Bash". Sounds like it is going to have a couple live funk bands that will keep the party going. This will be my first Seattle/Fremont New Years experience, so I'm pretty excited to see what all the bars have to offer. I imagine it will be a larger/wilder then normal crowd, so I'm planning on getting there early.

isn't that nice of them

Found an interesting article in the P-I today about apartments, rent, and housing around Seattle. Apparently we should all feel lucky because our rent is about $100 lower then the "expected" avg. rent was thought to be. I know I will sleeping better tonight.

Victory!

Ok, this doens't have a lot to do with Fremont, but it's close enough. For those who didn't know, the big WAZZU/Gonzaga game took place Wednesday night. Unfortunately, FSN decided against all reason to show the game to a wide and captive audience in the region. Needless to say, myself and a bunch of other Coug/Zag alumni migrated to the Village Pub in Magnolia. It was great because not only was it a great atmosphere and an even better game, it also served as the location for a pseudo-date. Don't worry, she was just as excited about the game as I was, so I didn't feel bad about not going out to the fancy dinner/movie routine. Plus who needs all that pressure anyways? It served as a great location for a low pressure, fun night. My only complaint is the amount of people there made it a little stuffy and uncomfortable at times, but overall it was a good night. I'd highly recommend it anytime you want a place other then your couch to watch the big game. They have TV's everywhere you look, even at every table so you don't have to worry about having a blocked view. The food was also real good, a little higher quality then normal bar food and the drinks were priced right as well.

A nice cup of Jo

I have to admit that I haven't had a chance to check it out for myself, but I have heard a lot of good things about a local Fremont coffee shop. Cafe` Ladro is the name. I've heard everything from a nice, friendly environment to overall quality of the coffee itself as just a few of the perks of hitting up this spot. It's located on 36th, so if you're already down in the main area of Fremont, it provides you a good place for a little caffeine pick-me-up. To be completely honest, I usually prefer these kinds of places over chains like Starbucks, SBC, and Tully's. I'll give another update once I get a chance to check it out for myself.

Oops...

So I was a little hard on the Mayor and City Council in my previous post. I found some pictures that made me grasp how much rain we actually took on. I still stand by my point that we should have been better prepared and should continue to work towards being better prepared.

Simply stunning

Shortly after publishing my previous post, I did some browsing of local blogs. I came across the "Big Blog" in the P-I to find this article that left me completely dumbfounded. Apparently our Mayor and City Council members aren't hip to the fact that inclement weather has a tendency to hit here in the winter months. One only needs to think back to the huge storms we had last winter which left thousands of people powerless and in some cases homeless. I'm not saying he is to blame for the flooding and everything, but it seems like after what happened last year we would have taken steps to better prepare ourselves for this kind of weather. I also understand that with the amount of rain that fell there were bound to be problems. I'm not sure what or who to blame for this. Perhaps it is pure ignorance, or government bureaucracy, or lack of funding but whatever it is needs to be fixed. Newsflash, Seattle has its share of bad weather. Get together, talk about it, and figure out something that we can do to not have as many problems when this kind of weather hits.

Rain Rain go away...

I'm sure you've all read or heard from some sort of media that its been raining in Seattle. Shocking, I know. This wasn't the rain that I had gotten used to since I've been over here though. Usually its just a normal drizzle that doesn't amount to much cause everybody is so used to it. Yesterday however was more drastic. You couldn't walk outside for more then a couple minutes without getting soaked. Couple that with the wind and it made it real uncomfortable to everybody. Even though we did have road closures, mudslides, flooding and other problems, it definitly sounds like the worst of it was in southwestern Washington on the coast. You can't even drive all the way down I-5 for the next couple of days because of some of the damage. Luckily, I live on the 3rd floor of my apartment complex, so I didn't have to worry about a lot of things that other people had to worry about (flooded basements, houses, etc.). I did figure out real quick yesterday when I went to catch my bus that it was going to be an interesting day weather wise when at the bottom of the stairwell in front of the door to exit the building there was a huge puddle that has overtaken the entire floor. Luckily it was all cleaned up when I got back and we didn't lose power because of the wind or anything. Between the snow over the weekend and the massive rain yesterday, this is shaping up to be an interesting week weather-wise.

Snow?? Seriously?

Moving over to this side of the mountains, I assumed that I had put my days a trudging through the snow behind me for the most part. I figured that there would be fluke days where we would get snowed on maybe, but not like it did on Saturday. Imagine my surprise when I looked out my window to see and Eastern Washington type snow fall. Lucky for me, it was mostly gone by later in the night, but still! Anybody who knows me can tell you my disdain for the white stuff. Hopefully this is just a one time thing this winter. I would rather have it rain everyday in the winter then have snow.

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