The marquee that always puzzles me
For some weeks now, the Keller-Williams Realty marquee in the Junction has boasted that the office profit-shared $41,000 or so with its agents last year.
Admittedly, the only thing I know about real estate is what I learned when we bought our house more than a few years ago. But it seems to me that the whole business of real estate is about profit-sharing … the seller certainly shares his or her profits with the agents, via the commission. I remember being fairly grumped out all those years ago (pre-Internet) because I’d done all the research and used the agent for little more than paperwork assistance, yet she still got a multiple of my monthly salary out of the deal.
Not to begrudge the $ earned by the talented agents out there. I just don’t get the bit about the firm profit-sharing with its agents, and more to the point, why customers should care. Is it an attempt to sound warm, fuzzy, employee-friendly, like Costco and its Wal-Mart-beating benefits? (Which sends me on a tangent … the founder of Trader Joe’s has written a book, just spotted at the Westwood Village Barnes & Noble, and the only thing I learned from taking a quick look at it is that TJ’s is now foreign-owned! Yipes! Holy Dubai Ports, Batman!)
Breathtaking
Don’t breathe too deeply, suggests this story about a new pollution study. The report apparently drills down to specific census tracts; I’m out of time to look that deeply into it this morning, but I’d guess the WS areas closest to port traffic are the ones with the worst air.
This morning, though, I suspect it’s safe to inhale … we’ve got double-digit wind out there and it sounds rough enough to scrub out everything but the basic ingredients!
Two notes
I suppose some blog protocol somewhere would say I should make these separate entries. But it’s my blog, so phooey on protocol.
(1) Drove by the Cat’s Eye Cafe this evening. Dark, quiet, no sign suggesting when it might reopen. Hope all’s well with the reconstruction work there.
(2) The West Seattle Chamber of Commerce is updating its home page. I think I caught ’em mid-update, though, as the intriguing “speed-networking” blurb does not (as of 7:04 pm PT tonight) link to the correct info – maybe it will later.
Stay out, or else
While down on Alki tonight, stopped by to squint at the piece of paper on the door of the ex-French restaurant/ex-Lighthouse Grill/ex-Point (THAT one, I miss). Cold hard eviction notice. Sez, call the cops if you see anybody here.
Seems so seedy, really, for our mellow little beach neighborhood. The butcher-papered window are bad enough. Will that space and the ex-Alki Market get some sign of life before summertime? All that emptiness can be contagious.
Hey, I know! How about Trader Joe’s in the Alki Market space? Probably would need some more parking … oh, I know, just tell me “dream on.”
Sign of the time
Spent a lot of time in The Junction last weekend. At one point, while driving eastbound on Alaska with West Seattle Blogger Spouse, I noticed the new sign at Jefferson Square, digital-display time and temperature.
“When did THAT go in?” I asked WSBS.
“MONTHS ago,” replied WSBS with a mondo eye-roll. “Where have YOU been?”
OK, so I’m behind the times. Guess that’s why I was immediately hit with a tsunami-size swell of nostalgia for the old analog clock, which never seemed to run on time.
But my longing for a slower era was satisfied almost immediately, as just a few yards to the northeast, the sign on the former Burger King (was it ever REALLY “Dave’s” for more than, oh, say, a few minutes?) advertises an auction from last September.
Sure sign of spring
Not only are the robins out in full force, I’ve seen the first homemade banner in weeks turn up on the pedestrian overpass atop the Fauntleroy approach to the WS Bridge.
If you headed to work that way this morning, you probably saw it too. I couldn’t read the whole thing — went by too fast since traffic was light — but it appeared to have something to do with the Muslim cartoon crisis.
Can’t wait till the birthdays, proposals, and secret messages start popping up in big numbers. And maybe this year we can get a banner up there before the July parade, since so many WS-ites seem, sadly, unaware of its existence.
Looks nice, maybe a little too nice
The Morgan Community Association site has posted the architect’s vision of what Fauntleroy Place might look like, in advance of an “Early Design Guidance” meeting next Thursday. (I found a closer look here — click the link below the image.)
West Seattle Blogger Spouse and I both asked the same initial question: “Where’s the bowling alley?”
The look is typical New Millennium Mall — a lot like the latest additions to Westwood Village — not the same architect, though (GGLO for Westwood Village, Stricker Cato Murphy for Fauntleroy Place).
The bowling-alley question might sound odd to you, but it seems relevant to the issue of plopping a huge new retail/residential development into an area like this. Perhaps everything around it will fall away and/or transform in time. Right now, my mind is hung up on not just the neighboring bowling alley, but also the funeral home across the street. Does it survive, thrive, or eventually get the boot?
P.S. Found an interesting link to the floorplans for Fauntleroy Place, for anyone interested in immersing themselves in every little detail.
Take one last look …
… at the Olympics today. (The mountains, not the Games.) Sounds like the clouds will return and the glorious peaks will go back into hiding, at least for a while.
I hear the Farmers’ Market is still open on Sundays. We might swing through to see what’s offered here in the heart of winter. Did you know that the WS Farmers’ Market is considered one of the two most successful in all of Seattle?
Opposite of “pipe dream”
If you’re curious about water pipes breaking in our sub-freezing weather, keep an eye on the city’s fire dispatch as-it-happens site (look for the “water job” calls). I believe I saw part of the problem from the one listed at midmorning in the 5400 block of California — thick ice in the gutter, a couple feet wide at some points. Go get your skates!
Out in the cold
20-something degrees at 9-something am — a crowd stood, shivering, waiting, outside a Morgan Junction business.
No, not tickets to a Barry Manilow concert. No, not one-buck gas. No, not two-for-one teriyaki.
Seems Video Vault launched its going-out-of-business sale today. Sign on the window says Feb. 18-25, “closing sale.” And more than a dozen people wanted to have first crack at it.
Well-worn copy of “Porky’s,” anyone?
Ringing up & cooling down
A brave young lady has one of West Seattle’s worst INDOOR jobs tonight — manning the express checkstand near the front door of the Thriftway in Morgan Junction. She smiled bravely, but a shadow of a grimace passed over her face when the shopper in line in front of us remarked loudly on each opening of the automatic doors, “BRRR!”
Someone get that poor checker a pair of gloves. Or maybe hazard pay.
It could happen to you
Funny, yet frightening — and practically plausible.
If only the people who shut down the Seattle streetcars last century had had a little more foresight, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
(When you see somebody weeping in front of the historic streetcar pix in the window of the Train Store in the Junction, it’s usually me.)
The answer, my friend …
… is blowin’ in the wind. Or so the lovely old lyric goes.
So then, you may wonder, what’s the question?
I would suggest: What kind of extreme weather are we facing here in WS? Right now, nothing much is going on but a fairly strong breeze out of the north. Keep an eye on the hourly observations (hint, KBFI is Boeing Field, T is temps, S is wind speed) and see if Arctic Blast Freeze ’06 makes it across the border, or whether it got hung up celebrating Jeff Buttle‘s figure-skating medal.
Cruelly early
Wandering through the Westwood Village Target, a cruel reminder of how the retail seasons turn … bathing suits dangling off the racks, tables full of shorts, the “seasonal” section in the back corner laden with deck, patio, garden items.
All this as we sink into the coldest cold snap of the year.
And of course you KNOW all that stuff will be long gone by the time the real warm weather arrives around Seafair time — the Christmas lights will be starting to twinkle, and coats will be hung by the “apparel” signs with care …
Deep thought
On a blue SUV headed down Fauntleroy toward the ferry dock, this yellow bumper sticker with red lettering:
SAVE SOMETHING
So many ways to interpret that. I almost busted a brain gasket thinking through a dozen or so of them during the rest of the drive home.
Ice, ice, baby
When we moved into our house more than a few years ago, one of its selling points happened to be a relatively recent conversion to natural-gas heat. So much cheaper than oil or electric! … at the time.
Now, bills with LOTS of digits come sailing through the mail slot. And that’s just for the “average” winter temperatures we’ve had till now. Suddenly the big chill is upon us, the cars are frosted, my toes are frozen, and I can see far enough into the future to envision my first $200 heating bill spitting out of a PSE printer somewhere.
Jumping through hoops
According to today’s Times, the high school on my side of the peninsula has a bit of a sports scandal to deal with. Just for once, I would like to hear about a school going out of its way to recruit students because of their brain, not their brawn …
In honor of the Olympics …
… I’m looking up West Seattleites with Olympic history.
First one I’ve turned up is Doris Heritage, an Olympic track star turned SPU track coach, who lives on this side of the bay, according to her bio on the SPU site.
That’s it so far … let me know if you know of someone else. Meantime, it’s back to the TV to ooh and aah and pretend I know the difference between a triple lutz and a triple toe loop.
Happy anniversary
Was hoping to dine at West 5 last night to celebrate a special occasion — got there and found the restaurant/lounge was closed for its own special occasion — with a sign on the door declaring 2/13 to be West 5’s anniversary, and a party under way somewhere. Third anniversary, I think … well, kampai & may you have many more …
Mystery partly solved
Driving past the below-mentioned traffic-island decorations again, I noticed another one of the “Fairmount Springs” signs (which I’d blogged about in the early going of WSB). Two signs, definitely not a lark. This time, the search for info brought up FairmountSprings.org. No time to rattle around their site right this moment, but I’d still like to know, where did the “Springs” come from? We’ve been here for double-digit years and that neighborhood’s always been Fairmount or Fairmount Park. Any lurkers able to clue me in?
If we gave out “spirit awards”
… I’d have one for the people who keep decorating their traffic island along the west side of Fauntleroy, just before the bend into Morgan Junction. It was sparkly for Christmas; now its trees and bushes have heart ornaments for Valentine’s Day. I’m not much into “cute” but I still think they deserve props for creativity that just might make a passing driver or two smile.
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