Year: 2004

One of the things that you learn when being taught to type on a typewriter is to leave two spaces between sentences. Two-spaced gaps between sentences is a recognizable sign that a page is typewritten, but the rule wasn’t designed with that typographic end in mind. It was meant to discourage having to interrupt the first word of a sentence with a hyphen and a line break. By typing an extra space, the typist was more likely to get the warning bell indicating that the end of the line was approaching. The typist would know to hit return and start fresh on the next line rather than risk running out of space on the first word of a sentence.

I learned how to touch type on an IBM Selectric Typewriter in Mr. Fredricks’ keyboarding class during my freshman year of high school. Mine was the last typing class in the school that used typewriters. The next year’s classes used PCs running WordPerfect on DOS. With auto-wrap they presumably weren’t taught that rule. It was outdated.

I still type two spaces at the end of sentences. It’s habit. But your browser takes back the second one and keeps it for itself.

I’ve been sitting at my desk at home, working at the computer. The desk faces a big window that looks out onto the neighboring condos’ parking lot. The window is open, but the blinds are drawn. Along with the background noise of car traffic, I hear my neighbors coming and going. For example, a man with a nasal voice came into the parking lot an hour or so ago and he was telling someone, “They said they’d deposited a bonus check, but I’m already overdrawn. I checked my account, and it turned out that the bonus was eleven dollars.”

There have been two women walking back and forth outside for awhile, walking between the condo building and something in the street. I presume that there have been two women — the voices of the people that have been walking past have consistently been women’s and there have consistently been two voices — but I haven’t been paying close attention, and I can’t be sure that the passersby have been the same two people.

But the thing is, the two women walked by just now, heading out of the parking lot, and one of them said, “I want an alligator so bad!”

“Hey, Sam.”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking of maybe getting one of those pre-paid cell phones down at the Pay-Less. You know, . . . the little Motorola kind.”

“You’re tied to a tree, dog.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

The photoblogger gallery show that Tyd has been working on is going up this weekend at the White Dove Gallery in Lakewood, Washington. Tyd has gathered photos from eight Puget Sound-area photobloggers including herself, Jerry Kindall, John Poetzel, Chas Redmond, Dylan Wilbanks, Jeff Youngstrom, and me. The gallery is also showing work by three other photographers — Bob Carpmail, Tera Ruddel, and Tina Weston — and a sculptor, Bruce Salisbury.

If you’re interested, the opening reception will be August 21 from 2:00 pm and 4:30 pm, and the show will be up through October 16. The White Dove Gallery is located in Lakewood, Washington (south of Tacoma) at 5934 88th Street SW. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday 11am-5pm. Their phone number is (253)582-7859.

This odd construction, Ross Palmer Beecher‘s “Radio Flyer”, is the centerpiece of a group of sculptures on show right now at The Harbor Steps.

Radio Flyer is removed every evening at six and replaced with an orange cone with the word “security” written on it in black marker.

1994: Moved to Seattle.
[1997: Badly sunburned in San Francisco.]
1998: At the company picnic, it rained and the sun shined at the same time.
1999: Haircut.
2000: In Kyleakin, went to a pub hoping to run into a French-Canadian girl who had perfectly crooked teeth.
2002: Quick glimpse of two seals.
2003: Barbecued on a rooftop deck in Belltown.
[2004: David Byrne concert with Samantha.]

How about some photos?

The Broadway Market Theater’s marquee came down this week — more than two years after the theater lost its lease. It’s part of the construction for QFC – a grocery store that is moving in from its space across the street. The new QFC space is being carved out of the awkward two-level Fred Meyer space and a handful of other businesses that have been evicted from their storefronts.

Like QFC, Fred Meyer is a Kroger-owned chain. Both stores were acquired by Kroger — which now owns more than a dozen other regional grocery chains — in the late nineties. (Update: In the comments, Dylan reminds me that Fred Meyer acquired QFC before Kroger acquired Fred Meyer.)

I checked the company history timeline on the QFC website for the date of the QFC-Kroger transaction. But the timeline is actually a history of the Kroger grocery chain, with no description of QFC’s background or even a mention the QFC acquisition.

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The chain gym that took over the Theater’s space has remained open longer than I predicted. The introductory 50% off price for new memberships is apparently still being offered.

The old weblog entry that I linked in the first paragraph also mentioned the closing of the Green Cat Cafe. That closing turned out to be temporary. The Green Cat was reopened under the original management, and my understanding is that some of the employees were also later brought in as partners. But the Green Cat recently closed for good. It will reopen as “The Local Cafe” after a remodel is finished.

Some photos from the Scottish Games in Enumclaw on Sunday…

A mother at the grocery store says to her small son, “Do you want to get some cookies?”

He scans the shelves, something catches his eye. He makes a small “Oh” sound and reaches toward a box of fruit snacks.

His mother snaps at him, “I said cookies!”