This is the result of playing with Gimp.  I really hate gimp as a photo processor but currently I don’t have anything better.  But it is pretty good for creating custom graphics.

We went down to Alki Sunday as the weather was nice and the phones were dead.  My wife, Tina, chowing down on some onion rings at the Pepperdock. Good burgers there, friendly staff, reasonably priced.

     Am I angry?  Yes I am.  I moved here three decades ago to get away from the crap that was happening in Seattle.  It was unincorporated King County here and a decent place to live.  Now it’s just Seattle Jr.  It’s been ruined by land developers.

     Shoreline has become a city where people mostly want to come to die.  The City Council wants some younger people who are still working and not retired to come here to be exploited (pay the taxes to finance their land redevelopment to make the land city council members own more valuable) but for the most part it’s not happening.

     They ask why but when they’re told they don’t like the answer they get.

     Younger people aren’t retired, most are working, they need services at night, they need entertainment at night.  If they want a tax base, they’re going to have to make some concessions to make this city liveable for those who aren’t yet over eighty and retired.  The Casino’s don’t count.  We need parks that are open so those of us who enjoy night photography or just want to watch the night sky can do so.  We need some good musical venues like the old Parker’s Road House back when it was a road house and not a sports bar or casino.  We need a police force that doesn’t harass everyone under 25, my son was stopped just for walking at night.

     As long as these things don’t happen, youth are going to avoid this city like the plague it is.

     I’ve been annoyed by the way things close down here at night, it didn’t in my youth, and I just found out there is a city ordinance that forces everything, with the exception of Casino’s and 7-11, which is grandfathered in, to close at 1PM.   As a resident, I find this more than a little annoying.  My wife works nights, I often have to do work at night, and there are times when I need something or I’m hungry, and I have to drive to Seattle or Everett because of this stupid ordinance.

     When we voted to form a city, the idea was it was just going to be a minimalist government to accommodate the state requirement that we provide police and fire services.  But we made the unfortunate mistake of not drawing up a charter.  And now it’s turned into the City government from Hell, a bunch of land developers mostly bent on getting money from citizens into their pockets.

   This can be especially difficult when you work from home as I do.  You don’t leave the office often even when you’re not working.  The point remains the same, it is necessary to achieve a reasonable balance.  It’s hard not to admire the work ethic of someone like Elon Musk, and all that he has accomplished with his hard work but you have to wonder what the long term toll will be.