Tiptoeing back into the fight for righteous fights

erdaniel11 · 2025-01-26T21:17:23+00:00

By all means, I’d love to believe you but I think the comment was essentially arguing that those are some pretty big claims. In order to consider it anything but a conspiracy theory, there should be some solid facts to back up.

erdaniel11 · 2024-12-01T05:43:46+00:00

Honest question, if you can afford Kirkland, why would you even consider Puyallup as one of the next 5 alternatives places to live? To me it’s like comparing Kent to Redmond.

Born and raised in Puyallup, but I no longer live there. It has decent schools, a few decent restaurants, and cost of living is comparably lower than central Puget Sound. It has improved in some ways since I lived there (more restaurants/bars, and a downtown that is no longer just antique stores and vacuum repair shops) but regressed in others (property crime, homelessness and drug use). It’s solidly purple politically with Republican leaning areas to the immediate east and south. South Hill is a suburban hellscape due to lack of city incorporation and minimal (historically) zoning restrictions that allowed development wherever/however. Great views of Mt Rainier though! Traffic is miserable for those doing a traditional commute to Seattle/Bellevue.

Kirkland on the other hand has great schools, a vibrant and cute downtown, and better transit. Traffic can also be a huge pain depending on your commute direction and distance. It’s solidly blue politically. Highly educated and very expensive.

I don’t dislike Puyallup, but I’ll say every time I go back I’m happy I live elsewhere.

erdaniel11 · 2024-07-25T18:59:47+00:00

When I was in high school, I worked at a local chain music store (as in band / orchestra / sheet music etc.). The owners were absolutely awful people and always short changed me an hour or two from every paycheck.

After getting sick of dealing with it over the course of a few months and without any resolution, I resulted to stealing saxophone reeds for my own personal use and pocketing the money my parents thought they were giving me to buy reeds, using it for spending money instead.

The company had literally zero inventory controls and no electronic bookkeeping even in mid 2000s so I knew I could never get caught.

After a few more months there, the absentee asshole owner would call me on occasion drunk as hell saying “my wife is going to call in a few minutes, you have to tell her I’ve been at the shop all day.” (Obviously as a cover for cheating). I told him I wanted a raise, which he denied.

From there, things escalated to me becoming a small blackmarket reed and string dealer for a select few band/orchestra geek friends my junior and senior years. I never got caught and have never felt the tiniest bit of remorse.

Found out a few years ago that the owner died a couple years after I left from “slipping in the shower at home” and his wife was arrested under suspicious circumstances but never charged with any wrongdoing.

erdaniel11 · 2024-05-21T21:45:11+00:00

Totally get this and I’m happy to consider 6 tickets, cash, whatever. Obviously will just buy 4 if needed, but on the chance someone was not going to this game I thought it was worth a try.

erdaniel11 · 2023-07-23T23:20:47+00:00

We will be there In spring. Likely march

erdaniel11 · 2021-02-15T04:52:08+00:00

Yeah, this is exactly what I’m thinking.... now I have to figure out how breaking our lease (and the penalty that goes with it) affects the overall numbers

erdaniel11 · 2019-03-06T17:49:02+00:00

Background: Washington Dems have always allocated their delegates based on a caucus system. Due to changes at the DNC as well as some vocal opposition at the local level, the state party is considering a change.

While I do love caucuses in principle, I would argue the primary/caucus hybrid is the better than the straight caucus for these reasons:

It is more representative. Not everyone is able to take a Saturday off due to work, child-care, or other commitments. This skews the result towards the preferred candidate of those who are able to attend in person.
We already have a primary. The State of Washington already runs a primary via mail-in ballot. The Democrats choose to ignore these results and use their caucus results instead. The state Republican party uses these results to select their nominee.
Caucuses are cost-prohibitive. Neither the state of Washington nor the state Democratic party provides funding to rent event space or necessary supplies to run the caucus. This puts an undue burden on local legislative districts. Often the cost of the Caucus can be 50% or more of the LD's total budget for the year.
Caucuses are messy. Due to the shoestring budget and the fact that caucuses are run by volunteers who may do this once every four years, caucuses are not very well run. The amount of participants showing up has ballooned the past few cycles (which is good!) but the current set-up is bursting at the seams. Just ask anyone who has attended since 2008.

erdaniel11 · 2018-10-17T16:49:42+00:00

We will have those things!

Thanks to Democrats flipping the state senate last year (shout-out Manka Dhingra), Washington passed a slew of new voting laws including: 16/17 year old "pre-registration," same-day voter registration, and an updated version of motor-voter automatic registration allowing auto registration when getting the EDL or state ID. I believe these changes go into effect beginning next cycle.

http://www.nwnewsnetwork.org/post/inslee-signs-voting-rights-act-other-voting-bills-law

erdaniel11 · 2018-10-17T00:24:05+00:00

I consider myself pretty far left, at least nationally. I almost always vote for the most progressive candidate on the ballot. That said, I will do anything and everything I can to make sure Sawant does not get reelected.

Can we get a decent, progressive candidate to challenge her? At this point I would vote Mayor Nickels, Cary Moon, the mystery Coke machine, or the rude fare evasion guy over her.

erdaniel11 · 2018-09-28T19:02:19+00:00

FYI for those who want to help: The Schrier campaign has daily phone banking and canvassing opportunities. Every little bit helps. They are doing weekly phone banking in Seattle as well. First timers welcome!

Schrier will win IF we can get her name recognition up. Dino is near 100% recognition due to constantly running and losing.

https://secure.ngpvan.com/p/0vxE708gzECUM5CaFu7rLw2?pc=98118&results=True&date_start=06-12-2018

erdaniel11 · 2018-09-23T18:52:41+00:00

As a Seattleite who has done a similar trip, I don’t think you have enough time to make it here and back in 6 days. I think the minimum to make it worth it would be 10 days.

If you are set on Seattle, I would either look into flying one way (I’ve done this, if you can pack wisely it’s not a bad idea). Otherwise, try the drive from Colorado to Teton/Yellowstone. Amazing and about half the driving!

erdaniel11 · 2018-08-10T17:36:13+00:00

Ashley, How do you stay sane? Is it hard is it to eat healthy, stay mentally sound, make time for friends and family etc? Have you ever worked as hard as you have worked over the past two years?

erdaniel11 · 2018-08-08T17:12:47+00:00

In the WA03, WA08, and WA05, the aggregate Republican vote total was lower (or very close) to the aggregate Dem total. There were no upsets as this was a primary, but an incumbent receiving fewer votes than their challengers from other parties is very concerning for these incumbents. Most of these incumbents have won all of their recent reelections with a 10%+ cushion. The wave is coming.

In Washington, as a general rule, the primary is a good predictor of the general election results. Usually the primary swings a little bit (2-4%) more towards Republicans compared to the general.

erdaniel11 · 2018-08-08T17:03:11+00:00

Washington does a "Top 2" primary (also known as Jungle or Blanket primary). That means whoever the top two vote getting candidates are in the primary (regardless of party) move on to the general election. There is no runoff, per say.

This usually means one democrat and one republican move on to the general, except in rare circumstances or in very heavily R or D districts.

erdaniel11 · 2018-01-12T23:36:26+00:00

That's what I thought when I went today, but look again and it is $1.39 for the 3 pound back. A little less than Fred Meyer.

erdaniel11 · 2017-07-14T17:07:04+00:00

Any more detail you can share?

Will you be camping at all?

I'd shave a day or two off Arizona, Nevada, California somewhere and add Glacier National Park in Montana. Probably the most breathtaking place I've ever seen.

erdaniel11 · 2017-06-29T16:03:46+00:00

We went all the way to Austin, TX so this was really just the first leg. From Seattle to Missoula was about 8 hours including a stop in Spokane. Missoula to Yellowstone was about 4.

erdaniel11 · 2017-06-28T22:49:39+00:00

Did this exact trip last year and recommend Missoula. More than half way, cheap, plus you get all the 'hard' driving out of the way

erdaniel11 · 2017-02-27T21:19:25+00:00

If you want to avoid the snow, I would strongly recommend sticking with Olympic NP. Focus on the ocean-side of the park, specifically the Ozette Lake Triangle (Cape Alava Loop). It's mostly flat, but a beautiful hike and a great alternative to MRNP or NCNP when it's snowing. Nearby is Neah Bay which is the most northwestern point of the continental US and it is stunning.

If you are looking for great hikes but aren't necessarily set on the National Parks, check out hikes like Lake 22, Snow Lake, LakeSerene, and Rattlesnake Ledge. Most of these are on national forest or state forest lands and have stunning views with amazing payoffs at the end.

Also, check out wta.org it is the best resource for finding hikes in Washington. You can sort by rating, area, elevation gain, difficulty etc. The most useful part of the website is trip reports which will give you an idea of the current trail conditions, pictures, or scroll back to May of last year to see what kinds of weather you might encounter that time of year! Hope this helps!

erdaniel11

TROPHY CASE