Category: olyblogosphere (Page 7 of 12)

1. The Man With No Change at Old School:

2. Someone just had an 11 year blogiversary!

3. Alec Clayton talks about the books he’s written and focuses on their autobiographical aspects:

There’s a reason these first three books were set in locales where I have lived and a reason that the main characters were all about my age. Both were to create a palpable sense of place and authenticity. Write what you know is the old axiom. I made the main characters my age so it would be easier to get facts right: getting the popular songs, books, movies at any given time right and ditto for hair styles, fashions and automobiles.

4.  Long video, featuring Steven Willis of Morty the Dog, on Comics at Evergreen:

5. And, secrets.

6. And, even though I try to do only five links, this sixth is extra and not really Olympia related. Yelm History Project blog is great.

1. This is one of the most unique and touching covers of Olympia, WA.

 2. Cascadian meadows in spring can be pretty, from Mojourner Truth.

 3. Little late in the linking, but I always appreciate Russ Lehman’s take on local politics.

 4. And, Mark’s take on downtown.

 5. Those who can be rebels by bus do and teach.

1. One particular slice of the Return to Evergreen features Morty the Dog. Sweet.

2. Does anyone want to help out with Olynews.org? I like Olynews.org, but like a lot of small web projects around here, it suffers from people like me who fail to have a lot of energy. So, if you have energy and no particular project, why not right?

3. Accidental Naturalist reflects on the closing of Fireside Books. Or, rather, “Amazon Attacks Olympia!” MWWWAARG!!!!

From the post:

This wonderful, small, independent bookstore in downtown Olympia has been owned and operated by Jane Laclergue since 1995. Jane has many fans and friends in town, many dedicated readers, grateful authors, and fabulous staff–many sang her praises at farewell/retirement party of Jane Wednesday night. Her passion for books, her charm, her personal approach to book buying has made Fireside a favorite place of mine to buy books over the past several years. 

Though Jane is of retirement age, the closing of the Fireside Bo
okstore comes at time when fewer people seem to consider reading a priority pastime and more readers are acquiring digital books or ordering from online distributors such as Amazon.

…

Every book we buy on Amazon or other online booksellers is one less book sold at a bookstore. At the end of the month there will be one more empty store in Olympia, one less place to visit. Is Orca Books next? Our only remaining independent bookstore? What about the other used book stores tucked into our downtown? What about Barnes & Noble, our only remaining chain bookstore in the great Olympia area? Oh, and what about all the other stores that offer products that could be acquired online?

While I agree that its sad to see a local bookstore (or any type of local store) close, I don’t necessarily blame ebooks. While the newspaper column that AN links to doesn’t spell out whether Fireside has lost money (does say the recession has been hard), it does point out that Fireside lacks an even basic website.

Not to get into a long response on a link post, but I’m more inclined to believe that people who read ebooks are more likely to buy more books overall (so the one ebook for one local book think doesn’t stand up).

4. This is a very old post from a looks like dead blog, but it is so so very epic: “San Francisco Street Bakery and the Problem with the Left.” Bam!

Read on:

When I walked through the wide open door of the brightly lit establishment I was greeted by no one even though several people were scurrying about doing baker-type things. It wasn’t until I had walked across the room and taken the cream cheese from the refrigerator that a fellow with a stupid indie rock beard and wearing the tight black uniform of a Northwest leftist/anarchist/post hippie type finally took notice of me. It took him a second, seemingly, to muster up the wherewithal to tell me in his passive/aggressive way that, “Um, sir, the bakery’s not open for another half hour.” What he meant was: 

Hey weirdo, what’s wrong with you? Get the fuck out of here.

No, really what he meant was that the place wasn’t open for business yet. Eh, anyway. This post is a great example of the Olympia vs. everyone else culture shock thing. Read the entire post.

2. grsshpprkm has a pretty epic take on the storm on Friday. From hours into minutes:

3. Elaine over at epersonae is back bike commuting:

Yesterday…I went a little crazy. I had PT in the morning, and decided to take the Xtracycle “just in case” I wanted to ride further towards work than usual. I rode ALL THE WAY in, 10 miles altogether from PT, with a stop at a grocery store for water & baby wipes. I was exhausted but euphoric. Riding home was somewhat more stressful. Google Maps recommended a different route coming home, and it looked feasible. However: the trail part was bumpy & buggy; I had to make a left turn across a five-lane, 45MPH road; a lot of it was bike lane on a fast busy road; I had to cross another major arterial at a crosswalk at a complicated intersection; and I hit a stretch so steep that I walked about 3 blocks. Coming up the hill the other side of downtown I was going so slow I realized I could walk faster than that. Sigh.
Still, I’m glad I did it. I know it can be done, and I know I’ll do it again. (Almost certainly NOT taking that route home again. C made a suggestion that sounded good that I’ll try next time.) Hopefully by the end of summer I’ll be riding more of the route more regularly.

4.  Not the first time someone has taken a photo of the titular cross street. But, its nice every time someone does.

1. This is Olympia. This is not a Thurston County Thumbs Up production, though it is tourism related.

2. Its fun to read the run-down of the local issues suggested to someone who hasn’t been paying attention trying to write an English paper. But, I would tend to agree with this guy.

3. Andy at Thurston Pundits (a conservative blog, to say the least) writes why he likes George Barner for county commission.

Basically I think he’s coming from an assessment that government at all levels has overstepped its bounds and is now stepping on more people than its helping. While a lot of Democrats are running away from their party to keep their office, I have a degree of certainty that this not a calculated power grab because he’s likely going to be running against the local Democrat machine on this run, and that is a strong machine here in Thurston County.

4.  I like taking random drives through the countryside. So, this video by rtpwyk is nice.

5. Given the now dead Olympia Views’ commentary on the Cooper Point Journal (implosion, Kafkaesue, sucks), Seth Vincent’s self eval on his time as CPJ staff adviser us super interesting.

1. From Mojourner Truth, a dern good blog post about how own of our town’s earliest settlers fought the same fight that some of us still fight today:

Replace “groceries” with “CostCo,” or for that matter, jsut keep “groceries,” and you have one of the most recent election’s main issues encapsulated. It makes me want to start a Bigelow Community Garden, where we can grow food free of the impure grocery influence. Not that I’m against liquor, mind you, but more the influence of a particular capitalist enterprise putting itself above the public good of, for example, having state store which employed a thousand or so people at a living wage, and which did not sell liquor late in the evening, when people are more likely to get in trouble with it, and which had no accounting tricks to keep the state revenue from flowing to other public goods.

2.  Coolerman4u made a home made forge. Cooler, indeed.

3. Stevenl starts up a new contest on Olyblog. Where are these places?

4. Mathias (thank goodness) is back doing RSVP, the podcast. I love podcasts. Love them a lot. I also like local things. So, listen to Mathias’ podcast, especially because he’s going to be down for the next few days. This one is especially good, featuring Faith Trimble.

1. This video left me speachless. Basically, its a story about an old timber railroad through what is now the South Puget Sound Community College campus on the westside.

But, its also a story of cross discipline and real world learning at SPSCC. Great, great stuff.

2. Sarah at the Snazzy Bouquet has the sort of post that describes This Town. Nice.

Really, though. I feel compelled to blockquote at least this passage:

Last night’s scene in downtown Oly. All-ages punk action, just like it was 21 years ago, when I (by some miraculous twist of fate) poked my head in the side door at the Capitol Theater.

3. Funwater Awesome (though not technically Olympia) put up a post for the first time in almost a year, then promptly let his domain expire. Boo. You can get his the Funwater zine at the library though.

4. Over at r/olympia on reddit, people are getting phone calls for a survey about whether they’d “support or oppose a 0.1¢ sales tax measure to support local PD, Fire, and neighborhood watch programs, and if I would support or oppose a $12 million bond measure to build a park on the isthmus.” Boy, what a time for Olympiaviews to call it a day, huh?

5. Speaking of local politics, I tweeted something Rhenda Strub pointed to about who someone thinks was behind those horrible fliers from last fall.

6. Don’t you love what Mark Derricott is doing with his blog lately? The meeting updates bum me out, but I love these project specific posts (Olympia Hilton Gardens and Downtown Olympia Mixed Use at Quince and Fourth Ave).

1. Lots of video from the explosion of Oly Love this week. Here are just three:

2. Bees, Birds and Buttlerflies blog brings us (what else?) The Bumble Bees of Thurston County (which has nothing to do with WSB).

3. Flummel, Flummer, Flummo is on the WSB beat with The haters are now hating in Seattle and Dirt Dumb Rebels.

4. Remember last time when I linked to a blog about Calvin Johnson’s walking tour of Olympia? Well, here’s the video.

1. In Judith Baumann probably loves you blog, Calvin Johnson leads a walking tour of downtown Olympia. This event deserves a blog post of its own, but in this case, its crammed with other stuff.

2. I’ve had nightmares about when local grocery stores one by one stop carrying Olympia beer. Cosmo has news of a real-life tragedy. Brewery City Pizza no longer carries the beer of the historic and self referential beer.

3. Tenalquot has an amazing map of historic schools in Thurston County.

4. It would be worth heading over to Morty the Dog to read more about the Olympia Comics Festival

1. This is the video that made this update happen. I just could not wait. Jim Foley running for judge in the city of Oly. I kid you not.

2. Then two updates from Your Daily Hour With Me. First, just to nod of appreciation that they’ve made it to 600 episodes.

Then, their epic interview with the 10 Minute Show’s David Scherer Water.

3. And, I suppose to round out this web video themed update, Evergeen is 40 years old. And, they’re adding “Greener Stories.” This is a pretty interesting one, if also pretty quiet.