Lead Paint Peeling Off in Sheets at Van Asselt Elementary

Saturday's caucus at Van Asselt was the first time I'd ever been inside a school on Beacon Hill. I was thinking it looked pretty shabby, but it sounds like the situation is worse than I thought.

From Sunday's Seattle Times:

And while district officials say health and safety issues are always a priority, just last week lead-based paint was flaking onto the playground at Van Asselt Elementary School — a problem the district identified 10 years ago. ... Tests have shown the paint contains up to 30 percent lead, well above the federal standard of 0.06 percent.

According to the story, district spokesman David Tucker said that lead paint is common on old buildings and isn't a problem until it begins to peel.

Yeah, well...



The school district is claiming to have fixed some of the problems at Van Asselt already:

Over the past several years at Van Asselt, the district has replaced the roof and flooring and fixed windows and broken bathroom-door locks. But it hasn't blocked access to the roof, which has been subject to vandalism, and tetherball poles on the playground are in bad shape.

But from first-hand experience three days ago, I can say that the bathroom door locks are not fixed.

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No One Hurt in Drive-By Shooting in South Beacon Hill

From the P-I:

Seattle police are looking for an older white van seen driving away from the scene of a drive-by shooting early Monday.

The shooting in the 5100 block of South Augusta Street near Beacon Avenue South was reported just past 8 a.m., police spokeswoman Renee Witt said.

The caller reported that it appeared two shots were fired at a house on that block. No one was hurt in the shooting and police had no suspects in the case.

First Georgetown Art Attack

I spent most of the evening at a birthday party (where three of the celebrants were brand-new Obama delgates and two were alternates) at Calamity Jane's last night, so I didn't have time to attack much art. But I did take a few pictures.

I ran into George before the party, and Kathy and Holly helped me dress up my cool last-minute gift of a cute apron for the birthday girl. (Thank you, thank you.)

Sarah at CJ's let us eat cake.



It was too loud to follow this performance very closely, but I think it depicted a witch trial involving cannibalism and the sexual abuse of a couple of German children. Cute!



I'd hoped to meet Erika of Full Throttle Bottles, even though I was two hours late to the belly-dancing performance she'd told me about. So we headed that way.



I saw her car (or, at least, a car with her name on it parked right outside her shop), but the place was locked up. Another time...

We dropped in Georgetown Tile Works, where I did not recognize Amie from Friends of Georgetown History because I'm kind of dumb that way, and besides, I'd never met her out of costume before.



On our way back to the car, we got pulled into Lucky's Choppers ("Psst. Hey. Do you guys like guitars? Come check this out.") to see this guy's amazing handmade guitars.



He ran out of cards so I don't know his name, but I'm sure some of you do.

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New Hardscaping at a Beacon Hill House

My mother-in-law asked for a photo of my brother-in-law's lovely new retaining wall and landscaping. Since it's on Beacon Hill, it's topical enough to post here.

Another Beacon Hill Man in the News

From today's P-I:

A Beacon Hill man who admitted filming eight women in the Cinerama movie theater restroom won't serve any time in jail, a King County Superior Court judge ruled Friday.

As part of a plea agreement, Philip Michael Thomas was sentenced to 30 days of community service and required to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to one count of voyeurism, a felony. Thomas, 21, is also required to undergo a sexual deviancy screening and may have to undergo therapy.

Thomas was arrested Aug. 11 after a patron discovered a video camera planted in a women's restroom at the downtown Seattle theater. While reviewing the recording, officers discovered that Thomas had inadvertently videotaped himself while setting up the camera.

According to court documents, police found recordings of eight women, as well as images of another woman at her home.

After his arrest, Thomas told police he set up the camera in a single-stall women's room because "he knew that he wasn't going to film any kids," according to police statements.

At sentencing, Thomas apologized for his crime.

"This was a very dumb mistake," Thomas told Judge Chris Washington. "I'm deeply sorry for what I did."

Three Hours of Vintage MTV

Boing Boing reports that a dude in Belgium has posted three hours of MTV from 1983.

If you were to sit at your computer and watch all three hours, here's what you would find.

Night Ranger - Don't Tell Me You Love Me
Huey Lewis - Heart and Soul
The Tubes - Monkey Time
Prince - Little Red Corvette
George Thorogood - Bad to the Bone
Police - Synchronicity II
Sammy Hagar - Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy
Steve Miller Band - Jet Airliner
Kansas - Fight Fore with Fire
Michael Bolton - Fool's Game
Quiet Riot - Cum on Feel the Noize

"October 29th in Alabama is Lionel Richie Day, as proclaimed by Gov. George Wallace"

Bow Wow Wow - Do You Wanna Hold Me?
The Who - You Better You Bet
The Motels - Suddenly Last Summer
Madness - Our House
Nick Heyward - Whistle Down the Wind
ZZ Top - Sharp Dressed Man
Garland Jeffreys - 96 Tears
Stevie Nicks - If ANyone Falls
Elton John - I'm Still Standing
Thompson Twins - Lies
Billy Idol - Dancing with Myself
Men at Work - It's a Mistake
Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson - Say Say Say

"because coffee lets you calm yourself down... join the coffee achievers"

Quarterflash - Take Another Picture
David Bowie - Modern Love
Billy Quier - Lonely Is the Night
INXS - The One Thing
The Romantics - Talking in Your Sleep
Jefferson Starship - Be My Lady
Robert Plant - Burning Down One Side
Talking Heads - Burning Down the House
Split Enz - One Step Ahead
The Fixx - Red Skies
The Pretenders - Back on the Chain Gang
Joe Walsh - I Can Play That Rock & Roll

A Cold Saturday in Georgetown

Your options are limited at 11 a.m. on a Saturday in Georgetown if you're hungry and not in the mood for breakfast or vegan food.

I wasn't sure if the Hangar Cafe would be serving lunch yet. And we were so hungry that we weren't sure if we could wait for any crepe people ahead of us to get served anyway.

Smarty Pants does its brunch menu until 3 p.m. Stellar's not open until 3. Georgetown Liquor Company's not open until 2.

I kind of wanted sushi and would have tried Daimonji, but they're not open until dinner on Saturdays.

However, Calamity Jane's and Jules Maes serve lunch at 11 on Saturdays. Since we went to Calamity Jane's on Monday, we went to Jules Maes today. The BLT and tomato basil soup were perfect.

It looked like Georgetown Tile Works was open, what with the beckoning clown out front and all, so we decided to go check that out.



First we passed a couple of closed storefronts.



Full Throttle Bottles should be opening soon.



We hung out quite a while in the tile and gift shop, wasting the owners' time chatting about leatherwork, Chris Crites, Chemical Wedding, tiles, belt buckles, outsider art, the east side of Beacon Hill, remodeling, and their new view from the shop. They can see the I-5 signs for Vancouver, Tacoma, and Portland now.



I love the tile they're making. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before.



I think I like this even better.



And these metallic glazes remind me of Tau Ceramica's lovely Corten tile that we currently have in our bathroom. (I say "currently" because we already have some remodel plans drawn up, though we're not sure when they'll actually happen.)



We finally left the GTW folks alone so they could get some work done. I was too lazy and cold to cross the street like these other folks and get a closer look of the demolition.