‘Angle of Attack, An Aerodynamic Kinship Between Exotic Automobiles & Aircraft,’ is coming to the Museum of Flight this Saturday, May 14th, from Noon – 3pm.

“An assortment of exotic automobiles will be on hand from noon until 3:00 in the Museum’s parking lot,” reads a press release. “The exhibition is free to the public; admission to the Museum of Flight is separate from this event. This event will not only showcase these incredible automobiles but it will also benefit area animal shelters and rescue groups. Representatives from Homeward Pet Rescue, Shelter, and Adoption and Animal Aid & Rescue Foundation will be on hand to give out information on their services and accept donations.”

The regional exotic car community will be displaying a large variety of exotic and rare automobiles at this event, including:

• Lamborghinis
• Ferraris
• Porsche
• Teslas
• Lotus
• Aston Martin
• Audi R8
• BMW M Series
• and more….plus the world’s fastest production supercar…the Ultimate Aero will be on display.

Here’s a promotional video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s more info:

There has always been a kinship between the aerodynamic designs of fast aircraft and fast automobiles. These characteristics often grow from one industry to the other. Exotic machines of the ground and sky also share a common beauty of design as well.

On the afternoon of May 14, 2011 these shared qualities will be on display at the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field.

The Event…
This event will demonstrate the aerodynamic similarities between exotic cars and aircraft. Because of the uniqueness of the automobiles displayed, the event should draw a substantial attendance.

The Cause…
Too often dogs and cats are abandoned by their owners. Animal shelters and pet rescue groups work tirelessly to find hope and homes for these creatures. Many are volunteers who are working out of the kindness of their hearts. Representatives from Homeward Pet Rescue, Shelter, and Adoption and Animal Aid & Rescue Foundationcwill be on site to give out information and to accept donations.

Aviation High School (AHS) is the only college preparatory aviation- themed high school in the North- west. It is our goal to become the premier school of choice for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in the Pacific Northwest.

Although Highline Public Schools is the home of this unique learning community, students throughout the Puget Sound region may apply. This year about 65 percent were local students and the rest com- muted from surrounding districts, some as far away as Tacoma, Everett, and Bremerton. Many as- pire to become scientists, engi- neers, astronauts, pilots, aviation technicians, and CEOs in aviation/ aerospace fields. Many are drawn by the school’s focus on math, sci- ence and technology.

Mission
To prepare all students for college, career and citizenship through a personalized, rigorous and relevant learning experience that is facili- tated in the context of aviation and aerospace.

Senior Project Rationale
…to provide students an opportunity to test themselves—to see for themselves as well as to demonstrate and communicate to others that they can apply their knowl- edge and skills in important and practical situations to solve problems and achieve goals.

What makes an exotic car?
First , an “Exotic” is not generally in the same category as “mainstream” automobiles like Kia, Honda, or GM, etc. An exotic car is not a hot rod, typically seen at most car shows. Some brands which are labeled exotics are (but not limited to) Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Aston Martin, Bentley, Tesla, BMW M-Series, Audi R8, and Lotus. This group can also include rare brands such as Alfa Romeo. The far majority of exotic cars are European, however there some American and Japanese cars that fit the description as well. These automobiles are all “drivable art”.

About Me…..
“My name is Alex Bergler and I am in my senior year at Aviation High School. For my senior project I have planned an event that will combine three of my passions, aircraft, exotic cars, and animals. Since I was just a toddler I have always loved aircraft. Most of my childhood memories are filled with attending air shows and spending a lot of time at the Museum of Flight, I joke that the Museum became my second home. My plans and dreams have always involved flight. As I started high school I began to seriously pursue my dreams of flight by starting flight lessons at Boeing Field. As I studied aerodynamics and design I soon became enamored with another great pas- sion and beauty , exotic automobiles. Now the passing sound of a Ferrari evokes the same excitement and awe as that of a F/A-18 takeoff. From my earliest memories ani- mals have always been an important part of my life. My family and I have always been very animal friendly. So when I was selecting an endeavor to pursue for a senior pro- ject it really made sense to combine my passions into something which will positively contribute to my community .”

Several of our photographers have been preparing for the weather and looking at ways we can cover events like these more creatively. One tool we’re experimenting with is time lapse video.

Photographer Michael Brunk had his camera set up and waiting when a brief snow flurry blew through earlier today and put together this video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The most beautiful thing I saw today.

The scene: a building along the west of a busy mall parkway in south Seattle Tukwila with a drive-through and plantings along the roadside. The headlights from westbound traffic in the right-hand turn lane across the street, are intercepted by this low, trimmed tree and then play across this wall as the cars turn to go northward.

The combination of elements is enchanting!

From what we understand, this scene is on the west side of Southcenter Blvd. at the intersection of Strander Blvd., on the side of the AT&T building facing the street, which once housed a See’s Candies:

View Larger Map

The second annual “No Pants! Light Rail Ride” is coming this Sunday, Jan. 9th, from 3pm – 6pm, sponsored by Emerald City Improv, which encourages link light rail riders to ‘drop trou’ and ride like nothing’s going on.

This public prank is open to everyone, and to participate, you simply just show up, pay your fare, get on board and take your pants off while riding Sound Transit’s Link Light Rail; just be sure to wear a non-revealing undergarment of some kind.

Most pantsless pranksters are gathering just before 3pm at Westlake Center in downtown Seattle, but we encourage our Readers to buck that trend by boarding either at the SeaTac or Tukwila stations sometime between 3pm – 6pm, and riding the other direction. We think this will allow for more surprising reactions from unsuspecting travelers, and after all, humorous reactions is what this entire prank is about.

We also encourage everyone to take photos and/or video (without being too obvious) and email them to us for posting after the event.

This is affiliated with the “No Pants Subway Ride,” which is a global event started by Improv Everywhere in New York in 2002.

We sent our crew out in 2010, and here’s a video we produced of the event (read our sister site B-Town Blog’s coverage of last year’s event here), starring the frequently-pantsless Bart Bryan along with numerous other whimsical locals:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are other videos from last year:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are the event details:

WHAT: Second annual No Pants! Link Light Rail Ride.

WHEN: Sunday, Jan. 9th from 3:00pm – 6:00pm.

WHERE: Most are meeting just before 3pm at Westlake Center in downtown Seattle, but that’s not a requirement; in fact, we discourage our Readers from starting there, as you will have to wait to board the trains, plus, you’ll be stuck with dozens, if not hundreds, of other “No Pants!” riders. If you board from the SeaTac or Tukwila stations, we think you’ll most certainly garner a stronger reaction from unsuspecting riders.

INFO: Created by Emerald City Improv, Luke Greenway.

From their website:

** Invite your friends!! **

Emerald City is proud to announce that we will again be having a No Pants! Light Rail Ride, as part of Improv Everywhere’s 10th annual No Pants Subway Ride. Cities around the globe participate. This year’s event will take place on Sunday, January 9th.

REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPATION:

1. Willing to take pants off on light rail
2. Able to keep a straight face about it (or at least try really hard)
3. Wear non-offensive underwear
4. Pay your fare
5. Bring a small bag or backpack to put your pants in during the event.

WHERE TO MEET: MEET AT 4TH AVE AND PINE ST, across from Westlake Center, a little before 3pm.

After the event: right now we are planning to meet at Fox Sports Grill again this year to talk about all of our stories over a beer. It was a great time last year.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You may NOT wear any revealing or “skimpy” clothes. If deemed too revealing, we will ask that you put your pants back on. This includes thongs, jock straps, ass-less chaps, whitey-tighties that can be seen through etc. Please use common sense.

Check out last years media page here.

Last year’s facebook event may be found here.

Questions? Contact:

Kelsey Wildstone
Cell: 206-913-1140
Kelsey@EmeraldCityImprov.org

Luke Greenway
luke@emeraldcityimprov.org

After William Joseph Madden, 33, was arrested early Monday in the 14700 block of 58th Ave S., he was alleged to have made several statements threatening Tukwila’s finest, along with their station. Tukwila officers were responding to a 911 call about a suspicious man prowling around cars.

KING reports that Madden made these statements:

“I’m gonna blow the Tukwila Police station up.”

“Tukwila’s a small place. It wouldn’t take much to wipe this [expletive] off the map.”

“I’ll burn the [expletive] [expletive] police station down. I’ll go up there and bust into them vehicles. The big vans up at the police station. Boom. Ba-Boom.”

“I will [expletive] shoot you. If I had a gun right now I would blow your [expletive] brains out. I would. I wouldn’t hesitate. I would shoot every one of you [expletive].”

Because of Madden’s big mouth, his bond has been set at $100,000.

It wasn’t until after cops put him in the back of their car that he opened his piehole and starting yammering with some serious threats, according to the police report.

Madden has been charged with Threats to Bomb or Injure Property, a felony.

Here’s KING’s video report:

The Tukwila School District has been hailed as the “most diverse in the nation,” and students at the city’s Foster High School are using that as part of an attempt to lure President Obama to speak at their commencement this spring.

Advance placement students produced a video highlighting the 68 diverse different countries where members of the student body were born, and are hoping that the Prez (or his peeps) sees it and decides that “Yes he can” come to Tukwila and speak.

In addition to the video below, students also submitted essays answering the President’s challenge to show him why they should be a model for others and how they’re preparing more students for college and careers.

According to the school’s Youtube channel:

Advanced Video Students from Foster High School created a 2-minute video demonstrating the rich culture that exists in their school and community.

Music was sung by our very own students here at Foster High School. E.P.I.C

Here’s the video:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGYUdtqQftQ”>watch?v=KGYUdtqQftQ

We know there are no excuses for posting this video so late, as the event took place last Sunday (Jan. 10th), but, um…we left our Flip camera in our other pants, and since we weren’t wearing any to begin with…

Actually, we hate to just throw up lame raw video, and editing takes time, and um…there’s that whole “other pants” thing again.

But first, a little interesting behind-the-scenes backstory:

Two days before the pantsless prank, we received the following email from Emerald City Improv‘s Kelsey Wildstone:

First, please remember that we’re trying to be inconspicuous here.

If you’d like to film the event with a motion camera, try to find a way to disguise your camera in a box or something to make it a sort of “hidden camera”.

Use some creativity here, but the point is that we’d like to avoid people seeing you openly point a camera around.

Considering that we respect the fine art of successful pranking, and that our Publisher used to work on a hidden camera TV show (“Totally Hidden Video,” Fox), we wanted to abide by this request (unlike some local TV news stations who just showed up and shot with their huge cameras and “Reporters”). The end result was that our shooter Mark Neuman went out of his way to “disguise” our Flip camera thusly:

Mark discovered that the Flip cam fit nicely inside an empty coffeecup. Just don't put it in a full one...

A little bit of cloth and tape secured the cam in tight.

...and with a hole cut in the side, it's hidden camera time!

Okay, so here it is (finally!)…with video shot by Neuman, featuring Bart Bryan, edited by Scott Schaefer and featuring the groovy public domain hit “Midnight Special” recorded by some long-dead dude named Bill Cox in 1933, ironically during the last Great Depression when not wearing pants wasn’t a prank, it was a way of life:

Also, we were very curious to find out what the MuckyMucks at SoundTransit thought of this pantsless prank, so we sent an email to Andrew Schmid, Sound Transit Media Relations director –here’s his response:

Q: Was ST aware beforehand that this was going to happen?
A: No, we were totally caught with our… (unless you lack internet access, it was almost impossible to not know about this event).

Q: Did ST security goes pantsless?
A: No.

Q: Was security worried about this prank at all?
A: Slightly – our security is worried about everything.

Q: Did this event increase ridership? if so, by how much? (have any estimate on the # of pantsless?)
A: Yes, but the infrared technology on Link’s Automatic Passenger Counting machines is not designed to distinguish between the pant-sed and the pants challenged.

Q: Will ST tolerate future events like this?
A: So long as folks follow our code of conduct (read it here).

Q: Will ST ever sponsor future events like this?
A: No.

Q: How about creating some ST underwear for folks to wear?
A: Sorta already been done – see this.

Q: Did you, or any other ST officials, attend?
A: NO COMMENT

And in case you haven’t seen the other videos, here they are:

Story by Ralph Nichols
Photos & Video by

With Sound Transit’s Link light rail trains running at last between Tukwila and downtown Seattle, it was time to experience this new commuter option. So with my girlfriend, I boarded a train for a round trip from the South 154th Street station late on a busy Seafair Saturday afternoon.

With lots happening downtown, we weren’t surprised to find the station’s main parking lot full. (Tukwila has Link’s only free park-and-ride lot, like those at several Metro bus stops around King County, although there is private paid parking near the Beacon Hill station.) But there were a number of empty spaces at the overflow parking lot across the street.

Five minutes after parking, we bought our tickets – $5 per person for the round trip – and one minute later boarded a train that had just come in. With trains running from Tukwila every 10 minutes at that hour, this gave us 9 minutes to look around on the inside before our journey north.

Each $4 million electric-powered car, with electricity from overhead wires, is 95 feet long – three times longer than one of Metro’s articulated buses. Each car can seat 74 passengers and accommodate a total of 200 riders with standing room only, and each train consists of two cars. The trains travel at a maximum speed of 55 mph on the elevated track near Tukwila and at 35 mph on the ground.

The train doors closed – rather quickly it seemed – at 5:50 p.m. Soon it pulled out of the station, right on time. Less than half a mile down the track, we agreed the ride was not as smooth as expected; still, the vibration isn’t bad at all. And the train moves along at a steady clip without delays for vehicles when streets intersect with the tracks.

Station stops took far less time than I expected. Passengers got on and off with ease and without delay, and we moved right along. Here is how our station stops went:

5:59 p.m. – Arrived at the Rainier Beach station.

6:00 – Depart.

6:02 – Othello station.

6:03 – Depart.

6:06 – Columbia City station.

6:07 – Depart.

6.10 – Mount Baker station.

6:10 – Depart … and head into the tunnel under Beacon Hill.

6:12 – Beacon Hill (tunnel) station.

6:13 – Depart … and back into daylight.

6:15 – SODO station.

6:15 – Depart.

6:17 – Stadium station.

6:18 – Depart … and enter the downtown bus tunnel.

6:20 – International District/Chinatown station.

6:21 – Depart.

6:23 – Pioneer Square station.

6:23 – Depart.

6:24 – University Street station.

6:25 – Depart.

6:26 – Westlake station, the end of the line.

Twenty-six minutes from Tukwila to midtown Seattle via the Rainier Valley. Not bad.

When we left Tukwila, there were about 12 riders in our car including us. Picking up more riders at most stations along the route (none at a couple), usually ranging from an additional 6 to 12 at each stop, our car was almost full of seated riders by the time we reached Westlake. No one had to stand. As we stepped off the train, it looked like its other car had carried about the same number.

Getting from the train to street level – at Pine Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues just below Nordstrom – is easy, as is returning to the train, which we did about an hour later. On the return trip, which took the same time, only 16 people were riding in both cars and only 8 beyond the Mount Baker station. It is logical to assume, given the number of cars still in the parking lot when we got back to Tukwila, that southbound ridership was much higher after events wrapped up downtown and people headed home.

Above ground, the view from a train car ranges from interesting, even scenic, along the elevated track north of the Tukwila station to very drab through part of Rainier Valley not far up the line.

A trip on Link light rail is comparable to a ride on Portland’s MAX, although a good stretch of that line parallels Interstate 84 – the major highway into that city – rather than winding through nearby neighborhoods along the way.

Sound Transit has reported that Link light rail carried an average of 12,000 riders per weekday in its first five days of regular paid service, and 16,900 riders on July 25 and 15,100 on July 26 during the first big Seafair weekend, when both the Mariners and Sounders also were in town.

With service on to Sea-Tac International Airport scheduled to begin in December, Sound Transit projects 26,600 one-way trips daily (13,300 round trips) along its 16-mile light-rail route by the end of 2010. The current trip from Tukwila to Seattle is 14 miles.

A footnote about our trip: While the actual travel time from Tukwila to Westlake was a reasonable 26 minutes, it took another 9 minutes to drive from my home and park, then another 14 minutes to get into the station, buy tickets, board a train and wait for it to depart. Riders who take light rail from other stations must walk, ride a bicycle or take a bus to get there since they have no park and ride lots.

Convenience, including time and destination, may be the determining factor for riding light rail for many commuters. I might take light rail from Tukwila to a Mariners game or dinner in the International District, but would not do so from, say, Columbia City due to lack of parking. At the same time, I probably would drive to SODO to shop or the Othello community to go to the park.

Regardless, once you’re moving on a light rail train, it’s a comfortable trip in good time to your stop. Still, at $2.3 billion for this line, it’s one expensive commute for the convenience it affords.

If you haven’t yet ridden Link light rail, here’s a video by Oran Viriyincy:

This section, approaching Tukwila Intl. Blvd., has the steepest grade in the system. You can hear the motors as the train climbs.

The temperature eclipsed the triple-digit mark early this afternoon in Tukwila, most likely breaking a record for hottest day.

EVAR.

Also, a brush fire erupted on I-5 near Southcenter, and here’s a video clip:

The King County Sheriff’s Department released the above video Wednesday, which was taken from a security camera near the intersection of International Blvd. and South 188th Street in SeaTac, where a Tuesday shooting injured two, one critically.

Police are looking for help in identifying the suspects in the silver Ford Taurus, which can be seen about :20 seconds in.

Here are details directly from the Sheriff’s office:

The Sheriff’s Office is looking for any witnesses to yesterday’s shooting in SeaTac. Two men were wounded, one critically. In addition, a possible suspect was shot in the groin, and the circumstances surrounding that injury remain unclear.

A video is attached that shows the immediate aftermath of the shooting. The video starts just after about 20 rounds were fired from an AK-47 or similar rifle into a stopped car occupied by four people, include a 2 year-old boy.

About 8 seconds into the video the victim’s Cadillac can be seen trying to force its way through congested traffic after the shots were fired.

Then the suspect’s Ford Taurus comes into clear view as three suspects clamber back into the car and it flees northbound on International Blvd.

Detectives would like to speak with anyone who was stuck in traffic and may be able to identify the suspects.

Witnesses are asked to call the Sheriff’s Office at (206) 296-3311.