Friday was the last day of business for Easy Street Records at their Lower Queen Anne location. For the final in-store show, Yo La Tengo came to town and played a nearly hour-long set.
Easy Street owner Matt Vaughan bid a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported the store over the last dozen years:
"I'd just like to thank the Queen Anne neighborhood, they've been very supportive of us. I wish we could have stayed longer, we're coming off a pretty good year, but there's some things out of my control. Hopefully we didn't let anyone down, made up for it tonight. Go west young man, we'll see you in West Seattle" (Easy Street's West Seattle location is still open.)
The big surprise of the night was the marriage proposal from long time Easy Street employee and KEXP DJ Troy Nelson to his girlfriend Mackenzie Mercer. (the proposal happens at about the 4 minute mark)
Tucker, a 5-year-old chocolate lab, was raised in the country, far from big bodies of water. So when he and his owner Robyn Nelson moved to Seattle, Tucker was fascinated with big waves. And Monday's storm and high tide were almost too much excitement for him to take.
First United Methodist Church of Seattle read the names of each one of the Sandy Hook victims this Sunday morning. For each name read, a candle was lit and a bell tolled. Much of the service centered around the shooting and the larger issue of gun violence in this country.
In my 28 years of telling stories, there are two tales of guts and character that shook me to my very foundation, moved me like no others. And they tear at my heart still. When you work in the television news business, you are witness to all different kinds of courage. It comes in various shapes and sizes. Loud courage and quiet courage.
In my 28 years of telling stories, there are two tales of guts and character that shook me to my very foundation, moved me like no others. And they tear at my heart still.
One is the story of our beloved Kathi Goertzen. The other is Marin Morrison.
When I met Marin, she was swimming the breast stroke at a junior varsity swim meet for Eastlake High School. She was swimming with one arm and one leg. Her other limbs were paralyzed. She finished dead last by a mile, but you should have seen the place go wild!
I learned that she had, just two years earlier, been one of the best swimmers for her age in all of America. She had dreamed --and planned -- to swim in the Beijing Olympics.
Aggressive brain cancer changed all that. But Marin kept swimming, kept living, and she set her sights on the Paralympcs, which were also in Beijing.
The fight to get to Beijing was an epic one, and the performance she turned in once she got there is, in my mind, one of the great sports stories of my generation.
I couldn't shake the spell that Marin had cast upon me, and so, along with KOMO-TV editor/producer Darrin Tegman, and photographer Doug Pigsley, we set about making a documentary about Marin's life and triumph. Four years later, I haven't shaken her spell yet, and I want her story to be heard.
These words can be heard during the movie. They sum up the way I feel about Marin and her struggle:
"At every pool where dreams and potential are measured by the hundredth of a second, the name should be whispered in wonder and awe: Marin Morrison, the girl who loved swimming so much, she put off death itself for one last race.
"This is the story of a dream that would not die, and a dreamer who will live forever."
It's called "Touch the Wall." It airs on KOMO-TV, Sunday at noon.
After 104 years of worship in their church, Tacoma's First Congregational Church held their final service this Sunday. The massive, Gothic style building is in need of significant repairs, and the small congregation has had difficulty supporting it. Mars Hill Church has agreed to buy the building, and the money from the sale will help the congregation find a smaller, more appropriate facility.
When you work on Sunday mornings, you end up covering stories in many different churches and places of worship. Yesterday's final service was one of the most poignant and emotional services I've been to, and the final prayer was one I won't forget.
In what is turning into a tradition, election night parties on Capitol Hill converged to form one giant celebration.
Photographed by KOMO photographers Randy Carnell, Brad Baker, Matt Arnold, and Joe Lawson
Last year on Halloween night a friend suggested our family take a little drive to Lake Forest Park to take a look at an amazing decorated Halloween house. It was a bit out of our way but boy was it worth it. The smoke the lights the sounds were incredible. Homeowner Doug Woods had put up one eye popping display complete with air hoses powering monster heads and a garbage can ghoul that springs out scaring the unexpected visitor.
That night last year I told Mr. Woods that I would be back next year to do a story on him. I followed him weeks before the big night, setting up most of his display by himself, along with a little help from his neighbors. Thanks to Doug Woods for his great work and his dedication to scare everyone on Halloween.
