Seattle Bubble

A few stereotypes that are absolutely true in Seattle:

The sticker-decorated Subaru and Volvo wagons. These are for real. No Dubya stickers will be found on these things. Drive 5-10 under the speed limit and haven't a prayer of parking well at all in the Whole Foods parking lot.

Militant bikers. I pulled up to a biker once who had run three consecutive stop signs (blasted through them) in front of me and was like "You just ran that stop sign!". He replied with a barrage of obscenities and proceeded to follow me around a few corners, which ended when I floored my old Volvo turbo (no bumper stickers!) up a hill north of the UW campus. Toned calves are no match for 160 horsepower.

I could go on.

I actually had the same experience. noticed a biker who blew through 3 consecutive lights on 8th, pulled up to him and said "There's traffic rules you know, for a reason." Dude, said "thanks mom.", light changed we exchanged friendly eff-yous and parted company.

I realize its their risk and if they want to blow traffic rules, it'll be me picking their teeth out of my radiator, but I don't want to bother with the paperwork...

It astounds me. People who bike in this town must be nuts.

I think this blog post sums up the bikes vs. cars argument fairly well. It's possible that there's a greater percentage of jerks that ride bikes vs. in cars, but I think it's more likely that they're just more noticeable.

I do most of my riding on the Burke-Gilman & Sammamish River trails away from cars though, so I don't have a lot of personal experience.

I can't believe some bike riders in seattle either (and I'm one - in the nicer months) Like a bunch of arrogant f$#@'s in a "pace line" I saw weaving through summer traffic on the Burke Gillman at 25mph rudely shouting "cear!" at everyone they came up on.

Another time some dude decided to clear his nasal passages as I was behind him (five or six feet), spraying me with snot. I was so pissed I almost kicked him of the road as I pulled up beside him to motion as if saying "what the f*#$@ man!" He gives me an irritated look and says "hey didn't know you were on my wheel"

Not to mention some of the things I've seen in traffic. I keep expecting to see a tragic accident one day, but, amazingly, it hasn't happened yet.

That was a great take on the topic.

Considering I bike to work most days (although I do not live in Seattle, but I've ridden in Philly, NY, and other east coast cities), I find it quite equal (proportionately) as far as idiot drivers versus bicyclists. Every day I see drivers blatantly running stop signs and lights - to a frightening degree - and not even aware of it. I could go on ad nauseum about the horrible drivers, but I won't.

Being that I ride more than drive, I am more of a proponent of biking. Besides, my days seem to go better when I ride to work. (Well except for last Wednesday when the tweeker punk pulled out of the driveway without looking and nearly hit me. Or the Saturday before that the poor old senile man was leaving church and driving down the wrong side of the road totally oblivious and came right at me, still on the wrong side of the road like nothing was wrong, as his poor wife sat next to him with this look of terror on her face.)

Fact is, there are just too many cars on the road - by any standard. And it's only going to get worse. </ramble>

B-hamster,

I've nothing against cycling and am generally supportive of alternative modes of transportation. I also see plenty of bad driving in this region. Check out drivers in Olympia sometime - it's shocking.

Having said that, much of the crap driving is down to incompetence, which is irritating, but not as irritating as the holier-than-thou arrogance of the bike snobs that believe they're above the law because of the moral superiority of their mode of transport.

While on on the subject, how about biodiesel? I see it as a good thing on the whole, but I'd rather see some of its users tone back the sanctimonious advertising on their vehicles.

E.

I agree with that. As selfish as it sounds, I ride for my health, my sanity, exercise (I hate gyms), and because it feels good. I should care about the environment, pollution, the Middle East crisis, etc., but I really don't.

I think the word militant (used earlier) was very apropos for some of the bikers I see. Especially some of those kamikaze riders I recall seeing back east. And I'm sure they're in Seattle. For the most part I try to be abiding. But I've mellowed a lot since I bought my Custom Cruiser



Biodiesel needs a little work. In it's current form I don't think it is a viable option. I’ve read if all the crop land was turned to production of BD, it would only supply a fraction of our current needs. And currently it's only a net source of energy (energy outputs barely exceed inputs). Unlike ethanol, whose production is a net user of energy. Again, these are merely subsidies to agribusiness. But that's another rant.

I've read about an algae that grows incredibly fast that could be produced in salt water and something like that would be a more practical source for biodiesel. Something like 50 sq mi (or it could be 50x50 – I can’t recall) could produce all of our fuel needs. But this is the direction in which I hope we are heading.

I think this is the article you're looking for:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

"NREL's research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres), if the remaining challenges are solved (as they will be, with several research groups and companies working towards it, including ours at UNH). In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals. "

My parents have a 2006 Jeep Liberty CRD (turbodiesel) which they bought with the intention of someday running a lot of biodiesel in. It's had a couple tanks of 20% biodiesel which it ran very well on, but nothing more. Some people run Liberty CRDs and VW Golf/Jetta/Passat TDIs (quite a few people with TDIs) on 100% biodiesel and have had great results with no problems.

But yes, giant biodiesel stickers get a little tacky.

Hey thanks for the link. I recall reading that a while back.

Plenty of people rund B100 up here or I even know a guy from Orcas Island that runs svo in his vehicles. VWs and the old (w123) Mercedes seem to be the most common. Some day I might go diesel/biodiesel, but right now I really don't need to drive that much. Usually filling up once a month or so.

Funny, yet ironic, acronym I picked up off the MSFT internal blog today.
SITKOM = Single Income, Two Kids, Outrageous Mortgage.
Being a DINK, I enjoy the SITKOM folk.

I guess somewhere in between is the "SINK" - single income, no kids (granite countertops if you make more than $90K per year)

The sad thing is, an ex-girlfriend of mine with a pretty good job a year out of college ($48k/yr) just closed on a 2 br 1.5 bath condo conversion (in a suburb north of Seattle) at $200k-ish. Then she had the kitchen remodeled with: stainless steel appliances and GRANITE COUNTERS!

All I can say is that:

A: The granite counter phenomenon isn't a luxury touch any more. It is mass market.

B: I hope she likes living there. That place is seriously not worth more than $150k -- $175k tops.

It never ceases to amaze me how people become their own cartoon character. A few summers ago, I was flying to Seattle from Dallas. I sat next to a woman who said next to nothing for most of the trip.

50 something
single
long grey hair (hadn't seen a comb/brush in at least a week)
very 'earthy' attire.
crystal pendant (I thought that went out in the 80s)

OK, no problem

Then she and I started talking...

She moved to Bainbridge from S. California. She is now 'finding herself' through some form of art. She slipped in the requisite liberal politics at every chance. She likes Bainbridge Island because of the 'vibe.' Thinks Bush = Hitler. Says she doesn't need cheap oil (nevermind that she was sitting on a 757 burning several tons of Jet-A to bring her sorry ass to the PNW.)

I assume but can not verify:

She is the owner or roommate of several cats.
No hubby or hubby left her when she got whacky.
Does Prozac like supermodels do coke and heroin
Ex flower child


It seems that people like to become a character of what they think the archtype is of what they admire.

Conservatives do it too. Go to freerepublic.com and every other person is

Former Navy SEAL
IQ of 140 (minimum)
Makes 6 figures as a self-made man
Married to ex-beauty queen
will shoot anything that moves if it is on their property
has 2 straight A students attending the best college/prep school

My point is that you go about your business on Bainbridge, or some similar community, and you run into people that are fresh off of a SNL skit that is lampooning the community.

.

Hmmm...