Care to give away a few platelets?

(from the BBC website)

Platelet donor's thought for food

By Nick Dermody
BBC News

At this time of year I'm usually one of a few hundred people who have to keep an eye on what they eat.
I'm not just talking about moderating the usual Christmas excess (not such a bad idea anyway) but ensuring I have the equivalent of what I consider is a cabbage soup diet for two or three days.
This is so I can give blood. Or more accurately, platelets, that component of blood which helps to stop or prevent bleeding.(more)

You don't need to follow that diet (or to go to Wales) to donate platelets. I used to do it regularly (sadly I can't anymore, blame those Mad Cows): it's simple, painless, relaxing... and you can watch videos. Contact the Puget Sound Blood Center for all the whys and wherefores. They'd also be happy to take your whole blood, or sign you up to be a marrow donor.

The Miller Year in Review

Respectable bloggers do it, Danny Westneat did it, so can I learn anything useful from the blizzard of blog-visitor statistics that Google dishes up?

41% of the 46,000ish pageviews last year went to the homepage, so we won't learn much about them. Of those who visited an actual page, the top five are as follows:

• 514 went to a May 29th page about the sale of Dean Falls' property on Madison to Jim Mueller.
• 462 went to a Jan 4th page announcing a Neighborhood Safety Forum about the tragic murder of Shannon Harps.
• Third was 435 visits to a 2007 page documenting the Fratelli's Cow Mural (from people who missed it?).
• A nice round 400 people visited a May 22nd page about Jim Mueller's development plans for Madison Street, with a (now expired) link to a KING TV news segment.
• 375 worthy souls found out about my wife's Adopt a Streetlight plan. It's still dark out there, let's try that again!

Busiest days:

• Jan. 9th - 497 views - Shannon Harps' murder meeting
  
• Jan 23rd - 476 - several public safety posts
• March 11 - 387 - assorted news?
  
• May 30 - 439 - Sale of Deano's!
  
• July 2 - 440 - Fratelli's plus fireworks viewing sites?

(maybe provoked by people alerted by Miller listserv E-mails).

Central District News and Capitol Hill News do a wonderful job covering those larger areas, and I've taken to putting more general info there, hence lesser recent interest/postings on Miller blog. Popular postings on those sites typically get 100 to 500 views. My all-time-winner, best as I can tell, is Snow route from Capitol Hill to airport with a mighty 724 views to date (and here's hoping nobody needs it anytime soon!).

Take-home messages:

• development
• public safety

No surprises there. Thanks for listening. Do tell me what to do different.

Happy New Year
Andrew

2009: Year of the House

When we bought our house in 1983, we idly wondered why the previous owners had painted such a huge "2009" on the porch pillar. After the first visitor got lost finding us, due to Thomas turning into John at 20th (and another bit of John dead-ending a block south), we soon realized their wisdom, and silently thanked them for their cardboard templates when we repainted the house. Further investigations revealed the additional Seattle geo-quirk of the stretch of 20th Avenue next to our house being the 200 block on the west side and the 100 block on the east side.

Fast-forward 25 years: I'd have totally overlooked the connection between our house number and the New Year, had it not been for the clever conversational gambit of a young Morman missionary who visited us one recent snowy evening.

Thank you, Seattle City street-planners and the Church of Latter Day Saints, for making this unique commemoration of the New Year possible!