In May 1994 i was preparing to ride a week long Seattle to Spokane bicycle ride called Trek Washington. I had previously worked as road staff on the ride, and related rides. I knew many of the volunteers and HAM radio operators.
One of them, Anthony, KB7UQY, announced that he was going to lead a training ride on Memorial Day. Anthony was a great guy and his ride was popular; many people signed up because the ride was up Hurricane Ridge on the Olympic Peninsula. One of the important parts of riding across the state of Washington, and the most concerning for most people, was crossing the mountains. In mid-June we were going to ride over the North Cascades Highway: it's two mountain passes at 4,500 and 5,500 feet, so getting some climbing training was important.
Anthony was a monster rider; he once told me that he didn't feel like it was worth going out for a ride shorter than 140 miles. Our upcoming ride, Trek Washington, was on a different scale: 385 miles across the state of Washington in six 60 mile days.
He had planned to start this Memorial Day "training" ride at the Dungeness Spit in Sequim, quite a long way from Hurricane Ridge. When people saw that, many canceled. I told him that i thought it was because a lot of people were going to have problems with an 85 mile ride that included a 6,000 foot climb. He told me he thought i could do it. I thought i could too, that wasn't the point.
My friend Dianne and her new boyfriend Micheal decided to ride from Seattle to Port Angeles the day before the ride, camp, do the climb, then ride home the following day. I thought that was a neat idea! When i talked to them, they didn't really know how far it was to PA and they were traveling very light, planning on going out to eat while they were there, but they were excited and ready to play it by ear.
I was very excited about the ride. On the morning of the ride an acquaintance named Kirk picked me up in his van and drove me to Sequim. His wife and kids came along in the van, they were going to spend the day having fun, and then meet Kirk at the top. When we arrived at Dungeness Spit, only a handful of people had showed up.
I was somewhat surprised to see Johnnie Moss (KB7CTI, now a silent key) in the parking lot preparing his bicycle. Johnnie, as well as a committed HAM, was a committed bicyclist. He found it a great way to manage his diabetes, but he also loved it and rode many organized rides with a passion. But Johnnie was a very large man and people who didn't know him were always very surprised to see him on a bicycle.
"I need the training." He told me that morning. Certainly, we all did, but i was still surprised to see him on a ride this intense. It took quite some effort for Johnnie to get over the big climbs and he was extremely slow. But he loved to go fast on the downhills. Once, when i met him at the bottom of Stevens Pass after a ride he walked up to me, got right in my face and said "FIFTY-FOUR!" Johnnie was a challenging person and lots of people had a tendency to avoid him. I'm ashamed to say i did a little as well, although i felt something of a connection, perhaps just through the Aspergers.
As we prepared to set out from the parking lot in Sequim it was about 70 degrees with bright sunshine, we were all wearing short sleeve jerseys and shorts. I had a pair of tights with me and a heavy fleece jacket for the descent.
Kirk and i rode out together. But first, i had this great idea, i gave my heavy fleece jacket to Kirk's family to carry in the van for me. I would get it from them at the top, for the ride down.
It was a gorgeous ride, 35 miles on the old highway from Sequim to Port Angeles, through farmland sprinkled with forest and peek-a-boo water views across to Victoria. Kirk and i quickly dropped back from Anthony's bunch and rode together. Johnnie soon dropped back behind us. Of course we left the rain shadow, and as soon as we turned towards the National Park in Port Angeles it started to rain pretty hard. Kirk and i started climbing and it kept getting colder. We never saw Johnnie.
The first part of the climb is a very steep, short section that gets you up to about 1,500 feet. We met Dianne and Micheal pulling out of the campground at 1,200 feet. They looked awful. They had had a very difficult ride up the night before at the end of the 90 miles from Seattle. They didn't realize that the campground was a couple of hours ride from town, and up 1,500 feet, so for dinner they had eaten all of their food for the climb, they were heading up with nothing to eat. The four of us rode together in the rain. The rain turned to sleet as it got colder at the higher elevations.
By the time we got to the National Park ticket booth it was sleeting and snowing pretty hard and i knew i was going to wind up hypothermic if i continued riding. I wanted so badly to ride this climb, but, sadly, i sent Kirk & Dianne & Michael to ride on and i stopped to wait for Kirk's wife to drive by with my jacket. I stood, kind of dejected, under the overhang at the Park entrance for what seemed like hours and hours, waiting, while tourists in rental cars and RVs drove through, heading for the top.
The rangers kept giving me the evil eye. The snow continued and even got heavier. I did wonder a bit how Johnnie had gotten in front of me, because he never passed the ticket booth. Somehow he must have gotten ahead and was pushing it up the mountain in his typical, surprising, but dedicated way.
I waited a long time. Almost 2 hours. Eventually, Kirk's wife and kids came and gave me my jacket. They also gave me a sandwich. It was late in the day and she offered me a ride to the top. I had a hard time deciding, because i really wanted to complete the ride, but it didn't seem like the best idea. I ate the sandwich trying to convince myself to make the intelligent decision and climb in the van. Finally i just jumped on the bike and took off into the falling snow, heading up the 4,500 climb feet to the top. I don't think i even said goodbye!
I struggled, of course. I took a few short rests, but i just turned the cranks and pushed on up the hill. It was a hard climb and i was rather enjoying it. This is a steep road, but there were no sweeping views today, the visibility in the falling snow ranged from a couple hundred feet to maybe 20 feet at times. A few vehicles came up through the snow and quickly disappeared ahead of me, but mostly i was alone in the small bubble of visibility around me. The snow was coming down hard and every time an RV passed me, i'm sure they were talking about how crazy i was. Riding alone is always harder than riding with others, but i really wanted to make it to the top. I had wanted to do this ride ever since i had moved to Washington. I don't know how long i rode alone, but it was quite a while.
Eventually a bicyclist sped downhill out of the falling snow, passed me and disappeared below, descending quite fast. Then another. And another. They were swallowed by the falling flakes. And then the rest of the group came towards me, including Kirk, Micheal and Dianne. They had reached the top and turned around to for the long ride back to Sequim. Anthony pulled up to a stop next to me facing downhill, blocking my path.
We were filling the middle of the narrow mountain the road with a crowd of snow covered bicyclists. They had been worried about me, they were happy to see me. Kirk was not with them, he had figured the descent would be too dangerous and had thrown his bike in the van and the family had headed back to Seattle.
The group told me the snow got heavier as they got higher. Everyone was eager to be down in the sun again. Micheal and Dianne were wet and cold and hungry and told me they had no food for dinner but were going to huddle in their tent overnight. They were all telling me that i just HAD to turn around. Insisting that i turn around right there, midway up the climb.
They were right of course. Anthony is a lawyer. He was making a very good case. Not only would it be dark before i got back to Sequim, but i wouldn't even have a ride home to Seattle. And riding alone, aside from being not much fun, isn't very safe. Nevertheless i was fighting them, i wanted to get to the top.
While we were arguing i was worried about what would happen if a car came while we were all standing in the middle of the snowy road like that, and sure enough a car's headlights showed through the falling snow as it approached from below us, coming uphill around the curve. Dejected, i pulled to the side of the road and prepared to turn around. The car pulled up, and instantly, without needing an explanation of the situation, Johnnie Moss stuck his head out the driver's window and ended the discussion.
Johnnie looked right at me and said - "GO! I'm with you."
I was overjoyed, i almost teared up, but i didn't wait even a second, i just started turning the cranks uphill, while the rest of the group continued descending. Johnnie supported me the rest of the way, leapfrogging, pulling into turnouts and even offering me food and water. It took another hour but i pushed it up to the parking lot at the top.
I had never been up Hurricane Ridge before, by bike, car, bus or anything else. The snow was so heavy that i couldn't see across the parking lot, i rolled up to where Johnnie was stopped and asked him, "Isn't there a lodge or something up here?" It was not visible. He pointed and i rode the 200 feet across the parking lot. I leaned my bike against the railing and went inside.
All the people in bermuda shorts from the RVs and rental cars stared at me as i walked in, snow dripping off my helmet and ordered five cheeseburgers. One for Johnnie, two (garden burgers) for me and two for my unprepared camping friends. When i came out with the food, Johnnie had already loaded my bike onto his car. We headed down the hill, stopping briefly at the campsite to deliver food to to a very thankful wet couple in a tent.
Johnnie told me that less than half way to Port Angeles he realized this ride was not for him and he turned around and rode back to Sequim, packed up and got in his car. As we drove back through Sequim we passed a rainbow. Johnnie drove me all the way back to Seattle.
But there is one more part of the story -- after we got off the ferry we were driving north on Alaskan Way when someone ran a stop sign at Clay Street. I looked up and a car was coming down the hill at 40 mph directly at me, it was going to T-bone the car, right at my seat. Johnnie, calmly zigged and zagged through traffic, i honestly don't know what he did, it seemed like magic, to avoid the impending doom.
I told him he'd saved my life TWICE that day.
05 December 2005
11 July 2005
Off the Freeway
I work at a bicycle advocacy organization. Among my tasks is answering telephone and email questions about bicycling in general and frequently those questions are about possible routes.
Today i got a request from a father in Bellingham (far in northwest Washington) who had a wonderful idea as a parent. His son graduated from high school last month and is heading off to college next month. As a way of symbolizing the rite of passage, and a (possibly last) chance to spend some time together, they decided to bicycle together to his university, WSU (in the far southeast corner of the state). I thought it was a great idea. (He seemed to need my encouragement.) Neither are serious bicyclists, but they've been enjoying riding together the last year or so and decided to take on this very big undertaking (It's 400 miles or more).
His reason for calling was a routing question. He said,
The route he was suggesting was awful: 5 to 8 days of really miserable riding on Interstate freeways. This is not that unusual; many people forget to stop thinking like a car when they get on a bike. Still, i was shocked... and nervous. I had a good suggestion for that last day of riding, (there is also a major highway similar to his suggestions) but i also had half a dozen much better routes to suggest for the first week.
I took a deep breath and started in... Stevens Pass, North Cascades Highway, White Pass, Chuckanut Drive, The Skagit Valley, The Centennial Trail, back roads, country roads, bike trails, away from the highways. Quiet roads.
I finished my monologue and prepared for the response. People get very defensive about routes and it's a strangely common reaction to be pretty angry at the suggestion of quieter routes.
I was met with silence. A long silence. A concerning silence. I wasn't even sure he was still there.
Finally he said,
And why don't more people bike?
I've had the same experience in Seattle with new or prospective cyclists asking me about routes around town, assuming that the ONLY option was the nasty, clogged, smelly, loud, intense, motor filled arterial. Forgetting that the quiet streets, the neighborhoods, the pleasant and interesting streets even exist. Missing the point.
Cyclists need to stop thinking like cars. Actually i think everyone: city planners, drivers, developers, pedestrians, EVERYONE needs to stop thinking like cars, but it's amazing how often i see cyclists stuck in that car-think.
Today i got a request from a father in Bellingham (far in northwest Washington) who had a wonderful idea as a parent. His son graduated from high school last month and is heading off to college next month. As a way of symbolizing the rite of passage, and a (possibly last) chance to spend some time together, they decided to bicycle together to his university, WSU (in the far southeast corner of the state). I thought it was a great idea. (He seemed to need my encouragement.) Neither are serious bicyclists, but they've been enjoying riding together the last year or so and decided to take on this very big undertaking (It's 400 miles or more).
His reason for calling was a routing question. He said,
"I know we go 100 miles down Interstate 5 to Seattle, get on Interstate 90 and go east a couple hundred miles, but i don't know where to go once i get out towards Spokane, can you tell me what turn to take?There was a long, long pause as i gathered my thoughts and prepared for a nasty conflict.
The route he was suggesting was awful: 5 to 8 days of really miserable riding on Interstate freeways. This is not that unusual; many people forget to stop thinking like a car when they get on a bike. Still, i was shocked... and nervous. I had a good suggestion for that last day of riding, (there is also a major highway similar to his suggestions) but i also had half a dozen much better routes to suggest for the first week.
I took a deep breath and started in... Stevens Pass, North Cascades Highway, White Pass, Chuckanut Drive, The Skagit Valley, The Centennial Trail, back roads, country roads, bike trails, away from the highways. Quiet roads.
I finished my monologue and prepared for the response. People get very defensive about routes and it's a strangely common reaction to be pretty angry at the suggestion of quieter routes.
I was met with silence. A long silence. A concerning silence. I wasn't even sure he was still there.
Finally he said,
"I'm really embarrassed, i've lived here my whole life and it never occurred to me that there was any other way to get to Seattle except on I-5... of course it would be nicer to ride on some of those other roads."
And why don't more people bike?
I've had the same experience in Seattle with new or prospective cyclists asking me about routes around town, assuming that the ONLY option was the nasty, clogged, smelly, loud, intense, motor filled arterial. Forgetting that the quiet streets, the neighborhoods, the pleasant and interesting streets even exist. Missing the point.
Cyclists need to stop thinking like cars. Actually i think everyone: city planners, drivers, developers, pedestrians, EVERYONE needs to stop thinking like cars, but it's amazing how often i see cyclists stuck in that car-think.
12 June 2005
24 January 2005
Mark & Emily's new Kayak Trailer!
Then for quite some time i tried to build one, or to get someone to build one for me, with no luck. I spent a lot of time researching and planning it. The idea i have in my head is for two 20" or 16" bicycle wheels which are connected with a structure and some way of cradling the kayak, either a fabric hammock or a couple of lateral (running front to back) foam bars. The boat would sit with it's center of gravity on the axle between the wheels. Then it could be pushed or pulled like a cart, or attached to a bicycle. My friend David has talked of building a trailer with a very high axle so that one kayak or canoe can be put on top and the other suspended with straps below the axle.
The big challenge is a connection to the bicycle. I imagine the options to be:
* axle hitch like the BOB uses - i like this but it may not be stable enough.
* chain stay connector - may need an additional front wheel
* something that connects to a rear rack
* seat tube clamp on a rising tongue.
The long tongue connecting the trailer is of course a big issue -- if you have a tongue, it has to run 8 to 10 feet under the boat to the bike and then, i assume turning up to the seat post. The tongue is the key that makes the trailer expensive and awkward. However, i have a 'Sea-Kayaker' magazine which shows directions for an easy to make hitch which attaches to the nose of a kayak, eliminating the need for the long tongue.
But this has all been solved because recently my great car-free friends Emily & Chris got interested and decided to go halfsies with me on pre-made trailer. I was absolutely thrilled to get moving on this!
We very seriously considered this trailer at Bikes At Work, and Jim was very helpful.
After a long discussion we settled on a neat trailer from a great guy named Tony Hoar in Victoria BC. Tony is a brilliant engineer who builds bikes and trailers in his one person shop, Tony's Trailers. He is also a racer who finished LAST in the Tour de France FIFTY years ago (and still races!). I thoroughly enjoyed meeting him and working with him.
So, with great excitement today we assembled and test rode our new kayak trailer!! Although late January, it was a summer-like day in the upper 60s. I quite regretted not wearing shorts.
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| Assembling it out of the box. |
Emily has photos posted too!
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| Tony's innovative connector |
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| It's very long |
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Comparing the length with my BOB trailer |
One cool thing about this trailer is that Tony made it so that it also converts to a grocery getter model. You just use the quick release to take a section out of the tongue and drop a Rubbermaid(tm) container on the back. You can ride it to the grocery store, disconnect it and use it for a shopping cart!
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Learning the feel of the trailer on my first test ride. |
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| It has a surprisingly tight Turning Circle |
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| Emily rides by with the trailer on her folder |
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Already advertising for Tony! |
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| Emily's boat on board, i'm ready to Go on the... |
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| First Ride!!! |
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| Cruising easily around a neighborhood traffic circle |
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| This is FUN! |
There is a large compression strap which hooks over the axle and holds the boat tightly on the foam pad across the axle. Then another compression strap goes around the nose of the boat to hold it in the Y shaped yoke. A third strap goes around the body of the boat and the tongue. This supports the flexible tongue, keeps it from bouncing (mostly) and transfers the structure to the boat. The kayak itself becomes the structural beam of the trailer!
After getting used to riding with one boat on the trailer, we started thinking about stacking the second boat. I was a little nervous about the weight involved. Emily's neighbor Stella was watching this whole process and so Emily figured she could help.
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| Stella paddles up Ashworth Ave! |
Somewhat reassured, we put my boat on top!
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| Two Kayaks. |
Going up hill wasn't really difficult with one boat, but with two boats it was a bit harder. Otherwise the stacked trailer worked great!
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| fully loaded |
And then i headed off to ride 9 miles on the trail by Lake Union, getting quite a few stares! It was getting dark soon so i didn't get to paddle today, but i rode up to the University and out to Ballard (where i bumped into an old friend, Liz!).
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| Off to the lake |
I was just getting the feel for the trailer. It rode very nicely... I could tell i had a big trailer, but it wasn't unwieldy at all.
The kayak gear, flotation vests, spray skirts, paddles, dry bags, food, clothing etc get stuffed in the cockpit. I figured i would put a spray skirt over the cockpit when it was on the trailer to enclose the gear, especially if it was raining.
You'd think that with two kayaks and all the gear that the weight (about 200 lbs) and the length (about 24 feet from front wheel to the back of the kayak) would be the biggest challenges, but they were really not that noticeable.
What did require my attention was the width and the bounce. At almost 3 feet between wheels it was sometimes hard to thread through Seattle's very narrow bicycle trails, i almost hit a wheel on a wall, a tree, and a couple of bollards. It would be nice if it had a bar in front of the wheel to deflect such an impact.
And while the weight of the load wasn't a problem at all on the flats (it did make hills really big!) the heft of the thing combined with the long tongue could get a good bounce going if i didn't have a smooth pedal stroke. On my few attempts to go up a small hill it was the bounce that stopped me before the weight became unmanageable. I was very glad i had clipless pedals and a full pedal stroke.
And on a personal note, I noticed a very strange phenomenon, a contradiction which probably says more about my personality than it does about this wonderful new trailer.
What i noticed was my reaction to bystanders' reactions. When i rode through a middle class family neighborhood like Ballard people were amazed. They would point and shout 'oh my god he's towing kayaks!'.
My reaction (usually kept to myself) was always: 'What's the big deal? Bikes can do anything. Move along, nothing unusual here.'.
But when i went through a more jaded, younger, hipper neighborhood like Fremont and i found that no one looked up, no one noticed, no one said anything, my reaction (usually kept to myself) was: 'WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!!! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M TOWING A PAIR OF KAYAKS!?!?! PAY ATTENTION!.
10 November 2003
29 Reasons Bush Won't Be Allowed to Lose
We've had almost 3 years of George W Bush. The election is a year and month away; everyone is caught up in declaring whether they LIKE or HATE him, but few people are willing to see past that divide to analyze what is LIKELY to happen. Here's my 29 reasons why W is certain to serve a second term. In no particular order. This is not an exercise in doom saying, or promoting, rather, it is intended to shed light on the issues that honest Americans MUST confront if we want to defeat Bush.
Details below
Republican EC Advantage, Sound Bites, Head of State, Most People Don't Care, Charisma , Incumbency, Everyone Votes With Their Feet, It was a Tie, Patriotism, Mississippi & Kentucky, California & Texas , $Money$, Good Looking, Convention Schedule, Democratic Primaries, Clinton/Gore, Black Box Voting, Action vs. Proof, Running Mate, Media Control, Media Preference, People Hear Nothing Bad, The Dems Expect to Lose, Clinton crowd, Florida, Another War, Make Shit Up, Call Off The Elections, Blow Something Up
Details below
23 October 2003
Seattle Coffee
One thing i did, back when i did an hour long talk about Seattle each week at the hostel, was talk about the variations in the coffee culture in the northwest. I would point to Portland, Seattle & Vancouver on a map and compare and contrast.
You see, in Portland people really like coffee (espresso) but what is important is that it is GOOD coffee -- they are highly focused on quality over quantity. North of us in Vancouver people like coffee. There is a corner in downtown that at one time had three coffee shops on 3 of the 4 corners! TWO Starbucks AND a Blenz (their local chain, very Canadian – you have to smile when you say it) but they are really focused on sitting down and visiting, so the coffee shops are nice places to hang out.
In Seattle people want their coffee, they want it now (3, 6, 9 even 12 times a day) and they don't care where. T-shirt shops have to have espresso bars, just about every business of any kind serves espresso. Not only is it very profitable, but it is essential for business! Certainly every grocery store does, every restaurant does and most bars do. Some is good, most is not, but QUANTITY is what is important!
You have to understand that this is NOT just Seattle, Seattle is just the big city in Washington (and probably where it all started) but if you go out to these little mountain towns, 40 miles from a grocery store, little towns that are all rough and tumble old logging towns which voted 99% for Bush, you will find 2 or 3 drive through latte stands!
Now i grew up, partially, in New England, where ice cream is a deeply important part of life, and quality is vital. All quality ice cream comes from New England and New Englanders eat 30% of the ice cream in the country! Out here the only way to get good ice cream is to hop on I-90 and don't get off until Boston. It just doesn't exist out here and on the rare occasion that a shop opens, it doesn't last long. But milky coffee. Now THAT is a major product!
The TV stations and newspapers long ago took to calling the Seattle Metropolitan area Latteland because of this single minded focus. It's a name everyone knows and many people use in regular conversation.
And it is lucrative! I know of at least 5 different people who started a coffee cart, usually outside on the street and within 2 years had expanded into one, or several, STOREFRONTS. It's that lucrative. One of the first, just a push cart in the park downtown back 15 or 18 years ago. Now the owners don't work, pay people to run the cart and they travel the world full time and live in a huge house in a super rich suburb.
Coffee cups are allowed on busses and almost anywhere else that food & drink are forbidden. It's a must! There was a hilarious dust up back in 97 or 98 when someone with the county government noticed that the industrial regulations on boilers seemed to… um… outlaw espresso machines. This was front page headlines for a week until the county council met to write in a special "Latte exception"
Howard Shultz, the New York (in Seattle saying someone is from New York is like saying they are from Hell, and not from the good side of the tracks!) financier who executed a hostile take over of Starbucks 10 or 12 years ago recently said, "When you are selling an addictive product, you don't have to worry much about the economy!"
The story of Shultz is an amusing one! ... you see three guys started Starbucks in the Pike Place Market. They had come from San Francisco where they started a similar shop called Peet's. They were roasting coffee, not pulling 'spro (many of the barista's in the 90's refereed to it as "pulling 'spro"). Anyway the latte thing was just getting started, they were more focused on good coffee roasting. Shultz, came to Seattle on a business trip and was impressed with the shop. So he started bugging them to bring him on as a partner... they kept saying no, but after a year or two they finally took him on. He started the company on this massive expansion, including buying Peet's in SF. As soon as he got the chance, he maneuvered the three founders out of the company, and as a consolation, gave them Peet's, which i believe they still run.
Starbucks is the only chain store allowed in the Pike Place Market, and it is only grandfathered in because it was founded there!
Of course Seattle's Best Coffee, which is a 30 or more year old roaster on Vashon Island that used to be called Stewart Brothers Coffee before they went nationwide, is now owned by Starbucks. Tully's is the other locally based international chain and unlike the other two, they started up SPECIFICALLY to become an international chain. I remember when the first store opened, i would bike past it often... still do. There are also a number of local chains... for the whole 15 years i have lived here there have been about 3 visible local chains at any one time (in addition to the big ones), but those three kind of change around, and are sometimes owned by the big ones. There are a number of local chains now, but two of note: one disguises the fact that it is a chain, and each shop is funky and comfortable and unique, but in fact two people own all 5 or so of them – they are pretty much the best places around these days. The other Cafe Ladro, started up with a major anti-Starbucks schtick -- they played it up to the max! "Stay away from the chains!" I think they have 12 stores now. Hypocrites!
Monorail Espresso is one of the originals and they moved from a cart to a storefront, but the storefront is barely larger than the cart was! Another good story is B&O Espresso, a small cart which opened up in the corner of a sandwich shop on Capitol Hill many years ago. The sandwich shop didn't do so well, so within a year or two the Espresso cart had taken over the whole shop, and within another year they had rented the storefront next door and expanded into it. They no longer focus on coffee, although it is available, but they are know as one of the premier dessert spots in town.
Many people enjoy the wild and crazy Coffee Messiah -- with the Caffeine Saves neon sign. It's another favorite of mine and almost next door to the evil Starbucks.
I should add that i do have a lot of choices -- i live 2 blocks from Broadway on Capitol hill, where there are AT LEAST 9 places within 3 blocks. And as i think about it... in 7 blocks there are AT LEAST 15 places to get a drink.
Most of Seattle is like that. Downtown, you can usually expect that on a 2 mile walk from Seattle Center to Pioneer square, you will average one per block, more if you explore closely. In many cases, a person owns an espresso cart just to service 3 floors of one 30 floor office building downtown. Really, that is their only job! So if you walk down a block in the central business district and see two latte stands, i guarantee that if you were to explore the office buildings a bit, you would find half a dozen or more on that same block! In fact, when a new building opens, the coffee cart(s) are always mentioned in the press release!
Back 10 years ago there were lots of nice coffee shops to just hang out it, but they are getting VERY rare as over 90% of people take their cup to go, and in many cases prefer to drive through -- very common. Most of the nice 'hang out' coffee shops have closed in favor of a few corporate shops or smaller, locally owned windows with no sit down area. Kids, and even recent college graduates who grew up here tell me that having coffee shops to hang out in High School was great – certainly something that was missing when i was a kid.
Cafe Paridisso at the south end of Capitol Hill was legendary. I loved it. It was the quintessential Seattle coffee shop! I think everyone was sad to see it go. I miss it terribly.
Lots of people take laptops to coffee shops these days (they ALL have free WiFi). I really enjoy chatting or reading in with a drink. I think it lends itself well to Seattle. A warm drink in a friendly comfortable space on a chilly rainy day: the windows fogged up so you can't see outside. Of course, it has hasn't rained much here in the last few years, but we can hope, right?
There are over 3,000 coffee carts or shops licensed (2,973 in 1999) in King County (about 3 million people). When i was in London in August 2000 the newspapers were discussing if 291 was "saturation" for that city of 9 million!!
To make your order properly, it has to be FAST and very personal. Baristas pride themselves on understanding each and every order, and i've almost never seen them bat an eye at the strangest orders. Many even memorize the regular customers' orders!!! Everyone walks up and spews out an order, often their standard order, but sometimes a variant, as if it were their name or phone number. I actually have my order printed on my cup – some places find this funny, occasionally annoying, but most places appreciate it. I did it because when i worked in Seattle Center in the mid 90s, Starbucks screwed up my order so often.
The number of shots always comes first, then the size, the type of milk, the type of drink then the additions... By far the standard classic is the double tall latte... since 'latte' is understood, it's always just called a "double tall". (2 shots of espresso, in 12 oz of steamed milk with foam on top). Now that can quickly become a "double tall decaf no foam vanilla latte". You get the point.
A shot is about one fluid ounce of espresso – that is, coffee created by es-pressing very high pressure steam through thick ground dark coffee. This is the true traditional Sicilian coffee that this all evolved from. In Sicily one shot of espresso in a tiny cup accompanied by a glass of water; usually the shot is drunk in a single gulp. But in Latteland the shots are mixed with a large cup of milk and sipped slowly all day long. The number of shots automatically included varies with the size of the cup and the location. Single, double, triple, quad, even quint, sextuple and i once heard octuple! One shot of good espresso has about 90 mg of caffeine, 8 oz good drip coffee has about 200 mg.
Next is the size of the cup – 8, 12, 16 or 20 oz, but in never called by numbers, always: short, tall, grande. The 20 oz is not as widely offered. Starbucks calls it a Venti, i once saw it called a fantico. I think we should settle on humongus, but i don't think i'm going to win that one.
You can also specify type of milk. This time of year big signs go up advertising the arrival of eggnog. "I'll have a double tall eggnog latte with whip". There are a variety of other milk choices... 2%, non-fat, breve' (half & half), soy milk. Pretty much every place has those. Some places have rice milk and i have seen goats milk in one or two places. A soy latte is a common order. From the mid 90s until a couple of years ago 2% became the DEFAULT milk, and if you didn't ask for something different, that's what you got. Luckily that has changed, but i am still in the habit of asking for whole milk. (I went through breve' faze for a couple of years, but i am not bicycling enough to justify that now!) I usually choose my espresso stand based on what kind of milk they use -- many are now using a local semi-organic brand, rather than the big national nasty brands. I prefer that.
Now add your flavoring, if you like. Most espresso bars have a wide variety, but the common ones are: vanilla, walnut, almond, caramel and hazelnut. These are really just an excuse to put more sugar in the drink, in my opinion. So now you could have a "single tall peach latte". Hazelnut and vanilla are the only ones popular enough to be part of a 'standard' order. Chocolate is a flavor you can add, but that is a special exception which will be covered in a later paragraph and again at the end.
Now append the base drink -- choices are: latte, mocha, americano, cappuccino, espresso & steamer. Steamers, or steamed milk, often with flavorings, do not seem as popular as they once were. NO ONE EVER orders a cappuccino!! An americano is a shot (or more) of espresso in hot water -- actually quite similar to weak drip coffee. ("double tall americano, please"). The one way to really raise your barista's pierced & plucked eyebrows is to order an espresso at an espresso stand. I think i have seen that happen maybe 4 times in 15 years. Many places actually cannot provide it! We call it espresso, the stands are called espresso and often have espresso in their name, but don't try to order it in Seattle! This is Latteland!
No, in Seattle everyone drinks lattes almost exclusively. In fact, i tend to believe that the caffeine addiction is really secondary, and warm milk, the true childhood comfort food, is what we are really after!! A latte and cappuccino differ by a technical ratio of foam to milk – i don't know the exact details. Of course the mocha is a type of latte – latte with chocolate syrup. And hot chocolate, or cocoa is a variant of a steamer (or of a mocha i suppose).
There are other special things that some people ask for. Sometimes people specify the temperature, some like it really hot and ask for that. Since the espresso machines have a thermometer, it is easy to ask for a temperature if you know what you like. 165 or so seems popular. I heard someone order a 180 once. I find it impossible to drink anything over 150 and my cup insulates well enough that it will never be cool enough to drink if i don't ask for it not-so hot (about 147 seems best). Most people don't specify. Because of the hot drinks, some people ask for a double cup in the order. "triple tall extra hot mocha no foam with an extra cup". Of course, many ecologically aware Seattlites have their own insulated cup which they use for their drinks. The iced latte, still not really accepted as legit, is a variant of this.
Of course you can ask for decaffeinated espresso, and many people do (helping to prove my warm milk theory!). There are a couple of standard orders based on this. The classic "double tall low-fat decaf latte" is called a "double tall no-fun" or a "double tall why-bother". I have OFTEN seen people order these with whipped cream!! Some people also ask for extra, or light syrup when ordering one, as most shops are VERY liberal with the syrup. A latte has a thick foam on the top and some people ask for extra foam, others for no foam, and every barista is an artist, making designs in the foam on top of a drink!
Finally there are all kinds of things that go ON TOP of a drink, depending on what kind of drink it is: there is whipped cream, chocolate powder, chocolate shavings, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate chips, cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder and more. Often the person who MAKES the drink (not the person who takes your order) will ask if you want whip –- kind of as an after thought. (You get a little less drink if you add whip!) SBC actually puts a chocolate bar across the top of many drinks!!
Most people are very polite and friendly when they order, but i once saw a guy demanding soy milk and really being a jerk about it. "It MUST be soy milk!!" A few minutes later the barista asked him if he wanted whipped cream and he said, "yeah, sure..."
Of course almost every espresso bar has a station where you can make your own additions and changes, usually with pitchers of 2% milk and half & half. Some places have shakers at this station that you can put on the various goodies. I find it useful to add some half & half to both cool down the drink and to make the syrup less overpowering.
Back in the mid 1990s i wrote a computer program which generated a humorous but not entirely imaginary random coffee order. I'll run it a few times here:
You see, in Portland people really like coffee (espresso) but what is important is that it is GOOD coffee -- they are highly focused on quality over quantity. North of us in Vancouver people like coffee. There is a corner in downtown that at one time had three coffee shops on 3 of the 4 corners! TWO Starbucks AND a Blenz (their local chain, very Canadian – you have to smile when you say it) but they are really focused on sitting down and visiting, so the coffee shops are nice places to hang out.
In Seattle people want their coffee, they want it now (3, 6, 9 even 12 times a day) and they don't care where. T-shirt shops have to have espresso bars, just about every business of any kind serves espresso. Not only is it very profitable, but it is essential for business! Certainly every grocery store does, every restaurant does and most bars do. Some is good, most is not, but QUANTITY is what is important!
You have to understand that this is NOT just Seattle, Seattle is just the big city in Washington (and probably where it all started) but if you go out to these little mountain towns, 40 miles from a grocery store, little towns that are all rough and tumble old logging towns which voted 99% for Bush, you will find 2 or 3 drive through latte stands!
Now i grew up, partially, in New England, where ice cream is a deeply important part of life, and quality is vital. All quality ice cream comes from New England and New Englanders eat 30% of the ice cream in the country! Out here the only way to get good ice cream is to hop on I-90 and don't get off until Boston. It just doesn't exist out here and on the rare occasion that a shop opens, it doesn't last long. But milky coffee. Now THAT is a major product!
The TV stations and newspapers long ago took to calling the Seattle Metropolitan area Latteland because of this single minded focus. It's a name everyone knows and many people use in regular conversation.
And it is lucrative! I know of at least 5 different people who started a coffee cart, usually outside on the street and within 2 years had expanded into one, or several, STOREFRONTS. It's that lucrative. One of the first, just a push cart in the park downtown back 15 or 18 years ago. Now the owners don't work, pay people to run the cart and they travel the world full time and live in a huge house in a super rich suburb.
Coffee cups are allowed on busses and almost anywhere else that food & drink are forbidden. It's a must! There was a hilarious dust up back in 97 or 98 when someone with the county government noticed that the industrial regulations on boilers seemed to… um… outlaw espresso machines. This was front page headlines for a week until the county council met to write in a special "Latte exception"
Howard Shultz, the New York (in Seattle saying someone is from New York is like saying they are from Hell, and not from the good side of the tracks!) financier who executed a hostile take over of Starbucks 10 or 12 years ago recently said, "When you are selling an addictive product, you don't have to worry much about the economy!"
The story of Shultz is an amusing one! ... you see three guys started Starbucks in the Pike Place Market. They had come from San Francisco where they started a similar shop called Peet's. They were roasting coffee, not pulling 'spro (many of the barista's in the 90's refereed to it as "pulling 'spro"). Anyway the latte thing was just getting started, they were more focused on good coffee roasting. Shultz, came to Seattle on a business trip and was impressed with the shop. So he started bugging them to bring him on as a partner... they kept saying no, but after a year or two they finally took him on. He started the company on this massive expansion, including buying Peet's in SF. As soon as he got the chance, he maneuvered the three founders out of the company, and as a consolation, gave them Peet's, which i believe they still run.
Starbucks is the only chain store allowed in the Pike Place Market, and it is only grandfathered in because it was founded there!
Of course Seattle's Best Coffee, which is a 30 or more year old roaster on Vashon Island that used to be called Stewart Brothers Coffee before they went nationwide, is now owned by Starbucks. Tully's is the other locally based international chain and unlike the other two, they started up SPECIFICALLY to become an international chain. I remember when the first store opened, i would bike past it often... still do. There are also a number of local chains... for the whole 15 years i have lived here there have been about 3 visible local chains at any one time (in addition to the big ones), but those three kind of change around, and are sometimes owned by the big ones. There are a number of local chains now, but two of note: one disguises the fact that it is a chain, and each shop is funky and comfortable and unique, but in fact two people own all 5 or so of them – they are pretty much the best places around these days. The other Cafe Ladro, started up with a major anti-Starbucks schtick -- they played it up to the max! "Stay away from the chains!" I think they have 12 stores now. Hypocrites!
Monorail Espresso is one of the originals and they moved from a cart to a storefront, but the storefront is barely larger than the cart was! Another good story is B&O Espresso, a small cart which opened up in the corner of a sandwich shop on Capitol Hill many years ago. The sandwich shop didn't do so well, so within a year or two the Espresso cart had taken over the whole shop, and within another year they had rented the storefront next door and expanded into it. They no longer focus on coffee, although it is available, but they are know as one of the premier dessert spots in town.
Many people enjoy the wild and crazy Coffee Messiah -- with the Caffeine Saves neon sign. It's another favorite of mine and almost next door to the evil Starbucks.
I should add that i do have a lot of choices -- i live 2 blocks from Broadway on Capitol hill, where there are AT LEAST 9 places within 3 blocks. And as i think about it... in 7 blocks there are AT LEAST 15 places to get a drink.
Most of Seattle is like that. Downtown, you can usually expect that on a 2 mile walk from Seattle Center to Pioneer square, you will average one per block, more if you explore closely. In many cases, a person owns an espresso cart just to service 3 floors of one 30 floor office building downtown. Really, that is their only job! So if you walk down a block in the central business district and see two latte stands, i guarantee that if you were to explore the office buildings a bit, you would find half a dozen or more on that same block! In fact, when a new building opens, the coffee cart(s) are always mentioned in the press release!
Back 10 years ago there were lots of nice coffee shops to just hang out it, but they are getting VERY rare as over 90% of people take their cup to go, and in many cases prefer to drive through -- very common. Most of the nice 'hang out' coffee shops have closed in favor of a few corporate shops or smaller, locally owned windows with no sit down area. Kids, and even recent college graduates who grew up here tell me that having coffee shops to hang out in High School was great – certainly something that was missing when i was a kid.
Cafe Paridisso at the south end of Capitol Hill was legendary. I loved it. It was the quintessential Seattle coffee shop! I think everyone was sad to see it go. I miss it terribly.
Lots of people take laptops to coffee shops these days (they ALL have free WiFi). I really enjoy chatting or reading in with a drink. I think it lends itself well to Seattle. A warm drink in a friendly comfortable space on a chilly rainy day: the windows fogged up so you can't see outside. Of course, it has hasn't rained much here in the last few years, but we can hope, right?
There are over 3,000 coffee carts or shops licensed (2,973 in 1999) in King County (about 3 million people). When i was in London in August 2000 the newspapers were discussing if 291 was "saturation" for that city of 9 million!!
To make your order properly, it has to be FAST and very personal. Baristas pride themselves on understanding each and every order, and i've almost never seen them bat an eye at the strangest orders. Many even memorize the regular customers' orders!!! Everyone walks up and spews out an order, often their standard order, but sometimes a variant, as if it were their name or phone number. I actually have my order printed on my cup – some places find this funny, occasionally annoying, but most places appreciate it. I did it because when i worked in Seattle Center in the mid 90s, Starbucks screwed up my order so often.
The number of shots always comes first, then the size, the type of milk, the type of drink then the additions... By far the standard classic is the double tall latte... since 'latte' is understood, it's always just called a "double tall". (2 shots of espresso, in 12 oz of steamed milk with foam on top). Now that can quickly become a "double tall decaf no foam vanilla latte". You get the point.
A shot is about one fluid ounce of espresso – that is, coffee created by es-pressing very high pressure steam through thick ground dark coffee. This is the true traditional Sicilian coffee that this all evolved from. In Sicily one shot of espresso in a tiny cup accompanied by a glass of water; usually the shot is drunk in a single gulp. But in Latteland the shots are mixed with a large cup of milk and sipped slowly all day long. The number of shots automatically included varies with the size of the cup and the location. Single, double, triple, quad, even quint, sextuple and i once heard octuple! One shot of good espresso has about 90 mg of caffeine, 8 oz good drip coffee has about 200 mg.
Next is the size of the cup – 8, 12, 16 or 20 oz, but in never called by numbers, always: short, tall, grande. The 20 oz is not as widely offered. Starbucks calls it a Venti, i once saw it called a fantico. I think we should settle on humongus, but i don't think i'm going to win that one.
You can also specify type of milk. This time of year big signs go up advertising the arrival of eggnog. "I'll have a double tall eggnog latte with whip". There are a variety of other milk choices... 2%, non-fat, breve' (half & half), soy milk. Pretty much every place has those. Some places have rice milk and i have seen goats milk in one or two places. A soy latte is a common order. From the mid 90s until a couple of years ago 2% became the DEFAULT milk, and if you didn't ask for something different, that's what you got. Luckily that has changed, but i am still in the habit of asking for whole milk. (I went through breve' faze for a couple of years, but i am not bicycling enough to justify that now!) I usually choose my espresso stand based on what kind of milk they use -- many are now using a local semi-organic brand, rather than the big national nasty brands. I prefer that.
Now add your flavoring, if you like. Most espresso bars have a wide variety, but the common ones are: vanilla, walnut, almond, caramel and hazelnut. These are really just an excuse to put more sugar in the drink, in my opinion. So now you could have a "single tall peach latte". Hazelnut and vanilla are the only ones popular enough to be part of a 'standard' order. Chocolate is a flavor you can add, but that is a special exception which will be covered in a later paragraph and again at the end.
Now append the base drink -- choices are: latte, mocha, americano, cappuccino, espresso & steamer. Steamers, or steamed milk, often with flavorings, do not seem as popular as they once were. NO ONE EVER orders a cappuccino!! An americano is a shot (or more) of espresso in hot water -- actually quite similar to weak drip coffee. ("double tall americano, please"). The one way to really raise your barista's pierced & plucked eyebrows is to order an espresso at an espresso stand. I think i have seen that happen maybe 4 times in 15 years. Many places actually cannot provide it! We call it espresso, the stands are called espresso and often have espresso in their name, but don't try to order it in Seattle! This is Latteland!
No, in Seattle everyone drinks lattes almost exclusively. In fact, i tend to believe that the caffeine addiction is really secondary, and warm milk, the true childhood comfort food, is what we are really after!! A latte and cappuccino differ by a technical ratio of foam to milk – i don't know the exact details. Of course the mocha is a type of latte – latte with chocolate syrup. And hot chocolate, or cocoa is a variant of a steamer (or of a mocha i suppose).
There are other special things that some people ask for. Sometimes people specify the temperature, some like it really hot and ask for that. Since the espresso machines have a thermometer, it is easy to ask for a temperature if you know what you like. 165 or so seems popular. I heard someone order a 180 once. I find it impossible to drink anything over 150 and my cup insulates well enough that it will never be cool enough to drink if i don't ask for it not-so hot (about 147 seems best). Most people don't specify. Because of the hot drinks, some people ask for a double cup in the order. "triple tall extra hot mocha no foam with an extra cup". Of course, many ecologically aware Seattlites have their own insulated cup which they use for their drinks. The iced latte, still not really accepted as legit, is a variant of this.
Of course you can ask for decaffeinated espresso, and many people do (helping to prove my warm milk theory!). There are a couple of standard orders based on this. The classic "double tall low-fat decaf latte" is called a "double tall no-fun" or a "double tall why-bother". I have OFTEN seen people order these with whipped cream!! Some people also ask for extra, or light syrup when ordering one, as most shops are VERY liberal with the syrup. A latte has a thick foam on the top and some people ask for extra foam, others for no foam, and every barista is an artist, making designs in the foam on top of a drink!
Finally there are all kinds of things that go ON TOP of a drink, depending on what kind of drink it is: there is whipped cream, chocolate powder, chocolate shavings, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate chips, cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder and more. Often the person who MAKES the drink (not the person who takes your order) will ask if you want whip –- kind of as an after thought. (You get a little less drink if you add whip!) SBC actually puts a chocolate bar across the top of many drinks!!
Most people are very polite and friendly when they order, but i once saw a guy demanding soy milk and really being a jerk about it. "It MUST be soy milk!!" A few minutes later the barista asked him if he wanted whipped cream and he said, "yeah, sure..."
Of course almost every espresso bar has a station where you can make your own additions and changes, usually with pitchers of 2% milk and half & half. Some places have shakers at this station that you can put on the various goodies. I find it useful to add some half & half to both cool down the drink and to make the syrup less overpowering.
Back in the mid 1990s i wrote a computer program which generated a humorous but not entirely imaginary random coffee order. I'll run it a few times here:
- double whole-milk hazelnut extra foam 150° latte no whip
- quad tall breve 165° mocha
- double grande whole-milk carmal decaf extra foam with whip
- quad grande 2% almond double cup mocha with chocolate sprinkles
- single 150° latte no whip
- breve extra hot double cup cocoa no whip
- quad tall breve vanilla mocha with whip
- grande low-fat vanilla iced latte with whip
- double grande eggnog latte with whip
- octuple grande carmal decaf latte with whip & cinnamon
- triple really amazingly big breve hazelnut latte with whip & chocolate sprinkles
23 March 2003
Armstrong's Elbow
I was out on my road bike this afternoon -- after spending all day re-installing Windows, AGAIN.
Pedaling along the Arboretum bypass route i came to a spot a block or so from E Madison St where the road briefly narrows due to traffic calming (a great idea!). Right as i started to move left to avoid a pothole in the narrowest spot, a guy on a carbon fiber racing bike silently appeared about 3 inches off my left shoulder -- this guy thought he was in the pelaton and i was Jan Ullrich (i wish) standing in the way of his yellow jersey.
It scared the daylights out of me. We each had to react fast and pull off hard to avoid a collision. Clearly both of us had good reactions and bike handling skills. If it HAD been the pelaton this guy would've gotten an elbow in the ear for sure.
I said, "Jeeze, say something when you pass, i almost hit you!". What i didn't say, didn't even think clearly, was that i was pretty rattled by his crazy, dangerous maneuver.
He looked at me and smirked and with a pretentious attitude said, "You wouldn't have..."
I was an obstacle. It was all about him. He was just too good to be even talking to me. I told him he was crazy and dangerous. He rode off yelling abuse at me. This guy was as bad as the clueless SUV drivers who think no one else on the road matters. In fact, i bet he IS one of them.
01 November 2002
Playing in the Street
I'm a bit ashamed to say that i used to listen to Larry King on the radio back in the 1980s. It was just for company, for noise in the background and it usually annoyed me a lot. I often agreed with his politics, but i didn't like how abusive he was, especially to people who disagreed with him.
One evening someone called up to scold him. "You always talk about playing Baseball in the street.", he shouted. It's true, Larry talked about baseball all the time and frequently talked fondly about the street baseball he played as a kid in Brooklyn in the 1940s.
Well, this guy wanted to abuse Larry and he said, "i know you're lying because you would've been killed if you'd been in the middle of the street."
Larry responded, but not very well. What the caller was completely ignorant of was that until the 1960s & 70s, streets were for PEOPLE. Before WWII there just weren't enough cars to make traffic jams and almost all residential streets, in cities or small towns, were PUBLIC SPACE. But the car-think is so strong that logic and education and all sense of perspective goes out the window. This guy must have thought cars and the massive publicly subsidized car infrastructure were hundreds of years old.
It's easy to make fun of him, but i worry more about the people who are less obnoxious but still making the same assumptions about the appropriateness and inevitability of car dominance. We all know it was decisions that people made that created the car culture, but so much of what we think, say and do is unconsciously controlled by that car-think. That is dangerous.
One evening someone called up to scold him. "You always talk about playing Baseball in the street.", he shouted. It's true, Larry talked about baseball all the time and frequently talked fondly about the street baseball he played as a kid in Brooklyn in the 1940s.
Well, this guy wanted to abuse Larry and he said, "i know you're lying because you would've been killed if you'd been in the middle of the street."
Larry responded, but not very well. What the caller was completely ignorant of was that until the 1960s & 70s, streets were for PEOPLE. Before WWII there just weren't enough cars to make traffic jams and almost all residential streets, in cities or small towns, were PUBLIC SPACE. But the car-think is so strong that logic and education and all sense of perspective goes out the window. This guy must have thought cars and the massive publicly subsidized car infrastructure were hundreds of years old.
It's easy to make fun of him, but i worry more about the people who are less obnoxious but still making the same assumptions about the appropriateness and inevitability of car dominance. We all know it was decisions that people made that created the car culture, but so much of what we think, say and do is unconsciously controlled by that car-think. That is dangerous.
20 June 2001
Let The Judge Decide
I was about to turn right off of Fuhrman Ave E northbound on to the University bridge. To my left, the northbound approach on Eastlake Ave E is a notoriously dangerous area, a small bike lane where cars frequently turn right in front of cyclists in the bike lane.
As i looked up a car turned right onto Fuhrman and drove off, while a cyclist, a guy in his 20s, lay on the ground yelling, "You hit me!".
I was on my way to an appointment, but i couldn't leave that alone, i made a quick U turn and pedaled as hard as i could after the car. At first i gained some ground, but after a block and a half he got through the traffic circle and started to accelerate quite a bit. I don't know if he knew i was chasing him, but he was going to certainly lose me at that speed. But he turned right on the next block and i caught up to him half a block later as he was parking his car.
He was a middle aged man in an expensive suit. I told him that it looked like he had hit a cyclist. He said that he didn't see anything. I argued with him for a few minutes. I kept saying that i didn't know what happened, but that the cyclist was yelling that he had been hit. I told the driver several times that leaving the scene of a accident was a serious offense in Washington State. He kept saying that he didn't hit the bike, although he did let on that he saw it before his turn and heard the yelling afterwards. I told him i didn't see it, i didn't know what happened, but that it wasn't his job to decide what had happened it was the police or the judge's job.
It took a couple of minutes, but i convinced him. He got back in his car and drove back the way he came.
I was really proud of myself how i handled it. I didn't scream and yell and call the guy names. I didn't even make demands. I stayed cool and appealed to his better nature. And in a way, i succeeded.
Not all stories end happily. The bicyclist had left the scene when i rode back by.
As i looked up a car turned right onto Fuhrman and drove off, while a cyclist, a guy in his 20s, lay on the ground yelling, "You hit me!".
I was on my way to an appointment, but i couldn't leave that alone, i made a quick U turn and pedaled as hard as i could after the car. At first i gained some ground, but after a block and a half he got through the traffic circle and started to accelerate quite a bit. I don't know if he knew i was chasing him, but he was going to certainly lose me at that speed. But he turned right on the next block and i caught up to him half a block later as he was parking his car.
He was a middle aged man in an expensive suit. I told him that it looked like he had hit a cyclist. He said that he didn't see anything. I argued with him for a few minutes. I kept saying that i didn't know what happened, but that the cyclist was yelling that he had been hit. I told the driver several times that leaving the scene of a accident was a serious offense in Washington State. He kept saying that he didn't hit the bike, although he did let on that he saw it before his turn and heard the yelling afterwards. I told him i didn't see it, i didn't know what happened, but that it wasn't his job to decide what had happened it was the police or the judge's job.
It took a couple of minutes, but i convinced him. He got back in his car and drove back the way he came.
I was really proud of myself how i handled it. I didn't scream and yell and call the guy names. I didn't even make demands. I stayed cool and appealed to his better nature. And in a way, i succeeded.
Not all stories end happily. The bicyclist had left the scene when i rode back by.
05 May 2000
a new view of Rain
I would like to talk for a moment about rain. I live in Seattle - i have a RELATIONSHIP with rain. I hike in the rain, bike in the rain, walk in the rain and watch the rain. It rains while i sleep, work and play. I have grown to know the different names for the different kinds of rain and to be able to distinguish the different sounds of rain. I adore the rivers streams and rainforests. I live in the rain and thrive. I love the rain. I love watching it, hearing it and feeling it. I honestly believed that i had experienced all aspects of rain - but working on a farm is has opened me up to entirely new viewpoints on the rain.
Sitting in the middle of a muddy field in Germany planting onions in the rain makes me think about how much they NEED the rain, but only at the right time.
The farmer is never happy about the weather. If it is raining a lot, we can't do farm work - but if it doesn't rain, the plants die. If it rains at the wrong time, the plants will have problems.
It is spring so it rains in hard short spurts 2 to 10 times a day - often with small hail included. The clouds and rainbows are amazing. It is wonderful.
Sitting in the middle of a muddy field in Germany planting onions in the rain makes me think about how much they NEED the rain, but only at the right time.
The farmer is never happy about the weather. If it is raining a lot, we can't do farm work - but if it doesn't rain, the plants die. If it rains at the wrong time, the plants will have problems.
It is spring so it rains in hard short spurts 2 to 10 times a day - often with small hail included. The clouds and rainbows are amazing. It is wonderful.
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