I had some extra time between assignments, so I went to the Proctor District Farmers Market and created this audio slideshow:

A reader sent this photo along. The church is near the corner of South 56th and South Cheyenne Streets.

Umm, I’m not exactly sure what to say about it.

For reasons that are much too uninteresting to type here, I'm scouting locations around Tacoma (and the immediate area, but not too far) that are really scenic.

If you're going to take a snapshot and send it to someone who has never been here and likely never will, what locations would you shoot that you feel could really show off Tacoma's beauty?

Ruston Way? Browns Point? The skyline?

I'm looking for a few good ideas, so feel free to just brainstorm -- even if someone has already mentioned it.

I've got meetings and transcribing.

I've also got my hands on the city's database of curb ramps around Tacoma and their compliance (or non-compliance) with the Americans with Disabilities Act. And it ain't pretty.

Photographer Peter Haley and I spent a few hours last night patrolling with the Larchmont Safe Streets organization. Click below for a taste of what it was like:

=> Read more!

July is gonna be busy. The Tall Ships are returning. Freedom Fair is back. If you're my age, apparently everyone you know from college and your hometown is getting married.

Well, squeeze in another event.

The folks at McChord have set up a Web site for the Air Expo 2008. The event on July 19-20 will be free (!) and feature the Thunderbirds, among a bunch of other exhibitions.

According to a release the base sent out, here are some of the performances on the schedule:

■ C-17 Aerial Demonstration
■ U.S. Air Force Academy Parachute Team "Wings of Blue"
■ AD-3 Skyraider Legacy Flight
■ F-15C Eagle Tactical Demonstration
■ F/A-18F Super Hornet Tactical Demonstration
■ P-51 Mustang Heritage Flight
■ Air Force Reserve Jet Car
■ Bombing of Pearl Harbor reenactment "Tora Tora Tora"
■ Bud and Ross Granley's Dueling YAKs (YAK 18 vs YAK 55)
■ Cold War Era Dog Fight "Mig Fury" Mig 15 and Mig 17 versus a U.S. Navy FJ-4
■ Jacquie B's Pitts S2-B
■ Steve Cowell's Tuskegee T-6
■ Tim Weber's Geico Extra 300

If you're one of those guys (like myself) who salivate at watching the Blue Angels fly at Seafair, this will be really, really cool.

Today I'll be sitting in on a discussion with our all-star graduates to write up something for our annual.

And later today, I'll be posting highlights of my ridealong with the Larchmont Safe Streets group last night.

I just got off the phone with Moni Hoy. He’s the community mobilization program manager for Safe Streets. We were chatting about the neighborhood patrol academy, which began last year and has seen more than 200 people graduate from six sessions.

The model they want other neighborhood groups to emulate is that of the Stewart Heights patrol, which began in 2003.

”We saw how effective the Stewart Heights citizens’ patrol was. The impact it had on the neighborhood was just tremendous, and we saw it as an opportunity to extend the block watch program into a citizen patrol program and be effective.”

The ultimate goal is to expand the program, he said. Seven citizen groups patrol now, and they hope to double that by the end of the year.

“We believe it’s the future of Tacoma. We want citizen patrol groups in just about every block-watch neighborhood group we have in Tacoma.”

We here at Word on the Street are always interested in Africa news, so I’m passing this along: The Save Darfur Coalition is teaming up with Doyle’s Public House and King’s Books to host a public benefit to help raise awareness for the genocide occurring in western Sudan.

Here’s the schedule:

Friday, 6:30-8 p.m. – Community discussion at King’s Books at 218 St. Helens Ave. in Tacoma.

Saturday, 2-11 p.m. – Live music, silent auctions and raffles at Doyle’s Public House at 208 St. Helens Ave. in Tacoma. The local bands scheduled to play include Blanco Branco, Stephanie Johnson, Matt Coughlin, Heidi Vladkya, Negative 7, John Walker and the Hitchhikers, Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden, The Joshua Cain Band and the Sea Navy.

The group hopes to raise $10,000. The suggest donation for Saturday is $7.

Click here for more information.

Think the the folks in Bonney Lake are the only ones battling (shock! outrage!) bikini espresso stands?

Apparently some people in Snohomish County equally have way too much time on their hands.

I received this neat picture from a reader last week. Don't know if this is common or not, but an osprey has apparently built its nest atop one of the light standards at the South End Recreation Area.

He watched it leave the nest and return with dinner for its little hatchlings. One of the other spectators at the game he was attending said the lights might keep the little ones warm.

Kinda neat, huh?

Tonight I'm going to be on a ridealong with the Larchmont Safe Streets neighborhood patrol.

It's part of a bigger story I'm writing for Thursday's paper about the patrol academy that trains residents and about how they work with authorities to make their neighborhoods safer.

Want to know if your block (or your buddy's) lies within the boundaries of the new Community Based Services area?

Click the map to find out.

Garet and Leyda Greenwood are heading on a family camping trip to southwestern Utah in a few weeks. That means plenty of walking and hiking lie ahead.

“We thought we should do something to get them used to walking around a lot,” Leyda said Saturday. “This is our team-building experience today,”

So the couple led their 13-year-old son, Zane Lindsay, and a family friend, 13-year-old Tucker Wilde, on a search for various checkpoints throughout Gig Harbor as part of the => Read more!

I'll be at the Gig Harbor Street Scramble this morning. Check back for some photos and the story.

I talked to a few neighbors about the Joseph Foundation properties. Here’s what they had to say:

“They’ve just been regular neighbors,” 28-year-old Nicole Bradbury said. “In fact, they’ve been great neighbors. No complaints.”

A few houses down the street, one resident said he doesn’t give much thought to the nature of the homes because the residents have never caused problems for his family.

“I’ve only been here a few months,” 38-year-old Jose Lopez said, “but I haven’t had or heard of any problems.”

The Joseph Foundation is about to open its third site for tranisitional homeless housing in Northeast Tacoma. Here's some brackground about the organization:

The Joseph Foundation – named after the foster father of Jesus – began in 1990 when five Federal Way churches combined their resources to help homeless families. The foundation received a donation of property in Northeast Tacoma. One house and plenty of untamed vegetation then sat upon the land; today it’s home to the charity’s first two houses (a single- and double-family home) and the foundation upon which the third house will sit.

The houses provide transitional housing for up to two years for single- and two-parent families with children. The foundation has teamed with two case-management agencies (Multi-Service Center in King County and Exodus Housing in Pierce County) that checks in with the families several times a month. A mentoring program, which pairs the families with others from one of the churches, began in 1999.

A house gives the family a place to live, and the foundation teams up with other charities to provide worker training, find jobs and create a savings program. If a family arrives without furniture, the churches ask for donations and furnish the houses. When they move out, the family takes the furniture with them.

The foundation has provided housing to 30 families (including 81 children) since the first house opened in 1996. The success rate, defined as the families exiting the program in better shape than they arrived, is about 60 percent.

I'm heading back to Northeast Tacoma today to talk to some folks about what they think of the third Joseph Foundation site.

Each stick carries a name. Each name has a story. And thousands of the short white stakes fill the front lawn of Clover Park High School.

“Every stick represents a fallen soldier,” Joshua Howard said, “so it’s not just a stick. It’s a person.”

A sophomore class at the Lakewood high school is honoring American service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan with a mock-up of Arlington National Cemetery. Row upon row – more than 5,000 sticks are included – carry the name of every service member killed in both wars.

A teacher collected and painted the paint sticks. The students wrote the rank and name of the fallen. And more than 30 people started driving the sticks into the ground at 7 a.m. Thursday. The layout is based on the Virginia cemetery, complete with walking paths between the memorials. Each stick is spaced 2½ feet apart – the exact distance of the honor guard’s stride at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

=> Read more!

Clipboard in hand, Jack Jensen stood atop the South 72nd Street overpass in Tacoma and grappled with a Sisyphean task: recording the number of drivers who were following too closely on Interstate 5.

Each time he witnessed a dangerous distance between two cars during the morning rush, he made a tally mark on the paper. Blue marks soon were scribbled all over the page. He ran out of room to make marks in the box for the 7-7:15 a.m. period, so he was marking down transgressors well into the left margin of the sheet.

“There are almost too many to write down,” the Bothell resident laughed. “There’s a real sense of community out there – everyone wants to be close to one another.”

Jensen and nine other judges in the Drive Nice Day City Challenge assessed driving habits at busy intersections in Tacoma and Seattle during the morning rush Thursday. They tagged drivers for several judgment errors that can lead to auto wrecks: talking on a cell phone, not using a turn signal, not stopping for yellow and red lights and not wearing a seatbelt.

And apparently Seattle residents drive nicer. Judges penalized 10 percent of motorists there for their behavior behind the wheel. Sixteen percent of Tacoma’s drivers received negative marks.

Teams in Tacoma set up at the overpass and a few blocks away at the intersection of South 72nd and South Hosmer streets. Seattle teams set up at the intersection of Boren Avenue and Pike Street and Boren Avenue and Interstate 5.

=> Read more!

If you need any more proof that readers love to read about scantily clad baristas, a letter to the editor from an employee of Hot Chick-a-Latte in Spanaway is No. 4 on our Web site right now.

The letter ran Oct. 11, 2007.

This morning I'll be in the South End talking to Drive Nice Day challenge judges.

After that, I'm going to head over to Clover Park High School to report on the Arlington Project, in which students and teachers are creating a mock-up of Arlington National Cemetery with markers for each American service member killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And tonight is a Safe Streets Patrol Academy "retreat." Graduates of the program will comparing what works and doesn't on neighborhood patrols.

Just in from the City of Tacoma:

The city has set up a relief fund at Columbia Bank for Tacoma’s “friendship city” of Mianyang. Donations can be made at any Columbia Bank branch under the account name “Sister Cities of Tacoma Pierce County – Mianyang, China Earthquake Fund Relief.”

When a nearby neighborhood became one of the pilot areas for Tacoma’s Community Based Services program in 2005, Pat McGregor had a simple question: Can we be next?

The Whitman area, McGregor’s South End neighborhood, was organized and battling crime, litter and blight. It had one of the highest calls-for-service levels in the city. Its residents were working with state officials to ban cheap, high-powered booze.

It seemed to be a perfect candidate for the program, which links residents with city and police services. He stayed on public officials to include his area in future expansions. He spoke at city council meetings when the program was on the agenda.

And three years later, the program is expanding into Whitman and three adjacent neighborhoods in the South End and East Side – Lincoln, Lincoln South and Dome Top.

“We’ve been asking and asking the city for the past few years to include us in the next round,” he said. “We’re one of the areas most in need.”

=> Read more!

Tom Shearer calls himself a “true blue T-Bird through and through.” It’s tough to argue. He graduated from Mount Tahoma High School in 1975. He spent six years at his alma mater as a teacher, two years as an assistant principal and seven years in the top job.

Now Shearer, 51, is the superintendent of the American International School of Lagos, Nigeria. AISL was established in 1964 in cooperation with the U.S. State Department and the Tacoma School District, and teachers from the South Sound have been working in the West African nation ever since.

We wanted to know about teaching in the oil-rich yet poverty- and corruption-plagued country. Shearer responded to several e-mailed questions while sitting in Murtala Muhammed International Airport and waiting to board a flight to Nairobi, Kenya.

Q: How did you land in Lagos?
A: Interesting enough, I served as the Superintendent of the American International School of Lagos, Nigeria (AISL) for three years from 1993-96. It was an honor and a privilege to do so then as it is now. Like many of the Administrators in Tacoma who have served in this capacity, I am proud to have carried on the tradition of Tacoma educators to have come to AISL, but one of the few who have had the fortune to return. We (my wife Lori) returned to AISL in July of 2006 to develop the current school and to engage in a project to develop a High School curriculum and build a second facility for high school. Currently AISL is located on eight acres of land and has about 700 students.

For many years, AISL had students only up to Grade 9 and then they went back to the Unitedd States or to boarding schools in Europe. Now we have added Grade 10 and will add Grade 11 in 2008-09. The school has purchased another piece of land to build a new High School and we are ready to break ground on May 14th, 2008 with a completion date targeted for August 2009. Lori and I love the school and appreciate what the school has done for our two sons (Matt and Brett) during their schooling here in the 1990s.

The school is much different than those in Tacoma in the sense that it is a private non-profit organization set up by the State Department in conjunction with the Tacoma School District in 1964. Some of the differences are entrance requirements, class size capacity, and most importantly an international population that represents over forty-five (45) different nationalities. I am on a three-year contract which will end in June 2009.

=> Read more!

I'm going to wrap up my reporting on the expansion of Community Based Services today and then shuttle over to Northeast Tacoma to check out the latest Joseph Foundation property.

Sure, it was just a peanut. But Babe Lehrer considers it a piece of history.

There’s a life-size bronze statue of Ben Cheney, the former lumber mogul, sitting behind home plate of the minor-league ballpark that bears his name. Cheney has a program in his hand and a bag of peanuts nearby.

A few of those bronze peanuts rest by his feet. A few years ago – no one’s exactly sure when – someone broke a peanut off the ground and stole it.

And one Tacoma woman paid $450 to help replace it.

=> Read more!

Stop for pedestrians. Turn off the cell phone if you’re behind the wheel. Allow other cars to merge. People will be watching and judging you Thursday.

You wouldn’t want Tacoma to lose out to Seattle, would you?

It’s all part of the Drive Nice Day City Challenge. Washington State Patrol officers, instructors and students from a driver-training school and volunteers from the community will be posted all over Tacoma and Seattle. They’ll record the nice and not-so-nice drivers on score sheets throughout the day.

It’s the second Drive Nice Day and the first time the competition has expanded outside King County. Up for grabs is $10,000 for the winning city.

So remember: Go the speed limit. Don’t zoom around school buses when they’re stopped. And Running a red light or yakking on your cell phone could mean Tacoma loses out on 10 large.

Photographer Peter Haley compiled an audio slideshow to go with Soren Anderson's piece about the 40-foot instrument Parkland's Paul Fritts is building.

If you haven't checked it out yet, it's definitely worth your time.

Today I'm gonna write about Community Based Services and an expensive peanut.

Lisa Lawrence, one of the people I wrote about in my Bike to Work Week story, compiled a video of her commute to Kent:

Check out this cool audio slideshow Russ Carmack and I compiled from today's Youth on Board sailing.

Eric Franklin had never been aboard a sailboat when he signed up for the Youth on Board program. He’ll spend four days as a crew member on a Tall Ship sailing from Victoria, B.C., to Tacoma.

“To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what to expect,” the Mount Tahoma High School freshman said. “It looks like a lot of hard work. But I think it’ll be exciting.”

He experienced a little taste of what lies ahead Saturday morning.

Franklin and the 47 other participants in the program sailed around Puget Sound aboard the Odyssey, an 88½-foot yawl. The crew, most of whom are members of the Sea Scouts, led the Youth on Board participants in the tasks required to raise the sails and late gave tours of what lay below deck.

=> Read more!

I'll be aboard a Tall Ship today and write up about the Youth on Board program. I'll post something here in the early afternoon.

OK, this man is clearly in much better shape than an average American.

Flip Herndon, the Tacoma School District's assistant superintendent for K-12 support, commuted on bike from his Shoreline home today.

For those keeping score at home, that's 45 miles. It was a three-hour trip; he left at 4:30 a.m.

And the guy has to ride back tonight.

Cardie Yarbor wasn’t sure if the spraygrounds at Wapato Hills Park in Tacoma were operating or not, so she brought extra clothes for her daughter and niece.

Good planning.

Her niece, Sierra Dorman, and her daughter, Destenesia Yarbor, were dripping from head to toe as they played with about 10 other children amid the water shot from spouts on the concrete ground.

“We just came here to kill time,” Cardie Yarbor said. “They’re having a great time. Just having some fun in the sun.”

About 50 others were enjoying the 14-acre park in South Tacoma in the early afternoon. Twentysomethings lay on towels on the grass to sunbathe, and teenagers shot hoops on the basketball courts.

Moira Caswell’s three kids played on the sprayground and on the playground equipment. She drove from Kent and wasn’t sure if the water was going to be turned on. Her children – 1½-year-old Taryn, 3-year-old Erika and 6-year-old Collin – were soaked from the water.

“They like it here,” Caswell said, motioning to the sprayground. “It’s the main reason to come here – for the water.”

Browns Point Lighthouse Park boasts impressive views of Puget Sound, the North End of Tacoma, Maury Island and Vashon Island.

And on this afternoon, plenty of homemade kites.

The fourth-grade class at Annie Wright School took advantage of the warm weather and brisk winds that sent the dozens of white Mylar kites skyward.

"This is great wind," teacher Julia Carnell said. "It's really ideal for kite-flying."

The class ventures out to the park once a year, 10-year-old Colby Enebrad said. It's become a tradition that was started in part by one of their classmates, an avid kite-flyer named Adam Len.

Adam and his dad, Rick Len, venture to the park often to fly kites. They've been helping arrange field trips for Adam's classmates for about six years.

Friday seemed like a perfect day for it.

"It's a big jump from really bad weather to really good weather," said 10-year-old Adam.

Each student could design his or her Mylar kite. Some boasted colorful designs. Others paid homage to favorite sports teams or players.

A drawing of a dog was the centerpiece of Kaylee Kim's kite. She said she's wanted one "since I knew what a dog was." Rainbows, a yin-yang, candy and stars also adorned her kite.

The class was at the park about two hours. Many students probably could have stayed all day.

"The weather is perfect," she said. "It's not too hot or too cold."

They had time, open space, plenty of sunshine and a Frisbee.

That’s all eight teenagers needed for a good time at Puyallup’s Pioneer Park late Friday morning.

“I’m going to stay as long as I can,” said 17-year-old Ryan Baxter between games of ultimate Frisbee. “I’ll stay outside until the sun goes down. It’s just too nice.”

About 50 people – mostly small children and their mothers – soaked up some rays at the downtown park shortly before noon. Small children climbed on playground equipment while their mothers kept a watchful eye from the benches. Kids giggled as they rocked back and forth on swingsets. The Frisbee-tossing teens killed time between classes at Puyallup High School and Pierce College.

“I’m going to take a sun day,” 17-year-old SeaJayy Palmer said. “This isn’t a day to be stuck inside.”

Terrence Kang was all smiles as he walked atop a brick planter from which yellow marigolds sprouted. And he was dressed for the sunshine: The 3-year-old sported a blue bucket hat with surfboards printed on it and a pair of wraparound sunglasses that were just a little too big.

“We come to the library (bordering Pioneer Park) every Friday,” said his mother, 31-year-old Emily Kang. “But he really, really seems to be enjoying himself today.”

Liz Claridge of Lakewood held her 1-year-old daughter, Danica, in her right arm while pushing her 3-year-old son, Connor, on a swing.

Connor laughed every time it reached its highest point on the backswing and started to zoom forward again. He asked his mom to push him higher and tried to make friends with kids that passed by his swing.

“We love it today,” Liz said. “This is just great.”

Thousands gasping for air. Sweat dripping down their faces. Inevitable comparisons to the Sahara Desert.

Yep, low-heat-tolerance readers, the thermometer inched above that (gasp!) big 80.

OK, here’s the deal: Transplants to the Northwest like myself think today’s weather is just about what you expect would accompany the white sandy beaches and aqua-blue water on postcards. Natives are ready to melt and install air conditioners.

For you folks who think today’s weather is akin to a solar flare scorching the Puget Sound region, this blog’s for you. I plan see how y’all are holding up under these unbearable, inhumane conditions. Check back today to see how your peers in heat-related pain are doing.

Dana Resop cried after her Air Force JROTC team completed its exhibition drill performance at the national competition.

They weren’t tears of joy.

“I thought we did so bad,” said Resop, the squadron commander at Washington High School in Parkland. “I walked off the floor and started crying. I tried not to cry on the floor.”

The judges apparently disagreed. Washington finished first in the exhibition drill category at the Daytona Beach, Fla., competition on May 2. It was the school’s first top placement since it started its JROTC program in 1978. The school’s reward: a 4-foot-tall trophy adorned with eagles and plenty of pride for program’s cadets, most of whom have been in the program since their freshman year.

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Is it sad that the reason I'm really happy to see the return of the downtown Tacoma Farmers Market is because the best taco truck in the area is usually there?

I'm going to be at Washington High School in Parkland today. The school's JROTC team finished first in the country, so I'm gonna talk to some of the kids and write something up.

I'm also tracking down a story about a guy who, well, isn't exactly treating his dog in the kindest way. And Animal Control apparently can't do anything about it.

Carol Davis, the president of the Tacoma Wheelmen's Bicycle Club, has noticed an increased interest in commuting on bike.

“Just from what I observe, there are so many more people out there commuting. I used to commute from Purdy to Bremerton on Highway 16. My husband would go the opposite direction and go to Tacoma. And we were the only ones on the road.

“Now, there are lots and lots of people commuting.”

Sharing the road with cars can be daunting for some who want to begin bike commuting.

“We all have the right to be on the road, and we need to respect each other’s rights,” she said. “The safety factor is probably the biggest drawback to commuting for many.”

Bike to Work Week is encouraging some who usually don’t commute by bicycle to give it a try.

Lisa Lawrence usually takes the Sounder from Tacoma to Kent, where she catches a shuttle or vanshare to her office at REI corporate headquarters.

On Friday, she plans to bring her bike on the train and ride to the office.

Work makes it easy for her to try bicycle commuting. REI offers storage and locker rooms with showers. It will offer free breakfast and a chance to win prizes for anyone who bicycles to work Friday.

“My employer encourages cycling among other environmentally friendly methods of commuting,” she said. “It's part of our culture, so this event is a big deal.”

Statistics show that less than 1 percent of Tacoma and Pierce County employees working at sites monitored by the state’s Commute Trip Reduction program use a bicycle to get to work.

The Washington State Department of Transportation monitors 1,110 work sites that account for about 20 percent of the state's employees as part of the CTR survey.

In 2007, 313 of 40,012 people in Pierce County – about 0.8 percent – surveyed reported cycling to work at least once a week.

At Tacoma businesses, the rate is lower: 152 of 20,902 people, or 0.7 percent.

Statewide, 2.1 percent of people reported commuting to work by bicycle at least once a week. That rate is one percent higher than a survey in 1993 showed.

Tacoma and Pierce County’s growth has been paltry: The rate of bicycle commuters rose 0.1 percent in the county and 0.2 percent in the city.

For some, commuting on bicycle is nothing new. Carla Gramlich began riding to her job when she moved to Tacoma in 1992.

She bikes the 1½-mile trip to her office at AT&T almost every day, regardless of weather – even if that means occasionally navigating ice and snow.

It’s become a crucial part of her routine.

“If I have to use my car, I have to start taking things off the bike and put it in the car,” she said. “It’s become more of a hassle to drive.”

Exercise is nice, but that’s not why Kurt Fritts rides his bike to work. The 37-year-old Tacoma man rides to downtown Tacoma every morning, loads his bike onto a bus and then pedals to his office at Washington Conservation Voters in Seattle. Environmental, financial and mental-health concerns encouraged him to ditch his car on the commute.

“Doing the Seattle-Tacoma drive by myself every day would drive me insane,” he said.

“I much prefer to work/read/sleep on the bus than to drive by myself with nothing to do but stare at the car in front of me, even if it takes me an additional 20 minutes,” adding that the bus is often faster during rush-hour commutes.

Fritts also calls driving to and from Seattle every day a non-starter, citing global-warming concerns. And using a bicycle saves gas money, parking money in Seattle and has allowed his family to get by with one car – which means they pay less on insurance and maintenance costs.

It began with a two-mile ride at lunch. Scott McElhiney then worked up to bicycling seven miles when he could steal a few minutes. Soon he was up to a 20-mile round-trip commute to work almost every day.

And cycling became a new lifestyle for the 44-year-old Midland mechanic.

McElhiney hadn’t ridden a bicycle in about 10 years when inspiration hit. He spent much of his day after returning from work in front of his computer or staring at the television.

“I felt like I might be dead in a few years if I kept at it,” he said.

He later joined the Tacoma Wheelmen's Bicycle Club on longer trips and began cycling to work in University Place, 10 miles from his home.

“It was a good workout that left me energized at the start of work,” he said. “And it turned out that my commute time by bike was within about 10 minutes of my car time.”

His waistline began shrinking shortly after he began biking. His blood pressure and pulse rate are down. His endurance is up. He’s 50 pounds lighter than when he started; last summer, he was dropping about five points a week.

He goes on longer rides on the weekends. Destinations include Olympia, Belfair, Renton and South Prairie. He’s logged all his trips and has ridden more than 3,800 miles since last summer. He passed the 1,600-mile mark for this year earlier this week.

“I’ve gotten to see more of the region since last July than I've seen since moving here around 1990,” he said.

I swung by two Tacoma bicycle shops to see if there has been a spike in sales from people deciding to commute to work on bike.

Here’s an early verdict: It hasn’t been a boom, but it’s a noticeable increase.

“People come in and tell us, ‘I am selling my car and going to just a bike,’ ” said Alex Warren, the service department manager at Rainier Cycle Sports. “It happens probably once a week. It’s happening. It’s not huge, but it’s definitely happening.”

Most of the customers who purchase bikes for commuting are in the early- to mid-20s, he said.

Business is also up at Old Town Bicycle, assistant manager Ryan Harris said. Part can be attributed to the end of the rainy season – a natural time for many to purchase or upgrade bikes – but a significant number want to ride to work.

“I’ve heard lots of people throw around the word "commuter,'" he said.

Anyone interested can join a group of cyclists who will take a leisurely ride from Tollefson Plaza in downtown to The Hub at 213 Tacoma Ave. The peleton (yes, I was looking for a reason to use that word in a blog post) leaves at 5 p.m.

It’s part of National Bike to Work Week.

“The weather is supposed to be nice, so hopefully we’ll get a lot of people showing up,” said Carla Gramlich, one of the organizers.

And you can replace all those calories you burned by commuting to work when you eat some of The Hub’s pizza. But it’s worth it.

I'm chatting with more people who commute to work on a bicycle today and posting my interviews with them. Stay tuned.

I talked to a spokeswoman at Immigration and Customs Enforcement about the Washington Post series on health care in detention centers. The only death at the 1,000-bed Northwest Detention Center on the Tideflats was listed as "questionable" by the Post.

My story (possibly for tomorrow’s paper) is below:

=> Read more!

My RSS feeder kicked this up over the weekend. I just gotta say: This guy has a fantastic name.

Tacoma is honoring volunteers tonight at the City of Destiny Awards. (But not me. Maybe they lost my nomination form or something…)

The ceremony begins at 7 p.m. at Jason Lee Middle School at 602 N. Sprague Ave. if you’re interested.

Click below to read about the winners. Good stories all around.

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Downtown resident Laura Hanan has sent out another video of what appears to be crime. Hanan has expressed her displeasure with the location of Brick City in the past. But her recent video e-mailings got me thinking: What do y'all think about a resident filming apparent illegal activity and posting it online? I've heard folks express their views to me over e-mail or in person, but I'd like to get a conversation started.

Here's the latest video:

It's national Bike to Work Week, and I'm putting together a piece about how South Sounders are using their bicycles to get to the office.

Interested in sharing your story? E-mail or call me.

The Washington Post is in the midst of publishing a four-part series about medical care in immigrant detention centers. (It was also the subject of a "60 Minutes" piece last night.)

The Post's research shows 83 deaths since the formation of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in March 2003. Thirty deaths the newspaper called questionable.

One of those questionable deaths occured at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

The man was Jesus Cervantes-Corona, a 42-year-old man from Mexico. He died on Nov. 18, 2006. The New York Times reported he died of coronary artery disease. According to ICE documents obtained by the Post, the agency saved more than $105,000 by not treating 31 cases of chest pain.

Dan Burden, which the City of Tacoma calls a "nationally recognized walking advocate" (and I have no reason to doubt that, will be scoping out Tacoma today and delivering a lecture tonight about making the city "more livable."

The lecture is at 7 p.m. at Carwein Auditorium on the campus of the University of Washington Tacoma.

Click below to read the city's press release:

=> Read more!

Sixty-five businesses are licenses to sell beer and wine inside the boundaries of the proposed Alcohol Impact Area, according to the State Liquor Control Board's Web site.

I've compiled a map showing each licensee. (Note: Not every one of these businesses sells the products the city hopes to ban.)

Random question: Why is there a Canadian flag in the Tacoma city council chambers?

Seriously, I love Canada. Clean streets, nice people, Tim Hortons. But why is its flag displayed (and on the same level) as the American flag in the chambers?

I’ll be blogging on a limited basis the next few days, but I’ll post random stuff when it pops into my head.

The days of selling cheap, high-powered booze in Tacoma’s South End and Eastside appear to be numbered.

More than 100 people attended a hearing in front of the State Liquor Control Board on Wednesday to urge the agency to adopt an Alcohol Impact Area. A vote by the three-member board is expected in early June, but the public comments were unanimous: The residents and business owners want sales of the cheap drinks to end.

In front of the three-person panel inside Tacoma’s city council chambers sat a table displaying empty 24-ounce cans and 40-ounce bottles. Beside the table were poster boards showing photos of passed-out drunks and piles of littered cans and bottles.

Lt. Kathy McAlpine, a police sector commander whose area includes the Eastside and South End, described the lengthy process that led to Wednesday’s hearing. Pat McGregor and Bob McCutchan, the co-chairs of the AIA task force, explained the factors that led to the drive for the area. Bert Hayes, a community liaison officer, displayed density maps that showed the spike in alcohol-related calls for service for the proposed area since 2001, when the first AIA was established on the Hilltop and downtown.

Residents shared stories about dealing with chronic public inebriants. Some stressed the strain the drunks put on public services. Others expressed their hope that an AIA will make parks and neighborhoods more family-friendly. One man dropped off two trash bags full of cans from a recent cleanup.

“(These drinks) have no value,” said Mary DeGruy, a sobering program director with the Metropolitan Development Council. “It serves no purpose for the community. If it were up to me, the whole city would be an AIA.”

=> Read more!

Tonight the State Liquor Control Board will hold its final hearing on enacting a new Alcohol Impact Area in Tacoma's Eastside and South End. The agency's Web site has some really good info on the proposal.

Among the info they provide is a list of beverages that will soon be banned if the proposal passes. It's interesting reading -- especially to anyone who has been near a college campus lately.

• Boone’s
• Boone’s Farm (American Original)
• Cisco
• Gino’s Premium Blend
• Johny Bootlegger
• MD 20/20
• Night Train
• Night Train Express
• Richard’s Wild Irish Rose
• Thunderbird
• Big Bear
• Bud Ice
• Bull Ice
• Busch Ice
• Camo
• Charge
• Colt 45 Ice
• Colt 45 Malt Liquor
• Core 24
• Genuine Ale
• Hamm’s Ice Brewed Ale
• Hamm’s Ice Brewed Beer
• HG 800
• Hurricane Ice Malt Liquor
• High Gravity Hurricane
• Ice HouseJoose
• Keystone Ice
• King Cobra Malt Liquor
• Liquid Core
• Liquid Charge
• Lucky Ice Ale Premium
• Lucky Ice Beer
• Magnum Malt Liquor
• Mickey’s Iced Brewed Ale
• Mickey’s Malt Liquor
• Miller High Life Ice
• Milwaukee Best Ice
• Milwaukee Best Premium Ice Beer
• Natural Ice

=> Read more!

If you haven't heard, Alan Ingram, the runner-up for the Tacoma School District superintendent job, was hired for the top post in Springfield, Mass.

Good for some laughs if you've got seven minutes handy:

(Artfully poached from the Tacoma Gnome blog.)

Tonight I'll be at the Tacoma council chambers for the final Alcohol Impact Area hearing.

For a bit of backstory, here's my original reporting on it.

The largest gift in the history of Tacoma’s Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium will help highlight what the executive director of the zoo’s fundraising organization calls “a tremendous conservation story.”

The Puyallup Tribe of Indians is donating $685,000 over the next five years to be the sponsor of a new red wolf exhibit and Zoobilee, the Point Defiance Zoological Society’s annual fundraising event, the organization announced this week.

The red-wolf exhibit “was built in the early 70s, and it looks like it was,” said Caryl Zenker, executive director of the non-profit zoo society. “What this gift will do is allow us to build an exhibit that’s on par with the other attractions here.”

Only 14 known red wolves lived in the wild in the early 1970s, Zenker said, and Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium helped take the lead of a federal recovery program that has since helped the species’ number grow to 275.

In part because of the zoo’s off-site breeding program, a wild population of red wolves now lives in North Carolina.

“It’s a little-known accomplishment here locally,” Zenker said. “But nationally, we’re recognized for it.”

The Point Defiance Zoological Society is in midst of $7.15 million capital campaign; the red wolf exhibit, which will cost about $1 million, is one of the campaign’s four components.

The gift from the Puyallups will allow the zoo to hire an architect to design the red-wolf exhibit. Zenker said construction should begin some time next year.

Dean Webber, the president of Country Aire Manor manufactured-home park in South Hill, sent along some photos from the residents’ rally this weekend.

The residents are still fighting to keep their park from closing. (They’re being evicted and the land is being sold to developers.)

Click below to read a see a few more photos.

=> Read more!

Got an e-mail about a scam in the Midland area. Read about it below:

My husband was out working in the yard yesterday, when a nice looking, nicely dressed man stopped and said that he noticed our car had some minor bumper damage. So my husband, knowing that I really wanted to get it fixed someday, but just couldn’t afford it, came into the house and asked me to come out and talk to the man.

Well, he said that he worked for Lakes Auto Body and moonlighted on his time off and just drives around looking for dented cars. He said that our car would probably cost $1,500 to get it fixed, but that he would fix it for $500. He said that we would not have to pay him until he was finished and that he would fix it right now and right where the car was sitting. Well, I thought I was getting a deal when I talked him down to $450. He accepted this if I would pay him cash. So my husband went to the bank and got the money.

=> Read more!

I’ve received several e-mails and calls about ramps and sidewalks in the area. I just printed out Tacoma’s beefy Americans with Disabilities Act draft transition plan.

I’ll hopefully have more on that in the next few weeks, as the plan nears finalization.

In the meantime, if you’re wondering what some other problems are, click below:

=> Read more!

Ten thousand visits a month? Does Tacoma Goodwill, some wondered, really receive 10,000 visits per month? (I cited that figure in a previous post.)

It actually seems like they receive more than 10,000. To quote Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal (love that name), let’s do the numbers.

Or rather, let’s just read the e-mail that Goodwill spokesman Matthew Erlich sent:

After some level of research, here’s what I know:

More than 5,000 people a month visit our Outlet Store (the number increases as we get into warmer weather).

There are more than 150 employees who use the building daily – but many of them drive (although some take the bus or even ride a bike)

As an initial estimate, about 500 people a week come to our building to access our public Job Resources room or participate in job-training programs such as Office Essentials or Custodial Training. We also have a variety of youth programs that take place in the building, including for YouthBuild and STEPS. This number fluctuates so I do not have an exact figure. Also, some people who are in regular programs like those listed above get issued their own badges so they don’t need to sign in regularly.

So, on a per-month visiting basis, let’s check the math:

5,000 (visits to the outlet store per month) + (150xappox. 20 work days in a month) + (500x4 weeks in a month) = Appox. 10,000 visits a month to the building. This number does not include the visits to our Attended Donation Station (about 200 per month), or the number of employees who work in our packaging & assembly area – which varies but could add as many as 1,200 visits per month based on the number of employees (say 60) and work days.

Tonight I'm going to be at the final session of the Safe Streets Neighborhood Patrol Academy. The hope is to observe what's going on there and then follow a neighborhood group once it's on the streets.

I'm also receiving lots of feedback about my ramp story that ran Saturday (it's basically a reverse posting of this, this and this). I'll post more on that today.

It’s been almost 13 months since Shawnie Salgado’s husband deployed to Iraq. That’s 13 of loneliness. Thirteen months of juggling work and motherhood. Thirteen months of apprehension every time someone knocked on the door or called in the middle of the night.

Those 13 months ended Saturday.

Her husband, Capt. Joseph Salgado, and 110 other members of an advance party of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division returned to Fort Lewis, and enthusiastic friends and family members greeted the returning warriors.

The advance party consists of soldiers from each of the brigade’s battalions and companies. They returned early to help prepare the redeployment of the brigade’s remaining 3,500-4,000 soldiers, who will be coming home in the upcoming months.

Hundreds filled bleachers at Sheridan Gym for the ceremony. A live video feed projected onto a large screen on one of the gymnasium’s walls followed the return of the troops, beginning with footage of their commercial charter jet landing at McChord Air Force Base.

=> Read more!

An advance party of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division is returning to Fort Lewis this morning. Photographer Peter Haley and I are already at the front gate at the post today, and we'll bring you the story as soon as we get it.

Education reporter Debby Abe had a fine story published earlier this week about Andy Michael, a Rogers High alumnus who is raising money to help build an orphanage in Kibera, a slum on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya.

Debby just told me Andy put together a video. Spare 10 minutes of your time and check it out:

Think the meth problem is getting better in Pierce County? It is. And you're not the only one who noticed: The Economist magazine has a story with a Tacoma dateline about it.

Paychecks needed signing. Bills required paying. Someone from the local utility wanted to ensure his conserved water. And Afa Uzon still made sure his company broadcast a quality product for its customers.

Welcome to the world of Junior Achievement BizTown, where a 15-year-old student like Uzon can become CEO of a company like Seattle’s local Fox affiliate, Q13.

“That has really been fun,” 15-year-old Uzon, an eighth-grader at Tacoma’s Baker Middle School, said through an interpreter. “I’m seeing some friends I haven’t talked to in years, and I’m learning how to do a lot.”

The hall inside Junior Achievement’s Auburn building was filled Friday with miniature storefronts mimicking shops around the Puget Sound region. A Mariners Team Store displayed authentic jerseys and hats. A Washington Mutual branch had working computers to allow the kids to track deposits and withdrawals. Students weighed themselves on working scales at a University of Washington Medicine clinic. And each store had a closed-circuit TV that displayed live news updates and advertising from the Q13 studio.

More than 140 deaf and hearing-impaired students from 11 schools – including some as far away as Vancouver, Wash., and Sunnyside – and 42 volunteers participated in BizTown. This is the first such event for deaf and hear-impaired students.

=> Read more!

For those history buffs out there, click below to read my story about Benjamin Harrison's 1891 visit to Tacoma. (It's part of our 125th anniversary series.)

A bit of warning: It contains some, umm, racial phrasing that was OK back then but not exactly PC these days.

=> Read more!

I'm off to Auburn today to report on Junior Achievement's BizTown, where deaf students from across the area will be participating.

Once again, Tacoma makes the (inter)national news. And once again, it's because of the Craigslist thefts.

This time, it's an article in Canada's Globe and Mail.

Call it a victory for the people – especially anyone who uses a wheelchair to cross the Yakima Avenue overpass.

Dan Handa of the Tacoma public works department said now plans to have ramps installed at the corner of South 28th Street and Yakima Avenue later this month.

City staff is still discussing how to increase ramp construction within the guidelines of the city transition plan, he said, and the department believes the intersection’s proximity to Tacoma Goodwill Industries justifies the fast track.

(City officials first learned it was a problem when reading about it here.)

Handa contacted Donna Siler, the woman who called the city with her concern about the intersection, on Thursday afternoon with the good news.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to pull something like this off,” she said, “but once you get mad enough about something, you can talk to enough people and get something done.”

It’s also a popular decision at Goodwill, which sees more than 10,000 visits per month to visit its outlet store and utilize its job-training programs.

“We recognize that the intersection is a major transit point for many who come to our outlet store and receive job training at our offices,” spokesman Matthew Erlich said. “We encourage the city to make the area accessible to all, and we support this move.”

It's hard to argue with results.

I just talked to Sandra Guffey, a sidewalk program coordinator with the City of Tacoma, about the lack of ramps at the intersection of South 28th Street and Yakima Avenue.

She said the city is “going through a process of establishing a transition plan that will prioritize where the city expends its funds in installation of curb ramps.”

They made a presentation to the city council on Tuesday, she said.

“When that gets passed, that will give us direction on where we’ll be expending funds in the future,” Guffey said.

The city contracts out the ramp-installation work when it there’s money budgeted, and it costs about $5,000 per ramp.

I also asked about compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but she declined to comment whether the lack of adequate ramping at this intersection would run afoul of the federal law.

Here's an e-mail I received about how one reader plans to spend her economic-stimulus check. Perhaps our friends at the Global Neighbors Project could stand to benefit:

The stimulus refund is as nonsensical as raising your children's allowance when you can't pay the mortgage. I plan to use my "refund" to support groups that will removed our country's current "leadership," oppose nuclear weapons, and promote peace and social justice. Some of the money will also go toward support of an HIV/AIDS Center in Lesotho, Africa.

It's my turn to write another 125th anniversary story for this weekend's paper. Last time I wrote about how Tacoma almost became the state capital. This weekend I'll be recalling President Benjamin Harrison's visit to our city -- the first, many believe, by a sitting U.S. president.

I'm also going to call some folks at the city about the curbs near South 28th Street and Yakima Avenue, and I'll let you know what they say.