29 January 2013

Photos from Percival Landing

I was just looking for a photo from Percival Landing, the one that's featured on the cover of the January 22 edition of Olympia Power and Light newspaper. When I typed "percival landing" into the search bar on my Flickr account, 792 results returned. And I think there are some that are not properly labeled, so it likely missed quite a few. So, I have quite a few pictures of Percival Landing, many are from the classic perspective looking North from near the "kissing statue" by 4th Ave and Water Street. One of the reasons I have so many photos from there is because that's where the weekly Friday evening peace vigil takes place.

Here are some more mostly of the more recent Percival Landing photos that came up in the search result:

Percival Landing

Percival Landing

Percival Landing

Percival Landing

Percival Landing

Seen from South Percival Landing

Dramatic Clouds

January 2013 High Tide

9:30 A.M. Monday 17 December 2012, Percival Landing High Tide

IMG_5608

I also did a high v. low tide comparison photo shoot, see that here: olyblog.net/tidal-fluctuation-and-high-tide

I do hope that you are well, please have a good day, week, month, year, decade, century, millennium, and so on. heehee :-) Berd

12 January 2013

Tacoma Union Station Train Schedule

I have been attending proceedings in a trial at the United States Courthouse in Tacoma. It is a civil case, brought by a group of six protestors, against the City of Tacoma, in relation to events that occurred in March 2007, when there were protests around the transportation of a shipment of a "Stryker Brigade" from JBLM (then known as Fort Lewis.)

During the trial, the judge, Judge Ronald B. Leighton, told a story about the courthouse. After a morning of questioning the jury, (there were 33 potential jurors in the pool, of which 8 remained to stand duty for the trial,) judge Leighton asked the counsels to make their final decisions about which jurors they chose to eliminate. While he waited for their responses, he told of how the courthouse came to be.

Some of the details from the story he told were:
25,000 citizens gathered for the original Union Station train depot building dedication over 100 years ago.
18 years ago, the building was renovated for use as a federal court. At the time, the building was a home for pigeons, and Pacific Way was home to adult bookstores and drug addicts.
Some "ladies in the community" convinced the government to invest $65 million, and the result was very this "Temple of Justice," this present-day courthouse, with its state of the art courtrooms. It's special, not all courthouses have such features and function.
When the building was dedicated, the ceremony was performed by Bob Kakasuki. Bob was the first Asian-american in federal judiciary.
It was a special event, because when Bob was 11 years old, during World War II, he was transported away from Tacoma Union Station to internment camp.
Justice Bob Kakasuki died 13 years ago.

01 January 2013