The Port of Seattle is the biggest landholder in Seattle, and it occupies miles of land along reclaimed tidal areas. This is a view looking toward downtown Seattle from the southern end of the cargo container port berths. (Click on the photo for a larger image on a separate picture page.)
The thing I remember best about Italia? Cappuccino, every morning. Normally I do not drink coffee. I am a tea person. But in Italy, there was no choice but to render unto Caesar. And every cup is treated and prepared with care. Beautiful. (Click on the photo for a larger image on a separate picture page.)
I set up my GoPro on the busy corner of Market and Leary tonight, in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, and just chilled for about 20 minutes. Here’s how life slipped by on Willie Nelson’s 81st birthday, the same day the old master earned a fifth degree black belt. There is no connection between this place and Willie, except perhaps in my imagination. And I have been listening to and playing Willie the past few days.
The expansion of oil production in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields is also pushing petroleum to Northwest refineries and planned refineries, including in Anacortes and further north in Whatcom County at Cherry Point. Seattle, a major rail hub of the BNSF Railway Co., already has long lines of trains carrying petroleum and other products like ethanol. Some Washington state politicians and activists have expressed concern, in light of oil train derailments and fatal explosions in the last two years in Lac Megantic, Quebec, and Casselton, N.D. BNSF reports that about 1.5 trains carrying more than 90 cars, each capable of carrying 30,000 gallons of unrefined, light crude oil, pass through the Pacific Northwest every day. I have seen them in a rail yard about 1.5 miles from my house, in a spot called Interbay. One thing I also know, this country and this region’s appetite for petroleum shows no sign of slowing down, and the state is looking to expand its refining capacity. Expect big fights in the months and years ahead among the competing interest groups. (Click on the images for a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
Every work day I pass by the enormous cement factory and kilns of the Ash Grove Cement Co., just west of Highway 99. You can’t miss the factory and its two enormous kilns. The facility, owned by a Kansas-based firm of the same name, is as much a Seattle landmark in my eyes as the more famous Space Needle. I finally took a bike trip there this weekend and snapped a few pictures. I love the designs of industrial facilities and how function dictates form.
About 70 percent of the U.S. economy is driven by consumer spending. That really means, because we shop, our economic boat stays afloat. But what does that mean outside of the discount and electronics goods shopping stores? It means large ports processing containers filled with goods manufactured in Asia for the North American and U.S. market. This particular Maersk Line cargo ship, the Axel Maersk, stacks containers eight high, and its control room stands even higher. Here are different angles on the Axel Maersk, unloading its cargo today at the Port of Seattle (April 26, 2014). The ship can reportedly carry up to 9,000 containers at one time. (Click on each photo to be taken to a separate photo page with a larger image.)
Kent is one of several mid-sized cities in King County. It’s entirely dependent on the automobile, and it is where many cheaper apartments are found, attracting many lower-income residents and immigrants. Today, more than 130 languages—from Afrikaans to Yoruba—are spoken in the Kent School District, the fourth largest in Washington State. Kent has become a prototypical “melting pot suburb.” (Nationally, minorities now represent 35% of all U.S. suburban residents.) And many new suburbanites come from abroad. Today, one in five King County residents identify as “foreign born,” and many are choosing to locate in South King County communities like Kent. Here are a few samplers of how diverse Kent is.
We have had a lot of rain lately in Seattle. Nothing unusual, but just about everyday now for a couple of weeks. So water is on my mind, and how water responds to surfaces, from metal to plants to the body. So, naturally, I dug up a couple of water and rain photos I shot about a year and a half ago. I particularly love the effect of surface tension when water droplets form on surfaces when it rains. (Click on each photo for a larger image on a separate picture page.)
As I get older, I think I fall more deeply in love with the works of William Shakespeare. It is his 450th birthday today. Happy birthday, oh great master of the human condition. I took this picture at a wonderful production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Seattle’s Discovery Park. The play was performed by Seattle’s inimitable GreenStage theatre company, who perform the Bard’s plays every summer at many amazing outdoor venues throughout Seattle and beyond. These plays are one of my favorite things about living in Seattle. (Click on the photo for a larger image on a separate picture page.)
I included this photo of two men I met for morning tea in Hoi An, Vietnam, in my series called Being Themselves. Nothing earth-shattering here other than a nice moment with some guys who welcomed a visitor to their town and wore very large smiles. My kinda people. See more of my photos from Vietnam on my web site.
What Beautiful Light 