Notes from Puget Sound

We went today on a five-hour Pacific Marine Research cruise through Puget Sound operated by MarineScienceAfloat.org and I highly recommend it. The class was very well-structured, with trained instructors who managed to pack in a lot of learning in a short time. We were there with a group of fifth graders from Sanislo Elementary school, which has apparently been sending kids to this tour for at least fifteen years.  At $40/person, to continue such repeat visits so long is a big endorsement and I know why. I would highly recommend this trip to anyone interested in hands-on oceanography.

Here's what we did during the time we were onboard the ship:

Measuring the ocean: the class dropped real Nansen and Niskin bottles into the water, the same instruments oceanographers use for collecting seawater at different depths. These devices have special triggers that can trap water at its existing temperature and pressure, so that it can be measured carefully when brought to the surface. The water today was 49 degrees (brrr!) and the salinity was about 28 -- quite a bit less than the low-30s you'd see if we were out on the open ocean, where the saltwater is less diluted by various streams and rivers that flow into the area we are patrolling today.

Plankton nets: we dropped two kinds of nets, one for smaller organisms and another faster for larger ones. Even at a reasonably shallow depth of twenty-five feet or so, it was surprising how many living organisms come up in the nets.

Microscope station: after filling some cups with seawater collected from nets, we looked at them under the microscope. At 10x to 30x, you see tons of interesting lifeforms: some (photosynthesizing plankton) that just sit there, and others (zooplankton) whose small flagella let them move quickly through the water. Many of the organisms looked like small shrimp or crabs (and some probably were!)

Hands-on with animals: at the top of the boat, the instructors set up stations with small water tanks containing many interesting larger creatures: starfish, sea anemones, California sea cucumber, crabs, and more. They let the kids touch them and see up-close the various features on the animals. I hadn't heard of the marine pill bug before, for example, though apparently it's quite numerous just outside the tidal basins.

Environmental protection: the scientists who run the cruise obviously care a lot about the environment, and Puget Sound in particular, so they devoted return part of the ride to a discussion of the problems facing marine areas near Seattle. Nobody pollutes the ocean on purpose, but there are many ways we pollute without knowing it, just by not being aware of the little ways our carelessness can hurt. 

The key word of the day, Watershed, describes the area in which all Northwest people live: all land areas between the Olympic Mountains and the Cascades where waters flow into the Puget Sound. Until a hundred years ago, the Sound was protected by marshland and the various habitats that naturally recycled water and more from the land. Now that half or more of the marshlands are gone, much of the rainwater goes directly -- too directly -- into the Sound, producing muddier rivers that scare away salmon, which in turn create problems for the sea creatures, like Orca whales, that eat salmon and other fish.

I left feeling like I understand more about oceanography in general, and looking forward to another trip like this one.

http://goo.gl/maps/sF4Cc

Summer Hail

It’s the Summer Solstice, longest day of the year, first day of summer and all that…and what do we get?

A hailstorm! The kids and I went for a leisurely bike ride to the new Mercer Island Farmers Market and this is what greeted us on the way home.

Moving to China

I’ve been a little quieter than normal online the past few months.  There were a bunch of changes happening at work that were keeping me busy and it just wasn’t appropriate to go into details until it was final. 

So here’s my news:  my family and I are moving to Beijing!  I’ve received a wonderful offer to work with Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit, which it turns out has an important office in China.  It’s not a localization office – it’s a true development org, responsible for many of the core components that go into Macintosh Office.  Specifically, I’ll be working on Mac Excel, which has me especially excited because it’s not only my favorite Office App, but it lets me dust off some of my Apple experience since I’ll be part of a team where everyone uses Macs pretty much exclusively.

Now that the decision has been made, I need to work very quickly on logistics.  Since we plan to be there at least two years, we’ve decided to sell our house (know anybody who wants a well-kept home on Mercer Island?)  We’ll have a big garage sale this weekend (tomorrow!) and then we’ll be selling our cars sometime in July (want to buy a great, slightly-used Prius?).  Meanwhile we have to get visas, do the packing, say goodbye, etc. etc. – it’s going to be a busy few months.

The kids are enrolling in an international school that starts in mid-August, so that’s our big deadline.  Now that the word is out, I hope to be much more active online (I’ll need lots of advice!), so please continue to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and this blog.  See you in China!

Move over Mercer Island

The weather has finally changed enough that I can close my eyes and imagine it’s springtime, and that’s a good time to think about adjusting a bunch of things, including my blogs.  When I started years ago, this blog was a central place to keep my stuff.  Why post book reviews at Amazon, or restaurant opinions on Yelp, or advice about contractors at <fly-by-night websites> when it’s just easier to keep track of everything on my own site?  Plus, the engineer in me says if you want to understand the Web you need to jump in and do it yourself—don’t just read about it.   The downside of this is that my blog has tended to be a bit of a jungle: a little of this, a little of that, with no obvious theme or relevance to anybody but me.  (Even my mom doesn’t read me that much anymore).

So I’m switching to be a bit more thematical and that means focusing my posts in a way I didn’t in the past.  I didn’t expect that so many people would read me for the posts I made about Mercer Island.  I love it here, of course, but unless you do too it’s not going to be all that interesting.   Careful readers will note that I haven’t posted much about Mercer Island lately  because for the past several months I’ve been posting instead on a new site: iMercerIsland.com.  Go there if you want to read about local issues.  I may cross-post now and then, but generally speaking from now on richardsprague.com will be more about general ideas that I find interesting and less about the wonderful place where I happen to live.

The nice thing about iMercerIsland.com is that it’s open to posters besides me, so feel free to contribute yourself (email me if you want to learn how). 

By the way, if you want to get even more up-to-date MI information, you’ll want to follow Mercer Island on Twitter.  See you there!

Where are the Spragues?

I often run into people who, upon hearing my last name, ask if I’m related to so-and-so other Sprague they know.  Usually the answer is no.  Our family has been in the country since Pilgrim times, so it’s not a terribly rare name, and now there’s a new web site, Dynastree,  that shows name frequencies graphically and statistically. I typed in ‘Sprague” and found this:

• There are about 30,000 of us spread across the U.S. 
• We’re the 1210th most common name in the U.S.

Distribution of the surname Sprague

Where does your name come from?

Unfortunately the map is deceptive, since it appears not to correct for the population of each state.  Since California and New York are the largest states, that means just about any name is likely to show red in those places.  Here’s what I got when I sorted to find the top ten states where the name ‘sprague’ is highly frequent.  “Common-ness” tells you how common the name is;  for example In Maine, we are the 175th most common name, even though there are only 507 of us there.

State	Common-ness	People
Maine	175	507
Vermont	248	157
Rhode Island	416	115
New Hampshire	438	195
Oregon	600	245
Michigan	602	369
Nevada	714	74
Washington	752	331
New York	783	833

 

The “common-ness” metric still isn’t perfect (I’d rather get a number like frequency per thousand), but it’s much closer to my experience, with many Spragues in the Northeast, and a surprising number in Oregon and Washington.  Here on Mercer Island, there’s only one family of us in the phone book, which feels about right.

I’m not sure I want a name that is super-common.  On the other hand, it would be nice not to have to remind people that we’re pronounced “SPRAYG"  (rhymes with vague) and not “SPRAHHHG” (like the linguistically unrelated city in the Czech Republic).

Mercer Island snow and ice

Our weather is awful: thick ice and snow everywhere, with no prospects for clear roads for at least another week.  I’ve been following the details on the Cliff Nass Weather Blog, written by the famous University of Washington weather expert, but unfortunately there is not much good news lately.  The best I’ve seen is this snow plow, spotted on Island Crest Way this morning.  I wish there were more of these!

For those of you who read my blog for Mercer Island news, please start checking a new site, where a group of us will be posting more information about local topics: iMercerisland.com.  I just posted a bunch of new photos there as well as on my FlickR page.

Snow and Ice

Island roads have been terrible since the Big Snow hit on Thursday leaving many of us stuck in our homes, afraid to take our cars up and down slippery hills.

When I finally ventured out on Friday afternoon, I found unplowed, icy roads everywhere.  Just look at the ABS indicator on my dashboard, telling me that I’m losing traction as I drive up 40th from Island Crest Way.

The City of Mercer Island is “prepared with sanders and snow plows to work around the clock if necessary”, according to the Mercer Island Winter Weather Update on the city website, which also includes a map of the snow and ice routes.  But I saw precious little plowing or sanding yet during my drive.  In fact, my Prius was completely unable to make it up the Merrimount Drive hill, in spite of two attempts.

Some streets, like 24th ave, were completely blocked off by city-erected barricades

Saturday morning looks to be a little better, but maybe not for long.  Another big storm is scheduled to hit tonight.

Click here to see a map of photos taken during my drive around the island.

[crossposted at iMercerisland.com]

Mercer Island’s most accurate weather forecaster

Surrounded by Water took a walk to see how the island is coping with all this snow today, but some of us are wondering when it will let up.  Weather forecasts are so unreliable we think it’s almost a waste of time to pay attention to weather reports.  Don’t the forecasters get graded on accuracy?

Yes they do and evaluation service Forecastadvisor says the best weather source is MyForecast, with 80.61% overall accuracy last year.  Weather Channel is so close that you might as well assume they’re the leader, since you’ve probably heard of them more.

But on days like yesterday, when the forecast assumed tons of snow that never materialized, we really care about the accuracy of precipitation forecasts, and there Accuweather is tops.

Of course, some days you can just look at the weather and judge for yourself:

Let it snow

My backyard tonight.

41st district election results by city

The complete official results of the November 4th election have been posted; I haven’t had time to do the analysis I did for the primary, but here’s what I got when I did a quick import into Excel:

• Yup, Obama won Mercer Island (as Surrounded by Water already predicted)
• Marcie Maxwell lost in Bellevue.  In fact, she lost practically everywhere except Renton, but her  2000-vote victory there made up for it.  The chart below is a little deceptive because it lumps into “Other” areas like Briar, Eastwood, and Daniel that really should be considered Renton.  Steve won Newcastle and most everywhere else listed “other”.
• Except for popular Attorney General Rob McKenna, Democrats won everywhere, including Mercer Island.  Governor, Congressman, President – the whole district shifted further blue than at any time in the past 75 years.

 

Area	Litzow	Maxwell	Obama	McCain	McKenna
Bellevue	14,103	13,501	20,439	10,955	19,615
Mercer Island	7,090	6,031	9,718	4,735	9,120
Renton	3,304	5,304	6,098	3,347	5,436
Other	6,639	7,055	9,255	5,881	9,427
total	31,136	31,891	45,510	24,918	43,598

 

Area	McKenna	Rossi	Gregoire	Reichert	Burner
Bellevue	19,615	13,189	17,523	14,670	16,093
Mercer Island	9,120	5,971	8,466	6,550	7,613
Renton	5,436	4,235	5,267	4,273	5,047
Other	9,427	7,314	7,905	7,453	7,484
total	43,598	30,709	39,161	32,946	36,237

 

Note on the above numbers: my totals don’t completely match the official final results posted on the King County Elections page.  I didn’t include write-ins, blanks, overvotes, etc. – none of which made a material difference (I believe), but results in some discrepancies with official numbers.  For example, Marcie’s victory goes to 755 instead of the 748 in the official count.  But hey, I’m just an unpaid blogger so what are you expecting – something professional?

Maxwell wins

Many of us have been watching the shifting return counts since election night, but now it’s official:  Marcie Maxwell won the election for 41st district state representative over Steve Litzow.  The margin was extremely close:  748 out of 64,394 votes cast, much tighter than the 1591 votes that separated the two of them during the primary election.

I think she won for two reasons:

1. She’s not George Bush.   In a district that Obama carried by 64%,  anybody with a “D” in their name was guaranteed at least 748 voters who wanted their state legislator to end the war in Iraq, end subsidies to Big Oil, end all that corruption in Washington D.C., stop the Born Again Fundamentalists from running the government, help those poor Katrina victims, and make abortion legal again.  If you can fog up a mirror you can vote in this country, and this year the momentum was on the side of Democrats.
   
2. Steve went negative.  Too many people were put off by the petty, irrelevant attack mails that Steve sent, implying that Marcie somehow doesn’t care about student privacy.  Or something – I’m not even sure what he was implying about her.  Anyone who knows Marcie personally (or knows somebody who does – which is half the city of Renton) looked at his ads and rolled their eyes.  Same thing with his comments about Renton school performance; there was a right way to legitimately bring this up as an issue, but Steve came across as somebody who was just picking on the good people of Renton.

The full downloadable results will be ready in early December, and I can’t wait to pour through the numbers so I can update the analysis from the August primary.  Here’s what I’ll be looking for:

• Did Steve carry Bellevue?  I bet he did.  That would be interesting because it challenges the popular explanation that the Eastside is becoming more Democratic.  In other words, it’s possible (even likely) for a Republican to win District 41, even in a terrible year.
• Did education voters make the difference?  Since this is Marcie’s main campaign theme, it will be interesting to see how much the voters agreed.  This didn’t matter much in the primary, so I want to see if anything changed in the larger turnout for the final election.

Meanwhile, Marcie deserves congratulations, and I’m proud to stand behind her as my legislator for the next two years  (Argh, is that all it is?!  After nearly a year of hard work campaigning, the prize is a lot more of those 2-hour drives to Olympia, a diddly state legislator’s salary,  and then you have to do it all over again!

Purple toes in Zillah

There are no wine lovers in the San Francisco Bay Area (or in Seattle for that matter) who haven’t been to Napa Valley.  But comparatively few people know about a  similar wine-growing region just two hours east of Mercer Island (over the soon-to-be-tolled I-90 bridge), in the Rattlesnake Hills area of the Yakima Valley.  We spent our weekend there, where some good friends are getting started with their own winery.

First, we picked some grapes:

then we crushed them:

and now look at the toes on my 6-year-old:

You should go too!  Best place to stay in Zillah is the Comfort Inn, for about $100/night, including a big breakfast, a pool, and free use of their grill!

Free coffee at Starbucks

I dropped in on West Mercer Elementary school this morning:

and then I went downtown and got one of these for free:

Incidentally, I disagree with the idea that irresponsible or uninformed people should vote.  If you’re unsure about a candidate or an issue, please don’t guess – you’ll likely just make things worse.

If you want to know what I think about issues, read these posts.  If I’m wrong about something, please leave comments so I can change my mind.

Sign Waving to Commuters

If you want to say something to Mercer Islanders, you can’t beat the intersection of Island Crest Way and 40th as a place to publicize your message.  A large percentage of the island drives past it every morning, and they’re your captive audience until the light turns green.  There must be an election or something this week, because here’s what we had this morning:

Can you spot the three City Council members in these photos?

I wonder how crowded it’ll be tomorrow morning?

Litzow vs. Maxwell at the PTA

The Mercer Island Legislative Team of the PTA sponsored a discussion recently between the Washington State 41st district legislative candidates, Democrat Marcie Maxwell and Republican Steve Litzow. It’s getting close to Election Day and maybe with absentee ballots the decision has already been made.  But if like me you’re planning to vote in person on Tuesday,  here’s my bottom line on the differences between the candidates:

Steve cares most about freedom: let schools, teachers, parents, and taxpayers have maximum choice and flexibility.  Marcie cares most about fairness: don’t let the “rich” districts (like Mercer Island) forget that there are less well-off places in need.  Marcie knows more details about education issues, but Steve is less beholden to vested interests and more likely to bring real change – if you think that’s necessary.

The best example of this difference is school funding.  Mercer Islanders would spend even more on our schools if we could, but Washington is one of only two states that put a maximum cap on the amount you can raise in tax levies – even if 100% of the voters in a district beg for it.  How silly is that?

Steve: would eliminate the levy lid if he could, but recognizes it’s politically difficult, so he supports a compromise that involves raising the floor on funds we get from the state.

Marcie: reminds us there are other districts out there that won’t support higher taxes for education the way we do, and it’s important not to let Mercer Island get too far ahead.

In other words, Steve wants people to be free to choose the level of funding they want, but Marcie worries that’ll lead to unfair advantages for the pro-education districts.

One nit: both candidates keep repeating the incorrect statistic that Washington scores 42nd in funding on education. That’s very old data; the actual number is 38th (as of 2006) and probably much higher by now thanks to the $2.46B added to teacher salaries in the past four years .

Both candidates say teacher strikes should be illegal, though neither gives specifics on what to do.  Steve notes that the unions seem to strike each year just before elections, and that we should expect another one two years from now, just before the next election. No suggestions for how to avoid it. Marcie repeats her union supporters’ statements about how “teachers are happiest in the classroom”  and that presumably the best way to ensure happiness is to pay them more.

But how should we pay them?  I saw a big, healthy difference:

Steve:  “I do believe it’s possible to tell the difference between good teachers and bad teachers” and the good ones should be rewarded.

Marcie: “It’s complicated”, so let’s focus on making existing teachers better, through things like National Board Certification or the Math Academy they tried in the Renton district.

Here Steve’s clearly right.  It’s ridiculous that we give the same raises to the worst 10% of teachers that we give to the top 1%.  That study people quote about National Board Certification is flawed because it didn’t distinguish between causation and causality: the certification doesn’t change the teacher. Marcie should read up on what Apple’s Steve Jobs says: today’s schools will never really improve until you fix the awful way we hire and compensate teachers.  Meanwhile, those mediocre teachers who want to keep their jobs should spend every waking minute of their day trying to ensure Marcie gets elected because she’s unlikely to propose anything new here.

Somebody asked Marcie why schools in her home district of Renton fare so poorly, and she replied with the important reminder that demographics are important: Renton is not like Mercer Island.  It’s a much bigger school district (100K students), with 44% of kids on government assisted lunch programs (in one school it’s as high as 73%).  Top-down mandates like No Child Left Behind offer little flexibility, which crushes the options for resource-constrained schools.

There is no question that Marcie is more aware of the day-to-day realities of poor districts, and that her legislative priorities are more focused on the immediate needs of the have-nots.  That’s why the Mercer Island School Board President says Steve Litzow doesn’t get it.  That may very well be true (he definitely doesn’t get it with his lame, idiotic ads implying Marcie doesn’t protect privacy—give me a break), but does it matter who “gets it” or does it matter who’s more effective?    Sure, Marcie cares about the poorest kids (so do we all) but an elected official shouldn’t be given an “A” just for effort.

One more thing: everyone blames the rising cost of education on mandates, so one question to ask is where are those mandates coming from, are they really necessary, and who is more likely to reduce them.  Marcie mentioned that we should reconsider some of those mandates (she specifically blames No Child Left Behind).  Still, it seems to me that most (all?) of the mandates come from the “fairness” people like her, not from the “freedom” people like Steve.   I don’t necessarily disagree with Marcie – I  mean, I like “fairness” too – but everything in life is a tradeoff and we can’t keep pretending that more funding is the only answer.

As for me, I’m following the lead of Surrounded by Water and voting for Steve.  Since I’m also voting for Fred Jarrett, and I know Marcie’s pretty much lockstep with Fred anyway, I think this is the best way to ensure healthy variety and flexibility in state government. 

Confidence in Fred Jarrett

I think there are at least two kinds of politicians: the "populists" and the "wonks". Too many politicians are populists, who treat government like a popularity contest: a grown-up version of the Homecoming King and Queen (come to think of it, a lot of politicians are former homecoming kings).

We need more wonks, which is why I'm voting for Fred Jarrett. Meet him in person like I did this weekend and you'll see why: he is knee-deep in the details about the issues that matter to him (and me): like education  and transportation.

Here are a couple of areas where he changed my mind:

• Vote no on I-985: I'm partial to cars--it's far and away the most important way people get around, and I disagree with the do-goodies who push ultra-expensive mass transit that won't help a bit. I figured there's enough opposition to I-985 that it won't pass anyway, but I want to send a message that cars are important. Not anymore. Fred thinks it's likely to pass, unfortunately. I agree with him that it would be a disaster (micromanage how traffic lights get synchronized? Puh-lease)
• It’s possible to get bad teachers to quit, through policy changes that don’t have to upset their union.  Best example: make pensions portable.  A lot of middle-aged teachers would love to change jobs but the golden handcuffs of their generous pensions are keeping them there.  What if we could make their pensions portable?  through defined contribution (like the 401k that I have) or through something else…  I think that’s the single best way to improve schools.
• Tolling on I-90.  Fred’s opponent, Bob Baker, talks like it’s a simple matter of “just say no”, but in fact Bob Baker’s naive stance would make matters far worse for Mercer Island.  [this deserves its own post, like the one from Surrounded by Water]

I'm not surprised the non-partisan Municipal League gives Fred the highest rating for our district.

Stop by the Education Funding blog he runs with several other legislators for more wonky details.

Kenmore Airlines to Camp Orkila

As far as I know there’s no law forcing us to do it, but for some reason it seems like all Mercer Island fathers enroll in the Y-Guides program of the Lake Heights Family YMCA, a highlight of which is when we dutifully schlepp our kids to Camp Orkila, in the San Juan Islands each October.  Usually they try to schedule it on a cold and rainy weekend, but this year it was absolutely beautiful.

The fathers in my tribe were too busy at work to take the 4+ hour trip via ferry, so instead we did something different: we flew on the Northwest’s own Kenmore Airlines, which has a fleet of seaplanes that take off from Lake Union.  I can’t believe I haven’t done this before!  Instead of a long, roundabout drive up I-5 and over a ferry, we were at our destination in only 40 minutes.

The prices are pretty reasonable, considering the time saved.  For about $100/person each way, we saved about a day of our weekend in travel time.  The plane literally landed us right on the beach of Camp Orkila.

Getting there is half the fun, of course.  Nothing like flying around the Space Needle in 9-seater airplane.

I haven’t had this much fun in the air since last year when a friend took us up in his private plane and we flew over Mercer Island.

Seattle Times Endorses Steve Litzow

The Seattle Times endorsed Steve Litzow in the race for 41st State Legislative District. You have to chuckle at their follow-on comment

His opponent, Democrat Marcie Maxwell, a member of the Renton School Board, is passionate about education but doesn't seem to have an original idea about the topic.

Ouch!

Their rejection stings even more when compared to the kinder comments they made when they passed on Fred Jarrett’s competitor, Bob Baker, who they at least encourage to “stay in local politics”.  It’s clear they agree with the Municipal League’s non-partisan assessment that Marcie just isn’t as qualified.

Note how quickly Steve added the Seattle Times endorsement to this brand new campaign video:

Compare it to a similar one released by Marcie’s team a few weeks ago:

I think the Seattle Times assessment is accurate.  I don’t know any Democrats who are enthusiastic about Marcie.  If you are, and you really think she’d be a better legislator, especially on education issues, please let me know in the comments.  Do original ideas matter in this race?

Last day this year for Farmers Market

The Mercer Island Farmers Market closes for the winter after today, so my six-year-old and I rode our bikes there one last time to stock up on fresh butter from Golden Glen Creamery,  just-picked apples from Jones Creek Farms and (my daughter’s favorite) pluots from Tiny’s Organic.

She took the photos this time.  Can’t wait till it opens again next Summer.

Mercer Island Meetup on Fri Oct 10

It’s time for us to meet face-to-face.  Anyone who reads this blog is welcome to meet me at the Tully’s on the north end of Mercer Island on Friday morning, October 10th.  I’ll be there starting at 7:30 or so, staying until we get bored (or have to go to work, whichever comes first).

Everyone is welcome.  I look forward to meeting you!