As Jack’s recent post, What Happened to Wallyhood?, alluded, I’ve bowed out from contributing to this blog. I want to apologize for the careless way I did it.

A little explanation is in order. I feel like I’ve been personal enough on these pages over the years that this won’t seem out of place.

I lived in the same house in Wallingford, just across from the John Stanford International School (or Latona Elementary School, as it was named when I first moved in) since early 1993. I went from temp secretarial worker to graduate student to Microsoftie to property owner …

The eponymous Mike Dunn sent this report from Chris Huckins of Dunn Lumber of excitement this morning:

This week’s Lake Union Dunn Promise Awards go to Luis Velazquez (Yard) and Ben Dominick (Yard).

Luis spotted a Japanese balloon carried lantern landing on the roof of our common lot shed early in the morning (about 5 AM) of 5/14/2020. The lantern immediately caught the roof on fire.

Luis alerted others in the yard, and Ben Dominick immediately contacted the fire department who quickly responded. Needless to say that the Lake Union crew are extremely grateful for this excellent first responder response …

I remember about ten years back, a local vigilante group took it upon themselves to keep all the telephone poles along 45th Street free and clear of advertising. There was some considerable pushback from arts organizations that were relying on pole-based postering to get the word out about their musical or theatrical event (and, as this was right about the time that I had started Wallyhood, I can add “their blog” to that list.)

Over time, though, the vigilantes got tired of their fight, the poster pasters won out over the pole polishers, and for better or for worse, poles …

My favorite weekend unwinding is to hop on my bike and pedal somewhere I haven’t. I’m not a distance rider, I favor cotton to lycra, and my pedals have strapless toe cages rather than clip-ins. I don’t go for speed, but I also try not to shy away from a hill. I prefer small side streets to wide avenues, and my general strategy is that when I come to a cross-roads I’ve been to recently, I try to take whichever turn I didn’t the last time.

This approach has taken given me a good picture of the neighborhoods north of …

It was a strange day today: torrential rain in the morning battered the petals off the fruit blossoms in the morning, and then by mid-day, it was a clear blue sky. The wind came back for a visit, though, knocking down a tree at 40th and Eastern, which in turn took out power for most of Wallingford.

The initial outage map covered most of Wallingford into Green Lake, but people began reporting power coming back on over the next few hours. Just after 9:00 PM, the last bits seemed to clear up, and it seems they have everything restored as …

The new building going up on the corner of 45th and 1st, across from Dick’s, went up in flames early this morning, starting around 6 am. Jeff Garfield, owner of Bedrooms and More, shared  this photo of the blaze:

Fire trucks were still on the scene as of late afternoon, and the interior was a dripping, soggy mess.

According the Fire Department, the cause of the blaze is “still under investigation”. The building has been under active construction during the lockdown, from what I’ve seen, but there’s considerable graffiti visible on the upper floors, though, suggesting that people have been …