iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Elections mean things, the Mayor of Seattle and King County Executive are at the Graham Street block party saying we want to keep building transit things. What a change from the first block party last year.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 29/09/2026

Who have the two best autographs in the history of baseball and why are they both Expos players? (This post is likely bait for two mutuals and I make no apologies)

Scan of a baseball card featuring Larry Walker in a grey Montreal Expos uniform. The card has a gradient red border from white to red. The word "Expos" is in the top right; bottom right reads "Topps certified autograph issue" and "Larry Walker". Walker is photographed just as he completes the swing of his bat. His autograph, with swooping L and W characters and a strikingly tall K, is in blue on the bottom third of the card. Top right of the card reads "Topps" and, in a circle, "1990-2025 35th anniversary".

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 27/09/2026

"Thornton Place II by Greystar, opening in 2028"

Cartoon picture of a grove of trees along a winding stream, dark grey in color, and littered with refuse and front-loading washing machine.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 25/09/2026

But what my theory presupposes is...

Screenshot of a domain for sale listing a discounted price of $46 for the first year, then $343.60 for subsequent years.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 21/09/2026

CT I love you but why does getting to this corner of Alderwood only have hourly service intervals (especially on Sunday), including the Zip shuttle, and it’s always 59 minutes until the next vehicle that will take me there?

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 19/09/2026

I guess I know at least one shirt I’ll be bringing (found at a Lids in Toronto’s Union Station of all places)

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 18/09/2026

I get to it by going to the interactive map that you found and there's a "download icon" flyout on the left that links to a set of PDFs

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 17/09/2026

I mean just look at this... I've only seen modern ones in blue (that I obviously have) and I hope to be half as cool when I grow up.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 16/09/2026

It's not the smallest ZIP code by area but I choose to believe you live in this little tab that extends into the city limits because my head canon is that everyone I know online lives in Seattle, the only city in Puget Sound

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 14/09/2026

Also happy 2nd birthday to route 47 (uhh, I mean 3 Extension) making its grand return to Summit after a multi-year absence.

Picture of a King County Metro bus operating as "3 Summit" at a bus stop on western Capitol Hill.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 14/09/2026

Happy Birthday starts with a 🅖 It's RapidRide G's 2nd birthday!

Picture of a RapidRide G coach with headsign reading "G, via Madison" and adorned with red and gold balloons.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 14/09/2026

This is how I found out that @eliza.vg is going to Scotland this week.

Screenshot of text: "LATEST > King Charles will convene AI leaders amid calls to slow development"

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 13/09/2026

they also can't give specifics about what they're seeing because they live in a very small neighborhood ("between downtown and the University of Washington") that is so unique that if they mention it, the Discourse Drones will immediately find them.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 13/09/2026

The sign in the other direction is correct for the new frequent bus service, as is the printed timetable.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 11/09/2026

Lids store in Toronto's Union Station really had my number (except I don't really like fitted size hats) (Also, get yourself a train system so well-used and busy that the concourse mall has a Lids because they have one of every other business.)

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 11/09/2026

There will be no downer posts or replies from me today. Nor any on particular date-related topic. For now, I am thinking about this bus in Toronto that goes directly to my childhood. I wonder if the driver's name is "Mathman".

Picture of a departures board. The topmost route, relevant for the joke here, is route 21C with a destination of "Square One" with stops at "Square One".

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 02/09/2026

Number of people at this Weird Al concert (in Edmonton) who think I’m from Montreal, so far: 3 Number of other meetings I bailed on to be at the show tonight: 4 (one of them for my day job that I do when I have time)

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 01/09/2026

This morning, I saw my favourite bus route in Edmonton. Sadly, doesn't look like ETS is on Bluesky but thank you brand new drivers all the same! I hope you have fun.

Picture of a blue and white Edmonton Transit Service bus in downtown Edmonton, with a head sign that reads "Driver Training".

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 31/08/2026

Just throwing my review on the pile of "Coyote vs Acme is fucking awesome and I will be seeing it at least three more times once I get back to where my Regal Unlimited subscription works". It's like "Hoppers" in that I went in to what I thought was a funny movie and came out with tears.

Picture of a hand holding up a ticket stub in front of the distant view of a movie theatre door labeled "1". The stub reads: "Edmonton 9, Screen 1, Coyote vs Acme, 30 Aug 07:45PM"

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 30/08/2026

I miss when “ice surging in Seattle” meant we all got a pretty view and the route 90 snow shuttle was operating :/

Picture of a 40-foot Metro bus operating as route 90 Snow Shuttle in a snowy Central District.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 29/08/2026

And finally, my "favorite" junk fee of all and it does not surprise me that other renters pay it. On top of having to pay for the lights in the hallways, like this tenant I also pay for the "optionally mandatory" privilege of HAVING ACCESS TO THE BUILDING where my expensive apartment is. So fun!

"In later lease renewals, his landlord added a $2 per month pest control fee, a $2 special improvement district fee, a $5 per month admin fee and a **$25 per month technology fee** to pay for the **building’s call box and app-enabled door locks**. (**Free physical keys are unavailable**.) He also now pays a $15 per month charge for common-area electricity."

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 29/08/2026

Second, a story from Tacoma that perfectly encapsulates why this policy should be the norm statewide. It is BS to have a 180-day notice period for lease renewals but your landlord can jawbone you into signing one with the threat of an escalating "lease renewal fee". 2/

"When Aleks Posielski received a lease renewal offer from his landlord in May, he was taken aback by an unexpected charge.

Posielski would have to pay an $85 “lease renewal fee,” if he committed within 10 days, even though his lease wasn’t up for six months.

Otherwise, the lease renewal fee would start to increase every 10 additional days — to $150 and then to $250. If Posielski needed more than a month to decide, it would grow to $500."

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 29/08/2026

You should read this article, it's pretty good and the library will give it to you for free. A couple of choice bits to show how good this policy is. First, what your landlord thinks. According to their lobbying group, apparently renters (I am one) "prefer" this. Hahahaha. 1/

"The rental housing industry defends the fees, arguing that renters prefer to know exactly what they pay for each individual service they receive from their landlord rather than a single all-inclusive rental price.

“The benefits of having fully transparent pricing and fee breakdowns greatly outweighs the inconvenience of having to click through a couple of additional layers or to make a phone call to figure out what your pricing might be,” said Jake Mayson, director of government affairs for the Washington Multi-Family Housing Association, which represents corporate landlords in the state. To him, rent is just meant to cover a tenant’s individual apartment."

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 29/08/2026

Tomorrow, this bus will go through a roundabout.

Picture of a Metro bus operating as route 75 to Lake City and the UDistrict, in Northgate

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 27/08/2026

Well...that's a first. I've never seen a "you've been randomly selected to skip the line" loan on Libby before but apparently some of our libraries do it. I love the library.

Screenshot of the Libby user interface. The text, from top to bottom, reads:

The wait is over

Quick, skip the line!
The Midnight Library (an icon of a rectangular multicolored card with a white + symbol and a depiction of a 4-leaf cloveron top)

You are 123rd in line (started: 129th). 37 copies in use. 127 people waiting in total. 3 people waiting per copy.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 24/08/2026

oooh look a story about a city's Vision Zero efforts

Screenshot of text: "Bellevue lowers speed limits on all neighborhood streets [1 hour ago]"

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 23/08/2026

They're cool with (not-Seattle) libraries now though, at the top of the home page.

Screenshot of a headline shown at the top of Seattle Times' front page: "King County now has the nation's largest library sorting machine"

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 23/08/2026

as the sign says there is 1 Toronto Street and this is it the existence of old town toronto implies new megalopolis, uh, toronto I dunno still working on this one

Picture of an Old Town Toronto banner hanging on a light pole above a street sign that reads "Toronto St" with a block number of "1" under it.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 23/08/2026

Trams trams trams in the snow snow snow

Picture of a very red and white TTC streetcar in a mild snow flurry

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 23/08/2026

Multilingual packaging is good, actually

Picture of an exit sign in the Toronto airport that is in both English and French.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 23/08/2026

You have your saints I have mine

Picture of the very lime green wall at the underground St Patrick station platform.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 21/08/2026

From @typewriteralley.bsky.social's article about Mayor Wilson's EOs, and I am absolutely thrilled: Daylighting, particularly by putting micromobility parking corrals there, is something the Ped Board has been pushing for years and SDOT is working on but the push to do it wasn't there. Now it is.

Screenshot of text that reads: By next summer, SDOT will add intersection "daylighting" at 20 intersections, creating a clear zone intended to improve visibility close to marked and unmarked pedestrian crosswalks. Even more significantly, daylighting will be implemented over the course of routine capital maintenance, matching a similar move made around no-right-on-red signage in 2023.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 20/08/2026

Tonight's movie: The Muppets Take Manhattan In Portuguese.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 19/08/2026

I did go get the Jimothy card and I am not ashamed in the slightest 👀

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 19/08/2026

Please forward a copy of the latest Crime Digest from the most recent Transit Crime Meeting as I am on Crime Island

Picture of a station arrival sign that reads “Mercer Island”

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 15/08/2026

I don’t have any recent pictures of mountains so here’s a dog named Rainier.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 12/08/2026

Bait used to be believable.

Screenshot from the Seattle Times web site: "What would it take to get you to vote for a Republican? | Danny Westneat"

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 11/08/2026

I have many logins for the audiobook machine entirely so I have the widest possible selection of audiobooks and listening to "Books On Tape" is not cheating and I am not taking questions at this time...or ever

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 11/08/2026

I'm a little disappointed that no one (including me!) has yet mentioned the 38th anniversary of the legendary achievement of Seattle's finest hacker (you did remember that Zero Cool lived on East Cherry St as a kid, right??).

Three frames from the movie Hackers.

Crash Override: "I've got a record. I was Zero Cool."
Lord Nikon, Cereal Killer, Acid Burn, and Crash Override (Lord Nikon speaking): "Zero Cool crashed 1,507 systems in one day. Biggest crash in history."
Lord Nikon close-up: "Front page New York Times, August 10, 1988."

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 09/08/2026

I really like having a robust selection of libraries across the region. (Still need to go say hi to Puyallup.)

Screenshot of the mobile version of the Libby app, "Your Libraries" section. The eight libraries listed are: Seattle, King County, Kitsap, Tacoma, Sno-Isle, Timberland, Pierce County, and Everett.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 09/08/2026

Went to a friend's birthday party today and when I grow up I hope to be half as cool as this cake.

Picture of a birthday cake sitting on a red tablecloth. The cake has a brown icing base with yellow piping along its border. The text reads happy [blank] birthday [blank].

Beneath the text is a drawing of a King County Metro bus in blue and yellow. The bus reads "battery electric" with coach number "1234".

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 06/08/2026

Anyone else manage/bother to get a complete set of paper I-series savings bonds before the Treasury stopped offering them via the IRS? No? Just me? Figured.

Picture of six paper Series I US savings bonds sitting on a green felt surface. From left to right: a $1,000 bond showing Albert Einstein; a $500 bond showing George Marshall; a $200 bond showing Chief Joseph; a $100 bond showing Dr Martin Luther King Jr; a $50 bond showing Helen Keller. The sixth bond is turned face down and used to obscure some information on the fifth bond.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 06/08/2026

Jimothy has acquired his place of honor. (One of only two not-autographed cards I have out on display and if I ever meet him you bet I'm asking for a paw stamp or slash across the face or whatever.)

Picture of a shelf of baseball cards. Three "slabbed" cards are off to the left, three cards in regular magnetic clear holders are off to the right. In the center, sporting a black border, is the Jimothy-themed Mariners rookie card.

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Wes Mills 🥌 @oowm.org · 06/08/2026

A good night for collectibles.

Picture of a hand holding a plastic model of a Washington State Ferry with Mariners and Ivar’s logos. In the center part of the ferry is a card sleeve with a Jimothy-themed Mariners rookie card

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