Category Archives: Diversions

Fun things I’ve found around the internet!

Keeping up with the Jones’…

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Mariel wearing cowboy hatAndy over at MyEastBayAgent recently posted an article on how to use blog aggregators (and in particular bloglines) to keep track of your favorite blogs. I’ve wanted to post something similar for a while, but rather than repeat his good information, I’ll just second his opinion that bloglines is an excellent web application and give some background on how I use it.

I’ve tried out a few other blog aggregators, but I keep going back to bloglines because it is simple to use and offers some compelling features. In particular, the web-based nature of the service means that it automatically keeps track of the blogs I’ve read regardless of the computer that I read them on…

Here’s how you can get started with bloglines.

  1. Register at bloglines
  2. Subscribe to any and all blogs that you like to read.
  3. bookmark and then check back in at http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs on a regular basis

Are you looking for some blogs to subscribe to? Please feel free to browse the blogs that I follow. If you like any of them, then while you are browsing that blog on bloglines, you should see a “subscribe” text near the top right of the page. Click on that link and follow the instructions to add that blog to your bloglines’ blogroll.

If you are looking to add my blog, it is as simple as clicking on this button:

  • Subscribe with Bloglines

However, I’m well aware that not everyone uses bloglines, so here are some easy buttons to add Rain City Guide to many more of the blogs aggregators that you may be using:

  • add to My Yahoo!
  • my msn
  • Subscribe in NewsGator Online
  • Subscribe with RocketInfo
  • Add http://raincityguide.com to your Kinja digest

By the way, as far as I know, all of these buttons work. However, if you find an issue with any of them, I’d definitely be interested in hearing about it!

And on a side note, I recently had a chat with a friend (who also happens to be a technology evangelist) about the fact that we both had 9 people subscribed to our blogs via Bloglines… We’re both very interested in bumping our numbers up, but it is going to take readers like you to make that happen! 🙂

green living resources

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Sand Storm at Burning ManI recently added some links on my sidepanel to some environmental resources that I’ve found interesting and/or helpful. Below are the sites along with a little description of why I decided to highlight them.

FreeCycle Seattle “lets you find new homes for things you no longer use and receive what you need–free! Clean out your house, save good stuff from the landfill, and help others at the same time.” The site is similar to the “free” section in most classified ads except EVERYTHING is free… A lot of good stuff turns up on this site, although it is often gone pretty quickly as the turnover rate is quite high.

GreenClean is “the environmentally sound guide to cleaning your home.” While promoting their book by the same name (GreenClean), the site gives some good advice and background on cleaning with the environment in mind.

ReStore has field crews that pick up, salvage, and dismantle building material all over the larger Puget Sound region and central Washington. They offer “quality building and home improvement materials, a wide variety of services including sales, pick-up, salvage, and whole building deconstruction.” Their store in Ballard is filled with hard-to-find materials like old bricks, stones, doors, lamps, etc. If you have an old Seattle home (like I do!), this store can be great source of “original” materials.

Rocky Mountain Institute “is an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that fosters the efficient and restorative use of resources to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining. We do this by inspiring business, civil society, and government to design integrative solutions that create true wealth.” Based on the 30 years that they’ve spent researching efficiency improvements in everything from water to cars, Amory and L. Hunter Lovins at the RMI offer a glimpse into the environmentally-friendly future that we can create. The book they wrote with Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism, is a must read for anyone who wants understand how businesses (even small real estate companies!) can learn from natural processes to create positive impacts that benefit us all.

Tree Hugger “The Future is Green. Find it Here.” This blog offers frequent updates on environmental issues and products. Far from being an activist site, the blog is more likely to engage your “environmental aesthetic”. Even so, it is a fun blog to read with lots of good content.

Do you have another environmental-related links that real-estate minded readers might find helpful? Share the wealth by leaving a comment.

Monorail Death Watch

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monorail's green lineInspired by Timothy Noah’s Death Watch (the latest regarding Karl Rove) series on slate, I’m tempted to start something on the Monorail as the whole operation seems to be in a death spiral lately… However, rather than go for the jugular, I’ve decided to give my view on how the monorail’s future became so dire.

After the defeat of Initiative 83 that would have effectively banned the monorail, the project seemed on a high. The monorail supporters (rightfully) saw the overwhelming support as a great sign in that the project could now move forward with the full support of the City (at least at the highest levels of the City government). However, as the negotiations between the sole-bidding contractor and the monorail agency dragged on, support seemed to wane. I heard numerous times from people who said that they were tired of all the delays and their support was waning with each passing day.

The latest crop of news began when the monorail announced on June 3rd that an tentative agreement had been reached with the prime contractor for the (relatively unusual) design, build AND operate contract.

On June 21, more details of the agreement were released to the public. This set into motion a series of articles documenting the total cost of the proposal. The Times has a decent article, while the PI put out sensationalist piece giving the total projects costs as “$11 billion”. This holds the monorail up to a higher standard than any other public project and is really just bad economics. For example, it is like saying the price you paid for your $400,000 home ballooned to $1,200,000 because that is the total amount you will pay over the life of your loan. The worst part of this journalism is that I’ve heard numerous individuals quote this number as if the cost of the monorail jumped from $1.7B to $11B overnight. This type of apples to oranges comparison seems irresponsible of the Seattle PI…

If the monorail fails someday, I would say that a definitely turning point happened around the time of the PI’s “$11 billion” article. After that, the Monorail Board and the City Council members had to start explaining economics in order to justify their positions, and this became a no-win situation. Both the Times and the PI ran articles describing how support was quickly evaporating.

Seattle Center FountainThen on July 1, the Monorail board rejected the complicated 50-year financing scheme which led to the resignation of Project Executive Director Joel Horn and Board Chairman Tom Weeks. The Seattle Weekly has since written a scathing article about Joel Horn.

Does this mean that the monorail project is dead in Seattle? Not necessarily. The acting director is working hard to attact a new director and sway public opinion back in favor of the monorail. However, the odds are definitely against the monorail at this point.

On Friday (7/15) the editorial board from the Seattle PI, which has generally been a supporter of the monorail, gave an editorial which asks for the final nail to be put in the coffin of the project. (This had the anti-monorail voices over at the Sound Politics blog jumping for joy, or as one writer put it: “Stunned. Encouraged, but stunned.”)

Can’t get enough monorail information? Here’s a list of my resources:

Freedom and Independence!

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[photopress:100_1769.JPG,thumb,alignright]Happy Fourth of July! I could go on and on about how home ownership is the key to independence and how it can give you freedom from renting, but instead here are the Seattle PI’s list of celebrations around town. Hope you all have a safe and magical 4th of July!

P.S. If you are interested in the whole independence and home ownership discussion- don’t hesitate to call!

Mary Jereczek

Photo Montage Diversion…

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[photopress:poster_mark_ready_to_print_logo.jpg,thumb,alignright]This week’s off-topic site that shouldn’t be missed is the flickr montager. It is a great tool that creates a photo montage of Flickr images based on the photo’s flickr tag.

For example, type in the words “solstice”, and you can see a photo montage made of up phots from flickr that people have tagged as “solstice”. I got some great montages from the words “seattle” and “ballard”. The montages defintiely work best if you start with a simple photo without a lot of detail. But either way, it can be a lot of fun to look at.

Bus Monster! WOW!

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bus monsterI just ran across the best google map hack yet:
Seattle Bus Monster

and the more I browse the site, the more impressed I am.

Some of the things to notice:

  • real time bus location information with estimated arrival times!
  • real time traffic cameras
  • bus stop information
  • the ability to search for a bus top and/or route
  • route markers drawn over google maps!

Everything about the site is professionally done. For example, try typing in “2nd and Spring” when searching for “bus stops”. The site will return all the 2nd and spring locations in King county!

Play around and I think you will find that Chris Smoak has made the life of Seattle transit commuters MUCH easier.

Farmers’ Markets in Seattle

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Tulips As a test for a new little program I wrote to post things on Google Maps, I’ve put a map together displaying all the Farmers’ Markets in Seattle. In order to do this, I cribbed heavily from a few websites such as metroblogging and the Neighborhood Farmers’ Market Alliance .

The farmers’ markets current being displayed include:

  • Pike Place Market
  • Ballard Farmers’ Market
  • Broadway Farmers’ Market
  • Capital Hill Farmers’ Market
  • Columbia City Farmers’ Market
  • Fremont Market
  • Lake City Farmers’ Market
  • Magnolia Farmers’ Market
  • University District Farmers’ Market
  • West Seattle Farmers’ Market

If you know of some other farmers’ markets that should be included or some data that needs to be updated, just let me know.

By the way, I also made my first google maps “marker” for this site. If you look closely, you may notice that the marker is a tulip based on the flower in the center of the above photo.

Farmers’ Markets in Seattle

Seattle Public Library Resources

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spiderDid you know that you can get the full-text of on-line newspapers through the Seattle Library? I read an article describing how many libraries provide full-text access (on-line) to magazines and newspapers that would normally charge fees for such access:

It’s impossible to list every database available from every public library since resources vary amongst libraries. Simply visit your local library’s web site, or give them a call and ask what’s available and how to gain access. It’s a painless process that can be accomplished in a matter of minutes.

After reading the article, I was pleasantly surprised to find many great resources available on the Seattle Library Website. While just scratching the surface, I’ve already found current and archived collections of all 18 Washington State Newspapers, Technology Review, and Harper’s Magazine. The only catch is that you will need a Seattle Library card in order to access many of the databases.)

Fun Diversions

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Fun at Burning ManRecently, I’ve come across some great sites that are worth sharing even if they have little to do with real estate. I think all of these sites deliver on the promise of the web to make for more interesting social interactions! (and all of them provide a great public service for free!)

1) Interesting Satellite Maps provides links to satellite maps based on google maps technology many of which are quite fascinating. There are so many interesting things to see that it is very easy to get “lost” on this site… Besides, Tim (the site’s operator) lets users submit sites making this a great community resource.

2) Upcoming.org “is a social event calendar, completely driven by people like you. Manage your events, share events with friends and family, and syndicate your calendar to your own site”. I’ve begun to use this site under the name “tyr” and I’m pretty sure that I’m going to integrate some of the event features that this site offers into this site.

3) del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that is also highly addictive. “It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.” The site seems to have a critical mass where enough people are bookmarking interesting sites that you can browse from one “tag” to another all day long. Again, I go by the name “tyr.” This site makes for a great research tool… If you see a bunch of links on a topic on my site to a particular topic, you can probably expect that I’ll be doing a post on the subject some time soon. For example, right now I’m preparing an article on how mass transit (light rail, monorail, etc) affects property values…