The candymakers at Tacoma’s Brown & Haley are working 24 hours a day these days turing out candy – especially Roca products – for Christmas, as well as items related to Valentine’s Day. Also on the production line are candies bound for the Asian market and Chinese New Year.

New this year are “Chocolate Pillows,” which will be available beginning next Thursday only at Brown & Haley outlets in Fife and at the factory store in the Dome District. Company head Pierson Clair calls them “a decadent fudge enrobed in a premium European chocolate.” He says the soft confection is “a radical departure” from the traditional buttercrunch Roca.

Due in stores nationwide beginning on Dec. 27 are “Roca Truffle Hearts” – heart-shaped and Roca-suffused candies with varieties based in milk chocolate, dark chocolate and a dark chocolate with a ganache center.

The pillows will debut nationwide in the third or fourth quarter next year, and, Clair said, could contain a walnut or vanilla fudge center and might also be available enrobed in a dark chocolate or a milk chocolate.

For the hearts, operations chief David Armstrong says an original order for one container-load of boxes from an Asian manufacturer has since balooned to four.

Reports were out yesterday that Nordstrom was doing away with the live piano playing at its stores.

Not true in Tacoma. Nordstrom spokeswoman Brooke White told me last night that the manager of the store at the Tacoma Mall has decided to keep the live piano playing.

Stores at Bellevue Square and Alderwood Mall Will switch to recorded music, she said.

“We know there’s a nostalgic value to the piano, and some customers love it. But some don’t. They just feel the piano is outdated,” spokeswoman Brooke White told The Seattle Times. “It’s a difficult line to walk. We know we’re going to disappoint some people.”

White said individual stores are deciding whether to cut back on live piano or phase it out entirely, based on their customers’ preferences.

As recently as five years ago, three-quarters of Nordstrom stores featured live pianists.

Today, only half of its 101 locations have a human being tickling the ivories — and that’s just part time, White said.

Stores in downtown Seattle and Tukwila, are keeping their pianists for now, and others may bring back the piano for holidays and special events.

A very large auto ship is visiting the Port of Tacoma today.

The Wallenius Lines M/V Fidelio arrived last night on its maiden voyage to Tacoma.

Average car ships carry about 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles (or car-equivelent units). This one, however, carries 8,000 vehicles.

Just how big is it?

The ship is 747.4 feet long. That's more than two football fields.

It weights 71,583 tons and has 13 car decks.

Tacoma resident Ralph Anderson calls to tell us that he either wants his computer back - or else the money he paid to have it repaired.

He told us some trouble he'd been having with a South Tacoma business, PC Salvage, and how he's been trying to track down the owner.

Earlier today, here's how the sidewalk looked in front of the business, at 3627 S. 54th St.

I called the three numbers listed on the company's Web site, and each fed to a full mailbox. I also ran a quick search of the owner's name, and found two more local numbers – both have been disconnected.

Meanwhile the sidewalk fills with used, useless and possibly hazardous waste.

Let me know if you're involved with this - leave a comment. Thanks.

Amazon.com today launched Askville.com, a website where users ask and answer questions. The topics can be anything from how to buy an HDTV to the best way to lose weight.

Here's the lure: Askville.com users who share their knowledge by answering questions will receive Quest Gold, which, for a limited time and while supplies last, can be redeemed for $100 or $50 Amazon.com Gift Cards.

The quote from the company: "Finding information or getting good advice is hard enough when you are searching the Internet by yourself," said Joseph Park, Director of Askville.com.
"Askville.com allows you to ask a question to a community of users who are willing to help you find that information or give you advice from their own personal experiences, which makes the discoverability of information much more efficient. Plus, it is a lot more fun interacting with real people versus looking at a list of website links from a search engine."

Joseph S. Martinac Sr., the chairman of Tacoma's oldest major shipyard, has died.

Martinac led J.M. Martinac Shipbuilding Corp. for nearly 50 years before his death early Wednesday morning.

Joseph S. Martinac Sr. in 1965

Though he was 87, Martinac worked three days a week at the Thea Foss Waterway shipbuilder until two weeks ago when he entered the hospital for an operation to remove non-cancerous cysts on a lung, said his son, Joe Martinac Jr, the shipyard president.

"He never left intensive care. He developed the kinds of problems you're susceptible to if you're a person of his age," said his son.

He died about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday at Tacoma General Hospital.

Martinac's family plans a "celebration of life" for Martinac from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 15 at the Tacoma Golf and Country Club.

Martinac assumed control of the shipyard in late '50s from his father, J.M. Martinac, the shipyard's founder.

The shipyard began on the Thea Foss Waterway in 1924 building wooden boats. During World War II and the Korean War the company specialized in wooden-hulled minesweepers. The company transitioned to steel and aluminum vessels in the '60s under the senior Martinac's leadership.

Under Martinac, the company became a key supplier to the tuna fishing industry. It launched many large tuna seiners for that fishery which was centered in San Diego.

Martinac was a founder of San Diego's Ocean Fisheries Inc., a company whose tuna fleet was a major player in tuna industry until the mid-'70s when the company was sold to Starkist.

After the tuna industry moved to to other countries, the shipyard changed its emphasis to tugs, ferries and other auxiliary vessels, though it remained in the tuna fishing business with one of its own boats for 16 years.

"Dad had tremendous integrity," said his son. "He was tough and fair-minded."

Martinac Sr. served on the board of First Interstate Bank for 18 years. He was among the leaders of the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce, Annie Wright School and Washington Employers boards.

He served as a Navy PT Boat captain during World War II.

Martinac was a Tacoma native and a 1938 Stadium High School graduate.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Dee of Lakewood, son, Joe Jr., a daughter, Karen, and a grandson, Alex, all of Tacoma.

The yard is part of a consortium negotiating to build the next class of Washington State ferries.

If you’re wondering about the intricacies of the latest credit and liquidity crisis, there’s an interesting forum scheduled for tomorrow morning.

The Association of Student Accountants at the University of Washington Tacoma is hosting the Contemporary Accounting Forum 2007 from 8:15 to 11:45 a.m. at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center.

This year's topic “Transparency and Accountability: the Role of Structured Investments and Off-Balance Sheet Financing in the Global Credit Crisis”, highlights the macro-economic, financial and accounting issues related to the use of structured finance securitization instruments and vehicles and the current liquidity crisis.

An expert panel of business leaders will explore the causes of this crisis and will set the tone to look forward while analyzing the lessons learned. The featured speakers are Michael Phillips, Chairman of Russell Investment Group; William H. Schenck, Senior Vice-President and Regional Manager of Wells Fargo; Kenneth Nelson, Senior Vice President, Corporate Treasury of US Bancorp; Dave Gorretta, Audit Partner, Financial Services & Banking, at Deloitte & Touche and Gregory Noronha, Professor of Finance at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

There’s a nominal entrance fee, and the public is welcome.

The FDIC is out with third quarter banking results, and banks in Washington did better than those nationally.

Across the country, FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions reported a net income of $28.7 billion, a decline of $9.4 billion, or 24.7 percent. An increase in loan-loss provision and a decline in noninterest income were primarily responsible.

The 83 institutions in Washington saw a net income, year-to-date, of $615 million, up from $459 million in the third quarter of 2006. Net interest margin was down to 4.48 percent from 4.58 percent in the third quarter of 2006.

The percentage of unprofitable institutions rose to 15.66 percent from 12.35 percent.

Nonperforming assets to assets was 0.43 percent this year, against 0.30 percent in 2006. Return on assets in the state rose to 1.52 percent from 1.31 percent, year-to-date, a year ago.

Formerly faithful Boeing customer Hawaiian Airlines has joined the rank of Airbus customers with an order for 12 Airbus wide-bodies.

The aircraft, six A330-200s and six A350-800XWBs, are worth $2.2 billion at list prices.

The airline took options for six additional aircraft of each type.

The twin-aisle planes will replace Boeing 767s in Hawaiian's fleet beginning in 2012 for the A330s and in 2017 for the A350s.

Hawiian President Mark Dunkerley said the company is talking with leasing companies about bringing in some A330s as early as 2009.

Some of the airline's reasoning for picking Airbus may have to do with availability of suitable Boeing aircraft.

The popularity of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner (more than 700 sold) may have meant that Hawaiian would have had to wait until 2014 or beyond to acquire a 787.

Boeing's 777, which is larger than the A330, may have been too large for Hawaiian's needs.

In picking the A330, Hawaiian will see gain fuel economy and range over its present fleet of Boeing 767s. The A330 carries 45 more passengers than the 767 and can reach beyond the West Coast cities that Hawaiian now serves from the 50th state.

Hawaiian has three daily flights from Seattle, two to Honolulu and one to Maui.

Though Tacoma's largest developer, Prium Companies, has yet to make a formal announcement, the company has quietly pulled its eight-story Hanna Heights condominium project off the market.

The company, which has not sold one of the 35 units in the building at Sixth Avenue and Fawcett Street despite a recent upgrade to granite countertops and other upscale amenities, is converting the building to apartments.

Windermere Real Estate agent Julie Sargent, who was attempting to sell the building's condominiums, said Prium notified her about three weeks ago to halt condominium sales efforts.

Sargent said she has no information about when the building's units will hit the rental market or how much the rent will be. She referred inquiries to Prium executive Pete Ansara. Ansara was unavailable for comment this afternoon.

Prium has another project, Chelsea Heights at Sixth Avenue and L Street near Wright Park, which is due to be completed early next year. There is no word whether Chelsea will likewise be rented instead of sold as condo units.

Hanna Heights is not the only Prium project that has seen the effects of the slowing market and the credit crunch.

Near Sixth and St. Helens avenues, Prium's plans for a 20-story condo tower, Jay Heights, have been put on ice. Construction of the tower originally was to begin in mid-summer 2006 and then last summer, but the project still has not begun.

In downtown Kent, a drug store building that Prium built for retailer Rite Aid is still unopened some six months after it was completed. Prium and the City of Kent are in a dispute over access to the store's parking lot.

And on the Thea Foss Waterway's south end, Prium faces a late February deadline to purchase an office building site near the Interstate 509 freeway cable-stayed from the Thea Foss Waterway Development Authority is approaching with no definitive word from Prium about its plans to carry through with the purchase.

Authority executive director Don Meyer said Prium has invested about a million dollars in cleaning up the site along the formerly industrial waterway which it could lose if it doesn't buy the property.

Ansara said earlier this fall that the company had asked its architects to "value engineer" the proposed office structure to ensure that the company's money is well-spent before it begins construction.

Has SeaTac-based Alaska Air Group stock finally gotten its glitter back?

The stock, which is still a long way from its 52-week high of $44.52, hit $25.00 a share today, a gain of 5.26 percent over Tuesday's close.

The airline holding company, parent of Alaska Airlines and regional carrier Horizon Air, led the airlines group Tuesday rising 8.3 percent to $24.26. That group of stocks rose 3.4 percent on news of falling oil prices.

Several bits of news may be responsible for the Alaska's revival:

* Major airlines led by Delta are again hiking fares nationwide. The Delta fare hike is the 10th since the beginning of September.

* Goldman Sachs upgraded Alaska share to neutral from sell.

* Alaska announced today it is expanding capacity by three to four percent over a year ago as major carriers such as United, US Airways and Delta announce further schedule shrinkage.

* The airline's negotiations with its pilots have been moving smoothly with more tentative agreements announced recently.

Delivery flights for new Boeing aircraft typically carry just a few pilots, technicians and airline executives from the Puget Sound plants where the airliners are built to the airline customers' home base.

But the delivery flight of a Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-300ER planned for Thursday will carry hundreds of thousands of books destined for children in the developing world.

The books on the flight, dubbed Literacy One, were donated by publisher Scholastic Inc.

The book delivery project is a joint venture among Boeing, Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific, Scholastic Inc. and the charitable group Room to Read.

A ceremony will also recognize Seattle's Lakeside School students who have raised $650,000 for Room to Read. Gig Harbor High School is also raising money for the Room to Read Charity.

A Tacoma technology company and the American Legion have launched a joint Web site, www.vetjobs.us, to help returning veterans find jobs in the federal government.

The site offers tools to help job seekers find the right career and market their military experience.

Avue is a technology and management consulting company for federal agencies that has been around since 1983.

The new site will be free to all users and will not contain advertising of any kind.

The traditional focus of federal agencies on placement numbers, without regard to the long-term quality of the job opportunity, has resulted in inferior job placement and career tracks for many veterans, the two groups said in a release issued Wednesday.

“We view quality civilian job opportunities and career growth to be perhaps the most critical issue that faces the more than 250,000 veterans exiting the military each year, and we are very enthusiastic to offer a solution that we believe will result in not only more jobs, but better jobs for veterans,” said Marty Conatser, national commander of The American Legion.

Avue is a privately held company headquartered in Tacoma, with offices in Washington, D.C., and Victoria, B.C.

We here at the Biz Buzz love blogs. You must too since you are here.

Thursday's South Sound Technology Conference will focus on blogs and ask the question: How has blogging changed the way we communicate, socialize and take action?

The event will be held at the University of Washington Tacoma Carwein Auditorium (and features some of our bosses who have a lot to say about the value of things like the Biz Buzz. At least we hope they do.)

It is free and open to the public. Topics include blogging the news, notable blogs, blog technology and civic discourse and participation.

Speakers include Mark Briggs, online editor for The News Tribune; Andrew Fry, assistant director of industry partnerships for UW Tacoma's Institute of Technology; and Derek Young, founder of the Exit 133 blog.

Here's the lineup:

8:30 a.m. Doors open and networking

9:00 a.m. Welcome by Congressman Adam Smith (and dignitaries)

9:15 a.m. "How Blogging has Transformed the News"
Panel hosted by Mark Briggs

10:15 a.m. "A Basic Introductory Tour Through Notable Blogs"
Focus topic hosted by Andrew Fry

10:30 a.m. "How ParentBloggers are Transforming Community"
Panel includes: Jennifer Boutell, Lisa, and Christina Hyun

11:30 a.m. Break

11:45 a.m. "Expanding the Blog: Supporting Technologies"
Focus Topic hosted by Kevin Freitas

12 p.m. "Civic Blogging: Public Discourse and Participation Through Blogs"
Panel Hosted by Paul Ellis & Derek Young
Includes Justin Carder and an editor from the West Seattle Blog

This from The Associated Press:

Starbucks Corp. says it plans to open a farmer support center in Ethiopia’s capital next year to help growers improve the quality of their coffees and boost production using sustainable practices.

The world’s largest specialty coffee retailer has a similar center in Costa Rica and says the one in Addis Ababa will be the first of its kind in Africa.

Earlier this year, Starbucks and the Ethiopian government agreed to work together to promote three of the African nation’s prized specialty coffees.

The licensing, distribution and marketing deal signed in June supports the country’s bid to win trademarks for the coffee names Yirgacheffe, Harar and Sidamo, which officials believe will benefit farmers.

The Daily World in Aberdeen is reporting that Weyerhaeuser Co. has not been able to make a deal with a company who wanted to buy its mothballed Cosmopolis Pulp Mill.

A Weyerhaeuser spokesman said the forest products company is no longer in “exclusive sales discussions” with Zurich-based Charlestown Investments over the mill that closed last year.

“Although we continue to keep the door open to them, we are now evaluating proposals from other parties,” Weyerhaeuser spokeswoman Kate Tate told the paper on Monday.

That could open the door to a joint offer made by the Grays Harbor PUD and Evergreen Pulp, a California company with ties to Hong Kong-based Lee & Man Paper Manufacturing Ltd.

More from the story:

Charlestown’s managing partner, Richard Bassett, said his understanding is that there are other firms in the running as well.

“I don’t know who these other people are but just from the comments I picked up from Weyerhaeuser, they’re significant, genuine bidders,” Bassett said on Monday, emphasizing that he isn’t giving up and believes his head start is still a significant advantage.

Bassett has been struggling to raise $100 million in capital costs to purchase and overhaul the mill ever since Weyerhaeuser agreed to sell it to his firm last January. Bassett blames the weak U.S. dollar and a credit crunch for his difficulty.

The investor said it’s his understanding the other interested parties “are people for whom $100 million isn’t a big issue. … So it’s more of a race than anything else. We had the first crack but it’s pretty wide open now.

“I’m pretty sure that one way or another the place will be sold. The investment will be made in it and the mill will re-open. It may take some time, but it will re-open. There is no question.”

The new Coldwater Creek store in Gig Harbor has opened its doors.

"It's a great area for us," said Elizabeth Turley, the company's director of marketing. "I don't think we could have too many stores in that area."

The store is part of the Uptown Gig Harbor development, a new, higher-end shopping center located west of Highway 16.

The shopping center also claims a Panera Bread, Borders and Chico's.

Construction on J. Jill and Ann Taylor Loft stores will begin next week, said John Hogan, the Uptown Gig Harbor manager.

Coldwater Creek specializes in women's clothing and jewelry. At 6,000-square-feet, Turley said its a standard-sized store complete with slate and wood accents and the company's signature "wall of water."

=> Read more!

Sixty percent of online shoppers are worried that their personal information wil be sold or otherwise misused.

The Better Business Bureau today released its latest poll on online shopping, and also a list of the Top Ten Tips on using keystrokes to spread holiday cheer.

Here’s what they have to say:

1. Protect your computer. Update your computer system with the latest spam filters, anti-virus and anti-spyware software, and a secure firewall.

2. Use trustworthy Web sites. Always start with your local BBB to check on the seller’s reputation and record for customer satisfaction. Look for a BBB “trustmark” from BBBOnLine and click on that seal to confirm that it’s valid.

3. Protect your personal information. Read the site’s privacy policy to understand what personal information is being requested and how it will be used. If there isn’t one posted, consider that a warning that your personal information may be sold to others without your permission.

=> Read more!

Shares of Federal Way-based Weyerhaeuser Co. are up this morning after a Deutsche Bank AG analyst said the company might take its timberland business private.

Weyerhaeuser rose $1.99, or 2.91 percent, to $70.01 at 10:55 a.m. The shares earlier rose as much as 4.7 percent.

Mark Wilde, an analyst with Deutsche Bank in New York, has a price target of $95 on the stock, based on the estimated value of Weyerhaeuser’s assets, Bloomberg News reports.

The company has been under pressure from investors including Franklin Mutual Advisers LLC to convert into a real-estate investment trust to unlock the value of timberlands and reduce taxes.

“We wonder if shareholders might be better served by a bid to take the entire Weyerhaeuser timber business private,” Wilde wrote in a note to clients. “With global investors still eager to pour capital into timberland, a private and prudently levered bid for the entire timber business appears possible.”

The state's Employment Security Department caught 17,930 people trying to scam the agency out of millions of dollars in unemployment benefits. And that's just in the first nine months of this year.

The department estimates these people fraudulently collected $11.9 million and tried to collect another $6.5 million in unemployment benefits.

How do the scammers do it?

The department reports that the most common types of fraud are the result of people not reporting all their sources of income and continuing to collect benefits after returning to work.

Not cool people. Not cool.

=> Read more!

Gov. Chris Gregoire plans to visit the Tacoma Goodwill next week to unveil plans for the nonprofit's new work opportunity center.

Tacoma Goodwill plans to build the $20 million facility in Tacoma's Hilltop neighborhood. Construction will begin next year.

Last year, Tacoma Goodwill Board officers approved an initiative to triple the organization's services in Pierce County.

“The initiative represents a significant investment for the benefit of the whole community,” said Jim Walton, former Tacoma City Manager and 2007 Goodwill Board president. “Goodwill’s expansion of services will provide education, employment and training clearly needed for the many vulnerable populations in our area.”

=> Read more!

Pick a general reason why over a hundred mortgage companies have (as Bloomberg News said in article yesterday) “halted loans, closed or sold themselves this year.” Maybe the people who ran the companies aren’t very smart, or they’re greedy, or they bit off more than they could actually chew. They couldn’t read the wind. They didn’t see the storm approaching. They were doing a favor for their uncle.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the name.

Bloomberg published a list of these companies. Among them: Meritage Mortgage (closed), Ownit Mortgage Solutions (bankruptcy), Equibanc Mortgage (closed), DeepGreen Financial (closed), LoanCity (closed), WarehouseUSA (closed), HomeBanc Mortgage (bankruptcy), Impac Mortgage (suspended most loans), NetBank (bankruptcy).

Notice anything? They’re all ungrammatical or somehow the product of a mangled word or two words oddly conjoined. Maybe “Meritage” sounded special a few years ago. And “DeepGreen” sounded as much like free money as a day at the golf course.

Take a few more: Popular Financial (closed subprime unit), People’s Choice (bankruptcy), Peoples Mortgage (closed). I think the vox populi has been heard.

Don’t even ask about Trump Mortgage (closed).

And Unlimited Loan Resources? Well, not so much. It halted loans in August.

There was more than dancing last weekend at the LeMay Museum's Fabulous Fifties Sock Hop.

At the annual event, Boeing donated $300,000 to the car museum's capital campaign.

Karin Leslie, community investor with Boeing's Northwest Region Arts & Cultural-Global Corporate Citizenship group, offered the gift.

In recognition, the museum – slated to open in 2010 on a site near the Tacoma Dome – will name an Education Center classroom after the company.

Boeing's stock, which has lost nearly $20 a share since the company announced it would delay delivery of its first 787 Dreamliner by six months, is on the rise again.

The aerospace company's stock was up nearly $2 a share in after-hours trading at mid-afternoon. The stock closed at $89.93 a share, up 39 cents today, but reached $91.88 after the market closed.

That's still a long way from Boeing's 52-week high, $107.83.

Wachovia Capital Markets LLC analyst Gary Liebowitz advised clients to buy Boeing in a report today. The aerospace analyst raised his rating to "outperform."

Liebowitz noted that only 14 percent of Boeing's airliner order backlog is from U.S. airlines, down from 41 percent in 1998.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has won an award for having the best food and beverage program among 125 North American airports for 2007 from Airports Council International-North American.

"Sea-Tac Airport's excellent mix of national, regional and particularly local brands in the areas of food and beverage, retail and consumer services has created a dynamic new experience for its passengers," said Richard White, director of properties for the Memphis-Shelby International Airport.

White presented Sea-Tac the Richard A. Griesbach Award of Excellence for its food and beverage program at an awards luncheon in Chicago earlier this month.

The airport also won three other awards:

* First place, best specialty retail program in North America honoring a single terminal or concourse.

* Second place for best new food and beverage concept in North America for Waji's owned Seattle's Uwajimaya.

* Second place for best new consumer services concept in North America for butter London, a nail care provider at Sea-Tac.

Sea-Tac created a new central food court when it remodeled its central terminal two years ago. The airport also sought new locally based vendors for some of the concessions in that central terminal and in retail spaces along its four concourses and two satellites.

Today is supposed to be Cyber Monday – the day when office workers return to their desks to start their holiday shopping.

Companies and the National Retail Federal have been sending out e-mails announcing the "holiday" to generate more traffic on shopping Web sites.

Does it work? Are you quietly browsing Amazon.com or Nordstrom.com while reviewing your sales projections spreadsheets?

The term "Cyber Monday" was invented in 2005 by Shop.org, part of the National Retail Federation. It's part of a marketing campaign to promote shopping on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Bloomberg News reports that retailers may see a rush of buying today after slashing prices on high-definition televisions and leather jackets to attract customers over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Promotions by Walmart.com and Circuit City Stores Inc. may push online spending above $700 million today, a single-day best, Reston, Va.-based ComScore Inc. estimated.

Retailers are offering discounts available only online to attract people to their sites as consumers spend less in the face of higher food and fuel costs.

Walmart.com is selling Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 with a game and accessories today for $399, less than the $479.66 it would normally cost.

=> Read more!

The Peninsula Gateway reports that the Regal Cinema in Gig Harbor plans to close at the beginning of January.

Here's the rest of the story:

The three-screen theater has been operating for approximately 30 years.

Although its business has been steady, the new Galaxy theater, scheduled to open early 2008 in the Uptown Center, is pushing them out, said Peter Cahn, the theater's general manager.

“It’s (Regal) an old theatre,” he said. “It’s going to be impossible to compete with the new one.”

The 10-plex in Uptown Center will have stadium seating, wide-screen and digital projection.

=> Read more!

This came over the Bloomberg wire Sunday evening....

“The cheapest small-cap stocks in four years are luring equity investors battered by the biggest monthly losses since 2002.
Money managers from Raiffeisen Capital Management in Vienna to Highmark Capital Management in San Francisco are snapping up shares of companies with market values below $2.5 billion. The lowest prices compared with earnings in Europe and cash flow in the U.S. have made bargains out of Trinity Mirror Plc, the London publisher of the Daily Mirror, Arques Industries AG, a Starnberg, Germany-based investment company, and Labor Ready Inc., a Tacoma, Washington-based supplier of temporary workers.”

It continues....
“Lower prices are luring Highmark’s David Goerz to Labor Ready, which has a market value of $676.4 million after tumbling 16 percent this year on waning demand for construction workers. The stock trades at 10.5 times earnings, the cheapest since Bloomberg started tracking the weekly data in 1994.
“Investors are too concerned about what’s happening with the subprime shakeout,” said Goerz, who oversees $22 billion as Highmark’s chief investment officer. “We’re not going to have a recession here. It’s an interesting time to start thinking about small-caps.”

According to Bloomberg, of 10 analysts who follow Labor Ready, eight suggest a hold and two offer a buy.

Asian stocks were off to a very healthy start Monday morning - so who's to say a hometown favorite won't follow?

Boeing Co. rival Airbus has won an order for 160 airliners from the Chinese. That order's value is estimated to be about $15 billion.

News of the order came as French President Nicholas Sarkozy visited Bejing. The order includes 110 Airbus A320 single-aisle jets and 50 of the twin-aisle A330 aircraft.

The aircraft will be distributed to Chinese airlines in a-yet-undisclosed quantity.

Some analysts speculate that many of the A320s will be built on a newly established Chinese production line.

The huge order no doubt gives Airbus the edge over Boeing for 2007 orders. Boeing reported it had received 1,047 net orders for the year as of last week. Airbus had previously reported 1,021 orders as of Oct. 31.

In addition to the Chinese orders, Airbus' final tally for the year will likely include dozens of orders from early November's Dubai Airshow which did not appear in the European airframe maker's end-of-October figures.

Both Airbus and Boeing will set all-time order records this year for new aircraft orders. Both companies, however, have warned that 2008 orders will likely decline after three record order years in a row.

If you’re headed over the river and through the traffic at the malls, you might need some gas. Here’s what you can expect: It’s expensive and getting moreso.

Today in Tacoma, a gallon of regular is going for $3.23. That’s up from $3.224 on Thanksgiving, and way up from $3.07 a month ago. And don’t even ask about a year ago, when gas was a real bargain at $2.476.

This 76 station on Puyallup Avenue was offering something of a bargain early this afternoon.

As always, Bellingham drivers are paying the state’s highest price today, at $3.325 per gallon. Statewide, the average is $3.256 per gallon, according to AAA.

If grandma lives in Portland, fill up before you drive back home. A gallon down there is averaging $3.122.

And if you’ve decided to give up petroleum altogether and go by horse, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports this week that a ton of premium alfalfa is going for $165 to $175.

If you’re looking for gas prices over the weekend, visit www.fuelgaugereport.com. For the latest alfalfa prices from Moses Lake (and the market price of feeder beef cattle in the Columbia Basin) call the USDA market update hotline at 509-765-0311.

The paperless office has yet to arrive, but the paperless mortgage is here – at BECU.

Forget about that 100-page file and that messy ink in an actual pen. The state’s largest credit union has sealed its first all-electronic mortgage deal.

Here’s how it works: Members electronically receive their closing documents as least 24 hours before closing. Escrow companies receive them as much as seven days in advance. “Our members sign their closing documents electronically, doing so with two signatures instead of the usual 15 to 20 required using the traditional process,” sid Joe Brancucci, BECU vice president and chief lending officer, earlier this week.

BECU began its drive to the completely electronic mortgage almost 10 years ago. The credit union estimates the cost to originate a loan has fallen as much as 62 basis points. “We also gain significant savings in the process that can be turned around to help us lower the cost of homeownership for our members,” Brancucci said. “On a $300,000 mortgage, our cost savings would translate into over $1,800.”

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has ordered five additional airliners from Boeing worth $716 million a catalogue prices.

That order includes three 737-700s and two 777-300ERs. With today's orders, KLM has six 777-300ERs on order.

With KLM's orders, Boeing's backlog of unfilled orders for the 777 is more than 350. For the 737, the company lists more than 1,800 yet-to-be-built aircraft.

With the news that The Boeing Co. has already broken its existing order record this year with more than five weeks remaining in 2007, the question arises just how many more orders can the company take?

Boeing has booked a gross total of 1,057 orders this year. That raises its backlog of orders to more than 3,000 commercial airliners.

At present production rates, that's nearly 5 1/2 years of 737 production, 9 1/2 years of 747 production, 4 1/2 years of 767 production; 4 years of 777 production and nearly six years of production of the 787 at contemplated rates.

And more orders are waiting in the wings for Airbus or Boeing to snatch. Air France/KLM wants to order 100 new aircraft with deliveries beginning in 2012. British Airways, which entered big orders earlier this year with Boeing and Airbus expects to produce another big order perhaps next year, and Air India has said it needs even more planes.

And that doesn't even consider the legacy U.S. carriers such as American, Delta and United, which are sitting on huge fleets of older planes that will have to be replaced sooner rather than later if they want to remain competitive. American alone has more than 300 MD-80s as the backbone of its fleet. Those planes consume some 20 percent more fuel than their modern-day successors.

The production situation gets even more critical if you consider the possibilities of military orders. Boeing is seeking orders for a 767 airborne tanker that would be built at Everett. And Boeing is building another production line for 737s in Renton to build 737-based P-8A naval submarine hunters. Boeing could sell more than 100 each of the 767 tankers and P-8As.

The 747 build rate, now about one a month, could easily be raised to create more capacity, and the 767 production line is building commercial planes now at a leisurely rate of less than one a month. With the 767 being replaced in the commercial lineup by the 787, its unlikely that that production rate is a bottleneck even with a tanker contract.

But the 777, 737 and 787 are constrained to meet further demands unless Boeing finds a way to bump up production further.

Boeing has already signaled that it wants to increase 787 production rates to 14 a month beginning in 2010, but even with that increase, it's becoming increasing difficult to find delivery slots for airlines that want delivery within the next few years.

For those of you who thrive on fighting for good deals when it's still dark out, we have information that might interest you: Kohl's and J.C. Penney will open at 4 a.m. on Friday.

As far as we can tell those are the lone national retailers with doorbusters before 5 a.m. (We'd love to hear about more. If you know of any store that's open before 5 a.m., let us know.) Not too long ago, getting to a store at 7 a.m. was considered early. Then the retailers pushed that back to 5 a.m.

Here's what J.C. Penney spokesman Tim Lyons told The Associated Press: “Everybody wants to get the customer first. It’s a very competitive world in retail. If folks come to your store first, they may stay longer and buy more.”

We made a round of calls this morning to get opening times. (Of course, all this will be revealed in the ads in tomorrow's paper.)

Here's what we found:

Tacoma Mall: 5 a.m. (Stores must be open by 6 a.m.)
South Hill Mall: 6 a.m. (Some stores open at 5 a.m.)
Macy's: 6 a.m.
Target: 6 a.m.
Kmart: 6 a.m.
Circuit City: 5 a.m.
Fred Meyer: 5 a.m.
Toys R Us: 5 a.m.
Best Buy: 5 a.m.
Wal-Mart: 5 a.m.
Sears: 5 a.m.

=> Read more!

The price of going over the woods and through the traffic jams may have gone up, what with the price of gas and air travel, but that Thanksgiving turkey is costing less.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is out with its annual Thanksgiving snapshot, and the numbers show a pound of the holiday bird cost $1.084 in January 2004 - but only 99.1 cents last December.

Also, the survey shows that between 2003 and 2006, 46.9 percent of the civilian population was involved with preparing food and drink during the Thanksgiving weekend, while 11.8 percent were involved in religious or spiritual activities – and 84.8 percent watched TV.

Americans started heading to airports and train stations hours ahead of time today to get a jump on what was predicted to be the largest Thanksgiving pilgrimage ever — despite rising gas prices and fears of air delays, The Associated Pres reports.

A record 38.7 million U.S. residents were expected to travel 50 miles or more for the holiday.

Some were hoping to beat the evening rush on what is often called the busiest travel day of the year, and airport check-in lines started building before daybreak at airports around the country.

Those not flying are hitting the road.

About 31.2 million travelers were expected to drive to holiday celebrations in spite of gas prices that were nearly 85 cents more per gallon than they were a year earlier, according to AAA.

The national average for regular gasoline on Nov. 16 was $3.09 a gallon, up from $2.23 on Nov. 17, 2006.

In Washington, the average prices of regular gasoline today is $3.26 per gallon. It dips a bit in Tacoma, to $3.23 a gallon, according to the AAA Web site.

=> Read more!

It's been no secret that the four ferries that the state Department of Transportation pulled from service Tuesday night need replacement.

The Legislature and the department have been trying for four years to build four new ferries to replace the 80-year-old Steel Electric class boats.

But the ferry rebuilding issue has been snarled in politics mainly between the state and Tacoma's Martinac Shipbuilding.

The state tried to award the contract to Seattle's Todd Shipyards two years ago by saying Martinac was unqualified financially to build the boats. Martinac blocked that award by appealing the decision.

Earlier this fall, the department and the shipyards involved, Todd, Martinac and Whidbey Island's Nichols Brothers, reached a deal in which all three shipyards would share in the construction.

The state was still working out the details of that contract as the appearance of cracks in the hulls of the old boats forced their sidelining.

Given the urgency of getting the old boats back in service, will the state opt to another make-do repair and build the new boats or will it opt for yet another option, replacing the hulls of the old ferries instead of building new ones? With a new secretary of transportation, Paula Hammond, in charge and the situation assuming emergency status, anything could happen.

To complicate matters further, Nichols Brothers has filed for bankruptcy, putting its participation in the new ferry deal in limbo.

It's been more than a year now since the Air Line Pilots Association and Alaska Airlines first traded proposals for a new contract, and the two sides still have much to accomplish before they reach agreement.

But the two parties announced this week that they had reached a tentative agreement on four more contract sections: pay guarantee, deadheading, hours of service and scheduling.

"This is a complex area of the contract, which explains the time it took for the parties to reach a tentative agreement," said Dennis Hamel, Alaska's vice president of human resources and labor relations said in a news release.

Remaining to be resolved are the real meat and potatoes issues of the contract: health care, retirement, scope and compensation.

The negotiations promise to be especially difficult because the pilots took big pay cuts during the last contract as a result of a mandatory arbitration clause. This time the contract has no such clause, opening up the possibility of a strike.

The airline has returned to profitability, but executives say that keeping costs low is a key to Alaska's ability to survive in an era of rising fuel costs and high competition.

While a strike is a possibility, neither side has mentioned that issue yet, and getting to that territory will necessarily mean many more negotiations and then several cooling off periods mandated by the labor laws that govern the airlines.

Just three of the 111 Sea-tac Airport departures between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. were reported running behind schedule as the pre-Thanksgiving rush got underway today.

One Alaska Airlines flight to Anchorage was 23 minutes late, and two Horizon Air flights, one to Boise and one to Portland were 25 and 80 minutes late according to Flightstats.com.

Security lines were operating efficiently despite the crush of passengers estimated to be in excess of 100,000 by the time the day is done.

Average security line wait times were in 15 minute territory at 7 a.m. The north checkpoint had the quickest lines with average wait times at 12 minutes. The central checkpoint lines averaged 17 minutes while the south checkpoint average was 14 minutes. Maximum waits during surges fluctuated as high as 31 minutes at the central checkpoint.

Weather at the airport was reported as generally clear with an 8 mph wind.

A new survey from Zagat, the dining and entertainment guide book folks, rates Sea-Tac Airport as the ninth best domestic airport.

That same survey rates Sea-Tac-based Alaska Airlines as the fourth best domestic airline for its first class service and second best for its frequent flier program.

At the top of the list of domestic airports on the survey of 7,498 fliers is Tampa International. At the bottom of the list is New York's LaGuardia Airport.

Top domestic airline for economy class is Midwest Airlines. Tops for premium class service is Virgin America.

Among international airlines, Zagat survey respondents rated Singapore Airlines tops for in both the coach cabin and in premium service.

In arguing that it should win $20 billion-plus contract for new Air Force tankers over rival Airbus, Boeing has been touting its experience as designer and builder of hundreds of aerial tankers.

But Boeing is two years behind on its promise to deliver four Boeing 767 tankers to the Italian Air Force.

Just this week, it told its European customer that it has finally solved the aerodynamic problems that limited the top speed of the Italian tanker.

Boeing has had to modify the 767 wing pylons that house the tanker's underwing refueling pods. Those pods had caused aerodynamic buffeting that limited the tankers' top speed to .79 Mach. Boeing had promised to deliver tankers that could cruise at .82 Mach.

But Italian officials are skeptical that the planes will be delivered before the new deadline.

And the company is also lagging on its progress to deliver 767 tankers to the Japanese Air Force. The 767 is the same plane it wants to sell to the U.S. Air Force for use as its new aerial tanker.

Northrop-Grumman and Airbus have teamed up to propose a tanker version of the Airbus A330 to the Air Force as its new tanker.

The turkey is done.

Some days you run across (highly entertaining) sentences like this:

"Retailers are finding themselves with an abundance of birds due to a seasonal spike in part-time turkey producers."

Those are good days.

Apparently stores are starting to see a lot more turkeys as more people farm them, according to The Associated Press.

The supply surge is driving the price of turkey down and has some suggesting that people who wait until the last minute to buy their turkey will get the best deal.

Here's the rest of the story:

Grocers sell (turkeys) at a low cost just before the holiday as a promotional tool, to lure customers into their stores for other ingredients.
While the supply surge has driven turkey sale prices down, Thanksgiving still accounts for $640 million in industry revenue, George Van Horn, a senior industry analyst with IBISWorld, Inc. said.

“A lot of smaller farmers realize there is a consistently booming market for the turkey during the holidays,” Van Horn said. “Then you have retailers getting creative in finding ways to maximize their profits.”

The prices for frozen turkey between September and December have declined about 8.5 percent each year in the past decade. Some major regional grocery store chains are selling premium turkeys for as little as 37 cents a pound and Butterball turkeys for only 47 cents a pound.

Van Horn estimates that the average cost of an entire Thanksgiving feast will be approximately $41 this year.

Starbucks Corp., the coffee-shop chain whose stock is headed for its steepest annual decline, may face pressure from shareholders to sell the company, according to Friedman Billings Ramsey & Co.

The “dramatic downturn in its fundamental performance is likely to create issues that it never had before as a public company — shareholder activism,” analyst Howard Penney wrote in a research note reported by Bloomberg News. “If senior management does not make the appropriate changes soon, losing control of the company is a real possibility.”

Starbucks, Penney added, would make a “valuable addition to many different global food and beverage companies.”

The shares have slumped 35 percent in 2007, which would be the biggest loss in Seattle-based Starbucks’s 15 years as a public company. Starbucks dropped on Nov. 16 after the company lowered its profit and sales forecasts following a first-ever decline in U.S. customer visits.

Starbucks shares rose 20 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $23.07 in 11:43 a.m. Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Last week, they dropped to the lowest since September 2004.

Port of Tacoma executives continue to be surprised that people want (nay, expect) more information about what the port is doing and how it does it.

Some of those interested people turned out for Friday afternoon's port commission meeting.

The port commission extended for six months its agreement with the Port of Olympia to study the potential of constructing a cargo transfer facility in South Thurston County.

It also held a public hearing on its 2008 budget and then approved it.

Both items attracted attention.

But the latter had people questioning how they could testify in a public hearing about the budget with only the scant information provided by the port at the meeting.

=> Read more!

An Airbus executive has told Bloomberg News that Airbus will build a stretched version of its superjumbo A380 in response to requests from Middle Eastern airlines.

The new plane would carry as many as 900 passengers in an all-economy version. The present A380 holds about 550 passengers in a mixed-class configuration.

The Middle Eastern airlines want the huge aircraft to accommodate big crowds of religious pilgrims headed to Mecca.

The first of the huge planes would be delivered in 2015.

As construction continues at Uptown Gig Harbor, stores are beginning to open. Last week it was Borders, and today it was Panera Bread – at 4751 Point Fosdick Dr.

Here’s a look at a little of what they do.

The chocolate croissants were as good as they looked, and although I haven’t tasted it yet, a cinammon roll was suffused with enough cinammon to scent the car all the way back over the new bridge.

Panera does food as well as breads, bagels, sweets and coffee. There’s a catering menu (for example: 7 baked items – pastries, scones and muffins with accompaniments for $21.99; 5 assorted sandwiches, pickles and chips for $39.99; soup-for4, $9.99) and a dine-in or take-out individual menu featuring such things as grilled salmon salad, turkey panini and three-cheese pizza.

They’re open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m., except on Sunday, when the doors open at 7 a.m.

Wal-Mart's never announced any formal plans to locate a store in or near downtown Tacoma, but reports were rampant last spring that the retailing giant was looking hard.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman even confirmed that the retailer was interested in Tacoma.

Could that ardor have cooled in Wal-Mart's concern that it is over-expanding?

The company last June announced it was slowing its expansion plans nationwide. Just recently that change is taking tangible form.

In Tulsa, Okla., for instance, Wal-Mart last week abruptly canceled plans to become the centerpiece of a major mixed use development on the east side of downtown.

And in the Los Angeles area, the store pulled the plug on turning a former Von's grocery store in Garden Grove into a Wal-Mart. Garden Grove citizens had mounted little opposition to the store's coming and even welcomed it as a potential catalyst for revitalization.

The government is offering carry-on luggage tips for air travelers in a 60-second video, according to The Associated Press.

Among the tips to swiftly get through airport checkpoints:

• Have boarding pass and identification out when in line.

• Take off shoes and outerwear.

• Put any loose metal items, like coins, in your carry-on bag.

• Pack your carry-on bag as neatly as possible and layer items. For instance, a layer of clothes, then a layer of electronics, then a layer of toiletries.

• Put large electronics, like laptops, in a separate bin.

• Make sure liquids are in bottles containing no more than three ounces each, and put the bottles in one quart-sized clear baggie. One bag per passenger.

=> Read more!

From the second floor balcony, you can look down on the shoppers below. In the center of the ground floor, Cabela's has set up a faux mountain peak speckled with stuffed, dead wildlife.

Two years ago, the folks who wanted to build a NASCAR track in Kitsap County fly in some cheerleaders from Kansas City, Kan., including that city's mayor.
After NASCAR built a track there, the mayor told Pierce County officials, other attractions followed, including something called Cabela's. She said it as if everyone knew what she meant. I didn't. No one else seemed to either.
Then the mayor announced that Cabela's, a hunting and fishing store, had eclisped NASCAR to become the city's No. 1 tourist attraction. A store as a tourist attraction? It didn't make much sense.
Until this morning, when I drove to the opening of Cabela's newest store in Lacey.

=> Read more!

Boeing's latest official tally of 2007 airline orders lists 975 net orders so far this year.

That figure doesn't include dozens of orders announced but not yet signed or orders that came after Boeing's mid-week deadline for toting up its order list.

Among those yet-uncounted orders are 12 for 787 Dreamliners for Vietnam Airlines which Boeing finalized today.

Among the 19 new orders in the past week were 17 from Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways (10 747s and seven 777s) and two 787 orders from Royal Jordanian.

As of the end of October, Airbus reported it had 1,021 orders. That doesn't include dozens of planes ordered at last week's Dubai Airshow.

Perhaps more important for both Boeing and Airbus is what profit margin they had to sacrifice to generate all these orders. Analyst suspect but have no solid proof that Airbus may have shaved its margins razor thin to win new orders particularly for its A380 and A350 aircraft.

Friends of Rocky Prairie is petitioning Thurston County to rezone the Port of Tacoma's property in Maytown in hopes of making it more difficult for the port to develop the facility into into a logistics center.

Here's a bit from The Olympian story:

Activist Sharron Coontz asked the plan commission to lower the allowable residential density of homes from one every five acres to one every 20 acres. She said the property also has industrial zoning.

Coontz said her hope was that new zoning with a more agricultural flavor would make the port’s idea less likely to win county approval.

Coontz said she didn’t expect the plan commission or county commission to review the matter until late next year.

I talked Sharron last night.

"We hope the port will see this is a sign that this community is not welcoming to this sort of facility," she said.

The Port of Tacoma commission is scheduled to vote on an issue regarding Maytown today. The meeting is at 4 p.m. at the Port of Tacoma Business Center.

The commission will consider whether to extend its 18-month interlocal agreement with the Port of Olympia to study the possibility of building a logistic center – essentially a place to transfer cargo from rail and trucks – by another six months.

It's a big ol' meeting tonight for the port commission. You may want to bring some snacks if you plan on attending because it could be a long one.

In addition to the Maytown issue, the commission will consider approving the 2008 budget and the tax levy.

Here's a story I wrote about the budget earlier this week.

Here's the agenda for today.

Boeing's Mary Hanson called today to say that reports that the Dreamliner may be ready for its first flight as early as late February are in error.

Boeing's schedule is the same as it announced several weeks ago, she said. The first flight for the Dreamliner is set for the end of the first quarter next year.

Presumably that means the end of March, not February.

I suspect Boeing doesn't want anyone to set up any false expectations that will haunt the company if they don't happen.

The report that the flight might happen early came from the usually reliable Flightblogger blog.

For three Pierce County outdoorsmen, the all-night stake-out under the portico of Lacey's new Cabela's hunting and fishing megastore was a not unfamiliar ritual.

"We've spent many a night like this in hunting blinds," said Bill Leavitt of Orting.

Leavitt and friends Bruce and Kenny Kilmer of Tacoma and Orting, made history of sorts. They were the first of some 500 customers to pass through Cabela's capacious doors as the store opened for the first time early Friday morning.

The three passed the time from their 9 p.m. Thursday arrival until the store's 8 a.m. inaugural playing cards, talking and chowing down on the pretzels provided by a sympathetic store manager.

When the appointed hour came, they and the hundreds queued up behind them were greeted by a reception line of applauding Cabela's employees passing out gift cards for those with the grit to wait in the cold morning mist.

Cabela's employees formed a reception line when the first customers entered the store

"For 28 years I've been ordering from the Cabela's catalogue," said Leavitt. "Now I get to shop at one in person."

The Nebraska-based outdoor chain's Lacey customers were admitted to a two-story timber-lined structure that is as much an amusement park and museum as it is a retail store.

Trout swim in a massive aquarium

Stuffed game animals as exotic as the Lichtenstein's Hartebeest and the Greater Kudu line the walls, perch on rocks and peer down from the balcony. Live trout and perch swim inside an ersatz mountain stream and an ancient Piper Cub hangs from the rafters.

Shooting galleries test your aim. Russ Carmack photos.

Two shooting galleries complete with laser-firing rifles test customer's hunting mettle against virtual groups of elk and boar. A cafe serves such hunter standbys as biscuits and gravy and over-sized burgers and such exotic meats such as venison, elk and buffalo.

The store, the first in Washington or Oregon, expects to attract some 15,000 visitors in its first weekend and some four million visitors a year.

While occupancy grew by 0.8 percent statewide in September, hotels in Pierce County saw a decline of 2.4 percent, Bellevue hospitality consultant Wolfgang Rood reported this week. Only the Bellingham area saw a greater decline, down 6.8 percent.

In Pierce County, 74.5 percent of rooms were occupied, Rood said. That’s down from 76.3 percent a year ago. Statewide, 81.7 percent of rooms were taken, up 0.8 percent.

The cost of a room in Pierce County in September, $82.16, was up 10.4 percent from the same month in 2006. Rooms in downtown Seattle cost an average of $175.92, up 1 percent, while the average room statewide went for $132.96, up 5.2 percent.

The local Better Business Bureau releases a quarterly list of its Top 20 most-inquired-upon industries, as well as its Top 20 most-complained-about industries.

For June through September, for the Top 10 in each category, here’s what the BBB said:

Top inquiries:
1. Games & Supplies
2. Internet Services
3. Roofing Contractors
4. Work-At-Home Companies
5. Real Estate Loans
6. Internet Shopping Services
7. Movers
8. Contractors
9. Construction & Remodeling Services
10. Windows

Top complaints:
1. Cellular Telephone Service & Supplies
2. Computers-software & services
3. Internet Shopping Services
4. Internet Service
5. Travel Agencies & Bureaus
6. Auto Dealers-new cars/Collection Agencies (tie)
7. Auto Repair & Services
8. Real Estate Management
9. Banks
10. Searchers of Records

The local BBB gets over 6,500 requests for information each day, and encourages consumers to continue doing their homework before doing business with a company.

“Our Top 20 lists are a great way for us to promote smart shopping,” said Robert Andrew, president and CEO of the local BBB. “We want consumers to know which industries we get the most inquiries and complaints about so that they may make informed purchasing decisions.”
For more information, call 253-830-2927, or visit www.bbb.org.

An aviation industry blog, Flightblogger, reported today that the first flight of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is now tentatively set for late February.

In announcing a sixth month delay in the 787 program earlier this fall, Boeing had said the 787 would first take flight late in the first quarter of 2008.

The revolutionary composite-bodied jetliner originally was scheduled to leave ground in late August, but supply chain shortages and problems have forced Boeing to do much of the assembly work on the first plane at its Everett plant. Suppliers were supposed to have delivered the major sections of the aircraft to Everett with most internal systems already installed, but instead delivered Boeing unfinished composite shells.

Boeing expects to update its schedule in early December. Until then, Boeing spokespersons had no comment on the report.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that consumer prices in the Tacoma-Bremerton-Seattle area increased 1.1 percent for the two months ending October 2007.

The increase was mainly due to higher prices for housing, food and beverages, and apparel. From October 2006 to October 2007, overall prices rose 4.1 percent.

The housing index rose 0.8 percent for the two months ending October 2007 and 3.9 percent since a year ago. Prices for household furnishings and operations decreased 0.9 percent during this latest two month period and were 3.5 percent lower over the year.

The food and beverages index rose 1.8 percent from August to October and was 5.1 percent higher over the year. Grocery prices advanced 3 percent for the past two months. From October 2006 to October 2007 grocery prices rose 5.8 percent.

Apparel prices jumped 6.4 percent, more than double the increase of any other major expenditure category. The price of regular-grade gasoline in the area was up 6.9 percent for the period, and has risen 16.8 percent since October last year.

Mortgage Brokers Services, Inc. and Elliott Bay Mortgage, two of the oldest independent Puget Sound area mortgage firms, have announced that they will merge.

Barnett “Barney” Silver, president of MBSI, will assume the role of president and CEO of the new company, to be known as Elliott Bay Mortgage. Jason Bloom, managing partner of EBM, will assume the role of chairman and designated broker. The combined businesses have over 50 employees in their offices in Bellevue, SeaTac, and Puyallup. No employees will be laid off. Loan originations of the two companies total in excess of $250 million per year.

“We believe that companies like ours will thrive in the current mortgage market. There have been significant challenges within our industry over the last year. In this climate, many companies have shrunk their operations or exited the industry altogether. With these industry reversals, we see opportunity for us to expand our footprint in the community,” said Bloom, who is the President-Elect of the Washington Association of Mortgage Brokers.

Silver Cloud Inns and Hotels, operator of Tacoma's only waterfront hotel, the Silver Cloud Inn in Old Town, will open a second waterfront hotel in 2010 on the site of the former Asarco copper smelter.

Silver Cloud and Point Ruston LLC, the developer of the mixed-use residential, retail and commercial development on the smelter site, announced the hotel deal today.

Silver Cloud prinicipal owner Jim Weymouth said the 150-room property will be the centerpiece of the Point Ruston development.

Mike Cohen, Point Ruston's developer, said the hotel will fit well with the uses he plans to create on the 67-acre smelter property.

"Silver Cloud makes an ideal partner for us – not only are they based here in the Northwests, but they have already proven their success in Tacoma," Cohen said.

Silver Cloud's Old Town hotel has the highest average occupancy of any larger hotel property in Tacoma. Silver Cloud is based in Bellevue.

Silver Cloud Inn Old Town

The new hotel will feature an upscale restaurant, lounge conference and spa facilities. The hotel will face a plaza that it expected to attract three other restaurants in other buildings.

The Point Ruston development is located partly in Tacoma and partly in Ruston on the northern end of the Ruston Way waterfront adjacent to Point Defiance Park.

Cohen plans to build 800 to 1,000 condominiums, town homes and single-family homes on the site of the smelter, which closed down in 1985. More than 120,000 square feet of retail space are part of the Point Ruston plan.

Cohen bought the site in 2006 and is continuing the site's environmental cleanup.

The Asarco smelter used high-arsenic ore to produce copper and other metals. Some of that arsenic escaped in the plant emissions and settled on lawns and homes in the area. Asarco began cleaning up the yards in 1994.

The Silver Cloud isn't the only new waterfront hotel scheduled to be built in Tacoma. The owners of a site near South 15th Street on the west side of the Thea Foss Waterway say they expect to break ground soon on their near-downtown boutique hotel.

Alaska Airlines today introduced the first Boeing 737-900 equipped with fuel-saving blended winglets.

The seven-foot-tall vertical appendages at the end of the wings of Alaska's largest aircraft are expected to save 100,000 gallons of fuel per aircraft per year.

The winglets were designed and built by Seattle-based Aviation Partners-Boeing.

Aviation Partners-Boeing blended winglet

Alaska will retrofit nine of its 12 737-900s with the winglets by late 2008. The airline isn't retrofitting the other three 737-900s because they were among the first to roll off the assembly line. The wings of later 737-900s were strengthened on the assembly line to be able to handle retrofitted winglets.

The airline has already refit its 737-700 aircraft with winglets, and the new 737-800s are being delivered by Boeing already equipped with winglets.

Since 1998, Alaska has bought new aircraft, retrofitted others and initiated other fuel economy strategies to cut fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions.

The airline says that through 2006, those measures have saved more than 144 million gallons of fuel. The reduction in carbon dioxide emissions caused by the fuel savings is the equivalent to taking 271,000 cars off the road for one year, Alaska says.

Hoping it can boost holiday sales, Dell Inc. has enlisted Burt Reynolds, Ice T and other celebrities to help customers raise money to buy products for themselves or others, The Associated Press reports.

Through a new Web site launching Friday, visitors to www.YoursIsHere.com will be able to create a virtual piggy bank where friends and relatives can donate money for gifts. There are tools to create e-mail distribution lists, and gift-seekers can embed their fundraising requests on their Facebook and MySpace pages.

The e-mails are embedded with celebrity video clips, each pitch based on a theme.

=> Read more!

President Bush ordered some changes to the air travel system today to help reduce congestion.

They include:

Unused airspace: The Pentagon will open unused military airspace from Florida to Maine to create “a Thanksgiving express lane” for commercial airliners. It will be open next week for five days — Wednesday through Sunday — for the busiest days of Thanksgiving travel.
“This will help mitigate congestion and provide opportunities for the planes to keep on schedule,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said. The change also will be in effect during the Christmas travel season.

Essential work only: The Federal Aviation Administration was imposing a holiday moratorium on nonessential maintenance projects, allowing all FAA personnel and equipment to be focused on keeping flights on time.

Costly delays: The Department of Transportation will propose doubling the bump fee that airlines must pay to travelers who buy tickets but wind up without a seat. The penalty now is $200 or $400, depending on long the passenger has been inconvenienced. The proposed increase would make the fee $400 to $800.

Other plans: Officials said the FAA would take other steps to increase efficiency such as rerouting airspace, using technology to fill unused space in the air and on the ground, and using more precise routes for takeoffs and landings.

Penalize chronic delays: Another proposed rule would deem the operation of a chronically delayed flight — defined as a flight that operates more than 15 minutes late more than 70 percent of the time — to be an “unfair and deceptive practice.” That designation carries with it substantial monetary penalties.

Here's a way to potentially save some money on your holiday shopping – but only if you are lucky. Amazon.com will let you, the customer, pick the deals offered on its Web site for the holiday season.

"Amazon Customers Vote" starts today and features six rounds of deals customers can vote on.

Here's how it works:

Customers can vote for one of three "remarkable" deals in six rounds.

Claim codes will be randomly distributed to customers who voted for the winning deal in each round.

Those who voted for deals that did not win will be randomly selected to be able to purchase their chosen items at not-quite-as-good, but still incredible discounts.

Voters must return to the Amazon Customers Vote page on each round’s Buying Day to see if they have been provided a claim code.

The six rounds of deals that are up for voting today on the Amazon Customers Vote page include:

Round 1 - Prices as low as $79
(Voting Nov. 15 - Nov. 20; winning product announced Nov. 21; Buying Day Nov. 22)

•1,000 Nintendo Wiis (normally $249.99)
•1,000 Sony Playstation 3s (40GB) (normally $399.99)
•1,000 Microsoft Xbox 360 Arcades (normally $279.99)

Read on for more about the Amazon deals.

=> Read more!

One of the big attractions the southern states had in bidding on the final assembly site for the Boeihng 787 supposedly was that very few of the workers there join unions.

Boeing, of course, never acknowledged that point and located the final assembly in highly unionized Everett, but Boeing subcontractors heeded the call.

Both Vought and Alenia located new 787 subassembly factories in the nation's least unionized state, South Carolina.

But now Vought's own workers have turned the tables.

Workers at a Vought's South Carolina plant that makes a section of the Dreamliner have voted for union representation.

More than 50 percent of the 127 production and workers at the Vought Aircraft Industries plant in Charleston have decided to be represented by the same union that represents Puget Sound Boeing workers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Just a fraction more than three percent of South Carolina workers are represented by unions.

Now Vought and the IAM have to negotiate a contract.

The wage difference between what the formerly non-union South Carolina workers make ($15 an hour) and what Puget Sound aerospace workers make ($25 an hour or more) is substantial.

Hoping to drive away competition from new low-cost carriers, Australia's largest ailine, Qantas, has ordered 188 new narrow-bodied planes from Boeing and Airbus.

At list prices, the planes are worth nearly $32 billion.

The order includes both narrow-bodies airliners from Boeing and Airbus. Some of those planes will be delivered to Qantas low-cost subsidiary, Jetstar, which will operate the planes in competition with Asian low-cost carriers Tiger Airways and AirAsiaX.

A Seattle law firm that in September filed a lawsuit seeking class action status against British Airways for its summertime luggage meltdown has amended that suit to encompass more plaintiffs and more allegations.

The amended suit has been filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

"Since the complaint was filed in September, we have been inundated with calls and e-mails from passengers who experienced horrific treatment by British Air, in the way the airline dealt with baggage, and how they dealt with passengers searching for luggage," said Stave Berman, a partner in the Seattle law firm filing the suit.

The amended complaint names a new plaintiff, Laura Hutchinson, a University of Washington student who alleges that during June British lost her luggage as she headed for a two-month European study program. That luggage contained crucial study materials, clothing and other items. British has still not found her bags.

Another new plaintiff, Cindy Kerr, contends British lost her bags as she flew to Nairobi, Kenya last summer. The airline told her on four different occasions to return to the airport to search for her missing luggage among piles of unclaimed bags. She has yet to find her luggage.

Want to meet the man behind Johnny Love Vodka?

The brains behind the brand: (from left) John "Johnny Love" Metheny, founder; T.J. Diab, CEO; Ann Marie Rome, vice president of operations.

John "Johnny Love" Metheny will schmooze – and show off the drink mixing flair that made him an inductee in the U.S. Bartender Hall of Fame – from 7 to 9 p.m. at Tacoma's Harmon Brewery & Restaurant, 1938 Pacific Ave.

=> Read more!

Roxanne Rothwell of Puyallup, Jason Karlan of Tacoma, Marcia Seed of Fife, Deborah Morgan of University Place, Larry Ward of Lacey – all of you, plus more than 2,800 other Washington residents: You’ve got some money waiting from the Internal Revenue Service.

The average check totals $924, from a total in the state of $2.6 million in checks that have so far gone undelivered.

Nationally, the IRS is seeking 115,478 taxpayers who are due refund checks worth about $110 million after those checks were returned.

Taxpayers can use the "Where's My Refund?" feature on the home page of the IRS Web site to learn the status of their refunds. To use it, a taxpayer must enter a Social Security number, filing status (such as single or married filing jointly) and the refund amount shown on the taxpayer’s 2006 tax return. When the information is submitted, “Where’s My Refund?” will display the status of a refund and, in some cases, provide instructions on how to resolve potential account issues.

Taxpayers can access a telephone version of “Where’s My Refund?” by calling 800-829-1954.

To see a full list of the names of Washington taxpayers who are due an undelivered refund, visit http://www.thenewstribune.com/documents/wash_irs.xls

Some news for Verizon Wireless customers who want to access the Internet: Verizon Wireless announced today that customers in more Western Washington towns can now access e-mail and the Internet and more at faster speeds, check out video on their phones, and download music.

The company’s wireless broadband network allows customers to access BroadbandAccess on their laptops, e-mail on their PDAs and V CAST Video and Music on their wireless phones.

The wireless broadband network coverage area in the state now extends to:

· Bonney Lake, Buckley, Orting, Enumclaw

· Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Shelton, Gig Harbor, Port Angeles

· San Juan Islands including Friday Harbor and Oak Harbor

· Duval, Preston, Carnation, Monroe

· Lake Stevens, Granite Falls, Ridgefield, La Center

· Highway 395 from Ritzville to Mesa

Two Northwest craft brewing powerhouses are joining forces.

Woodinville-based Redhook Ale Brewery Inc. said Tuesday it is combining with privately held Widmer Brothers Brewing Co. to create one of the nation’s largest specialty brewers, The Associated Press reports.

Widmer is based in Portland.

The all-stock transaction will result in Widmer shareholders and Redhook shareholders each holding about 50 percent of the outstanding shares in the combined company, which will be called Craft Brewers Alliance Inc. and trade under Redhook’s stock symbol, “HOOK.”

Widmer and Red Hook have worked collaboratively for years, with a brewing and licensing relationship in the eastern U.S. They also operated a joint sales and marketing operation called the Craft Brands Alliance.

“It’s going to be huge news in the beer world,” said Paul Gatza, director of the Brewer’s Association, a national trade group. “Both were very strong pioneering companies.”

In 2006, Widmer was the 11th largest brewer in the U.S. based on sales, and Redhook was the 12th largest, according to the association’s rankings.

=> Read more!

Labor Ready is changing its name.

The Tacoma-based staffing agency will now be called TrueBlue, Inc. in reference to the blue-collar staffing market the company serves.

"We operate as one company with multiple brands in the ’blue collar’ staffing market," said CEO Steve Cooper.

"Each of our brands, Labor Ready, Spartan Staffing and CLP Resources, will continue to operate under their brand name, providing our customers with specialized services to meet their needs," Cooper said.

Cooper said that renaming the company provides a clear distinction between the parent company and each of its brands.

The company will change its ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange to "TBI" in connection with the name change. That change will happen on Dec. 18.

Labor Ready executives are in New York City today to present the company's strategies and operational trends to analysts and portfolio managers.

This is an annual trip for the heads of soon-to-be-called True Blue.

The company estimates revenue for the fourth quarter to be between $345 million and $350 million, according to a news release.

Estimated net income per diluted share for the fourth quarter is expected to be between $0.32 and $0.34.

This from The Associated Press:

Department-store operator Macy’s Inc. said today it swung to a profit of $33 million in the third quarter in contrast to a slim loss a year ago.

Earnings adjusted for one-time costs were at the high end of the company’s forecasts. But revenue was little changed and sales at stores open at least a year fell.

The company expects lower same-store sales —a key retail barometer — for the year. Its shares fell more than 3 percent by midday today.

=> Read more!

Starbucks fourth-quarter earnings come out Thursday as the leading latte maker faces increasing competition and many other factors attributed to pulling down its stock price: rising diary prices, fuel prices and housing market issues.

The Associated Press reports that the company's stock is down nearly 40 percent in the last year to close at $23.99 today.

McDonald's outscoring Starbucks on taste can't help. You might remember that a Consumer Reports taste test last spring ranked McDonald's coffee No. 1.

James Maher, a research analyst with ThinkEquity Partners told the AP: "I do think that the fact that you can get lattes at McDonald's is just a consequence of constantly rising consumer expectations, fueled in part by Starbucks' continued innovation."

Raymond Duncan stands in front of his new yacht Tuesday as it's launched into the water.

If you were anywhere near Tacoma’s Tideflats Tuesday morning, you might have had a glimpse of the good life.

Aleutian Yachts launched a $6 million, 92-foot yacht into the Blair Waterway. The luxury boat – which took Aleutian more than two years to build – has five bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen with high-end appliances, a sky lounge and a full-time crew of four including the captian and a chef.

“Everything is top end,” said Greg Ward, CEO of Aleutian Yachts, which is now headquartered in the port’s Early Business Center at the tip of the Blair-Hylebos Peninsula.

=> Read more!

Director Chang Mook Sohn of the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council today released his latest figures for revenue collection for the state.

Tax payments in the October 11 – November 10 period totaled $1,216.1 million, or $37.9 million – 3 percent – below the estimate for the month.

Revenue Act (sales, business and occupation, use and public utility taxes) and real estate excise tax payments accounted for the shortfall, the director said.

Real estate excise tax payments were $13 million below the estimate. The shortfall more than offsets last period’s positive results.

For the two months since the September forecast, collections are $18.4 million – or 0.8 percent – below the forecast.

Growth this month was the weakest since August 2004 and well below average for the last twelve months – 7.7 percent. Still, the director said, revenue growth “remains reasonably healthy given the weak U.S. economy, a deteriorating residential housing market, and rising energy prices.”

The retail trade sector again was quite weak, with tax payments up only 2.1 percent from a year ago. Taxes reported by businesses in the auto sector, the largest retail trade category, declined 3.5 percent this month.

Taxable real estate activity reported by the state’s 39 counties for the most recent period was once again very weak. Taxable real estate activity was 22.6 percent below the year-ago level in October, after falling 25.8 percent the prior month. Activity has declined 11 of the last 13 months with most of the weakness attributable to a drop in the number of transactions.

It’s sleek, it’s smooth and now it belongs to the LeMay Museum.

Calling it “a truly significant and stunning automobile,” the museum announced yesterday that it had received the donation of a 1950 Daimler "Green Goddess" Drop Head Coupe.

Wes and Nancy Lematta of Vancouver provided the gift.

Museum President and CEO David Madeira said the Daimler was a prized part of the Lematta’s personal collection, “and they wanted to be sure it was preserved intact and exhibited in America’s Car Museum rather than sold some day to an indiscriminate fate.”

Wes Lematta is founder of Columbia Helicopters, which is also the named sponsor of the new Museum’s helipad.

This Daimler is one of only eight built by the oldest British marque and was once part of the famed Harrah car collection. The first Daimler built was called the “Green Goddess”, a moniker that was bestowed upon all eight cars. Each car, however, is actually slightly different from the others. The Lematta’s Daimler has been completely restored and earned a class win at the 1994 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

The museum also has a 1913 Daimler and a 1922 Austro Daimler in it’s collection.

Daimlers have been known for their association with the British Royal Family. Well into the 1950s, Daimler limousines served as primary transportation for England’s King and Queen, as well as other heads of state throughout the world.

After lunch today, I stopped by the iconic, circular retail shop at Brown & Haley's candy factory, 110 E. 26th St., and found two discoveries.

First, the conveyor belt must have had some glorious malfunctions during the making of this year's seasonal favorite – Candy Cane Roca. How else can you explain this bargain: Two 16-ounce tubs of Candy Cane Roca Boo Boos for $1. That's no misprint. Two full pounds of the candy for a buck.

Boo boos taste the same as the regular stuff only they don't look perfect and come in a clear plastic tub rather than individually wrapped and packaged.

Meanwhile, I discovered Brown & Haley also has recently come out with a Roca wafer cookie. (Which you can buy in Boo Boo tubs for $4.99.) The chocolate water is covered in the familiar chocolate and topped with bits of buttercrunch.

Retail shop hours are Monday-Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Windy where you live? Storm blew down a tree, damaged your house or car? Earlier today, the Northwest Insurance Council offered some general guidelines on storm damage and insurance coverage.

Homeowners Insurance and Business Insurance policies cover wind damage to the structure of your home or business and your belongings. If you have Renters Insurance, only damage to your personal possessions is covered. Wind damage to your vehicle caused by falling trees or other wind-driven objects is insured if you have purchased optional Comprehensive Coverage in your Auto Policy.

What’s covered?

• At home, damage from wind and falling trees, including trees from neighboring properties that fall on your home or outbuildings.
• Removal of trees that have fallen on buildings.
• Damaged personal property (both home and renters) inside a damaged building.
• Additional living expenses such as increased housing costs, extra food costs, furniture rental, and storage fees, if you can’t occupy your primary residence due to storm damage.
• Costs for reasonable temporary repairs to prevent further damage to the building or contents.
• Damage to your vehicle is covered, generally, only if you have comprehensive coverage.

If your home or vehicle has been damaged:

• Document damage and take pictures.
• If safe to do so, make temporary repairs to prevent further loss from rain or wind. Save receipts for reimbursement.
• Contact your insurance agent or company to file a claim immediately.
• Use only licensed, reputable building contractors and be sure they get the proper building permits.
• Avoid contractors who ask for a large deposit up front or bids that are remarkably low. This may indicate a willingness to cut corners or leave work unfinished.
• Don’t pay a lot for temporary repairs unless authorized by your insurance adjuster. You could get stuck with the bill if the repairs are deemed excessive.
• Don’t discard anything that is damaged until it has been examined by your adjuster. You could miss out on coverage for that item.

We’ll be there on Wednesday when Lela Fishe, a divorced mother of three, gets a car at a ceremony at Tacoma Goodwill's Workforce Development Center.

She is the first recipient in Goodwill’s Wheels to Work program, wherein the organization sells affordable used cars to low-income workers and job hunters.

Program participants take Goodwill's Financial Literacy program, and a committee of program partners selects applicants to receive a loan.

The City of Tacoma provided the first round of cars. Earlier this year, eight cars retiring from the city's fleet were transferred to Tacoma Goodwill. The organization is also seeking donations from the public.

Cars sell for no more than $3,000. Sound Community Bank provides the low-interest loan with most car payments about $60 a month. The default rate for similar programs - there are a handful across the country - is about 2.5 percent.

Bellevue-based investment house ShareBuilder Corp. is out with a survey showing attitudes and actions concerning 401(k) plans – offering data on small-business employees and employers.

Among the results:

• Employees are most likely to use 401(k) accounts to fund their retirement at least in part whereas, employers are most likely to rely on personal investments in IRAs, stocks and mutual funds.

• Less than 40 percent of employers view retirement plans as crucial in attracting and retaining employees versus nearly 60 percent of employees.

• While half of employers feel a strong/some sense of responsibility to offer a retirement plan, employees are even more likely to feel that an obligation exists (64 percent).

• Nearly half of all employees believe that Social Security will not be around when they retire compared to two-thirds of employers that believe it will.

• Only 35 percent of all small businesses in this country offer retirement benefits to their employees (about the same percentage as reported one year ago).

• The No. 1 reason employers gave for not planning to ever offer a 401(k) was “not enough employees to make it worthwhile” followed by “can’t afford to offer company match” and “employees not interested”.

• Half of all employers at micro businesses (1 – 25 employees) feel no responsibility to offer retirement plans while three-quarters of employers of small businesses (26 –50 employees) feel they have either a strong or, at least, some level of responsibility.

Hey, all you Thanksgiving travelers: Airlines are predicting a 4 percent increase in passengers for the upcoming holiday weekend, according to The Associated Press.

What does that mean for you? Get to the airport extra, extra early and while you're there, be prepared for longer-than-usual lines. This year some airlines plan to beef up staff and have water and food ready should your plane find itself delayed on a tarmac.

Here's an excerpt from the AP story:

Domestic carriers are expected to fly roughly 27 million passengers worldwide over 12 days beginning Nov. 16, with planes about 90 percent full, the Air Transport Association said Monday.

The anticipated uptick in demand comes as the industry struggles through a year of record-low punctuality. Through September, more than 24 percent of flights arrived late, according to the Transportation Department, the industry’s worst on-time performance since comparable data began being collected in 1995.

In an attempt to minimize holiday travel hassles, some big airlines will add as many as 500 seasonal workers — some of whom had been furloughed — to usher fliers through airports, James May, president of the airline association said at a press conference.

Airports, meanwhile, will be prepared to supply additional food and water to planes that get stuck on tarmacs for extended periods, said Greg Principato, president of the Airports Council International-North America. However, Principato urged travelers to consider taking public transportation to airports, since many parking lots will fill up quickly.

This from Bloomberg News:

Microsoft Corp., trailing Apple Inc.’s iPod in the media-player market, will offer free engraving and personalization of its Zune music and video device.

New models of the Zune go on sale tomorrow. Customers will be able to select from 27 artist designs and 20 pictures to have laser engraved with as many as three lines of text, said Scott

Erickson, senior director of product management for the Zune. Customers can also get five lines of text without a design.

For the three months ended in August, Microsoft languished in fourth place among digital-player makers with about 1/24th of Apple’s market share by units sold, according to NPD Group Inc., a Port Washington, New York-based research firm. Apple offers text engraving on the iPod.

The new models will let Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, move into the No. 2 spot in media players by the end of the Christmas shopping season, Robbie Bach, the company’s entertainment and devices president, said last month.

I was up at the State Convention Center earlier today - at Seattle’s 16th annual Coffee Fest trade show. If you’re in the coffee business and you haven’t heard about the event, then it’s well worth the trip. (It’s open to the trade only, and not to the public.) The show continues through Sunday.

Speakers spoke at a series of seminars (dozens, including “Unlocking the Mysteries of Decaf” and “Becoming a Coffee Brewing Artisan"), and a few hundred booths were selling all-things-caffeine, everything from espresso machines and whipped-cream-cartridge recharging systems to “Soylato” (a soy-based gelato) and the newest thing in paper cups.

One of the more unusual booths was promoting Hendrix Brothers Coffee, a brand featuring musical icon and Seattle Native Jimi Hendrix.

What could be more Seattle than the marriage of premium coffee beans and the man who wrote “Purple Haze?”

I asked the man at the booth if Jimi actually took an interest in coffee.

The answer: “He drank coffee.”

It's enough to make your stomach turn: Ham soda.

That's the newest flavor announced today from Jones Soda Co., the beverage company famous for its unique flavors.

The company is dumping the traditional seasonal flavors of turkey and gravy this year to produce limited-edition theme packs for Christmas and Hanukkah.

The Christmas pack: Sugar Plum, Christmas Tree, Egg Nog and Christmas Ham.

The Hanukkah pack: Jelly Doughnut, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Coins and Latkes sodas.

Information you will be happy to know: “As always, both packs are kosher and contain zero caffeine,” a Jones news release noted.

More bad news out of Washington Mutual.

Merrill Lynch & Co. said. today that the Seattle-based savins and loan may report lower profit and cut its dividend because of New York state’s investigation into allegedly fraudulent appraisals, Bloomberg News reports.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said this week he found a “pattern of collusion” on mortgage appraisals linked to Washington Mutual. He subpoenaed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two biggest U.S. providers of home-loan financing, seeking information on mortgages purchased from Washington Mutual.

Cuomo’s investigation may result in an after-tax loss of as much as $3.80 a share should Washington Mutual be forced to buy back loans underwritten with faulty appraisals, Kenneth Bruce wrote in a research note.

The analyst, who recommends investors sell their shares, lowered his 2008 profit estimate by 33 cents to $2.27 a share.

Bruce said the inquiry increases the possibility Washington Mutual will reduce its 56-cent quarterly dividend and diminishes the odds the bank will be acquired. “Potential buyers are likely unwilling to assume the contingent risk associated with large repurchases,” he wrote.

Washington Mutual rose 51 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $19.90 as of 11:20 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Earlier, they gained as much as 5.9 percent. The stock has tumbled 54 percent over the past month, compared with a 7.7 percent fall in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Safeco said today that claims stemming from the recent California wildfires are estimated at $35 million in pretax catastrophe losses.

This figure represents the estimated losses both from claims received through Nov. 6, 2007 and future expected claims.

The estimated effect on fourth-quarter net income is $23 million after tax, or $0.24 per diluted share.

"Safeco has been on the ground with our customers since Day One of the fires," said Paula Rosput Reynolds, Safeco president and chief executive officer. "We appreciate the support of the Department of Insurance and local law enforcement in allowing us to respond quickly to our customers."

The PI reports that the Port of Seattle commissioners are deciding between cutting the port's tax rate or keeping it the same.

According to the PI:

Commission President John Creighton is pushing to lower the current rate -- 23 cents per $1,000 of assessed value for a total collection of $69 million this year -- by 1 cent, which still allows rising property values to buoy the dollar amount collected next year to $75 million.

The Port of Tacoma commission will likely keep its tax rate the same – at 18.6 cents per $1,000 of assessed value.

I attended a study session on the port's 2008 budget Thursday and there was no talk of raising or lowering the tax rate. The commission has left it the same for years.

That said, rising property values and new construction have most certainly boosted the amount the port collects.

The tax will generate about $14.6 million for the port this year. Most of it goes toward paying down debt on the port's general obligation bonds.

There was some interesting discussion regarding the effects of the State Supreme Court's ruling Thursday to strike down Initiative 747.

That initiative set a 1 percent limit on the annual growth of property tax collections by governments.

As we reviewed up top – assessed property values and new construction have pushed up the amount the port collects each year.

=> Read more!

I imagine that the executives at Washington Mutual have had better weeks.

Bloomberg News reports that WaMu shares sank a bit lower today, mostly on old news.

Here's the story:

Washington Mutual Inc., the largest U.S. savings and loan, fell 3.2 percent in New York trading on concern a slowing mortgage market will force the company to cut its dividend.

Washington Mutual dropped 65 cents to $19.39 in composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange at 4 p.m., after reaching $19.38. Combined with yesterday’s 17 percent tumble, the two-day decline is the biggest since the 1987 stock-market crash.

Chief Executive Officer Kerry Killinger told investors at a company-sponsored conference yesterday that the board will review its 56-cent per-share dividend in January. Housing prices will probably continue to decline in 2008 and the company must set aside more money for bad loans as a result, Killinger said.

“The dividend could be vulnerable in light of the company’s outlook for more pressure in 2008,” a team of CreditSights Inc. analysts led by David Hendler wrote today.

Washington Mutual said yesterday that new U.S. residential mortgages will probably total about $1.5 trillion in 2008, compared with industry forecasts of $2 trillion. Home-price declines will erode earnings next year, the company said.

Money set aside to cover bad loans in the first quarter of 2008 should be about the same as the $1.3 billion Washington Mutual expects to reserve for that purpose this quarter, the company said.
Bear Stearns Cos. analyst David Hilder cut his estimate for 2008 earnings per share to $2 from $2.25 yesterday and said it is “likely” the firm will cut its dividend.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said yesterday he found a “pattern of collusion” on mortgage appraisals linked to the company. He subpoenaed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two biggest U.S. providers of home-loan financing, seeking information on mortgages purchased from Washington Mutual.

Great Wolf Resorts Inc. and the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation sent out an update today on the the Great Wolf Lodge resort being built north of Centralia. The resort is scheduled to open in March.

According to a release from the company, attendees at an open house today got a look at the red and yellow funnel-shaped attraction that has been stopping traffic along I-5 since July.

The eight-story, 442,000 square-foot resort will provide a comprehensive package of family entertainment and lodging amenities including:

• 398 all-suite guest rooms

• A 78,000-square-foot indoor entertainment area which will feature the state of Washington’s largest indoor waterpark

• 30,000 square-foot conference center

• Several restaurants: Camp Critter Bar & Grille and The Loose Moose Cottage; Bear Claw Cafe; Pizza Hut Express; Starbucks Coffee Shop;

Read on for more about the resort.

=> Read more!

It's only the first week of November, and Boeing has already tallied up 956 airliner orders for the year.

That new number doesn't include the 17 aircraft that Cathay Pacific Airways announced today.

The company set an all-time record last year with 1,044 net orders. At this time last year, the company had less than 800 orders.

One factor to consider is the upcoming Dubai Air Show, which is sure to generate some big orders for both Boeing and Airbus from Mideast airlines wanting to make a splash.

Orders Boeing officially recorded this week include 26 LAN Airlines 787s and eight unidentified 737s. The company identified orders for 14 aircraft that previously had been listed as unidentified: Six China Southern Airlines 777s, six Pegasus Airlines 737s and two LAN Airlines 777s.

Boeing rival Airbus is likely nipping at Boeing's heels, but its hard to tell because the European plane maker doesn't announce total orders as frequently as Boeing.

At the end of September, Airbus reported 854 orders, but the company doesn't subtract canceled orders from that amount as Boeing does.

Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. today announced orders for 17 new Boeing aircraft worth $5.2 billion at list prices.

Cathay ordered 10 Boeing 747-8 freighters and seven Boeing 777-300ER twin-engine aircraft.

Cathay's chief executive, Tony Tyler, said the airline will buy more 777s in the future to replace the 747-400 as the backbone of the airline's fleet.

The Chinese airline has orders for 23 777s in total. The new generation freighters will replace existing 747-200 freighters.

The airline has yet to pick between the Airbus A380 and the passenger version of the 747-8 as its new jumbo aircraft.

The fact that Cathay picked the 747-8 for cargo is indicative that the airline may choose the 747 passenger aircraft to maintain fleet commomality, some aviation experts say.

I had an interesting tour of the 1920 National Bank of Tacoma building yesterday. Formerly the bank, then the Tacoma Art Museum, then not-quite-home to a few enterprises that didn't come to fruition, the building (at South 13th Street and Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma) is now home to Sound Inpatient Physicians, a 350-employee physician-placement firm.

I'll be writing a story for tomorrow's edition – and I've requested that an actual staff photographer take some shots – but I have a handful of photos I took during the tour.

I've heard rumors of a tunnel beneath South 13th, running from the building to the Wells Fargo tower - and indeed, here's what's left of it, walled-off half-way through. Also, on the jump, I've taken an image of the original blueprints, one of the vaults and a detailed look at one of the beautifully intricate vault doors. Enjoy.

=> Read more!

The Boeing Co. will distribute a $3,000 lump sum payment to union machinists on its payroll in their Nov. 21 paycheck.

That Thanksgiving eve payment will inject $67.5 million into the Puget Sound economy, said the International Association of Machinists District Lodge 751 which represents the workers.

The $3,000 payment was negotiated as part of the union's 2005 contract with Boeing.

The union urged members to save the money as a cushion against a strike next year. The union contract expires next fall

Alaska Airlines' on-time performance fell to 69.5 percent in October, but its rank among the 20 major U.S. airlines improved to 15th, Flightstats.com reported today.

Alaska ranked 19th among U.S. carriers in September in government statistics.

Although its on-time performance fell, other airlines on-time punctuality fell faster, resulting in Alaska's move up the ranks.

Hawaiian Airlines was the most prompt in October with 94.26 percent on-time arrivals. In second place was Aloha Airlines with 88.91 percent of its flights on time.

Freedom Airlines was at the bottom of the heap with a 61.32 percent on-time record in October. Atlantic Southeast Airlines, last in September, was 19th in October with 63.29 percent of its flights on time.

An on-time arrival is one that arrives at its destination within 15 minutes of its scheduled time.

Stellar Industrial Supply of Tacoma and Bassett Industrial Supply of Portland have signed an agreement to merge their operations.

The closing of the transaction is set for Dec. 1. No terms were disclosed.

The combined company, which will retain the Stellar name, will have its headquarters in Tacoma. After the combination, the company will have nine locations. Some 130 employees will work for the company.

The company branches will be in Portland and Albany,Ore. and Everett (two locations), Ferndale, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Pasco, Wash.

Stellar was founded in 1988. Bassett was started in 1993.

With an average loan of $78,000, the Small Business Administration has facilitated $1.1 million-worth of loans in Washington to 15 military-related borrowers under a new “Patriot Express” lending program.

The initiative began in July. SBA’s Seattle District Director Nancy Gilbertson today thanked Bank of America, Community Capital Development, Columbia Bank, Mountain West Bank, Northwest Commercial Bank, Panhandle State Bank and Sterling Savings Bank for their support.

“We are pleased to say that we’ve gotten a great response from our lenders,” Gilbertson said. “We have created a compelling product for them and that’s going to help us reach a large number of aspiring and current military entrepreneurs.”

The loans are open to service veterans, Reservists, National Guard members, military spouses and others with a military connection.

Nationwide, SBA has guaranteed 500 Patriot Express loans amounting to $51 million, with an average loan amount of nearly $102,000.

Loans are available up to $500,000 and qualify for SBA’s maximum guaranty of up to 85 percent for loans of $150,000 or less and up to 75 percent for loans over $150,000 up to $500,000.

For more information, visit http://www.sba.gov/patriotexpress. For a list of participating Patriot Express lenders in Washington , contact the SBA Seattle office at 206-553-7310

An errant rubber O-ring, not a design fault, likely caused a landing incident with an SAS Bombardier Q-400 aircraft Oct. 27, the European Safety Agency declared today.

That's good news for SeaTac's Horizon Air and other airline operators of the Q400. Horizon has 33 of the 76-passenger turboprop airliners in its fleet.

Horizon and other airlines grounded the Q400s in September after two landing gear collapses on Q400s operated by SAS in Europe.

Preliminary investigations found corrosion of a key part of the landing gear in those two incidents caused the gear to collapse on landing.

Horizon inspected its Q400s but found no faults. The inspections caused Horizon to cancel hundreds of Q400 flights.

Initial inspection of the SAS Q400 involved in the latest crash showed an O-ring jammed the gear actuator mechanism preventing the plane from lowering its right side landing gear.

SAS grounded its Q400s and eliminated them from its fleet, but other Q400 operators, including Horizon, kept their Q400s flying based on advice from Bombardier.

The Seattle District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration is accepting nominations for its 2008 Washington State Small Business Awards Competition.

Any individual or organization may submit nominations. Award categories include:

·Small Business Person of the Year
·Small Business Exporter
·Young Entrepreneur
·Family–Owned Business

Small Business Champion Awards go to individuals who advocate the cause of small business. Awards include:

·Minority Small Business
·Women in Business
·Veteran Small Business
·Financial Services
·Small Business Journalist
·Home-Based Business

The winner of the Washington Small Business Person of the Year, along with all Champion Award winners, will be honored locally at a Seattle celebration next spring – and will continue on to compete for national honors at ceremonies to be held in Washington D.C.

The deadline for all nominations is Monday, November 26.

For a copy of the nomination criteria, contact Carol Andersen, SBA, at 206-553-7315, carol.andersen@sba.gov or visit www.sba.gov/wa/seattle “under spotlight” for a downloadable nomination form.

It turns out that consumers in Tacoma and that city to the north drink a lot of hot, caffeinated beverages.

A recent survey by HealthSaver, a health care discount service, showed that we were tops in coffee consumption.

Most Coffee Consumption – Regular coffee & specialty coffee drinks:

1. Seattle/Tacoma
2. Boston
3. Houston
4. Chicago
5. Miami

Just in case you were wondering who isn't drinking enough:

Least Coffee Consumption:

1. Dallas/Ft. Worth
2. New York
3. St. Louis
4. Atlanta
5. Philadelphia

Other area of distinction for us:

Cities Most Likely To Say Caffeine Is Good For You:

1. Seattle/Tacoma
2. Chicago
3. Miami
4. San Diego
5. Boston

=> Read more!

Today workers at the Port of Tacoma will become the first in the region to enroll in the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program.

Under the program, the Transportation Security Administration checks the background of workers – including longshore and truck drivers – with unescorted access to secure areas of port facilities and ships to ensure they are not security threats.

People obtaining TWIC cards must provide biographic and biometric information, such as fingerprints, sit for a digital photograph and successfully pass a security threat assessment, according to a TSA Web site.

The "smart cards," the TSA reports, will contain a fingerprint template that links the card to its carrier.

=> Read more!

Plenty of companies produce an annual calendar – mostly as a way to convince consumers to buy their products. For years, Tacoma Public Utilities has published a calendar too as a customer relations tool.

This year, however, TPU's Commmunity & Media Services office put a creative twist on tradition. Using some sexual innuendo, a bit of wit and artwork created by Tacoma artist Chris Sharp (in the comic style of the late pop artist Roy Lichtenstein), the 2008 calendar takes a wholly new approach to grabbing our attention and hitting us with messages aimed at conserving power and water.

This image appears as June in the 2008 Tacoma Public Utilities calendar.

Inside City Hall, the images generated such a buzz that overseers of the City's Graphic Services Division initially balked at printing the calendars until they got formal approval through the TPU chain of command.

My copy showed up this week in the mail. You can pick one up in the lobby at the TPU office, 3628 S. 35th St.

Does the calendar's mildly suggestive artwork offend conservative sensibilities or inspire you to conserve? You be the judge. To see all the artwork in a PDF file, click here:
TPU Calendar Images

After a trickle of updates and “betas” bearing the Windows Live moniker, Microsoft Corp. is ready to start promoting its official package of free desktop programs for e-mail, instant messaging, blogging and sharing photos, The Associated Press.

The programs are “essentially a free upgrade for Windows,” said Brian Hall, general manager of Windows Live at Microsoft.

The package includes Windows Live Mail, which can grab messages from multiple free Web-based e-mail accounts, including Microsoft’s Hotmail, Google Inc.’s Gmail and AOL e-mail. The new package, which Microsoft formally announced Tuesday, allows PC users to read and respond to mail even when they’re not online, just as Outlook Express, which Microsoft has phased out, did.

Its Windows Live Photo Gallery lets users manipulate and organize digital photos and upload them to Flickr, a photo-sharing site owned by Yahoo, and to Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft’s own blogging and social networking site.

The package also includes Live Writer, for writing blog posts, the Live Messenger instant-messaging program and Live Family Safety, parental controls for Web surfing at home.

Alaska Airlines, a pioneer of electronic tickets, cyber check-ins and Web site reservations, is launching a new kind of cyber gift, the electronic air travel gift certificate.

These virtual gift certificates for air travel on Alaska or its partner carrier Horizon Air can be e-mailed to recipients or, if you're more traditionally inclined, printed out and mailed.

The certificates are only available at the airline's Web site, alaskaair.com. The certificates likewise can be redeemed only at that same site, not at airline ticket counters or travel agents.

Alaska Airlines vice president Steve Jarvis at least for now passed up the opportunity to issue plastic gift cards that could be sold at stores. Several of Alaska's competitors, including Southwest, American and JetBlue airlines widely issue gift cards through a variety of outlets including grocery stores.

For Alaska the electronic gift certificate eliminates the cost and complication of dealing with the plastic cards while making it easy for certificate respondents to use the cards to buy air travel.

The certificates never expire. They can be combined with money from credit cards for buying tickets online or the amount from up to four cards can be combined to defray the cost of air travel.

The certificates are offered in several designs appropriate for different occasions including birthdays, Christmas or other special occasions.

Construction of the new Nordstrom store at the west side of Tacoma Mall is moving along. A drive by yesterday showed that the building is now two stories high and extends farther into the parking lot than the old Mervyns did.

Here's what it looks like:

Tacoma Mall marketing director Sarah Bonds said in an e-mail that the construction was on schedule. The new, 144,000-square-foot Nordstrom store is scheduled to open in the fall of 2008.

I've asked her some questions about the construction. I'll let you know what she says when she gets back to me.

For $2.3 million. Because Oberdah "Obi" Manteufel wants to move – again.

The owner of the 117-year-old Durboraw Building at 938 Broadway in downtown Tacoma has put the three-story building up for sale. The building housed Leed's Shoe Store (left) in the 1950s and today houses Manteufel Piano Co. (Photos courtesy Tacoma Public Library, GVA Kidder Matthews)

Manteufel restores old pianos, important ones, a few each year, in the Durboraw Building at 938 Broadway, which he bought as a rundown wreck in 2000 for $550,000. A former concert pianist, Manteufel previously operated his restoration business on Bainbridge Island.

=> Read more!

The third quarter airline financials are finally all in and SeaTac's Alaska Air Group has emerged a big winner.

Alaska, while not nearly the largest, was by several measures the most profitable considering its size.

Alaska reported the best operating margins (14.1 percent),the best net margins (8.3 percent) and the largest difference between revenue growth versus cost growth (17.6 points) among the nation's top 11 airlines.

All of this prosperity didn't go unnoticed by Alaska's pilots who are in the midst of negotiations for a new contract.

The pilots union congratulated Alaska on its results, but noted that when the airline needed to cut costs, the pilots took big pay cuts (as much as 34 percent). Now that the airline is making more money, the pilots said, it's time to share.

Alaska noted that the third quarter is always its best quarter because of seasonal tourist traffic to the 49th state. The airline predicted less glimmering results for the fourth quarter.

=> Read more!

Five of seven Puget Sound area daily newspapers, including The News Tribune, lost circulation for the sixth-month period ending Sept. 30, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations figures released today.

The two Seattle dailies, The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, made small circulation gains during that period mainly due to the January 21 demise of the rival King County Journal, a 39,100-circulation daily paper.

The circulation losses followed a national trend. ABC figures showed the nation’s largest newspapers cumulatively lost 2.6 percent of their circulation in the last year.

The News Tribune circulation fell by 3.9 percent to 111,468 compared with the same six-month period in 2006. Sunday circulation dropped 2.9 percent to 127,959.

But The News Tribune’s online audience numbers continue to grow even as circulation softens. Unique monthly visitors to News Tribune Internet sites were up 39 percent from 543,000 in April to 756,000 in September. Page views per month increased from 3.77 million in April to 5.08 million in September, said Mark Briggs, News Tribune assistant managing editor.

Elsewhere in the Puget Sound, The Bellingham Herald circulation fell 1.4 percent to 22,857; the Kitsap Sun circulation dropped 1.2 percent to 29,241; the Everett Herald dropped by 1.4 percent to 48,519; the Olympian circulation declined to 31,713, a decrease of 4.7 percent based on Monday-through-Saturday figures.

The Seattle Times, the state’s largest newspaper, saw daily circulation gain 1.2 percent to 215,311. Its rival, the Post-Intelligencer, had a circulation gain of 1.1 percent to 127,584.

David Brown, The News Tribune’s vice president of circulation, said the paper is concentrating on recruiting new subscribers who will continue to take the paper over the long run.

“Obviously we’re concerned,” said Brown, “but we continue to have the strongest reach of any print or broadcast media in Pierce County.”

Sea-Tac Airport announced its third new international service this year today with news that Lufthansa Airlines will provide daily service between Sea-Tac and Frankfurt beginning March 30.

Earlier this year Air France began non-stop service to Paris from Sea-Tac, and Aeromexico began non-stop service from Sea-Tac to Mexico City.

"We have been courting Lufthansa for many years," said John Creighton, Port of Seattle Commission president. "We are very pleased to make this announcement as part of a united partnership with the Port of Seattle, the Seattle Convention & Visitors Bureau, and the State of Washington, who have all worked hard to bring about this important new service from Lufthansa."

Lufthansa's service not only will connect Seattle to Germany, but also will allow their passengers to make connections to Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and India.

Lufthansa's flight service between Seattle and Frankfurt will be a daily service aboard a 221-seat Airbus A330-300 aircraft.

The addition of Lufthansa brings the total number of European service routes at Sea-Tac to five: British Airways to London, Northwest Airlines to Amsterdam, SAS to Copenhagen, Air France to Paris, and Lufthansa to Frankfurt. Other international service from Sea-Tac includes six airlines serving Asia, two serving Mexico, and four airlines providing service to Canada.

Chile's LAN airlines has ordered 26 787 Dreamliners and four 777 Freighters from Boeing worth a total of $4.5 billion at list prices, Boeing said today.

The Santiago-based carrier will also lease six additional 787s from International Lease Finance Corp.

The 787s will be a mix of 787-8s and the larger 787-9 versions of the twin-engine super-efficient aircraft.

LAN is the largest 787 customer in Latin America. Two other Latin American carriers have ordered the Dreamliner. Aeromexico has ordered two and agreed to lease three. Columbia's Avianca has ordered 10 of the twin-aisle aircraft.

It may look like a mass of scaffolding is going up at the new new IKEA distribution center in Frederickson.

But Joseph Roth, IKEA spokesman, said builders are actually installing a high-tech racking system.

"That’s where we store the products," Roth said today. "So it's like shelves, but what’s unique about it is that it’s fully automated."

The products are stored on the shelves and an automatic arm moves between the aisles, pulling out products, Roth said.

For now, the racks are taller than the building itself. But Roth said the rest of the distribution center will be built around the racking system.

The first phase of the 1 million-square-feet facility will be finished next spring.

Readers, please stop here and take note: There will be no shopping at the distribution center in Frederickson. No lingonberries, no Swedish meatballs, no 100-packs of tea lights. That is in Renton.

IKEA relies on its efficient distribution to keep its prices low, according to information from the company.

The products will be shipped through the Port of Tacoma. They will then head to the Frederickson distribution center, where they are unloaded, stored in the racking and then re-loaded onto trucks when ordered by the stores.

The Frederickson distribution center will serve IKEA retail stores in Western Canada, Washington (Renton) and Oregon (Portland).

"To meet the growing demand for products at the 42 IKEA stores in North America, IKEA locates its distribution centers in regions of the country ... where the company can optimize delivery of its home furnishings to the nearest IKEA store," according to the company.

IKEA is beginning to recruit workers for its Frederickson facility, which will employ 125 people. The positions range from facility management and operations support to security and warehouse receiving.

For job applications, go here.

SeaTac's Alaska Airlines fell to 19th among the nation's 20 scheduled airlines in September based on on-time performance, the federal Department of Transportation said today.

Only commuter carrier Atlantic Southeast Airlines had a worse on-time performance record.

Alaska flights were on time 73.3 percent of the time in September. Atlantic Southeast had an on-time performance percentage of 63.4 percent.

Topping the list with the best on-time arrivals percentages were two Hawaiian carriers, Aloha and Hawaiian.

Aloha flights arrived on-time 95.4 percent of the time. Hawaiian flights arrived on-time (within 15 minutes of the scheduled time) 93.7 percent of the time.

Frontier Airlines was in third place at 88.4 percent on-time. And Continental Airlines was fourth with 88 percent on-time.

The Internal Revenue Service is warning taxpayers to beware a new e-mail scam that appears to be a solicitation from the IRS and the U.S. government for charitable contributions to victims of the recent Southern California wildfires.

The scam e-mail urges recipients to click on a link, which then opens what appears to be the IRS Web site but which is, in fact, a fake. An item on the phony Web site urges donations and includes a link that opens a donation form which requests the recipient’s personal and financial information.

Don’t fall for it. Don’t open the attachment.

The IRS also believes that clicking on the link downloads “malware,” or malicious software, onto the recipient’s computer. The malware will steal passwords and other account information it finds on the victim's computer system and send them to the scamster.

Recipients of the scam e-mail who clicked on any of the links should have their computers checked for malicious software and should monitor their financial accounts for suspicious activity, taking measures to prevent unauthorized access as necessary.

Any unauthorized activity should be reported to law enforcement authorities and to the three major credit companies. More information on how to handle actual or potential identity theft may be found in IRS Publication 4535, available on the IRS Web site, www.irs.gov.

Recipients of the scam e-mail can help the IRS shut down this scheme by forwarding the e-mail to an electronic mail box, phishing@irs.gov.

Alaska Airlines' October passenger traffic increased 4.1 percent over October 2006, the airline reported today.

The airline carried 1,362,000 passengers, compared to 1,333,300 in October 2006.

The increase traffic exactly matched Alaska's capacity increase leaving the passenger load factor or percentage of seats filled with paying passengers the same as last year, 71.6 percent.

Traffic at Alaska's sister airline, Horizon Air, also jumped in October from the same month last year.

Horizon's October traffic increased 10.5 percent to 252.5 million revenue passenger miles from 228.5 million flown a year earlier. Capacity for October was 350.8 million available seat miles, 12.1 percent higher than the 313.0 million in October 2006.

The passenger load factor for the month was 71.9 percent, compared to 73.0 percent in October 2006. The airline carried 666,900 passengers, compared to 586,400 in October 2006.

Delayed deliveries seem all the rage lately in the aerospace business.

Today comes news of a new Airbus delay and the financial losses it may generate.

The European aerospace company warned that a six-month delay in the delivery of its new A400M military transport aircraft could cost the company as much as $2.03 billion.

News of that delay sent Airbus parent company EADS shares tumbling. Shares fell to $31.98, a 3.5 percent drop.

The A400M's delay follows a nearly two-year delay in the delivery of the superjumbo Airbus A380. The first of those planes was recently delivered to Singapore Airlines.

Boeing has had its own problems with delays. It 787 Dreamliner is delayed six months in its first delivery.

Hidden in the fine print of a deal that King County and the Port of Seattle announced today was a provision that should forever end the possibility of Boeing Field becoming a rival to Sea-Tac Airport.

The big news of that deal was that the Port of Seattle will acquire a BNSF rail corridor from Renton to Snohomish on the east side of Lake Washington. They'll lease part of that corridor to King County for use as public bike and walking trail.

But part of the consideration that King County will give the Port of Seattle in return for the corridor lease is the guarantee that King County, owner of Boeing Field, will consult with the Port of Seattle, owner of Sea-Tac, regarding future development at Boeing Field.

That provision appears to eliminate the possibility of the kind of unpleasant jolt the Port got two summers ago when King County announced it was considering a Southwest Airlines offer to build a terminal at Boeing Field and move all of its local flights there.

The Port vigorously opposed the deal on several grounds, the biggest of which was that Southwest's departure would raise the rents for its competitors at Sea-Tac while at the same time cutting its own costs.

Ultimately, King County Executive Ron Sims abandoned the Southwest deal under extreme political pressure.

Most U.S. airlines have steadily bumped up their airfares since summer's end to cope with rising fuel costs.

But those increase have hardly been uniform. At work here are the changing supply-demand equations, seasonal differences in traffic and the influence of competition.

Take a look at the fares charged by Sea-Tac Airport's dominant carrier, Alaska Airlines. While most fares have risen $20 or $30 since Labor Day, some have jumped by more than $100 and others have fallen dramatically.

For example:

Seven-day advance purchase roundtrip fares between Seattle and Long Beach, Calif., have increased $164 since the Friday before Labor Day. Alaska has a monopoly on non-stop flights to Long Beach.

Seven-day advance fares from Seattle to Orange County Friday were $442 roundtrip on Alaska compared with $238 the week before Labor Day. That's a $204 difference. Alaska is the dominant carrier in that market.

But 14-day advance purchase fares from Seattle to Anchorage, $678 on Aug. 31 can be purchased for $365 now, a price drop of $313.

The same applies to another destination with healthy summertime tourist traffic. On August 31, you could buy an Alaska Airlines roundtrip to Juneau, 14 days in advance, for $559. Friday you could buy that same ticket for $315, a price decrease of $244. Clearly supply and demand at work.

On highly competitive routes such as Seattle-Spokane, price increases are relatively modest. Walk-up fares are up just $4 to $250. Three-day advance fares have increased just $2 and seven-day advance fares are now $150 compared with $98 at the end of August.

Fare data courtesy of FareCompare.com.

As downtown Gig Harbor merchants develop plans to celebrate a hometown-traditional holiday shopping season – there’s a new player attracting customers on the north side this morning.

Ready for a few gallons of mayonnaise? Some discount-priced technology? A case of macaroni?

Costco opened today at 8 a.m. The store is located at 10990 Harbor Hill Dr.

“It’s slammed,” said a clerk who answered the phone shortly after welcoming the first customers. “Parking is a hot commodity.”

The store will be open until 8:30 this evening, and from 9:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. tomorrow. Figure 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, and 10 a.m. until 8:30 p.m. on weekdays.

Costco operates more than 520 warehouses, including 385 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 71 in Canada, 19 in the United Kingdom, five in Korea, four in Taiwan, six in Japan and 30 in Mexico, according to the company Web site.

The company’s net sales for the 16-week fourth quarter ended September 2 increased 3%, to $20.09 billion from $19.50 billion during the 17-week fourth quarter ended September 3, 2006. Net sales for fiscal 2007, the 52 weeks ended September 2, 2007, were $63.09 billion, an increase of 7% from $58.96 billion during the prior 53-week fiscal year ended September 3, 2006. Net income for the 16-week fourth quarter was $372.4 million, or 83 cents per diluted share, compared to $355.6 million, or 75 cents, during the 17-week fourth quarter of fiscal 2006. Earnings per diluted share in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007 represent an 11% increase over the fiscal 2006 fourth quarter results.

Costco stock was trading up $1.16 to $66.02 in mid-morning trading, and shows a 24.89 percent year-to-date increase.

Led by American Airlines, most U.S. carriers have once again raised prices by $20 roundtrip.

The reason: the rising price of fuel. With crude oil in the mid-$90s a barrel, airlines have been increasing fares to compensate.

American's increase was the second in two weeks. Joining American, according to data from Farecompare.com, is Sea-Tac's dominant airline, Alaska, as well as most other major carriers.

Fuel constitutes about 30 percent of most airlines' costs, so when it rises, fares must follow or the airline starts losing money.

Nine months ago, crude oil prices were just $55 a barrel, and six years ago, oil brought just $20 a barrel.

Those big ruts in Pacific Avenue through downtown Tacoma will get fixed in 2008, City of Tacoma Public Works engineers announced this week. Here's the plan:

This image using Google Earth shows the City of Tacoma's plan to repave Pacific Avenue through downtown. The magenta section from South 17th to 21st streets will get done first in the spring. the bright green section from South 21st to 25th streets will get done later in the summer.

The City will call for bids on the $2.3 million project in January. The first phase, from South 17th to 21st streets (shown in magenta on map), will get rebuilt in the spring. Construction of that phase will finish before the Tall Ships 2008 event July 3-7. After that summer festival, construction will start on the section from South 21st to 25th streets.

=> Read more!

Fred Kiga, director of corporate and government relations for Tacoma's Russell Investment Group, has a new job leading The Boeing Co.'s Northwest state and local government relations.

Kiga will be responsible for fostering and maintaining relationships with state and local government officials with respect to public policy affecting The Boeing Company in the states of Washington, Oregon, Montana and Hawaii, Boeing announced.

Kiga will report to Bob Watt, vice president, Government Relations and Global Corporate Citizenship.

=> Read more!

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Thursday a major real estate appraisal company colluded with the nation’s largest savings and loan companies to inflate the values of homes nationwide, contributing to the subprime mortgage crisis, The Associated Press reports.

“This is a case we believe is indicative of an industrywide problem,” Cuomo said in a news conference.
Cuomo announced the civil lawsuit against eAppraiseIT that accuses the First American Corp. subsidiary of caving in to pressure from Washington Mutual Inc. to use a list of “proven appraisers” who he claims inflated home appraisals.

He also released e-mails that he said show executives were aware they were violating federal regulations. The lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan seeks to stop the practice, recover profits and assess penalties.

“These blatant actions of First American and eAppraiseIT have contributed to the growing foreclosure crisis and turmoil in the housing market,” Cuomo said in a statement. “By allowing Washington Mutual to hand-pick appraisers who inflated values, First American helped set the current mortgage crisis in motion.”

Washington Mutual said Thursday it is suspending its relationship with eAppraiseIT and that it plans to further investigate the situation.

“We have absolutely no incentive to have appraisers inflate home values,” Washington Mutual said in a release. “We use third-party appraisal companies to make sure that appraisals are objective and accurate.”

In a conference call, a First American lawyer said the company had been cooperating with the attorney general on the investigation and it is “discouraged” by the decision to sue.

This gas station along Sixth Avenue was selling gas at a price bit higher than the city’s average this morning, but it probably won’t be long until other dealers catch up.

The average cost of a gallon of regular gas in Tacoma is $3.16 today, according to AAA. That’s more than a penny above yesterday’s $3.149 and well above the $2.923 from a month ago.

Today's price is below the all-time high hereabouts – $3.459 on May 17 this year – but above the cost on Nov. 1 a year ago, at $2.346.

The average cost nationwide today is $2.913, with Washington marking $3.169. Bellingham, as usual, takes the state cake today at $3.212.

And where are prices headed? Well, the Associated Press reports crude oil prices hit a new record of $96 per barrel today. Prices are up 20 percent in the last month.

In an unusually candid assessment of his three years as head of Boeing's 787 program, Boeing executive Mike Bair said Wednesday the company should do things differently next time.

Among the lessons he learned:

* Dump some of Boeing's poorly performing partners. (No, he didn't name them.)

* Centralize the production of major assemblies in a single "super site" instead of having them scattered around the world.

* Return to the system where Boeing does more of the design work on the plane instead of trusting to partners to do a large share of that work.

Bair, who was replaced as head of the 787 program three weeks ago, made his remarks to the Snohomish County Economic Development Council.

Bair's transfer to a high-level Boeing marketing job came after the company announced a six-month delay in the 787 program because of supply chain problems.

Bair suggested Boeing once again may hold a "beauty contest" for the site of the next new plane final assembly site just as it did with the 787. Boeing is decided whether to create a successor to the 737 or an update of its 777 as its next big airplane program.

For a more extensive story on Bair's remarks see Everett's Herald's Web
site