April 2007

April 2007

Saturday, March 31
Bellevue, WA... at Mamasan's. I met Ai-chan on March 23, 2007, a few days after arriving back in the Seattle area (after having spent 10 months in North Carolina). Ai worked at Mamasan's and was singing "Eyes on Me" and "Suteki Da Ne" from Final Fantasy... we became fast friends...

Monday, April 2
Redmond, WA... with Sleepy John and Jeannie at the Todai...

Thursday, April 5
Redmond, WA... my workplace at Microsoft... the RedWest campus...

Saturday, April 7
Renton, WA... with Hong Hoa at The Met. I am so happy to be spending time with Hong again! After morning coffee we walked around the block to the western store (Renton Western Wear), then a couple of antique shops, then we lunched at a nearby Chinese place...

Panjet Accordion, April 10

Tuesday, April 17
Redmond, WA... I parked Bigfoot across the street from the Workshop Tavern in downtown Redmond and Bill Noonan of Charlotte, in town on Microsoft business, stopped by. We picked few old numbers on the Gibson Dove, and I was mighty happy to show Bilious my newly acquired PanJet accordion...

Thursday, April 19

Bellevue, WA... after an enjoyable evening at Mamasan's in downtown Bellevue, Mamasan let Ai-chan know that it would be OK for her to let me give her a ride in Bigfoot back to her apartment in Seattle's University District. A few minutes later, during Ai's first ride in Bigfoot, we witnessed a motorcycle crash on the 520, just before reaching the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. A few days later I was on the same route and took these location shots, for the record.

After leaving Mamasan's around 11:30 PM, we were heading west on the 520, between the 405 and Lake Washington. The shots below (from a few days later) show the 520 from the Bellevue Way NE bridge to just beyond the 92nd Ave NE bridge, the stretch we were on as the crazy motorcyclists came upon us from behind...

Just after going under the Bellevue Way NE bridge a pack of crazy motorcyclists, perhaps half a dozen, suddenly came upon us from behind at an extremely high rate of speed... so fast that I only saw lights coming up from behind a second before they whipped by. I had just enough time to say "whoa!" before they were roaring by. A few hundred yards on down the road we saw one of the bikes fail to make the slight curve to the left. The red arrow in the 1st shot shows the reckless speeder's approximate path off the road. The red arrow in the 2nd shot shows the poor idiot's approximate path, airborne, into the trees. Just to the left of the arrow point a wooden signpost (minus the sign) can be seen... the rider went through that sign on his way into the trees...

I pulled Bigfoot to the shoulder of the road a few hundred yards beyond the accident scene. I told Ai-chan to stay put and I got out of Bigfoot to go back to the impact zone. As I got out I could see a couple of the wrecked rider's buddies stopping a little further on down, at the top of the next exit. They crossed 520 and re-entered the FRWY in the opposite direction to see what they could of the scene, but none of them ever stopped at the crash site. This told me that they were drunk and more concerned with that than with the condition of their buddy.

This is the view from where I pulled Bigfoot over, looking toward the bridge where some of the wrecked rider's buddies turned around...

When I reached the wrecked motorcyclist he was a crumpled mess. He had gone airborne from the shoulder of the FRWY, through a sign, and into the trees. His motorcycle was in a hundred parts, both in the trees and strewn on down the side of the road. I called 911 and they were already on their way (perhaps called by one of the poor guy's buddies). I saw no way that a person could live through such a crash, but the fellow was somehow alive... moaning and gurgling... his helmet was the only thing that showed for sure which end was which...

Emergency teams arrived and I gave a statement to the police. A half hour after the crash, Ai-chan and I continued on toward the University District.

Here's the 520 beyond where the accident happened, in the direction we were heading... the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge over Lake Washington, and Seattle's University District in the distance (to the right)...

I never heard any media report of the accident, but amazingly, I learned later that the reckless rider survived. The pack of foolish young bikers had started down around Renton on a FRWY speed loop. Alcohol was "apparently" a factor...