Bigfoot Mines

Spotted this afternoon in the former coal mining town of Ronald.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Jack Horkheimer

Anytime over the last decade, anytime I flipped past channel 28 between 10:30 and 11 p.m., I usually came across Jack Horkheimer's Star Gazer program. The Miami-based Horkheimer would spend a few minutes telling us what to look out for in the night skies that week, though that never particularly interested me. However, the show's goofy green-screen effects, spacey theme song, and the toupee'd, mustachioed Horkheimer's rather, um, flamboyant enthusiasm for the subject was forever captivating.

On Thursday night we happened to catch the final Gazer to air during the Horkster's lifetime:



He died on Friday.
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Hello, Chetzemoka!

Washington State Ferries is putting a new batch of 64-car ferries on the sound, starting with the M/V Chetzemoka. It's currently undergoing sea trials before taking on the Port Townsend/Keystone run in October. The Cheztemoka looks pretty much like all the other ferries of its size that have gone into service in the last half-century, albeit a bit blockier, with fewer windows on the car deck and huge wheelhouses.

Disgruntled employees test out the inflatable slide:

Many cool photos in this Flickr set, and more info on both the DOT site and this ferry porn site.
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Flip Flop Fly Ball!

"A love of baseball plus a love of infographics equals Flip Flop Fly Ball."

Lotsa good-ass stuff here -- I especially like these Flopps baseball cards.

Of course, this post is mainly an excuse to highlight this sweet Ichiro card.








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Monorail Mayhem

The P-I has recently been posting a bunch of cool photos from its archives, like this monorail gallery. Clearly our one-track wonder has had its share of difficulties during its 48 years of service, beginning in August 1963...

"This is the battered and windowless front end of the Monorail's red train after it failed to stop and smashed into a safety bumper at the south end of the Westlake terminal" -- link.

"Wreckage of a Monorail train after a July 1971 crash at Seattle Center" -- link. The red train's brakes failed and it rammed into a steel beam, injuring 26.

"Firefighters check a Monorail train after it blew a tire near the Seattle Center, September 1984. A tourist, alarmed by the sound of the explosion, fell and slightly injured herself" -- link.

May 2004: "Passengers on the Seattle Monorail crowd in one side of the Seattle icon as smoke envelopes the train near the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broad Street. The train caught fire after passing through the EMP tunnel en route to the Westlake Center. There were no serious injuries in the incident" -- link.

The photo at the top of this post documents the same incident: "Smoke from the blue Monorail car blows over the red car near the Seattle Center in downtown Seattle Washington" -- link.

"The Monorail cars after a Nov. 28, 2005 collision" -- link.

Also worth a look are the Space Needle gallery, the phantom stadium gallery, the J.P. Patches and Gertrude gallery... Heck, pretty much the rest of the galleries linked to at the bottom of any of these pages are pretty sweet.

11/27/10 UPDATE

Two people hit when tubing flies off Seattle monorail - link.
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Mudhoney Beer!

Brought one of these home from QFC the other night, mostly 'cause of the killer Charles Peterson photo -- way better than any Jones Soda label I've ever seen. It tasted good too, and I certainly didn't mind its relatively hefty 7% ABV.

Link.
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