The violinmakerWe met Lucas Bischofberger several years ago while covering the installation of the ceramic serpent sculpture in the library. This was part of the Seniors Making Art program. His mother and father are Debbie and Henry. Debbie is an accountant. Henry is a violin maker.I met Henry in the late fifties. We were camping out at Sun Lakes State Park in eastern Washington. I remember that Henry's dad came over for the weekend, returning Sunday for the week to open his Capitol Hill violin shop that was located on the ground level of the family home.Carrying on the family tradition, Henry has now opened his own violin shop in his Kirkland home.
Namibia to KirklandJust how far is Namibia from Juanita neighborhood, Kirkland, USA? I " Mapquested" it the other day - turns out it is somewhere in the area of 16,000 miles - a long way from our little corner of the world. It is there, near the bottom of the African continent, that one of our own, Johanna Brugman, now Fulbright Scholar, will be studying and living for the next six to 10 months. Johanna, in a recent interview, gave me some insight into this distant land and her passions, the development of the languages of the people of Namibia.Namibia was a territory of South Africa until 1990 when it gained its independence. It has since formed a democratic government and, interestingly enough was the first country to guarantee environmental protections in its constitution. Like many African nations, its biggest challenge may well be an HIV rate of over 21 percent; however, with a progressive government that officially guarantees mother-child education up to third grade, it may well be ahead of its neighbors. Johanna became interested in Namibia while she was studying in South Africa. An undergrad double- major in chemistry and German language and literature, her original idea was to pursue studies in environmental chemistry. She happened upon linguistics purely by accident.In what she calls her "eureka moment," she relates how her required class in German linguistics lead to the understanding that the study wasn't just about "being able to speak a lot of languages, but really it's about using scientific methods to investigate human language in all its many forms."Eventually, she ended up in a doctoral program at Cornell University that narrowed her studies to phonetics and phonology - the study of the sounds of speech.
Hello, neighbors and welcome to the December column for news and events concerning the North Rose Hill Neighborhood. Woodlands Park In the last column I reported on the "grand opening and dedication" of the new gazebo and boardwalk in Woodlands Park. If you were able to attend you got to meet and greet city council members, city staff, park board members and many of your neighbors.My unofficial count of the crowd in attendance was around 100 people. There were several speeches with the keynote from Mayor Mary-Alyce Burleigh, who delivered a great talk on the history of the neighborhood and of the park. If you have not yet visited the new additions to the park I encourage you to do so as the gazebo is a great addition to the park. The walk through the wetlands on the boardwalk is delightful. Interested citizens can contact the city parks department if they want to reserve the gazebo for gatherings.As most of you know, the Woodlands Park Playground Project will be located in the newly developed park property on the 124th Street side, north of the fire station.
He was here and how he's gone. Perhaps to one of his 17 galleries across the country. Or, more likely, back to the wilderness he loves so much, quietly moving through the fluttering aspens in Colorado or trodding over hardpack snow in the Tetons, armed with his backpack and cameras and a deep passion for the natural world.Tom Mangelsen, founder and owner of Thomas D. Mangelsen's Images of Nature Gallery on Central Way, is an internationally acclaimed photographer. This past year he was named one of the 100 most important people in photography by American Photo Magazine and was honored by Nikon. His work has been featured in too many publications to list and on nearly as many TV programs. And possibly his biggest claim to fame is that none of his work is computer enhanced.
So declares Juanita High School girls' basketball coach Kim Michel.With absolute resolve, a team of talented yet frustrated players is determined to reinflate itself after languishing under a winless league record the past two years. "After six years of working with Kim," says senior Abby Croteau," we're finally starting to pull things together." Sidney Uebelaker, co-captain and the third leg of the senior triumvirate, says, "It has been a battle. We were missing pieces and didn't have great team chemistry."In an effort to boost team morale and unity, Michel took them to Western Washington University this summer for a one-week camp. It was truly a team-building, unifying experience. "Camp was great," says senior and co-captain Jolayna Jacobsen. "We got to spend time with each other and tweaked our skills."
Why is it that we make New Year's health and fitness resolutions, but studies show that over 60 percent of us fail to keep them within the first month? Don't stop reading yet - there's hope! People who actually start an exercise wellness program and continue to exercise regularly for at least 6 months have an excellent chance of maintaining a regular exercise routine for years to come. Why wait until Jan. 1 to increase your quality of life? Making a step or two in the direction of enhanced well being is a wonderful way to ring in the new year. To make your resolutions stick, think "SM.A.R.T." Using these following methods will set you up for success.
More Lake Washington School District (LWSD) students than ever are performing at the standard required by the WASL, according to 2004-2005 test score results. The fifth largest district in the state continues to outperform state averages on the test.The greatest gains came in reading among the district's seventh graders, where 83.3 percent of students made standard. That result is 7.9 percent higher than the 2003-2004 scores and compares to a statewide average of 68.7 percent.
There should be huge warning labels - COLD, WINDY WEATHER AND UNPLEASANT SOGGY SOIL - on spring bulb order forms or at bulb displays in the garden centers. Yet even these warning signs, I suspect, would not deter our extravagant fantasies about the spring bulb exhibits we desire for our gardens.Now we must get them into the ground. It may come as a surprise that you could just dig a big trench and dump them all in, never righting a single one for they will move their bottoms around in the soil in order to put down their roots. The Gladiolus corms are the only bulbs that need to be planted with their growing tips straight up.It pays not to dumpShort of the "dumping" bulb planting method, care taken at the time of planting will usually lengthen the number of years that the bulbs perform well. It is recommended that a spoonful of a complete fertilizer, which is one that includes phosphorus, potassium and slow-release nitrogen, be placed in the crumbly soil at the base of the bulb. Here is an area where digging a trench and adding the fertilizer, then an inch of soil, and then the bulbs really speeds up the process.The accepted wisdom is to plant the bulbs at a depth that equals three times the largest diameter of the bulb. However, here again, the rules can be broken, and I try to plant my crocus deeper with the hopes that the squirrels will not find them so quickly.
Christmas invariably leads to one of the most evil social practices known to man: forcing your Significant Other to attend The Company Christmas Party, where they do not know a soul, save yourself. I was the victim of such a party this year. To make matters more uncomfortable, we had to travel to Portland for the festivities. It was held at the Lake Oswego Country Club. Since my husband is a relative newcomer to this company, he was not familiar with the Party Protocol. So naturally the first thing we did was to take our heavily laden plates of appetizers and sit down at the one table we were not supposed to sit down at. This was the Head Table.
The important decisions are usually not easy . . . or cheap. That is the case with making major investments in Kirkland's police and fire departments. The city council recently decided to increase our police, fire and emergency medical response capabilities. It has been years in coming, and the council has tried every angle to come up with the most effective and efficient investment. The council took a measured and systematic approach. Police and fire strategic plans were developed and requirements prioritized. For the past several years, we worked on improvements in fire and medical response times with low-cost or one-time investments. The bridge over I-405 at 100th Street and the emergency connection off of 98th Avenue at 110th Street are two examples of one-time investments to improve the responsiveness of the resources we already have. Police officers now carry emergency defibrillators as part of these efforts. We made some minor investments in additional firefighters and police that are somewhat effective, but calls for service are increasing significantly across the city for police, fire and emergency medical needs. Neither low-cost and one-time cost options nor minor improvements were meeting the need.
There is rumbling underfoot - but no need to duck and cover. This time it's not a shifting fault line, it's the excavator groaning under the weight of house being picked up and moved. It's also the sound of thundering feet on their way to a house recycling event to nab sometimes pristine windows, newly-planted greenery or brand-new faucets from a house on the chopping block.In short, the Kirkland real estate market is turning green. People are opting to move their house instead of bulldoze it. When this isn't an option, savvy consumers are selling off anything and everything - inside and out - to the masses. This epitomizes the aphorism: What is one man's garbage is another's gold.
Tom Hodgson and Bob Sternoff may be the newest members of the Kirkland City Council, but they're both old hands at city government. And after a campaign that saw Hodgson run unopposed and Sternoff run against an opponent who had to drop out at the last minute, both have specific areas they'd like to focus on as council members.Hodgson said it was a surprise and a bit of a letdown when he failed to draw an opponent in the election. "I was geared up to run a full-fledged campaign." On the flip side, he said, the development saved him roughly $15,000 he planned to spend on the campaign.
A Nov. 19 fundraising dinner was held at Rose Hill Elementary School in Kirkland for victims of the recent earthquake that killed close to 90,000 people and left millions homeless in Pakistan.The fundraising dinner was organized by a group of mostly Pakistani employees of Microsoft. "It was attended by close to 200 people," said Hamid Mahmood, one of the organizers. "We raised around $100,000," he said of ticket sales, donations, matching donations from employers and the sale of artwork and crafts.The money will be used for two relief efforts, Mahmood said. One is an adopt-a-tent-village project set up by an organization called Helping Hands. Each tent village will house around 700 people in roughly 110 families, he said. "It's a makeshift place where they can stay easily."
As Roof Truss Supply (RTS) was setting up the 35-foot Christmas tree in Marina Park the day before Thanksgiving, Jeff Dorn and Jesus Cordova (above) noticed an empty squirrel's nest, made completely out of precisely-chewed tree light wires. They carefully extracted the nest from the tree, which Cordova dropped to co-workers below.
In the eyes of Madrona artist and architectural designer Roy McMakin, everything old is new again - at least when it comes to building design. McMakin is the brains behind The Knew Gardens, a reuse and expansion of an existing house built in 1904. McMakin hopes this project - at 1423 34th Ave., two doors south of Madrona Auto - will attract tenants who appreciate a neighborhood setting. E. Kent Halverson Inc. is the contractor working on the pro-ject. It has the challenge of modernizing this structure without taking away the building's early20th-century charm.Madrona Community Council president Bill Hanson said that "things are coming along, and there have been no complaints. Roy discussed his plans with the council so there were no surprises for the community."