By Rich Osborne, Owner, ALL THINGS RICH at the Waterfront Market @ Ruston Fifteen years ago, I started taking credit cards. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I engaged a local processor. I bought a card reader to plug into my cell phone, and away I went. Within weeks I started having…
August 2026, Island Resilience
Death by Flower on Vashon
By Andy Valencia As our summer begins its slow descent into fall, take a moment to relax and enjoy the flowers which nature has provided. Just kidding! This is Vashon, where Himalayan blackberry will cross your back patio and force its way into your house. You’ll have plenty of time to rest when it’s winter,…
August 2026, Island Businesses
A Series of Piratical Events
By Marc J. Elzenbeck How do you become a pirate ship? One suspects it’s always been a tricky process, what with obtaining pesky letters of marque, patiently hiding in keys to ambush passing merchant ships, and the risks of your crew swinging by their necks from a yardarm. Paul Freeman of the good ship Sara…
August 2026, Technology
A Cheap PC is Good Enough
By Andy Valencia Yes, everything is up-up-up, as in prices: your cafe drink, groceries, ferry fares. Let’s not even talk about gas. Will we actually reach $8 per gallon? And in technology … RAM prices up 3x, maybe 4x, or even moreDisks, more than 2xSSD, more like 3x And now the word is coming out…
August 2026, Island Voices
From Cowrie Shell to Clam Shell
By Suzanna Leigh The end of my sojourn with the Pilgrims Christian Commune in Hawaii came when a man from the home church on the mainland came to speak to us. Along with some possibly prejudiced prophecies about the coming end of the world, he told us that Ken, the head of Pilgrims, was an…
August 2026, Island Voices
Magnificent Ruins
Part Two: The Falcon’s Nest By Richard Odell from Part One: “My parents would one day move to that island, and within a few years find themselves, by choice of housing, connected by an overgrown lane to the source of that pillar of smoke, a mansion that now lay in ruins. I was but five…
August 2026, Island Voices
Finding God in Nature … and People
By Mike Ivaska One of the things I really appreciate about life on Vashon is how quickly we can immerse ourselves in nature here. Within ten minutes of walking or driving, depending on where you live, a trailhead awaits. You don’t even have to have anything resembling survival skills – which, for me, is particularly…
August 2026, Photography
Photograph by Claudia Hollander-Lucas
Heron on Rooftop – Point Robinson. Photo by Claudia Hollander-Lucas