I'm really glad I lived in Seattle and there are days when I miss it terribly. There are also days when I remember that it got on my nerves.

Seattle has lots of cool parks, one called Gas Works. It's an old coal gassification plant by the lakefront. After cleaning the soil, the city turned it into a park in the mid-70's. Some of the old equipment remains for folks to climb on and there is a huge hill in the middle, good for flying kites. It's a very Seattle kind of thing, repurposing something gross into something delightful.

A concert series was to take place at Gas Works this summer but it's been canceled. Seattlest picks it up here:

The move comes after a group calling themselves Friends of Gas Works Park, but who we call a bunch of hippie assholes, claimed that the concerts would bring crowds, traffic and parking problems to the area. Boo-fucking-hoo.

If you live in a major city, events which draw a large number of people are going to occur. We agree that the public should have ample time to comment on city proposals and that secret deals are not a way to make public decisions; however, shooting down ideas because, "I'll have nowhere to park my Subaru," and "I may have to walk around people when I take my golden retriever out," is annoying.

Indeed. Seattle does often operate under the idea that everything can and should be controlled, as befits a city where engineering-related tasks have flourished.

No one believes me when I say that the dog parks in Seattle post signs that say, amongst other rules, that excessive barking is not allowed, but here's a link. The rule on barking is in the third of 14 (!) rules shown here.