Seattle Update: So Many Hills

I've been in Seattle for about five weeks now, so I feel like I can speak with some serious authority when I say that Seattle has a lot of hills.  Wikipedia says there are seven, but I disagree.  I'm fairly certain there are actually hundreds, if not thousands.  The seven are listed as: First Hill, Yesler Hill, Cherry Hill, Denny Hill, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne Hill, and Beacon Hill.  Now, I don't live at any of those places, but I know I live on a hill.  

I have to go up that hill almost every time I want to get home.  And it's not a little hill that could easily be overlooked or forgotten.  My legs and lungs tell me it's not a little hill.  That and my previous experience with hills.  Does Seattle really think that I won't think a hill's a hill if it's not listed as one of the seven hills?  Do you think I'm that dumb, Seattle?

I've been to Ballard.  There's a hill to get into Ballard, but there's no Ballard Hill.  I've been to Fremont.  There's a hill to get into Fremont, but there's no Fremont Hill.  I've been up Phinney Ridge, which is most definitely euphemistically labeled a ridge and should be more accurately called Phinney Hill.   So why are there so many hills in Seattle that aren't granted hillhood?  Why is there such a vast hill cover-up throughout Seattle?  What is the purpose of the lies?  Who stands to gain from this hill conspiracy?

Paraglider setting sail of of one of Seattle's many imaginary hills.

Well, even the greenest Seattlite knows who stands to gain the most from hill-free propaganda: the housing profiteers.  All over Seattle, housing prices have skyrocketed, and I can only assume that this is the direct result of this flat-earth cover-up, these topographical untruths, these low elevation-gain lies!  With the median home price sitting at around $700,000, the whole city is being linguistically leveled to increase home value.  How else could you sell a sub-1000 ft² house at the top of a steep hill for that much money?

Property owners, home developers, realtors — they'll say anything to fill their pockets.  They don't care about you, they only care about your money.  Don't fall for their dirty little lies; fall for me pristine truths.  So here's the truth: Seattle is full of hills, has terrible weather, is horribly overpriced, has no jobs, and is going to break off into the ocean after the next big earthquake.  Don't move here and waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on a live-in shoebox.  If anything, you should move to Portland.

You may not know it now, but what I'm telling you is kind of a big deal.  I'm saying the things that the city doesn't want the world to know, speaking the big truths about hills like a real Troy Brockovich.  I don't want to label myself a hero, but if I get silenced in the upcoming weeks by the Condo Mafia that's taking over Ballard, I'd like to remembered as one.

WA Dept. of Licensing: Designed to Hold the Poor Down

I never thought I'd miss the Pennsylvania DMV, but Washington state has made it possible.  The DMV is the butt of many stale jokes and one rad song, but in all the years I've been driving, I'd always assumed long lines were a thing of the past and that the reason the jokes were so stale was that they were no longer relevant.  I was so, so wrong.  Thank you, Washington State Department of Licensing Drivers License Center (DLC), for explaining the joke to me.

Here's the chronology:

10:30am - Arrive at the Shoreline DLC.  The very small parking lot is very full.
10:42am - Re-arrive at the DLC after finding parking elsewhere.
10:44am - Take a number.  I am 242.  Currently serving 160.  The room is packed.
11:00am - It's explained to me that I cannot get an enhanced license (required for flying), without a form of in-state identification.  More on this later.
1:00pm - My number is called.  I go to Counter 7 to answer a few questions and have a 30 second eye exam.  Sit down again afterwards.
1:08pm - My number is called again.  I go to Counter 1 to have my photo taken.  They don't show me the photo for approval.  Sit down again afterwards.
1:27pm - My number is called. again.  I go to Counter 2 to pay my fees ($89 + $2 debit surcharge).
1:29pm - Leave the DLC with a print out of the info about my license which I will be receiving in 10 days.  My old PA license has a hole punched in it by this point.

So after about 2 hours and 45 minutes, I left with no acceptable forms of ID.  Cool.

This wasn't a a big problem for me, though, only an annoyance.  I had both time and entertainment, being self-employed and currently engrossed in the Oak Island Money Pit and Dyatlov Pass stories on the Astonishing Legends podcast.  Additionally, I have a passport, so I have ID should I want to go to a bar or courthouse or wherever.  But what about people who aren't as privileged?

What about a single parent that's working two jobs to keep their family afloat?  Do they have three spare hours to sit around at the DMV?  Can they get the vacation time?  Can they find a babysitter?  Can they afford to be without a license for 10 days?  What if they need their ID for government services?  What if they're late for work because the DLC was so slow and that gets them fired because minimum wage employees are replaceable and why bother keeping someone that is late once even if they have kids because you can find someone else to do their thankless job anyway and then they have to get back on social services which is difficult since their ID is "in the mail" resulting in them missing a rent payment since they're living hand to mouth, ending up on the street, and losing their kids which get pulled into a foster care system that spits them out as batter and abused 18 year old "adults" that eventually end up in the prison system.

I don't know if I'm being dramatic.  It doesn't matter, really.  The whole point is that this system is currently designed to be annoying (or exasperating) for people that don't have real worries but completely life disrupting (possibly upending) to people who are already struggling so much and are barely scraping by no matter how hard they work.  This system is designed to keep poor people down.  Plain and simple.  What's worse is that all of this can be fixed, which if they're not fixing it, only reinforces the fact that this is all on purpose.

• In Philly, I could go to one counter and get everything handled in a matter of minutes.  Why can't I do that in Washington?  Why do I need three counters to do what can be done at one?


• In Philly, I could walk out with my license in hand.  Why can't I do that in Washington?  Why waste postage on mailing an ID to me?  Aside from the added costs, why increase the chances of identity fraud through mail theft?  Also, what am I supposed to do if I don't have a passport or other form of government issued identification?  How do I get into places that require ID?  How do I get medical services without ID?


• In Philly, I could choose from six license centers.  Why are there only two in Seattle?  There are clearly not enough DLCs in the area to handle the amount of people that live here.

Two other problems that are less important...

• The enhanced license process displays the utter idiocy of the WA State government.  I couldn't get an enhanced license without proving I already had other in-state ID.  But... once I get my driver's license, I can use that as my ID to then get my enhanced license.  Simply, I need to go to the DLC to get a license to then go back to the DLC to get it enhanced.  They are both giving me the ID and then enhancing it.  Just do it all at once rather than clogging up with DLC with more people as they come back for enhancement.


• I don't have a middle name.  This means my driver's license now has an asterisk in it, as middle initials are used in the license number (Ex: MUSTACHET*123XY).  Don't use license numbers with non-alphanumeric characters!  Computer systems like alphanumeric!  Not symbols!  Especially don't use a character that is very specifically a wildcard or arithmetic operator!  Asterisks mean something special across all computer languages!  I've already run into one online banking system that has choked on this.  I wonder how well WA State's social service systems work with asterisks.  I'm sure they didn't have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to developers to enable asterisk handling...

Oof, ok, that was super ranty, but the point stands that this system is going to hurt people.  Not people like me, but people who are vulnerable.  People who are already in need of help, or at the very least, in need of less hurt.  Washington state government, pull your heads out of your asses and fix something that's hurting those people.

Furry 5K: Doggo Volunteer Day

On Sunday, we volunteered at the finish line of the Furry 5K, a fun run/walk around Seward Park that raises money for the animals at the Seattle Animal Shelter.  Normally, 5Ks are way boring because they're just a bunch of people running three miles and who cares about that, but this one has doggos running too and that's way better!  So many doggos!

The Finish Line was the best job because we got to give water to puppos and their people after they just finished running, so they couldn't be happier to see us.  More importantly, the puppos had gone at least twenty minutes without being petted, so by the Finish Line, they were ready for some serious hands-on attention.  We also had purple tennis balls for all the doggos.  They were some happy doggos.  Doggos!

Anyway, less talko, more doggo:

Fast Finisher #1

Fast Finisher #2

Doggo Cool Down

Ermahgerd Cool Down

Babushka Sobachka

Leisure Crew Part 1

Leisure Crew Part 2

Big Doug

Should you ever find yourself in the Seattle area during the time of the Furry 5K, I would strongly encourage entering it or helping out. And if you're not in the Seattle area, I strongly encourage you to look into the events your local shelters are having to see how you can help out.  Doggos and kittehs can't always help themselves, but maybe you can because you're so strong.

I Moved

I was driven to Philly in 1999 with everything I needed in a single carload, and I'd be leaving the city the exact same way almost 18 years later.  A little longer of a drive to Seattle, though.

Having driven cross country a handful of times and ridden across once, I wasn't too interested in making stops along the way.  I just wanted to get to Seattle and have the drive be done with.  Another reason I didn't really want to make stops was that I didn't want to leave my car (with almost all of my worldly possessions) and the three bicycles racked to the back of it unattended for too long.  I'd only recently gotten Tibor back and I wasn't ready to lose him again.  So instead of making it a 2,800 mile sight seeing leisure tour, I turned it into a grueling marathon of discomfort.  I really don't recommend that approach.  I also don't recommend riding your bicycle on Interstate 70, but sometimes you don't really have a choice.

While I had made the decision to not make stops, I wasn't going to let that prevent me from seeing new sights.  That in mind, I chose the Northern Tier as my route.  I'd never been to North Dakota as an adult (but I love South Dakota), only been around Glacier National Park in Montana (and it was gorgeous), and had never been to northern Idaho (I heard it was like Montana).  There was no way around the boring start of PA > OH > IN > IL, but at least I was giving myself something to look forward to for the second half of the drive.

Google Maps said I had about 43 hours of driving ahead of me.  Looking at my overloaded Chevy HHR with an early-80's Sears X-Cargo roof rack and the three aforementioned bikes hanging from the rear, I assumed a few more hours would tack themselves on while driving below the speed limit in order to keep my RPMs out of the red.  At most, like 48 hours of driving, right?  I could knock that out in three days.  Totally.  Truckers do it all the time.  I hopped into my car a little before 10:30am EDT on Wednesday.

A little over 74 hours and 3 gallons of coffee later, I pulled into Seattle, my ankles swollen like a pregnant lady's and my roof top carrier an insect graveyard.  Exhausted and atrophied, I peeled myself off of the front seat, happy to know that the trip was finally over and I could finally elevate my legs.  I really had no idea the whole ankle thing could happen.  I'd been sleeping in my car at rest stops, and all that sitting must have trapped a ton of fluid down low.  Like wearing squishy ankle weights.

Bug splatter spanning ten states.

Aside from the ankle issue, here are some other things I learned:

• If you know anyone in Minneapolis, you'll see them no matter how briefly you're in the city.
• Pickled eggs are just as good in the far north as they are in the deep south.
• North Dakota is proud of its oil.  They have postcards saying so.
• Fargo is the halfway point between Philly and Seattle, that's why they're all sister cities.
• Ronna and Beverly are the best.
• There are Badlands in Montana, not just the Dakotas.
• Wisconsin has tall rock formations that I assumed could only be found around Utah, but I'd forgotten about glacial lakes.

Anyway, now that the drive is done, I'm a Seattleite.  Come visit.

Move Out Blog Break

I'm moving to Seattle next week.  I have a lot to do before then, so I'm going to take a week off from writing stuff.  If you need something to do, watch the really weird, hecka creepy, award winning, stop motion short Bobby Yeah.  Some things can't be explained, some things can't be unsee.

Bobby Yeah