Turns out not one, but two Tacoma hospitals received awards this week.

A news release came in today that St. Joseph Medical Center joins Tacoma General Hospital as winners of the National Research Corporation Consumer Choice Award. The two hospitals were voted the health care center where area consumers would like to be treated. The awards were published in the recent edition of the trade publication Modern Healthcare.

"The Consumer Choice Award is another testament to our hospital's success at meeting the needs of patients and families," said Joe Wilczek, president and CEO of the Franciscan Health System, which includes St. Joseph.

The award is a survey of households in the areas that the hospitals serve. St. Joseph and Tacoma General are two hospitals off 226 to make the list.

This is the 10th time St. Joseph has been awarded.

The state Department of Financial Institutions is out today with a warning against scams – what with turmoil in investment markets typically heralding the beginning of scam season.

There’s been turmoil, so be on the lookout for con artists, hucksters, offers too-good-to-be-true and people offering advice that will separate you from your money.

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The state’s minimum wage is going up.

On Jan. 1, the hourly rate will increase 48 cents to $8.55, according to a release today by the Department of Labor and Industries. The annual reassessment of the wage is mandated by a decade-old voter initiative.

L&I annually reevaluates the wage based on changes to the Consumer Price Index as prepared by the U.S. Department of Labor. For more information on how the wage is calculated, click here.

The CPI increased 5.9 percent during the 12 months ending in August, compared to a 1.8 percent increase during the same period of 2007. Following that increase, the state’s minimum wage rose 14 cents per hour.

Washington’s minimum wage applies to workers in both agricultural and non-agricultural jobs, although 14- and 15-year-olds may be paid 85 percent of the adult minimum wage, or $7.27, said today’s release.

For more information, visit www.wages.lni.wa.gov/ or call 360-902-5316 or 1-866-219-7321.

The sign went up today at 2516 Holgate St., on the new Tacoma corporate headquarters for Rainier Connect, a multiservice telecommunications company. The company started in 1910 in Eatonville as a local phone company. Now it employs more than 60 people. (Photo by Dan Voelpel)

A former Eatonville telephone company that started in 1910 and has since grown into a multiservice telecommunications company will move into its new Tacoma corporate headquarters in three weeks.

Rainier Connect, which employs more than 60 people, has spent since last December refurbishing a historic, four-story brick building at 2516 Holgate St. The company will occupy 12,000 square feet of office space, use about 10,000 square feet for indoor parking and hold the remaining 8,000 square feet on the upper two floors for future expansion, said Brian Haynes, president and CEO.

Today Rainier Connect provides local and long distance telephone service, cable television, and Internet and high-speed data services.

Crews spent today installing the Rainier Connect sign atop the building. The company will move from its current space at 805 Pacific Ave.

Investors affiliated with Rainier Connect bought the building in December for $1,967,500, according to online records at the Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer's Office.

Prolific Tacoma architect C.A. Darmer designed the brewery block in 1891 for the Pacific Brewing & Malting Co. complex. The block received historic status on the Tacoma register in 1976 and national historic status in 1978, according to the Tacoma Public Library Buildings Index.

In times such as these – with the markets upset, credit tight and worry common – we’d like to turn to readers for their perspective.

The News Tribune business team is preparing a story for this weekend, and we’d like to speak with readers. We will be interviewing the necessary officials and experts, but we’d like to know how Monday’s market meltdown, and the events of the past few weeks, have affected you.

We’d like to speak with consumers and the owner of small a business, a financial adviser and a losing shareholder, a retailer, a young investor, a retired person on a fixed income and an economist. Perhaps we can meet a parent who is trying to explain the economy to a child. Perhaps we can speak with you.

If you’d like to assist with the story, please contact Marcelene Edwards, business editor, at 253-597-8638 or marcelene.edwards@thenewstribune.com. Please include your name and a daytime phone number.

Thanks.

Along with all but two of nine regions in the state, the occupancy rate of Tacoma-area hotels fell in July. Statewide, occupancy was down 1.1 percent, according to Bellevue hospitality consultant Wolfgang Rood. In Pierce County, occupancy was down 2.8 percent over the same month last year.

In July in Pierce County, 80.3 percent of rooms were occupied. In downtown Seattle, 89.8 percent of rooms were taken.

The only regions seeing an increase were downtown Seattle, up 3.5 percent, and the Tri-Cities, up 0.7 percent. Snohomish County marked the greatest decline, down 8.6 percent.

All regions recorded an increase in average daily room rates. Pierce County hotels and motels were up 5.7 percent, to $90.82. Spokane recorded the highest increase, up 7.3 percent to $116.50. The statewide average, $143.45, was up 4.4 percent from 2007, while downtown Seattle, up 3.9 percent, stood at $190.27.

The failure of Washington Mutual may mean for empty offices in Seattle. So far, there's no word on what will happen to jobs at the Seattle headquarters and around the Puget Sound area but mergers typically mean job cuts.

Bloomberg News reports that the office vacancy rate is rising in Seattle for the first time in four years.

“Clearly, it won’t be good,” Matt Griffin, managing partner of Pine Street Group LLC, the Seattle-based developer of Washington Mutual’s 42-story headquarters, completed in 2006, said to Bloomberg News. “The question is: How many jobs will they decide to put on the market?”

Joseph Evangelisti, a spokesman for JPMorgan, said it’s too early to comment about job losses at WaMu.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Sept. 25 acquired Washington Mutual’s assets for $1.9 billion after the U.S. government seized the thrift in the largest bank failure in the country’s history.

Washington Mutual owns about 1.2 million square feet at its headquarters and leases another roughly 600,000 square feet in Seattle, said Stuart Williams, a principal at commercial brokerage Pacific Real Estate Partners Inc. The bank already has sublet or offered for sublease some of that 600,000 square feet, he said to Bloomberg.

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Lonely though it might otherwise seem, Tollefson Plaza might just be teeming on Wednesday (from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) as would-be and already-do downtown Tacoma commuters gather to celebrate the beginning of a new campaign.

The "Downtown: On the go! Reinvent your commute!" effort
is a collaboration between the City of Tacoma, Pierce Transit, Pierce County and the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber.

The goal of the campaign is to reduce traffic congestion by getting downtown workers, students and residents “onto buses and vanpools, out walking, and bike riding, and sharing rides with other commuters instead of driving alone,” according to a release from the organizers.

The Wednesday event will feature, music, chalk art, a chance to learn about single-driver alternatives (vanpools, walking, cycling, and so on) and there’s also talk of 2-for-1 cupcake coupons. And a bicycle expert will be on hand to check your ride, if you’re of the unmotorized, two-wheel ilk.

There’s also talk of free prizes.

For the 11th time in 12 years, Tacoma General Hospital is where area consumers say they want their health care, according to an award published in Modern Healthcare.

The National Research Corporation Consumer Choice Award is a survey of more than 200,000 households across the nation. Tacoma General is one of 226 hospitals to make the list, out of the 3,200 heath care centers across the nation.

"The staff at Tacoma General Hospital deserves the credit for this award," said Diane Cecchettini, president and CEO of MultiCare Heath System. "Their hard work and commitment to quality patient care has been recognized by the patients they serve."

Tacoma General first received the award in 1996. The survey for the award asks about which hospital has the best doctors, nurses, personalized care, community health programs and reputation.

With the Machinists' Union strike againt The Boeing Co. well into its fourth week, company-paid health insurance for strikers will end at mid-week.

Boeing paid its share of those benefits for September before the strike began, but without their working on the assembly line, some 27,000 workers will see their benefits disappear Wednesday.

The strikers can pay the full cost of the benefits themselves through COBRA, but those costs will be considerable, $364 to $1,538 per month for workers on their families depending on the plan they've chosen and the number of family members on the plan, said the company.

Though both the union representing some 27,000 striking workers and Boeing have said they're willing to return to the bargaining table, neither side has telegraphed its intention to make concessions from their previous positions, thus the stalemate.

David Bennett, director of public relations for the Washington Credit Union League called this afternoon to say, “One thing that I haven’t heard any eporting on is the National Credit Union Administration, the NCUA, that administers the credit union insurance fund, the National Credit Union Union share insurance fund.”

Let's change that.

Not unlike the FDIC – which has been much in the news lately and which insures accounts at banks – the NCUA insures the accounts of credit union members.

Bennett also said, “Historically, bad times for banks are good times for credit unions.” And these are bad times for at least one bank, the former Washington Mutual.

So how good are the times for credit unions?

TAPCO and BECU, Bennett said, seen a good number of new customers. Tacoma’s TAPCO, he said, “has run out of switch kits for former Washington Mutual customers, and they’re having more printed.” As the name implies, a switch kit allows a customer of one institution to change allegiance.

Bennett said that statewide, between last December and this June, “62,789 new member accounts were opened. During the previous six months, June-December 2007, 23,531 new accounts were opened. That’s an increase of 39,258.”

The big malls in Tacoma and Tukwila aren't the only ones adding new shopping opportunities these days.

Dave Eatwell at the Puyallup Main Street Association tells us that Puyallup's downtown has added a clutch of new merchants this summer, and others plan to open later this fall:

* Ace Hardware. This new store opened quietly in late July next to Safeway on Meridian in the old Dollar Store space. A grand opening is set for Oct. 17. The owners, Don Heston and his son, Jeff, have years of construction trade and hardware store experience.

* North Pacific Office Systems. This office equipment sales, repair and rental company opened in mid-summer at 205 S. Meridian. The company also offers comprehensive copying services. Jack Gosser and Ed Forghani are co-owners with four dozen years of experience in the copying business.

* A Formal Choice. This boutique sells "modest prom and temple-ready bridals." Naomi Kearns and Margaret Johnson are the proprieters of this new store at 104 W. Meeker St.

* Swanky Couture and Salon. This summertime addition to downtown Puyallup's merchant mix offers women's apparel, beauty and spa services on Meridian Ave.

* Porter's Barbeque. This downtown barbeque restaurant will occupy a portion of the old Bubble Island space on Meridian Ave. Porters sells barbeque at Mariners games.

* Unlocking the Body Massage Therapy Studio. Licensed massage practioner Sybil Johnson offers medical massage, acupuncture, relaxation massage, counseling and spa treatments at 105-A W. Main St.

* Yoga Soleil. Owner Anne Arnston and her staff offer a full range of yoga classes and training at 110 E. Stewart St.

* Mazatlan Restaurant. The local Mexican chain is renovating a former retail space at downtown at Main St. and Meridian Ave. as the site of its new restaurant. Opening should be later this fall.

The Boeing Co. reported 24 new orders this week bringing total orders for the year to 610 commercial aircraft.

Significant among those orders were nine for Boeing 767 twin jets. That airplane, which first entered service in the early '80s, had seen its orders dwindle in recent years as Boeing developed the 787 to replace it.

With delays of up to two years in 787 deliveries, the 767 production line is reviving. Boeing didn't identify the origin of the nine new orders, but reports earlier this week noted that Japan's All Nippon Airways, launch customer for the 787 intended to order nine 767 and four 777s to augment its fleet in light of late 787 deliveries.

The new orders also included 10 unidentified orders for 737s, four for 777s and one for a Boeing Business Jet, the corporate jetliner version of the 737.

Let's hope Boeing vice president Randy Tinseth is correct in his recent prediction about oil prices.

Tinseth, in Australia to visit customers and Boeing facilities, told the media in Sydney that the company expects oil prices to stabilize around $70 to $80 a barrel over the next two decades.

That's more than $25 less than oil futures have been pegged at this week and half what they hit in mid-summer.

Those high oil prices drove gas prices locally above $4.35 a gallon and put huge dents in airlines' bottom lines.

Military projects ranging from transparent armor for drivers of Stryker combat vehicles to trauma training for military medical personnel will get an infusion of new funds in a bill passed by the House this week.

U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, who helped obtain the money, said the projects will improve the readiness of local troops and improve their care and treatment.

Projects totaling some $25 million were included in the defense appropriations bill. They include:

$8.6 million for Washington State Air National Guard’s 262nd Information Warfare Aggressor Squadron to build a new cyber-warfare facility for use by the (IWAS) at McChord Air Force Base.

$2 million for the Stryker Situation Awareness Soldier Protection Package, to equip the Stryker vehicle drivers of Ft. Lewis’ 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, with transparent armor; Carapace, LLC, North Andover, Mass.

$200,000 for the Madigan Army Medical Center Digital Pen project to acquire digital pens that capture and upload writing electronically while also recording care in ink on paper to improve the process of recording and transmitting patient care information; ADAPX, Seattle, Wash.

$1.6 million for the Tacoma Trauma Trust - Madigan Army Medical Center Trauma Assistance Program to provide critical trauma training for military medical personnel, while providing essential Level II trauma treatment for South King, Pierce, Kitsap, and Thurston Counties and southwest Washington for both military beneficiaries and civilian residents; Madigan Army Medical Center, Tacoma General Hospital, and St. Joseph’s Hospital, Tacoma, Wash.

$4.4 million for the University of Washington’s Institute of Surgical and Interventional Simulation (ISIS) to upgrade existing facilities, expand their existing partnerships with Madigan Army Medical Center and VA Puget Sound, and explore ways in which surgical simulation can enhance the treatment and rehabilitation of soldiers; University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.

$3 million for the Oregon Biomedical Engineering Institute, for research on limb and tissue regeneration for battlefield injuries using bone marrow and stem cells; Oregon Biomedical Engineering Institute, Portland, Ore.

$1.6 million for million for Optical Neural Techniques for Combat/Post-Trauma Health Care with the potential to provide full restoration of hearing for injured soldiers; Aculight Corporation, Bothell, Wash.

$3.2 for Mobile Object Infrastructure Technology enabling the U.S. Army Intelligence Command (INSCOM) to continue research and development of solutions to network computing challenges, including bandwidth and information-sharing constraints; Topia Technology, Tacoma, Wash.

Smith also helped secure key funds for programs related to the Fort Lewis and the McChord Air Force Base military community including $56 million for buffer zones around the military installation and $40 million in impact aid for school districts that educated children in military families.

The Senate is expected to act soon on the bill, said Smith.

Tacoma Mall will raise the curtain on its newest addition, a 100,000-square-foot "lifestyle" section, Oct. 4 and 5 with entertainment, prizes and a fashion show.

That addition to the '60s-vintage mall will add seven new specialty stores, a new Nordstrom department store and a BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse to the mall's lineup of merchants.

The project, an addition to the mall's south side, is part of a multiphase updating to the mall structure. That renovation and addition project was announced in the spring of 2006 by the mall's owner, Simon Property Group. Simon, headquartered in Indianapolis, is the nation's largest publicly held real estate holding company.

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Delta and Northwest airlines moved a step closer to a merger today with shareholder approval of the deal at both airlines.

The merger now must clear Justice Department scrutiny before it can take place. Airline spokesmen said the merger will likely be consummated by year's end.

The joining of the two carriers will create the world's largest airline. The merged carrier will carry the Delta name and be headquartered in Atlanta.

The merger is likely to have only minor effects at Sea-Tac Airport. The carriers will consolidate ticket counters, gates and frequent flier clubs.

Major reductions in flight destinations are unlikely because the two carriers routes from Sea-Tac don't overlap.

The merger will give Delta new access to Northwest's Asian destinations. The airlines have said they won't close any of their existing hubs. Delta has hubs in Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Cincinnati and at New York's JFK Airport. Northwest's hubs are in Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis.

As the credit crisis pinches the availability of funds, Boeing says it may return to the aircraft financing business to help airlines whose access to credit is being restricted.

Randy Tinseth, Boeing's vice president of marketing, speaking in New Zealand earlier this week, said Boeing may provide financing for a small percentage of customers who need help.

"Before the issues you've seen over the last week, we'd recognized the potential for us to get back to financing airplanes so we had prepared to finance some in the second half of 2009," he told New Zealand media.

Boeing quit financing aircraft about two years ago.

Had everything gone as Boeing planned, 787 Dreamliner launch customer All Nippon Airways would be flying the revolutionary twinjet by now.

But the prototype of the plane has yet to fly, and the Boeing machinists who build it are in their 20th day of a strike.

Those issues now mean that ANA expects the delivery of its first Dreamliner in August of next year, some 15 months behind schedule.

ANA made that schedule revision announcement Wednesday.

To makeup for slow deliveries, Boeing is providing ANA with nine 767-300ER aircraft at bargain prices to stand in for the 787 while they're being built.

Of course, if the machinists' strike drags on for months more, expect that August time frame to slip again.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the strike is taking its toll on deliveries to Air Canada. That airline's CEO, Montie Brewer, said this week that the airline expects three 777 deliveries it had expected late this year and early next will be delayed.

The union strike has halted all work on Boeing commercial aircraft assembly lines.

The airline chieftain said he expects the airline to "manage through" the delays. The airline's 787s on order are expected to be two years late.

A recent increase in the Port of Tacoma's bond rating and better earnings from investments may help the Port of Tacoma weather the credit crunch, the port's finance director says.

Jeff Smith, the port's senior director of finance and administration, recently told port commissioners that tightening credit availability and higher standards could make it more difficult for the Port of Tacoma to raise hundreds of millions of dollars of new construction money.

But Smith told The News Tribune Tuesday that a recent reevaluation of the port's ability to pay off its bonds and a subsequent credit rating adjustment upward should make the port a more desireable borrower.

And any increase in interest rates the port pays on its bonds will be at least partially offset in part by higher earnings on the port's investments, he said.

As borrowing interest rates rise, he noted, so too do interest rates paid on investments.

The port typically invests substantial amounts of money it holds as bond reserves, yet unexpended construction money and as operating reserves.

An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 will baptize Sea-Tac Airport's new third runway Thursday by making a series of "touch-and-go" landings on the new 8,500-foot strip.

The landings, first by a commercial aircraft, will test the runway's instrument landing systems and lights in preparation for its commercial opening Nov. 20.

Later this fall, a wide-bodied aircraft will also test the runway systems. The 737 is a narrow-bodied plane.

In a touch-and-go landing, the plane's wheels briefly touch the runway before the pilot advances the throttles to immediately take off again. The series of landings is now scheduled to start about noon.

The third runway has been some 14 years in planning and construction. Much of that time was spent in court with neighboring cities and neighborhoods who sought to block its construction.

The third runway was built on millions of cubic yards of fill on an area once occupied by homes west of the two existing north-south runways.

The new runway is far enough away from the airport's easternmost runway to allow staggered use of the two runways during bad weather.

The two existing runways are too close to allow more than one stream of traffic to land at once when visibility is low.

The third runway cost the Port of Seattle, the airport's owner, about $1.2 billion.

When Russell Investments announced last year that it wanted to consolidate its 1,100 Tacoma associates into new space by 2013, executives lamented that its trading floor at 909 A St. had too little space and convoluted layout for its growing team of traders.

Do you want to see for yourself what goes on inside Russell's trading floor?

This shot of the trading floor inside Russell Investments' headquarter in downtown Tacoma kicks off a photo gallery published by AdvancedTrading.com.

AdvancedTrading.com, a financial industry Web site, published a photo gallery of Russell's trading floor with captions that describe what goes on there.

Ideally, Russell executives say, they would have a wide open floor with about 70,000 square feet for all traders and their managers to see each other. In the downtown Tacoma building, the elevator shaft and the building's mechanical system run up the center of the building.

They're putting bags over gas pumps all over the Southeast as stations supplies run dry today, but here in the Northwest gas supplies remain plentiful.

And they're getting cheaper each day.

Gas in Tacoma is now available for $3.45 a gallon at several ARCO stations in the Tacoma area according to Tacomagasprices.com.

And AAA Washington says the statewide average for regular dropped to $3.719 today, down .6 cent from Tuesday.

In Tacoma, the average is even lower, $3.669, down .6 cent from Tuesday.

Tacoma's prices is below the national average, which hit $3.715 today.

For once, having a separate supply line than the Midwest and Southeast has been a benefit to the Northwest. The gas shortages in the Southeast are attributed to delays in getting Gulf Coast supplies reinstated after hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

Ordinarily, those Gulf Coast refineries supply gas to those states less expensively than our local refineries, which depend on Alaska for crude oil supplies.

Meanwhile, crude oil prices were all over the map, jumping $25 at one point Tuesday and then declining to $105 a barrel today. That's still significantly above the $91 or so crude futures sold for as recently as last week.

Sometimes we get it wrong. A listing in today's paper was incorrect. Here's the actual event:

Washington State Tax Consultants Tacoma Chapter Annual Fall Seminar: Exempt Organizations, IRS form 990/990ez and more, 6 hours CPE credit, no tickets will be sold at the event being held at King Oscar Convention Center, 8820 S. Hosmer, Tacoma. Please call Jack 253-756-9599 to make a reservation; $110 WSTC/OATRC/AATC members, $125 for all others.

Last week we told you about an Oct. 2 job fair at Sea-Tac Airport.

Now it seems there's another job fair that day in Seattle.

Sears tells us it's hiring 20 people to join its appliance repair team.

The company is holding a hiring fair at its Seattle Repair Center at 4786 1st Ave. S. from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2.

The company says it's looking for mechanically-inclined, customer service-oriented people.

Even those who don't get hired will have a chance to win a 32-inch LCD TV in a drawing.

Colliers International is out with its third quarter review of office and industrial space in the Puget Sound area – and Pierce County shows the lowest office vacancy rate in the region.

Pierce County, according to Colliers, has a current overall office vacancy rate of 8.62 percent, up from last quarter’s 7.89 percent, but below Seattle, at 9.19 percent; the Eastside, at 10.24 percent, the North End (Everett, Monroe), at 18.40 percent; and South King County, at 19.09 percent.

In Pierce County, overall office vacancies in Class A, B and C were up in the Tacoma central business district from 7.52 percent to 8.23 percent; down in South Tacoma from 7.68 percent to 7.01 percent; down in South Pierce County from 8.16 percent to 4.46 percent; and up in Gig Harbor from 9.06 percent last quarter to 13.8 percent in the current quarter.

For industrial space, Colliers reported the overall vacancy rate in Pierce County rose to 11.12 percent from 10.86 percent. The Port of Tacoma showed an increase from 5.26 percent to 11.49 percent; Puyallup and Sumner were down from 28.96 percent to 23.79 percent; South Pierce County was up from 4.8 percent to 8.96 percent; and Lakewood was down from 6.79 percent to 5.65 percent.

A road construction project tied to the new Sound Transit light rail link to Sea-Tac Airport will mean major detours for some airport customers Wednesday and part of Thursday morning, the Port of Seattle announced today.

The airport explained the closures and detours on its Web site:

* Lower Airport Drive (Baggage claim/arrivals level). Access to the Lower Drive will be reduced to one rerouted lane. The detour route will be clearly marked.
* North Entrance to the Airport Parking Garage. The north entrance to the garage will be closed and parkers rerouted to the south garage entrance. Drivers coming to Sea-Tac from the north will be detoured from SR 518 to south I-99 and the south garage entrance. Traffic leaving the garage will not be affected and will exit to the north as always at S. 182 Street.
* Cell Phone Lot. Traffic heading from the Cell Phone Waiting Lot to the terminal will follow a detour route at S. 182 Street.
* Public Transportation. All public transportation buses (Metro Transit, Sound Transit, Pierce Transit) will both pick up and drop off passengers on I- 99. Public transit buses will not have access to the Lower Drive during this period.

Tanks of hundreds of small chin chin or "doctor fish" are hard at work this week trimming off dead skin and softening the feet of patrons at a Kent salon.

Kent Station's Peridot Nail Salon is the first in the Northwest to offer a pedicure accomplished by hundreds of toothless fish who nibble away at customers' feet.

The "fish pedicure" first became popular in Turkey and then in Asia and then spread to the East Coast early this summer.

Peridot co-owner Tuyet "Tweety" Bui said she the technique, which involves a 15-minute soak in a warm water tank filled with fish, tickles, but doesn't harm customers' feet. The fish nibble away at dead skin and leave the healthy skin behind.

They’re so new in DuPont that the city hasn’t yet given them a numbered address – but Community 1st Credit Union, now based in Tacoma, will break ground on its new headquarters tomorrow.

Look for the ceremony at 4 p.m. on Ross Loop, near Center Drive in downtown DuPont.

Community 1st Credit Union, formed as Evergreen Postal Credit Union in 1925, counts 8,000 members and 32 employees. The organization will open its fourth branch in Steilacoom next Monday (look for a soft opening, with a gradn opening to follow), and the headquarters branch will contain a fifth branch when it opens late next spring.

Boeing's 27,000 striking union machinists will receive their first strike benefit checks from the union Saturday as the work stoppage enters its fourth week.

The $150 weekly checks are payable beginning at the end of the strike's third week.

Striking members must show up in person at one of three locations, Green River Community College, the Seattle Union Hall or the Evergreen State Fairgrounds to pick up their checks.

Which location they visit is determined by their home Zip Code. Most Pierce County machinists will pick up their checks at Green River Community College. A list of Zip Codes for each site is available at the union's Web site.

Union members are scheduled to receive their checks based on the last number of their Social Security numbers. A list of pick-up times is available o the union site.

Union members must have performed picket or strike duties and be current on their August union dues in order to receive a check.

The strike, called after 80 percent of union members rejected Boeing's "best and final offer," shows no early signs of resolution. Neither the union nor Boeing has shown any signs of relenting thus far.

Union members say they're striking for a variety of reasons including the lack of job security language in the proposed contract, takeaways in the company's health coverage and an insufficient increase in pension benefits under the proposed 3-year deal.

Boeing says its offer would make Boeing machinists the best paid in the aerospace industry.

The strike has shut down production at Boeing's Puget Sound area commercial aircraft assembly plants.

Any hope that GrandLuxe RailJourneys would revive its deluxe touring train that made its last journey last month to Mount Rainier died this week.

The train's owner put the company's rolling stock, 31 refurbished vintage railway passenger cars, on the sale block in Napa, Calif. Take a tour of the cars offered for sale here.

The company, which offered 10 different 4-to-12 day tours to scenic sites throughout the country, halted its service because of financial problems after the train returned to Tacoma last month from an excursion to Mount Rainier.

The Mount Rainier excursion on rails belonging to municipally owned Tacoma Rail, was part of a tour of Northwest national parks.

GrandLuxe had been using Tacoma Rail tracks for more than a year.

The tours, which included deluxe accommodations and gourmet food, were expensive - from about $4,500 to $6,000 per person.

The train had operated as the American Orient Express before 2006.

Tacoma Rail's former Milwaukee Road tracks between Tacoma and Eatonville have hosted several unsuccessful rail ventures. Those include the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train, which abruptly shut down last fall, and Golden Pacific rail journeys, which faded away last year.

Olympic Boat Center locations in Tacoma and Fife are waiting for word on their future.

The Redmond-based chain filed for bankruptcy reorganization in July. A judge in Woodland Hills, Calif. will decide at 11 a.m. Tuesday on the store's plan to auction its assets. Multiple stores have already closed, but the Tacoma and Fife shops have stayed open to see what happens.

"We're still open until whatever goes on tomorrow goes on," said Randy Greiwe, Tacoma manager, on Monday.

Olympic operates 20 dealerships in Washington, California and British Columbia. Court documents state Olympic is one of, if not the, largest dealership in the world for some boat and engine brands.

The Tacoma and Fife locations have 30 employees, and Greiwe said they are anxiously awaiting Tuesday's decision.

Boat manufacturer Brunswick offered to buy Olympic for $48 million but the amount was not adequate, the court ruled. Documents list Olympic's debt at $53 million.

Olympic put information regarding the bankruptcy on their Web site at http://www.boatnut.com/misc/bankruptcy.html
.

To earn 2,000 miles credit on Alaska Airlines' frequent flier plan usually involves at least a roundtrip to Los Angeles or San Diego.

But through Dec. 15, you can fly as little as 266 miles, the roundtrip distance from Seattle to Portland, and get those same 2,000 miles of credit.

That bonus mileage is part of a promotion that Alaska's sister airline, Horizon Air, announced recently.

The airline is doubling the usual 500 miles credit each way it awards on short flights for those who fly Horizon's shuttle between Portland and Seattle.

To get double miles, sign up for the promotion at www.horizonair.com.

A European-American consortium of Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defense and Space beat Boeing's bid for replacement airborne tankers for the Air Force by $3 billion, a high defense official has revealed.

That bid, now cast aside because of irregularities with the bidding process, called for Northrop Grumman-EADS to deliver the first 68 of 179 tankers for $12.5 billion. Boeing's bid for the same number of planes was $15.4 billion.

Those figures were revealed by Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition John Young in a Washington Post interview.

Northrop Grumman-EADS won the competition with a militarized version of the Airbus A330. Boeing had bid the smaller Boeing 767.

The Defense Department has once again postponed new bidding on the tanker deal until a new president takes office next year.

Thornewood Castle in Lakewood looked like this in 2001 when Hollywood made it the set for filming "Rose Red," a television mini-series written by horror story master Stephen King. (News Tribune file photo: Wayne Robinson)

When BedandBreakfast.com went looking for ghosts among its clients, it had plenty of places from which to choose. The world's largest online B&B directory and reservation network scared up its Top 10 list and named Thornewood Castle Inn & Gardens its No. 1 spookiest B&B.

Bedandbreakfast.com, of course, highlights the castle's notoriety as the set for Stephen King’s ghostly television mini-series "Rose Red," which aired in 2002. Then the Web site notes, "In real life, guests have reported their share of chills and plenty of orbs have been recorded on guest photos taken here."

Owner Deanna Robinson confirmed the ghostly encounters today.

"People who see ghosts and tend to have those experiences, see them here. Those who don’t, don’t," she said.

=> Read more!

The huge Long Beach, Calif., factory where Boeing built its 717 commercial jets until 2006, could become Southern California's biggest independent movie production venue.

The former McDonnell Douglas buildings, once part of a huge aerospace complex at the Long Beach Airport, have been on the market for two years since Boeing halted production of the 717.

Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged in 1997, and the MD-95 jet became the Boeing 717.

Long Beach Studios LLC has reached an agreement with Boeing to buy the vacant property, said California sources.

The mammoth buildings could hold up to 40 sound stages for movie and television show production.

The company buying the Boeing buildings says it wants to construct hotels and ancillary buildings to house movie production people and actors in a self-contained complex.

Business owners: Looking for a shot in the arm? Looking for a way to keep your employees simultaneously healthy and happy? Bartell Drugs may have the answer.

The company is offering prepaid flu shot vouchers and, for companies with more than 25 employees, will deliver an immunizing pharmacist to your business for on-site shots.

The one-punch gift cards, called FluGramT, cost $25 each, according to Bartell spokeswoman Rachel Nowak. Discounts are available for larger purchases.

For more information, call Nowak at racheln@bartelldrugs.com.

Lakewood Orthopeadic Surgeons this month became Puget Sound Orthopaedics, and added two surgeons, physician assistants and a Tacoma location,

Joining the organization are Dr. John Blair and Dr. Michael Martin. Dr. Blair went to medical school at the University of Chicago, did a residency at teh University of California and San Diego Medical Center and trained at a fellowship in spine and scoliosis at the University of Minnesota. He has a special interest in treatment of degenerative conditions of the cervical and lumbar spine, according to a news release.

Dr. Martin went to medical school at Wayne State University, did general and orthopedic surgery residencies at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey, and did a spine medicine and surgery fellowship in San Francisco.

The new location is at 1515 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, (253) 572-2663. The original location is 7308 Bridgeport Way West, (253) 582-7257.

It was a grocery, a tire store, a florist shop, the Ozark Tavern and a tea emporium. Hookers once offered their services on the top floor – and now their former brothel has been leased to attorneys.

The street-level space that once boasted some of the country's best jazz may become a cafe.

It’s been five years to the day since this newspaper reported the last call at Kelly’s, the Tacoma jazz club named for and run by musician Red Kelly. The building, pictured here this afternoon, is located at 1101 Tacoma Ave. S. across from the Tacoma Public Library.

After the club closed, the building was sold to Tacoma attorney Pat Palace. Red died less than a year later, and the building – constructed c. 1887 and known as the Roberts-Parker Building – gradually fell into disuse.

Well, it’s been sold once again and the new owners have begun a major restoration.

“We want to restore it as best we can to its original facade,” said Tacoma attorney Bryan Hershman. I spoke with him earlier today.

In partnership with fellow attorney Gary Clower and builder Paul Edminster, Hershman bought the building in May. The Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer notes a sale price of $980,000.

“The top floor is already leased to attorneys,” Hershman said. "We’re ready to lease the bottom floor.” Of the main floor, facing Tacoma Avenue, Hershman said, “It will probably be a coffee shop. We’ve had everybody from bars to small restaurants (asking about it).”

Interior demolition has already begun, and rehabilitation will continue on the exterior after the partners secure a permit. A small white building behind the property will be demolished to accommodate parking, Hershman said.

He recalled the days when a pre-Kelly's occupant, Siri’s, sold the best pie in the area, back when the space was a regular gathering spot for attorneys who practiced at nearby courtrooms. It was “the hub of the legal community. Everybody was down there drinking martinis and talking law.”

Hershman’s final verdict: “It’s just such a wonderful location. I’m proud to be a part of it.”

Starbucks Corp. has switched to soy products instead of dairy in China because of concerns over melamine poisining.

The Seattle-based company is now using soy milk produced by Hong Kong’s Vitasoy International Holdings Ltd., Caren Li, public relations manager in Shanghai, said Fridauy in a phone interview with Bloomberg News.

Starbucks is still studying which milk brands to use in future, she said.

Melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastics and tan leather, has been found in batches of liquid milk and yogurt from China’s biggest producers, broadening a scandal in the country’s $19 billion dairy industry.

The scandal raises questions about how many consumers have been exposed to the chemical, which has been linked to kidney failure in babies leading to at least four deaths.

The state insurance commissioner has approved the $6.2 billion sale of the Safeco Group to Liberty Mutual Group, in the "largest and most complex" deal the state has seen.

The sale, effective today, means Safeco will keep its name, its foundation and stay headquartered in Seattle. But it will become a privately held company of Boston-based Liberty Mutual, which will need to submit quarterly reports on its finances and treatment of policyholders for the next two years.

The transition will be seamless to policyholders while the company continues using independent agents, according to a news release from state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler.

Complete terms of the sale will be available tomorrow.

"I'm extremely pleased at the thoroughness of the review, and our ability to issue a prompt decision and ensure a smooth transition."

Four Tacoma residents are among 38 who will receive an award from the state Department of Labor & Industries at a conference this next week in Spokane.

The "lifesaving and humanitarian awards" are awarded to people who aided others involved in car crashes, suffered heart attacks, nearly drowned or were otherwise in danger.

The awards are presented at the Governor's Industrial Safety and Health Conference next Thursday and Friday at the Spokane Convention Center. In addition to the lifesaving awards, for people who aided someone who did not survive or prevented deaths through indirect ways, according to a news release.

The Tacoma-area winners are:

Information on the other winners is available here. The conference is $160 for the public and registration begins onsite at 7 a.m. Thursday.

When you find yourself in times of trouble ... call Russell Investments. And you'll hear the advice: “Let it be.” Hold steady. Stay diversified. Target the long term.

I spoke today with Stephen Wood, Russell senior portfolio strategist. He was at his office in New York City. I asked him to look toward Wall Street and check the weather. Any clouds?

Nope. Clear skies and sunny.

Beyond the metaphor, Wood repeated what Russell advisers advise when markets tumble.

“Statistically speaking, we know that one out of every five years of the stock market is going to be negative,” Wood said. “It would appear that 2008 is going to be one of those years. This is something we’ve prepared for at Russell by having those well diversified asset-allocated portfolios with long-term investment horizons.”

Weeks like this, months like this, years like this “is why we do what we do,” Wood said. “It may not be pleasant, but it’s not terrible surprising.”

While TV talking heads prophesy doom (“Stay Tuned and Stay Afraid!”), Wood offers caution. “This is an extremely worrisome market, and it’s not unreasonable for people to be afraid,” he said. “I would encourage them not to do anything. It’s not a good market to get overly creative in.”

If you’ve followed previous sensible advice, you’ve already sat down with your financial consultant. You’ve developed a risk profile and you’ve developed a long-term portfolio discipline. “This would be an opportunity to stick to that,” Wood said.

“Waiting for the opening kickoff is a bad time to come up with a game plan.”

It’s a tough time for traders, he said. “It has been and will continue to be a challenging environment for traders. Traders will continue to find themselves under stress. If you’re chasing down those short-term returns, history has not been kind to you, and I don’t think the future will be kind.”

After looking down at Wall Street, Wood looked back in time. “For those who thought they learned the lessons of 1999-2000, cash became king. Yield became king. They were looking at fixed-income portfolios, but they were still attracted to higher rates of return. Should one expect equity-like returns in a fixed-income portfolio? No. I don’t think people asked enough questions.”

Wood did offer some advice for those investors who feel the need to act: Rebalance. “I would tell our clients, do something as boring as that. Rebalance. That may seem very aggressive, but I think it is the appropriate action.”

Your portfolio, which might have been 60-40 with stocks-bonds, could have changed. Today, with all the turmoil, the percentages might be out of whack. Rebalance. Take some profit from the moneymakers and readjust.

Wood’s job at Russell, he said, “is to take you from short-term information and move you into a world of long-term market probabilities.”

The short term might make for interesting TV, but it never lasts.

The long term lasts a whole lot longer.

Don’t blame Washington Mutual employees. It’s not their fault.

I had a note today from a friend of some WAMU workers who said working for the troubled Seattle-based thrift has been difficult - for more than the obvious reasons.

It seems that some customers are coming into the branches either upset or angry about their banking relationship and are looking for a magic fix. They’re being rude. At the store level there is no magic, and the employees “are doing the best they can.”

Yes, the employees know how WAMU is doing. (Actually, today, the stock was up 48.75 percent. Elsewhere, Columbia Bank was up 18.49 percent and Frontier Bank up 50.34 percent. Bank of America and KeyBank were also up, and Wells Fargo hit a 52-week high – up 22.56 percent year-to-date.)

Those WAMU workers watch the news, said the person who wrote me. “Their bosses are telling them to keep up the good work in the face of so much change.” But even the kind and gentle customers can be inadvertently insensitive, as they say (pleasantly, making conversation) things like: "I'm surprised your doors are open today," or "Are you out looking for another job yet?”

Such comments, even though seemingly friendly, can tend to be stressful when there’s enough stress already.

So a word to to the nice among you who happen to find yourself at your WAMU branch: A smile is probably enough.

Three Pierce County cities – Tacoma, University Place and Puyallup – didn't make the cut today when the Community Economic Reinvestment Board gave away of pool of state funds for infrastructure projects.

Yakima, Whitman County, Vancouver and Mount Vernon won grants of $500,000 to $1 million a year for 25 years, according to Rep. Troy Kelley, (D-University Place), and a CERB member.

Who lost? The City of Puyallup, which graded the highest among Pierce County applicants, wanted $1 million a year to improve the transit and pedestrian connections between old downtown and South Hill. University Place sought $1 million to help underwrite its troubled town center development project. And Tacoma wanted $1 million a year to help upgrade the infrastructure and sidewalks in the downtown financial district to aid in the effort to keep Russell Investments' corporate headquarters in downtown Tacoma.

=> Read more!

Laid off at Weyerhaeuser? Surplused at WAMU or rationalized at Alaska?

Sea-Tac Airport and its related business are looking for workers.

You don't have to have been a victim of the economic slowdown. You may just want a better job.

Where to find those jobs? You can check them out at www.airportjobs.org or you can attend the airport's Fall Jobs Fair.

That employment event is set for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 2 in the south end of the Sea-Tac baggage claims area in the Gina Marie Lindsey International Arrivals Hall.

That's the four-story tall room with the aircraft suspended from the ceiling and the boulders embedded in the floor.

Park in the airport garage and get your parking ticket validated for free parking.

Forbes just confirmed it. Microsoft founder Bill Gates won't be eligible for food stamps again this year.

Forbes once more rated the 52-year-old Medina resident as the nation's richest person with a fortune totaling some $57 billion.

His good friend and bridge partner, investment guru Warren Buffett of Omaha, was second on the list with a $50 billion fortune.

Larry Ellison, not known to be one of Gates' biggest admirers, was third at $27 billion. Ellison is founder of Oracle.

Three other Washington residents, two of them Microsoft billionaires like Gates are among the top 100 wealtiest.

Microsoft co-founder and Seahawks owner Paul Allen is 12th on the Forbes list with a $16 billion fortune.

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, is 15th with a $15 billion portfolio.

Amazon.com leader Jeff Bezos comes in 33rd with $8.7 billion.

Other Washington residents on the list of 400 include cell phone pioneer Craig McCaw at 190 with $2.3 billion and James Jannard, Oakley sunglasses magnate, at #134 and a $3 billion fortune. He lives in the San Juan Islands.

The price of a gallon of regular gas broke another price barrier today in Tacoma.

Gas was selling for $3.49 a gallon at the ARCO station at Portland and Puyallup avenues today, reported Tacomagasprices.com.

Average prices in Tacoma weren't nearly so low, reported AAA Washington, but they continue to fall. Average price of that gallon of regular today was $3.754 in Tacoma, down .7 cent from Tuesday.

That Tacoma average is down 61.4 cents from the all time average high of $4.368 on June 22 this year.

Washington and Tacoma prices remain below the national average of $3.855 reported by AAA.

Crude oil prices rebounded somewhat today on news of lower gasoline inventories but they remained in the low $90 range after briefly touching $147 a barrel earlier this summer.

The Washington Department of Labor & Industries today proposed an average 3 percent increase in 2009 workers’ compensation rates. Average premiums paid to the state would increase by approximately two cents per hour worked.

“We are in times of economic uncertainty and we want to do what we can to keep businesses strong in Washington State,” said L&I Director Judy Schurke in a release this afternoon.

The primary factors affecting the change in rates were workers’ wages, up 5 percent in 2007, and the cost of health care, estimated to increase 5.5 percent in 2009, Schurke said.

Not all job classifications will pay higher rates. Among some of the proposed changes: mushroom farms, down 1 percent; sawmills, up 7 percent; construction project superintendents, down 13 percent; plumbing, up 3 percent; fruit packers, down 1 percent; newspaper workers, up 6 percent; bus companies, down 5 percent; airline ground crews, up 10 percent; furniture and appliance stores, unchanged; florists, up 8 percent; restaurant and tavern workers, up 2 percent; pet groomers, up 10 percent; dancers, down 12 percent.

For a full list of changes, click here.

Final rates will be adopted by the state following a series of public meetings. The nearest local meetings will be held in Tumwater on Oct. 22 at 2 p.m. at L&I headquarters, 7273 Linderson Way S.W.; and in Tukwila on Oct. 24 at 10 a.m. at the L&I office, 12806 Gateway Dr.

For move information, visit www.lni.wa.gov.

The nearly two-week-long Machinist Union strike is making its presence felt in the tourism business in Everett.

Tours of Boeing's Everett factory, the world's largest building by volume and the world's largest aircraft factory, have been suspended because of the strike.

The Boeing factory tour is one of the region's top tourist draws.

The company is substituting an alternate tour for the factory walk-through.

The alternate progam includes includes a movie in the Boeing Theater at the Future of Flight Aviation Center on the west side of Paine Field in Everett, a Boeing guided bus tour from the Future of Flight to the Flying Heritage Collection and a return bus ride.

The bus ride between the two attractions will allow visitors to view the flight line where Boeing jets are prepared for delivery. Estimated time for the experience is between 45 and 90 minutes.

No advance reservations are required, the company said. Admission is $7.50 adults, $4 for children under 15. Price includes admission to the Future of Flight gallery, Strato Deck and access to both The Boeing Store and the Future of Flight Store.

There are no height restrictions, and cameras are permitted on the alternate tour.

The fate of troubled American International Group is a matter of much interest in aviation circles these days because of the insurance giant's ownership of the world's largest aircraft leasing company, International Lease Finance Corp.

ILFC is one of the largest customers for both Boeing and Airbus.

The Federal Reserve Tuesday agreed to provided AIG with $85 million in loans in return for a nearly 80 percent ownership in the group.

The loan deal avoided the fallout that the failure of AIG would have caused in financial markets. AIG is a major insurer of bonds.

Some analysts believe that the financially healthy ILFC will be spun off or sold by AIG as it restructures its business. The company has orders for 102 aircraft with Boeing.

When striking union machinists return to work, they'll find the backlog of orders for two Boeing airliners has increased because of delays in the 787 Dreamliner project.

Flightglobal.com reports today that Japan Airlines will receive 11 new Boeing 767s and 777s in compensation for Boeing's delay in providing the airline the 787 Dreamliners it ordered.

No financial details were disclosed, but expect that Boeing is probably providing those aircraft at a healthy discount. There's also no word whether the planes will be sold to JAL or leased to them.

Leasing would help provide the airline capacity it will be missing because of delays in delivering its 787s without committing the airline to purchase the replacement aircraft.

The replacement aircraft will be provided JAL in 2010 and 2011. JAL will keep its order for 35 787s in place. It expects to receive the first of those late next year.

The 787 program is now more than 15 months behind schedule largely because of supplier problems.

The additional sales would bolster the 767 backlog, which has diminished to 48, keeping that plane in production while Boeing and Northrop Grumman-EADS continue their battle over the Air Force aerial tanker.

Boeing has proposed a militarized version of the 767 for the tanker replacement program. The Pentagon recently cancelled the competition for the tanker contract. It plans to restart the competition once a new president takes office.

Perhaps you’d prefer some good news. Here it is.

Consumer prices in the Tacoma-Bremerton-Seattle area fell 0.1 percent in July and August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

The bureau’s trannsportation index was primarily responsible for the decline, down 1.7 percent. The price of gasoline, a part of that index, marked a 7.2 percent drop.

Among other numbers in today’s report: Grocery prices were up 7.9 percent; electricity was unchanged; furniture and “household operations” were down 2.8 percent and are down 3 percent from a year ago; and the cost of clothes fell 2.2 percent for two months and are down 0.7 percent for the past 12.

Grocery prices edged up 0.1 percent for the two months, and are up 8 percent since the end of August 2007. Restaurant food and other food purchased for consumption away from home rose 0.7 percent in July and August and were ahead 3.7 percent for the year.

Medical care was up 2.2 percent for the two months and down by 0.7 percent on the year.

The Port of Seattle is holding an open house Sept. 25 to introduce the public to its new third runway.

The open house, set for 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Boulevard Park Presbyterian Church, 1822 S. 128th St., Seattle, is designed to provide the public with answers about the new runway and its effects on the environment and near-airport neighborhoods.

The third runway, some 15 years in the planning and construction, is set to open Nov. 20.

The new runway is designed to help the airport operate more efficiently during bad weather. The airport's two existing runways are too close together to allow landings on both when visibility is poor.

The new runway will allow staggered landings on both strips during inclement weather.

The runway project, which required the displacement of dozens of homes and the reconstruction of lakes and creeks, is expected to cost about $1.2 billion when all the bills are in.

Aviation Partners Boeing, a Seattle company that designs and builds fuel-saving wingtip extensions for commercial and corporate aircraft, has won new orders from two airlines.

Hawaiian Airlines and Air New Zealand announced this week they will install Aviation Partners' blended winglets on their fleets of Boeing 767 twin jets to cut fuel costs.

Air New Zealand will add the winglets, which are vertical extensions at the ends of the 767's wings, to five of its jets.

The winglets are expected to save the Kiwi airline about 1.6 million gallons of fuel yearly.

Hawaiian Airlines in the meanwhile will add Aviation Partners' winglets to eight of its 767-300ERs. The airline will also purchase seven additional sets of winglets.

The wingtip extensions are expected to reduce fuel consumption by about 5 percent.

Neither airline disclosed the price of the wingtip extensions.

The wingtips improve fuel ecomony, increase aircraft range and reduce emissions because the winglets disrupt the drag-producing vortexes that form at the end of conventional wingtips.

Will the president soon fly Airbus?

A new competition still in the planning stages raises that possibility.

The Air Force has begun planning to replace the president's huge airborne office, known as Air Force One when he's aboard, with newer, more fuel efficient aircraft.

The search for replacements for the two specially equipped Boeing 747-200s in the presidential fleet is likely to set up yet another confrontation between Boeing and Airbus.

Boeing is likely to propose its 747-8 Intercontinental, the latest version of the venerable 747, to the Air Force. The 747-8 has new wings, new electronics and new engines. It's stretched so in the passenger version it holds about 460 travelers.

=> Read more!

Some investors have been asking Weyerhaeuser to separate its trees from its manufacturing for several years.

The company today gave hints that it might happen soon.

Here's what Bloomberg is reporting:

Weyerhaeuser Co., North America’s largest lumber producer, may meet U.S. financial requirements to become a real estate investment trust, or REIT, as soon as next year.

“The REIT structure has a number of complex rules and we don’t meet them for 2008,” Chief Financial Officer Patricia Bedient said today at a forestry conference in New York. “However, given the changes in our company, we believe there is a high likelihood that we may be able to meet the so-called asset and income tests required for REIT by 2009.”

Weyerhaeuser, under pressure from some shareholders to boost the value of its investments in timberland, said May 30 that conversion into a real estate trust wouldn’t make financial sense until 2010 at the earliest.

No decision has been made to become a REIT, even though the company is moving now to “preserve the option” for 2009, Bedient said.

As a REIT, profit from Weyerhaeuser’s timberlands would be taxed at 15 percent, instead of a rate of 35 percent for corporations. Under legislation included in this year’s U.S. Farm Bill, the company is currently paying the 15 percent rate, Bedient said, adding those legal provisions expire in May 2009.

TOP Food & Drug stores have taken groceries to the Internet.

The Bellingham-based chain, with stores in Lake Tapps, Puyallup and Tacoma, launched a pilot TOP Connection program, which provides a seven-day guarantee on prices. This means is a member buys a product at a competitor and TOP advertises a lower price within seven days, the price difference plus one percent is credited to the customer.

These credits add up monthly, and can be used at a TOP store.

The program is available at stores in Tacoma, Olympia, Lacey and Aberdeen.

People can register for the free program at www.top-foods.com, by calling (877) TOP-3850 or by visiting a TOP store.

In addition to the price guarantee, the membership provides:

Seattle's Tully's Coffee Corp. has sold its wholesale and supply chain business to Waterbury, Vermont's Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in a $40.3 million deal.

Tully's executives and shareholders will continue to operate the chain's retail business domestically and internationally.

The deal gives Tully's shareholders a chance to cash in on its wholesale and supply business while maintaining the company's retail presence, the company said.

Tully's wholesale business distributes coffees and related items to more than 5,000 supermarket and food distributors throughout the West.

The purchase gives Green Mountain a presence it had sought in the West.

Green Mountain will continue to operate Tully's landmark roasting plant in the old Rainier Brewery south of downtown Seattle just west of Interstate 5 under a lease with Tully's.

United Airlines is raising the fee for checking a second bag from $25 to $50 effective Nov. 10.

The new charge is effective for flying beginning that day on tickets bought Tuesday or later, the airline announced today.

The airline, which pioneered the $15 charge for the first checked bag, said the new fee is designed to generate additional cash to help the airline pay its fuel bills.

On a roundtrip with two checked bags, that means a traveler could pay $130 for the privilege of checking two suitcases.

Most major domestic carriers now charge $25 for the second checked bag and $15 for the first.

Southwest Airlines remains the lone major holdout. It charges for neither the first nor the second checked bag.

SeaTac's Alaska Airlines, the dominant carrier at Sea-Tac Airport, charges $25 for the second bag, but has no charge for the first.

Frozen yogurt retailer Tutti Frutti and premium cosmetics company Bare Escentuals will join the repertoire of retailers at Tacoma Mall this fall, the mall announced today.

Tutti Frutti, a company with locations throughout the country and in Taiwan and Vietnam, will open its second Washington location at the Tacoma Mall in November.

Bare Escentuals, which specializes in mineral-based cosmetics, will open its third Washington location near Macy's in the mall that same month.

The opening of those two new stores will follow the public debut of the mall's new lifestyle center and its new Nordstrom department store on the mall's west end Oct. 4.

The mall has previously announced the opening of four other new retailers, Coldwater Creek, The Walking Co., BOSE and AT&T. BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse is due to open in mid-October.

Three additional retailers, whose identities are still a secret, will be announced soon, the Mall said.

Hurricane Ike's temporary disruption of gasoline supplies in Texas and in the Gulf of Mexico sent national average gas prices bumping upward over the weekend.

But prices here in Washington, where our gasoline comes largely from local refineries and Alaskan crude oil sources, remained stable.

That stability combined with the rise elsewhere put Washington average prices below the nation's for the first time in months.

Nationwide, regular gas prices averaged $3.842 today, reported AAA Washington. That's up from a Sunday price of $3.795.

In Washington, regular was selling today for an average of $3.807, down from $3.811 on Sunday, AAA reported.

In Tacoma, prices were even lower. AAA reported Tacoma average prices were $3.759 today, up slightly from Sunday's $3.755.

Tacomagasprices.com reported eight stations, seven ARCOs and one Costco, selling gas locally for $3.55 a gallon.

News Tribune subscribers who read today's business page interview with the Allenmore Hospital's new administrator, Elise Fornadley, may want to see some of the hospital's improvements first hand.

Here's your chance: Allenmore is holding an open house Sunday, Oct. 5 from noon to 3 p.m. at the hospital at South 19th Street and Union Avenue.

Besides the chance to see the remodeled facilities, the hospital is offering bone density, lipid, glucose and blood pressure screenings, said hospital spokesman Todd Kelley.

Anyone, not just News Tribune readers, is welcome.

Continental Airlines flights between Sea-Tac and Houston, canceled over the weekend because of Hurricane Ike, began phasing in again this morning.

Two of the four Continental early morning flights from Sea-Tac to Continental's Texas hub at George Bush Intercontinental Airport were flying on schedule this morning, reported Portland's Flightstats.com.

The 6:05 a.m. and 8:20 a.m. flights were listed as canceled while the 6:30 a.m. and 7:10 a.m. flights were reported to be operating as normal.

Flights for the rest of the day were reported as operating normally.

Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines, which serves Houston's Hobby Airport, said it won't resume flights there until Tuesday.

Southwest doesn't have non-stop flights from Sea-Tac to Houston but serves the airport with intermediate stops.

Houston Bush is Continental's largest hub, so many passengers on that airline destined for other cities may find their flights disrupted because the Houston leg of their flight is not yet restored.

Continental is allowing passengers to change reservations without penalties if their flights were affected by the storm. See its Web page at www.continental.com.

In a filing to regulators today, Tacoma-based Columbia Banking System announced it will likely show a loss during the third quarter because of recent national home-loan upheavels.

Columbia said it owns 400,000 preferred Series Z shares of Freddie Mac and 400,000 preferred Series S shares of Fannie Mae. The cost of the stock was $20 million at the end of the second quarter, and has since dropped to a point where, if the shares had been sold on Sept. 9, the value would have been approximately $2.2 million.

The company did not say it plans to sell the stock. The cost of any impairment will not be known until Columbia announces its third-quarter earnings in October.

“The story will come out at the end of the quarter,” Columbia spokesman JoAnne Coy told me this afternoon. “We don’t have any plans to dispose of (the shares) at this time. We’ll know more as we get to the end of the quarter. We don’t know exactly where everything will end up.”

Analysts Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said today, in announcing the impairment to clients, “Importantly, (Columbia) should remain well-capitalized and the (ownership of the shares) is not new news.”

Columbia shares rose 72 cents in Friday trading to close at $14.60.

Alaska Airlines today announced cutbacks to both its flight schedule and its workforce beginning Nov. 9 to combat higher fuel costs and lowered travel demand.

The airline, headquartered in the City of SeaTac and the dominant carrier at Sea-Tac Airport, will eliminate 8 percent of its available seat-miles and 15 percent of its departures. Those reductions will trigger a workforce reduction of up to 1,000 people.

Alaska is the latest among U.S. network carriers to announce significant cutbacks to trim away unprofitable flying.

"The one-two punch of record oil prices and a softening economy on top of increased competition, has burdened Alaska Air Group with with a $50 million loss on an adjusted basis for the first half of the year," said Alaska chairman Bill Ayer. "We are changing our schedule to make sure we're flying the right routes with the right frequency and right aircraft," he said. "Regretably , a reduced schedule means we need fewer employees."

Those flight reductions will take several forms:

* Fewer flights at low-demand times such as holidays and weekends.

* Reducing flights in high frequency markets such as Seattle-California where Alaska already has multiple flights daily. Even with typical reductions of one flight per day in the Seattle-San Francisco and Seattle-Los Angeles markets, Alaska will still have more daily flights than at the same last year. Alaska bolstered its flight schedule earlier this year to compete with new rivals Virgin America and JetBlue.

* Downsizing aircraft it uses on Portland-Bay Area flights from Alaska 737s to Horizon Air CRJ-700 jets or Q400 turboprops. Horizon is Alaska's sister regional airline.

* Ending seasonal flying between San Francisco and three Mexican destinations, Cancun, Mazatlan and Ixtapa in Mexico. Alaska will continue serving those cities through Los Angeles.

* Halting flying between Portland and Orlando and Vancouver and San Francisco. That change was effective Aug. 24. Alaska will continue to serve Orlando twice daily from Seattle.

The company said it hopes to eliminate many of the jobs through attrition and by closing many open positions. It also plans to offer early-out packages and severance packages.

The union representing Alaska's 1,500 pilots warned that the airline could cut pilot ranks too far.

"We are concerned that, particularly as oil prices continue to plummet, Alaska Airlines will reduce its pilot ranks so severely that our management will create a situation in which our carrier will be unable to take advantage of its strong cash position and respond to opportunities to grow as other airlines cut routes and capacity," said Bill Shivers, chairman of the Alaska Airlines Master Executive Council of the Air Line Pilots Association.

The airline said it had hoped other economy and income-raising measures would have helped balance out higher fuel expenses, but those have proven insufficient.

The airline has raised fares on some routes multiple times this year. It has imposed a $25 fee on second checked bags and retired the last of its fuel-guzzling MD-80s jets.

The airline has realigned its frequent flier program to require more miles for free flights, and its has implemented new check-in procedures at Sea-Tac to reduce personnel requirements and speed up the check-in times.

Bamford & Bamford, home to upper-end frost-free pottery, plants and custom water features, will soon move from its showroom at 3003 So. Huson St. in Tacoma to 3505 South Tacoma Way. This weekend and through Sept. 21 the store will conduct a sale, with many items marked down 30 percent.

The move will take the store to a location beside Water Concepts, the newly installed kitchen and bath store at the site of the former Busch’s Drive-In.

Bamford will be doing business at the South Tacoma Way location from a trailer during construction, which should be complete by spring, said Tina Washington, a Bamford worker I spoke with this afternoon.

For more information, visit www.bambampots.com.

Looking to become an entrepreneur? Head for Pullman.

Entrepreneur Magazine and The Princeton Review have ranked the undergraduate Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Washington State University College of Business 18th among 2,300 programs surveyed in the 6th annual survey of graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurial programs.

The Top 10 programs listed by the magazine are: University of Houston, Babson College, Drexel University, University of Dayton, University of Arizona, Temple University, DePaul University, University of Oklahoma, University of Southern California and Chapman University.

The "cancelled" signs are already going up on the schedule boards at Sea-Tac Airport this morning as Continental Airlines shuts down its Houston hub in anticipation of Hurricane Ike's landfall.

Shortly after 6:30 a.m. today Continental had canceled two non-stop flights to Houston, those leaving Sea-Tac at 7:10 a.m. and 8:20 a.m.

And the airline warned on its Web site that operations at its largest hub are likely to be shut down for the remainder of today and all of Saturday.

If you're traveling to Houston or beyond on a connecting flight through George Bush Intercontinental Airport, check with Continental for a reaccomodation. The airline is waiving change fees for rescheduling.

See the airline's Web site, www.continental.com for specifics. Other airlines with flights connecting to the the Texas and Louisiana coasts are also cancelling flights. Most have adopted similar fee waiver policies.

Regal Logistics of Fife is now the primary warehouse for toy company Spin Master Ltd., a deal that means a 20 percent increase in workforce.

The deal, announced Thursday, means Regal Logistics will handle storage and transportation for Spin Master toys coming directly from Asia. The company has 114 employees, according to the Tacoma-Pierce County Development Board.

Spin Master, which a news release calls the fastest growing major toy company in North America, provides toys to Wal-Mart, Target and Toys "R" Us, among other retailers. The company, which has six offices from Toronto to Hong Kong, is known for toys such as Air Hogs remote-controller helicopters and Tech Deck small skateboards.

Regal Logistics was selected because it is easily accessible from the Port of Tacoma and Seattle, according to the release.

"Spin Master will benefit from Pacific Northwest ports' ability to move frieght more efficiently and cost-effectively and Regal's ability to offer better access to important Asian markets," Regal Vice President Garry Neeves said in the release.

Starting in January, Pierce County cancer patients at MultiCare won't need to cross the bridge for radiation therapy.

The Tacoma-based health system announced today that it will open Gig Harbor’s first radiation oncology clinic in at the first of next year.

MultiCare plans to install a Varian iX® Linear Accelerator on the ground floor of its Gig Harbor center. The system ofers patients "a precise, targeted dose of radiation to a tumor or lesion, which eliminates the side effects usually associated with radiation therapy," the company said in a release.

The MultiCare Regional Cancer Center recently became a network affiliate of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, adding five South Sound locations to the SCCA network, including the MultiCare Gig Harbor Medical Park.

The name was a bit confusing to pronounce, and now it’s changing altogether.

Carlson Wagonlit (wagon-lee) Travel is re-branding as Travel Leaders.

Beginning now and extending through next March, the eight Carlson stores in the Puget Sound area (Tacoma, Parkland, Puyallup, Lacey, Tumwater, Lakewood, Gig Harbor and Marysville) will switch signage and advertising over to the new brand.

”We’ve started using the name on our Web site, and we’ll officially launch at the Business Expo (Oct. 14) and at the World’s Largest Cruise Night (Oct. 16),” said Sonja Torres, marketing coordinator. “We’re keeping all of our branches. Our service isn’t going to change, but our name is changing.”

By adopting the new Travel Leaders brand, the agency joins the 500 U.S.-based Carlson Wagonlit franchisees that are likewise rebranding themselves as Travel Leaders.

“We are thrilled to be leading travel in a new direction,” said Alex Trettin, president of the Puget Sound Carlson branches, in a release today. “As our agency's name is transforming, we also look forward to transforming the experience of our clients using Travel Leaders' brand promise: 'When your journey includes us, you travel better.'”

Shares of Washington Mutual dipped below $2 a share today as investors question the company's future.

WaMu stock dropped 23 cents, or 10 percent, to $2.08, after earlier hitting a low of $1.75.

The company’s shares plummeted about 30 percent on Wednesday to a 17-year low of $2.32.

Here's what The Associated Press is saying:

"Wall Street’s edginess over the fate of major financial firms also was fanned by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s plans announced Wednesday to sell a majority stake in its investment management unit, spin off its commercial real estate assets and slash its dividend. The nation’s fourth-largest investment bank also said it lost $3.9 billion during its fiscal third quarter."

The company, like many others on Wall Street, has suffered from bad bets on mortgage securities and other risky assets and has seen its stock price drop about 90 percent this year.

Hoping to glean orders from Boeing's delays in delivering its 787 Dreamliner, Airbus has announced an enhanced version of its best-selling twin jet, the A330.

The new A330 model will have the ability to carry more weight than present models. That weight-carrying ability means the plane will be able to carry more fuel, increasing its range to be more competitive with the 787.

Boeing has yet to fly the 787 which is 15 months behind schedule. The company has more than 900 orders for the long-range super-efficient jet.

While the range of the new Airbus at 7,866 miles is still below the 9,200 miles that Boeing claims for the 787, Airbus is telling customers that Boeing's new plane will fall short of that range because of weight and efficiency miscalculations.

The longer-range A330 will be available in 2010.

SeaTac's Horizon Air will end a five-month experiment Oct. 5 providing air service between Seattle and Prince George, B.C..

Higher fuel prices and lower-than-needed patronage is bringing an end to the connection, said the airline.

Horizon had begun service on the 436-mile route between the two cities on May 1 after a local development group and the Prince George City Council agreed to provide revenue guarantees.

Those guarantees would go into effect if the average load fell below 61 percent of capacity. Dan Russo, marketing vice president at Horizon, told Prince George media that the average flight was about 30 percent full.

Horizon, citing an increase in fuel costs, had asked to increase the potential guarantee from a maximum of $400,000 to $750,000, but the city declined to increase the amount.

Tim McEwan, president of the local development group Initiatives Prince George, told the Prince George Citizen newspaper that upping the guarantee wasn't the proper step to take during difficult economic times.

"We decided to take the proposition that when you're in a hole, you stop digging and move on," McEwan told the paper.

Boeing Co.'s employment hit 76,792 in Washington at the end of August, up 2,632 from the end of last year.

That's a hiring rate of 329 a month for this year. While that hiring rate doesn't approach the huge hiring surges of the late '90s, it represents a still-healthy growth for the aerospace giant.

Boeing's employment in the state bottomed out five years ago at near 50,000 after the company laid of more than 30,000 workers.

A robust backlog of some 3,700 airplane orders means Boeing's production lines will be going at the present rate for five to six years even if the company receives no more new orders in the meantime, a very unlikely possibility.

The word from Russell Investments (no, not that word - we’re still waiting to hear) is that use of the Russell Index family continues to grow and continues to rank as “the most widely used set of U.S. equity benchmarks among institutional investment products.”

The indexes, according to a release, and according to Russell spokesman Steve Claiborne, account for “an industry leading 63.3 percent of the benchmarks in funds used by corporate pension plans and other institutional investment organizations.”

The Russell 3000 continues to rank as the most commonly used U.S. broad-market equity benchmark, and the Russell 2000 continues to dominate in the use of small-cap products.

These findings come from a look at 3,333 U.S. equity products listed by Nelson Information’s MarketPlace database.

“More investors are relying on our comprehensive approach to tracking the global equity market in order to measure the relative performance of their funds,” said Kelly Haughton, Russell’s strategic director for indexes.

Gig Harbor-based Cutters Point Coffee announced today that it has inked a deal with Global Business Analysis – a strategic business-consulting firm – to build out some 200 stores over the next five years in the Middle East.

“It is a very unique opportunity for us to grow our brand and mission in another country,” said Cutters founder Brooke Payne in a release. “We feel very blessed to be able to work with such a reputable and successful firm as GBA to help us move into markets we could not otherwise tap into.”

According to Cutters Vice President Aaron Amidon, GBA is buying exclusive rights to market Cutters in the area. The build begins with six stores in Qatar and will initially extend into the UAE.

David Shaw, Founder and CEO of GBA, said he is “thrilled” to be able to have struck a deal that allows him to expand the Cutters system in a region where GBA has an established presence.

Shaw said GBA “considered a number of coffee companies and ultimately made the decision to pursue Cutters Point Coffee for its vision and standards for quality.”

Cutters roasts its own blends, and will be shipping products to the Middle East. Amidon told me he sees the new stores as larger (at around 3,200 square feet) than stateside stores (at around 1,800 square feet), and more of a communal experience – with customers expected to spend time together in the afternoon and evening, rather than patronizing the stores primarily before noon, as it is hereabouts.

The company will also be exporting a Turkish blend of coffee to accommodate local tastes.

Cutter's this week opened its 17th store, with all but three in the South Sound.

The Tacoma Club may soon be homeless if its landlord succeeds this week in evicting it from its 16th floor perch in the downtown's Wells Fargo Plaza.

Unico Properties has filed legal paperwork to remove the 72-year-old club from its building if it can't come up with some $84,000 in back rent Unico claims the club owes.

We're attempting to reach management at the club today, but so far we've been unsuccessful.

The Tacoma Club for decades enjoyed a reputation as Tacoma's most exclusive luncheon venue, but in recent years competition from upscale restaurants downtown and other social venues has literally eaten into its business.

For many years, the club topped downtown's Washington Building, but it moved to the newer Wells Fargo Plaza in a bid to update its image.

Membership fees are $115 a month for individuals with an initiation fee of $500. The club requires a minimum of $125 in food purchases quarterly.

In a delay that revives hopes that Boeing Co. can field a competitive proposal in the $35 billion aerial tanker deal, the Pentagon today postponed until the new administration a recompetition to pick a tanker builder.

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., says the Pentagon has canceled the latest round of bidding between Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp. for the 179 planes. It now plans to hold a new competition next year, Associated Press reported this morning.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told lawmakers this morning that he decided to cancel the current round of bidding on the plane — a competition that has stretched seven years — because the Pentagon’s plan to award the contract by the end of the year no longer seemed possible given the complexity of the project and the rancor between the two companies, the AP reports.

He said a delay would provide a “cooling off” period.

“We can no longer complete a competition that would be viewed as fair and objective in this highly charged environment,” Gates said in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.

Washington Sen. Patty Murray, who had fought to get the Pentagon to pause the competition said she was pleased by the delay decision.

"My first goal is to get the best refueling tankers for our warfighters and our taxpayers. This pause is a reality check on a procurement process that got very complicated and a little muddled. It gives the Pentagon enough time to work with our warfighters to meet their needs and get this done right," she said.

“The Pentagon has assured me that the current fleet of KC-135s is capable of doing the job for as long as we’re going to need them. I’m confident that under the next Administration we will be able to have the kind of fair and open competition we need to ensure our warfighters get the best tankers for their mission.”

=> Read more!

My colleague Liz Wishaw – she’s a page designer over in the sports department – just stopped by to tell me she bought some cheap gas this afternoon. How cheap? $3.57 per gallon. She filled the tank of her Jeep Liberty for less then $60, which is, in its own way, laughable, but still cheap.

The station is located at 3601 Center St. here in Tacoma, and she said the scene “was a madhouse.”

People were lined up, filling the parking lot, with maybe three or four customers per pump. The mood was “a little tense” with patience being in short supply.

No fists were flying, but horns were certainly honking.

You’ve got an idea – and you’re looking for funding. You’ve got a company that you’re looking to take to the next level – and you’re thinking about finding some funding. You’re an investor, you’ve heard about angel funding and venture capital investments – but you don’t know how to go about valuing a project.

Well, here’s your chance to drink at the well of many answers.

Tacoma Angel Network is planning a one-day investment forum and seminar – on Wednesday, Nov. 19 – that will inform entrepreneurs and investors alike about the ins, outs and in-betweens of angel investing.
Held in conjunction with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and featuring instructor Bill Payne, the forum will address the concerns of both investors and entrepreneurs.

• How is a company valued?
• What makes a company attractive to investors?
• How best can an investor build a portfolio?
• How best can an investor negotiate and complete a deal?

The forum will be held from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. at The Tacoma Club, on the 16th floor at 1201 Pacific Ave. The early-entry cost is $275, with an addition for reservations made after Oct. 1, and another after Nov. 12. TAN members and friends are eligible for a discount.

For more information, contact TAN at www.tacomaangelnetwork.com.

TAN investors are particularly interested in Pacific Northwest companies, and have since 2006 provided funding to some five dozen firms and companies. Along with funding, TAN investors provide strategic advice and mentorship to early-stage companies or to those planning major expansions.

Nearly every benchmark of activity is down at the Port of Tacoma through July as a slowing economy takes its toll on port traffic.

Consider these items from a summary of port finances and activity reported to port commissioners:

* Autos. Auto import and export traffic is down 7,569 vehicles through July compared with 2007 for the same period. That's 6.1 percent below the port's projection.

* Breakbulk cargo. Tonnage is also declining. That volume was down 17.2 percent for the year to date and 15.7 below plan.

* Intermodal containers. Total intermodal containers, the bread and butter of port activity, declined by 10.9 percent compared with 2007. That amount was 10.3 percent below the port's budget.

* Operating revenues. Those too fell short. The port reported $57.5 million in operating revenues compared with a budget of $58.7 million. The revenue figures, however, were up from $55.3 million for 2007 through July.

* Operating expenses. Operating expenses at $46.8 million were up over 2007's $44.2 million but below the budget of 447.3 million.

* Operating income to date. Operating income totaled $10.7 million, $700,000 short of plan and $400,000 short of last year's figure to date.

* Year-to-date net income. The net income is $5.8 million compared with a plan of $4.9 million and $24.1 million last year.

More than three-fourths of planes arriving at Sea-Tac Airport this summer were on-time, new statistics show.

Portland's Flightsats.com's figures rank Sea-Tac 16th among 40 North American airports in on-time arrivals during June, July and August. According to the Internet flight tracking service, 76.35 percent of Sea-Tac flights arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled time.

That's more than three percentage points better than Sea-Tac's seven-year average through Dec. 31, 2007.

Seattle-Tacoma's relatively good performance mirrored on-time performance this summer nationwide. Overall, U.S. carriers were on time 74.23 percent of the time this summer compared with 70.25 percent in the summer of 2007.

Topping the on-time arrivals ranking was Salt Lake City where 85.32 percent of flights arrived promptly.

At the bottom of the rankings were the three New York City area airports, JFK, LaGuardia and Newark. JFK ranked last with only 56.17 percent of flights on time.

=> Read more!

Sea-Tac's Alaska Airlines will become the first major airline to equip its entire fleet with a new electronic sensor system designed to avoid runway and taxiway collisions and overruns, the airline announced today.

The Honeywell-built Runway Awareness and Advistory System will give pilots audible cues of the runway and taxiway they're on or moving toward and warn them if the runway is too short for takeoff.

The system will ensure that pilots, sometimes operating in the dark and under poor visibility, correctly identify the runway.

Confusion over what runway they were using has resulted in several major crashes over the last decade by some airlines.

In August 2006, for instance, a Comair pilots with 47 aboard a commuter jet misidentified a runway in Lexington, Ky. They tried unsuccessfully to take off on a runway that was half the length of the one they were supposed to use. Forty-seven passengers and two crew members died.

In October 2000, a Singapore Airlines 747 attempted to take off from a runway closed for construction in Taiwan.

The jet collided with construction equipment on the runway and split in half. Eighty-three of 179 people aboard died. The runway and the construction were obscured by darkness and heavy rain.

The Runway Awareness and Advisory System is the latest of several high technology safety systems Alaska has installed on its fleet.

The airline was the pioneer in using a satellite navigation system called Required Navigation Performance to precisely show the position of its aircraft along a flight path.

That system allows the airline to use more intricately designed landing paths to navigate around mountains and through inclement weather.

The airline has also installed Head-up Guidance Systems in its aircraft. The system displays essential navigation data on a clear pane between the pilot and the aircraft windshield allowing the pilot to scan those instruments without removing his gaze from the scene outside the aircraft.

"The inclusion of RAAS throughout Alaska Airlines' fleet reflects the safety leadership and strong commitment from both Alaska Airlines and Honeywell to reduce runway incursions," said Garrett Mikita, president of Honeywell's air transport business.

In a move to shift capacity to more of its more lucrative leisure markets, Minneapolis' Sun Country Airlines is cancelling or greatly reducing its flying to the West Coast including Sea-Tac.

The airline's reservation schedule shows it pulling out of the San Francisco-Minneapolis route entirely this month and reducing greatly its Los Angeles-Twin Cities route.

On the Seattle-Minneapolis route, the airline schedule shows reductions of one day a week now through December and a resumption of 7-day-a-week schedules in December.

In January, all Seattle-Twin Cities flights disappear from the airline's schedule.

Sun Country now operates two flights a day from Seattle to the Twin Cities.

Alaska Airlines begins twice-daily non-stops to Minneapolis beginning Oct. 26. Northwest Airlines dominates the route between Seattle and its Twin Cities hub.

The News Tribune today offered 189 of its 350 full-time staffers voluntary buyout deals and imposed work-week reductions on all hourly workers in a bid to bring the Tacoma newspaper’s expenses in line with its reduced advertising income.

The company did not say how many buyout offers would be accepted. Today’s deals are the second round of staff reductions at the paper. Eighty-two News Tribune workers left the paper as a result of a reduction in mid-June.

“I know these are difficult, stressful times,” Publisher David Zeeck wrote in a memo to staffers. “But I also know that the work we do is important, and I want to reassure you that our overarching focus remains the same: to be the most trusted supplier of local news and advertising for the South Sound.”

The company is offering employees a buyout package of two weeks’ pay for every year of service up to 13 years and some health benefits.

Let's double-down for a grand, and perhaps it's time for nickels and dimes.

At its meeting later this week in Gig Harbor, the Washington Gambling Commission will consider several measures – including raising table-game limits at card rooms and allowing a game called “Mini-Baccarat.”

The meeting, open to the public, will be held Thursday and Friday at The Inn at Gig Harbor, 3211 56th St. N.W. Thursday’s session begins at 1:30 p.m., and Friday’s at 9:30 a.m.

Thursday’s meeting will consider several housekeeping matters. On Friday, commissioners will consider a proposal by the Recreational Gaming Association to increase the limit on house-banked cardroom wagers from $200 to $500.

The association has also proposed that the game “Mini-Baccarat” be allowed, and that nickels and dimes be allowed for use in paying the commissions required by the game. Such actual coins are not currently used in Washington gaming.

Another matter up for consideration, also proposed by the association, would increase the number of players – from seven the nine – who can play at any house-banked table, as in blackjack; and from 10 to 12 at a non-backed game, as in poker.

For further information, visit www.wsgc.wa.gov.

Microsoft is trying to make its Zune media player more attractive to consumers and lure them away from bigger sellers such as the iPod and SanDisk.

The company said today users will be able to download and buy music wirelessly from thousands of wireless hot spots around the country.

Customers also can flag songs they hear on Zune’s FM radio, and the next time they synchronize the players with their personal computers, the machines will download them, spokesman Adam Sohn said to Bloomberg News.

Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer also is introducing models with twice the storage of the old ones as he aims to shrink the gap with Apple’s iPod, the best-selling music player in the U.S.

Microsoft has fallen short of its goal of wresting the No. 2 spot from SanDisk, which makes the Sansa player.

“We need to get to a place where if you are thinking of buying an MP3 player and you ask three people should I buy a Zune, at least one of them recommends it,” Sohn said last week.

SeaTac's Horizon Air is adding new jet service from Santa Barbara, Calif. to that state's capital city, Sacramento, beginning Nov. 9.

Horizon is taking advantage of ExpressJet's dropping out of that market this month.

The regional airline, like Alaska Airlines owned by Alaska Air Group, hopes to optimize the profits on its existing flight from Santa Barbara to Portland by routing it through Sacramento.

Portland residents still will get one-plane service to Santa Barbara, and the airline will get added passengers on the Sacramento-Santa Barbara portion of the trip. The airline will fly the new route twice daily on weekdays and once daily on weekends.

Meanwhile, the regional airline is submitting a new proposal to the federal government for continuing service to Pendleton, Ore.

The government subsidizes that service under its Essential Air Service program for small cities. Horizon said the existing subsidy was insufficient because of rising fuel costs. It had proposed service from Pendleton to Seattle via Walla Walla with its 76-seat Q400 turboprops.

Cape Air of Massachusetts had proposed multiple flights a day from Pendleton to Portland using 9-seat Cessna 402 aircraft.

The Pendleton City Council had rejected both proposals. Now Horizon is proposing a new scheme that involves air service direct to Portland.

Here's an advance tip if you're looking for something beyond the ordinary community fest for next weekend.

Maritime Fest 2008 will give folks an inside look at Tacoma's waterfront activities including the busy port, its rail infrastructure and its pleasure-oriented waterside activities.

And it's a value. Take a harbor tour, a rail tour and watch Dragon boat races free.

Much of the activity is focused on Dock Street and the Thea Foss Waterway Saturday and Sunday.

Find out more specifics at the Martime Fest's Web site.

Continental Airlines has joined four other major legacy domestic airlines in imposing a $15 charge for the first checked bag.

Among major U.S. domestic carriers, that leaves only Delta without a charge for the first checked bag.

American Airlines began the trend early this summer, and United, US Airways and Northwest Airlines quickly followed.

The trend of charging for the first bag came after United began charging $25 for the second checked bag and other airlines joined in.

Continental's new fee is effective Oct. 7. There are exceptions for first and business-class fliers, high mileage frequent fliers, full-fare economy ticket holders and military personnel and their families traveling on orders.

Sea-Tac Airport's dominant airline, Alaska, hasn't yet joined the crowd charging for the first bag. Southwest Airlines hasn't imposed fees for either the first or second bags.

Continental flies non-stop from Sea-Tac to its hubs in Houston, Cleveland and Newark and to Anchorage.

The bag fees are another way airlines, hit by high fuel prices, are attempting to generate more income.

London's Skytrax Research has named SeaTac's Alaska Airlines "Best Regional Airline North America" in its annual World Airline Awards competition.

Alaska was among just a few U.S. airlines honored in the awards, which were dominated by Asian, Mideast and Pacific carriers.

Singapore Airlines won the research firm's "Airline of the Year" award for the third time in 10 years.

Singapore was followed in the top ten list by Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways, Australia's Qantas, Thai Airways, Korea's Asiana Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Air New Zealand and Emirates and Abu Dubai-based Etihad Airlways.

Among American carriers honored by Skytrax were Southwest Airlines, "Best Low-cost Carrier North America," and Continental Airlines, "Best Airline North America."

Honored carriers with service to Sea-Tac besides Alaska, Southwest and Continental included Lufthansa, "Best Airline Europe;" Hainan Airlines, "Best Airline China;" Asiana Airlines, "Best Airline Northern Asia;" British Airways, "Best Airline Transatlantic."

Asiana also won for "Best Economy Class." EVA Air, which serves Taipei from Seattle, won "Best Premium Economy Class."

Skytrax awards are based on 15 million survey interviews conducted worldwide. Skytrax calls its survey the world's largest.

Union machinists are to strike the Boeing Co. beginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday as last-ditch talks failed to produce a new contract proposal acceptable to union negotiators.

In a message to the union's 27,000 members in the Puget Sound area, Portland and Wichita late this afternoon, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District President Tom Wroblewski said the new talks weren't fruitful.

"Despite meeting late into the night and throughout the day, continued contract talks with the Boeing Company did not address our issues," Wroblewski told union members on the union's Web site.

"Armed with your strong strike vote, the IAM negotiating committee continues to try and convince the Company to meet our members' demands," the local president said.

The strike is expected to halt all commercial airplane production at Boeing's Renton and Everett assembly plants as well as parts production at the Auburn and Frederickson sites.

=> Read more!

I had coffee this morning with David Madeira, CEO of the LeMay Automobile Museum, and he offered an update on yesterday’s quarterly meeting of the museum board.
A few points:

• The museum has received a major corporate donation from AAA Washington – in fact, it’s the largest such donation to date. The organization is donating $1.6 million, with 20 percent going to the operations budget and 80 percent to the building fund of the Collector Car Center.

For the donation, AAA Washington receives naming rights to “AAA Heritage Row,” a quarter-mile long esplanade that will wind its way through the museum.
The gift, Madeira said, “is a good shot in the arm during a difficult time. It puts us within $15 million of the goal for the first phase. It puts us at 75 percent of our first phase goal.”

=> Read more!

The Machinists Union told its 27,000 members in the Puget Sound area, Portland and Wichita today to assume that its strike against the Boeing Co. is on at midnight tonight unless they hear otherwise.

Union and company representatives are meeting in Orlando today to attempt to craft a new proposal the union negotiators can recommend to members.

Machinists Wednesday voted 80 percent to reject Boeing's "best and final offer" and 87 percent to authorize a strike against the company.

But union leaders put the strike on hold for 48 hours after Boeing agreed to meet in new talks with a federal mediator in an attempt to avoid a strike.

Union activists at the ballot counting session Wednesday night erupted in catcalls when the union's chief negotiator, Mark Blondin, announced the 48-hour hiatus.

For updated information, see the union's Web site.

Airlines worldwide ordered seven new Boeing airliners this week, all of them the popular 737.

Ireland's low-cost carrier Ryanair ordered four 737-800s; Turkey's Saga Airlines placed orders for two 737s, and SAS ordered one of the twinjets.

Those orders bring 737 orders for the year to 456.

Total orders for all aircraft are 586 in 2008. In second place in order popularity is the twin-aisle 787 Dreamliner with 78 orders.

The new Microsoft ads are out. You know, the ones with Jerry Seinfeld.

The ads feature humorous conversations between Seinfeld and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. The initial spot made its debut last night during the season’s first National Football League game as the New York Giants beat the Washington Redskins 16-7, Bloomberg News reports.

Here's what you will see: The first spot shows Seinfeld and Gates shopping at a discount shoe store, then leaving the store eating churros, a fried pastry. It also features the Microsoft founder adjusting his underwear and ends with the tagline “the future delicious” and the Windows logo.

The conversation between the two will continue in future ads.

=> Read more!

Boeing and its largest union, the Machinists, continue to work on a new contract that would avoid a strike tomorrow morning. We don't know a lot about what's going on – the union and the company wants to negotiate in private.

But today a Wall Street analyst that watches Boeing said a strike could cost the company $2.8 billion.

“Boeing will cease commercial aircraft production under strike conditions,” analyst Ronald Epstein wrote in a research note reported by Bloomberg News. “Aircraft close to delivery will be delivered to airlines willing to cross picket lines, but all other deliveries will cease.”

A strike would have “long-term consequences” for the company’s commercial aircraft workforce in the Seattle region and may cost the Chicago-based company $2.8 billion in lost revenue per month and $290 million in earnings before interest and taxes, Epstein wrote in a note to clients.

The world’s biggest brokerage maintained the “buy” recommendation it has had on the stock for at least three years and its $73 share-price forecast. Almost half of the analysts who cover Boeing recommend buying the shares, according to Bloomberg data.

With the strike clock ticking down to midnight Friday, negotiators from the Boeing Co. and the Machinists Union met Thursday in a last-ditch effort to avoid an impending strike.

That strike, already approved Wednesday by 87 percent of the union's membership, would have already begun except for the last minute appeal Wednesday night by federal mediators to give negotiations one last try.

Neither Boeing nor the union offered much information about the post-deadline talks.

"There's nothing much I can tell you," said Boeing spokesman Tim Healy.

"I don't know any details," said International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District Lodge 751 spokeswoman Connie Kelliher.

The union's chief negotiator, Mark Blondin and Boeing human resources vice president Doug Kight late Wednesday agreed on one more effort to hammer out an acceptable deal.

That decision didn't sit well with union activists preparing strike signs at the union headquarters Wednesday night. They broke out in loud protest when Blondin announced the 48-hour deferral.

The 27,000 union members had turned down Boeing's "best and final" offer Wednesday night by an 80 percent margin.

Union leaders had recommend the deal's rejection saying the company's offer failed to meet the union members' expectations across the board in a year in which Boeing was making healthy profits and a enjoyed a six-year order backlog.

It’s going to be a great day to go to the Fair on Saturday - but if you’re a small business owner, or if you’re thinking about becoming a small business owner, then perhaps you should hold off on Puyallup and instead head for Renton.

That’s where the state Department of Labor & Industries is hosting the 12th annual Small Business Fair – a free event featuring 40 seminars and several exhibitors that may be interest to business owners. Among ither things, the fair offers a chance to speak with representatives, experts and staff from both federal and state agencies.

The show runs from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. at Renton Technical College, 3000 N.E. 4th St.

Seminar topics and directions to the fair are available here at www.bizfair.org.

This is the first one of these I’ve seen in Tacoma – and there it was on Sprague Avenue waiting for the light on Sixth.

It’s a GEM – for Global Electric Motorcars – a Chrysler product made in North Dakota.

Progress may be outpacing us here at the Biz Blog. I’m trying to find a way to compare it to what most everyone else is driving - and one of the best ways to do that is to use mpg. But what’s right here? MPkwh? Any ideas?

A Pierce County educational and employment partnership this morning received statewide attention as Gov. Chris Gregoire presented the 2008 Economic Development and Workforce Best Practices Awards at an annual conference in Lynnwood.

Under the direction of program administrator Eva Avalos, the Pierce County effort – “Integrated English as a Second Language and Apprenticeship Program” – joins United Union of Roofers Local 153, Pierce College and Clover Park Technical College in a partnership aimed at offering English language skills to apprentice roofers.

According to a release from the governor’s office, the collaboration “created an instructional program that integrated technical and language skills, making them more relevant and easier to learn.”

Before the collaboration was established, most non-English-speaking aspiring roofers filed to complete the work required to gain apprenticeship. Since the program was offered, the retention rate has grown to 100 percent, and “this program is a model for similar programs around the state.”

An on-line feedback system that lets Regence BlueShield members assess the competency of their physicians has drawn 28,000 responses in the past two years, Regence says, and is turning into a valuable sounding board for patients.

Regence’s “Member Feedback” feature lets members post feedback on their experiences with physicians, dentists, other health care professionals and facilities. It also lets providers review comments and reply to them.

The feedback feature is the first of its kind in the Pacific Northwest, Regence claims.

“Our own research and national studies show that patients want to hear from other patients,” said David Clark, Senior Vice President of Health Care Services for Regence. “We created the feedback feature so members can share experiences and compare notes. That kind of information helps our members make better decisions about their health care.”

Initially, the feedback feature allowed members to rate providers on a numeric scale. Since December 2007, members have also been able to leave comments.

According to Clark, 89 percent of those leaving feedback would recommend their provider to someone else.

“When concerns are raised, Clark said, “it is usually about issues such as waiting time, listening skills, billing issues or bedside manner, issues that most physicians are already working to address.”

If you're the type of person with a Mercury Merkur, a Lincoln Blackwood or a Studebaker Avanti sitting in your garage and have a big limit on your Visa, Boeing may have a deal for you.

Boeing's leasing arm reportedly will be taking back 16 Boeing 717 aircraft from Midwest Airlines as the Milwaukee-based carrier restructures to avoid bankruptcy.

Midwest was the second-largest 717 customer for Boeing. It will keep nine of the planes in its fleet.

While the 717 enjoyed an excellent reputation for reliability, fuel economy and customer comfort, Boeing only sold 155 of the planes before it shut down production in 2006.

The problem? The 717, like the cars mentioned above, is an "orphan." Never part of full family of aircraft, the 717 never sold well because airlines didn't have larger sized versions of the 100-seat aircraft to buy when their routes outgrew the 717.

Boeing inherited the 717, then called the MD-95, from McDonnell Douglas when the two companies merged in 1997.

Likely candidates are overseas carriers. Orlando's AirTran Airways is the largest operator of the 717, but it is trimming back its expansion plans and is unlikely to want more planes.

The nation's airlines with few exceptions are reporting this week that their August traffic was down from last year.

Here are some of their results:

Alaska Airlines: Down 1 percent
Horizon Air: Down 14.7 percent
Southwest: Down 5.2 percent
American: Down 2.9 percent
United: Down 5.1 percent
Delta: Down 9.6 percent domestically
Continental: Up .7 percent on a capacity increase of 2 percent.

Analysts say the effect of some 20 rounds of price increases this year is finally filtering into the system as fliers who bought their tickets months ago at lower prices are using them, and new customers are facing higher price tags for future trips.

One sign that price increases have pretty much run into the wall: United Airlines earlier this week rescinded a price increase it posted before the holiday as it found few other airlines following its example.

Eighty-seven percent of you voted Wednesday to strike. Eighty percent said "no" to Boeing's "best and final offer."

But a strike's now on hold until Friday midnight while the Machinists Union and Boeing go back to the bargaining table.

What changes in Boeing's last offer would make you vote "yes" on a new deal?

Here are some items union members mentioned to me at Wednesday night's vote-count rally:

Takeaways: Higher co-pays and larger out-of-pocket limits for medical care seemed to be sticking points for some members. They told me those higher costs were eating up any wage increases they would get under the new contract.

Pension: Boeing upped the pension formula to $80 a month per year of service, but some union loyalists pointed out that management's formula is far higher. What number would make you happy?

Wages: The failure to incorporate the 40-cent-an-hour cost-of-living increase for May, June and July struck some union voters as cheap on Boeing's part. They seemed less concerned about the general wage increase except among the lower wage employees whose wage progression, they said, is too slow.

Job security: I heard this repeatedly: "What good are good wages if you don't have a job?" What kind of job security or outsourcing items concern you?

Signing bonus: Boeing offered $2,500 each for an approval Wednesday. Do you expect a similar or larger bonus for approving a new contract next week?

Other issues?

Some of those who've commented on our previous blogs suggest that if the union demands too much the next new plane program, either a successor to the 737 or the 777, will go to another state where unions hold less power.

Are you concerned that asking too much could eventually doom your Puget Sound area jobs?

Turkey's Saga Airlines announced today it has ordered two Boeing 737-800 aircraft worth $149 million at list prices.

The Istanbul-based carrier also secured purchase rights for two more of the Renton-built planes. The airline already has four Boeing aircraft in its fleet.

Meanwhile in Seattle, Gulf Air of Bahrain has signed a letter of intent for eight more 787 Dreamliners. When an order is signed, Gulf Air will have a total of 24 orders for Dreamliners on its books.

The Gulf Air Dreamliner orders will push the 787 order total over 900. Boeing reports 895 Dreamliners on its books as of Wednesday. The Dreamliner is the best-selling commercial jet in history based on orders prior to the plane's first flight.

BJ's, the new restaurant and brewhouse that is moving into the remodeled section of the Tacoma mall, is hiring workers.

The company has set up a temporary shop to interview and train workers in the spot where B. Dalton Bookseller was located, across from Old Navy.

The magazine racks are stacked with clipboards. Two rows of folding chairs sit against a side wall.

Go to the company's Web site for more information.

The store is open Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

BJ's will be located on the mall's south side and will open this fall.

BJ's opened a restaurant at Southcenter as part of that mall's renovation. The restaurant has an extensive menu that includes burgers, pizza, salad and sandwiches.

When the Port of Tacoma bought 745 acres near Maytown in Thurston County two years ago, the port's plan for the property seemed ripe for implementation.

But port commissioners Thursday, battered by local opposition to its plans and by a slowing economy, will take the first concrete step toward backing out of its ambitious deal.

The commission is scheduled to hire a real estate advisor to market the tract and to manage its eventual auction.

The port's request for proposal calls for that real estate advisor to assemble a property profile including its potential uses, identify potential buyers, create a bidding package and to manage the bidding process.

The port's request notes that the real estate advisor should work closely with stakeholders in the area.

Potential buyers could include industrial firms, railroads and conservation groups.

The port originally planned to create a large rail storage and sorting yard on the site 12 miles south of Olympia. That rail facility was expected to attract rail-dependent businesses and warehouses.

But opposition from a local group, Friends of Rocky Prairie, torpedoed the port's plans, and its partner in the deal, the Port of Olympia, pulled out in late June.

The port payed $21 million for the tract, which was formerly the site of an explosives plant.

Who would have thought a few months ago that consumers would be cheering as crude oil prices approached $100 a barrel?

Of course, after a summer in which oil prices passed $140 a barrel, $100 seems cheap.

Oil prices today briefly flirted with $105 a barrel before rising a few dollars higher.

But some analysts are predicting that oil prices may dip to $100 or below before oil-producing countries cut production to drive prices up.

But that may be difficult to do for some countries who've become as addicted to high incomes from high oil prices just as we've become addicted to cheap gas.

Meanwhile in Washington, retail gasoline prices continued falling today. Statewide the average for a gallon of regular now stands at $3.876 a gallon, down six cents from the Aug. 25 average price, according to AAA Washington.

A month ago, average gas prices in Washington were $4.138 a gallon. Gas prices peaked in the Evergreen State at $4.352 a gallon two days after the Independence Day holiday.

And in Tacoma, gas prices broke the $3.60-a-gallon barrier today with the price at the ARCO station at Portland and Puyallup avenues at $3.59 a gallon, reported TacomaGasPrices.com.

Nationwide, the least expensive gas on average was in Delaware today where a gallon cost $3.461

United Airlines did a quick about-face today on its plan to eliminate hot meals on its economy class flights to Europe from Washington, D.C's Dulles Airport.

The airline said that a strong customer reaction to its announcement that the meals would disappear caused it to reconsider.

The airline was reportedly inundated with complaints particularly from its most frequent fliers about the plan.

Those fliers told the airline that the least it could do on a seven or eight-hour flight to Europe was serve up a decent meal.

The airline apparently feared that fliers would defect to competitors who still manage to serve up hot food despite the pressure of higher fuel prices.

Some 25,000 Puget Sound area Machinists Union members are voting today on a three-year contract proposal from Boeing.

The company says the offer with its 11 percent raise and 3 percent cost-of-living adjustment and $2,500 signing bonus is a good deal.

What do you Boeing union members think of the proposal?

Let us know with your comments if you're voting up or down on the offer and why.

Starbucks has added oatmeal to its menu. It's all part of an effort to revise the company's menu to entice consumers to spend more money at the stores.

I noticed the signs yesterday at a couple of shops around Tacoma. Other items were added as well:

Starbucks Perfect Oatmeal: Each order can be customized with three different toppings; a portioned 50-calorie pack of brown sugar, 100-calorie pack of dried fruit and 100-calorie pack of a nut medley.
Calories: 140 to 390 calories depending on topping selections.
Other nutrition information: Up to 7 grams of fiber and 1.5 servings of whole grains.

Chewy Fruit & Nut Bar: Ingredients including oats, dried fruit, nuts, seeds, and honey.
Calories: 250
Other nutrition information: 4 grams of fiber and 5 grams of protein.

Apple Bran Muffin: Made with whole wheat flour, oats and wheat bran, and baked with real apples, tart cherries and honey.
Calories: 330
Other nutrition information: 7 grams of fiber, 7 grams of protein.

Berry Stella: A 100% whole grain breakfast pastry with whole grains and real fruit
Calories: 280

Power Protein Plate: A combination of a cage-free hard-boiled egg, 100% whole wheat bagel, peanut butter, cheese, and fresh fruit.
Calories: 330
Other nutrition information: 16 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber.

Here's the official word from Starbucks: "Many Americans are too busy to make a healthy breakfast at home, but it’s the most important meal of the day," said Katie Thomson, registered dietitian and senior nutritionist, Starbucks Coffee Company. "Our customers have told us they want delicious choices that offer real nutrition including whole grains, fruit, and lean protein to help fill them up and give them energy to make it to lunch."

The National Retail Federation is out today with its “Global Powers of Retailing" annual report.

It pays to be in the grocery business, with grocers taking 98 of the Top 250 slots.

Global sales for the world’s top 250 retailers rose to $3.25 trillion in 2006 – the year covered by the latest compilation. That was up 8 percent from $3.01 trillion the year before.

The Top 10: Wal-Mart, grocery and discount; Carrefour S.A. (France), club grocery; Home Depot, home improvement; Tesco (U.K.), grocery and discount; Metro A.G. (Germany), apparel and discount; The Kroger Co, grocery; Target, discount department; Costco, club grocery; Sears Holdings, department; Schwarz Unternehmens Truehand (Germany), grocery.

Walgreen, Lowe’s, CVS and Safeway represent the U.S. in the balance of the Top 20. SuperValu and Macy’s (the former Federated) come 27th and 28th. Sweden’s IKEA came 35th.

Buyers in the U.S. represented 45.5 percent of worldwide sales.

A new forecast for the state's economy doesn't include much good news. But the bad news isn't earth-shattering either.
The marginal impact of the stimulus package will wear off as consumer spending will slow, according to the September economic forecast from the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council.
The predictions follow the same pattern as previous reports, senior economic forecaster Eric Swenson said.

The report's conclusions on the second quarter included:

The biggest changes predicted are housing permits, which will fall 42.5 percent. Also, construction employment is down by 4.2 percent and the drop will continue.

Other predictions include:

The Governor's Council of Economic Advisors will review the forecast on Friday. The full report is available here.

Their leadership has recommended they strike, but Boeing hopes that some 25,000 union machinists will approve the company's "best and final offer" Wednesday for a new 3-year-contract.

The company was holding in-plant meetings today to explain its latest offer and planned to provide buses to take its Machinist Union workers to the polls Wednesday.

"This is a whole new tactic on Boeing's part," said Machinists Union spokeswoman Connie Kelliher. "I think they want one more chance to preach the company line."

Boeing contends its offer is generous and will put Boeing workers at the top of the industry in wages and benefits.

The company offer provides for:

* General wage increases of 11 percent over three years.
* Cost-of-living adjustments that could add three percent more to worker wages.
* A lump sum payment of six percent of wages or $2,500, whichever is greater, if the contract is approved Wednesday.
* A pension increase to $80 per month per year of service.

The company company also withdrew its earlier proposals that would have changed the company pension plan to a defined contribution plan for new hires and that would have eliminated early retiree medical insurance.

The new package would provide Boeing workers with $34,000 in additional pay over the three-year contract term, Boeing said.

Boeing workers will mark two ballots Wednesday, one on approving the contract and one on sanctioning a strike.

Under the terms of the union's by-laws, Boeing could avoid a strike beginning at midnight in two ways.

Boeing could win contract approval by a majority vote of union workers or it could dodge a strike if fewer than two-thirds of union workers vote for a strike.

Boeing avoided a strike in 2002 when a majority of union members voted to reject the contract proposal but fewer than two-thirds voted to approve the strike. Without the strike weapon, the union was forced to accept the contract.

The union has said it wants a better deal than Boeing is offering because the company is riding a wave of high profits and record order backlogs.

The polls at five union halls in the Puget Sound area will be open from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday. Votes will be counted at the union's Seattle headquarters. Results are expected to be announced about 8:30 p.m. Some 1,500 workers in Portland and 750 in Wichita will also vote.

If a strike is approved, pickets will go up at Boeing plants at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. A strike is expected to shut down all work at Boeing's plants in Everett, Renton, Auburn and Frederickson.

Some analysts believe a strike could cost Boeing up to $120 million a day in revenue and delay the debut of its 787 Dreamliner now anticipated in November.

Washington has a new chief economist.

Arun Raha, who was the vice president for economic research and consulting for risk management firm Swiss Re, is the new executive director of the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council, the state announced today.

"We couldn't have made a better choice," said state Rep. Jim McIntire, D-Seattle, who chairs the sate forecast council. "Dr. Raha's strong track record and his expertise in global economics and forecasting are a great fit for this very important position, especially at this turbulent time."

Raha replaces ChangMook Sohn, who stepped down in March to run for state treasurer.

Raha has a doctorate in economics from Washington State University and was a faculty member at Boise State University, where he forecast Idaho State General Fund Revenues for the state legislature.

Prior to working at Swiss Re, Raha also managed economic analysis at the Eaton Corpration, where he served on the Ohio Governor's Council of Economic Advisors. He is also a former trustee of the Automotive Markest Research Council and is on the Wall Street Journal's Economic Forecasting Panel.

"I am excited that we were able to find someone of Arun's caliber. He exemplifies the kind of integrity and objectivity vital to this position," said Victor Moore, a member of the Forecast Council and director of the state Office of Financial Management.

SeaTac's Alaska Airlines has told its pilots union it could furlough up to 165 pilots later this fall as it shrinks its schedule to fit economic realities.

The airline said it won't know how many pilots will be forced to give up their jobs until it finds out how many will accept one of three voluntary layoff or retirement offers.

The airline is offering present pilots one or two year leaves of absence or early retirement.

The airline said it is still tinkering with new schedules beginning in November to weed out unprofitable flights.

Alaska spokesman Paul McElroy said the airline hasn't made final those schedule adjustments, but he expects the new schedule won't cut out any destinations. The airline is more likely, he said, to eliminate some overnight "red-eye" flights and some weekend flying.

Alaska earlier had said it plans to reduce its flying by about five percent in the last quarter and in all of 2009.

Even so, the airline has added new flights to Hawaii and to Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The motivation behind the schedule reductions is the high cost of fuel which is eliminating profits throughout the airline industry.

Boeing is pinning its hopes for keeping the last aircraft assembly line in California open for another decade on a highly modified version of its C-17 transport.

The C-17, a four-engine, high wing plane that's stationed at Pierce County's McChord Air Force Base among others, is the workhorse of Air Force transportation moving troops and supplies around the world.

The Los Angeles Times sums up the new proposal in a story published this weekend. Here are a few excerpts. For the full story, go to www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-plane30-2008aug30,0,1071403.story.

Southern California's last major airplane factory, slated to close in two years, could find new life under a bold plan being floated by Boeing Co. to build a new version of the massive C-17 military cargo plane.

The proposal, gaining traction among Pentagon planners, calls for transforming the long-haul, strategic transport into a tactical aircraft that could deliver equipment and supplies directly to the battlefield.

=> Read more!

EgyptAir and Turkey's Pegasus Airlines are buying 15 new jetliners from Boeing in transactions announced today.

EgyptAir has ordered two Boeing 777-300ER long-range twin-engine jets worth $529 million at book prices.

The airline is to receive the first of the new planes in 2010, Boeing said.

Meanwhile, Pegasus Airlines, a low-cost airline in Turkey, announced it will double a previous order for Boeing 737-800 jetliners. The airline had ordered 12 of the twin-engine, mid-range jets from Boeing in 2005. It now says it wants to buy 12 more.

The two dozen new planes will make Pegasus the biggest private airline Boeing customer in Turkey.

This just in from New York: As clothing retailer Steve & Barry's emerges from bankruptcy, it'll shrink from 276 to 170 stores.

One of the casualties? The Olympia store at Westfield Capital Mall, according to a Steve & Barry's spokeswoman.

If you need your Steve & Barry's fix – Have you seen Sarah Jessica Parker's BITTEN line? – the stores at the SuperMall in Auburn and the Everett Mall will continue to operate.

Steve & Barry's was recently purchased out of bankruptcy by BH S&B Holdings, a newly formed affiliate of investment firms Bay Harbour Management and York Capital Management for $163 million.

The smaller base of stores should help the company reach its profitability goals, said Rachel Brenner, senior manager of public relations.

With the U.S. Open slated to arrive in University Place in a few years, it's not surprising that businesses are beginning to gear up their brands.

Take Gay Landry, for instance.

She's the owner of Affairs – the truffle palace, bakery and lunch spot at 2811 Bridgeport Way W.

That's her with what she calls "The Hole in One" or "The Official Brownie of the 2015 U.S. Open." It's a brownie, as you might expect, with a white chocolate "golf ball" in the middle.

Price: $2.50. Calories: Par 4.

Word comes from television stations in Portland that a worldwide raspberry shortage has forced our favorite brews brothers, Mike and Brian McMenamin, to stop brewing their famous Ruby Red beer temporarily.

Blame it partly on the Northwest's poor harvest this year too.

"The number one raspberry producing country in the world is Serbia," McMenamins brewery manager Rob Vallance told KATU-TV. "And they had a horrible, horrible crop as well."

Because of an abundance of Northwest raspberries in 1985, the McMenamins chose it as the base for their first fruit-flavored beer. They became the first brewers in the U.S. to legally use fruit in beer, according to their Web site. (I'm not sure who used them illegally first.) They squish up 42 pounds of raspberries to make enough puree flavor and color for each vat.

But without the raspberries, the McMenamins had to turn to an old standby berry first developed in the 1930s for Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, Calif.

Purple Haze flows from the tap at a McMenamin's pub. The new brew, made from boysenberries, has proven so popular, it'll stick around even after Ruby Red returns. (Photo courtesy McMenamins)

=> Read more!