Confessions of a Graphic Designer

You might think from reading the headline that Seattle has a lot of bicycles. According to a blog I have not heard of, Seattle is, in fact, NUMBER ONE in the U.S.! Bike lanes are everywhere now. Streets have been retooled to accommodate bicycles, complete with dedicated lanes, islands and other measures to help ensure the safety of bicyclists. Parking spaces in downtown Seattle and elsewhere have been eliminated and replaced with bike racks. The removal of car parking spaces is a drag for motorists since there is not a lot of parking in the first place. The funny thing is, except in areas around the University of Washington and Burke Gilman Trail (where traditionally there has always been a high volume of bicyclists), often I will see absolutely no bicycles in the bike lanes. Parking space converted for bicycles. And all of the bike parking that has been created while displacing car parking? Often it's the same case where they are under utilized. I hope you don...

A Hummel figurine that belonged to my mother A friend, Annegret, and I were talking on Twitter about memories and our belongings, and it reminded me of a story. Thirty years ago I had a friend named Kathy. She was such a happy person. She had two rambunctious nephews. One day they came over to visit while she was unpacking some very old and precious Christmas ornaments that belonged to her grandmother. Kathy and her grandmother had a special bond. I had the pleasure of meeting her one summer when I visited her family in Atwater, Minnesota. Kathy's nephews, who were maybe 8 and 10 years old at the time, were admiring the ornaments, and she said, “Here, why don’t you choose some to keep?!” I remember feeling shocked. Giving some very old and irreplaceable heirlooms to two little boys? How insane! I'm sentimental and like to keep things that are dear, nearby. The idea of giving such special things to children who, God forbid, could destroy them, seemed crazy. Annegret...

Through The Seattle Public Library The Sally Goldmark Library in Madrona is our local branch. Sometimes I think my husband, David, and I are the only people in Seattle who don’t subscribe to Netflix or Hulu. I guess one reason why is, we aren’t huge consumers of video content and we'd regard it as wasteful to pay for something we won’t use. We like watching films and television series, but since we opened Alki Surf Shop , we have even less discretionary time, including TV time. We spend an average of about an hour each evening watching films or programs. Truth be told, we’d dearly love to "cut the Comcast cord," but there are certain channels that would be a bummer to lose, like Bloomberg News, and any channel that airs "Law and Order" episodes :) The concept of getting rid of cable became more of a possibility when David discovered a treasure trove of content available through The Seattle Public Library (SPL). He regularly visits the SPL web ...

This final day of 2015 started out pretty normally. Woke up, fed the cats, put on my make-up, got dressed, then looked at my to-do list. All doable! I needed to pick up my car from my mechanic of 19 years, and no one was around to drive me there, so I called Uber . Uber was in 50 percent surge-price mode, so I said, forget that! Opened Lyft and put in my location and request... Lyft did something weird. I watched the Lyft car circle around, then was notified the car had arrived. Scanning all directions—no Lyft. The driver calls and tells me he is in West Seattle. Uh, yeah. I was 20 minutes away in Madrona. Wonder what happened? Obviously I couldn't wait for him, so I called my old standby, Farwest Taxi. They said it would be 15 minutes until a cab would reach me. No thanks. In this age of "I have no time to wait," I called Yellow Cab next. They arrived in 5 minutes. An older East African gentleman was driving and he wouldn't exceed 25 MPH....

After traveling in New York for several days to attend a Verizon Summit (#vzsummit), and enjoying meals at fabulous restaurants there, I returned, craving home made comfort food. Just before the trip, I roasted a pretty sizable pumpkin (uncarved), yielding a two large sheet pans of delicious pieces of roasted pumpkin. So before heading into Alki Surf Shop on Saturday, I searched for a pumpkin soup recipe, and found one that looked good, but I didn’t have some of the ingredients. Never one to let a missing ingredient stop me, I forged on! The original recipe, Thai Pumpkin Soup with Coconut Milk, called for lemongrass, fresh coriander, vegetable stock and coconut milk. But I didn’t have any of those things. So here’s what I did: Terri’s Pantry Pumpkin Soup Ingredients: 2 TB Olive Oil 1.5 medium onions, diced 5 cloves of garlic left whole 3.5 lbs. of roasted pumpkin, diced* 1 tsp ground coriander 2 tsp curry powder 2 TB fresh minced ginger** (which BTW, was f...

It’s been a year since my husband, Kahuna Dave, and I opened our store, Alki Surf Shop, in West Seattle. The past 12 months have been filled with lots of laughter and learning, and we’ve met thousands of great people from nearby and all over the world. We’ve made new friends, rekindled past friendships, and love being a part of the Alki Beach community. It feels like we’ve been on a business “graduate school” crash course. We're smarter store owners now, and continue to evolve. Among some of the things we've learned: How to create a positive experience for people who visit; how to identify products that make sense; and how to work more effectively with suppliers. My husband's vision of "Hawaii-Beach-California" is fun, and comes through clearly in our store, from the fixtures to the colors and raffia and bamboo trim. One of the things I made a conscious effort to do is to incorporate my friends in the creation of our unique space. We’re constantly hear...

It’s been said, “Life’s a beach,” and in our case, it’s true! Eleven months ago, my husband, “Kahuna Dave” and I launched our store, Alki Surf Shop on Alki Beach in West Seattle. It took extraordinary effort and thinking to create such a unique place. It’s not just the fact that the “physical plant” is fun and adorable, but we go further to make sure our customers have a positive experience in every way we can. As Kahuna Dave says, Alki Beach is Seattle’s playground, and when you’re there, you’re having fun. It starts with the music we pipe out onto the sidewalk. We actually see people outside on the sidewalk dancing before they enter our store. We have an incredible UE Boom bluetooth speaker, which acts like a pied piper, drawing them up into our space. And when a customer leaves, we often give them something extra to remember. Our stock-in-trade is genuine Alki-branded tees, hoodies, and tank tops, but we sell all manner of beach essentials: sunglasses, sunscre...

Why We Need to Digital Detox Our Irrepressible Need to Be Connected From the moment we adopted the smart phone—a tiny, life-altering portable computer—the need to stay connected intensified. Our devices provided us with instant connectivity. And with the introduction of social media, the time we spent connecting practically doubled as we kept up with daily news of not just real life, but also virtual friends. It’s extraordinary how technology enables us to have our family and friends as close as our pockets. But our devices can be like a spoiled pet—needy and demanding. Digital Day-cation In September I posted a tweet about Jake Knapp's year, free of digital distraction from the iPhone. A Twitter friend, Adrian Lee, saw it and tweeted me to say he was going to give it a try for 24 hours. I didn’t think about it too much until he wrote about it. He did it! I was so impressed! Social media relationships, as those in real life, thrive when you are present an...