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.

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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.