Patricia Rovzar Gallery's featured artist for July is New York native cum Vermonter Bill Brauer. Although born in the Empire State, for the past 30 years the artist has lived and painted a few hundred miles north in the Green Mountain state.Brauer is a graduate of New York's School of Visual Arts and a protégé of the renowned Federico Castellon. His first exhibition was in 1974 as a print maker, but since that time he is most known for his figurative works in oil.
Tucked into a quiet little corner of a stately Rose Hill neighborhood is Kirkland's best kept secret. You turn at a white fence and drive very slowly (thank you) on a gravel driveway, past a languishing green house. Suddenly, an enormous lawn - mowed to pristine perfection every two or three days - rolls out like a verdant welcome mat. You've arrived. The Puget Sound Croquet Club, more than a half-century old but fueled by 32 enthusiastic members, awaits
Tuesdays 7-8:30 p.m.Wednesdays 10-11 a.m.Thursdays 7-8:30 p.m.From Blues to jazz to the Buckaroosters-it's all here!
It's a Monday morning and the Downtown Dog Lounge on Elliott Avenue is bustling with activity. For some, the beginning of the workweek signifies not only a return to backed-up roadways, unopened e-mails and new voice messages but also another painful prospect: parting with one's pet.Elise Vincentini, the owner of the dog lounge, aims to make the separation as stress free as possible. Cheerfully she greets a steady stream of dog owners dropping off their pets for daycare, seemingly knowing the name of each customer, and dog, by heart.
Planning has started for what could arguably be the most innovative park on the Eastside and perhaps in the state. McAuliffe Park at 10824 N.E. 116th Street was the former home of JoAnn and Jerry McAuliffe, who ran a nursery and landscaping business on the site until Kirkland spent close to $6 million to buy the 12-acre property in 2001.
Washington State Department of Transportation's Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement Project, partnering with the city of Seattle's Central Waterfront Plan, organized three public meetings last week (see story on front page).At their presentation in the Interbay National Guard Armory Drill Room, the space was filled with posterboards on easels and a bevy of eager men from the government agencies and engineering businesses representing their involvement in these projects. With graphs, charts and glossy handouts the agencies were hard at work performing the legal requirements to have public meetings, and ready to answer all questions.However, scratching the surface one found that there did not seem to be an overall and cohesive vision. A bit of a focus here, an attractive rendering of a revitalized waterfront scheme there; a truly inaccurate map showing SR99 going up the west side of Queen Anne Hill; an interesting new project, to my eyes, called AWW that would connect the South Lake Union development (Vulcanville) to Queen Anne by lowering Aurora Avenue outside the Battery Street tunnel. This project would require two or three new on and off ramps. I have forgotten the stated cost.
An Eastside preacher's anti-gay-rights stance has sparked a backlash in Kirkland and at the Lake Washington High School that plays host to his 3,500-member congregation every Sunday. It's a dispute that pits Antioch Bible Church's First Amendment rights against a school-district Human Dignity policy. The policy prohibits discrimination based on race, creed, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation.
Ah, the monorail. Talk about a great idea that turned out to be anything but. At first it seemed like a visionary, populist plan that had the advantage of bucking bored-sounding official objections. Plus, we already had a moneymaking monorail, so why not expand on the concept? If you remember, cabby Dick Falkenbury's idea was to build a gigantic, X-shaped system that pretty much hit all four corners of the city, and Seattle voters approved the idea in the late-1990s. The Seattle City Council responded with yawns, and nothing happened - until another vote at the turn of the century approved spending $6 million to really study the plan.Sure, the study came up with a more realistic concept of building a 14-mile "starter" line that could be expanded in the future. But hey, the scaled-back version was something a narrow majority of us could still live with, and voters gave the project another thumbs-up in 2002. Magnolia and Queen Anne residents living near the 15th- and Elliott-avenue corridor of the line were especially enthusiastic, according to voting records.Unfortunately, it was before the 2002 vote that the monorailists started to turn flaky.
hat could be a more American taste treat than that great ground-beef sandwich named after a German city? (We're purposely ignoring frankfurters, of course.)And who, among our more mature readers, could forget that lovable character Wimpy, from the "Popeye" comics? Or his ever-present tag line, "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."Around hamburgers, empires were built. The lowly hamburger is almost responsible for the existence of the franchise-restaurant industry. One of the first was the famous Big Boy double-decker.Big Boy restaurants were started in California (where else?) as Bob's Big Boy, named after a drive-in on Colorado Boulevard in Glendale.Then, as the restaurants were franchised in other states to the east, they became Friches' Big Boy and Elias' Big Boy and probably a few other names, too.Then came the phenomenon we all know as McDonald's. From a little, self-serve drive-in that served cheap hamburgers (does anybody else remember 15-cent hamburgers?) to a worldwide operation that serves billions. There are probably kids today whose first solid food came from the Golden Arches.All this from a simple hamburger.
My heart aches for the family members and friends of all the young people involved in fatal car crashes the past few years since the law regarding newly licensed drivers came into effect.I am not placing blame on anyone; after all, these were tragic accidents. But please, parents and friends of new drivers, adhere to the law that was made for the safety of newly licensed drivers.This law states that newly licensed drivers cannot carry passengers under the age of 20 until they have been licensed six months (for more information, visit the DOL Web site at (http://www.dol.wa.gov/ds/intermed.htm). The only exception to the law is if the passenger is an immediate family member.
Basil Ulich, a third-grade student at John Hay Elementary School who lives in Magnolia, won first place in the Seattle Aquarium "Your Ocean - Our Home" art contest. This earned him a $2,500 college savings account from T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan and a Seattle Aquarium Family membership.
A series of three workshops last week on replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel were supposed to give state and Seattle transportation officials a feel for whether the public prefers a short or a long project timeline.It's a significant question for the future of a vital, north-south transportation link. Although the shorter approach would be cheaper, it would also see the viaduct completely closed to traffic for more time than the longer approach, officials said.
Some things in life are inevitable. Death, taxes, getting a thermo-nuclear wedgie at least once during junior high and, last but surely not least, having your daughter total your car. We have just experienced that last one. It's akin to the thrill of a thermo-nuclear wedgie, but with more drama and less underwear involvement.
Pacific Publishing Company, parent company of the Kirkland Courier, has changed ownership. The change took effect on June 24. Tom Haley, Pacific Publishing president, informed employees of the change in a series of staff meetings on June 20. PPC's new owner is Peter Bernhard, a career newspaper-person who owns community newspapers in Nevada
What famous cartoon character lives in Seward Park? Well, not literally "lives" there, but the character Woody Woodpecker was "modeled" after one of our resident birds, the pileated woodpecker. The popular cartoon woodpecker, created in 1940, closely resembles the pileated variety with its brilliant red crest. But it's not only the red crest that makes the pileated woodpecker so easily recognizable. This is the largest woodpecker in North America (with the exception of the recently "rediscovered" Ivory-billed Woodpecker). The pileated measures nearly 1 foot long with a wingspan of nearly 2 feet. Its striking black and white feathers and its long neck seem almost prehistoric. The visual presence of this bird fits perfectly with its loud, resonant drum-ming, ringing and wild, "kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk" call (quite similar to that of the more familiar Northern flicker).