Okay, geoducks are one thing, but an octopus that will drop out of tree is another.
I also know that they have some odd radio call-in shows and the men divide into two camps: grizzled blue collar types and twee intelligentsia
with faux British accents. It must be some quirk of history.
Oh, they’re fine. As long as you aren’t wearing a red hat the octopus tend to tentaculate in the general direction of ‘away’. The geoducks, however, are always confrontational.
See, it’s not the rain that’s the issue – it’s the clouds. You can’t really rely on sun except for late July through late August. In my opinion that was just fine in the winters; they were dreary but at least they were mild. But when June comes along, then early July, and you haven’t seen the sun in weeks…well it can be a bit intense.
As a 20-something twee intellectual (sadly no British accent, faux or otherwise) it was kind of inspirational – it promotes introspective and philosophical patterns of thinking that I’m naturally drawn to. Something about sitting in a funky coffeehouse on a drizzly day, listening to cool music while reading the extremely fantastic alt weekly (the Stranger) or eavesdropping on stimulating conversations, was very appealing.
Now that I’m a 30-something dad, I’m not so sure. It seems like taking your kid out to a park in the drizzle kind of ruins the fun.
But oh the summers…August in Seattle is absolute heaven on Earth…
Yes, depression can be a big problem here.
People here live outdoors. Even in the rain, in fact, especially in the rain. No one cancels an activity because “it might be raining.” Here, you kayak in the rain, camp in the rain, and hike in the rain and do whatever else. And it’s more “mist” than rain, most of the time, anyway. (Gore-tex is from here. REI is from here) Outside is gorgeous - there’s no way you don’t go out.
When I was in the Boston, it seemed that no one ever went outside at all. (Of course, seeing that city’s weather and people were my version of hell on earth, if you like Boston, Seattle’s weather and people could very well be your version).
Well, hubby and I live on his firefighter income. I keep the home fires burning, while he put out the unwanted ones.
We’re pretty easy to entertain, we eat out once a week or so. We’ve owned our house for 11 years, so our house payment is pretty low. We have two 7 year old cars, one’s a truck and the other’s a 'Vette. Gas eats a big bite. We don’t have a lot of disposable money, but we don’t suffer.
Hope that helps.
:mad: I can NOT believe you actually had me going there for a sec. I thought to myself: “What? They come out of the water?..” :smack:
Okay, so it sounds like public transportation sucks donkeys, but what about designated bike lanes, bike lockers or secure bike racks etc.? Could a regular rider get around decently by bike or is it such a hassle and bike thefts so rampant that it’s not recommended?
I’m not moving to Seattle, but there is a Seattle to Portland ride I want to do next year and I’m also a little cuious about the city.
And Puyallup is pronounced ‘pyoo-allup’. Next people will be saying ‘noo-kew-lar’!
Up here, a hundred miles north of the Emerald City, there are enough mosquitos that I want screens. Still, there aren’t as many up here as I’ve seen in the even more rural areas. OTOH, it’s Kingdom Of The Spiders up here. They’re all over the place. I have one in a jar right now that I’ll release when I go outside. I like most spiders, but I don’t want them in the house.
I’ve done the Seattle-to-Portland a few times. They do a great job organizing it. Do a bit of training and you should have a great ride.
Who said public transportation sucks in Seattle? My oldest son has lived and worked in the north, south, and east of Seattle and has never used a car to get to work. Bus rides are even free in the downtown area.
I never biked but I saw a lot of bikers and bikes everywhere. (My kids’ bikes were stolen several times but that was from our yard or from school.)
Well, slugs have been mentioned and bicycling has been mentioned. So how about naked bicycling by SLUGS? 
(Possibly NSFW. Thumbnail-sized nudity, but not pornographic. Bicycling is in a scrolling frame.)
I was just trying to find information on those horrid orifices slugs have on their heads. Googled ‘seattle’ and ‘slugs’ and found that page. Incidentally, Cecil’s column is the fourth link down on that search.
Anyway I assume the orifice in the slugs’ heads are for breathing. But they’re pretty disgusting looking.
I have to agree that the buses are great. They’re clean and comfortable, and the ones I ride are hybrids. Mine run every four to eight minutes. The only problem is that there will be two or even three close together, and then there’s a wait. (One will pass me when I’m half a block from the stop, and another one – well below capacity – will pull away before I can get to it. By the time the next one comes it will be standing room only. And my destroyed knees preclude running to catch the one I miss.)
Really? Cool! Post #4 made is sound crappy with the schedules shrinking and it becoming more expensive.
Gotta agree; while busses are not an ideal public transport modality (being subject to traffic), the system in Seattle is pretty damn effective.
IIRC I heard that Seattle is adding something like 200 new buses in the next few years. Some of these will replace older buses of course, but the impression I had was that there would be more buses on the streets. And I think most of them will be hybrids.
One-zone fares are $1.50. My employer subsidises my monthly pass, which is $54/month. The company buys it and I reimburse them $9. Seattle has a Ride Free Area. Here’s a map.
Fares haven’t gone up much since I left, 17 years ago. I think it was almost a dollar in 1990.
Not to mention that the seats on the buses are comfortable. I’ve seen movies set in larger cities where the buses have plastic seats. Easy to keep clean but hard on the butt. I wish my car seat was as comfy as a Metro seat.
I’ll say that public transportation sucks in the greater Seattle area.
The most recent example was one time I needed to get from one place on the eastside to another. Worst case scenario (traffic), that takes 20 minutes in a car. Usually, it takes 10 - tops. (And I was going from transit point to transit point, not around residential areas)
By bus, it took an an hour, 45 minutes.
Ride from near downtown to downtown, it’s great. But trying to get across town can be ridiculous and getting around the eastside or north end is horrid. (I don’t know about south king county. I’ve never needed to bus there.) And at night (anything after 9pm)? it’s awful.
amarinth has it right. If you want a car-free life in Seattle you can have one and it’s great, but you have to be very careful about where you choose to live and work.
I will echo this, to a large degree, and elaborate a bit.
The system is designed around one major hub (downtown) and a couple of minor hubs (Northgate, Bellevue, etc). It’s not a decentralized system like in other cities. If your travel requirements match with the hub layout, you’re golden, and you can get where you’re going quickly and easily.
However, if you’re trying to get from a minor hub to a minor hub, or any variation at odds with the basic structure, then you’re probably in for quite a haul.
For example: I live in the north end of the city, twenty blocks or so south of Northgate. I used to work downtown. Then I changed jobs, and I currently work on the east side, in the Factoria neighborhood.
I used to be able to catch a bus at a stop half a block from my house and get to within a block and a half of my office downtown, in about twenty minutes, thirty tops during bad traffic. So I’d be on the bus for 45 minutes to an hour, all told, in an average work day.
Now, if I want to get from my house to my office, I can transfer once, with the second bus taking me from the university on a roundabout tour of most of the east side, for a total trip time of about an hour and forty-five minutes; or I can transfer twice, going downtown then to the other end of downtown and then again on a partial tour of the east side, for a total trip time that will range between an hour twenty and two hours, one way, depending on whether I miss either of the connections and have to wait for the next bus. That means three to four hours every day would be lost to commute time. That, frankly, sucks.
I hate driving in this town, but it’s better than my bus option. Since I changed to an early shift (6:30 to 3:30) and work at home two days a week, it’s a lot better, but I still wish the bus were a viable option. It ain’t, in my current situation. If I got another job downtown, I’d switch back to the bus immediately. But for now, I have to drive.
Whether or not Seattle’s transit system works for you will depend entirely on where you are and where you’re trying to go.