West Seattle, Washington
24 Saturday
The past 36 or so hours have been by far the “busiest” ever for the West Seattle Blog Pets page – SEVEN new reports of lost or found pets, including 2 birds. This link takes you right to the lost/found listings; maybe you can help reunite one of these pets with its people.
John and Frances Smersh at Click! Design That Fits (WSB sponsor) in Admiral were inspired enough by news of Feet First‘s Cart Project (reported here yesterday) that they’re offering 25 percent off their stylish “shopping trolleys” — provided you mention The Cart Project when you stop in. Full details (and pix of the carts) are on the Click! blog; their hours/location can be found here.
Summer starts in a few hours and outdoor dining starts this weekend at WSB’s newest sponsor, Beato Food and Wine. Here’s more on that and other announcements that Beato’s Brandon Gillespie wants to share as his restaurant joins the WSB sponsor lineup (find that full list here):
A Big Thanks to West Seattle!
The staff and I at Beato want to thank all of West Seattle for providing us with such support over the past year and a half. We love being a part of West Seattle and we couldn’t have done it without you. As we approach summer, we have a couple of announcements to make with regards to the restaurant.
SUMMER PATIO OPENING SOON:
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The meterologists are predicting warmer weather for the beginning of summer this weekend and with it, we plan to open the patio on Saturday, June 21. Throughout the summer season, for anyone enjoying a glass of wine on the patio between 4:30-6pm, we’ll offer complimentary summer snacks, such as housemade sunchoke chips or house-brined olives. So be sure to stop by on your way home from work and enjoy a glass of wine and a few bites in the summer sun!SUMMER HOURS
Starting this week, we are open for dinner inside from 5-10 pm on Tuesday through Thursday and from 5-11pm on Friday and Saturday. The patio will open at 4:30pm whenever the weather is warm and dry enough. We will be closed Sundays and Mondays for the summer.Thank you for your continued support and I hope to see you soon at Beato Food and Wine.
-Brandon Gillespie
From the WSB Forums – Hopey is getting married in two weeks and suddenly scrambling to find a classic car. If you can help, check out her post here.
According to a survey just released by Jewish Living Magazine (read about it here), West Seattle is one of America’s top 10 Jewish neighborhoods. No surprise to WSB’s newest sponsor, Kol HaNeshamah, West Seattle’s progressive synagogue, 
which is advertising here to let you know it is celebrating its 5th anniversary during the Shabbat service tomorrow night at 7 pm (at Alki UCC, where Kol HaNeshamah has shared space with the church for all of those five years). The congregation’s rabbi, Michael Adam Latz, says, “I am profoundly humbled and honored to serve as the Rabbi of Kol HaNeshamah, where every day, people from all walks of life gather to worship, study, and work to repair our broken world.” Here’s what the synagogue wants you to know: “Kol HaNeshamah is a congregation of 145 member families. They include the young, old, singles, families, single parents, interfaith, lesbian, gay, and transgendered people. We pride ourselves on our inclusivity of all groups. Since Kol HaNeshamah joined the Seattle community, we have been highly active in areas of social justice. Our activities include building a home with Habitat for Humanity which provided a home for a Muslim family, the highest earning religious group for the AIDS Walk with Lifelong AIDS Alliance, and our newest endeavor to work with other faith groups in the newly formed Sound Alliance. Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) called Kol HaNeshamah one of its fastest-growing member congregations. This growth is influenced in part by the overall rate of increasing synagogue affiliation among American Jewish households, which grew by 15% between 1990 and 2001 even as the “core” Jewish population declined and the number of intermarried families grew. Rising affiliation rates are largely benefitting the Reform movement.” Member Kate Gordon says, “I can’t imagine raising my son in a more open, welcoming and accepting place. After moving to Seattle 3 years ago, not knowing anyone, this was the first place that felt closest to home.” Again, the 5th anniversary service is 7 pm tomorrow; here’s a map to Alki UCC. WSB thanks Kol HaNeshamah and all our sponsors, listed here along with information on how to join them.
Too late to be one of the pitchers, but should be interesting to watch.
Catching up on BDB, noticed this photo posted yesterday. We’re used to seeing herons stalking fish or flying overhead, but this view looks down at a heron in flight. Wow!
If you haven’t already seen it today, there’s a happy ending to the “Don’t hate us because we love your town, help us move here” thread in the WSB Forums (first mentioned here 10 days ago). Now there’s word these would-be West Seattleites have found a place. Welcome to West Seattle!
As the WSB Forums have continued to grow in the past few months, thanks to you, we’ve become increasingly aware of — and embarrassed by — one pesky problem: 
The on-site search function just wouldn’t bring up forum posts along with items from the rest of the site. And the more great stuff you contributed to the WSB Forums, the more intolerable this problem became – so we’re trying an interim fix: a search widget we just put up in place of the old search box. You’ll see it right where the old search box used to be — atop the right sidebar on every WSB page. It uses Google Search to search all WSB pages, forums included, and the search result page will look like Google, except that you’ll see a small WSB logo atop the page; if the search results don’t point you to the page(s) you’re looking for, click that logo to get back to the WSB home page. We’re not so sure this is the perfect permanent solution, but since it definitely searches forum pages as well as the rest of the site, that means you have a better chance of finding what you’re looking for, which is what really matters. Thanks again for being part of WSB; we’re continuing to work on other features to better serve your West Seattle-related online needs, too.
When new sponsors join WSB, we offer them the chance to share a little more information than you’ll find in their ads. Tonight, we welcome Lori Wright, who’s advertising her tutoring service — The Inquisitive Mind — just as summer break is about to start. Here’s more about it: “When Lori Wright went to Whitworth College she intended to become a school counselor. Her advisors guided her toward teaching. After completing her education degree Lori started tutoring at a Bellevue agency. She enjoyed the tutoring so much that she has stayed with it for the last 16 years. Lori started her Masters in School Counseling at SPU but eventually stayed with individualized tutoring. After management experience with two different tutoring centers, Lori started tutoring privately as The Inquisitive Mind in 1997. After moving to West Seattle in 2006, she closed her office in North Seattle and began tutoring out of her new home. Her husband John is a math teacher. Lori’s focus is on working directly with students, she does not have any staff, so when you call The Inquisitive Mind you know you are working directly with Lori. She collaborates extensively with parents, teachers, school counselors, academic testing centers and others as requested by families to help assure the best opportunity for her students. This collaboration is an integral part of her tutoring service for many families. Lori considers her tutoring as the best blend of both worlds of interest to her, part-teacher and at times part-school-counselor.” You can reach The Inquisitive Mind by calling 206-763-3424 or checking out the website at theinquisitivemind.com. Thanks to Lori for choosing to sponsor WSB; if you would like to look into the possibility of doing that too, here’s the place to start (that page also includes our full current list of sponsors, all of whom thank you — as do we — for your support!).
We’ve brought you a few chapters (here, here, and here) in the story of Addie Killam, the college student soon to be returning home to West Seattle to continue her rehabilitation after a bizarre surfing injury left her with a physical disability. The outpouring of help brings this message from Carrie Rasmussen, who e-mailed it to people including us, and gave us permission to share it here:
*As many of you know a few months ago we had a good family friend who is only 20 years old become paralyzed in a spring break surfing accident. At this point her prognosis is permanent paralysis from the ribs down. If there were ever a young woman that I would want my daughter to aspire to be like it would be our friend Addie. She posses many amazing qualities; kindness, dedication and through this all has maintained a positive attitude that God has a different plan in mind for her.
Over the past few weekends there have been several people; family friends, schoolmates from Our Lady of Guadalupe and Holy Names Academy, fellow Girl Scouts, her brothers friends from Boy Scouts, her parents co-workers etc. who have been working on a home in West Seattle, getting it wheel chair accessible for when she comes home. It is inspiration enough to see all these people who know and love her and her family working countless hours to get things ready.
We as well have spent some time over the past few weekends helping out and Hanna sold lemonade for donations to put into Addie’s account. There have been so many people it is hard to know who is who and how they are connected. This past weekend I saw a gentleman who, when he wasn’t helping build the back deck, was taking some pictures. I had seen him there the previous weekends working but not known who he was, but then again, there were several people I didn’t know. I asked him if he would mind emailing them (the pictures) to me so I could add them to the work party blog (http://addiespeeps.blogspot.com) I am maintaining.
As I was getting ready to update the blog I referenced back to one of the original postings done on Addie and her story on the West Seattle Blog. I noticed that there were new comments and had seen aside from emailing me the pictures the gentleman, whom I now know as “Steve”, had posted a link with the photos to his personal blog.
I realize my story is getting long but bear with me because here is the really inspiring part. I went to Steve’s personal blog and read that he *did not know* our friend Addie, he had *never* met her or her family. He had simply seen her story on the WS Blog and he along with several other friends (6 adults and 1 baby) from his church group decided to spend their Memorial Day weekend at her home pitching in. They then came back this past weekend (with 2 new volunteers) and with the help of some donations from their church, planted a beautiful garden outside of Addie’s new bedroom window so she will always have something beautiful to look at. Amazing!
I must say when I discovered that total strangers rallied together and have spent not just one, but multiple weekends to help someone they do not know and are not connected to is some way, I was inspired. How incredibly full their hearts must feel to purposely make time for others………they do not know……….just because. How cool is that!
That group has given me a gift, one that I hope I can pass along. We all have been given the same amount of time in a day, how you spend it is what matters. That group of people will be my inspiration to seek out doing good for others, just because.
Happening here, with the to-the-point subject line coined by beachdrivegirl, “What month is it?” The forecast does have a tiny bit of hope … ADDED AT MIDDAY: The view from Seacrest at 11 am today. (Low-tide pix to come)
If you want to see what local transportation leaders are telling the Seattle City Council Transportation Committee about West Seattle’s forthcoming RapidRide bus service — the briefing’s under way now (on the Seattle Channel, on cable and online). We’ll post a wrapup afterward, or bulletins if something dramatic is revealed. Looks like they’re starting with a lot of background that’s already been reported here in connection with previous public meetings and briefings. 9:28 AM ADDITION: Two noteworthy items so far – the West Seattle route will be called the “C Line” — also, the buses will have wi-fi service, likely free to the user. 10:01 AM ADDITION: Metro has put up a slide showing the route will go all the way to Westwood Village. This has not been officially announced previously. Metro also says the service is scheduled to start in September 2011 — previously they’d just said 2011.
That’s the subject line on the forum post of the week, just up within the past few hours. So sweetly written, you might want to read it even if you don’t usually check the WSB Forums.
From the unofficial Seattle Public Schools blog at saveseattleschools.blogspot.com: District leaders say they’ll solve the problem that threatened to leave some West Seattle High School students out of the Advanced Placement Language Arts class they wanted to take next year. The WSHS website doesn’t reflect the reported change yet, but in a nutshell, here’s what happened — 87 of next year’s 11th graders wanted to take the class; the school said it only had room for 60; after saveseattleschools.blogspot.com contributor Melissa Westbrook wrote about it in the second part of this post, site founder Beth Bakeman e-mailed Superintendent Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson about the situation, and she told them all the students will be accommodated, saying, “What a great problem to have.”
SEACREST SEAGULL, ER, LOL-GULL: Yes, we know, there are a million places to generate your own goofy captions for photos. However, an actual blogger from our Other Blogs list has a thread going that might appeal to those with a twisted sense of humor, as she’s inviting captions for a photo of Seacrest’s famous one-footed seagull. We contributed one already.
MORE ON WHAT THE BOHEMIAN’S GOING TO BE LIKE: We’ve told you about The Bohemian, going into the former Leslie’s Country Store space next to Spiro’s in the 3400 block of California. Its previous one-page website is now expanded into a site with full details on what they’re planning to do. (Mini-update on the future Prost West Seattle next door – it’s applied for a liquor license, and one reader got e-mail from the owner saying they hope to open in August.)
LINK #1: Highland Park Action Committee‘s website now has the promised page compiling information in the group’s fight against the two proposed city-jail sites in southeast WS.
LINK #2: As a side note to this morning’s truck crash at Jan’s Salon south of Morgan Junction (WSB coverage here and here), salon neighbor Chill has posted a note to clients on its blog.
We’re welcoming a new sponsor tonight — Fauntleroy Church (UCC), currently counting down to its centennial celebration (last month, we brought you this video feature previewing the daily bell-ringing that’s under way till the big party in late July). 
As is WSB custom, we offered the folks at Fauntleroy Church a chance to tell you what they’d like you to know about themselves, and here’s what we received from the team led by Senior Pastor David Kratz: “We’re delighted to be one of the advertisers for the West Seattle Blog. We appreciate how hard they are working to keep the community informed about issues and events. This year Fauntleroy Church, United Church of Christ is celebrating its 100th anniversary. From our beginning as ‘the Chapel at Fauntleroy Park’ in 1908, until today, we’ve been an integral part of the West Seattle community. Our spectacular window at the front of the sanctuary has been an inviting place to have literally thousands of weddings, of members and non-members alike. Our Little Pilgrim School serves over 80 children, ages 2 to 5. And, our relationship with the West Seattle/Fauntleroy YMCA continues to serve the wider community, for over 80 years. This year we begin phase one of a major capital remodeling with the replacement of our sanctuary window, which, over the last 55 years, has suffered significant structural damage. It will look the same, but will meet code requirements and provide a wonderful view of God’s creation for the next 100 years. The work will be completed at the end of August. You can learn more about who we are and what we do at www.fauntleroyucc.org.” Thanks to Fauntleroy Church for choosing to sponsor WSB; if you would like to look into the possibility of doing that too, here’s the place to start (that page also includes our full current list of sponsors, all of whom thank you — as do we — for your support!).
After our bird-sighting report yesterday (haven’t solved the mystery yet), Ginny (thank you!!!!) sent us a link to the Urban Peregrines of Western Washington blog — pointing out that its newest entry, just published last night, is all about a banding effort targeting a nest that’s right underneath the West Seattle Bridge. Pictures included too. (This is peregrine-falcon-banding season, according to the previous entry.)
As is our tradition when a new sponsor joins WSB, we offer them a chance here on the home page to tell you something about themselves and their business. This morning, we’re welcoming Dightman Capital Group, an independent Registered Investment Advisor; here’s what they want you to know: “Dightman Capital was founded in 2007 by West Seattle resident Brian Dightman after nearly 6 years at RBC Dain Rauscher. Brian and his wife Michelle settled in West Seattle 8 years ago and shortly thereafter welcomed their two sons, Maxwell and Owen. Brian summarizes his feelings for West Seattle this way: ‘We love this community, its people, and look forward to continuing to build a rich history here for our family.’ Brian is a 3rd-generation West Seattleite; Grandma Ann and Mom Mitzie have many stories about their time at the Luna Park amusement center and saltwater pool on the pier back in the early 1900’s! Brian founded Dightman Capital when he realized that the best form of investment management and planning was going to come from an independent, fee-only source. The goal at Dightman Capital is to deliver a unique and focused portfolio-management approach to individual and institutional investors within a comprehensive planning environment. The firm emphasizes services in money management, financial planning, wealth management, generating retirement income, college cost evaluations and concentrated stock strategies.” You can reach Dightman Capital Group through its website at www.dightmancapital.com. Thanks to Dightman Capital Group for sponsoring WSB — and thanks to our other sponsors, all of whom you will find on this page, which also has info for anybody interested in joining them to grow their business and reach more customers while helping WSB be a sustainable source of 24/7 community news, information, and discussion for West Seattle.
(Fauntleroy/Vashon ferry photo by Jessica Stewart of West Coast Image & Design)
Thought this was worth a mention since it doesn’t seem to have received wide exposure; we stumbled onto it while reading a news release about dockside wi-fi service in the North Sound. The company that provides wi-fi service for Washington State Ferries wi-fi routes, including Fauntleroy/Vashon/Southworth, recently unveiled “new pricing options” (follow the link on its website). We haven’t had occasion to use the service, but looking back into online archives, it appears the most significant change is in the short-term rates.
Spring, and a person’s thoughts turn to … getting organized! (Certainly the participants in Saturday’s West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day can identify.) 
Getting organized is what our newest sponsor, Clutter Caddy, is all about. Here’s what Pamela Street (photo left) wants you to know about her business: “Expand your time and ease the stress in your life by letting ‘someone else’ tame your pesky projects, enabling you time to enjoy life! Clutter Caddy, your professional organizer, wants to do just that for you!!! Pamela Street, longtime West Seattle resident, has been rolling up her sleeves for over five years to make environments more stress free. However, if her Mom is to be believed, she started organizing in her crib. Her pragmatic approach to organizing allows clients to embrace life-changing habits that bring functional order to their surroundings. Through many years supporting large groups of individuals in a work environment, she has acquired a depth of experience that brings practicality to both large and small projects. With a sense of humor, her professional non-judgmental style will provide the insight to jumpstart your most challenging projects. Clutter Caddy offers a wide range of services to help you:
* Organize your home, office or auto to help you be more productive, finding items you want when you want them.
* Assist in small and large moves, specializing in downsizing for the empty nesters and getting the most out of small spaces for new condo owners.
* Plan and execute celebrations from cozy dinner parties to gala events.
Book your services now with Clutter Caddy, or purchase a Gift Certificate for someone that could use a helpful hand organizing their home or doing spring cleaning. Mention this posting when booking two hours or more before May 30th, 2008 and receive 10% off the hourly rate. Visit the evolving web site at www.cluttercaddy.biz, e-mail at cluttercaddy@yahoo.com or call 206-851-3848 for an appointment. Weekend and evening appointments are available.” Thanks to Clutter Caddy and our other advertisers for supporting WSB; if you’re interested in joining them, here’s where to start.
This just in, as a comment on the original report. Can’t say for 100% certain this is really “The Perp,” as he signed the comment, but we can say that one bit of only-available-to-site-admin info does seem to corroborate vicinity …
Ok. I’m the guy that shot the bird. A couple comments:
1. Bravo Seattle Police. My house was surrounded by a SWAT team (not kidding!) in less than ten minutes from the murder. My wife awoke to 6 cops with assault rifles in our yard. Sorry to my next door neighbor btw, you didn’t actually need to hit the bricks when the cop gave you the ‘get low’ hand sign.
2. I have sinned. I do feel really feel bad about putting a cap in that horny pecker/flicker. I realize a 28 foot tall version of the pecker/flicker may be standing at the gates with St. Pete upon my demise. All I can say is that I will do everything possible to rebuild my pecker/flicker karma. May you rest in peace Woody.
3. That bird had it comin. We’ve spent $300 bird proofing the side of our house (grates, hole filler, etc.). The horny pecker/flicker punched holes in our siding, pecked us out of bed at 6 am daily and pooped on our house (a lot). I gave him a number of warning shots. To no avail.
4. To the lady that narced on me. Thanks for the wine and flowers. You don’t have to move out of the neighborhood. I would like to suggest a quick check up at the eye doctor or an NRA primer on gun types.
5. To my wife. You’re welcome! Cops with assault rifles, the ire of our neighbors, the sight of our son huddled over the dead bird’s body…all worth it. You’ll thank me when you wake up at 8 am instead of 6 am tomorrow. And no you don’t get ’spa time’ for your troubles today.
| 4 COMMENTS