Ross Anderson

“Puget Sound is to plankton what Florida is to oranges, what Iowa is to corn, and what the Cascades are to Douglas fir.”

Flip spent much of his life flying airplanes and helping design and test the Boeing jetliners that changed the world. He loved to fly.  And, with his trim Clark Gable moustache and sparkling blue eyes, he certainly looked the part.

To some townsfolk, the new plan looks like rearranging the deck chairs aboard the Titanic.  But insiders believe that, at least in the short run, they can make it work.

If, in retrospect, our editorial stances were so frequently dead wrong, then why write them in the first place? 

The guidebooks themselves provided a unique survey of Americans at a pivotal point in their history – a state-by-state, town-by-town glimpse of a growing nation that was emerging from the Great Depression, and about to plunge into a world war that promised to change everything. 

It’s comforting to know my morning coffee is being brewed by sunlight. And I’ve become addicted to the app that tells me our excess rooftop electrons are flowing back to the Jefferson PUD, which promises to return the favor, watt for watt,  when the sun migrates south next winter.

Biologists have barely begun to assess the damage from last week's fire, but the toll will eventually be measured in biological terms –- just another step backward in our collective effort to preserve the Puget Sound ecosystem.

Expect flak. When traffic engineers briefed local officials and taxpayers on the idea last year, drivers howled.  “Stupid idea,” wrote one local critic. “I’ve yet to hear one person who thinks it’s a good idea.” 

Over those years, the genial, soft-spoken Michigan professor and researcher has spent two months each summer living in a rustic, three-room cabin on the island, observing the mating rituals, nesting, egg-laying, and the hatching and fledging of the glaucous winged gulls that breed there by the thousands.

Some areas are in drastic shape, but those declines have been offset by remarkable increases in Elliott Bay. Much of the activity takes place along Alki Beach and off the Olympic Sculpture Garden.