February 2011

The first two of seven single family homes at The Terrace at Greenbridge are now officially on the market. On the southwest corner of SW 100th St. and 8th Ave. SW in White Center is a 4 bedroom, 1,500 Square foot home, priced at $274,900. To it's west is a 3 bedroom, 1,349 square foot home at $249,900, slightly more with natural gas connection. Appliances are included in the airy layouts.

They will be completed at the beginning of April. The other five will be completed at one month intervals. The seven homes are available only to buyers earning up to 80-percent of the area median income, and up to $45,000 in down payment assistance is offered.

For a single buyer, annual income cannot exceed $45,100. For two people, $51,550, a family of 3 is $58,000, a family of 4, $64,400.

Press Release:
Japanese American Day of Remembrance observes the anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, following the attack on Pearl Harbor. It authorized the evacuation and incarceration of 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast, most of whom were U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.

In Washington state, nearly 13,000 people of Japanese descent were ultimately sent to detention centers. Most Seattleites ended up at Camp Minidoka near Hunt, Idaho, while the majority of rural Western Washington evacuees were sent to Tule Lake in California.

Filmmaker Tadashi Nakamura is a fourth- generation Japanese American. His films include A Song for Ourselves, a trilogy that includes Pilgrimage. This award-winning film tells the story of how an abandoned WWII concentration camp for Japanese Americans was transformed into a symbol of retrospection and solidarity for people of all nationalities.

On Saturday, Feb 5, author Jamie Ford will visit Secret Garden Bookshop to read from his New York Times bestselling book, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet."

Set in Seattle in the 1940s and 80s, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet tells the story about a Chinese-American boy who falls in love with a Japanese-American girl during the most conflicted and volatile times in American history.

The story's protagonist is Henry Lee, a son of a Chinese nationalist, who in the height of World War II meets
Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese-American girl. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and anti-Japanese persecution, Henry and Keiko forge a forbidden bond of friendship and innocent love. Henry and Keiko are separated when Keiko and her family are rounded up and evacuated to an internment camp.

Forty years later, in the 1980s, Henry comes across what he believes to be Keiko's parasol when Japanese belongings from the encampments are found in the basement of the Panama Hotel. Now a widower, Henry reflects back on the 1940s, the choices he made, and the struggles between him and his nationalistic father in comparison to him and his own modern Chinese-American son.

Cinnamon, a baby calf and Monroe resident, literally took the stage at Highland Park Elementary School this morning in one of four Seattle school stops this month as part of the Washington Grown Harvest of the Month, a nutrition program that each month showcases a Washington grown item in school cafeterias and classrooms.

Helen Walsh is working on a grant through CPPW, Communities Putting Prevention at Work. She is with the Seattle School District in the Health Education office.

"We are promoting Washington grown food," she said. "Many counties have dairies. For some of these kids this is the first time they've ever seen a cow. It's great for them to get an understanding of how our own state has very healthy things for their bodies. Our Seattle School District gets all their milk products from Auburn and Kent."

Judy Odermann is the Washington State Dairy Women Ambassador Advisor.

From the SPD Blotter:
On February 2nd, Seattle Police Department Aggressive Driving Response Team (ADRT) conducted an operation in the 3300 block of SW Admiral Street. Six officers in Dodge Chargers were deployed in the area. Although the daily ticket count will not be provided, the most productive hour yielded 44 tickets.

Many cars were travelling at speeds exceeding 50 mph – the posted speed is 30 mph. The most egregious driver was travelling 55 MPH!

Seattle speeders beware. These types of operations occur regularly.

For the last year Seattle has been plagued by bedbugs. Now, a Seattle company is taking on the bed bug crisis in a discreet yet aggressive manner.

“Our approach is to treat bedbugs like hazardous waste,” said Mike McKee, President of Discreet Waste Removal.

“People are calling us up desperate, some in tears, wanting to kick their infested mattresses and pillows to the curb, but getting rid of infested items without extreme care can spread bedbugs throughout a home or building.”

While Discreet's pest control technicians look like they're handling nuclear materials in their Tyvex suits, plastic booties and surgical gloves, their removal trucks are completely unmarked to avoid broadcasting the problem to neighbors.

"There's a negative perception of bedbugs and this way we keep the problem private," McKee said.

The infested items are double bagged and taped up and are taken to one of five dumpsites.

"We just started this business two months ago due to the increase in numbers of phone calls we got from people with bed bugs," McKee said, who also owns a junk-hauling business.

"We're getting 10 to 12 calls a months."

Saturday, Feb 5, is apparently recognized as the International Ice Cream For Breakfast Day, meaning people are encouraged to celebrate their favorite icy treat by pairing it with their morning cup of coffee.

There are mixed accounts about where this rather unofficial holiday started but one website claims that the story of its origin goes as follows:

"Once upon a time there was a little girl named Ruth and a little boy named Joe.  Ruth  and Joe grew up in the back of beyond in New York state where it was very very cold.  Every winter between New Year's Eve and Passover, life in up-state New York got extremely boring, so their parents invented a holiday to brighten up the dreary days of winter.  It was called Ice Cream For Breakfast Day.  This was a wonderful holiday for children and parents alike because to celebrate you had to eat ice cream for breakfast on the
first Saturday in February.
Well, Ruth and Joe grew up and went away to a university.  They made many friends and taught them all about Ice Cream For Breakfast Day."

These people have been converting those they come across into Ice Cream For Breakfast Day observers and the holiday grew.

The Ballard girls basketball team visited Garfield last night who celebrated their Senior Night with a win over the Lady Beavers.

The Beavers had a slow start getting the ball in the basket and allowed the Bulldogs to get ahead by seven points at the end of the first quarter. By half time, the Beavers were down by 17.

The Lady Beavers came back stronger in the second half, outscoring the Bulldogs by five points in the second half. But it wasn't enough and the Bulldogs won with a final score of 54 to 42.

Despite the loss, Ballard had their season low of 11 turnovers and a season high with 34 rebounds. Senior Elena DeWeese was the high scorer for the Beavers with 13 points and six rebounds.

The Lady Beavers are officially out of the playoffs and their last game of the season is Friday night at Roosevelt.

By Patrick Dunn

Have you ever needed a piece of wood to be just a wee bit thinner for your project? Hardware and lumber stores will never be able to carry every thickness of wood. If you need anything outside their range of options, then you’re going either to have to fork over a couple more bucks to have the piece custom milled or you’re going to have to do a little woodwork yourself. Luckily, thickness planers make this work pretty simple.

A thickness planer allows you to work a board down to just about any thickness you like with relative ease and not a whole lot of required skill. These planers in general have a good bit of variation across makes and models, but all of them are composed of at least two main parts: a cutting head and a set of infeed/outfeed rollers. While the rollers draw the piece through the machine, the cutter head removes a consistent amount of material from the entire width of the piece. Depending on the size and motor of the planer, a piece could be trimmed to size in a single pass or may have to be passed through the planer a few times before reaching its required thickness.

Ballardite Bret Wirta has joined the Washington’s National Park Fund Board of Directors and brings with him a wide range of experience and leadership in conservation and business.

Wirta is thee owner and CEO of Wirta Hospitality Worldwide which builds, owns and manages community-inspired hospitality projects. His most recent project, The Holiday Inn Express and Conference Center in Sequim, features a 44-solar panel array on the roof of the new conference center. Wirta’s goal is to show fellow owners and developers that sustainability is economically compatible with affordability.

“Bret’s efforts in promoting environmental sustainability will be invaluable to the board,” said Washington’s National Park Fund Board President Greg Moga.

“I look forward to working with him in fulfilling our mission of preserving and protecting Washington’s National Parks.”

An avid hiker, Wirta especially likes the Olympic Peninsula. His latest project is launching a website designed to reach those who are not regular hikers or who may never have explored the Olympic Peninsula.