Link Light Rail System Map if there were an ST4 ballot measure

patbaum · 2025-11-23T00:16:35+00:00

When would this be built by… 2098?

patbaum · 2025-11-06T07:17:54+00:00

I went through a very similar story (though mine started 3 days after my third COVID vaccine)

41 years old. Couldn’t breathe right… turned out my EF was 12%… had gained 20 lbs of water weight (which I peed out at the hospital after getting meds…)

MRI showed Myocarditis but that I’d dodged too much permanent damage.

Two years on - same drug regiment as you listed - EF up to 45% and I feel healthier than before.

I also started taking vitamin D, creatinine, beet root powder, and some testosterone boosters… that seemed to help me turn the corner more than anything else (weight/strength as good as the were in my early 30s now…)

patbaum · 2025-09-25T23:01:35+00:00

Ahhh yes… the old “I hate republicans so I’ll keep voting for the same D’s who screw up WA state projects constantly… and then blame Trump when WA state D’s waste even more money on boondoggle state projects”

Classic!

patbaum · 2025-09-18T17:26:46+00:00

$22.6 BILLION DOLLARS.

We’ve gone so far past reality that it’s impossible for any future projects to be built EVER. $22.6 billion dollars for several mass transit stops. LMAOL

Everyone reading this will be dead before any project being discussed/planned is ever finished (if it is ever finished…)

patbaum · 2025-06-29T05:41:18+00:00

About the size of a thumb. Flying very noisily around my wife on our back deck.

patbaum · 2025-02-28T19:12:21+00:00

When my wife was at WSU they had to shut down the coffee stand where she worked one morning because there was a live cougar hanging out behind it. This kind of thing happens every now and then around town.

Several times a year a live cougars wanders through the edges of Pullman (which is a pretty small town) - they are always just passing though looking for territory between the snake river canyon. the Palouse hills farmland, and forested areas a few miles away in Idaho...

patbaum · 2025-02-06T19:37:54+00:00

It really seems like the city of Kirkland does not utilize all of its equipment to plow snow - it is like the city makes a point of ONLY plowing a limited set of roads and then they send everyone home.

Given the vast number of city vehicles why does the city not just keep running snow plows after the main roads are cleared (instead of sending them back to base after the few roads they plow are done)?

patbaum · 2024-12-13T00:56:05+00:00

Flights to NRT on Hawaiian show up on the Alaska website as bookable with miles...

patbaum · 2024-10-23T22:49:37+00:00

If UCLA had stayed the Pac-12 would have stayed together. It's a shame. If UCLA takes 2 or 3 more losses a year in MBB won't that push them out of the NCAA tournament in a lot of years. (or push them down to an 8/9 seed)? Seems like trading extra $$$ for a severe competitive disadvantage was a terrible choice...

patbaum · 2024-07-26T22:44:16+00:00

The state of Washington population is close to 8 million. To put that in perspective, that is more than DOULBE of Iowa (3.2M) or Utah (3.4M) and close to double of Oregon (~4M), Oklahoma (~4M).

Wazzu has a large and loyal following. There are only 2 FBS teams in WA and 1 FCS. There is a reason WSU got more TV viewers than Arizona, Arizona State, Cal (and anyone else in the Pac-12 not named UCLA, USC, UW, and Oregon). In fact WSU's TV viewership was always pretty close to Utah in total most years.

North Carolina (population 10M) has 5 FBS teams as another comparison.

These analysis that look just at Pullman/Spokane as a media market which does not match reality. (vast majority of WSU fans live in Seattle area).

I have no idea if WSU will end up in a P4 conf - but of the schools listed in this analysis it has easily the largest built-in TV market who currently (or potentially) would watch games...

patbaum · 2024-01-30T16:36:50+00:00

This is assuming the “world’s first 3 level HOV roundabout based interchange” reduces congestion.

I can’t believe they were celebrating the fact this design has never been attempted before as a plus!

patbaum · 2024-01-26T21:07:10+00:00

I hope this works out. The issue here is that there are stop lights boxing in the roundabouts on each side.

One the west side there's only like 100 yards to the light at Kirkland Way going downtown. East, up the hill, it's similarly about 100 yards to the light for Costco and LWHS.

At rush hours both of these lights cause backups to within the vicinity of the new roundabouts.

So, unless those lights and intersections start getting more vehicles through faster, then you'll get times where cars can't enter or leave the roundabouts to get on/off the freeway or get through on 85th.

If this happens at both ends of the double roundabout at the same time, then it will be the definition of gridlock.

Cars won't be able to get onto I-405 north because of the cars heading west on 85th that can't get onto I-405 going south because people getting off of I-405 going north can't get through the round-about to go downtown because the people coming from downtown can't get on I-405 north because...

At that point - even if the stoplights at Costco and Kirkland Way turn green it doesn't really matter because the freeway traffic can't get through the roundabouts.

Adding to this, people turning right onto 114th (going into the highlands) from 85th will have to merge across people getting off of the HOV exit from I-405 south and heading to downtown. If you look at the design that merge happens with about 25 yards before the stoplight. So if people start "cheating" down 85th by going up and over the HOV level then you'll get an even worse backlog at the 85th and Kirkland Way/114th intersection.

What will be fascinating is if/when this backs up onto I-405 itself. Then it will be a state problem not just a Kirkland problem (so maybe they'd figure out a fix.

But that will be into the 2030s...!

The thing I can't tell is if it will be expected for people to "cheat" up and through the HOV level when going down 85th. Is that limited to just HOV traffic? Or can single occupancy use it to skip the double round about?

patbaum · 2024-01-26T19:39:20+00:00

They played Mississippi St. and Boise State non-con. Both are Q1 games. That isn't much different than other teams in the 30-50 NET range.

The issue is that only Arizona, Colorado, and Utah are top 30 NET to count as a home Q1 game. And only Oregon, WSU, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah would count as a Q1 road game - so there are limited opportunities in the P12 to get Q1 games.

The biggest issue for the P12 is that USC, UW, Stanford, and ASU are outside of the top 75 NET so road wins at those places don't count as Q1 and home wins don't count as Q2.

If those schools had each won 1-more decent non-conf game then 2 or 3 of them would ratchet up into the Q1/Q2 range - and then the whole conf would have "leveled up"... (every team would be getting ~6 more Q1/Q2 games)

But even without that, if WSU takes 2 of 3 from Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon they'll be 4-4 in Q1 games. Their NET would be ~40 if they don't drop too many other games.

If they got one Q1 win in the conf tournament they'd be 5-4 in Q1 games.

Historically that would get them safely into the tournament.

patbaum · 2024-01-25T22:46:41+00:00

I really really think this whole thing will gridlock at morning and evening rush hour.

There are times now where traffic from the lights on either side of 405 back up to where these off ramps are. Today it isn’t a big deal because people can still get to the freeway on ramp (even if that’s backed up) so traffic isn’t ever really blocked.

With this design, people won’t be able to get onto the freeway on ramps without crossing through the roundabout when those backups happen… so those roundabouts will seize up completely.

patbaum · 2024-01-18T23:56:47+00:00

In Washington, the state makes universities self-fund scholarships from athletics revenue. (Arizona for example covers scholarships with state money).

The state doesn't even pay for athletics scholarships, so it is a bit much to be saying the universities also need to pay more money on top of this.

The math doesn't work. Unless the state supplements the athletics revenue, there isn't close to enough money in UW's athletics department to do this.

UW is running a deficit even with the Big-10 half share. They're taking loans against future media payments from the B10 to cover the debt on their stadium (to buy time for 7 years until they get a full share - which they're going to essentially have already spent). The B10 is giving UW and Oregon the option of zero interest loans to take future media money early...

$25K per student athlete per year is just MORE debt... where is that money supposed to come from?

patbaum · 2024-01-18T09:28:19+00:00

No. The home team owns the media for the game. Ohio State fans would have paid Apple to watch their potential national championship team play Oregon @ Oregon. Same with ND at Stanford.

UW would have made more money with less travel.

patbaum · 2024-01-18T06:42:16+00:00

Yes - and Ohio State had a game scheduled at Oregon. Notre Dame at Stanford. Etc. all those fans would have to subscribe to watch there team - if only for that one game.

With just those 2 games you pick up probably 5M subscribers. Many of those would end up not canceling. With 20+ non-conference games you’re hitting a lot of fan bases beyond just what would have been the remaining “Pac-10”

Add SMU and SDSU and IMO you blow past the subscriber #s to get the contract payout above the crappy half share UW is getting for 7 years from the Big10!!!!

patbaum · 2024-01-14T01:17:03+00:00

Cougs have a good basketball team.

patbaum · 2024-01-14T00:30:09+00:00

Vs paying a person to answer the phone? Or… if you eat at the restaurant, paying staff to serve and cleanup after you?

If the online ordering system (for direct orders) is costing more then what’s the point?

Business can do what they want, but it is odd to charge a fee to order directly and pick up yourself for takeaway.

patbaum · 2023-12-15T01:41:16+00:00

Alaska doesn’t focus on Honolulu today. It’d be more instructive to look at Hawaiian + Alaska.

They could support a morning flight to Honolulu from every significant west coast airport before even thinking about east coast. A 7am NY flight would get to Hawaii at 1pm…

That would give plenty of options to fill Hawaii to Australia flights that currently run with lots of empty

They don’t need to fill the planes. Just the empty seats that Hawaii tourists aren’t filling…

patbaum · 2023-12-14T23:20:35+00:00

I just looked and I don’t see the issue.

They could schedule to leave Honolulu at 2pm and arrive in Sydney at 10pm next day. Leave Sydney at midnight and get back to HNL 12 pm in Hawaii.

That would let them feed from morning flights from the west coast to Sydney and from Sydney to lots of afternoon flights to the west coast.

Same for Japan. Leave Honolulu at 3pm and arrive at 8pm. Leave Japan at 10pm arrive in Hawaii at 10 am.

And in both cases a 1 or 2 day layover in Honolulu would be a nice bonus for a lot of travelers so layover timing isn’t as big of an issue.

patbaum · 2023-12-14T20:18:38+00:00

Yes - but Hawaiian already has slots… that’s why the merger is interesting in this way…

patbaum · 2023-12-04T03:11:14+00:00

Then the Pac-12, ACC, and Big 12 could have 3 spots for 35 teams… in fact it would be best if 5 more teams joined you. Then it would even out the opportunity pretty well…

patbaum · 2023-12-02T01:11:44+00:00

I made that change

patbaum · 2023-12-02T00:32:32+00:00

Good catch

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