Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Given recent adventures, this made me laugh…

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now, and keep spacing it.

Some time before the move, Prairie and I decided that we didn’t have the time, energy, or interest in doing all the heavy lifting of furniture and thousands of books ourselves, and started looking for local moving companies. Prairie dug through Google for a day, came up with a few, and hit their websites to see how expensive it would be to hire movers. None of the sites gave even rough ideas right away, though a few of them had ‘online estimate’ forms, so Prairie filled a few out to see what they said.

Of the three or four she filled out, the only company to get back to us was Jordan River Moving and Storage. They called us back, we had a brief conversation about just how much work there would be, and they gave us an estimate. Since we had never done this before and had no idea what to expect for pricing, we waited another couple days to see what other quotes we would get — but since nobody else bothered to call us back, we decided just to go with Jordan River.

The day of the move, it was quickly obvious that this was a good idea. Perhaps this is slightly colored by our not having hired movers before, but the guys from JR were incredible. We got a team of three, and even though they had to deal with a power outage at our old apartment that kept the hallways quite dark and a third-floor apartment on the other end, they just flew through everything. We’d figured on four to five hours for the process, but they got the whole thing — loading, driving from Northgate to Kent, and unloading — done in just barely over three hours. Watching them work was amazing, hefting three heavy boxes of books at once and practically running up the stairs, lifting larger items up and over the railing of the outside stairs to avoid half of the stair climb…wow. I tried to pitch in for a few minutes, but it quickly became obvious that I was just getting in the way, so I stepped back again.

In the end, the whole thing was done under the estimated time (and therefore under the estimated budget), and we were more than happy to give them a good-sized tip. While we don’t expect to be moving anytime soon again, we’ll definitely be giving Jordan River a call when the time comes. Highly recommended.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

In happier news: first photos of the new apartment!

Here’s what you see when you walk in the front door. Bookshelves along the rear wall, the deck (which has become our favorite spot for breakfast and dinner, thanks to the patio furniture that Prairie’s dad gifted us with), our new couch and chair (brand-new furniture, right from a furniture store — we’re really turning into adults, aren’t we?), the fireplace, entertainment center, and dining room.

Another view of the living room, this time from the door to the deck. The three bookshelves on the right will gain a fourth as soon as we can add one, every shelf on those is double-stacked with books.

My office. In the last apartment, my office doubled as the guest room, but now it’s primarily just my office, only acting as a secondary guest room when we have enough guests to need it.

That’s because with a three-bedroom apartment, Prairie now gets an office of her own, instead of having to camp out in a corner of the living room, and her office is now the main guest room. It’s also very girly and pink, which is just the way she wanted it!

There’s also two bathrooms — but those are bathrooms, and not terribly exciting to take pictures of — and our bedroom, which we don’t feel needs to be broadcast to the world. That’s our room, after all.

We’re really enjoying this apartment. Lots of space, not nearly as cramped, and as we specified wanting a corner or end unit, we’ve got enough windows to get a good breeze keeping the place cool at all times. Since we’re on the third floor, the trees outside keep things nice and private, so we don’t have to worry about people peeking in the windows at us (a pretty common occurrence at our last complex). The deck looks over a small playground, so there’s almost always kids playing out back.

Joke all you want about living in Kent — and I’ve already heard more than a few cracks from Seattleites who don’t get why we’d want to be in the suburbs — but so far, we’re liking it a lot.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Finally — after far too much sturm und drang — we’re back up and running! Well, mostly. The most important parts, at least.

As of the last major update, I’d told Speakeasy to take a flying leap. After getting done with that, I called Qwest to see what they could do directly (our other option is Comcast, who I just can’t trust my ‘net service to). Qwest was quite helpful, and told me that they’d be able to have a DSL ‘net connection and DirecTV service installed and active on Wednesday the 30th, with VoIP phone service up and running a few days after that. That sounded reasonable to me (it was the same timeframe Speakeasy would have given me if I’d been willing to give them yet another chance), so I gave it a go.

On Monday, Prairie and I got to talked, and decided that it’d be a good thing to make sure the DirecTV install tech was going to bring a tripod mount for the satellite dish, as we’re not allowed to mount anything directly to the building. I called DirecTV, verified that a tripod would be in the truck, and then the service rep told me that if I wanted, I could upgrade one of the DirecTV receivers to a DVR version for free. Free is always a nice price, so I said sure, go ahead.

Wednesday was supposed to be the “go” day: DirecTV between 8am and noon, a Qwest tech on site to do the physical connection by 5pm, and the DSL modem hardware arriving sometime that day (it’s sent directly from Qwest, rather than having the tech bring it with him). Prairie went off to work, and I sat here at home and waited for the DirecTV tech.

And waited. And waited. And eventually, noon came and went, and there’d been no sign of the tech. I called DirecTV, and things immediately went all pear-shaped, as the first person I talked to told me that she could find no record of me in the system, and dumped me off on someone else who was in another department and was of even less help. I called back, got a different representative, and they were able to find me — only to tell me that, though I hadn’t been informed of this during the call, when I upgraded to the DVR receiver, the rep had had to cancel my original install and reschedule it for Sunday, Aug. 3rd. There’s nothing I can do about this, unfortunately — and I was quite vocal about this being a pretty sour first experience with DirecTV — so that will be happening Sunday morning. Still, the TV is the least important of the three pieces of the communication puzzle.

After venting to Prairie for a few minutes, I took a walk to calm down and check the mail to see if the box from Qwest with the DSL modem had arrived. It wasn’t in the mail, but when I got back to the apartment, there was a Qwest truck sitting in our parking spot. The tech had just finished up hooking up the DSL connection, and he said that we were live, all we needed was the DSL modem. Qwest ships those by UPS, so it should show up before 5pm. So far so good — I knew that at least part of the process had worked correctly — so he went on his way, and I waited for UPS.

And waited. And waited. At 5pm, I went down to check to see if UPS had given them a box for me without putting a note on my door. Nope, no go. Back home, and by 5:30, I was back on the line with Qwest to see what the story was with the hardware. The guy on the phone clicks around a bit, and then tells me that there’d been “a delay” with the package, but it was in UPS’s hands and should be arriving Thursday (the next day). Well, okay — not terribly thrilling, but at least it was on the way, and he was able to give me a tracking number so that I could check up on it if I could find a way to get to Qwest’s website.

This morning, I used the WiFi network at Prairie’s office to check the tracking number. It turns out that according to UPS, they picked the package up at 7:35pm in Denver, CO. This would have been just after I got off the phone with the representative who’d told me there’d been a “delay” — apparently, the “delay” was simply not sending the package out on time, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’d been reading the tracking number to me off the bill on the package before running it down to the mailroom!

On the bright side, though, they did ship the box next day air, so it arrived at the apartment complex while I was coming back from Prairie’s office. As an added bonus, the box had the VoIP modem as well as the DSL modem, so after a few minutes plugging in cables and fiddling with configuration details, I was finally back online, and able to place telephone calls without chewing through the minutes on my pre-paid cell phone. It took two weeks after physically moving into the building (and a month and a half after starting the original service transfer process with Speakeasy), multiple friendly and not-so-friendly calls to the various companies dealing with various screwups, bailing out of one company and getting set up on another, and burning through at least $50 worth of pre-paid cell phone minutes, but it’s done.

So. Two pieces down — internet and telephone — and one to go — DirecTV. We’ll see how that goes come Sunday.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

As of a couple hours ago, for the first time since I moved down here and got myself online, I’m no longer a Speakeasy customer. At this point, I can strongly recommend against using Speakeasy for personal broadband service. Perhaps they’re still doing well at the business level, but from a customer point of view, they’re really not worth it.

Here’s a quick rundown of the current situation:

Because Speakeasy works with two other vendors for their installations — Qwest and Covad — it takes a bit longer to get set up with service through them, generally on the order of about a month. In the past, the service that Speakeasy provided made the extra wait worth it. Not so much anymore.

One month before we moved to our new apartment, I called Speakeasy and set up a new install at the new address. This gave plenty of time for them to get everything taken care of by our move-in date of the 18th.

Around the 12th — while Prairie and I were still packing up in North Seattle — Qwest arrived and completed the loop (whatever that means). On the 17th, the Covad tech called me to let me know that he was in the apartment to do the final install, but that he wasn’t getting a signal. After a little digging, he found that Speakeasy had given Qwest the wrong address, and they’d installed their loop at apartment D100 instead of K100 (not the real apartment numbers). There was nothing he could do, so he sent off his report, and I called Speakeasy.

Speakeasy told me that they didn’t know how this had happened, the address was entered correctly in their system, but whoever had sent the order to Qwest had mistyped it. Unfortunately, this meant that they had to cancel the order and start the entire process again. I made it known that I was pretty upset about facing another month wait to get online because they screwed up, and they said they’d try to escalate the process. I asked about canceling my Speakeasy account, but because our last move was only ten months ago, I was still two months shy of the end of my 12-month contract, and would be hit with a $300 early disconnect charge if I walked away. Eventually, they told me that they’d have Qwest out to the new apartment on the 21st to put the loop in the right spot, and Covad would be able to make it out on the 23rd.

Over the weekend, Prairie and I move everything out of the North Seattle apartment. We left the ‘net and phone hookup intact as long as we could, but eventually disconnected them, figuring we’d have just a couple days of using our emergency-only, pre-paid buy-the-minute cell phones.

Yesterday (the 23rd), the Covad tech calls me to tell me he’s on his way, and he just wanted to double-check the address he was driving to: Apartment D100. Um…no, K100, I say. He said that he hoped Qwest got it right, as did I. A few minutes later, he shows up at my door, shrugs, and tells me that once again, the loop was installed by Qwest, on Speakeasy’s instructions, at the wrong apartment.

I get back on the phone with Speakeasy, even more upset. More excuses come over the line — everybody pointing fingers at everyone else, while I’m the one without internet or telephone service. By this point, I’ve been on the phone fighting with Speakeasy so much that I’ve burned completely through the hours of time I’d put on my prepaid cell phone, and had to refill in the middle of one round with Speakeasy after getting cut off when the phone went dead. Eventually, they tell me that they’ll escalate another level, push to get Qwest out to to their loop in the right building the next day (Thursday, the 24th), have Covad out to do the final install the evening of the 24th or possibly Friday the 25th, and that they’ll have an update by 5pm at the latest on the 24th.

Just before 5pm today, I call them, since they’d not called me at any point during the day. At this point, I’m told that we’re “set for the 28th (Monday).” I’m not thrilled, not sure if I can trust them, and very vocal about this. I was about resigned to give them one last chance — though after the second screwup, they had finally allowed that should I leave, they would be able to waive the $300 early disconnect fee — when I thought to verify that the 28th was the date for the final install. No, actually, that’s the date for Qwest to come back and make a third try at putting in the loop, Covad wouldn’t be able to make it out to do the final install until the 30th, Wednesday. By now, I’m rapidly losing the ability to deal coherently or politely with any of this. The guy I’m talking to can tell that I’m very upset, says that he’ll do everything he can to help, and tells me that while his shift is up at 5pm and he’s about to go home, he will be working remotely, so if I want to drop him an e-mail that evening….

“What?” I paused for a moment. “Was that some sort of sick joke? Did you hear what you just said to me? If I could drop you an e-mail, we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”

And with that, I’m done with Speakeasy. I’ve cancelled this continually botched installation, I’ve cancelled the ‘net and VOIP hookup at the old address (which needed to stay active until the new install was up to avoid the early disconnect fee), and they — finally — decided their company wouldn’t tumble into bankruptcy without my $300 and waived the fee.

Of course, the downside to this is that we’re still without telephone or internet at the new apartment, and because we’re starting the process from scratch, it’ll probably be a week to ten days or so (rough guestimate) before we’re back up. Also, once we are back up, the phone number will change, so those of you that have our home phone number will need the new one. Still, at this point, we’re willing to chalk those up to minor frustrations in the grand scheme of things. I can find open WiFi points here and there that will allow me to check in every few days, and we’re looking at going with Qwest for our new service (on the assumption that it was Speakeasy giving Qwest the wrong address), who should be able to give us a faster DSL ‘net connection (3 MB downstream), the same VOIP service, and DirecTV for the same amount of money I was paying Speakeasy for 1.5 MB DSL and VOIP.

So, as has been the case, updates here are going to be few and far between until all the pieces finally fall into place. Now, at least, you know why.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

It’s official — Prairie and I have a new apartment! We’d been keeping an eye on Craigslist over the past few months as I got closer to graduation, looking for places in the Kent/Des Moines area that fit what we were looking for: two or three bedrooms, two bathrooms, reserved parking, washer and dryer, and if at all possible, a pool (we’ve gotten quite spoiled by having a pool available here during the summer months). By Friday, we had a list of four places we wanted to check out, and we headed off to see how they compared to their on-paper representations.

(I was quite proud of myself for getting us all organized: on Thursday, I’d called the places, set up appointments at each, printed out their Craigslist listings, Google Maps directions from each to the next in order, and a little sheet of questions we wanted to be sure to ask, and stapled them all together into individual packets. As anyone who knows me can attest, this is not normal behavior for me!)

The first apartment was nice, but not quite as close as we wanted; the second apartment had gorgeous grounds, but the 2-bedrooms were too small, the 3-bedrooms too expensive, and it was right off a street that was pretty seedy (think Aurora in Seattle, or Mt. View in Anchorage) and didn’t feel safe; the fourth had a gorgeous view of the Kent valley and was a huge 2-bedroom layout that would have been our pick if we hadn’t already been through the third.

The third place ended up hitting all our “gotta have it” qualifications (3 bed, 2 bath, nice layout, washer/dryer in unit, assigned parking space), our “would be nice if” qualifications (third floor corner apartment available, fireplace, deck, good storage, swimming pool in the complex, right on the bus lines), plus a bunch of other goodies that sold us (nice location next to a golf course and park with lots of bike paths to go walking/skating/riding on, right next to the Green River, about five minute drive from Prairie’s workplace and my future school, exercise room, indoor racquetball court, and a decent neighborhood). Plus, they had fresh-baked cookies still warm from the oven for us! It’s pretty hard to say no to fresh-baked cookies. Ingenious!

After looking at all four choices, we had lunch, then went back to our favorite and put in our application. They called back yesterday to confirm that we were approved, so Prairie will be running over there during her lunch break today to drop off the security deposit and get the final details (official address so I can initiate the moving process with Speakeasy, the actual move-in date, and so on).

One interesting side effect is that this means that after seven years, I’ll be moving out of Seattle. Admittedly, not very far out of Seattle — the Kent-to-Downtown-Seattle drive is only a few minutes longer than the Northgate-to-Downtown-Seattle drive — but still, I’ll no longer have a Seattle address. Something of a milestone there.

More details of the move and all will be posted as things progress, but we should be all moved over in roughly three weeks or so.

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

As Prairie’s mentioned, work on moving into the new apartment continues, and we’re making progress. I’ve had to work just about every day (though I was able to get most of yesterday off to help), and Prairie and her family crew have done the lion’s share of the work so far, so in this case saying that “we” are making progress is really only strictly true for certain values of “we”. But still…progress is being made. At least I’ve got a day off tomorrow to pitch in all day long.

One side effect of all this is that both Prairie and I are going to be essentially out of touch for the next two weeks or so. As we use Speakeasy for our ‘net and our phone connection through VoIP, we need to get that transferred over to the new apartment…and, unfortunately, Speakeasy says that that can take up to two weeks. Not what I was hoping for, but pretty unavoidable, as all of this has happened so quickly.

We do have our laptop with WiFi access, so we may be able to check in from time to time, but it’s pretty much safe to assume that we probably won’t be reachable via e-mail or phone for the next two weeks, and certainly won’t be responding to messages in a timely manner. Not ideal, but that’s what it is.

Well, not really, the next few days should be pretty good overall. They’re just going to be really busy, and probably not entirely unstressful. As such, I’m likely not going to be reachable or even online until…um…Wednesday, at the earliest. I think. No guarantees.

• Today: After work, Prairie and I drive down to Vancouver (yes, down…the Washington Vancouver, not the Canada Vancouver) to visit her mom.

• Tomorrow: Drive from Vancouver to Corvallis, OR for a family get together. My parents are flying down for their 37th anniversary weekend, and we’re all meeting up with my brother, his wife, and their kiddo (my nephew!) at their place for the weekend.

• Monday-Friday: I’m on vacation for a week! No work! Yay! Not going to be resting for all of it, though…

  • Monday: Drive from Corvallis, OR back up to Seattle. Prairie’s got a class to teach that evening at one of her new jobs, then after the class, we drive out to Ellensburg to her apartment and meet up with her dad there.

  • Tuesday: Rent a U-Haul, and put everything Prairie owns into the U-Haul and her dad’s truck. Drive from Ellensburg to Seattle and put all of her stuff into the new apartment. Drive over to my apartment and grab the big stuff (bookcase, desk, dresser, futon, electronics, boxes) while her dad’s here to help and take all that over to the new apartment.

  • Wednesday: SLEEP IN! Sometime that afternoon the installer from Speakeasy will be by to hook up the DSL line in the new apartment.

  • Thursday-Sunday: Rest and relax in between trips back and forth between my old apartment and the new apartment to get all the rest of my stuff and do a cleaning sweep.

And then it’s back to the usual routine.

So…really busy, lots to do, and I’ll be electronicaly nonexistant. Analog only…meatspace all the way.

Weird.

In honor of the weekend’s family get together, though, I took a couple minutes to scan in some of the old family photos I absconded with last time I was up in Alaska. Some of these have been posted before, some haven’t, so sorry if I’m boring anyone with repeats…but if you’ve never seen ‘em before, enjoy!

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

Just got back home from picking up my keys for the new apartment. Pictures were taken, I’ll have them posted as soon as I can. Yay!

Okay, first ‘picture’ is up. I took a few moments to sketch out a rough floorplan of the apartment, so you’ll have some idea what you’re looking at when I get the pics put in. It’s a pretty rough floorplan, but I think I got it pretty accurate for the most part.

Not bad for a studio apartment — one main room, a full bath, full kitchen, and two closets, one of which is a full-size clothes closet, and even a little entryway space. I think the main room ends up being a little smaller than the single room I’m in now, so figuring out how to arrange things might be a bit tricky, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to get it all in there.

Okay — here’s as good of a tour through the apartment as I can do. Right inside the front door is a cool little delivery box, left over from when the building was originally built. Each of these boxes has two doors — one on the inside that you can see here, and another on the outside of the apartment opening into the hallway. The outside door is fixed closed now, but when these were in use, they were the drop-off points for milk, newspapers, whatever. The delivery person would open the outside door and put the goods in the box, then the tenant could take them from the inside of the apartment without ever having to open the front door. They don’t work anymore, but I thought it was pretty nifty. If nothing else, it’ll be a convenient place to store shoes.

Here’s two shots of the main room. The first was taken standing in the door looking towards the windows, and the second was taken standing in the corner by the heater looking towards the entrance. These should give a pretty good idea of the layout of the apartment. The landlord tells me that the overall floorspace is definitely larger than the place I’m in now, but since that takes into account the entire apartment, the main room itself is a bit smaller than what I’ve got now. I think the tradeoff is more than worth it, it’ll just take a bit of work figuring out how I’m going to get all of my goodies set up in here.

This is a shot I put together of the kitchen. It’s the sloppiest of the stitch jobs that I made tonight, but they’re a little tricky to do, and it should work. It seems kind of funny, but I think I’m more excited about this kitchen than anything else! A good sized sink with a drainage area built in to the right, and loads of cupboards and storage space! Plus, it’s a gas kitchen, rather than electric like the place I’m in now, so that should cut down on my electric bills (as will having a steam heater rather than electric heat).

All in all, I think I ended up with a pretty good deal. I’ve got the next two weeks to move in, too, so I don’t have to make a mad rush at anything. Too cool!

Originally published at eclecticism. You can comment here or there.

I’ve gotten a little more information on this possible move that I mentioned a couple days ago — and it looks like this could end up being a pretty cool deal. Melvin and I went over to his new building last night to take a look around and discuss some more of what he’s got in mind.

As it turns out, I was a little wrong on one of my understandings — it’s most definitely not a newer building than the one I’m in now, which is part of the reason that Melvin’s so excited about it. He’s got something of a fascination with older buildings, and I can kind of understand that after wandering around in this one for a bit. I don’t have any real way of knowing, but if I were to hazard a guess, I wouldn’t be surprised if this building dates back to the ‘30’s or so, from some of the things I saw. I took a couple pictures of the outside of it while I was walking to work this morning and will try to get them added to this post after I get home from work.

Anyway, first things first. If all goes well, it looks like I should be moving over there to start residency in April (though there’s at least a possibility of making the move over a couple weeks starting in March). Melvin showed me all the open apartments, and I chose one on the 4th floor of the building. It’s still a studio apartment (the entire building is studios and one bedrooms), but it’s a much cooler studio than what I have now. The actual room is probably about the same size as what I have now (just more squarish rather than rectangular), but there’s a real full bathroom, and an actual kitchen! The windows don’t have much of a view — another apartment building across the street, the street below, and if you look off to the side a bit you can see some of the downtown skyscrapers — but that’s part of city life, right? The kitchen window does open out onto the fire escape, though, and that’s just cool (grin).

One of the neatest things for me is that the building hasn’t had a whole lot of work done to it to ‘modernize’ it. The elevator is great — it would hold about three people comfortably, has a domed roof, and is one of the old style elevators where the outer door is a normal swinging door that you pull open, and there is no inner door, just a grate that has to be manually slid all the way closed or the lift won’t operate. The kitchen has a huge sink with built-in drainage area to the side, tons of cupboards, and it looks to be all original from when the building was built. I don’t remember if my apartment had one of these, but one that I looked at had this funny little cupboard on the floor that was about two and a half feet high and locked closed — then I realized that it was actually the original icebox! Not a refrigerator, as there was no cooling hardware — just an insulated box. Cool.

What I think is one of the neatest things, though, is something that isn’t even used anymore, but it really adds a sense of age to the building. I’d noticed as we were wandering around that directly beside every door to an apartment was a small door, about a foot and a half wide and two and a half feet tall that also looked like it led into the apartment, but had been painted over and was obviously no longer used. I couldn’t figure out what they were for, until Melvin and I were in one of the apartments and I noticed a cupboard on the inside of the apartment that corresponded to the placement of this mini-door, and the cupboard had its own latching door inside the apartment. It turns out that this was the original delivery/mailbox for each unit! When the mailman, milkman, or whoever came by, they’d open the outer door and put the goods in the box. The resident could then come by and open their inner door and take the stuff out whenever was convenient for them — no need to open the outside door, the goods didn’t sit outside the door to be seen and taken by other residents, or anything like that. Pretty nifty stuff, even if it’s not too useful anymore.

There’s a bunch of other benefits beyond just ‘nifty’ factor, though. Last year sometime, the rates for water and waste went up. One of the ways some of the landlords around town (including the company that runs the Shannon Apartments, where I live now) deal with this is that rather than including water/waste costs in the rent, as is standard, they use some arcane formula and divide the costs among all the tenants, based on how many people live in each apartment (because apartments generally aren’t set up to be individually metered). Sounds reasonable on the surface, except that it hits everyone if one tenant or apartment is using excess amounts of water, or fills the dumpster and we need an extra trash run. Luckily, these new apartments aren’t doing that. Additionally, the Shannon Apartments are very electric-based — both the heat and the oven and stove are electric. The new building uses gas stoves and the old style hot water/steam pipe heaters for the rooms — this should drop my electric bill fairly drastically.

So, all in all, things look good as far as living there goes. There’s a few downsides — parking looks like it might be worse than where I am now (which is somewhat hard to believe), and I’m a bit further from Broadway (though closer to Downtown), but I think the pros outweigh the cons at the moment.

I also got some more information about what kind of help Melvin would need. It doesn’t sound like it would be too much — occasional help with some of the tasks around the building, which I don’t have a problem with. Admittedly, it does help that once we worked out a rate of pay, he’d just deduct from my rent for however many hours I worked. Additionally, one of the selling points he used to get the spot is that he wants to set up a website to help promote the building — and he knows I’ve got the knowledge and ability to do this, so I’ll probably be in charge of that. Could be quite fun, and possibly put a little more money in my pocket (or off of rent, depending on how we arrange it).

This all led to another possible side project bouncing around my brain. As long as I’m going to be putting together a website for the building, and I’m somewhat enamored by the age of the building itself, I think it could be a lot of fun to spend some of my off-hours doing a little work digging into public records to see if I can uncover any information about the building — when it was actually built, what it’s been used for over the years — and eventually get that up on the page. I found a page with starting points for just such a search on the website for the Seattle Public Library. Also, when I did a quick Google search, I came up with two bits of information. Buried in the midst of an article about confrontations between squatters and a landlord is a mention that at some point in 1999 the then-current (I don’t know whether it’s still the same) landlord, Wah Lui, had been negotiating with the Low Income Housing Institute to convert the building into ‘mutual housing,’ but he later reneged on the deal. Additionally, that wonderful old elevator is apparently serviced by the American Elevator Corporation, based here in Seattle. Neither of them are really ground-breakingly crucial bits of information, but still kind of interesting to find.

So, that’s everything I know about the deal for now. More when I know more, of course….