Friday, September 28, 2012

Reminder: Lake City Oktoberfest celebration this weekend (Sept. 29th, 30th)

Lake City's Oktoberfest celebration kicks off on Saturday at noon in the parking lot of Elliott Bay Brewing Co., DanceSport International and Kaffeeklatsch with music, dancing and of course beer. There will also be kids activities (yes, kiddos are welcome). The festivities continue until 4 p.m.

The inaugural neighborhood celebration continues again on Sunday from noon until 4 p.m. You can read more about the festivities in our previous post.

Neighborhood bakery Kaffeeklatsch will be selling traditional Lebkuchen gingerbread necklaces, shown below. Kids will be able to decorate their own gingerbread necklaces with supplies from Kaffeeklatsch.

So put on your lederhosen and head on over for some German food, some good beer and dancing.


A German gingerbread necklace from Kaffeeklatsch

Thursday, September 27, 2012

New tool to monitor police dispatch calls for neighborhood, via Twitter

A sample of the feed from Sept. 27
UPDATE: The Twitter data we used here via the Seattle Police Department is now featured on the front page of the New York Times. You can read their take on how this will benefit Seattle neighborhoods here.

The City of Seattle has won a number of awards for the open data set it offers to residents. Information is usually easily available via our tech savvy city government —assuming one is also tech savvy.

Now the Seattle Police Department has launched a tool that uses Twitter to disseminate information about Seattle Police dispatch calls.

There is a bit of a delay but most of the calls we have seen posted to Twitter are within one hour of the initial 911 call.

From the Tweets by Beat website:

In order to protect crime victims, officers, and the integrity of investigations, calls will display one hour after a dispatcher sends the call to an officer. The feeds also do not include information about domestic violence calls, sexual assaults, and other certain types of crimes. 

Douglas Park Cooperative has taken the information coming from the Seattle Police Department dispatch and created a custom feed for our own neighborhood that will be featured on the right column of our website.

The feed featured on DPC is for Lincoln 1 sector, the area north of 125th and east of Interstate 5.

So next time you see flashing police lights down the street all you have to do is come to our homepage to figure out what is going on. Also on our right column is a link to monitor Seattle Fire Department dispatch and yet another link to listen to a live police and fire scanner for Seattle.

Feeds for other neighborhoods can easily be monitored by going to the Tweets by Beat website and searching for a feed by address.




Monday, September 24, 2012

Lake City Oktoberfest celebration September 29th and 30th

UPDATE: Volunteers needed

Have a teen in need of community service hours? Or would you just like to meet great neighbors and help out? The Chamber of Commerce is looking for volunteers to help monitor the entrances to the Bartell’s parking lot this Saturday and Sunday, 12PM-4PM.  Volunteers wear bright orange vests & direct drivers to parking for the festival or shopping. Shifts are 1-2hrs and the Chamber will treat you to a pretzel dog after your shift. Contact Diane Haugen at northseattlechamber@gmail.com to sign up!


Beer will flow, brats will be eaten and traditional German dancing will come to Lake City this coming weekend (September 29th and 30th) as Lake City celebrates Oktoberfest.

The inaugural event kicks off on Saturday at noon and goes until 4 p.m. The event continues on Sunday, again from noon to 4. There will also be games for the kiddos (yes, they are welcome), and live German music.

The festival will shut down part of the parking lot behind Elliott Bay Brewing Company and the Bartells' complex and will feature an Oktoberfest menu, dance lessons, kid's games, and German pretzels.

Lake City Oktoberfest has been organized by Elliott Bay Public House and Brewery, DanceSport International dance studio, our own neighborhood German bakery Kaffeeklatsch Seattle,  and the North Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

So come on out this weekend and enjoy the festivities!




If you need more Oktoberfest inspiration, here is a video featuring some German music: