raloria

William Shatner's a cool dude: Captain Kirk, watches a TON of TV shows & tweets almost non-stop, and is a big supporter of SPN.

But Bill...this is just stupid: William Shatner’s $30 Billion Kickstarter Campaign to Save California

He wants to build a pipeline from Seattle, WA down to CA to help with their drought crisis.
Nevermind that only a couple of days ago WA's governor declared a drought emergency of over half of the state: Governor expands drought declaration to nearly half of Wash.

"We've never experienced a drought like this before – normal rainfall but with very little snow in the mountains," said Department of Ecology Director Maia Bellon.

The current statewide snowpack is only 24% of normal, lower than in 2005 when the last drought was declared in Washington.

The big, metropolitan cities like Seattle and Tacoma are supposed to be okay, but I'm skeptical considering we could have a very warm and dry summer. Our spring has already been overly and unusually dry and warm.

Btw, this isn't the first time CA has wanted to take our water, that we can't afford to give away. People have the mistaken idea that it rains every other day of the year up here. Well it doesn't folks. If you look at statistics, Hawaii gets way more annual rainfall than WA state does.

Anyway, dumb idea, Bill. Dumb, expensive, and I'm pretty sure logistically impossible.

Holy Cow! What an incredible game! The Seattle Seahawks played sooo bad for 3 quarters. Nothing was working. Green Bay was leading from the get-go. It looked bad in the 4th quarter, but I believed. Then Seattle made 2 touchdowns in a row! Then the game went into overtime and a few plays later, Seattle got another touchdown!

We are Super Bowl bound again and that hasn't happened in 10 years!!!! GoHawks!!! CHAMPIONS NEVER QUIT!!! \0/

RT @Seahawks: Seahawks are Back 2 Back #NFCChamps and Super Bowl bound... again!!! #GBvsSEA pic.twitter.com/tPV76dAXn1

— #Q13FOX News (@Q13FOX) January 18, 2015

What an amazing, nail-biting, OMG-I'm-so-stressed kind of a game! Parts of it weren't pretty. There were mistakes made, but in the end the Seattle Seahawks finished on top of the San Fransisco 49ers 23-17.

I've watched the Seahawks since I was a kid, often with my dad and/or my grandpa. I even have a Steve Largent poster that used to be on my wall. This is only the 2nd time that the Hawks have ever gone to the Super Bowl. Think we're due for some greatness? Think we're due to win the whole thing? Hell, yes! Seattle has never won...anything in professional sports. We've occasionally come close, but we've never gone all the way and won the big games. So many times we've been told our teams are lousy, they're not good enough, we'll never win. Finally we have a team that is talented enough and believes enough to win. A sportscaster months ago said the Seahawks were winning because they believed they could and darn it if that hasn't turned out to be the case.

Somehow it feels like the stars are aligning and something magical and great and meant-to-be is about to happen. This is our time. This is destiny...at last. Go Hawks!

Pack your bags, 12s. We’re headed to New York City. #SuperBowlBound #GoHawks pic.twitter.com/D9SKCqMTGt

— Q13 FOX News (@Q13FOX) January 20, 2014

I remember when the 1st of May was a day to pick flowers and celebrate Spring.

Now it's all about protesting, rioting, and damaging public property.

'May Day' protests turn violent in Downtown Seattle
Violence erupts as May Day protesters flood streets
‘Black Bloc’ protesters ignite violence at Seattle May Day protest



There is peaceful protesting and then there's all out violence for the sole reason of being destructive. That's all these black-clad anarchists wanted. It was just an excuse to run rampant through the city and vandalize businesses and cars. People are just trying to work, make some money to put food on their table and now they have to deal with spray paint damage and busted windows. It sucks!

Had to share this great video of reactions from the Seattle Seahawks & the fans following today's upset win over the Saints. :D

Never heard of a singing Flash Mob before. This is very cool. :)

In an event organized by the Seattle Symphony and Nordstrom, hundreds of singers joined in a flash mob performance of Handel’s “Hallejuah Chorus” at the downtown Seattle Nordstrom on Saturday, December 11, 2010.

Keep in mind this weather forecast is for Seattle and the Puget Sound area of Washington, not for Vancouver, BC. However, we often share similar weather and a lot of times we're the exact same temperature or very close. So it's a safe bet that this what we can expect over the VanCon weekend.



I don't mind the possibility of rain & cooler temps for Thursday thru Saturday. After all, you don't see much of the outside world when you're at the convention for 3 days. ;) At least it looks like after Sunday things get sunnier and a little warmer. Good for Location Hunting. Heh.

Thanks to KOMO 4 & Steve Pool for the Tweet of the forecast. http://twitpic.com/2hokmo

The 4th is over for another year and now at 2:30 in the morning there's only the occasional firework still being set off in the neighborhood.

First of all, I went outside to check and see who was firing things off and found a mess on our car. Grrrrr. Looks like someone shot a painball at it. I cleaned it off as best as I could, but sheesh! Why is it always at us??? We don't bother anyone. Stupid kids.

Anyhoo, I went out to our driveway after 8 p.m. with my camera gear to capture what I could of the pyrotechnics. They were a little slow to start this year, but once it really began getting dark they were off and running. I felt a little more prepared as far as settings on my Canon camera go this time. I put it on Manual, ISO of 100, and on the Bulb setting. The camera was on my big tripod, while my camcorder was on a mini-tripod on the trunk of the car, tilted way up to catch the fireworks on the street to the south of us.

I used the Canon to photograph the fireworks on the next street over to the north. These folks, several groups from the look of it, always put on a great show. The biggest enemy is the large trees that sometimes obscure the view, but depending on where I moved it wasn't too bad. Luckily, I could hear when they fired the things off, so I knew where to aim.

Most of the fireworks going off from the south were practically right over my head most of the time. With the new settings in place on the camera, I got some pretty good shots. I'll post them later today.

Sadly, the video was a disaster. The fireworks were too infrequent and often out of frame. Plus, I had a little accident with the camcorder. :( Once it started to get dark, the wind picked up considerably. In fact, after about an hour, I had to run into the house for my other jacket. I was freezing! Even though the camcorder was somewhat sheltered from a lot of the wind by our trailer, the extreme angle I had it tilted was too much and after I had readjusted the angle on it, it toppled off the trunk and onto the ground. Oooops! :P

I stopped the recording, which was just as well, 'cause by then I realized it hadn't picked up much anyway. Going on 11:00, I could see that things had quieted down considerably. Tired of freezing, I packed up and headed inside. Inspecting the camcorder, it looked relatively fine. The one real spot of damage was to the battery mounted on the back. It's been split apart, a big gap from the plastic base to the main body of the battery. Guess I'll have to track down a new one. As for the camcorder itself, it sustained a few nicks and scrapes by the focus ring, but otherwise it's unharmed. It even seems to work just fine. Sadly, as I said it was all for naught.

I watched the recordings I made on the DVR of the Macy's Fireworks show in NY (thank goodness I could FF through that annoying Bieber kid) and our own Seattle Family 4th fireworks. The Macy's one was big and bold as always, with the 6 barges in the harbor. However, the Seattle one was far and away the most impressive (just as it was last year). The best part was that this year's show really was a miracle. After Chase Bank pulled out as a sponsor after the 2009 show, it looked like the long-standing tradition of a fireworks show at Lake Union would be no more. But once the word got out to the public hundreds of people and businesses in the community rallied together and raised the thousands of dollars needed to put on the show...and did it all within 24 hours! So tonight's show really was for the people and in thanks to the people.

And what a show it was! I swear, the Seattle fireworks show has more variety and colors in it than any show I've ever seen! Simply amazing! If I find a video of it online, I'll try to post it.

Anyway, that's what my July 4th was like...cold, windy, overcast, but still with good fireworks. I'll try to post my pics later on. Got some good ones, I think. ;)

Yesterday an old local TV legend passed away.

I grew up watching weatherman Harry Wappler on KIRO TV. He was bright and funny and always gave the forecast with a smile. Thank you, Harry, for all your many years of making sure we were ready for sun, wind, rain, or snow. I missed you when you retired years ago and I miss you again now.



Long-Time KIRO 7 Meteorologist Harry Wappler Dies

A great video tribute to Harry: http://www.kirotv.com/video/23226849/
KIRO 7 will air a special tribute to Harry Wappler on Sunday at 6:30 p.m.