Be Careful at Carkeek

/ Seattle Park Lover / 5 Comments

I was at Carkeek Park last night and discovered that the park road did not come through the frozen winter and spring melt unscathed. (That may be an overly dramatic description of Seattle weather, but we did have a real winter this year.)  There are several quite serious potholes. So be careful driving through lest you break your car.

Also, on my way out I saw two glittering piles of car window glass on the pavement in the lower meadow parking area. Obviously two cars had been broken into, probably while their owners were out on the trails.

It’s an unfortunate fact of life that Seattle’s most popular parks attract thieves along with lovers of the great outdoors. Golden Gardens can be especially bad at times. If you will be leaving your car at a park for an extended time in order to take a promenade, hike a trail, or picnic somewhere in the distance, make sure you don’t leave anything visible in the car that would tempt someone to break in and grab it. Whenever possible, try to engage in your park activities in sight of where you parked so you can keep an eye on things.

 

Seattle Parks Report

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In 2014 the voters of Seattle approved the creation of the Seattle Park District. The District has taxing authority beyond limits placed on the City of Seattle by law. This new source of tax revenue provides urgently needed stable funding for maintaining, improving, and increasing Seattle parks, community centers, and recreation programs. At the time the Park District was created Seattle Parks and Rec was suffering from $267 million worth of delayed maintenance due to lack of funds.

2016 was the first full year of the new District’s operations. A report has just been released so tax payers can see where and how their money was spent last year. 59% of the 2016 budget went towards getting a start on the huge backlog of delayed maintenance.

If you are interested in reading the report, go to this Parkways blog post and click on the 2016 Report to the Community link. The report will automatically download in PDF format.

Photography for Beginners Part 4: Aperture Priority Mode

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Part 3: Shutter Priority Mode

Each post in this series builds on information discussed in previous posts. See the Photography for Beginners page on the menu for links to all the posts.

 

In this post I’m going to discuss shooting in Aperture Priority Mode, usually designated by an A on your camera’s mode dial (if it has one).

What is Aperture Priority Mode?

In Aperture Priority Mode you make lens aperture your priority in how you choose to expose an image. You select which aperture you want to use and the camera will automatically choose the appropriate shutter speed to go with it.

Continue reading →