High Point Block Party

Yesterday I received an email from Saltaire Homes inviting me to a neighborhood block party this Saturday from 11a.m. - 4p.m.

From the invite:

High Point residents and the general public are invited to enjoy snow cones, kettle korn (sic), $1 lattes and other tasty treats. Play games for kids and adults including bocce ball, volleyball and croquet while swaying to the live music of steel drums!

This is an opportunity for residents to get to know your neighbors! And for anyone who is interested in purchasing a new home to learn what makes High Point one of th emost vibrant and inspired communities in the Northwest!

For more info, click the sidebar link to the High Point website.

Cities Ranked and Rated: And You Are Who?

And the number one city is… Gainesville, Florida… for being hurricane prone and in a state with the nation’s highest new home vacancy rate!

Best-selling authors-come-lately Bert Spelling and Peter Sander have come out with a second edition of their highly-touted Cities Ranked and Rated, a power ranking of sorts of 400 of the nation’s metros and their consensus is that Gainesville, Florida is the best city to live in as of 2007. The only reason, in my not-so-humble opinion, that this book has achieved best-seller success is that everyone in every media outlet, convention center/tourism department, and public relations department of the 400 ranked metros had to go out and buy this work to see what the book said about its city.

West Seattle Real Estate Roundup: April YOY Sales, Prices Up and Up

The numbers are in and April showers do bring May flowers err–statistics? as the May reporting of NWMLS numbers (via the Seattle Times) paints a rosy picture for the West Seattle real estate market in April. MLS area 140, which includes Alki, Admiral, Fauntleroy, High Point, the Junction, and pretty much all the rest of West Seattle reported a year over year increase of 8.9% in closed home sales for the month of April and a 10.8% increase in  median sales price.

Cheapest Gas in West Seattle

Now I know that I am encroaching a small bit on some news territory normally covered by

WSB but gas that costs less than a gallon of milk is worth stealing the thunder for…

Missing in Action

Sorry for the complete lack of posts in the last week, but expect some updates later today. My Apple MacBook Pro’s sound went out for some unexplicable reason, so I took it in to have it repaired. The kind genii at the U Village Apple store took care of the problems free of charge so I didn’t mind the few days’ wait.

Coming later today:

•  The Absolute CHEAPEST gas in West Seattle (I challenge other WS gas stations to beat these prices)
• West Seattle Real Estate in April by the numbers
• The Top 50 Best Places to Live (according to somebody)

Taking the Elliot Bay Water Taxi to Work

This post will be of particular interest to High Pointers, but nevertheless the pictures and info. are good for anyone in West Seattle. Since yesterday (morning) was so picturesque, and since the MT21 (aka the bus that takes you from High Point / 35th Ave SW to downtown) is so wholly unpreferable; I decided to take the Elliot Bay Water Taxi. I could write a post all about the indignity I suffered on my first day of ever using the homeless mobilization unit bus. I’ll spare you.

The Elliot Bay Water Taxi was great! Not too many people were using it at 12:00 when I boarded and taking the water taxi is almost more entertainment than it is a mode of transportation.

High Point Family Fridays: Campfire Dinner & S’mores

Hopefully this urban adventure won’t be rained out! Information courtesy of Seattle Parks and Recreation:

Campfire Dinner and S’mores
Fri, May 4
6:30 – 9 p.m.
Begin the evening following clues for our nature scavenger hunt at the park. After we’ve found the prize, we’ll enjoy roasting hot dogs over a fire and singing campfire songs. Our evening won’t be complete, though, until everyone has made an ooey gooey s’more!

Twenty Years for Mass Transit to West Seattle?

You read right. I haven’t lived in Seattle long enough to have an opinion on the Seattle Monorail Meltdown Project, but the one factual thing that I have gathered from various sources on the debacle, is that everybody was counting on the SMP for West Seattle’s foreseeable mass transit needs. There was no plan “B”. Why do you care though? As a new West Seattle resident, the future of mass transit solutions (or an apparent lack thereof as it were) in our area of the city is an important concern. As Tim St. Clair of the West Seattle Herald made me now all-too-well aware; we apparently have no future.

Seattle, King County Round Out Top Ten for Millionaires

On the same day that thousands of blue-collar workers took to the streets over workers’ and immigration rights, a new report by a London research firm, TNS Global, came out indicating that King County now has the tenth highest population of millionaires in the country. The top ten counties (with their major metros included in parentheses) are as follows:

1. L. A. County, CA (Los Angeles) 268,138
2. Cook County, IL (Chicago) 171,118
3. Orange County, CA (Newport Beach) 116,157
4. Maricopa County, AZ (Phoenix) 113,414
5. San Diego County, CA (San Diego) 102,138
6. Harris County, TX (Houston) 99,504
7. Nassau County, NY (Long Island) 79,704
8. Santa Clara County, CA (San Jose) 74,824
9. Palm Beach County, FL (West Palm Beach) 71,221
10. King County, WA (Seattle) 68,390

While you might actually expect this list to more or less follow the top ten cities in terms of overall population, it’s interesting to see that the majority (by my count, six) of the counties listed have “metro seats” of under a million people. The study considered any household whose net worth was over $1 million, excluding its primary residence, to be a millionaire.