Jarrett House NorthNow with 80% less politics!

Sad news from BoingBoing this morning: Anita Rowland, the blogmother of the Seattle blog meetups and a longtime Internet presence, has passed away at the age of 51. Her cancer finally overcame her indomitable personal strength.
I’ll always remember Anita for putting out a welcoming hand when I first started trying to find my way in [...]

Early start to the morning today, with a presentation that ran from 8 to noon Pacific time (I have been in Seattle for a business trip since yesterday afternoon). And then? Driving back into Seattle with KEXP on the car radio. A relatively leisurely afternoon spent checking email, working on proposals, catching up on status [...]

This was an amazingly quick trip; we landed at SeaTac (Viva SeaTac!) at 12 and were at our customer’s site in Tacoma at 1:30; headed to dinner at 5; watched Tennessee lose to Ohio State (sorry, Kelsey); and now I’m up, listening to the KEXP stream and sipping French press coffee in my room and [...]

I’m back in the air today. On the agenda: a meeting in Tacoma. It will be the first time I’ve been back in the Puget Sound area since I left on my cross country trip in 2004.
I’m looking forward to our overnight stay at Hotel 1000 in Seattle. I never spent much time near Pioneer [...]

Synchronicity is coffee related blog posts from both Doc Searls and Blogorelli arriving in one’s aggregator on the same day. Granted, it was Tuesday; I’m a little behind.
Anyway: first Doc Searls pointed out Howard Schultz’s mail to his troops about how Starbucks’s growth has endangered the customer experience in its stores. Doc further opines that [...]

WSJ: At Long Last, Seattle Makes the Super Bowl. Interesting article, not nearly enough hometown flavor for my taste. Much better coverage at, of all places, Cracked (and who knew that they were even publishing anymore, much less online?), which to its credit the WSJ pointed to.

If your first introduction to Starbucks was in the last few years, you may not realize that the woman in the logo is a mermaid—or that she’s holding her tails wide open in a fertility gesture. Dead Programmer traces the evolution of the logo from 15th century fertility symbol to 21st century corporate logo and [...]

Tom Harpel and his lovely bride Rachel have come back from their honeymoon. Congrats, kids, and sorry I was on the wrong coast for the wedding. I only hope good beer was available at the reception.
(Now every time I say “Tom and Rachel” I want to add that bit at the end of Lou’s Coney [...]

Boing Boing: Space Needle to be converted to WiFi antenna. According to this KOMO TV story, Speakeasy (and two other firms) are teaming up to create a city-wide WiMax network that will eventually be available to individuals as well as businesses. Though I disagree with Boing Boing’s assertion that the Space Needle is a “white [...]

Dave has moved to Seattle just as I moved back to Boston. Come on, man, cut it out! This is twice now we’ve crossed paths…
He asks for advice today about places to eat in the market. Here’s my comment, reposted from his blog and annotated with past experiences from mine:

I like the Pike Place Brewery—their [...]

Unveiling time: I’m moving back to Boston. Starting Saturday, I’ll be doing a cross-country drive from the Seattle suburbs to the Boston suburbs (with a several day layover with my inlaws in New Jersey).
This has been in the works for a while, but for various reasons I didn’t think the time was appropriate to break [...]

I spent what I can only hope will be Seattle’s hottest day this year touching base with some old tourist landmarks, beginning with the Pike Place Market. I came away with four good photos to reward my Saturday sweat.
The a cappella quartet in front of the original Starbucks in the first picture should be publicly [...]

Just got back from the Seattle Weblog Meetup. Lots of old familiar faces there tonight—Anita has the full list. I was bummed not to see Jake there, but I got to meet Samantha, Chaz, Ian and Mary. —Yes, Ian as in Ian Spiers of BrownEqualsTerrorist.com fame. We all had a lot of fun taking pictures [...]

As promised, I finally made it (after two years) to Salumi, and finally got around to posting my writeup. It’s easy enough to find, being right across the corner from the intersection of 2nd and 3rd Avenues South. —Yes, I know, but it’s Seattle and here parallel streets are allowed to intersect. Even at 2 [...]

I’m just about to head to lunch at Salumi. For those who aren’t familiar, Salumi is run by Armandino Batali, Food Network Mario Batali’s dad and retired Boeing engineer, and it’s only open for lunch four days a week between 11 and 4. Batali cures all his own meats, serves amazing Italian specialties, and you [...]