Last week I took my Dahon folding bike with me on the Amtrak Coast Starlight to visit Mother Sun and Friend Nancy who lives on “Museum Row” near Wiltshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. Mother sun smiled on me every day as I toured the city by bike and the Metro rail system, temperatures ranging in the high 70’s to low 80’s.
Meanwhile Seattle continued to morose under cold, wet gloom.
What? You biked in LA? That’s the ultimate car world not a bike friendly city like Portland or Eugene! It’s true, LA isn’t big on bike lanes. Bikes are an after-thought or perhaps never thought of at all. Yet I found it delightful cycling there.
Wiltshire Blvd. spans the entire city. Many of its sidewalks, ranging up to 25 feet in width, are lined with palm trees, restaurants, stores and businesses. There are few big ugly gaping parking lots in view. An old lady on a bike has no problem, given L.A. ordinances allowing bicycling anywhere, so long as you don’t endanger people or property. Even if you are one of those hot shot speed-o spandex wearing cyclist, no problem. Wiltshire is so wide you almost have to look over the curve of the earth to the opposite side. There are 4-6 lanes for car traffic and parking lanes wide enough for semi’s but occupied mostly by small SOV’s or not at all. There is plenty of room to cycle on the street if that’s your style. And there are many big wide boulevards like that in L.A.
So. I have a suggestion about how the City could significantly reduce its colossal carbon footprint. Put some of those boulevards on road diets. By that I mean just restripe them, making the parking and driving lanes a little narrower. Then paint in bike lanes on either side to of the street. There’s oodles of room for bike lanes on LA streets. Can you imagine, with weather like that (83 degrees in January), how many thousands of commuters would get out of their cars and ride bikes?
On my second morning in LA I bought a camera with a zoom lens but no view finder. I’ve always been shy of new fangled cameras like that. But the store didn’t have any cameras with view finders, so I decided to give this technology a try, taking pictures when blinding reflections on the screen made it impossible to tell what was looking at.
But the result was often amazing when I would just point the thing at something and hope for the best. I took shots of many buildings, parks, murals and statues all over town. I took the Bunker Hill Steps, artwork inside the Central Library, the Flea Market and pedestrian mall fountain on Fairbanks. In Hollywood I shot Roy Rogers and Shirley Temple’s foot prints, costumed movie characters like Bat Man and Spider Man posing on the street. I captured huge wooly mammoths, camels and dire wolf skeletons at Wiltshire’s La Brea Tar Pits, gallery artworks across the street, and much, much more. What surprised me most were shots of famous paintings I took through windows of the LA County Museum of Art. Reflections of buildings blended with the paintings for some serendipitous composition. Building reflections also blend with my photo’s of manikins in a thrift store window on Fairbanks. You would almost think I was a hobby photographer, I had so much fun taking pictures.
See some of them at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=93983&id=1453599604&l=d31eb72711
Friends are puzzled when I tell them I was willing to spend 4 days getting to LA and back when a plane ride would have taken a only a few hours. But If you want to relax and get away from it all, why not do it on the train? You can wander about, get a snack from the lounge car, have dinner in the diner, or sit in the sunny dome car gazing at breath-taking views of forests, mountains, pasture lands, and waterways.
The best part is the opportunity to catch up on pleasure reading. I read The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver and David Gutterson’s East of the Mountains with which I would not have found the luxurious time to entertain myself at home. I even did a modicum of writing, (this blog entry for example.)
****
How’s Whistle Stop coming? Still no permit from the City although I’ve been assured it’s right around the corner.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Whistle Stop Coffee and Bike Shop Sitll on Square One
Whistle Stop is trapped on square one. Its pawns are scattered all over the dank gray basement of our 100 year old house in the form of café furniture, bike tools, an espresso machine, grinder, files, architectural drawings, and much more. Whistle Stop even has a cool fan page: www.facebook.com/WhistleStopCoop. The fans are waiting.
It was early August when I first found my way to the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD) located on the 20th floor of Seattle Municiple Tower. Though familiar to me now, It was new then, that big room with its long counter, waiting area with wall to ceiling windows looking out over the freeway and Seattle hill- scapes.
I plopped my shiny blue bike helmet on the counter and spoke to the woman behind the desk. “I want a permit to open a coffee and bike shop.”
She looked up at her computer screen “I’ll sign you up for a counseling session. There’ll be a wait. Do you have your plans with you?”
“Oh, yes,” I rummaged through my back pack and pulled out my 12 page business plan.
She shook her head. “I mean your drawings.”
I reached into my pack again and produced an 8 ½ X 11” piece of graph paper with a floor plan carefully drawn in pencil.
The woman suppressed a grimace which might have been the start of either a laugh or a frown. “It has to be an official architectural drawing with a site plan of the surrounding streets and sidewalks.”
I heard a laugh behind me. “You need an architect,” said a voice. “Our firm just finished designing a coffee shop.”
I turned around and looked up at the tall young man. “How much did it cost?”
He shrugged. “Oh, about four thousand dollars.”
Now I was the one who laughed. The value of this work of art in my hand was about ten cents for the graph paper. The design was free because it had erupted spontaneously from my brain.
I waited for about an hour before a different woman called me to another part of the counter. This woman told me I would indeed need architectural drawings, much larger, not on graph paper, but on vellum. She asked me the address of the building in which my shop would be located. I said I didn’t know the address but it was in a big building called the Citadel on the corner of Martin Luther King and Othello Streets beside the Station. So the woman called up her Google Earth, found the general vicinity and figured out the address. Then she looked at her computer screen and signed me up for an appointment with the microfiche section. She said to go and wait there until someone called my name.
I waited about twenty minutes before the man behind the counter called me up and handed me some little dark square films. He said to take them over to one of the microfiche viewers and look up the permit numbers for the address. He seemed to assume that I must know what I was doing or I wouldn’t be here.
Following the example of someone else, I went over and placed one of the little films on the glass tray under what looked liked a TV screen and shoved it in. I had done something like this some thirty or forty years before in another life, but I don’t recall the images being this confusing. Here were all these miniature forms with lots of helter skelter words and numbers. After searching at length without knowing whether or not I had found what I was looking for, I went back to the counter and asked the man if he could help me. “I’m not supposed to do this part,” he said. “Customers are supposed to do it themselves.”
I nodded. “It’s better to be independent,” I agreed.
The man shook his head but proceeded to do my work for me even though it wasn’t in his job description.
After a couple more DPD counseling appointments in August, I finally showed up in early September with some drawings that were good enough to be granted an “intake appointment” in mid October. It so happens that I have a kind neighbor named Jenny who is an architect. She had charged me considerably less than $4000
However, three days before the “intake appointment,” our game plan changed. Instead of renting the room in the Citadel which is in very bad repair, we were offered the opportunity to rent the vacant lot between the Citadel and the Station. We would buy an office trailer, fix it up like a bike and coffee shop and put it on the lot. This way we would have a nicer building in a more visible location.
I ran over to Jenny, and she miraculously came up with a fairly official looking set of drawings in a couple of days. This time I thought it might help to have some people less ignorant than me in my corner at the meeting. My husband went with me and so did Ed, the man from Jemco who wants to sell us the trailer, and Lyle, a DPD City planner who coordinates our Othello Neighborhood Plan.
A young man ushered us into an office cubicle with a wide table where we laid out our drawings. After we told him about our change of plan, he went out and came back with another woman who told me I should have canceled the appointment and made a new one because this was a new plan at a different address. It was of no consequence that the different address was only next door to the original one.
We would literally have to go back to the drawing board. We would need elevations depicting all four sides of the building as well as supportive detail of stairs, wheel chair ramps, etc. She gave us a booklet about rules regarding temporary buildings. She said that after we had these drawings done, we could make another “intake appointment.”
Jenny went right back to work for us, and we came back a month later with a huge roll of beautiful drawings in quintuplicate. But at the next “intake appointment” it completely different people who barely looked at our drawings. They said, “Our permits for temporary buildings are only for four weeks or six months,” This would not, of course, be enough time. The game had stopped. This was a new game with different rules, and our little piece on square one had nowhere to go as far as we could tell.
We found out that next year the City Council will consider a possible new ordinance that would allow temporary buildings on vacant lots where planned developments had been postponed due to the recession; our situation exactly. However, if the new ordinance passes with no contention, it will still take until May at the earliest to go into effect.
Now mind you, the people who work for the City of Seattle are really nice. Lyle said he and others are trying to help us. Ed, the trailer man, is trying to help us too. Maybe someone will figure out how the rules of this game will allow Whistle Stop off square one soon.
It was early August when I first found my way to the Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD) located on the 20th floor of Seattle Municiple Tower. Though familiar to me now, It was new then, that big room with its long counter, waiting area with wall to ceiling windows looking out over the freeway and Seattle hill- scapes.
I plopped my shiny blue bike helmet on the counter and spoke to the woman behind the desk. “I want a permit to open a coffee and bike shop.”
She looked up at her computer screen “I’ll sign you up for a counseling session. There’ll be a wait. Do you have your plans with you?”
“Oh, yes,” I rummaged through my back pack and pulled out my 12 page business plan.
She shook her head. “I mean your drawings.”
I reached into my pack again and produced an 8 ½ X 11” piece of graph paper with a floor plan carefully drawn in pencil.
The woman suppressed a grimace which might have been the start of either a laugh or a frown. “It has to be an official architectural drawing with a site plan of the surrounding streets and sidewalks.”
I heard a laugh behind me. “You need an architect,” said a voice. “Our firm just finished designing a coffee shop.”
I turned around and looked up at the tall young man. “How much did it cost?”
He shrugged. “Oh, about four thousand dollars.”
Now I was the one who laughed. The value of this work of art in my hand was about ten cents for the graph paper. The design was free because it had erupted spontaneously from my brain.
I waited for about an hour before a different woman called me to another part of the counter. This woman told me I would indeed need architectural drawings, much larger, not on graph paper, but on vellum. She asked me the address of the building in which my shop would be located. I said I didn’t know the address but it was in a big building called the Citadel on the corner of Martin Luther King and Othello Streets beside the Station. So the woman called up her Google Earth, found the general vicinity and figured out the address. Then she looked at her computer screen and signed me up for an appointment with the microfiche section. She said to go and wait there until someone called my name.
I waited about twenty minutes before the man behind the counter called me up and handed me some little dark square films. He said to take them over to one of the microfiche viewers and look up the permit numbers for the address. He seemed to assume that I must know what I was doing or I wouldn’t be here.
Following the example of someone else, I went over and placed one of the little films on the glass tray under what looked liked a TV screen and shoved it in. I had done something like this some thirty or forty years before in another life, but I don’t recall the images being this confusing. Here were all these miniature forms with lots of helter skelter words and numbers. After searching at length without knowing whether or not I had found what I was looking for, I went back to the counter and asked the man if he could help me. “I’m not supposed to do this part,” he said. “Customers are supposed to do it themselves.”
I nodded. “It’s better to be independent,” I agreed.
The man shook his head but proceeded to do my work for me even though it wasn’t in his job description.
After a couple more DPD counseling appointments in August, I finally showed up in early September with some drawings that were good enough to be granted an “intake appointment” in mid October. It so happens that I have a kind neighbor named Jenny who is an architect. She had charged me considerably less than $4000
However, three days before the “intake appointment,” our game plan changed. Instead of renting the room in the Citadel which is in very bad repair, we were offered the opportunity to rent the vacant lot between the Citadel and the Station. We would buy an office trailer, fix it up like a bike and coffee shop and put it on the lot. This way we would have a nicer building in a more visible location.
I ran over to Jenny, and she miraculously came up with a fairly official looking set of drawings in a couple of days. This time I thought it might help to have some people less ignorant than me in my corner at the meeting. My husband went with me and so did Ed, the man from Jemco who wants to sell us the trailer, and Lyle, a DPD City planner who coordinates our Othello Neighborhood Plan.
A young man ushered us into an office cubicle with a wide table where we laid out our drawings. After we told him about our change of plan, he went out and came back with another woman who told me I should have canceled the appointment and made a new one because this was a new plan at a different address. It was of no consequence that the different address was only next door to the original one.
We would literally have to go back to the drawing board. We would need elevations depicting all four sides of the building as well as supportive detail of stairs, wheel chair ramps, etc. She gave us a booklet about rules regarding temporary buildings. She said that after we had these drawings done, we could make another “intake appointment.”
Jenny went right back to work for us, and we came back a month later with a huge roll of beautiful drawings in quintuplicate. But at the next “intake appointment” it completely different people who barely looked at our drawings. They said, “Our permits for temporary buildings are only for four weeks or six months,” This would not, of course, be enough time. The game had stopped. This was a new game with different rules, and our little piece on square one had nowhere to go as far as we could tell.
We found out that next year the City Council will consider a possible new ordinance that would allow temporary buildings on vacant lots where planned developments had been postponed due to the recession; our situation exactly. However, if the new ordinance passes with no contention, it will still take until May at the earliest to go into effect.
Now mind you, the people who work for the City of Seattle are really nice. Lyle said he and others are trying to help us. Ed, the trailer man, is trying to help us too. Maybe someone will figure out how the rules of this game will allow Whistle Stop off square one soon.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Whistle Stop Co-op; Espresso, Bagels and Bikes
On May 17 I told you I had this crazy idea about opening a shop. I made it sound so easy. Now five months later I am still on square one. Not that I have never been off square one. In fact, I’ve been all over the board circling back and around again and again. No wonder my head is spinning.
Once I had a place by Othello Station to put my shop, then I didn’t have it, then I almost had another place and on and on. I hope to finalize this decision soon, but it’s not a promise. I am still going round and round with the city of Seattle to get my permits. Although I’ve been down town to the Department of Planning and Development three times, each visit lasting several hours, my intake appointment is scheduled for October 20th. And I’ll be showing up there with a different plan than the one they accepted last time.
I have a whole file box full of research about, menus, designs, drawings, etc., etc.. The file folder containing my research on equipment alone is about an inch thick. It’s full of brochures and quotes on espresso machines, grinders, triple sinks, hand washing sinks, refrigerators, counters, Panini grills, etc., etc., much of it obtained from warehouse and showroom visits all over several counties. Let me tell you, this stuff is very expensive. But I still don’t know what we’re going to buy. We do have over $2K worth of bike tools but no place to put them. We have lots of furniture because we rented out our vacation cabin on Hood Canal to help meet expenses and hauled everything back across the Sound. We have cute logo.
I know I started out with a checker board metaphor, but actually this is more like a roller coaster bike ride. Up one hill and down the other. It feels like we’re at a high point now, but I’m hesitant to be optimistic. The terrain looks familiar. I’ve been here before. Maybe we’ll drop down again into a dump. But even though I don’t know what I will bring to my DPD intake appointment Oct. 20, I am resolved it will be right and they will haul out their pens and write me a permit.
I have not lived the easiest life nor the hardest. But this is the most difficult trip I’ve ever been on, even harder than bicycling across India. Maybe you’re thinking of hitting the comment button now and typing in some advice. Go right ahead. But believe me, there has never been any shortage of advice, much of it conflicting. Some of it made things worse. But even so, I will listen carefully and give you words grave consideration. I’m in no position to refuse anything free, let alone generous counsel. My brain is in a shambles.
Don't bother advising me to give up, no matter how sane and sensible that would sound. I can't do it. Giving up is not in my behavioral repetoire. Here's a quote: (I don't recall who said this, but, not knowing whether it was good or bad advise, I took it to heart): "Did you ever try? Did you ever fail? No bother. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
Once I had a place by Othello Station to put my shop, then I didn’t have it, then I almost had another place and on and on. I hope to finalize this decision soon, but it’s not a promise. I am still going round and round with the city of Seattle to get my permits. Although I’ve been down town to the Department of Planning and Development three times, each visit lasting several hours, my intake appointment is scheduled for October 20th. And I’ll be showing up there with a different plan than the one they accepted last time.
I have a whole file box full of research about, menus, designs, drawings, etc., etc.. The file folder containing my research on equipment alone is about an inch thick. It’s full of brochures and quotes on espresso machines, grinders, triple sinks, hand washing sinks, refrigerators, counters, Panini grills, etc., etc., much of it obtained from warehouse and showroom visits all over several counties. Let me tell you, this stuff is very expensive. But I still don’t know what we’re going to buy. We do have over $2K worth of bike tools but no place to put them. We have lots of furniture because we rented out our vacation cabin on Hood Canal to help meet expenses and hauled everything back across the Sound. We have cute logo.
I know I started out with a checker board metaphor, but actually this is more like a roller coaster bike ride. Up one hill and down the other. It feels like we’re at a high point now, but I’m hesitant to be optimistic. The terrain looks familiar. I’ve been here before. Maybe we’ll drop down again into a dump. But even though I don’t know what I will bring to my DPD intake appointment Oct. 20, I am resolved it will be right and they will haul out their pens and write me a permit.
I have not lived the easiest life nor the hardest. But this is the most difficult trip I’ve ever been on, even harder than bicycling across India. Maybe you’re thinking of hitting the comment button now and typing in some advice. Go right ahead. But believe me, there has never been any shortage of advice, much of it conflicting. Some of it made things worse. But even so, I will listen carefully and give you words grave consideration. I’m in no position to refuse anything free, let alone generous counsel. My brain is in a shambles.
Don't bother advising me to give up, no matter how sane and sensible that would sound. I can't do it. Giving up is not in my behavioral repetoire. Here's a quote: (I don't recall who said this, but, not knowing whether it was good or bad advise, I took it to heart): "Did you ever try? Did you ever fail? No bother. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."
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