Once again, Fremont put on quite a show…
I had a wonderful time at this Fremont-only parade and celebration… A bunch of people have already posted photos over at flickr, but a warning that many of the photos are not for the faint of heart.
(The same warning should probably apply to people thinking of moving to Fremont! 🙂 ).
[photopress:header.jpg,thumb,alignright]The Fremont Fairis this weekend (June 17th and 18th)! It is a great celebration and always a lot of fun!
There will be four stages with lots of music and a parade at noon on Sunday!
In addition, the Seattle Art Car Blowout is not to be missed!
I 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:
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.
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:
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.
Did 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.)
Recently, 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…
In organizing the data for gHomes, I’ve inadvertently created a treasure chest full of home sale (and sold) information. For example, with only a few minutes of extra coding I put two tables together. The first list the average list price of homes by zip code, while the second lists the average list price by year built and number of bedrooms for the same set of cities.
The hardest part of putting tables like this together is information overload. There is so much information available that simplifying the data down to digestible amounts can be tough. Is data like this of any interest to you? Is there some other housing characteristic you’d like to see? If there is ANY interest in tables like this, I will happily output them on a regular basis.
Here is some major caveats with the data:
1) The tables use the average list price (not sale price!!!) so don’t expect this data to give you an accurate value for your home. If you want an accurate comparative market analysis done for your home, ask me. I’ve got all the right data and I’ll happily give you one for free! (my free offer even extends to FSBOs!)
2) When you see bad data points (like zipcodes that are incomplete), that is a result of an agent (hopefully not myself) entering in the data wrong in the MLS system.
3) There are a bunch of anomalies where prices jump from one cell to another. Remember that the data is an average, and that sometimes, the average is only over a few (like one or two) data points.
[photopress:costumes_1.jpg,thumb,alignright]The Norwegian Constitution Day parade is going on tomorrow, May 17, in Ballard!
The official Syttende Mai site gives the meaning behind the day along with a list of events. For more info, check out the wikipedia entry.
The Seattle Times describes the event as “One of the largest May 17 parades in the United States begins at 6 p.m. tomorrow at 24th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 62nd streets in downtown Ballard. It winds through the business district, ending at Ballard Avenue Northwest.”
The highlights from the list of events include:
Lunch
Eat excellent food and listen to important speakers.
Time:
12:00pm (Noon) to 2:00pm
Location:
Leif Erikson Hall, 2245 NW 57th Street
Parade
The parade starts at 6 p.m. near Adams School in Ballard, at the corner of NW 62nd and 24th Avenue NW. The route follows south to Market Street and eastward to Bergen Place, which is named after the Seattle Sister City of Bergen, Norway.
Time:
6:00pm to 8:00pm
Bergen Place
Entertainment featuring music and dance from Norway and other Nordic countries.
Time:
2:30pm to 5pm
Location:
Bergen Place is located at the intersection of Market St., Leary Avenue and 22nd Avenue.
Children’s Games
Children enjoy traditional games from Norway and the United States with awards going to all who participate. A surprise guest is usually on hand to delight one and all. The games are free and open to the public.
Time:
2:00pm to 4:30pm
Location:
At the Ballard Community Center, 6020 28th Avenue NW.
Dance to Pickled Herring Band
Dance the night away…
$10 at the door. Must be 21 years of age or older.
Time:
9:00pm to 12:00am
Location:
At Leif Erikson Hall, 2245 NW 57th, No host bar.
Hope to see you there!
I recently began an ad campaign on google that places an ad when someone searches the term “moving to seattle”…
Did you click on that ad to get to my site?
If so, I’d be especially interested to know what type of information that you are looking for! Is there something specific you would like to know about Seattle?
If you wouldn’t mind taking a minute to write a comment, I would sure appreciate knowing how I could serve you better!
I found an excellent post where the author discusses the two methods for showing up high in Google search results. I agree with his conclusion that providing good content is a better (and more long lasting) approach than any attempt to “trick” the search engines. As a matter of fact, I would call that the guiding philosophy of this website. “Provide good content, and they will come!”
If you are thinking of starting a business-related website or blog, and you want to attract lots of hits to your website (why wouldn’t you?) I recommend reading this article:
Put Yourself in Google’s Shoes
The content based approach avoids all this hassle. You provide information rich pages which is what Mr Google and his searchers want. You join the synergy. Google is working for you, not trying to foil your latest trick.