Most people think of internships as summers spent fetching coffee, answering phones and daydreaming of faraway beaches. So Tucker Fitzgerald, how did you spend your summer internship at Martini Design?"I was amazed to be assigned webpage layouts, for a company like Nintendo, in my second week."
It's back to school time, not just for the kids, but for many adults who want to polish up some old skills or discover a new talent. Whether your thing is singing or dancing, several opportunities exist to start a new artistic endeavor.
As your King County Council member, I represent you on regional issues such as improving our transportation problems and election reform. My philosophy is to work in a bipartisan manner with my council colleagues. Just as importantly, we also must work with our regional partners, particularly suburban cities, to help resolve the many challenges our region faces. This is my first column for the North Seattle Herald-Outlook, and I plan to update you occasionally on regional and local issues.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is set to become part of the Seattle Center campus, it was announced at a press conference at the Space Needle last week. The foundation has inked a deal to pay $50.4 million for a 12.3-acre Seattle Center parking lot on the east side of Fifth Avenue North, where the philanthropic organization plans to build its world headquarters, said Center director Virginia Anderson."It was a tough negotiation," she added. Indeed, according to the city, the Seattle Center is on the hook for using approximately $28 million of the purchase price to pay for building a 1,000-stall parking structure, for relocating a waste-reduction facility, for some of the costs needed to relocate the skateboard park and basketball court on the site, as well as for remedial work on contaminated soil and groundwater at the northwest corner of the site, where a Metro bus barn and refueling station once stood.
Thousands of dollars in grants are now available to low-to-moderate-income residents in Seattle who want to retrofit their homes against earthquakes, through a new program backed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The $1-million Home Retrofit Grant program grants up to $5,000 per household for seismic improvements such as bolting a building to its foundation, reinforcing walls and securing water heaters.
Cash-strapped and facing new vote-counting disputes over a controversial governor's race, the Washington state legislature convened Monday, Jan. 10, and representatives from the 36th District - which includes Magnolia and Queen Anne - are gathering forces for a long, hard battle.State representatives Mary Lou Dickerson (D-Phinney Ridge) and Helen Sommers (D- Magnolia), along with Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Queen Anne), say as a group they are entering the new session with a list of priorities that tilt heavily toward bolstering education and strengthening families.
The kick-off meeting introducing the new, 2004 members of the Magnolia Chamber of Commerce was held January, 2004, at Szmania's, with the chamber award for 2003 Business Person of the Year being presented to Bonnie McGoldrick of Secretarial Assistants.February's Open House, held at the Seattle Yacht Club in Elliott Bay Marina, provided a networking opportunity for current, new and potential chamber members. Officials from the Port of Seattle gave a presentation on their development plans for port property.
Regardless of my own political stance, which inclines somewhere due east of Chairman Mao, I believe that it would behoove this paper to run a regular column by an intelligent, articulate conservative commentator.
Visit Bistro International, Lake Washington Technical College's restaurant, on any day it's open and you'll find an assortment of people - faculty and staff, college guests, students, alumni, construction workers and others from the public at large.
We sprinkle our lives with celebrations. Many, like birthdays and New Year, occur merely by the passage of time. Others, far more meaningful, commemorate profound effort.On a local scale there perhaps should be more celebrations than there are and, I suggest, even celebrations for significant non-occurrences.Consider pivotal non-occurrences for Discovery Park. Regrettably, the defeat of a proposed golf course provoked no celebration. Similarly, no festivities were held when a proposed expansion of West Point was shelved.And most likely, no public jubilee will mark Capehart Housing not becoming a new development of private housing in the center of Discovery Park.Seattle's largest park might have experienced years of constructing many single and multiple-unit homes with attendant traffic forever blighting its natural setting.Joyously, last month this fate was averted by a multi-party agreement of understanding to transfer Capehart to our city's parks department. This non-development is as worthy a cause for celebration as any local event that actually happened. Alas, don't expect a gala.
Elliot Bay is graced with a slender necklace of parks, and soon another gem will be added to that necklace: 2.4 acres of land on West Galer Street at the top of the Magnolia Bridge - a stunning overlook with views of the city, the bay and Mount Rainier.Seattle Parks and Recreation has initiated a public process for naming this site, and if you ask many people in our community, a clear consensus has emerged to name it after the late Ursula Judkins.Who was Ursula Judkins? At the behest of her friend (and another community hero, Heidi Carpine), in 1987 Ursula began to devote her energies full-time to Magnolia and became a fixture at meetings on behalf of the community.Ursula's contributions brought honorary proclamations from the mayor, the city council and the county executive. In 1999, then director of the Department of Neighborhoods Jim Diers - noting that Seattle has an international reputation as a city where neighborhood activists play a major role - stated that "Magnolia is known as a community in Seattle where much of the citizen activism is centered. But people in Magnolia know that activism begins with Ursula."
As our guide pointed out the slabs of bacon, perfectly fried eggs, turnips, clumps of popcorn, jumbo scallops and strands of fettuccini scattered around, my youngest son exclaimed, "I'm getting real hungry, Mom!"It might have been easy to appease his hunger had we been near a diner or café. But we were far from any eating establishment. Anyway, I knew my son's comment was a direct attempt at humor, made in reference to the amazing formations surrounding us in Arizona's Kartchner Caverns.
One thing I've always liked about Washington state is that this is an area that generally goes its own way despite national trends and fads.A good friend of mine in Cincinnati, a physician and poet, loved and hated the adopted town where I was born, raised and started working for newspapers.He said once that because of Cincinnati's overwhelmingly Germanic tinge (the town boasts the biggest Octoberfest in the world outside of Munich), there were only three things a contrarian could do there on the banks of the Ohio River: be crushed in rebellion, conform or leave.Seattle has always offered other options.
Seattle, conservative pundits like to observe, is an island surrounded by reality.For which solid, Seattle liberal Jim Diers has a ready reply: "There's a lot of reality here," he says with a characteristic burst of laughter.Diers, at 52, should know. He's been around the civic block a time or two.Diers was the first director of the Department of Neighborhoods, serving in that capacity from 1988 to 2002. He immersed himself in grassroots activism, endless meetings and the often numbingly glacial speed of the famous Seattle process.But Diers got things done, including the development of the Neighborhood Matching Fund and the P-Patch program.He was booted from his post by Greg Nickels - he had supported Paul Schell in the mayoral primary. It was Nickels' way of saying there was a new gun in town.
The former location of a defunct nursing home on the edge of Kiwanis Ravine just off 36th Avenue West has been transformed into a luxury housing development called Herons Ridge. Five of the nine homes planned for the location went up for sale in February, and with prices ranging from $850,000 to $1.3 million, the development is the Magnolia equivalent of the Bellevue-based "Street of Dreams" housing projects.
Washington parents should be confident that their children are safe during school hours and while taking part in extracurricular activities. However, as the recent Seattle Times series "Coaches Who Prey" so chillingly demonstrates, this is not always the case.
Last week I presented a workout rotation (Magnolia News, Health Section, Jan. 12) I've adapted from Hugo Rivera and James Villepigue's book, "The Body Sculpting Bible" as a means of creating a disciplined exercise routine.As I said, if you haven't been to the gym in a while, you will definitely want to take yourself through the two-week break-in period.This will allow your body and mind to adjust to the work of a safe, efficient and fulfilling exercise habit - without feeling like you're going to die in the process.Aside from consistency, changing your workout every two weeks is the key to getting into great shape. Our body's adaptability is the reasoning behind this pattern.After two weeks, your muscles get used to your routine and your body's fat burning capabilities plateau. This week, I will present a three-day rotation that should be done twice a week over a six-week period before starting over without the break-in routine. As always, the emphasis will be not on how much you can lift, but how you lift. However, you will be feeling stronger and able to lift more weight, using proper form, as you progress.
Seattle, conservative pundits like to observe, is an island surrounded by reality.For which solid, Seattle liberal Jim Diers has a ready reply: "There's a lot of reality here," he says with a characteristic burst of laughter.Diers, at 52, should know. He's been around the civic block a time or two.Diers was the first director of the Department of Neighborhoods, serving in that capacity from 1988 to 2002. He immersed himself in grassroots activism, endless meetings and the often numbingly glacial speed of the famous Seattle process. But he got things done, including the development of the Neighborhood Matching Fund and the P-Patch program.Diers was booted from his post by Greg Nickels - he had supported Paul Schell in the mayoral primary. It was Nickels' way of saying there was a new gun in town.Diers landed handsomely on his feet. These days he's working as liaison to Seattle communities for the University of Washington Office of Partnerships, is director of the South Downtown Foundation and on the faculties of the University of Washington Department of Architecture and the Asset-Based Community Development Institute.
Magnolia Karate Academy competitors won 31 first, second, third and fourth place medals in the annual Invitational Ryobu-Kai Northwest Classic in Portland, Ore., on Feb. 29.
