Awesome sign

Apropos of Wednesday's water main break/sinkhole event, this sign was spotted at the Eastlake Bar and Grill: "Sink hole de Mayo!/We're open." (Apologies for the crappy camera phone image quality.)

Tutta Bella

A new branch of Tutta Bella pizzeria will be gracing the Denny/Westlake Whole Foods complex. I noticed the "coming soon" sign while there foraging for lunch earlier this week. I've only been to the one in Wallingford once, but it was pretty good! I'll have to check this one out when it opens.

Oops!... I did it again

Seattle suffers its second water main break in a week - this time on Eastlake, causing a sinkhole to form, but NOT the fault of construction workers. The University Bridge is closed, wreaking havoc on the traffic in the U-district for the foreseeable future. Luckily, our traffic problems are probably not quite as bad as the Bay Area's. (Photo via P.I.)

Diet Coke Plus

A few days ago I spotted this new Coke product at Safeway. Diet Coke Plus - with vitamins and minerals? It just sounds so weird. I mean, sodas are the epitome of unhealthiness, so does this somehow make them better? Do the vitamins and minerals counteract the phosphoric acid and other chemicals? (Not that those qualities keep me from drinking sodas fairly frequently, but they really aren't great for you). (Ooops, just checked my own facts and discovered that the claims about Coke's nastiness are largely false). I wonder if this will go the way of Crystal Pepsi and New Coke, or if it will catch on and be the newest health craze... only time will tell. I personally can't stand artificial sweeteners (except for whatever they use in Fresca), so I won't be trying it anytime soon. If you're a Diet Coke drinker and feel brave enough to try it, please report back on taste and/or other benefits! :P

Accept

It isn't a big red stamp, but it's very nice to finally have 7 years of work be recognized by the scientific community.

(P.S. It's kind of funny that the button I click to "blog" this item is called "publish")

SLU drama!

Walking to my building from the bus today was an adventure - the entire building is surrounded by gushing water from a broken water main on Dexter. My friend tr already blogged about it here. (Photo from King 5 News, whose studios are located right where the main was breached.)


In other news, I noticed that the new luxury condominium complex on Mercer and 5th Ave N (Lumen condominiums) will have a QFC on the ground floor - very exciting for increasing the lunch options in SLU!

Venting

I really dislike it when a paper has an intriguing title, and then it turns out that either it's a crappy study, or the title was misleading. Every time I look at this paper I get excited and think that it will answer all my questions, and instead, it just disappoints every time. It's really dense, doesn't flow that well, and doesn't really tell me what I think it should. Oh, sure, it talks about VEGF and endothelial cells and vascular development. But it doesn't tell me how they are all interconnected; instead it just recaps the same story that many other review articles cover. Oh well, such is life. And yes, I'm still procrastinating. But I needed to vent. So thanks.

Sunshine and gravel

Lately, I've taken to working rather long hours. I'm not complaining, it comes with the territory of trying to write one's thesis dissertation, but I'm just saying. So today when I headed home early to meet roomie for dinner, it meant that I was actually at the bus stop while the sun was still up. I wouldn't think that this is really that a notable event, except that as I was kicking the gravel rocks back into the strip along the side of the sidewalk like I always do, I thought it was kind of weird to be able to see them clearly. Anyway, thanks for the excuse to get out early, kc!

And yes, I'm procrastinating. :P

New plants

Well, I finally got around to potting up some cuttings I've had sitting in water for WAY too long to admit. The water has been nasty for quite a while. Ick. The new additions are: two pots of Tradescantia zebrina, one pot of Ceropegia woodii (actually not 100% sure that is correct), and one variegated Chlorophytum comosum. I'm not planning to keep any of them except the Ceropegia woodii, if I can manage to find homes for them. I already have too many plants to care for! Also up for adoption are several pots of Ornithogalum caudatum, and several more pots of Chlorophytum comosum.

Florera Greenlake

In other construction news, it appears that the new "Florera Greenlake" condos at Woodlawn and Ravenna have topped out, based on the cupola in this picture:
There's obviously a ton of construction going on all over the city, but I seem to live and work at two relative hot-spots. I used to be intrigued by watching the progress of various building projects, but I have to say that I'm kind of oversaturated and fairly annoyed at the inconvenience they can cause. The future doesn't look too much better, what with the eventual renovation of the old Albertsons lot and even more condos in South Lake Union.