Spirit of Washington Dinner Train customers who are wondering when and if they'll get a refund for their tickets and gift certificates on the now-defunct train, here's the latest from the train's staff:

Look for a refund on your next credit card statement soon if you bought a ticket or gift certificate anytime between Sept. 1 and the train's suspension of service Monday.

If the train staff didn't have a credit card number or you paid in cash, the train is mailing refund checks to the person who bought the tickets.

The train company is collecting names from persons who bought tickets before Sept. 1.

"We don't know yet whether we'll have enough money to refund those purchases," said Kelly Norris, a dinner train spokeswoman. "We're trying to sort things out."

The dinner train ended service Monday after its three-month experiment with service from Tacoma to Lake Kapowsin failed to generate enough revenue to cover expenses. The train had run successfully for 15 years from Renton to Woodinville, but was forced to leave that route by planned construction on Interstate 405 which will sever the tracks.

Customers with questions should call the train's toll-free line, 800-876-7245, and leave a message, advised Norris.

The state Department of Labor and Industries reports that two Vancouver brothers – Jerry and James Schram, owners of an excavation business – pleaded not guilty today in Clark County Superior Court to 31 felony counts each for violating state labor laws.

Among the charges, the Schrams are accused of defrauding the L&I by not accurately reporting their employees’ hours worked and risk classifications. The information is used to determine premiums for workers’ compensation insurance. They are also accused of not paying overtime properly when employees worked more than 40 hours a week.

L&I has assessed a $650,000 fine against Schram Excavating LLC for deliberate misrepresentation — five times the estimated unpaid premiums of $129,000. This penalty was assessed because the firm did not change its reporting practices following a 2003 audit that found the company was not reporting all of its hourly workers and not reporting the correct risk classifications.

“We consider the Schrams to be repeat offenders who have tried to cheat the state’s workers’ compensation program and to create an unfair business advantage in their industry in Southwest Washington,” said Carl Hammersburg, manager of L&I’s Fraud Prevention and Compliance Program.

The Washington State Attorney General's Office filed the charges Sept. 14, with the assistance of the Clark County Prosecutor's Office. Susan DanPullo, Assistant Attorney General, will try the case. Each brother has been charged with 24 counts of first-degree theft and seven counts of false reporting. In addition, James Schram has been charged with one count of tampering with a witness.

Trial is scheduled for January 23, 2008.

Tacoma's J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. this week launched the first of two tractor tugs it's building for Florida-based Signet Maritime Corp.

The Signet America is powered by two MTU Detroit Diesel 16-cylinder engines producing 3,305 horsepower each.

Those diesels drive two propeller systems that can swivel in any direction to propel the ship assist tug backward, forward or sideways.

The new tug is 98 feet long and 40 feet wide. Company President Joe Martinac Jr. said he expects the new tug will be delivered in January.

Signet will use the America and a sister tug mainly to help two oil platform construction companies in Houston move the platforms that are under construction.

Martinac, whose yard stood silent for years, has enjoyed a burst of new business in recent months. It now employs about 100 workers at its shipyard on the Thea Foss Waterway near downtown Tacoma.

It recently built two ocean-going tugs for Oregon's Sause Brothers. It has a contract to build a second tug for Signet, the Signet Stars & Stripes. That second tug will be delivered to Signet in late spring next year.

The yard also has contracts to build three tugs for the Navy. Those tugs will be used at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton.

Martinac is also working with two other Puget Sound shipyards, Seattle's Todd Pacific and Whidbey Island's Nichols Brothers, to build a series of new ferries for the state ferry system.

This just in from The Associated Press:

Weyerhaeuser Co., one of the world’s largest lumber and packaging producers, said today its third-quarter profit dropped 55 percent as weakness in the housing construction market hurt its wood products and real estate businesses.

But excluding one-time items, the results beat Wall Street expectations, sending shares higher even as the company said it expects market conditions to remain challenging.

Despite forecasting some difficult quarters ahead, Chief Executive Steven Rogel said the company is well positioned to benefit significantly when the housing market eventually recovers.

=> Read more!

People who live in apartments and condominiums and who have no choice among cable providers may soon get the ability to choose.

The Federal Communications Commission earlier today adopted a Report and Order banning the use of exclusivity clauses for the provision of video services to multiple dwelling units or other real estate developments.

The commission took the step to "foster greater competition in the market for the delivery of multichannel video programming."

A spokesman for Tacoma's Click! Network is pleased with the decision, as it may allow the utility access to apartments and condos unavailable under previously agreed exclusive contracts.

A spokeswoman for Comcast says the company will wait for more information before appealing.

Read more in tomorrow's edition of The News Tribune.

Early predictions for the state’s economy are out (or in), and the bloom remains off the rose. But there's no cause to panic.

Chang Mook Sohn, executive director of the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council has sent his preliminary forecast to members of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors.

Among the prognostications (which members of the council may correct, as they see fit):

• Real personal income will fall 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter and rise 4.4 percent in 2008.
• Wage and salary employment will see 1.4 percent growth in the fourth quarter and 1.8 percent next year.
• Manufacturing employment will rise 1.5 percent in the quarter and 0.4 percent in 2008.
• Construction employment will rise 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter and 0.8 percent next year.

And lest the council become fearful, the director says in October, as he did in September: “(W)e have assumed tht the credit and liquidity squeeze will have an adverse impact on housing and construction in Washington but that the impcat will be much less than in the rest of the country.”

The launch customer for Boeing's enlarged 737-900ER, Indonesia's Lion Air, will more than double its order for the aircraft, a media report from Indonesia says.

Lion Air has orders for 60 of the 737s. It plans to raise that order to 122 at an Indonesia air show in December, a Chinese paper says.

People's Daily attributed the report of the doubled order to a Lion Air executive.

Lion Air is a low-cost carrier that is attempting to secure a dominant position in Indonesia's airline industry.

The 737-900ER is a longer range version of the 737 lineup's largest aircraft.

Lion Air was the first airline to order the aircraft.

Danish authorities have blamed the crash-landing of an SAS Bombardier Q400 aircraft Saturday in Copenhagen on a landing gear problem different from one that caused two earlier crashes.

Last weekend's crash along with two similar SAS incidents in September caused SAS to remove the Q400 from its fleet permanently. See the crash video here.

Authorities say that a preliminary investigation shows the landing gear failure in the most recent crash was not caused by the corrosion of a bolt that led to the September crashes.

That report shows a rubber O-ring blocked an orifice in the landing gear preventing the gear from extending fully.

The twin-engine turboprop plane's right landing gear never extended much beyond the wheelwell where it was stowed in flight, so when the plane landed, the aircraft tipped toward the right until the right wingtip struck the ground. No passengers or crew members were seriously injured.

Other airlines flying the Q400, including SeaTac's Horizon Air,have kept their Q400s flying after the latest incident on the advice of the plane's manufacturer. Horizon has 33 Q400s and 15 more on order.

The two previous incidents triggered a worldwide grounding of the aircraft while they underwent inspections.

Horizon canceled hundreds of flights but found no significant problems with its Q400s.

When you order Boeing 737s by the dozen, you sometimes take delivery of a small fleet all at once.

That's the case for European low-cost carrier Ryanair which recently took delivery of numbers 146, 147, 148, 149 and 150 Boeing 737s for its fleet.

The five latest deliveries are shown here together at Boeing Field where they were test flown prior to handover to Ryanair.

Ryanair reportedly got the 737s at a bargain price because it ordered huge quantities of the twin-aisle jets during the airline order slump after the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

Ryanair is known for outrageous prices. It even gives some seats away on some flights. But count on spare accomodations in return for low prices: No seatback pockets, tray tables covered with advertising messages, no window shades and extra charges for just about everything, checking bags, airport transportation and inflight snacks.

Ryanair still has 121 737s on order with Boeing after the latest deliveries.

Despite equipment problems that sidelined Amtrak's Spanish-designed Talgo trains in the Northwest from August through late October, ridership grew 7.4 percent in the last year, Amtrak reports.

The rail passenger service's Cascades trains, which provides rail service in the corridor from Eugene, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C., grew for the eighth consecutive year.

Cascades trains carried 674,000 passengers in the fiscal year that stretches from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, the rail passenger service said. Tacoma was the second busiest station for Amtrak in Washington with more than 100,000 passengers. Seattle was first with nearly 600,000.

Nationwide, Amtrak ridership reached 25,847,531, the fifth straight year of increasing traffic.

Amtrak took the Cascades' Talgo equipment out of service in August because an inspection showed small cracks in the trains' suspension system. Those cracks were repaired and all five Talgo trains returned to service last week. In the interim, Amtrak substituted slower, older trains for the Talgo equipment.

University Place's Town Center project is beginning to have spin-off effects even before it opens.

Construction has begun on a new mixed condominium-retail project at 3318 Bridgeport Way W. across the street from the Town Center site.

The Alicia will feature somewhat larger-than-normal condominiums. Those 24 residential units will range from 1,380 square feet to 2,211 square feet. All will have at least two bedrooms and a den and two baths. Larger units will have 2/1/2 baths.

Wonderland Investment is building the four-story structure. The ground floor will feature four office and commercial spaces ranging in size from 1,100 to 2,600 square feet. The building, which also features a 24-space garage for residents, is expected to open in March.

Town Center is a $250-million development featuring up-scale retail and office buildings due to open beginning next year. The project is located along Bridgeport Way West between 35th Street West and Homestead Park.

It’s called the National Financial Education Network Summit, but Kerry Killinger, chairman and CEO of Washington Mutual, said the name doesn’t quite fit.

“We call it a summit, but we’re a long way from that,” he said. “This is more like base camp.”

Today and tomorrow, Washington Mutual – along with the state Department of Financial Institutions and a handful of business-related organizations – is sponsoring the gathering at the bank’s Cedarbrook Leadership Center in Sea Tac.

More than a hundred educators, officials, bankers and other business leaders have come to build both partnerships and a national strategy to foster financial literacy.

I’m working on a story for tomorrow’s edition that discusses the conference - and I had a few minutes with Killinger.

During our conversation, I asked Killinger to list the top three things he’d say to readers on the subject of finances. His list:
1. To talk openly with their family members about finances and the importance of saving.
2. To fully understand all the terms and conditions of any loan before they take out that loan.
3. To place a high priority on setting aside regular savings. How much? Six months’ worth of income to be fully prepared for whatever financial storms might arise.

Cascade Eye & Skin Centers is completing an $8 million medical facility in University Place at 5225 Cirque Dr. This will be the group’s fifth center.

When it opens in February, the 26,000-sq.-ft. site will provide patients with vision and dermatology services, along with a full-service cosmetic center, optical shop, pathology and Mohs surgical suite for advanced skin cancer treatment.

The clinic will house five dermatologists, one fellowship-trained Mohs surgeon and three ophthalmologists. A total of some 70 employees will work at the center, and owners expect to serve an average of 400 patients daily.

The building also comprises 6,500 square feet of leaseable space.

Cascade employees 170 people at four centers. Owners expect to open a sixth center in South Hill in August.

Five-year-old Northwest Commercial Bank set records during the third quarter for total assets, loans and deposits – while marking a ninth consecutive quarter of profitability.

Loans rose 26 percent during the quarter to $55,598,000, said Kurt Graff, bank president and CEO. This compares to $44,049,000 for the same quarter in 2006.

Graff reported a 16 percent increase in profits for the quarter, up from $103,000 in the same period last year to $119,000 at the end of the latest quarter.

As of Sept. 30, Northwest Commercial Bank recorded deposits of $57,976,000, an increase of 11 percent over the period a year ago.

Graff said assets showed a 14 percent increase from $58,239,000 to $66,163,000 at the end of September. Total revenue rose 23 percent to $3,537,000.

Loan quality remains strong, with no charge-offs, Graff said. One small loan, at approximately $100,000, has been placed on the nonaccrual list.

The Lakewood-based bank recently opened a loan production office in Auburn, and a full branch will follow, following regulatory approval, perhaps after the first of the year.

Who says cars were invented in the 19th century? Think prehistoric. The LeMay Museum collection of all-things-automobile has now grown to include a Stone Age artifact: the car used by the Fred Flintstone family back when brontosauruses offered the only other means of locomotion for residents of Bedrock.

The car, powered by Fred’s two feet, offers seating for four, sides unencumbered by doors, and a cabriolet roof. Accessories include animal skin upholstery and a log suspension.

Museum steering committee member Peter Hegeman of Kirkland recently donated the vehicle to the LeMay collection, according to the latest edition of the museum’s magazine, “Open Road.”

The museum, by the way, will celebrate its 5th Annual Fabulous ‘50s Sock Hop on Nov. 17. The evening includes dinner, dancing and a silent auction, with all proceeds going to the museum. Call 253-779-8490 for further information.

The Associated Press reports that an Internet company called the Excused Absence Network is selling fake doctors' notes and jury summons to people wanting to play hooky from work.

Note: The Biz Buzz doesn't endorse using fake excuses to skip work. We don't mind skipping work - but the excuses need to be real. Like going to Disneyland. Or having shingles.

A bit of the story:

For about $25, students and employees can buy excuse notes that appear to come from doctors or hospitals. Other options include a fake jury summons or an authentic-looking funeral service program complete with comforting poems and a list of pallbearers.

Some question whether the products are legal or ethical -- or even work -- but the company's owners say they're just helping people do something they would have done anyway.

"Millions of Americans work dead-end job, and sometimes they just need a day off," said John Liddell, co-founder of the Internet-based company Vision Matters, which sells the notes as part of its Excused Absence Network. "People are going to lie anyway. How many people go visit their doctors every day when they're not sick because they just need a note?"

Read the rest here.

Fat with cash generated by its increasingly profitable commercial airplane business, The Boeing Company board of directors has approved a new stock repurchase plan.

That plan calls for buying back up to $7 billion of common stock.

"Our strong financial performance allows us to return value to our shareholders while continuing to invest in our growth and becoming more productive," said Boeing Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Jim McNerney. "We are executing a balanced cash deployment strategy that's serving Boeing and its shareholders well."

That buyback plan extends a buyback plan in place since 2004 under which some $8 million in Boeing stock has been bought back.

Stock buybacks reduce the number of shares on the market and raise the value of each remaining share if everything else remains the same.

Boeing's stock has nearly quadrupled in value since 2003 mainly because of the increasing strength of the company's sales.

The company didn't specify when or how many shares it would buy back.

The board also declared a dividend of 35 cents a share.

The dividend declared today is payable Dec. 7, 2007, to shareholders of record as of Nov. 9.

One of the Boeing Co.'s major 787 Dreamliner partner companies, Italy's Finmeccanica, has halted shipping major fuselage sections of the 787 to Boeing.

The company makes two sections of the Dreamliner fuselage and its horizontal tail.

The company said it has already sent pieces of the first six aircraft to Boeing, but until Boeing reorganizes its production plan, it will stop shipping further pieces to Boeing's Everett plant.

Boeing nearly three weeks ago delayed introduction of the Dreamliner into commercial service by six months because of assembly and supply chain issues.

The company then said it was reconfiguring its plan to produce the twin-engine jetliners to allow suppliers to catch up with their work.

Some major pieces of the first 787 came from suppliers without wiring, plumbing and fasteners the suppliers had promised to install.

Alenia Aeronautica, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica, is producing 14 percent of the 787's structure. It builds two sections of the fiber fuselage at a site in Grottaglie, Italy, from carbon fiber composite material. It also builds the horizontal stabilizer at its facility in Foggia, Italy.

In its latest quarterly report on industrial and commercial real estate, CB Richard Ellis says “the economy has been restored and the Puget Sound’s office market is glowing again.”

Of 3.637 million square feet of net rentable office space in Tacoma, the firm lists a vacancy rate of 7.64 percent, well below the Puget Sound area vacancy rate of 10.45 percent. Puyallup sees a vacancy rate of only 4.78 percent, while Fife climbs to 31.2 percent, the highest in the region, with 33,698 of 108,000 square feet vacant.

The firm lists a total asking rate in the Tacoma-Fife area of $21.51 per square foot, below the regional total of $28.39.

Third-quarter industrial numbers show a decrease of the vacancy rate in the Tacoma-fife market, “and although it was small, it was a welcoming sight after two consecutive quarters of increased vacancy.”

Warehouse, manufacturing and business park vacancies fell to 10.57 percent in the county, down from 10.91 percent, CB Richard Ellis reported.

The federal Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy is out with its latest numbers on the impact of small businesses nationwide - and in Washington. Among the findings:

• In 2006, Washington had an estimated 578,300 small businesses, of which 194,600 were employer firms.

• Small businesses employed 55.8 percent of the state’s non-farm private workforce in 2004.

• The state had 26,900 Asian-owned firms; 7,000 Black-owned firms; 10,300 Hispanic-owned firms; 5,700 Native American-owned firms; and 730 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander-owned firms, according to the latest – 2002 – available data.

• Women-owned firms totaled 137,400 and generated $17.4 billion in revenues in 2002.

For a copy of all the state and territory small business profiles, visit the Office of Advocacy website at www.sba.gov/advo.

Another landing gear incident with a Bombardier Q400 aircraft in Europe Saturday could have service implications for SeaTac's Horizon Air.

A Scandinavian Airlines flight from Bergen, Norway to Copenhagen, Denmark made an emergency landing after its right-side landing gear malfunctioned. The gear collapsed on landing.

SAS grounded its fleet of Q400s for the second time after the incident in which none of the 40 passengers was injured. The company's board later decided to eliminate Q400s from the airline's fleet because of the lingering mechanical problems. SAS flies 27 Q400s, 26 of them leased.

The airline had halted service in September after right-side landing gear on two Q400s collapsed on landing in two separate incidents.

That led to worldwide Q400 groundings while the landing gear was inspected. Horizon Air was severely affected with the airline canceling hundreds of its Q400 flights over a two-week period. Horizon's inspections discovered
no significant problems with its 33 Q400s. Those problems cost Horizon between $4 million and $5 million, the airline reported.

The plane's manufacturer has advised its customers that at least for now it isn't recommending the planes be grounded again.

Bombardier questioned SAS's decision to remove the planes from its fleet before the investigation of the latest incident is complete.

Horizon has thus far made no changes to its schedules.

Bombardier sent a factory safety to Denmark to inspect the plane involved in the incident.

The former Highland Hill Gottschalks is coming down this week.

The store at 5915 Sixth Ave. closed in mid-September and the demolition process began less than a month later. The store is the second Pierce County Gottschalks to close. A store on Puyallup's South Hill closed in 2005.

Fresno, Calif.-based Gottschalks has not had much success with the remnants of the Lamonts clothing store chain which it bought in 2000. Most of the former Lamonts such as the Highland Hill store are now closed.

Gottschalks itself has encountered tough times in recent years. The company reportedly put itself up for sale earlier this year. The chain, founded in 1904, still ooperates 63 stores along the West Coast.

The company's Lakewood store remains open.
No word yet on what will take Gottschalks place at the revamped Highland Hill.

Boeing's orderbook total for the year rose by three aircraft this week to 922 planes.

The three 737s were sold to unidentified buyers. The single-aisle 737 remains Boeing's best seller with 515 net orders for the year.

In second place is the aerospace giant's 787 Dreamliner with 262 orders this year. The twin-engine, long range 777 has garnered 103 total orders in 2007 so far, and the 767 has gained 36 orders.

The 747's orders for the year total just six, but Boeing has said it expects more substantial orders in the next few months for the newest version of the original jumbo jet.

Alaska Airlines launches daily roundtrip service to the Hawaiian island of Kauai Sunday.

The SeaTac-based airline will be the only carrier providing non-stop service to the "Garden Isle". Lihue is Alaska's second non-stop Hawaiian destination. The airline started Hawaiian service Oct. 12 with non-stop service to Honolulu.

Alaska will begin service to Honolulu from Anchorage Dec. 9.

The airline will use single-aisle Boeing 737-800 jets for the service.

The new daily Seattle-Lihue flights depart Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at
4:20 p.m. Pacific time and arrive in Lihue at 7:45 p.m. Hawaii time. Return flights depart Lihue at 9:15 p.m. Hawaii time and arrive in Seattle at 5:55 a.m. Pacific time.

An investor group led by Macquarie Bank Ltd., Australia’s largest investment bank, agreed to take private Puget Energy Inc., owner of Washington’s largest utility, for $3.51 billion to capitalize on economic growth in the U.S. Northwest, Bloomberg News reports.

The group, which is led by Macquarie Infrastructure Partners and includes the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and British Columbia Investment Management Corp., will pay $30 a share in cash, Bellevue, Washington-based Puget Energy said today in a statement.

That represents a 25 percent premium over yesterday’s closing price.

=> Read more!

Microsoft shareholders must be happy today. Shares in the technology company jumped to their highest level in six years. The stock has been sitting under $30 for a long time but moved above that line in the last month.

On Thursday, the company beat earnings projections by more than $1 billion, proving the new version of Windows has reinvigorated growth.

Shares advanced $3.87, or 12 percent, to $35.86 at 12:01 p.m., the highest since July 2001.

The company added about $35 billion in market value and posted the biggest gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, Bloomberg News reported.

=> Read more!

Everett-based Frontier Financial Corp., parent of Frontier Bank, this morning announced third quarter earnings of of $20.2 million, up 9.2 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Per-share income of 46 cents was up 15 percent from a year ago.

Total assets increased 13.7 percent over the year to $3.58 billion, while deposits of $2.82 billion were up 14.5 percent.

The bank opened its 46th, 47th and 48th branch offices in the third and early fourth quarter in Lacey, Bremerton and Gig Harbor. A merger with the Bank of Salem was announced in July, and the transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter. A merger with Washington Banking Co., the parent of Whidbey Island Bank, was announced in September. Frontier expects the transaction to close during the first quarter of 2008.

Frontier stock was trading at $21.00, down 26 cents at 11:15 a.m. Pacific Time.

Tacoma-based Columbia Bank parent Columbia Banking System this morning announced third-quarter earnings of $9.3 million, up 11 percent from the third quarter of 2006. The earnings represent per-share income of 53 cents per share, up one cent from the third quarter of 2006.

Columbia reached what it said is a “milestone” of $3 billion in assets during the quarter. At the end of September, assets were $3.12 billion, up 22 percent from $2.55 billion at the end of last year.

Total deposits at the end of the third quarter were $2.5 billion, also up 22 percent from the end of 2006. Total loans were $2.21 billion, up 29 percent from the end of the fourth quarter.

During the most recent quarter, Columbia allocated $1.2 million to its provision for loan and lease losses, compared to $650,000 for the same period in 2006. Nonaccrual loans rose to $9.9 million from $4.1 million compared to the third quarter a year ago. The increase in nonperforming assets, the bank said in a statement, “was centered in a single $4.9 million credit originated in October of 2006 in which Columbia Bank participates with another lender who acts as agent in the transaction.” The borrower “is engaged in the business of selling residential lots to builders for the purpose of constructing single-family residences.” The loan has been placed on non-accrual status “until a restructure of the debt is completed.”

Columbia completed a transaction to acquire two banks – Mountain Bank Holding Co. and Town Center Bancorp – during the quarter. The company now counts 53 branches in nine counties in Western Washington and Oregon. A Lacey branch, delayed by permitting, is now under construction and should open “in the next few months,” Columbia said.

Also this morning, the Columbia board announced a quarterly cash dividend of 17 cents per share.

Columbia stock was trading up 9 cents to $29.65 in light trading at at 11 a.m. Pacific Time.

Alaska Air Group reported a big earnings turnaround today compared with last year's third quarter.

The company, parent of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, reported third quarter net income of $85.8 million compared with a net loss in the third quarter of 2006 of $17.4 million.

The SeaTac-based airline holding company said average fare levels were up over last year and expenses were down.

"Our record third quarter profit is the result of continued effort to improve revenue, lower costs and maintain solid load factors," said Alaska chairman Bill Ayer. These results reflect the hard work of employees at both Alaska and Horizon."

Passenger traffic, up 4.4 percent, increased faster than capacity, up 3.3 percent in the third quarter. That translated to fuller airlines. The percentage of seats filled in this year's third quarter was 79.7 percent, up .5 percent from the same time last year.

Operating costs per available seat mile decreased 1.1 percent over last year.

At Alaska's sister airline, Horizon, passenger traffic increased 15.9 percent on a 14 percent capacity increase.

Horizon's pretax income for the quarter was $8.3 million compared with $5.9 million for the same period last year.

It’s tough to pick a highlight at the 25th annual Tacoma Holiday Food and Gift Festival going on at the Tacoma Dome. The show opened today, and I was there just after the doors opened.

If forced to name a can’t-miss booth – among some 665 vendors – I’d say look for Booth 90. It’s near the main door. That’s where you’ll find ZuZu.

Actually, you’ll find Karolyn Grimes. She played the part of ZuZu Bailey in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” She’s the one who offered the immortal line: “Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.” She said it again this morning, and I imagine she’ll’ be saying it often throughout the show.

Other than talking with ZuZu (and perhaps buying some of her assorted movie nostalgia ephemera), visitors to the show can expect ornaments, fudge, gifts, a multitude of Santas and snowmen and an assortment of products that you might also find at a state fair: shoe inserts, magic pillows, slicer-dicers, cookware and such.

The show runs through Sunday, opening at 10 a.m. each day and closing at 9 p.m., except on Sunday, when the lights come down at 6.

Microsoft Corp. will buy a stake in social-networking Web site Facebook Inc. and agreed to sell ads for the Internet company overseas, beating out a bid from Google Inc, Bloomberg News reports.

The company will pay $240 million for the stake, valuing Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook at $15 billion, said Adam Sohn, a director in Microsoft’s online services group.

Microsoft, the biggest software maker, is seeking to tap the surge of visitors and advertisers on social-networking sites. Microsoft already has an agreement to sell Facebook ads in the U.S. By winning the international deal with Facebook, the owner of the second-most-popular social site, Microsoft also benefits from growing demand abroad.

=> Read more!

Closing more plants is going to cost Weyerhaeuser Co.

The Federal Way-based forest products company said today that mothballing three of its North American plants will cost between $47 million and $63 million.

Weyerhaeuser said last week it would indefinitely close Canadian oriented strand board plants in Drayton Valley, Alberta, and Wawa, Ontario, plus a laminated strand lumber plant in Deerwood, Minn., before the end of 2007 because of weak customer demand amid the ongoing slump in the North American housing market, The Associated Press reports.

Oriented strand boards, or layers of wood chips glued together, are used for floors, roofs and walls in home construction.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday, Weyerhaeuser said the curtailments would lead to net pretax charges ranging from $30 million to $40 million for asset impairments, $15 million to $19 million for termination benefits for the roughly 420 employees who work at the plants, and between $2 million and $4 million for other closure costs.

Weyerhaeuser said it expects to record the charges from asset impairments and termination benefits in its fourth quarter, which ends Dec. 30.

The numbers tell the story. Boeing's third quarter results today surpassed even the optimistic Wall Street average estimates of company performance.

Compare the real numbers with Wall Street's predictions:

Earnings per share
Wall Street's prediction: $1.25 a share.
Boeing's real number: $1.44 a share.

Percentage profit increase
Wall Street's prediction: Up 40 percent.
Boeing's real number: Up 61 percent.

Third quarter earnings:
Wall Street's prediction: $963 million
Boeing's actual number: $1.1 billion

Third quarter revenues
Wall Street's prediction: $16 billion
Boeing's real numbers: $16.5 billion

Third quarter revenue percentage revenue increase
Wall Street's prediction: Up 8.3 percent
Boeing's numbers: Up 12 percent

Other highlights of the good news earnings report:

*Commercial airplane deliveries increased 9 percent to 109 aircraft.

*Operating cash flow bumped up to $3.3 billion. Boeing now has more than $12 billion in cash despite an increased pace of stock buybacks.

*Boeing's order backlog reached $295 billion.

Boeing also raised its full year earnings per share and total earnings outlook based on these numbers.

The full year profit prediction from Boeing jumped to a range of $5.05 and $5.15 per share, up from a previous forecast of $4.80 to $4.95. Analysts were predicting $5.06, on average.

The delay in 787 deliveries will affect 2008 revenue and profit levels, the company said while keeping its forecasts at previous levels of $5.55 to $5.75 per share, below Wall Street's average estimate of $6.04.

Boeing said it now expects 2008 revenue of $67.5 billion to $68.5 billion, down from its previous estimate of $71 billion to $72 billion.

Will Wall Street react positively? If it does, Boeing stock could regain some of the ground it lost after the company announced the 787 six-month delay two weeks ago.

Postscript: Apparently there's no making Wall Street happy. Analysts seem to be fixing on the reduction in forecast revenue the company is predicting for '08 and the company's decision to hold firm on its earnings estimate for 2008. Note that both of these figures are substantially better than this year's figures, but not as high as the analysts had hoped. In early trading, Boeing stock was down $1.05 or 1.11 percent. That result argues for keeping analysts' expectations low so that they can be surprised.

Compared to a year ago, more people are employed and a lower percentage unemployed in the Tacoma area, the state Employment Security Department reported today.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent in Pierce County at the end of September, the department said. A year ago, 4.8 percent of those people available for jobs were unemployed.

By the numbers, 366,390 people were employed in September in Pierce County. A year ago, 353,860 had jobs.

By specific job, local government saw the greatest decrease in the number of people employed, down from 33,200 positions last year to 32,700 in 2007. The number of people employed in financial activities dropped from 14,700 a year ago to 14,000 at the end of last month.

The service industry saw an increase in the number of people employed, going from 229,000 a year ago to 232,400 in September. The construction industry likewise saw an increase in the number of workers, up from 22,900 jobs to 24,900 in September.

Venture Financial Group, parent of DuPont-based Venture Bank, today reported that earnings have improved for the third quarter compared to the same quarter last year.

For the three months ended September 30, 2007, net income increased $200,000, or 6.7 percent, to $3.2 million – compared to $3 million reported for the third quarter 2006.

Total assets were $1.1 billion at the end of September, an increase of 14.4 percent, or $138.8 million, from assets of $961.2 million a year before.

Total deposits at the end of the most recent quarter were $854.7 million, which was an increase of $103.7 million, or 13.8 percent, from a year ago.

Nonperforming loans as a percentage of total loans increased 12 basis points to 0.24 percent at the end of the quarter, an increase from 0.12 percent a year ago and an increase from 0.10 percent at the end of the fourth quarter 2006.

Net interest margin for the third quarter was 3.99 percent versus 4.52 percent for the three months ended September 30, 2006.

“We are pleased to be on schedule with our goals and objectives and to have met our third quarter projections,” said Ken F. Parsons Sr., Venture Financial Group chairman and CEO.

Venture recently announced it would delay an initial public offering of its stock, which would have been sold on the Nasdaq exchange. Jim Arenson, Venture president, told me today: “We put it on hold because of market conditions. The market hasn’t really changed since then. We’re still watching, and waiting for an opportunity to complete it.”

My Sunday column on Proposition 1 – the regional roads and transit package – generated so much response from readers I decided to devote Wednesday's column to excerpts from those responses.

I argued that Prop 1, while imperfect, deserves support because on issues this big, we can't let waiting for perfect get in the way of progress.

Many folks disagree.

While I'll save the bulk of the reader commentary until Wednesday, I wanted to let you read all of the entertaining, well-argued letter I got from John Keliher of Tacoma. John writes:

I am just a simple fellow looking for a little enlightenment regarding Prop 1. Once upon a time I had a strong undergraduate minor in economics, but that was long ago. At 71, my credentials in econ run more to trying to figure out whether my health insurance will run out before my battles with those pesky problems that afflict the aged result what is, after all, an inevitable termination of interest in the problem of Puget Sound traffic congestion.

=> Read more!

Imagine a newly thriving business district along the waterfront in Gig Harbor. (And maybe there's a 90-year-old Norwegian fisherman sitting on a bench, there to tell stories to passersby.)

Businesses in Gig Harbor are preparing to connect their district to a nationwide program called Main Street. An exploratory committee will hold a Town Hall meeting to explain the program and how it can apply to the Gig Harbor Historic Waterfront District.

The "Main Street Approach" is about economic development with a strong eye toward historic preservation. It’s about growing the business district while remembering the heritage of the area.

The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Wednesday at the Gig Harbor City Hall.

The program focuses on the preservation of small downtown and neighborhood business areas by capitalizing on their on their unique assets: distinctive architecture, a pedestrian-friendly environment, personal service, local ownership, and a sense of community.

If you have any specific question regarding this meeting, please call 253-853-9463.

Workers at the APM Terminal at the Port of Tacoma - which serves Maersk and Horizon Line ships – will stop their operations briefly Wednesday morning to focus on safety.

The "stand-down" is part of a global safety day, said Jack Craig, manager of the APM Terminal in Tacoma. Speakers include Eric Sisco, the president of APM Terminals North America, and Conrad Spell, president of ILWU Local 23.

He added that its significant that program occurs during work hours.

"I think it's a symbol of our commitment to what we want to do," Craig said. "It's significant to stop everybody to refocus on safety."

The program runs from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

Singapore will buy a dozen more F-15 fighters from The Boeing Co., the government said this week.

The planes will be delivered beginning in 2010. The Southeast Asian city-state had begun adding F-15s to its Air Force fleet to replace A-4 Skyhawks in 2005.

The aircraft will be built in Boeing's St. Louis fabrication plant., a former McDonnell Douglas facility.

Analysts expect The Boeing Co. to announce third quarter earnings Wednesday nearly 40 percent more than last year's third quarter profits.

The company's greater production of nine more airliners in the third quarter this year (109) than in the same period last year will help boost the bottom line.

Wall Street analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News expect Boeing earnings for the quarter will be $963 million compared with $694 million in the third quarter of 2006.

That earnings figure translates into per share earnings of $1.25 compared with 89 cents for the same time in 2006.

Sales are expected to jump too. Analysts say they are predicting sales will hit $16 billion for the quarter, up 8.3 percent.

News of a six-month delay in the delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner has depressed Boeing stock of late, but the company has said it doesn't expect that delay to have any material effect on earnings.

The company will release its earnings figures at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday Pacific Time. Investors can listen in on the quarterly earnings call on the Internet at 7:30 a.m. at www.boeing.com.

A well-known Seattle real estate development company, Benaroya Co, has purchased the former Microchip Technology campus on Puyallup's South Hill for a fraction of its original asking price.

According to Puyallup officials, Benaroya plans to redevelop the 92-acre tech campus as a mixed use business park and residential development.

Microchip Technology bought the campus and its 10 buildings with 710,000 square feet of space in 2000 intending to revive computer wafer production at the facility.

But Microchip instead expanded at a plant in Gresham, Ore., and left the Puyallup campus vacant.

The Chandler, Ariz., company put the campus on the market in 2003 for $93 million. According to Pierce County property records, Benaroya paid $30 million for the site and buildings off 39th Avenue SE.

Built originally in the '80s by Fairchild Semiconductor Corp, the plant once employed some 800 workers producing microchips. The plant went through several ownerships including that of Schlumberger Ltd of France, National Semiconductor, Matsushita of Japan and Microchip.

Matsushita had planned to reopen the plant after it acquired it, but never got production really rolling after it spend some $220 million re-equiping the plant.

Benaroya owns high tech industrial parks and office structures throughout the Puget Sound area.

Among those properties are Benaroya Business Parks in Fife and in Sumner.

The Benaroya family started in the real estate development business in Seattle in 1956. In 1984, the family sold its entire portfolio of properties intending to devotes its energy to philanthropy and venture capital funding.

Seattle's Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony, is named after the family. Like the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason Medical Center bears the family name.

The company reentered the real estate business in 1995.

Alaska Airlines is raising fares $5 to $10 each way to help offset rising fuel prices.

Alaska is joining a parade of U.S. airlines that are upping fares to cope with fuel cost increases.

The SeaTac-based airline will increase fares $5 for shorter West Coast routes and $10 for transcontinental flights.

"With the price of a barrel of crude oil spiking more than 50 percent since this time last year, jet fuel is now our largest single expense, accounting for more than 30 percent of our overall operating costs," said Bill Ayer, chairman and chief executive officer of Alaska Air Group, the parent company of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air. "Like other businesses, we need to offset at least some of our increased costs."

Every $1 increase in the price of a barrel of oil adds $10 million in annual fuel costs for Alaska Air Group before the benefit of fuel hedges. Oil prices have jumped $10 a barrel during the past two weeks alone, the airline said, which would add $100 million to the company's annual fuel bill if prices remain at current levels.

Fuel is one of the airline industry's larger costs along with personnel and aircraft acquisition and maintenance.

DSW Shoes opened in Southcenter a little more than a month ago.

I went there for the first time this weekend, where (much to my delight) I discovered row upon row of brand name shoes – Nine West, Kenneth Cole Reaction, Diesel, Rocket Dog, Bjorn – at discounted prices.

I bought these waterproof numbers so that I can walk my schnauzer, while staying dry – and looking good.

Nice galoshes.

This isn't the first DSW in the area – but certainly the closest to Tacoma. There's stores in Bellevue and Seattle, according to the company's Web site.

The Forza coffee shop at Union Avenue and South 12th Street recently opened.

I stopped in this weekend for a latte - they are serving hot beverages and pastries and the store manager promised that gelato is coming.

It also has a handy drive-thru.

Do you think businesses in the Pacific Northwest provide better customer service than anywhere else in the world?

If you, like me, have lived in these parts all your life, we have limited experience comparing our home-grown companies – like Nordstrom, REI and Costco – to companies in other places.

But the folks over at brandchannel.com published an article this morning that argues that we customers in the Pacific Northwest don't know how good we have it. They quote a number of authorities, including business writer Robert Spector, who wrote "The Nordstrom Way" in 2000.

Here's an excerpt from the brandchannel article:

Spector believes that outstanding customer service is more characteristic of the Pacific Northwest than of any other place on Earth. “I’m not from here,” he explains. “I’ve been here for 30 years. I grew up in New Jersey, which has never been accused of being the customer service capital of anything. But there is a level of expectation here about customer service here that I don’t think you find in any other part of the world.”

Click here to read the full article.

What do you think? If you've lived somewhere else, maybe you could enlighten us natives. Do we get better customer service here than anywhere else in the world?

Sea-Tac Airport has another award to brag about.

The airport has been named the winner of the first-ever Airport Facilities Management Excellence Award from the Airport Facilities Council of the International Facilities Management Association.

A panel of experts judged airports based on five standards: leadership, innovation, sustainability, customer service and operational efficiency.

"The people at these airports do an outstanding job on a daily bases, yet they often go completely unnoticed," said Wayne Harvey, vice president of the Airport Facilities Council.

Sea-Tac won first prize among airports with more than 25 million passengers yearly. Las Vegas airports won second prize in that category.

In the mid-sized category, San Diego International Airport took the top prize, followed by Salt Lake City International Airport.

Knoxville Airport Authority won in the 1-to-5 million-passenger category and Eugene, Ore.'s airport won in the under 1 million-passenger category.

The Federal Aviation Administration has proposed a directive requiring airlines to inspect the windshields of Boeing 737s because they may not hold up to a bird strike as well as intended.

The proposed order comes after two incidents in which the windows failed in flight. In one of those incidents, the plane lost pressurization and had to make an emergency descent.

The order would require airlines to institute a special inspection of the plastic surround of windshield and of the plastic "failsafe" layer between the glass window panels.

It's been a while since The News Tribune Business section published its "Web Site of the Week" feature, and useful sites have been piling up.

Here's one I came across in the latest (November) issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance: www.gethuman.com.

Want to know the buttons to press when you've been put in Answering Machine Hell? Need to talk to a real person? Here's a quick guide.

Enjoy.

The City of Tacoma wants to make use of four sauce recipes it owns after paying the owner of Bimbo’s Restaurant $366,000 to close his doors. The recipes (marinara, red meat, clam and pesto) are languishing under the protection of a city attorney.

They aren’t providing a return on the city’s investment. The city wants to use the sauce and make some money – and maybe have the chef at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center cook up a big batch. Or two. Or a thousand.

The director of the convention center wants some ideas. After asking last week, and thanks to readers, I’ve received several.

Among them:

• Cook the sauce and have a VIP tasting contest.
• Call it “Bimbo’s Tacoma Roma” and maybe pair the sauce with a meal that includes something from Brown & Haley: “A Night with Roma & Roca.”
• Create a giant bronze pot statue to go in Tollefson Plaza and emboss the recipe on the side of the pot.
• Have a large brass plaque somewhere with the old Bimbo's Sign with the chef on it and the sauce recipes. People could come and do rubbings of the plaque.
• Invite the Food Network to a challenge cook off.
• Have a competition between culinary programs at South Sound colleges and have the governor be one of the judges.
• Partner with Costco and manufacture it.
• Sell it on the Internet to anyone searching for Tacoma, Bimbos, sauces, and all the other key words surrounding it.

And so on. But let’s keep going.

Got an idea? Add a comment. If you’d rather comment privately, send me an e-mail at c.r.roberts@thenewstribune.com.

Salud.

Hal Russell, president and CEO of Tacoma’s Commencement Bank, calls to say it’s been nearly a year – Dec. 11, 2006 – since the bank opened.

Russell said things are going quite well. He also said it’s time for a celebration.

Deposits at Commencement are higher than expected, he said. Projections at the end of year-one were for $30 million. So far, the bank counts $49 million.

Net income shows a $1.069 million loss, which is also better than Russell expected. “That’s the nature of the beast with a start-up,” he said. “We didn’t lose as much net income as we thought we would. We lost $100,000 less than expected. Loan growth has been so great, we have been actively and aggressively funding our reserves.” The reserves are funded at at 1.5 percent of total loans. And there have been no delinquencies.

Staff is up to 17 employees, three more than anticipated, and the bank has added a private-banking manager earlier than projected.

There’s no thought yet of acquisitions (difficult during the three-year de novo period) and no one has called about acquiring. The loan mix comes in around 60 percent commercial business loans and 40 percent varied real estate loans.

As to the celebration, Russell said there will be weekly drawings (for $75 Tacoma Mall gift certificates) beginning Nov. 11, and there will be a grand prize drawing (for a 32-inch HDTV) on Dec. 21.

“It’s unbelievable how quickly the year has gone by, and how well we’ve done” he said. “I’m just as excited as can be.”

Microsoft Corp. Senior Vice President Brian McAndrews said too much emphasis is put on Internet-search advertising, predicting that more buyers will switch to other kinds of online ads, Bloomberg News reports.

Microsoft, trounced by Google Inc. in the Internet-search market, gets the bulk of its advertising revenue from so-called display ads — banners, video spots and other graphical promotions. Because Google is newer to display ads, Microsoft may benefit if more buyers embrace the format.

“Search has been a significant driver of growth” for the online ad industry, said McAndrews, the head of advertising and publishing at Redmond-based Microsoft. “In the next several years, it will not be as much of a driver. Some of the emphasis will shift more toward display ads, toward video, toward rich media.”

Graphical ads are becoming more important as big-brand advertisers spend more of their budgets online, he said

Such companies want videos and banners that closely resemble what they use in television and print advertising. Search ads, in contrast, are typically four lines of text positioned near query results.

All that talk of the 20th anniversary for the Black Monday crash jinxed us.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 300 points Friday as investors were frightened by lackluster corporate earnings, credit concerns and rising oil prices, The Associated Press reports.

In the final hour of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 354.26, or 2.55 percent, to 13,534.70. The Dow is down for the fifth straight session.

The market turned sharply lower Friday after Standard & Poor’s again reduced its ratings on residential mortgage-backed securities. The latest reduction, on more than 1,400 types of securities, added to investors unease about credit quality.

=> Read more!

A Senate bill that's already passed through the Senate Commerce Committee would require Amtrak to study reinstating a train between Seattle-Tacoma and Denver.

That train, the "Pioneer" ran until 1997 when Amtrak, short of funds, discontinued the run.

The train's route followed the BNSF tracks through Tacoma to Portland and then east on the Union Pacific tracks along the south bank of the Columbia over the Blue Mountains in Eastern Oregon to Boise and Salt Lake City.

The train then followed the UP tracks through Wyoming to Denver where it linked up with the California Zephyr to Chicago.

The Pioneer was discontinued at the same time Amtrak discontinued the Desert Wind from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas to Los Angeles.

The bill is expected to go to the full Senate soon.

This just (all) in from the IRS:

Starting next year, casinos and other sponsors of poker tournaments will be required to report most winnings to winners and to the Internal Revenue Service.

The new requirement, which goes into effect on March 4, 2008, is contained in guidance released Sept. 4 by the Treasury Department and the IRS. The guidance is designed to clear up confusion about the tax reporting rules that apply to poker tournaments.

For tournaments completed during 2007 and before March 4, 2008, casinos and other sponsors of poker tournaments will not be required to report the winnings to the IRS or withhold tax on the winnings. But beginning March 4, 2008, the IRS will require all tournament sponsors to report tournament winnings of more than $5,000, usually on an IRS Form W-2G.

Tournament sponsors who comply with this reporting requirement will not need to withhold federal income tax at the end of a tournament. If any tournament sponsor does not report the tournament winnings, the IRS will enforce the reporting requirement and also require the sponsor to pay any tax that should have been withheld from the winner if the withholding requirement had been asserted. The withholding amount is normally 25 percent of any amounts that should have been reported.

So that tournament sponsors can comply with this requirement, tournament winners must provide their taxpayer identification number, usually a social security number, to the tournament sponsor. If a winner fails to provide this identification number, the tournament sponsor must withhold federal income tax at the rate of 28 percent.

The IRS reminds tournament winners that, by law, they must report all their winnings on their federal income tax returns. This rule applies regardless of the amount and regardless of whether the winner receives a Form W-2G or any other reporting form. This is true for 2007 and earlier years, and will continue to be the case after the new reporting requirement goes into effect.

A "forest" of glistening birches, flocks of migrating birds and winter scenes of mountains and cityscapes will replace traditional Christmas scenes at Sea-Tac Airport this year.

Arrivals hall "forest"

The new decorations, carefully designed to be devoid of any religious symbolism, are going up in the main terminal and the Gina Marie Lindsey Arrival Hall.

The decorations, designed and produced by Seattle's Displaymaker Productions Inc., were the result of months-long consultation process by a 12-member Holiday Decorations Advisory Committee.

The Port of Seattle, Sea-Tac's owner, appointed that committee after a conservative rabbi last year protested that the airport had decorated the airport exclusively with Christmas symbols. The airport removed the trees and wreaths after the rabbi threatened to sue.

The "Tac" part of Sea-Tac fares well under the new decorating scheme with murals of Mount Rainier and the Tacoma wintertime skyline among the decorations.

Tacoma's skyline

Mount Rainier

Here's a new twist on getting a cheap sandwich: Give Subway your wireless phone number and the sandwich company will send your coupons and promotions via a text message.

Subway announced today that 345 franchises in the Seattle-Tacoma area will be offering mobile promotions and offers to their customers.

The program, called “My Subway Mobile,” is being launched at the Seattle Seahawks’ home game against the St. Louis Rams on Sunday.

Local Seattle-area residents can enter the My SUBWAY Mobile program by texting “sub018” to 35562.

Here's the word from Subway:

Because Seattle is a tech-friendly city, Subway wanted to be more in sync with innovative technology best practices instead of just traditional marketing activities that produce traditional results,” said Seattle-Tacoma Subway Marketing Board Chair Paul Armour. “With My Subway Mobile, we are giving our customers an easier method to redeem their paperless coupons and offer them more rewards and real-time alerts. By better understanding our customers’ preferences and buying behaviors, including when they eat, what combination meals they like, etc., we could drive more traffic into specific restaurant locations and reward loyal customers.

A locomotive fresh from CEECO's Tacoma Tideflats repair shops will take a short roadtrip Friday morning to a barge dock to be loaded for a trip to Skagway, Alaska.

The locomotive, damaged in a work train accident on the tourist-oriented White Pass & Yukon Railroad last fall, has been in Tacoma since February for repairs.

The damaged locomotive arriving at CEECO

Now that repairs are complete, the locomotive will be mounted on rubber-tired dollies for a trip by road across the Tideflats to a barge dock.

Stripped down locomotive under repair.

The locomotive runs on narrow-gauge tracks in Alaska, so it can't simply run on standard gauge rails to the dock here.

A huge over-the-road truck will pull the locomotive on its roadway journey. Preparations for the move are expected to start about 9 a.m. Friday with the actual move occurring some time in mid-morning.

Weyerhaeuser Co. will close oriented strand board plants in Drayton Valley, Alberta, and Wawa, Ontario, and a laminated strand lumber plant in Deerwood, Minn., before the end of the year.

"The decline in North American housing starts has reduced demand for wood products, requiring us to rationalize our supply of OSB and engineered wood," said Steven R. Rogel, chairman, president and chief executive officer said in a statement. "We remain committed to these markets. This move enables our remaining plants to better execute our customer strategies."

The company will provide the affected employees with severance pay as well as job-transition services and counseling, consistent with company policy.

=> Read more!

Boeing's order book gained 21 firm orders this week, 20 from India's Jet Airways and one from an unidentified buyer of a Boeing Business Jet.

Five previously unidentified orders were linked to buyers. Guggenheim Aviation Partners ordered three 777s, and SAS ordered two 737s.

With those new orders, Boeing's total orders for the year through Tuesday are 919 airliners.

Meanwhile, International Lease Finance Corp. ordered 20 Airbus A350s worth more than $4 billion at list prices, but aviation analysts saw the order as disappointing.

ILFC is the world's largest aircraft leasing company. Large orders from ILFC are viewed in the industry as a barometer of the demand for a plane since ILFC leases aircraft to airlines around the world.

ILFC has ordered 74 of Boeing's rival 787 Dreamliners.

Shares of Tacoma-based Labor Ready Inc. fell more than 11 percent today after the company's sales projections weren't as high as analysts expected. The company also announced Wednesday that it was closing dozens of branches across the country.

Shares ended at $18.55, down $2.39. The stock traded at $27.79 on July 19.

The company said on Wednesday that fourth-quarter net income will be 32 to 34 cents a share from sales of as much as $350 million.

Analysts had expected sales of about $357 million, the average of six estimates surveyed by Bloomberg News.

“Industrial staffing remains difficult,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Cooper said in the statement. “We will have closed approximately 47 branches during 2007 as a result of the downturn in demand for our services.”

Labor Ready closed 19 branches during the quarter ended Sept. 28 and plans to close an additional 16 branches by the end of the year. It opened six new branches in the third quarter.

Third-quarter net income rose to $22.7 million, or 51 cents a share, from $24.8 million, or 48 cents a share, a year earlier, the company reported yesterday. Sales increased 4.4 percent to about $391 million, compared with the average estimate of $394 million in a Bloomberg survey.

Wal-Mart is kicking off the holiday shopping season with price cuts on 15,000 items, increasing cuts by 20 percent compared with last year, The Associated Press reports.

The items are in the toys, food, home and apparel segments. “Be Bratz” dolls, for example, are now $19.93, from a previous price of $29.94. A Black and Decker 12-cup coffee maker is now $24.96, from $29.92.

Hanes boys and girls top or pants are now two for $9.
Wal-Mart previously made similar price cuts on back-to-school items in July and on toys earlier this month.

More price reductions in its electronics, home, food and toys segments are upcoming, the company said.

Looks like we could be in for some strong winds later today. Tacoma Power is encouraging people to prepare and offered some handy tips.

In case you're wondering, the weather isn't supposed to be as bad as last year's Wind Storm 2006 (which ripped off several dozen of a my roof shingles and caused general mayhem).

Tacoma Power advises you to:

- Report power outages by calling (253) 502-8602.

- Keep at least one corded phone handy. Most portable phones lose their signal when the power goes out, but land lines will continue to operate without power. In emergencies, cellular phone coverage can come and go.

- Use caution when using heating and lighting sources that run on gas and other flammables.

- Do not use barbecues indoors for cooking or heating.

- When using a generator, carefully follow the instructions to ensure proper use. Improperly connected generators create safety hazards inside and outside the home and present dangers to line electricians working on the electrical system.

- Keep flashlights in multiple places around the house for easy access.

- Keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed and stock up on non-perishable foods.

- Have a battery-operated or wind-up radio available. Listen for power outage updates.

- Never assume a downed power line is dead. Stay as far away from a downed line as possible, and keep children and pets at a safe distance. Write down the location of the downed line and immediately call Tacoma Power at (253) 502-8602. Crews will make repairs as soon as possible.

And some advice from the folks here at Biz Buzz:

- Have the name of a good roofer on hand. Call immediately. They get very busy.

The union representing Boeing's engineers and technical workers was reshuffling its leadership again today following the ouster of four board members.

Those members, Treasurer Bob Wilkerson, Secretary Dave Blaine, and vice presidents Mike Dunn and Jill Ritchey, were recalled Wednesday night in a vote by members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA).

The four all voted last summer to remove longtime Executive Director Charles Bofferding from his post.

The union since then has been consumed with a divisive fight over what faction will be in control, the four board members who voted for Bofferding's ouster or the three, including union president Cynthia Cole, who did not.

The union was supposed to begin interviewing candidates for Bofferding's job, but that effort is temporarily on hold.

"It's time to move on and start the healing of our union," said Cole in a statement Wednesday night.

The remaining board members have appointed Cole as acting executive director and Northwest vice president Tom McCarty as treasurer.

The union's Northwest Council will elect representatives to replace the two vice presidents recalled and will fill the vacancy created by McCarty's advancement to treasurer. How the council will fill the secretary's position has not yet been determined.

SPEEA represents 23,850 engineers, technical employees and professional workers at The Boeing Co. in Washington, Kansas, Oregon, Utah and California. It also represents workers at Spirit Aerosystems in Wichita, Kan., Triumph Composite Systems Inc. in Spokane and BAE Systems Inc. in Irving, Texas. Spirit, Triumph and BAE operate plants sold to them by Boeing.

This from John Gillie:

Tacoma-based Labor Ready Inc. Wednesday reported higher revenues but lower profits in the third quarter because of a difficult competitive environment and increasing minimum wage rates.

The temporary labor provider said revenues rose 4.4 percent to $390.7 million in the third quarter compared with the same period last year, but net income decreased 8.5 percent to $22.7 million or 48 cents a diluted share.

Labor Ready operates 919 branches. Revenues from branches open more than 12 months increased 1.2 percent over the third quarter last year.

A group advocating for the Port of Tacoma to be more transparent held its first candidate forum last night.

The meeting was closed to the press and the commission candidates were asked to leave after they said their piece.

The recently formed Friends of the Port has been pushing for the Port of Tacoma to televise its meetings and generally open up its governing process for more public involvement.

Dick Dorsett, a former port employee and now a partner is a Seattle government affairs firm, is one of the group's founders. I called Dorsett today to point out the irony of a group pushing for openness acting, well, closed.

First in the spirit of full disclosure I haven't attended a Friends of the Port meeting, nor did I try to bang down the door of their candidate forum.

I did receive an e-mail from the group asking that "members of the press not attend the meeting."

I caught Dorsett on his cell phone this morning.

"There's a little bit of irony here," he said. "But there is a fundamental difference between public and private groups."

=> Read more!

Groceries, gas and furniture prices are down, electricity is unchanged and the cost of housing is up a fraction.

Overall consumer prices in the Tacoma-Bremerton-Seattle area were up 0.2 percent in July and August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

The housing index rose 1.4 percent for the two months, and marks a 5.1 percent increase over the past 12 months. Household furnishings and operations fell 4.1 percent and remain unchanged over the year.

The BLS transportation index decreased 2.6 percent over the two months, while grocery prices fell 1.1 percent. Restaurant prices rose 2.7 percent, and are up 4.8 percent for the year. Clothing edged down 0.3 percent over the two months. Alcoholic beverages were up 0.4 percent.

Although the price of gallon of regular gasoline is up today – to $2.959 per gallon compared to $2.941 yesterday, $2.872 a month ago and $2.469 a year ago, according to AAA – the BLS counts a 5.7 percent decrease in July and August.

Sea-Tac Airport looks sure to join the 30-million passenger club this year.

Traffic through the first eight months of the year is up about three percent or about 610,000 passengers, according to statistics provided by the airport.

Total passenger traffic at Sea-Tac Airport in 2006 fell just shy of 30 million, 29,979,097.

If the traffic doesn't fall dramatically in the last 2 1/2 months of this year – and there's no sign that it will – total traffic for the year should be about 30.87 million for 2007.

International passenger numbers are particularly strong this year, up about 6 percent from last year. The total through August was 1,789,878 compared with 1,688,710 for the first eight months of 2006.

Forty years ago, Sea-Tac's total passenger traffic was just 3.85 million passengers of which 338,777 were international passengers.

The airport handled 10 million or more passengers for the first time in 1983. It crossed the 20-million-passenger threshold in 1994.

Sea-Tac was the 17th busiest American airport last year ranked by total passenger. Atlanta was the busiest with 84.8 million passengers. Chicago was second with 76.2 million, and Los Angeles was third with 61 million.

Even with the three percent increase, it appears the Sea-Tac won't move up in the rankings this year.

Will the Air Force replace the presidential aircraft, a specially equipped Boeing 747-200, with a bigger and newer model built by Europe's Airbus?

An Airbus A380 as Air Force One

An article on an aerospace industry Web site, Flightglobal.com, raises that possibility.

The article says the Air Force Air Mobility Command has asked Airbus to provide information regarding the use of the A380 superjumbo jet as a freighter to replace or augment the Air Force's aging fleet of C-5s and as a VIP transport.

The aircraft presently used as Air Force One when the president is aboard began service in the mid-'90s.

The aircraft's technology is aging, and its engines are less efficient than the newer ones used on the A380.

If the Air Force decides new VIP transports are needed, Boeing is expected to offer a version of the 747-8 which uses new technology engines, upgraded electronics and a new wing.

Would the Air Force buy foreign to carry the nation's chief executive. The Marine Corps has already done so, picking the Italian-British EH-101 helicopter to carry the president over the all-American Sikorsky.

Otis Huemmer, executive chef at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center, has been chosen one of 28 (from among 1,000) Aramark chefs to participate in the company’s International Guest Chef Exchange. (Aramark has the contract for food service at center.)

Huemmer leaves today for New York, where he will dish up specialties for delegates and Aramark executives at the United Nations.

He leaves Oct. 26 for Chile. While there, he will prepare meals for thousands of employees at the newspaper El Mercurio in Santiago, at the industrial conglomerate Angelini and at Nestle Foods.

His menu? Entrees will include lamb shank braised in Merlot and served over lentils, and a Prosciutto-wrapped salmon with cornbread-pudding stuffing and a sauce of figs and plum tomatoes.

Salads include a baby frisee with shaved Parmesan cheese, and a curry potato salad with radicchio and Boston lettuce.

Desserts include an apricot-pinenut tartlet with vanilla custard, and a guava and Ricotta empanada, dusted with sugar, covered with chocolate sauce and graced with a vanilla whipped cream.

But, he says, he won’t be serving chili.

If you want to get the attention of high-tech businesses in the San Francisco Bay area – ultimately to convince them to relocate to Tacoma – how would you do it?

In today's column, I describe a billboard campaign concept designed to do just that. The concept, developed in 1999 by the Community Relations team at Tacoma City Hall, never made it off the drawing board. But if you'd like to see how it may have looked, download this PowerPoint file:
San Francisco Billboard Campaign

Some credit for the photographs goes to ricearoni.com, sfgate.com, chihuly.com, nwrain.com, hellosanfrancisco.com, dcj72.org, brown-haley.com. Credit for the tattoo goes to the team at Flaming Dragon Tattoo Co., 704 S. 38th St., Tacoma.

Let's hope The Fearey Group, which will likely get the next City of Tacoma contract to promote Tacoma for economic development, come up with something better.

By the way, in response to today's column, I just got this e-mail from Tobin Ropes, owner of Mad Hat Tea Company, at South 11th and Commerce streets, in downtown Tacoma. Here's what Tobin had to say:

Interesting historical notes in the last column.

I sometimes wonder why Tacoma, and other cities, are in such a hurry
to 'catch up' to their more 'successful' neighbors. Just look at San
Jose and what their 'economic windfall' did to the average working
family or the waiter just looking to afford an apartment. Having spent
nearly 10 years of my young life in downtown Seattle, I am immensely
grateful for the pace and tenor of downtown Tacoma.

Honestly, the best thing for my business is for 5000 workers to move
into the empty spaces littered about downtown.

The worst thing that could happen to me personally is if 5000 workers
moved into the empty spaces littered about downtown.

Parking meters would soon follow.

Lines at the bank would treble.

Finding a copy of the NY Times would become that much more difficult.

Think how crowded the light rail would become.

Inconceivable.

Peace.

Question. Could you make money flying people from Bellingham to Columbus, Ohio for $10?
Discount airline Skybus thought it could, but learned quickly that its math was all wrong.

The airline announced today that it will clip the wings of three of its longest distance flights: Columbus to Bellingham, Columbus to San Diego and Columbus to Burbank, Calif.

The service will end Jan. 6 in Bellingham, which it called Vancouver/Seattle, and in Burbank, where one of two daily nonstops will be discontinued. Service ends in San Diego March 6.

The airline blamed rising fuel costs.
The problem was certainly that, but it was also that Skybus used the $10 fares as a nationwide promotional device to attract news coverage and create a buzz for the airline.

While the $10 fare was a money-loser on a short flight such as Columbus to Raleigh or Columbus to Portsmouth, N.H., it was a enormous drain on company resources on four-hour continent-crossing flights.

Skybus limited the number of tickets it sold for $10, but it sold others for $50 and $75, still below break even on a 2,021-mile flight. Expect Skybus to pull back and use its aircraft for shorter flights concentrated in the East and Midwest.

Customers holding reservations on discontinued flights to Bellingham will be given full refunds. Passengers on the discontinued Burbank flights will automatically be rebooked on the remaining Skybus flight to Burbank, and will also be given the option to change their reservation without charge or request a refund.

No seats have been sold to San Diego past March 6. so no San Diego passengers will be affected.

Shares of The News Tribune parent McClatchy Co. fell to a 52-week low early today as the company reported preliminary third-quarter earnings down 55 percent from a year ago. The stock rebounded in heavy trading to close down 25 cents at $18.92.

The company reported net income of $23.5 million, or 29 cents per share, down from $51.8 million, or 64 cents per share, in the third quarter of 2006.

McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt attributed the decline to a slowing advertising sales. “The economic downturn led by real estate continued to impact our advertising revenue in the third quarter,” he said. “Once again our Florida and California newspapers were disproportionately hurt.”

Pruitt’s outlook for the fourth quarter was similar, and “has been tempered by the continuing adverse effect of the real estate downturn and its impact on the economies of local markets, particularly in California and Florida. It‘s clear the economies of these two markets and perhaps the country as a whole are experiencing a greater slowdown than many had anticipated just a few months ago.”

Pruitt tempered his remarks by offering that McClatchy “is a solidly profitable company that is rapidly paying down debt and re-engineering its operations to navigate through a changing environment for all media companies.”

McClatchy, the country’s third-largest newspaper publisher, publishes 31 daily and some 50 non-daily newspapers nationwide. The company will issue its final earnings report when it submits a filing due in November to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mike Bair, the Boeing executive who headed the 787 Dreamliner program, has been replaced less than a week after Boeing was forced to announce a six-month delay in the program.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Scott Carson named Pat Shanahan, who has experience bringing two other Boeing widebody development programs to fruition, to Bair's former job.

Bair won't leave the company. Instead he will become vice president of business strategy and marketing for the company's commercial airplanes division.

Shanahan had worked in the company's military division before returning the the commercial airplanes operation.

The company delayed the delivery and the first flight of the 787 because of problems with getting the supply chain up to speed and because of a shortage of critical fasteners and software.

It looks like people in the South Sound want their DTV! Or at least they are curious enough about the pending digital conversion to sign up for workshops hosted by Click! today.

Diane Lachel, Click! spokeswoman, sent this e-mail to me today:

Thought you might be interested in the fact that 187 folks are signed up to learn about preparing for the digital transition - today at a 3pm workshop at Tacoma Public Utilities Auditorium. We also have over 70 signed up to attend the one at 7pm tonight. There haven’t been that many folks in the auditorium since, um, I don’t think there ever have been, actually.

I wrote a bit about the digital TV conversion and the workshops last week. You can read that here.

SeaTac-based Horizon Air has announced it will resume seasonal schedules to three ski destinations and will shuffle schedules to more than a half-dozen Northwest cities this winter to use larger aircraft.

Starting Dec. 15, Horizon will fly between Los Angeles and Oakland and Sun Valley, Idaho. The airline serves Sun Valley year-round from Seattle.

That same day, the airline will begin service from Seattle to Kamloops, B.C. to service the Sun Peaks Ski Resort.

The airline will also bolster its service to Kelowna, B.C. by replacing 37-seat Q200 aircraft with 76-seat Q400 aircraft on its four daily flights.

The airline is also bolstering schedules to Walla Walla, Yakima, Pasco, Lewiston, Idaho, and Pullman.

See the specifics of those changes here.

The five largest U.S. airlines, United, Continental, American, Northwest and U.S. Airways, in recent days have all raised roundtrip fares by $10.

The fare increase is the seventh time this year the major carriers have raised fares. The airlines say they must raise fares to cope with rising fuel prices.

Jet fuel prices have jumped by more than 35 percent in 2007, and with crude oil prices rising almost daily, those prices continue to escalate.

The Boeing Co. announced orders today worth some $2.25 billion at list prices.

India's Jet Airways finalized an order for 20 737-800 aircraft worth $1.5 billion at list prices. Airlines, however, often receive discounts to those prices.

With the Jet order, Boeing's backlog of 737s amounts to more than 1,800 aircraft. At present-day production rates, that amounts to more than five years of production at Boeing's Renton factory.

Meanwhile, Guggenheim Aviation Partner Fund II has exercised options for three 777 freighters. Those freighters have a list price of about $250 million each.

GAIF has now ordered a total of six 777 freighters and six 747-400ER freighters.

Alaska Airlines, Sea-Tac Airport's dominant carrier, peeled back the tarps this morning on a new concept in airport check-in facilities it ambitiously calls "the airport of the future".

The concept, Alaska says, eliminates the conventional check-in counter and long lines of passengers queueing up to check in for their flights.

The slick new check-in kiosks, the airline claims, will cut in half passenger check-in times, reduce the airline's staffing needs and greatly reduce on-the-job injuries airline ticket counter staff incur from lifting literally tons of heavy bags every day.

Alaska is rolling out the new concept in phases. The first new check-in kiosks will replace one-third of Alaska's regular ticket counters at the airport. Now that those facilities are up and running, the airline will close down another section of regular counters and begin construction work to demolish them and replace them with the new concept.

Here's how the new concept works: Alaska and Horizon Air passengers arriving at Sea-Tac will either have checked in at home and printed their own boarding passes or they will use the electronic kiosks to check-in.

Those kiosks are located in the garage or in several locations at the airport. A bank of kiosks is arrayed in front of the double-sided row of check-in podiums.

If a passenger has no bags to check, he may go straight to the security line.

If he has bags, he finds a check-in podium and places his bags on the belt. Those check-in islands are small stand-up desks manned by one customer service agent. On either side of each podium is a luggage belt. One agent can serve two customers at once, one on either side of the podium.

The customer presents his boarding pass and ID, the agent tags the bags and activates the belt which carries the luggage to a central belt. That belt takes the bag into the airport baggage area for security checks and sorting and ultimately to the aircraft.

Alaska installed a similar system in Anchorage more than two years ago. The airline found both waiting times and staffing needs were halved.

When the airline is finished with the $18 million counter project sometime next spring, the Alaska and Horizon check-in facilites will be merged. Until then, Horizon Air customers will still check in at a separate counter.

For today's paper I wrote a story about Julia's Gulch and the Storey Pit – two properties the Port of Tacoma commission will consider buying at its meeting Wednesday.

Our graphic artist made a map of the properties. But the map didn't make it into the paper today. Here it is:

Washington's unemployment rate inched up in September to 4.8 percent from 4.6 percent in August, according to the state Employment Security Department.

The rate remains at historic lows and is 0.3 percentage points lower than it was September a year ago.

The ESD reports that the employment figures – including jobs created over the month – will be released next Tuesday.

Do you run a wind farm? A natural gas plant? If so, Puget Sound Energy has a request.

The state’s largest and oldest energy utility has filed drafts of two requests-for-proposal with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.

PSE said it expects the population of Western Washington to grow by 1 million people – or 28 percent – in the next 20 years. Those people will require energy, and PSE said it expects to need more than 1,300 “average megawatts,” by the winter of 2014-15, and more than 2,600 aMW of new electricity supply by 2025.

That’s enough to power two present-day Seattles.

The first request for proposal calls for conservation measures, and the second asks for new sources of electricity – just so long as the power is not generated by coal or nuclear fuel. The utility said is particularly interested in hearing proposals that feature “energy efficiency, wind and natural gas.”

An initial public meeting to discuss the drafts will be held at PSE’s Bellevue campus on Oct. 29 from 10 a.m. until noon. Public comments are due by Dec. 11, and offers are due to PSE on Feb. 29, 2008.

For more information, visit www.pse.com.

Actually, you’re going to have to wait for the Hotel Murano a little longer than first announced.

I spoke with Murano (and Provenance Hotels) spokeswoman Dina Nishioka late Monday, and she explains that the Murano opening has been extended to March 1, 2008. Expectations had the refurbished and rebranded Sheraton Tacoma opening this fall.

Nishioka said a soft opening should begin by the end of January or the first week in February.

Some Sheraton guests are currently being placed in Murano-ized rooms – although the full range of amenities (pillow menu, spiritual menu and fully developed theme of glass art) is not available.

“It just seems like it keeps moving,” Nishioka said of the opening date.

She remains sure the hotel will be worth the wait. “I think this is the best hotel we’ve done,” she said.

Beyond than the Murano, Provenance (formerly Aspen Hotel Group) operates the Hotel deLuxe and Hotel Lucia in Portland, Hotel Max in Seattle and Hotel Preston in Nashville.

Comcast plans to raise the average consumer's bill for cable television by 4.2 percent beginning Nov. 15, the company said today.

The amount of the rate increase will vary according to what services a Comcast customer receives. Basic cable service will jump $2 monthly from $34.99 to $36.99. The company's Digial Starter package will increas from $35.99 to $37.99. And most of the company's premium channel packages will increase $2 monthly to 17.99, up from $15.99.

The company doesn't plan to raise its rates for phone or high-speed Internet service, said Comcast spokesman Walter Neary.

The company said it will soon announce five new high definition channels to its line-up.

Here are the specifics of the rate increases:

Borders Books, the first store in a new Gig Harbor "lifestyle center," Uptown Gig Harbor, is scheduled to open its doors Oct. 25.

The center, located west of Highway 16 on Point Fosdick Drive Northwest, eventually will contain 35 tenants ranging from a multiplex theater to upscale women's wear shops.

Borders manager Bill Mumford, who managed the Tacoma Borders store for six years before moving to Gig Harbor, said the store's "soft opening" will be the 25th with the formal grand opening sometime in mid-November when his 40-plus staff members become more familiar with the 24,000-square-foot store and its stock.

Expect a steady progression of store openings in the next few months as the shopping complex moves from construction to operation.

Boeing employment in Washington has risen by an average of 521 workers a month in 2007.

The company's total employment in the state has jumped to 72,740 at the end of September, Boeing figures show.

That compares with 68,570 at the end of January.

While for most companies a 500-plus employment increase per month would be astronomical, for Boeing, given its formerly wild hiring binges, its evidence of a more controlled and moderate growth rate.

In June 1998, for instance, Boeing employed some 104,000 workers here. By the end of December here, it had laid off 5,560 of those workers.

The company reached a 21st century low here in June of 2004, when employment in the Evergreen State fell to 52,763, 19,977 fewer than worked for the Big B at the end of last month.

After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, Boeing laid off some 30,000-plus workers here because of the precipitous drop in aircraft orders and deliveries.

Credit the rising numbers to record orders the last two years, research and development work on the 787 Dreamliner and the 747-8 Intercontinental and a healthy burst of activity on the Navy's P-8A maritime patrol craft, a militarized version of the 737.

Boeing by the numbers in Washington:

End of September 2007 72,740
End of January 2007 68,570
Difference 4,170

June 1, 1998 104,000
June 3, 2004 52,763

Go here for a Table of Boeing 2007 employment growth

Airbus delivered its first A380 today to Singapore Airlines in a ceremony that marks the end of two years of delay for the superjumbo jet.

For Airbus, the occasion was one of celebration: the European manufacturer had managed finally to get all the troublesome wiring in the 525-seat, double-deck plane right.

Airbus chief operating officer John Leahy predicted the company would secure 30 new A380 orders by the year's end.

Airbus has 165 firm orders for the plane now and 24 additonal commitments.

Singapore will fly the plane to home base today arriving Tuesday. The airline plans a charity flight to Sydney for Oct. 25-26. The seats on the flight were sold to the highest bidders on EBay. The proceeds go to charity.

There will be none of the pubs or spas that Airbus touted for the A380 when it first was selling them. Just too impractical for finance-driven airlines.

But Singapore will include a "beyond premium" class that will include private rooms with two windows and a separate leather chair and a lie-flat bed 76 inches long. Those accomodations will cost more than ordinary first class, reportedly about $2,000 more on a Singapore-Sydney flight. Here's a look:

Let's hope, for Airbus' sake that the plane works better than the delivery Web site, www.a380delivery.com. I have yet to get the site to show the actual delivery ceremonies. Lots of backgrounds on the A380, but no delivery videos. To put it kindly, the site is "navigationally challenged."

A newly released federal crop survey shows apples remained the king of Washington's agricultural crops last year with a value of $1.39 billion, up 21 percent from 2005.

Washington is the nation's largest producer of apples, growing about half the nation's supply.

The data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service show milk was the second most valuable agricultural commodity with a value of $688 million, down 18 percent from the previous year.

Wheat was in third place with a value of $626 million followed by cattle and calves, $588 million, and potatoes at about $562 million.

According to the Associated Press, fruit had some of the largest gains: pears, up 13 percent; nectarines up 28 percent and blueberries up 57 percent.

Cherries, however, fell in value by 19 percent to $273 million. But cherries still claimed the highest value per acre at $8,926.

Total value of Washington's agricultural production was a record $6.87 billion.

Don Ackerson, now a graduate of Goodwill's YouthBuild program, helped build a deck last spring.

Tacoma Goodwill Industries received a $550,000 grant for its YouthBuild program, which provides education in construction and leadership training for at-risk young people.

The U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao announced the award today. The grant comes from the federal Department of Labor.

The Tacoma Goodwill's Youthbuild program just started its second year this week with 16 participants.

Richard Corak, Goodwill's director of workforce development, said that the agency wanted to include more students – but a lack of funding prevented them from doing so.

That's not the case anymore. The grant means that Goodwill can enroll another group of students in the program in January.

"This changes things in so many positive ways," Corak said.

The award is part of $47 million granted nationwide to 96 groups. YouthBuild programs include individuals who have been in the juvenile justice system, young people aging out of foster care, high school dropouts and others, according to a Department of Labor news release.

Participants in Tacoma get job training in construction, receive classroom instruction to pass the GED and get paid stipend along the way, according to Goodwill. They do work for Habitat for Humanity and other organizations.

Eighteen people graduated last spring from the first round of the program.

SeaTac-based Alaska Airlines today inaugurated service from the Pacific Northwest to Hawaii.

The inaugural flight, which departed the gate at Sea-Tac Airport a minute ahead of schedule, arrived in Honolulu 18 minutes early.

The 160 passengers aboard the specially equipped Boeing 737-800 were in a festive mood this morning, aided by a send-off of a buffet of tropical food, native Hawaiian dancers and an inaugural flight gift package on every seat.

The flight was the first of three daily that Alaska plans to fly between the continental United States and the 50th state.

Service to Lihue on the island of Kauai begins Oct. 28, and non-stop service between Anchorage and Honolulu is scheduled to start Dec. 9.

Alaska will be competing with non-stop rivals, Northwest and Hawaiian airlines, on the Pacific Northwest-Hawaii route. Alaska has no regularly-scheduled rival from Anchorage to Honolulu.

The debut flight was fully booked.

Lakewood-based Northwest Commercial Bank has added two well-known bankers to its staff. Rod Clemmer has been named vice-president and manager of the bank’s new loan production office in Auburn, at 2020 A St. S.E., and Lorna Hidalgo has been hired as an assistant manager at the facility.

Kurt Graff, bank CEO and president, said this week that Northwest Commercial will apply to establish a Northwest Commercial branch in Auburn. Until the application is approved, the new loan office cannot accept deposits or otherwise function as an official branch. Approval could take up to 90 days.

The loan office opens Monday.

Clemmer, with 30 years in banking, was most recently vice-president and manager of the South Auburn branch of Columbia Bank. He started his career with Puget Sound National Bank after earning a degree in mathematics from the University of Puget Sound. He also worked for Key Bank and Cascade Community Bank.

Hidalgo has been an assistant to Clemmer for the past 15 years, at Cascade and Columbia.

Northwest Commercial Bank also operates a loan office on South Hill in Puyallup.

Boeing added five orders from unidentified customers this week for its 737 single-aisle airliners.

That means that airline customers have ordered 908 new jetliners this year so far from Boeing. But unidentified customers have canceled 10 prior orders leaving Boeing with a net order gain of 898 orders this year.

Though that figure is high considering that 2 1/2 months remain in the year, its probably not enough to put Boeing ahead of its rival, Airbus, for the year.

Airbus landed huge new orders this week from a Hungarian airline, Wizz Air, and from a Spanish travel conglomerate, Grupo Marsans. Between the two, they ordered 111 new Airbus planes include four new A380 superjumbo jets.

Click! Cable TV experts are hosting workshops next week about the federal government's mandated conversion to digital television in February 2009 and how it might affect you.

The workshops are scheduled for 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Tacoma Public Utilities Auditorium at the 3628 S 35th St.

Seating is limited. Call (253) 502-8900 to reserve your spot.

Now I like TV as much as the next person (Anyone else watching Pushing Daisies? You should be). Though The News Tribune has written and run stories about the DTV conversion, I must confess I was out of the loop on this issue. I also recently discovered this thing called the Internet. Wild.

Mitch Robinson, marketing and business operations manager for Click!, cleared up some of my DTV questions in phone interview today.

Me: What is this digital conversion?

Robinson: That's why we are having the class, because this thing is coming and there's so much confusion. Congress passed a law that over the air broadcasters will only be transmitting digitally after Feb. 2009.

Me: How big of a deal is this?

Robinson: It’s a huge deal. There's a percentage of people that only get TV over the air. Those are the people who – if they don’t do anything – will be in serious trouble in 2009.

Me: Why is the government switching to digital?

Robinson: I'm going to speak on behalf of Congress here, something I hate to do. They say they are getting rid of the analog spectrum so they can use the frequencies for other purposes (such as emergency services). The other side is that digital is a better picture quality.

=> Read more!

Tax payments to the state in the September 11 – October 10 collection period totaled $1,063.5 million, or 1.9 percent above the estimate for the month, the Department of Revenue announced today.

Higher than expected Revenue Act (sales, business and occupation, use and public utility taxes), cigarette and liquor tax payments more than offset weaker than expected real estate excise and property tax receipts for the month.

This month’s variance is overstated, however. Collections this period include three large ($42.8 million), non-recurring audit payments that are not related to current economic activity. Excluding these payments, collections would be $23.2 million (2.2 percent) less than the estimate for the month and $22.5 million less cumulatively since the September 2007 forecast.

The shortfall, excluding special factors, is nearly entirely due to much weaker than expected real estate excise tax collections.

Taxable real estate activity reported by the state’s 39 counties for the most recent period (closings Aug. 29 through Sept. 26) was very weak, down 25.8 percent from the year before.

This is the weakest monthly year-over-year drop since April 1995.

Hotel occupancy rates in Pierce County took the state’s largest slide in August, down 7 percent from a year before. With 79.2 percent of local rooms occupied, only the Tri-Cities, with 78.9 percent of rooms taken, earned a lower figure. Occupancy in the Tri-Cities rose 1.1 percent during the year.

Statewide, 86.8 percent of rooms were occupied, down 1.1 percent form 2006, said Bellevue hospitality consultant Wolfgang Rood.

The cost of an average room in Pierce County – at $77.03 the state’s lowest – was up 9.9 percent form 2006. Only in Downtown Seattle did the rate fall, in September by 1.4 percent to $176.49.

Tacoma’s Hotel Murano, soon-to-be not the Sheraton anymore, looks to be going upscale on an international level. If you happened to be flying on Alaska Airlines last month, you may have seen the hotel’s ad on page 74 of the inflight magazine.

“Some people say art is dead and hospitality isn’t far behind,” the ad proclaims. “We beg to differ.”

Featured are a trio of glassmaker Dante Marioni’s vessels set into a back-lit shadowbox, all within a very sophisticated design. (The true indication of sophistication comes when you can’t tell if the name is spelled upper-case, Murano, or lower case, murano.)

A trip to the hotel’s Web site, www.hotelmuranotacoma.com, lists the amenities guests can expect, with reservations opening on Nov. 15. Also on offer are a handful of special offers, including visits to the Museum of Glass and Tillicum Village.

Among the hotel perks: Wireless high-speed Internet, 24-hour fitness room, 24-hour business center, 24-hour room service, a ‘Help Me’ button on every guest room phone, iPod stations in every guest room, a spiritual menu, pillow menu and In-room safe.

Add: “LCD flat-panel television’s.”

Some people say good punctuation is dead. Maybe they’re right.

Now that Southwest Airlines is taking steps to end its "cattle call" boarding process, the airline is turning its attention to waiting areas.

The Dallas-based airline announced today it will be remodeling the gate areas at all of the 62 U.S. airports it serves.

The airline has already remodeled some gates in San Antonio and in Dallas. It will expand its remodeling efforts to other airports soon.

The new gates will include comfortable padded chairs, children's play area a reconfigured check-in desk.

The airline is modifying its boarding process avoid the necessity of passengers to begin queuing up 30 minutes or more before boarding in order to secure priority for getting a desirable seat. Under the old system, Southwest, which doesn't assign seats, divided passengers into three groups, A, B and C based on when they checked in. The earliest travelers. get A designation and get to board first, followed by B and C.

Under Southwest's new system, each traveler will get a letter designation as well as a number. When the plane is ready for boarding, passengers will line up according to letter and number, thus ending the necessity of securing a place near the head of the B line by lining up early.

Huge new airliner orders from two European companies could put Airbus ahead of Boeing in the 2007 airliner orders race.

Grupo Marsans, the largest tourism and transport group in Spain, today announced orders for 61 Airbus aircraft. That order includes 10 A350-900s, four A380s, five A330-200s and 42 A320-family narrow-bodied aircraft.

Grupo Marsans owns Aerolineas Argentinas and Air Comet. The company had previously ordered 12 A330-200s.

Meanwhile, Hungary's Wizz Air ordered 50 Airbus A320s and took options to buy 25 more. Delivery of the aircraft to the budget airline is set for 2011 through 2014.

This from JIM SZYMANSKI at The Olympian:

Cabela’s announced today that it would open its 185,000-square-foot outdoors store in the Hawks Prairie area of Lacey on Nov. 16.

Among the store’s features will be a walk-through aquarium with freshwater fish native to the state, a two-story mountain with waterfalls, a restaurant and gift shop and exhibits that depict animals in their natural habitats. Company officials have touted the Lacey store as a tourist attraction that could draw up to 4 million visitors a year from throughout the Northwest.

The store currently under construction is a key anchor in a much larger Lacey Gateway retail, office and residential development envisioned by Olympia developer Tri Vo. The development site is at the northwest corner of Marvin Road and Interstate 5.

Cabela’s, a Nebraska-based chain of 21 stores named after founders Jim and Dick Cabela, is in the process of hiring 350 employees in Lacey. The Lacey store that will cater to fishing and hunting enthusiasts will be the company’s first in the state.

One of Pierce County's larger manufacturing companies, Frederickson's Toray Composites America, Inc., won't see its production disrupted or slowed because of Boeing's delay of commercial introduction of its 787 Dreamliner.

Toray's Frederickson plant produces carbon fiber tape from which the 787's major components, wings, tail and fuselage, are made.

Boeing Wednesday said production problems will delay the introduction of the first Dreamliner into commercial service by six months.

But Toray Industries Inc., Toray Composites America's Japanese parent company, said today the company will continue producing raw materials for Boeing at the previously scheduled pace.

Toray last year signed a $6 billion contract to supply composite materials for the 787.

Toray's local plant employs about 400 workers.

Meanwhile, Toray is branching out its business hoping to capture a greater share of the auto body panel business. Composites have been used in exotic cars such as the Ford GT, but have seen little use in consumer cars because of the cost of fabricating the parts. Toray is conducting research in Japan to make composites more price competitive with metal.

It gets so hard to find the right gift for your friends and family so Neiman Marcus puts out its annual holiday book to give you plenty of ideas.

We here at Biz Buzz got our book this week and wanted to give you a quick report of our favorite things we would buy if we won the lottery. (The descriptions come from the catalog):

Dragon topiary. Whipped up on your land with 15 indigenous plants, it's a gift you can give yourself and your heirs. Work some Tom Sawyer mojo, and Jonesy will be offering to trim it for you. $35,000.

See more gifts.

=> Read more!

Anita Decker was named today as chief operating officer of the Bonneville Power Administration.

Decker has 27 years of experience working on Northwest electric power operations and issues, most recently as vice president of PacifiCorp, which provides power to parts of south-central Washington as well as a handful of other Western states.

In making the announcement of Decker’s appointment, BPA Administrator Steve Wright said, "Anita is the kind of leader who helps make the whole group much greater than the sum of its parts. She brings a vast combination of both field and headquarters experience."

BPA's COO holds the number-three position in the agency and oversees the internal management of the major line functions. Reporting to the COO are the senior vice presidents for Power Services and Transmission Services, the executive vice president for Internal Business Services, and the vice presidents for Energy Efficiency and Environment, Fish and Wildlife.

BPA is a not-for-profit federal agency that markets about 40 percent of the electricity consumed in the Pacific Northwest. The power is produced at 31 federal dams in the Northwest, and one nuclear plant, and is sold to more than 140 Northwest utilities. BPA operates a high-voltage transmission grid comprising more than 15,000 miles of lines and associated substations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

Kris Watkins, president and chief executive officer of the Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau, has been elected co-chair of the Washington State Tourism Commission.

The Commission coordinates a statewide program for tourism development.

Watkins will work with Larry Williams, assistant director for international trade and economic development at the State Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.

“I have been waiting 20 years for recognition that tourism is economic development,” Watkins after her appointment. “Now we have assembled the equivalent of a tourism ‘think tank’ of CEO-level people and we’re ready to move this industry forward in Washington.”

Based on legislative direction, the Commission has established its top five priorities:
• Develop a six-year strategic plan for statewide tourism development;
• Create a statewide biennial tourism marketing plan beginning with Fiscal Year 2009;
• Establish criteria for a tourism competitive grant program;
• Determine criteria for public-private match funding, and
Define performance measures.

The Commission will meet on Oct. 29, Nov. 16 and Dec. 13, as well as on Feb. 28 and May 8 next year.

The 19-member commission was appointed by Gov. Gregoire in August after the 2007 Legislature approved an overall increase of $7.8 million over the next biennium for the state tourism budget.

You may have seen the story in the Seattle PI today about the $81,847 the Port of Seattle commissioners spent on travel last year.

The headline "Investment or junkets?" sums up the story. Some question the true benefit of the trips, which rarely come with hard and fast results, such as a direct increase in trade tied to the visit.

But others, including the the Port of Seattle Chief Executive Tay Yoshitani, say they are necessary for keeping commissioners informed on business issues and customer needs.

The Port of Tacoma commission's travel budget for 2006 – $98,400 – is more than the Port of Seattle commission spent last year. The budget includes $112,000 for commission travel this year.

"We are well below the budgeted item for 2007," said Mike Wasem, the Port of Tacoma's spokesman. He didn't have travel spending per commissioner or the exact amount spent in 2006 or this year readily available.

As with Seattle, the Port of Tacoma commission president typically does the most travel.

For example Commission President Dick Marzano was in China in September to celebrate the signing of the NYK Line lease and attend a vessel christening. He was more recently in Virginia for the American Association of Port Authorities annual meeting.

Marzano said today that the trips are an important part of dealing with the port's customers. This is especially true for companies based in Asia where there's a great respect for government officials, he said.

"No one takes advantage of it," Marzano said. "When I went to China I think I spent as much time in the air as on the ground."

Commissioner Connie Bacon is in Atlanta right now as part of the Governor's economic development commission.

She will be in Tianjin, China in November for the World Shipping Summit and to meet with people from Fuzhou to solidy plans for a trade office there.

She each trip has a different benefit including meeting with customers to encourage business and to learn more pending commission decisions that could involve hundreds of millions of dollars.

Shares of Costco Wholesale Corp. soared today after the warehouse club retailer reported a 5 percent jump in its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings, driven by a rebound in same-store sales growth, cost-cutting and a tighter returns policy for electronics, The Associated Press reports.

The company also expressed optimism about fiscal 2008, saying earnings per share for the full year may come in higher than current Wall Street estimates.

Net income for the 16 weeks ended Sept. 2 rose to $372.4 million, or 83 cents per share, compared with $355.6 million, or 75 cents per share, in the comparable 17-week fourth quarter last year.

Results were hurt by a one-time charge of $35.8 million, or 8 cents per share, reflecting a change in how the company accounts for deferred membership fee revenue.

Excluding the charge, earnings were $408.2 million, or 91 cents per share, well above the 83 cents per share consensus estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

=> Read more!

Boeing announced today what outside experts have been saying for weeks: the company's innovative 787 Dreamliner is encountering so many issues that deliveries will be delayed.

The company said the first commercially operational Dreamliner will be delivered to launch customer All Nippon Airways in November or December next year instead of May.

"We are disappointed over the schedule changes that we are announcing today," said Boeing Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney. "Notwithstanding the challenges that we are experiencing in bringing forward this game-changing product, we remain confident in the design of the 787, and in the fundamental innovation and technologies that underpin it."

Until today Boeing had made a brave effort to assure its customers and the public that despite complications it would deliver the 787 on its original schedule.

But with the first example of the plane still lacking complete wiring and plumbing in the company's Everett factory, Boeing decided to give itself more time to work out the kinks before delivering the plane.

=> Read more!

If you read my column today about University Place author Mary Lloyd and her new book, "Bold Retirement: Mining Your Own Silver for a Rich Life," you probably thought you could pick up the book on Amazon.com or at your local bookstore.

Well, not until January. But you can order it direct from Lloyd at her Web site: www.mining-silver.com.

And if you want to know more about Lloyd, here's some background that didn't make it into the newspaper:

The Mary Lloyd File
Age: 61
Lives: University Place
Hometown: Menasha, Wisc.
Education: BA, Geology, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh; MA, Psychology, University of Nebraska; Ph.d-level studies in industrial/organizational psychology, University of Nebraska
Personal: Divorced, two sons
Retired from: geologist and executive in natural gas and energy industries.
Now: Consultant, speaker and author.

The World Trade Center Tacoma will get a new director and chart a new direction in upcoming months.

After six years, in the position Andreas Udbye has resigned as the nonprofit organization's executive director.

"It's one of those mutual things," Udbye said. "The timing was right. I'm going off to do other things."

Lyle Quasim, chair of the World Trade Center Tacoma's board, said Udbye decided to resign after a conversation about the changing direction of the organization.

The World Trade Center Tacoma provides programs and services for businesses interested developing overseas markets.

"It was a situation where we were looking at different leadership, different style and a different direction," Quasim said. "(Andreas) didn't think that was where he wanted to go."

=> Read more!

Airbus announced today that it had delivered 330 commercial aircraft in 2007's first nine months, one more than its rival, The Boeing Co.

That kind of neck-and-neck race is likely to continue through the year's end. The prize? The title of the world's largest commercial airplane maker.

Both Boeing and Airbus said they expect to produce about 445 aircraft this year, so the race is likely to be down to the wire.

Airbus always announces its results after Boeing, so the European manufacturer has an opportunity to stretch a bit if initial results aren't satisfactory.

In the order department, Boeing still leads Airbus this year with 903 orders for the year compared with Airbus' 854.

Boeing won the order race last year, but Airbus pulled in more last-minute orders in 2005 to overcome what looked like an insurmountable lead.

A 1948 addition to downtown Tacoma's historic Elks Temple was demolished in just two hours this morning.

The cinderblock addition was added in 1948 to house an annex to the building's kitchen. It was the first of two annexes to the temple the building owners plan to raze. the second addition, built in 1937, housed the building's racquetball courts. No timetable has been set for the demolition of the second addition.

One addition down. One to go.

The structure, built on piers and accessible to vagrants from the underside, was a haven for the homeless and served as a convenient corridor for intruders to enter the larger Temple building.

Itinerants have stripped the temple's interior of decorative accessories and spray painted its walls.

Demolition crews said they found sleeping bags, needles and other drug paraphernalia under the building as well as an extension cord snaked into the main building to supply the vagrants with power.

The building's new owners, Williams and Dame of Portland, are still seeking an adaptive reuse for the temple. The developer owns the lot to the north of the temple at 565 Broadway on which they may build a condominium structure.

An interesting quote and a funny line from Barry Asmus, who offered the keynote speech at this morning’s 124th annual breakfast and meeting of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber:

The quote: “Inflation does to a country what amphetamines do to the body.”

The line: “Twenty-five percent of men kiss their wives goodbye before they leave the house. Ninety-five percent of men kiss their houses goodbye when they leave their wives.”

Up on the 5th floor of the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center, the Chamber was holding its annual business trade show. Most local financial institutions (Columbia, Rainier Pacific, Venture, BECU, even Viking Bank) were there (although Washington Mutual’s booth was empty and unstaffed, as was Duke's Chowder House).

As in years past, attendees walked the aisles, heard the pitches, played some games and took advantage of the assorted free samples (candy from many, raffles for gift baskets were common, and there were pens from The News Tribune).

Gay Landry was there from Affairs of University Place, with a display featuring her truffles.

=> Read more!

Boeing's official stance remains that the 787 Dreamliner will meet the May 2008 deadline for its commercial deliveries.

But within the aerospace and finance industries, experts are scoffing.

The first 787 reportedly remains far from ready in an Everett production bay with substantial wiring and hydraulics still to be done. And still in unfinished status is the flight control software from Honeywell whose six million lines of code remain to be debugged and burnished.

Some analysts meanwhile are predicting a four-to-six month delay in the handover of the first 787 to launch customer All Nippon Airways and subsequent delays all along the production schedule.

Boeing meanwhile insists the schedule, although tight, can be accomplished. As recently as this week Boeing executive Randy Tinseth said the plane was still on the mark.

Considering everything that Boeing is doing differently with the 787, its not surprising that the plane may not meet its deadline.

Consider:

* The 787 is the world's first composite-bodied jetliner. Boeing and its partners had to develop whole new production and assembly techniques for the plane.

* Boeing has farmed out production and even some design responsibilities to partners around the world. In many cases, those partners are working in new plants with new workers on a new technology.

* The company is relying on those partners not only to produce the big pieces of the plane but also to deliver them on a tight schedule already stuffed with all the wiring, hydraulics and accoutrements necessary for Boeing workers in Everett just to pop them together in three days to produce a complete aircraft. The first plane subassemblies arrived in Everett minus that wiring and plumbing.

* Boeing had counted on an abbreviated test schedule for the 787 to get it certified. Now, with the first flight of the 787 delayed until November or December, that flight test schedule has been shortened even more.

* Critical shortages remain of fasteners and other materials.

Most observers expect Boeing to finally admit it won't make its ambitious schedule at its next quarterly financial reporting conference call scheduled for late this month.

A test of computerized flight status alert providers in today's Wall Street Journal gives good grades to a Northwest company.

The Journal, which tested a handful of flight status sites, said FlightStats.com earns kudos for correctly reporting flight delays.

FlightStats is unit of Portland's Conducive Technology Corp.

The Journal survey found that some services based their reporting solely on the time a flight was reported leaving the gate while FlightStats based its reports on the time the flight actually took off.

As this summer's travel delays show, on-ground delays can amount to hours while air traffic control freezes takeoffs because of congested skies or weather conditions.

FlightStats Web site is a cornucopia of information for those enamoured with statistics. It tracks flight on-time history, actual flight status, airline-by-airline and airport-by-airport performance.

The site includes airport security delay status, airport reviews and seemingly infinite layers of information about the duration of delays.

Add up the figures, and we’re actually doing pretty good.

The state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council has released the annual Washington Economic Climate Study – and if this were spring, you might say the sky is mostly sunny.
At least it’s not falling.

Of 36 benchmarks (quality of life, research and development spending, infrastructure, exports, education and such) that were ranked against other states: 18 improved, 12 regressed and six stayed the same.

Of 37 benchmarks measured by year-to-year changes, 24 improved, nine regressed, two stayed the same and two showed mixed results.

The area in which the state showed the most improvement was “Economic Performance.”

• Under “Quality of Life,” the homicide rate improved. while the arrest rates for violent crime worsened. The quality of the state’s drinking water improved while the.state health index worsened.

In other results:

• Per-capita personal income in the state went from $32,528 in 2002 to $38,067 in 2006. Meanwhile, the state’s per-capita ranking among the 50 state has fallen from 13th to 16th.

* The state continues to be a popular destination for international and domestic migration, ranking 6th in terms of total migration in 2006. On a per capita basis, the state ranked 10th, with a migration rate of 1.1 percent as compared to the national rate of 0.4 percent.

•Last year’s total population growth for Washington was 1.7 percent, while the national average was 1.0 percent. Natural increase accounted for 32.7 percent of the state’s growth while 67.3 percent came from migration. Of the state’s immigrants, 37.9 percent were international and 62.1 percent were domestic. In the U.S. as a whole, 58.4 percent of population growth came from natural increase and 41.6 percent from international migration.

• In 2004, Washington ranked 22nd in per-capita university research and development with a spending level of $145 per-capita, slightly less than the U.S. average of $146. The state’s total per-capita research and development spending of $1,762 was much higher than the national average of $967, ranking 5th. Both national and Washington per capita total and industrial spending declined in 2004.

For a look at the full report, visit www.erfc.wa.gov.

Tacoma's gas prices haven't followed the gradual downward drift seen through much of the country since the end of the summer driving season.

The national price has dropped more than six cents over the past month, while the price in Tacoma – $2.90.5 on Monday – is up more than five scents from a month ago

Average prices for regular at Washington pumps Monday was $2.94.7, 18 cents higher than the national average of $2.76.7, according to AAA Washington.

Experts say a tighter gasoline supply on the West Coast is keeping prices high.

Although some areas of the grounds lay singed by fire and littered with bent shards of metal, Atlas Castings & Technology remained alive today.

“We’re still in business,” said Atlas Vice President of Sales Dave Caldwell.

The company continues to evaluate the damage from Saturday’s propane explosions.
“We’ve got a number of things we have to investigate,” Caldwell said.

Before operations can be fully reestablished, he said, “issues have to be evaluated from a mechanical and a safety standpoint. We’re getting things ready to operate.”

Caldwell was not sure if the damage would lead to layoffs at the Tacoma plant.
“It’s way too soon for that,” he said.

A sign on the door of the company office asked that workers call this evening for staffing information.

The days of Tacoma's famed Mikie Burger could be numbered if plans to redevelop the site of the Little Holland Drive In move forward.

The Mikie burger (or is it Mikey?) has been acclaimed by reviewers and customers alike. CitySearch, for instance, named the Mikie Seattle's best burger two years ago beating such tough competitors as Dick's Drive-In and Red Mill that are actually in Seattle and Tacoma's Frisko Freeze and Frugal's burgers.

The stand also boasts that its Tacoma's only frozen custard stand.

Ed Wells, a Tacoma architect who is planning a multi-phase development at Center and Orchard streets for landowner Bjorn Olson, said all the buildings on the site will be demolished.

"I understand that the owners of the Little Holland will have first dibs on space in the new center, but it isn't clear yet whether they will sign up," said Wells.

Little Holland's owners were unavailable for comment. The iconic shoebox-sized restaurant at 5008 Center Street is closed until Thursday.

The Little Holland isn't the only structure that will be razed for the new development at Center and Orchard streets.

A convenience store on the corner and several other structures will be replaced by a new 28,000-square-foot structure in the center's first phase.

Other structures in later phases of the Center Square development could include a small drive-thru and two other structures separate from the main building.

The owner has applied for a rezone of the site to C-2 Commercial zoning. The present zoning is a mix of commercial and residential zoning. A City of Tacoma zoning hearing is set for Dec. 6.

Wells estimated it could be five or six months before the owner gets the go-ahead to begin altering the site.

Construction of the new center's first phase could take about 11 months, he said.

Washington's gas prices haven't followed the gradual downward drift seen through much of the country since the end of the summer driving season.

Average prices for regular at Washington pumps Sunday was $2.94.9, 17.9 cents higher than the national average, according to AAA Washington.

The national price has dropped during the last two weeks while Washington's price has increased.

The price of regular on average in Washington a month ago was $2.874. A year ago it was $2.654, according to the AAA.

Experts say a tighter gasoline supply on the West Coast is keeping prices high.

California regular prices were the nation's second-highest at $3.013. Hawaii's were the highest at $3.211 a gallon.

The nation's lowest gas prices were in New Jersey, $2.538 a gallon for regular.

Summertime farmers' markets aren't just small potatoes anymore.

Puyallup's Farmers' Market, for instance, recently announced it had hit sales of $1 million this year through the end of September.

The market, operated by the Puyallup Main Street Association, had set $1 million as its sales goal for 2007. It reached that goal a month before it closes for the season.

Puyallup's Farmers' Market is held in Pioneer Park in downtown PUyallup. It will operate on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the rest of October before closing for the year.

The market features fresh produce, hand crafts, floral and nursery items.

Kim Hails, director of the Gig Harbor Peninsula Area Chamber of Commerce, has resigned after five years. The chamber board announced Friday that Hails will pursue "new personal and professional challenges."

Members of the chamber executive committee have begun a search for a new director. A new board will be introduced at the chamber's annual banquet this weekend.

Bob Draggoo of Peninsula Light Co. will be installed as chamber president.

Future site of Famous Footwear.

My colleagues and I have been talking a lot about boots this week. Rain boots. Boots with laces. Boots with pink, fleece liner.

Lo and behold I discovered today there will soon be one more place to buy boots – and shoes of all kinds – in Tacoma.

Famous Footwear plans on opening a store in Tacoma in the Lincoln Plaza off of South 38th Street.

The company's Web site says the store will open for business Nov. 4. The company already has several Puget Sound locations including Lakewood, Puyallup, Federal Way, Auburn and Gig Harbor.

Microsoft Corp. has spun off Bungie Studios, creator of the blockbuster “Halo” video game trilogy, but said today it will maintain close ties with the company and own a minority stake in it, The Associated Press reports.

Privately held Bungie LLC will develop games exclusively for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Windows PC platforms “for the foreseeable future,” said Harold Ryan, Bungie’s president and studio head, in an interview.

The two companies said they will continue to work together to support the “Halo” franchise — including “Halo 3” released Sept. 25 — and will expand their partnership to include new games. Executives declined to comment on the size of Microsoft’s stake or other financial terms of the deal, which was effective Friday.

Microsoft acquired Chicago-based Bungie and its “Halo” concept in 2000, ensuring that the Xbox would be the only game console to run the multiplayer first-person shooter game. Bungie moved from Chicago to Kirkland a few miles from Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters, and the first installment of the trilogy went on sale simultaneously with the first Xbox console in November 2001.

The grounding of a major part of Sea-Tac-based Horizon Air's fleet of Bombardier Q400 turboprop aircraft last month undoubtedly cost the company considerably.

But the airline won't be saying just how much until the quarterly earnings report from its parent company, Alaska Air Group, Oct. 25.

Scandinavian Airlines, whose Q400s were involved in two non-fatal accidents because of problems with the Q400 landing gear, is seeking $77 million in damages from Canada's Bombardier.

Following those two incidents, Horizon grounded some of its Q400s, cancelling hundreds of flights over two weeks. The airline inspected those aircraft and returned them to the air when it found no landing gear defects.

A Horizon spokesman said the airline will discuss the financial implications of those groundings during the quarterly financial report, but until then it won't comment.

One of the larger buildings ever built in Tacoma is under construction south of Washington 509 just east of the Puyallup River.

The building, a tilt-up concrete warehouse being built for Northwest Building LLC, is part a new two-building complex at the Port Commerce Center.

Port Commerce Center aerial

The structure will have 598,400 square feet under its roof when its finished in February. That's larger than the Tacoma Dome (250,000 square feet) and the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center (277,000 square feet).

Dave Baker, Northwest Building managing director, said the structure will be leased either as one structure or it can be divided into as many as three spaces for multiple tenants.

So far, Northwest has no tenants signed up. The company expects the building will attract a warehouse-distribution operation or perhaps a manufacturing center.

A second building on the site will be about 300,000 square feet.

Northwest Building has extensive experience in Pierce County with large warehouse-style structures. It owns the Fife Commerce Center, the Lakewood Industrial Park and the Park in Puyallup as well as the Port Commerce Center.

Air France, which began service between Sea-Tac and Paris June 11, says its traffic has exceeded expectations.

Nearly 32,000 passengers had flown the route in 3 1/2 months, the airline said.

The airline, which flies to France daily during the summer, begins its winter schedule in November. That schedule is five weekly departures, every day but Monday and Wednesday.

The winter schedule is altered to arrive in Paris earlier in the day. Air France flight will depart Sea-Tac at 2:05 p.m. arriving in Paris at 8:50 a.m. the next day. The flight returns from Paris at 10:50 a.m. arriving in Seattle at 1:05 p.m.

India's largest airline today announced it is ordering 20 additional Boeing 737-800s to augment its fleet.

Jet Airways also took options for 10 additional aircraft.

Jet Airways Boeing 737-800

Delivery of the planes is scheduled between October 2012 and December 2014, the airline said.

The airline had previously ordered 10 737 Next Generation aircraft, the last of which is to be delivered this month.

Meanwhile, Boeing said Thursday it's total commercial aircraft orders for the year hit 893 this week. That new order total 35 new orders booked this week.

Its hard to say whether that total includes the Jet Airways orders because Boeing listed 34 of its 35 orders this week as being from unidentified customers.

The company typically defers to it's customers to announce their purchases before adding them by name to its order list.

Yahoo! Inc. and EBay Inc. agreed to work together to protect their users from spoof e-mail messages in an effort to combat Internet fraud, Bloomberg News reports today.

Yahoo e-mail users will receive fewer fake messages that appear to come from EBay, the world’s largest Internet auctioneer, and its PayPal unit, the companies said today in a statement.

The companies will use Yahoo technology that lets Internet service providers verify a message’s authenticity.

Yahoo, the most popular provider of Web-based e-mail in the U.S., is bolstering security features to fend off competition from Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Bill Casper demonstrates his "atomic bomb" replica – gourds of similar size to materials that could be used to make a nuclear weapon.

I stopped by Bill Casper's office yesterday so I could see the pumpkin and squash that prompted a visit from the FBI. Read today's story for the details.

Casper is running against Don Johnson for the Port of Tacoma Commission seat being vacated by Jack Fabulich.

His main point is that the parts needed to make an atomic bomb are small enough to pass undetected (inside a shipping container) through the port's current security devices.

The gourds are not radioactive.

But the squash, according to Casper, is of similar size to the "bullet" piece of the Hiroshima Bomb. The pumpkin is about the same size at the "target" portion of the explosive.

According to Casper – and a diagram of the bomb he provided – the bullet fits into the target and sets off the explosive.

The port now uses Radiation Portal Monitors to scan containers for radioactive material. Casper says the RPMs are not enough. Ports need to X-ray every container, he says.

Jerry McLaughlin, executive vice president of Tacoma advertising firm JayRay, reports that ads placed in a restaurant industry publications have already attracted new business for JayRay client Copesan, a national pest management network.

McLaughllin says that Copesan, along with Sprague Pest Solutions, came to the firm seeking a way to market its pest management program to executives of national restaurant chains.

The food-and-fly combo was “only natural,” McLaughlin says. The image was incorporated into direct mail and internal communications.

"This campaign energized the sales force and helped Copesan sign a national
account in the first few weeks after it was implemented," McLaughlin says. "The sales process typically takes a few months."

Employers with airport-related jobs will be holding a job fair Oct. 12 at Sea-Tac Airport's arrivals hall.

The jobs range from shuttle driver positions to pilot and engineering jobs.

The fair will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the far south end of the airport's baggage claim level beneath the hanging aircraft.

Job fair participants can have their parking tickets validated by bringing them to the job fair.

The Boeing Co. delivered 109 commercial airliners in this year's third quarter, up 9 percent from the same period last year.

Heading the list was Boeing's popular 737. Boeing's Renton plant produced and delivered 81 of those single-aisle jet in the last three months.

737 Renton production line

Third Quarter Production numbers:
737 81
747 5
767 3
777 20
Total 109

Through September Production Totals
737 250
747 12
767 9
777 58
Total 329

Depending on your point of view - passenger's or airline's - news today from SeaTac-based Alaska Airlines was good news or bad.

The airline announced its overall passenger traffic for September increased 1.7 percent to 1.427 billion revenue passenger miles. But the airline's capacity, up 4.2 percent, increased faster than its traffic.

That translates to planes flying with more empty seats this September than last September. The airline's passenger load factor (the percentage of seats filled with paying passengers) fell to 71.8 percent from 73.6 percent a year ago.

For Alaska, emptier planes means less profit. For Alaska passengers, that means more chances that the seat next to them will be unoccupied.

At Alaska's sister airline, Horizon Air, (both are owned by Alaska Air Group), passenger traffic increased 9.2 percent in September over the same period a year ago. But capacity increased by 10.9 percent.

That means a load factor of 71.3 percent last month compared with 72.4 percent in September, 2006.

Microsoft Corp., striving to make its Xbox video-game unit profitable, said “Halo 3” brought in $300 million in revenue over its first week, becoming the fastest- selling video game, Bloomberg News reports.

More than 2.7 million people played the alien-shooting title online in the first week, Redmond-based Microsoft said in a statement today. The company, the world’s biggest software maker, released “Halo 3” worldwide on Sept. 25.

Sales of the Xbox 360 more than doubled compared with the weekly average before the debut of “Halo 3,” Microsoft said. That may help the company narrow the gap with Nintendo Co.’s Wii system, which has outsold the Xbox 360 in the U.S. since at least January, according to researcher NPD Group Inc.

Nintendo’s Wii sold about 400,000 units in August to Microsoft’s 277,000 according to Port Washington, New York-based NPD. Since its debut in November 2006 the Wii has sold 4 million units in the U.S. The Xbox, which came out a full year earlier than the Nintendo system, has sold 6.3 million.

The Port of Tacoma will begin enrolling workers in the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program in November, port executives learned today.

The TWIC program is a Department of Homeland Security initiative aimed at checking the backgrounds of people with access to port facilities to ensure they are not security threats.

The program includes criminal background, immigrant status and terrorist watch list screening. It affects longshore workers, truckers and other workers with access to ports, according to the American Association of Port Authorities.

The port is among 11 that will the first to enroll workers in the program.

Port of Tacoma Executive Director Tim Farrell heard the announcement today while at the AAPA annual meeting in Virgina.

He said that Tacoma is one of the first isn't significant.

Of more concern is learning in October that the program is scheduled to roll out in November, Farrell said.

"That's not a lot of time," he said.

The Tacoma Fall RV Show opened today, and it might be worth a trip to the Tacoma Dome. I’m working on a full story for tomorrow’s edition.

If you go, here’s your chance to see an $700,000 Beaver Marquis.

Or you could talk with Ty Adams, an affable young man from Portland who is touring the nation driving his bioTrekker, an RV fueled both with bio-diesel and a passion for the environment.

Or visit the space occupied by Poulsbo RV, where you might get a chance to meet General Manager Thomas Chelone. His enthusiasm for RV borders on passion - and it’s no wonder that Poulsbo is the nation’s fifth largest (by sales volume) RV dealership in the country.

If you'd like to meet Mr. Chelone, see the video below.

The show runs through Sunday. Doors open at 11 a.m., and close at 8 p.m. today and tomorrow, 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $9 for adults, $7 for seniors and free to children 12 and under.

I stopped in at Starbucks this morning to pick up a latte before work. As I was leaving one of the employees handed me a card with a picture of KT Tunstall on it.

It turns out that the Starbucks free song promotion comes in the form of a download code on iTunes for the free song of the day. I assumed that I had to bring in an iPhone (which I don't have) or some other piece of electronics to get my free song downloaded while in the store.

The Starbucks Web site says that free songs will be available in stores for another month. If you bring in an iPod or something to the store, you can download songs to your device wirelessly.

Alaska Airlines' August on-time performance fell to nearly the bottom of the list of American carriers, the federal Department of Transportation reported today.

Nearly one-third of Alaska's flights, 32.9 percent, were more than 15 minutes late arriving at their destination in August, the DOT said.

Only United Airlines with 33.5 percent of its flights late, and Atlantic Southeast Airlines with 45 percent of its flights late, were worse. That figure put Alaska 18th on the list of 20 U.S. carriers.

Alaska had ranked thirteenth in on-time performance in July at 68.1 percent on time. In June, Alaska was eighth with an on-time performance of 70.5 percent.

Among the most consistently late of Alaska flights was a Juneau, Alaska-to-Petersburg, Alaska flight which was delayed 83.87 percent of the time in August.

Here's DOT's list of U.S. airlines and their August on-time performance:

Aloha Airlines 97.0%
Hawaiian Airlines 93.6%
Southwest Airlines 78.6%
ExpressJet Airlines 77.6%
Frontier Airlines 76.7%
Skywest Airlines 75.6%
Continental Airlines 75.3%
Mesa Airline 73.6%
AirTran Airways 71.2%
Pinnacle Airways 71.1%
JetBlue Airways 70.1%
American Airlines 69.9%
Delta Air Lines 69.6%
US Airways 69.3%
Northwest Airlines 68.2%
American Eagle 67.5%
Comair 67.2%
Alaska Airlines 67.1%
United Airlines 66.2%
Atlantic Southeast 55.0%

Many of these airlines such as Skywest, Mesa and Comair, are regional carriers that fly smaller aircraft to smaller cities under contract to the large carriers.

It turns out that Tacoma’s Joeseppi's Italian Ristorante isn’t the only state business providing sustenance to the crew up in Kirkland building a home for the TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

Bellingham-based TOP Food & Drug has been supplying and operating the site's free "snack shack" since work began last Wednesday. Items keeping the several-hundred builders building include some 6,800 bottles of water and 6,800 bottles of soft drinks, according to TOP spokesman Dave Brumbaugh. Add fresh fruit, energy bars and granola bars to the list.

In the South Sound, TOP has stores in Tacoma, Puyallup, Lake Tapps, Auburn, Kent, Lacey, Olympia and Federal Way.

A Seattle federal court jury today ruled in favor of Federal Way's Baden Sports Inc. in a dispute over the technology used to build a better basketball.

A jury awarded Baden, a family-owned company that specializes in designing and manufacturing sports balls, an $8.1 million judgment against Molten Corp., a Japanese sports equipment company.

The jury decided that Molten infringed on Baden's patented "Cushion Control Technology" and had intentionally falsely advertised its basketballs.

Baden developed the technology in the mid-'90s, the company said. The technology involves constructing a basketball with thousands of tiny air cells between the inner and outer layers of a basketball.

Baden claims the technology allows players to control the ball better, gives the ball a softer feel and a longer life.

The court ordered Molten to halt sales of its patent-infringing "dual cushion" basketballs in the United States.

Ciao! met chow today as a crew from Joeseppi's Italian Ristorante – a popular North Tacoma restaurant – loaded up enough pasta to feed a few hundred construction workers who are building a home in Kirkland.

The building project will be featured in January on the ABC TV program "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

This is the third time this week that Joe Stortini, owner of Joeseppi's, has donated food to the crew of between 300 and 500 builders.

"You give to the community, and it gives back," he said.

The menu? Two pastas (tortellini and penne – or, in this case, penne-ington); three sauces (alfredo, red meat and tomato cream); meatballs; sausage sauteed with onions and peppers; salad; and bread.

"It's a rewarding thing to do," Stortini said.

The show will air in January, and Stortini has invited the production crew to Joeseppi's.

Weyerhaeuser Co. will stop producing plywood at two southern mills and convert parts of the plants to making veneer.

The Federal Way-based company said Monday night that demand for plywood is falling while sales of veneer continue to be strong.

Weyerhaeuser will convert its Dodson, La., plywood operation to a 100 percent veneer manufacturing operation, effective Oct. 26. The company will also stop veneer production at its Colbert, Ga., mill within the next 30 days. The Colbert site will continue manufacturing Parallam using veneer supply from Dodson and other Weyerhaeuser veneer operations beginning Nov. 1.

These operating posture changes will affect about 70 employees at Colbert and less than 50 at the Dodson site.

=> Read more!

Construction began this week on a $10 million renovation that will give downtown Tacoma's famed Crescent Ballroom and an adjacent former car dealership new lives.

The buildings at South 13th Street and Fawcett Avenue will become the administrative headquarters of TRA Medical Imaging.

For much of its 88-year history, the Crescent Ballroom was a venue for such famed performers as Duke Ellington, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Bobby Vee, Jan & Dean and Tacoma's own Fabulous Wailers. Nirvana played its last Tacoma gig there in 1990. Rudolph Valentino performed in the auditorium in 1923.

Ford Building and Crescent Ballroom beyond

Crescent project after remodeling. Colors are tentative

In more recent years, the auditorium and the former Manley-Thompson Ford Building next door sat abandoned and deteriorating.

=> Read more!

A Bellingham man has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and 12 months of community supervision for illegally collecting workers' compensation benefits while working another job.

The Washington Department of Labor and Industries reports today that Willard Leech, 53, was receiving time-loss benefits for a back injury that supposedly prevented him from working.

At the same time Leech worked steadily at general carpentry and was observed working on a ladder and maneuvering roof trusses into place, according to a news release from L&I.

=> Read more!

One of the best things about publishing news online (vs. in print) is the ability to actually know what people are clicking on. With that in mind, here are the top 6 for September from the Biz Buzz blog:

1. Port Director up for a raise
2. Most 'underrated' business in the South Sound
3. A billion dollars isn't what it used to be
4. It's free and worth a lot more for small business
5. Honda recalling thousands of civics
6. Tacoma Rail tests "green" locomotive

The minimum wage paid to Washington workers will increase 14 cents to $8.07 per hour on January 1, 2008.

The 1.8 percent increase in the minimum wage echoes a 1.8 percent increase in the nationwide Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers as measured by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. An initiative passed by Washington voters nine years ago requires that the state annually recalculate the wage.

With the increase, Washington employers will continue to pay workers the nation’s highest minimum wage, said Elaine Fischer, spokeswoman for the state Department of Labor & Industries this afternoon.

Minimums in California and Massachusetts will increase to $8.00 per hour on Jan. 1, 2008, she said. Oregon’s minimum will be reset at $7.95 per hour.

The Korean Women's Association, a Tacoma-based multi-cultural social service agency, may buy downtown Tacoma's Olympus Hotel.

The association's executive director, Lua Pritchard, said the organization would continue to operate the hotel as a low-income housing center after the purchase.

The hotel's developer, Campbell Hogue Associates of Bellevue, said the building at 817 Pacific Avenue was rehabilitated five years ago using federal low income tax credits.

Olympus Hotel

The seven-story, 40,000-square-foot building was built in 1909. Paddy Coyne's Pub occupies a ground-floor retail space in the old hotel.

The federal government issued tax credits to the hotel's owners. The owners sold those tax credits to business that needed to shelter income from taxes using the proceeds to reduce the amount of money it needed to borrow to fix up the building. In return for those tax credits, the owners agreed to maintin the building's status as a low-income housing structure for 40 years.

Thirty-five years remain on that commitment, said developer Terry Campbell.

Pritchard said the association hopes to use state grants to pay the purchase price for the hotel.

While the association and the hotel owner, M&M Olympus Hotel Limited Partnership, have held talks about the hotel's possibly changing hands, no offer is yet on the table.

Another long-time low-income property downtown, the Hotel Winthrop, is scheduled to be remodeled and revert to its use as a luxury hotel when its new owners, Prium Cos. finds new low-income housing for its present residents.

A TOTE ship.

The Port of Tacoma commission approved Friday a new lease with Totem Ocean Trailer Express to make way for more shipping terminal development on the Blair Waterway.

TOTE specializes in shipping cargo between Tacoma and Alaska.

Under the agreement, TOTE will move its terminal toward the mouth of the Blair Waterway to make way for the new NYK Line terminal.

TOTE's new space will be bigger - 72 acres compared to the 47-acre space it has now. Part of TOTE's current terminal will be used in the 168-acre NYK Line facility.

Constructing a new terminal for TOTE will cost the port $104 million and begin in 2009. The NYK Terminal will cost $300 million and begin in 2010.

The projects will finish in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

Business with Alaska accounts for 25 percent of the Port of Tacoma's trade volume.

I spoke with Bill Deaver, TOTE's president, about moving terminals a few weeks ago.

"Long-term we believe it will be a good move for TOTE because we will expand the terminal and have growth capability," he said. "The move itself with be disruptive, but manageable."

Aspiring authors take note: Amazon.com is offering $25,000 for the next great novel that eventually will be published on the company's Web site.

Here are the details:

What: Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

Who: Open to entrants in more than 20 countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Japan.

When: Beginning today through Nov. 5.

Info: Authors with an unpublished English-language novel manuscript can learn about the contest and submit their work for consideration via CreateSpace.

Sponsors: Penguin Group and Hewlett-Packard

=> Read more!

I was planning on touring the Port of Tacoma's Maytown property with the Friends of Rocky Prairie group, but unfortunately I was out of town Friday.

According to The Olympian report, about 50 people showed up including staff from the offices of Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and U.S. Rep. Adam Smith.

Need a refresher on Maytown?

It's the 745-acre property in South Thurston County the port purchased last year for $22 million.

The Port of Tacoma, in conjunction with the Port of Olympia, is considering creating a South Sound Logistics Center.

The facility would essentially be a place off the Tideflats to transfer cargo.

The concept is to have a place to quickly send cargo, relieving congestion on the Tideflats. Once there it would be organized onto trains and trucks headed for its final destination.

But Maytown residents have concerns about the project, including increased pollution, traffic, noise and the effects the project could have on prairie environment.

The residents organized the Friends of Rocky Prairie group, which is urging the port to consider alternative sites for its project.

For every job advertised in Seattle-Tacoma area in August, there was less than one unemployed person seeking a job to fill it, a new survery shows.

The Seattle-Tacoma area ranked ninth nationally among 52 large cities in the ratio of job ads compared to the number of unemployed.

That new figure comes from a Conference Board survey of on-line job advertising for August.

That survey showed that for every job advertised there were .85 unemployed persons available to take that job in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

The supply-demand rate was lowest in Salt Lake City where the rate was .5. Here's a list of the top ten:

Salt Lake City .50
Washington, D.C. .63
Austin, Texas .68
San Francisco .73
Richmond, Va. .78
San Jose, Calif. .78
Phoenix .79
Denver .79
Seattle-Tacoma .85
Boston 1.03

Nationwide, that same survey showed, the highest demand for workers was in the healthcare field where the average wage is $29.82 an hour. The next highest demand was for managers ($44.20) followed by office support personnel ($14.60), business operations ($28.85) and computer workers ($33.29).

Vietnam Airlines announced today it has committed to order a dozen new 787 Dreamliners from Boeing and 10 A350-900 jets from Airbus.

The Airbus order, announced in France where Airbus is based, also includes 20 orders for Airbus A320 single-aisle jets.

The deal for the Boeing jets was signed last week in New York but not announced until today.

The airline planes to begin its first non-stop service to the United States from Ho Chi Minh city next year. It had previously ordered 787s from Boeing. The latest batch of 787-800s will be delivered beginning in 2015.

As a small-business owner (or an advocate for small business), are you troubled by a certain federal regulation? Maybe it’s too expensive, or ineffective, redundant, outdated or cumbersome. Now’s your chance to change it.

The Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration is seeking nominations of federal rules in need of review and reform. The “Top 10” rules nominated by small business owners, trade associations and others will be transmitted to appropriate federal agencies for review and reform.

“Complying with all federal regulations now costs our economy $1.1 trillion per year; that’s more per household than the cost of health care,” said Thomas M. Sullivan, Chief Counsel for Advocacy.

“Advocacy’s Regulatory Review and Reform initiative can help lighten that load by streamlining and updating outdated and ineffective regulations. We are calling for rules needing reform, and we are asking for constructive suggestions about how to improve them.”

You can nominate regulations needing review and reform by visiting the Office of Advocacy r3 Web site at www.sba.gov/advo/r3, or by sending an email to advocacy@sba.gov, or by calling Keith Holman at 202-205-6936.