A selection of columns published in The Seattle Times between 2009 and 2021.
THE SUN IS beating down hard on Beacon Hill at the start of summer, a prelude to even warmer days ahead in the forecast. But the scorching temperature — 89 degrees — isn’t keeping people from hitting some balls at…
A GLEAMING sailboat named Happy is making a stop at the Port of Edmonds after a speedy sail at 11.2 knots from Bainbridge. It doesn’t take long for the sleek Moody Decksaloon 45, a German-built vessel owned by Hugh and…
“THIS IS GOING to be quick. Just take a deep breath.” HealthPoint worker Bao-Yen Tran must have repeated those words dozens of times today. She is part of a team of health professionals administering a second dose of the Pfizer…
THE VULCAN, one of three floating machine shops built for the U.S. Army in the 1950s, still is filled with old tools that were used to repair Army patrol boats during the Vietnam War. The bulky barge has been permanently…
BACK IN EARLY June, the old building that houses the Seattle Police Department East Precinct on Capitol Hill became a focal point of protests after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. I remember sketching protesters when the whole area looked…
A TEAM OF ABOUT 20 medical assistants staffs a busy COVID-19 testing site in Renton on a recent soggy morning. Like a fly on the wall, I’m standing between the lanes of the former vehicle-emissions station to sketch the scene.…
THE TOASTED BUN is slathered with cream cheese, and the hot dog is split in half and covered with sauteed onions. “That’s the Seattle Dog,” says Betty Aklilu, the friendly food vendor at Deez Dogz on Fifth and Pike. At…
THE POOR PINK Elephant. It doesn’t spin all the way around anymore. It just nudges back and forth with the wind. As dusk begins to set in, I notice that half of its neon tubes are dark. But the day…
THE R/V THOMAS G. Thompson has just returned to its home port at the University of Washington School of Oceanography in Portage Bay after a weeklong research trip off the coast of Oregon. It’s rare to see the impressive oceanographic…
Sketched March 12 and 17, 2015 Welcome to the Egan House, the latest addition to my list of delightfully weird Seattle. The $2,300 month-to-month rental includes unreachable built-in shelves high on the wall and a door-to-nowhere on the second floor.…
My tech-loving son has set an ambitious goal for his sixth-grade “passion project” at school: to build his own PC. While he tries to get creative with sourcing parts on an 11-year-old’s budget, we decided to visit the Living Computer…
Sketched July 18, 2013 It’s like a miniature Seafair air show. At speeds ranging from 30 to 50 mph, little radio-controlled floatplanes loop and twist over Lake Washington. They are piloted by about a dozen hobbyists standing on the Ferdinand…