OOOH WOW, LU'AU: Find a better Lu'au than the Golden Gardens Lu'au. We dare you. It features a traditional roasted pig cooked by Scott Staples (Quinn's, Zoe), Hawaiian pizzas by Via Tribunali, an open bar with Mai Tais by Havana, a SnoCon volleyball tournament (4 p.m.- 6:30 p.m.), and performances by THEESatisfaction, Kore Ionz, TRNTDRM, Canary Sing, and Gabriel Mintz. Taking place at Golden Gardens' beachfront Bathhouse. It's all to benefit the Service Board, a local mentoring program that empowers youth to overcome obstacles and build strong community through snowboarding...and public service, and a curriculum of social justice. more ›

Seattleites are an upstanding, law-abiding bunch. We recycle, compost and obey traffic signs. We help old ladies cross the street and give tourists directions to the fish market. However, when it comes to Man’s Best Friend, some of us tend to conveniently ignore a few of the more pertinent laws. more ›

"BEACH GOERS" by KATHARINE MORGAN-MORIARTY from the Seattlest Flickr pool. more ›

"OnTheDouble Dutch at Golden Gardens" by bananajr, from the Seattlest Flickr Pool more ›

If you're jogging near Shilshole Marina this morning, look for a couple of upended pontoons. The pilot, Roger Collins, was flying from Paine Field to Bremerton when his plane had an electrical short and had to make an emergency landing on Puget Sound. The wheels did not retract and caused the plane to flip on landing. The pilot was not hurt. KIRO has video of him, and he seems pretty calm about the whole thing. Judging from pictures, his plane’s an insurance loss, though. Too bad! more ›

Your message would be far more effective if you learned how to spell its subject correctly. more ›

"hunters" by NW Sunshine, from the Seattlest Flickr Pool more ›

BALLET (PREL-jzoh-cahjz): Not your average night at the ballet, as the evocative Ballet Preljocaj (choreographed by company founder Angelin Preljocaj) company will perform Les 4 Saisons--a UW World Series debut. Choreographed to the bright and rhythmic music from Vivaldi, Les 4 Saisons provides a playful, colorful, and unconventional interpretation through dance. more ›

Yesterday we reported that a woman's body was found at Golden Gardens. Today the coroner's office has details on a 35-year-old woman who died yesterday from a stab wound and drowning. The police haven't made an official announcement, but the coroner's office is saying their case was suicide. We're guessing this is the same woman found at Golden Gardens. By the way, if you ever want to bring yourself back down to earth, emphatically, just give the coroner's office a call. After listening to three or four cases on their voicemail, we nearly threw the phone across the room. more ›

MyBallard has the story: the woman's body was found around 10 a.m. this morning, "face down in the sand," and police say the cause of death is "suspicious." Identification was found nearby, so that news should follow. A woman out walking her dog on the Golden Gardens beach found the body. We really hate when life imitates CSI: Miami. more ›

In support and sincere sympathy for all the King County employees who will be forced to take an extra week and a half off without pay next year, Seattlest has compiled a short list of our favorite "playing hooky" activities around town--a menu of action items, if you will, for the victims of budget cuts to consider on their extra time off. Thus far, we have: people-watch at Pike Place Market, read for a few hours at the Central Library, see the latest trashy movie, order Thai food and sit at home watching The Wire for five hours, take the bus to Golden Gardens and contemplate bird poop. Suggestions? more ›

No really. It's true. According to the League of American Bikes (via the Cascade Bicycle Alliance in our case), Washington is the most bicycle friendly state in the union. According to the LAB, "Washington’s model bike laws, signed and mapped statewide bike route network, dedicated funding from the state for bicycle related programs and projects, and an active statewide bicycle advisory committee" are reasons that the state earned top honors above Wisconsin, Arizona, Oregon (numbers two, three and four respectively) and all the others. more ›

• My Ballard is covering the search for a missing local swimmer at Golden Gardens. One swimmer had already been rescued from the water and taken to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia. As of 11 p.m., the Coast Guard and rescue divers were still looking for a second missing swimmer. UPDATE: The search for the missing swimmer has been called off. A recovery effort has begun to locate the missing swimmer's body.
• Blogging Georgetown has confirmed that an advertisement declaring the sale of a local restaurant is indeed about the beloved veggie and brew bar Georgetown Liquor Company.
• The ever-witty hyper-local Capitol Hill Seattle has a number of recommended activities for this weekend's car-free hours at Volunteer Park.

This shot reminded us of a wonderful short story by Cyrus Colter titled "The Beach Umbrella," wherein a man longs for the community and friendship that seems to take place under other people's beach umbrellas. If only he had an umbrella of his own, he figures, his life would be full of laughter and community, too. We won't tell you what happens as the story evolves, because we think you should seek it out yourself. Maybe it'll stick with you as long as it has with us, the recollection of having read it popping up at random moments when looking through the memorable images in our Seattlest Flickr Pool. Happy Sunday! more ›

Not that kind of bathhouse. Our sources tell us that Governor Gregoire will be doing a boat tour of Puget Sound tomorrow and Friday in her quest to remind people she's a better option than Dino Rossi. Her Seattle stop will be at the Golden Gardens Bath House at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon. Not really the greatest time for a high-yield political rally, considering it's Way Out There, and people work and all. But it's a valiant effort. Other stops on the tour include Tacoma, Des Moines, Edmonds, Bainbridge Island, Hood Canal, and the big finale in Bremerton. Full details are at the King County Democrats website. more ›

"Golden Gardens Beach 1" by seattlerayhutch45 more ›

1. Seward Park - This is where we spent last Saturday, lying on the grass, reading. There were plenty of families there already celebrating the sun, barbecuing, playing volleyball. Tons of cutie pie kids running in and out of the water. more ›

We spend a lot of time here at Seattlest bemoaning the fate of bicycle riders in Seattle. It's a hard-knock life for us, we like to say, living in a city that likes to tout itself as green to the nth degree while also putting forward a Master Bike Plan that leaves something to be desired in almost every neck of the woods. more ›

Since this week's storm didn’t claim any lives in Seattle, most of us tend to think of the damage in terms of washed out images of I-5 and that Subaru in Golden Gardens. more ›

Already (as of 8:35 am): more ›

Seattlest grew up in a tiny town you've never heard of in Central Florida, where a real sandy ocean beach (on which you could drive) was 20 minutes in one direction, and a crystalline gulf beach was an hour and a half in the other. Now that we live in the Land of the Rain, we wait all year for weeks like these, when the sun is high and hot, the breeze is soft and frequent and there are enough daytime hours to book it to the lake beach after work. more ›

This is gonna be one of those gorgeous evenings that Seattleites suffer through the fall, winter and "spring" for, but we won't be enjoying it. Roast a marshmallow at Golden Gardens for us, because we'll be in our basement watching the All-Star Game. more ›

-- "Less glare"? Better than Metronatural. more ›

Get outside, do it now. more ›

Where is it? We were at Golden Gardens yesterday and it was packed, but packed is not the problem. You kind of want it to be packed unless there's absolutely no space to stake out as your own with a blanket or towel. It's the parking. REI had some kind of event that privatized half the upper parking area, so things were pretty dire. We'd given up and were headed home before a divine intervention parted the cars for us. So given that it's a hot day early in the summer and there's a race of some kind going on, where the hell do you park? Do you try to score something at Shilshole and walk over? Do you keep driving up the hill and rapel down from where ever you find something? more ›

Not only is it Friday, but the sun is out and it's warm as hell. Sorry, boss, but it's looking like a loooong lunch day. It's probably too late to skip the office altogether today and suddenly "not feeling 100%" when it's 60 out is not going to fool anyone, but if you have the brown nose points in the bank this is a great day to cash them in. You saw the forecast earlier this week and you should have layed some groundwork for yourself then. "Yeah, I figured I'd just head up to the north office early on Friday and drop that stuff off on my way. They're right by Golden Gardens, right?" more ›

Staunch defenders of Christmas manned the wall this weekend in Westlake Center in an effort to turn back the heathen hordes, a move Seattlest likens to trying to stop the tide from rising up the beach at Golden Gardens with a Maginot Line of sand. The enemy isn't the silly complaints that lead to the sillier municipal renamings of trees, parties, etc, but that's probably a more winnable fight than the actual "problem." The "problem" is the mass of people who aren't necessarily celebrating the birth of a god who still want to get down with friends, family and a little egg nog around the end of the year. "Backoff, Godless Wonders - This is our party. Go celebrate the solstice or something." Right. more ›

Seattle summers are a time for frolicking and play, while the gray winters here are well-suited for quiet reflection. The transition is an all too quick one, since the Seattle autumn lasts all of a month, more of a switch than a season. This weekend is a good time to bid farewell to blue skies and welcome the fall by helping out the less fortunate before beginning your winter hermitage. more ›

You may have gone to Golden Gardens over the weekend and witnessed the new extensive screening process that each visiting car is subjected to upon entering the parking lot. If you didn't get there over the long weekend you may be planning to take advantage of the 70 degrees and moderate sun this coming week. more ›

There are plenty of options begging for your attention this coming weekend. It might rain, it might not, but honestly could you care less? Seattlest found these little lovelies tucked up in the cliffs on the Palisades/Ranger Creek trail near Mt. Rainier this past weekend. We couldn't appreciate the typical staggering view, hunkered up in the clouds as we were, but lo and behold spring had sprung right in between our toes! Take a look around yourselves this weekend, there's plenty afoot (OK, no more podiatric references): more ›