For the next few days, as the holidays approach, we’ll be speaking to small retail stores in the South Sound. If you’d like to nominate a retail business for this series, e-mail c.r.roberts@thenewstribune.com.

Baskets & Things

Address: 121 Meeker Ave. SW , Puyallup

On the phone: Darcie Lynn, manager.

Please give me a quick description of what you sell.

We sell a little bit of everything, from food to bath products, some furniture, purses, jewelry and cards and lamps, mirrors, pictures. It’s hard to describe because there’s so many different things.

When did your holiday season start?

Our holiday season started Nov. 20. We always have an open house with four days of holiday specials the weekend before Thanksgiving. Then each week after that we have specials.

What kind of specials do you have?

Well, let’s see. Last week, snowmen and everything white was 25 percent off.
This week, it’s anything that’s silver or gold. Next would be ornaments, then red and green. Last is all food and dishes. Monday through Saturday, those things are 25 percent off.

How are sales so far?

Good, we’ve done very well.

What are your most popular sellers so far this season?
I couldn’t really specify because we don’t have any grand amount of anything. We just pretty much sell just everything. Sometimes we try to figure out after a big day where the holes are, and we just can’t find them.

Are there any particularly notable items you’re selling this season?

We decided we would have more food this year. We had guessed that might be the market, and we were correct on that – so far at least. We sell lots of different candies, teas, coffees, cocoas, hors d'oeuvres- type things, specialty cake mixes, sauces of all kinds . . .

What are you hearing from your shoppers about their budgets?

We really haven’t really heard about much concern. We’re lucky because we have just so many loyal customers that come to us. And we have a great variety of prices. We’re a store where everybody can buy something.

RecruitMilitary, a Cincinnati-based employment agency for military veterans, is holding a career fair in Tacoma this Thursday (Dec. 4), intended to help veterans and their spouses find jobs.

Organizers say they expect more than 300 veterans to attend the event at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Veterans will be able to interview with national, regional and local employers. The event is being produced in cooperation with President Bush’s National Hire Veterans Committee, the American Legion and the Military Spouse Corporate Career Network.

Delta Air Lines may soon ask Boeing to change some of the airliner orders that its merger partner, Northwest Airlines, had entered with the aerospace company.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Delta is considering reducing Northwest's orders for 787 Dreamliners and substituting orders for the long-range 777-200LR.

The switch could mean more money for Boeing. The 777-200LR has a list price of $243 million. The 787 is listed at $178 million.

The order change could bring Delta a plane more suited to its present plans.

Delta is ambitiously adding new international destinations, some of them very distant from its New York and Atlanta hubs. The 777-200LR has the world's longest unrefueled range, more than 10,000 miles.

The plane is also about 50 seats larger than the 787 and potentially could be available before some of the 18 787s Northwest had on order.

Delta in recent months has added a handful of destinations in Africa and Europe to its route structure in some cases offering the only non-stop service to those distant cities from the U.S.

Those new routes will allow travelers to reach African destinations, for instance, without stopping or changing planes in such European hubs as London, Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt.

We're not usually much for touting business promotions, but here's one that's too good to pass without notice if you're a traveler in the Northwest.

Beginning today, some bags of Tim's Cascade Potato Chips will feature a peel-off coupon good for 20 percent off the price of Amtrak Cascades tickets.

Amtrak Cascades are the the trains that travel in the Pacific Northwest corridor from Eugene, Ore. to Vancouver, B.C.

The offer, as you might expect, has blackout times during the holiday rush periods when the trains are full anyway, but the offer is good through February.

To see the fine print, go to the Amtrak Cascades Web site. x

London's Heathrow Airport has been named the world's worth airport in a poll of members of Priority Pass, the largest independent lounge program.

The British airport, known in recent years for huge baggage losses, cancelled flights and general construction chaos, was named by 15 percent of Priority Pass members polled.

Two Asian airports, Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok and Singapore's Changi, were named the first and second best by the same group of travelers.

Paris' Charles de Gaulle, Los Angeles International Airport and Chicago's O'Hare were next in line on the worst list behind Heathrow.

Amsterdam's Schiphol and Dubai's World Central followed Hong Kong and Singapore on the good list.

NATO has agreed to buy two Boeing c-17 Globemaster III long-range military cargo jets.

A third C-17 will be provided to NATO by the U.S. Air Force. The planes will be stationed in Hungary.

A group of 12 nations will share the planes' airlift capability. Those include Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden and the United States.

The first plane is expected to be delivered from Boeing's Long Beach, Calif., assembly plant as early as next spring.

The new order will help Boeing keep its Long Beach plant open while it lobbies for more Air Force orders for the airlifter. Some of the Air Force's 194 C-17s are stationed at McChord Air Force Base south of Tacoma.

In addition to the U.S. Air Force, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have bought C-17s. Qatar is also ordering the airlfter.