15 Years In Seattle: Reflections and A Few Parting Shots

[Coffee Coyote]

Mostly parting shots though.

After 15 years, you all still can't drive. It's like old people fucking: Slow and sloppy. Maybe due to the gridlock you all aren't used to doing anything within 20 miles of the speed limit. Merge, goddammit, merge!

Costco isn't the be-all and end-all of existence. There is more to life than how much you save buying in bulk.

If you value the environment so much, ditch your SUV and quit contributing to the sprawl and overdevelopment of real estate. Recycling your plastic doesn't redeem the day-to-day havoc you wreak. This goes for you bleeding ponytails in Volvos and VW's too.

Mt. Rainier is a sight every city in the U.S. should envy - it reminds of us what urban blighted hellholes infest the east coast by contrast. But turning this place into L.A. (the west coast version of urban hellhole) with fir trees isn't any better. The mountain isn't so gorgeous through smog.

You all were so busy ordering your lattes to such exact precision, that you let Tim Eyman take over the state right under your double tall noses.

Basing your economy on Boeing and dotcoms wasn't such a bright idea now, was it?

Adios, Seattle. Like Jimmie Dale Gilmore said of Dallas, you're a rich man with a death wish in his eye. Or in this case, a Costco card with a pink slip underneath.

[Wonk]

1. Cool! NorthWest bashing! Nice variant on the South bashing & North bashing

threads. Circular firing squad application line forms to the left.

[Coffee Coyote]

6. I love Seattle

I was glad to make it my home for a long long time.

But fair is fair - I had to vent on some long-simmering grudges. No place is perfect, and I figured someone who knows this place well had to say something.

You protesteth too much. Anyone genuinely offended by my post needs a gut check. Humorless people are already in oversupply here, and I thought better of you than that.

Besides, your analogy is fallacious. Bashing Seattle over Costco, traffic, and bad drivers is not the same as bashing the south for the kinds of people who live there. I stuck to quality-of-life issues, and bad drivers are everywhere. I just like pointing out how they are bad here.

I have to laugh that you took my post THAT seriously. No wonder I quit posting - this place is fucking nuts.

[Wonk]

13. Wasn't genuinely offended. This is the lounge. nt

[AlienGirl]

2. Dammit, now I might NEVER meet you!

I just get back, and you leave; and my car crapped out so I couldn't even make it to your farewell party. Arrgh!

Tucker

[Kenneth ken]

3. on the plus side

your car got you from <wherever> to Washington before it crapped out on you.

[AlienGirl]

5. Indeed it did!

Where in Colorado are you? I know a Ken in Colorado Springs...

Tucker

[Coffee Coyote]

7. :-(

We were really hoping to meet you too! I will be back though to visit.

I missed meeting SOteric too. Dammit all!

:hi: Tucker!

[SOteric]

11. Yes, drat it.

I work weekends and I tried to drive back from Forks but got caught behind some construction. At about 8 I called it a loss, went back to Forks to spend the evening with my laptop.

[SweetZombieJesus]

4. You quoted Jimmie Dale. Now I'm really scared

The parallels are getting eerier and eerier.

[DagmarK]

8. Are you two the same person or something???//

Hmmmmmm, very strange!

[Coffee Coyote]

10. we have one difference

He likes Prince, I do not. We had to have ONE difference in order to prove he is not ZombyWoof's gene splice. :D

[DagmarK]

17. Yeah but.........

Lots of our "personalities" have a few conflicts in interest...

Oh, wait, I am not on the MPD board, am I?

Dang it, Susan, stop shifting windows on me!!!!!

[Coffee Coyote]

9. plus, you have a Hendrix avatar

A Seattle native no less! He is buried not 10 miles from where I type.

Music is the one thing about Seattle I will never bash.

[Catshrink]

25. Are you on Capitol Hill?

I used to live on Capitol Hill, grew up near Seward Park. Lived there for 32 years...

[SOteric]

12. Some of us still think Eyeman is a horse's ass, you know.

And I would have eagerly cast a vote to prove it.

And I don't drive an SUV. :P

[Coffee Coyote]

14. that was the Final Disappointment

Well, next to not meeting you, but now that I know you were in Forks ( ! ), I can forgive you without hesitation. :-)

But yeah, not getting the horse's ass initiative on the ballot was just one last disappointment in the direction of this state's politics. It would have shown balls.

[SOteric]

15. You're going to bale on us before

you get to chose between Ron Simms and Christine Gregoire...? *envy, envy, envy*

[RFKHumphreyObama]

16. It's a shame that I'm going to miss you by one month

Actually less than one month now until I come to Seattle. Good luck with your new life Zomby or, as it is now, Coffee Coyote!

[DagmarK]

18. Coffee Coyote is ZombyWolf??????

Oh man.....I would have come to Seattle for a party with the Z-man! and I'd bring my yaks!

[izzie]

19. It is the same every place. It is that their are so many people.

I was born into a country that had 150 million and now we have 250 million. They have to be some place and if you like it, they will. I had 4 people in my grade school class. 40 in high school and now that class gets out with 100. We were one of the few people in town in the 30 and 40 that had a truck, and 2 cars now that is par for a good part of the town. Things move on and you can not stop it only hope to push it in the right place.

[SoCalDem]

20. That sounds like a GREAT letter to the editor..:)

You should send it :):)

[Coffee Coyote]

21. with some editing of course!

The P-I is liberal, but not THAT liberal. ;-)
Hmmm...

[flamingyouth]

22. Sheesh, just GO already

We get the point - you don't like it here.

[SOteric]

23. Yeah, actually, I'm pretty sure he does like it here.

He's just trying to make himself feel better about leaving.

(Though I'm convinced he's finding KadeCarrion a pretty enticing reason, thengkyou.)

[geniph]

24. And you know what, Lauren?

None of those things were true of Seattle 30 years ago. This used to be a really nice place. It was like a small town with some big-town amenities. Now we're going through this horrible cultural midlife crisis. Seattle has not decided what it's going to be - are we LA-lite? New York with more SUVs and fewer cabs? Boise?

Nobody could drive worth a shit when I was a kid, either, but there weren't so damn many people, and so many driving styles (part of the problem is that nearly everyone here is from somewhere else, and the driving styles don't mesh well). But the real problem is too many people, all trying to get to the same places at the same times.

The whole Costco phenomenon has baffled me from the get-go...but Seattle is not the only place in the country that has warehouse fever. Watch people go wacko at Sam's Club or Wal-Mart to see what I mean. Just wait til Wal-Mart comes to Flagstaff (if it hasn't already). (Does one really NEED mayonnaise in two-gallon jars?)

Bothell and Auburn were considered WAYYYY out in the boonies when I was a kid. Now most people in those towns commute to Seattle without thinking twice about it. But that's not unique to Seattle, not by a long shot. As the price of housing climbs and climbs, developers move their tacky little bulldozed developments further and further out so they can advertise "shy acres." Why people think they need yards that big is beyond me, so go figure.

Smog was rare when I was a kid, but the smelters and pulp mills were worse. ;-)

Some of us have fought Eyman and his asinine, juvenile self-aggrandizement from day one. So, blow me. ;-)

I keep hoping that with Boeing getting more and more whiny about taking their bat and ball to Wichita and the dot-commies going bust, that the population will start decreasing again. Maybe you're just the leading edge of the new trend, people going AWAY. I have hopes that the Seattle of my childhood might reappear once all these damned yuppies go back to whatever stream spawned them.

I'll miss you, anyway, but everyone says northern Arizona is really beautiful. I'm expecting invitations for spring training, you know.

*hugs*