Saturday Catch-Up With Caffeine

It's Saturday. Yes, I realize you probably already know it (and if you don't, you may want to spend more time with your calendar), but it's a narrative device to start the blog post. Anyhow...I got stuck finishing grant reports last night and didn't have time to post so here is a quick posting while I attempt to wake myself with a cup (or 4) of coffee.

The Mirror, which has a spanky new website design, has published yet another wild screed from yours truly. This one talks about how the F-Dub's image is improving (Eye of the Tiger, indeed! If you can't tell, Andy and I have a contest going to work song titles and lyrics into the paper). Then, The Seattle Times publishes a really just kind of neato article about how FW staffers are learning Spanish in attempts to improve outreach to our growing Spanish-speaking population. Of course, Cara Solomon is the writer. She does excellent work and can write from the perspective of the communities she covers, not just the 98103 zip code.

Hey, while I'm talking about cool people I deem HyleBlogworthy, I should mention my board member Margery Godfrey. She is just an incredible fundraiser with seemingly endless enthusiasm for the Friends. She came into the office on Wednesday with a great story of how she got a donation of a luxury hotel stay for our Ruby Dance. If I had cloning powers, I'd clone her once for her mad fundraising skills and clone her again for her bubbly personality. (don't worry, I'd only use my cloning powers for good. You wouldn't see me like, threatening to clone an army of K-Feds unless I get $1 billion, or something crazy like that. I'd be an ethical cloner, fer sure.)

And Just because, I'm on the topic (and the caffeine hasn't totally kicked in), here's my list of top 10 superpowers I'd really like to have:

1. The ability to jam all electronic transmissions featuring Miley Cyrus
2. The vocal powers of Chris Cornell (without all the post-Soundgarden suckiness)
3. Bend it like Beckham (and cash checks like Beckham, too!)
4. The power to make teenage boys disappear (I actually have this power, but need the ability to do it without my shotgun)
5. Super speed (like the Flash), especially when it comes to filing grant reports
6. Heat vision to incinerate Himalayan blackberry and other invasive plants instantly
7. The ability to silence neighbor's dogs with a sonic blast (Kind of like the Banshee from X-Men, but a lot less flamboyant)
8. Imperviousness to the 2008 Presidential Election, all speeches, news coverage and attack ads.
9. The ability to turn sea lettuce into gold
10. The ability to instantly transport myself to the front row and either the White River Ampitheater or the Gorge, and avoid any traffic altogether.

Wild Sky Becomes Official
President Bush signed the Wild Sky Wilderness bill into law yesterday, making Washington's latest Wilderness Area a reality.

King County Cautious On BioFuels
Demonstrating once again, the power of the HyleBlog, King County is pausing its biofuels program to study the impacts of the Lindsey Lohan fuel.

I don't usually pay much attention to stories about shopping malls, but Southcenter (Sorry, I'm too old to call it Westfield) caught my eye. particularly, this information:

Still, the area has yet to reach its full retail potential, said Susie Detmer, a Seattle real-estate broker who specializes in retail properties for Cushman & Wakefield.

"We only have 10 square feet of retail for every man, woman and child in the Puget Sound area," she said. "Other parts of the country, on a conservative basis, are closer to 12, and some are as high as 20. We can support a lot more retail."

Why do I have the feeling that future archeologists will be a little sickened by this discovery? The big problem with Southcenter, which I experience every time my daughters talk me into taking them there, is that while the retail square footage has increased exponentially, they've still got essentially the same cruddy transportation infrastructure they've had since the 1980s. It's almost pedestrian friendly...if you were to allow people to walk across the roofs of stopped cars on Strander and Tukwila Blvds. to get around