Volunteering has provided me with some of the most satisfying personal growth experiences of my life. Volunteers have the power to change the lives of others - and their own lives as well. You owe it to yourself to experience the exhilaration of making a difference and enhancing the quality of someone else's life.My most recent activities have delivered immense rewards, including the Kirkland Rotary Club Miracle League baseball for disabled kids; Cascadia College scholarship interviews, UW Husky Band Foundation (which raises funds for instruments and uniforms); Department of Defense ESGR Committee (which recognizes employers for their support of employees); Kirkland Downtown Association; and the Costco Children's Reading Program (which provides assistance for struggling readers). Last June, I conducted a graduation at Kokanee Elementary School in Woodinville. In an effort to relate to all in the audience, I held up a photo of me in the third grade. I told the audience that this student struggled with reading just like they have, but with some help, realized the importance of reading and went on to be much more successful in life. When I asked the class who they thought it was, one girl had the correct answer. (No, she didn't say, "Is that Beaver Cleaver?", although it's a good likeness)
The growth of business has a set path. Most business owners don't know that path and therefore their businesses don't grow. They start with the mindset that the business is a job, not an investment. A hairdresser starts a salon and spends all her time cutting hair. A plumber starts a plumbing contracting company and spends all of his time running pipe. Who's running the business? NO ONE. To truly achieve results in a business, you need first to understand the definition of a business. A successful business is a commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you. In effect, they own a job, not a business. If you start your business with the premise that it's an investment and not a job, you will do much better than the average business owner. To achieve a commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you, you need to climb the six rungs of the business ladder.
(Part 1 includes the first five mistakes. Part 2 will appear next month.)Marketing is critical to the success of every business. Unfortunately, many businesses discount the effect it can have, and they forego marketing because they believe they can't afford it or simply don't have the time or energy to create a plan. Perhaps this is why a high percentage of small businesses fail.But you don't have to be a statistic when you approach marketing with the importance it deserves. Below you will find some of the most common marketing mistakes businesses make. Learn and prosper!
By now, you probably have your tree or are planning on getting it very soon. And that means getting out the ornament boxes. At my house, we basically have three types of ornaments: colored glass balls, assorted "memory" ornaments and several ongoing theme collections. To my surprise, each of these groups reflects part of the history of ornaments over the last 500 years.Ornamental historyOrnaments were first attached to trees in Bavaria about 1510 as pagan and Christian images merged.Called "Paradise Trees," these early forerunners of our modern tree were decorated with paper roses to symbolize how Mary conquered the original tree of evil in the Garden of Eden. Apples were often tied to the tree to complete the image.
Rock legends, classic-blues musicians, the Civil War and science fiction are just some of the themes that have been explored on the face of Doug Keith's guitars.The guitars combine Keith's background as both an artist and guitarist. The "Artaxes" series started with Keith's daughter when she was 8 or 9 years old."I had found a rather beat-up guitar at a yard sale and fixed it up in hopes she would take an interest in learning how to play," Keith said, noting that he painted a colorful dragon on the front of it.Now, at age 16, his daughter's interests have changed. However, Keith continues painting guitars as a hobby in between assignments as a professional children's book illustrator. Keith has illustrated about 30 books, including "Dear Ichiro." He started his first picture book in 1993. Keith also plays the guitar.
I often wonder if I'm going crazy. I keep hearing "voices" when I'm at my desk working and listening to music. In between the music, I hear screaming hysterical women, peo-ple's phone conversations, a croaky child's voice and endless ringing, beeping and buzzing noises! I thought I turned my phone, pager and computer off. The doorbell? No, no one is there. Then I realize, in horror, it's coming from my radio! Well, we are living in a world that promotes multitasking, and I guess today's radio advertising spot writers felt, "Hey, why not fit our spots in with their ringing phones, their buzzing pagers and their intercoms? We'll load up our spots with our ringing phones, our buzzing pagers and our intercoms, which will make them think it's their phone, pager and intercom, and they'll be inspired to listen to our ads! Right?"
Traffic congestion is a quality-of-life issue that we all deal with on a daily basis. The Central Puget Sound region is projected to grow by 1.2 million people in the next 25 years, so if we want to improve present conditions and plan for the future, we need to act now. Fortunately, there are several actions Seattleites can take to improve our mobility options.Transit Now propositionFirst, voters made a smart choice and took a great step toward improving our transportation system by approving King County Proposition 2, known as Transit Now, on Nov. 7.At a modest annual cost of $25 per household, Transit Now will help Metro Transit keep pace with population and employment growth by increasing our bus service 20 percent over the next 10 years.
Eighth-graders at Eckstein Middle School use alcohol significantly more often than the state average, according to a survey.On Nov. 6, a group met at the school to discuss a program designed to combat this problem. It was the first meeting of a community coalition funded by the Washington State Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (DASA). In 2004, the coalition surveyed middle-school students throughout the state on a number of "problematic behaviors," including the use of alcohol.Survey says...DASA found an average of 18 percent of eighth-grade students in the state had consumed an alcoholic beverage within the last 30 days. However, among Eckstein students, an average of 23 percent of eighth-graders reported consuming alcoholic drinks within the last 30 days, while 46 percent admitted to having used alcohol at least once. The question was asked, where do eighth-graders get alcoholic beverages?
He's been the subject of intense criticism from everyone from animal-rights activists to community groups upset with plans for their neighborhoods. On the flip side, Seattle Parks and Recreation Superintendent Ken Bounds has been praised for - among other accomplishments - his leadership in helping the $200 million Pro Parks levy pass in 2000.But after working in city government for almost 31 years, 10 of them as parks superintendent, 56-year-old Bounds has announced his retirement at the end of next February. "It's time to move on," he said.On to 'something else'It's not a case of Bounds getting burned out as point man for seemingly unending controversies at the parks department. "I want to do something else," he said in his small office at parks headquarters on Dexter Avenue North."I've had three great careers with the city," said the recipient of the 2001 National Recreation and Parks Association Rose Award for management. The positions included a stint at the Office of Policy and Planning that began in 1976, a 1981 move to the Office of Management and Budget, where former Mayor Charles Royer appointed him budget director in 1989. Bounds landed a job as deputy parks superintendent in 1990 and was appointed superintendent in 1996. He also survived an extensive purging of department heads under newly elected Mayor Greg Nickels in 2002.
Our eager fingers grasped bulging stockings on Christmas morning when my brother, sister and I were children. Tiny bottles of hand lotion, pretty new hankies and perhaps a packet of colored pencils or miniature cars and trucks were always stuffed among unshelled Brazil nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts and pecans. Rounding out the toe lay a sweet and aromatic navel orange, a highly-prized delicacy and harbinger of the special season.The most looked-for item among Santa's leavings, however, was always a tiny net bag of chocolate coins, each disc sparkling in heavy gold and silver foil. These faux coins signified the arrival of Christmas to us. For many, chocolate is the ultimate holiday treat, no matter how and why people celebrate. December's days are passing quickly now as holidays approach. Folks rush from home, work and errands to complete those special, year-end projects and make ready for festive get-togethers. These activities and events usually include food, especially sweets. Chocolate is often preeminent among the lists of 'must have' treats.
With six starting players graduated from the Garfield boys basketball team last year and their first two games of this season against Franklin High School - their biggest rival - and Eastlake (another top contender in the league), you'd wonder if the young team might be a little nervous about jumping headfirst into such heady competition. "We're gonna dance in the middle of the court when we win," crowed one Garfield player to his teammates during practice the day before their opening game against Franklin. "We're gonna stomp 'em like North Carolina."Nervous? Hardly. Much of that confidence is no doubt due to second-year Garfield coach, Dan Finkley. Finkley, who came to Garfield last year from Kent-Meridian, has focused on making his players confident in their relationship as a team.
In August 2005, I went to the World Youth and Student gathering in Caracas, Venezuela, to see first hand the new relationships with indigenous people and the government of Venezuela. I had heard of too many promises by capitalists and socialists before. In 1973, 20 indigenous youth from United States and Canada attended the Berlin World Youth Gathering to demand inclusion of indigenous rights and self-determination in global agendas. Looking for allies, we went and declared to the world that both the capitalists and socialists were no different to native peoples, for both systems depend on indigenous people's lands and resources to exist.Our worldview perspective of the relationship between our Creator and our role here on Mother Earth, as well as seeing our indigenous concepts as the foundation of socialism, was met with baffled resistance by many progressives. Our declarations reflected teachings from traditional elders, like Wallace "Mad Bear" Anderson, the Tuscaroras Nation and Hopi tribal member Thomas Banyaca, who taught us about self-determination and of prophecies when indigenous people from the north and south unite. More than 30 years later, my Venezuelans hosts requested writings of my experiences. I wrote of the positive policies of respect and recognition of self-determination for indigenous peoples and of the reforms and rights written into the new Venezuelan constitution. I ended the letter with a request for Venezuela, as an act of solidarity with indigenous people in the north, to provide lower cost fuels to indigenous communities.
A criminal operation has stopped, due to the cooperation of a large number of households on Beacon Hill.The saga of the "adobe van" played out over the last year, from Lewis Park to south of the business district, along our streets and the east and west greenbelts, spilling across the upper Rainier Valley. The SPD gave it particular emphasis since last August as neighbors tracked its movements, occupants, and related crime.Over 30 households became directly involved, sharing and gathering information, yet one Beacon Hill resident made the call that made the difference.On Nov. 18, Saturday, on 13th Avenue by Beacon Elementary School, around 10:30 p.m., the occupants of the van were spotted doing drugs. Within minutes, a blue-and-white unit and an undercover car converged on the vehicle, and the jig was up. Fifteen minutes later, a tow truck arrived, and carried the mid-80s, dull primer red/brown adobe-colored van off to the impound yard. Its distinctive exhaust will no longer rattle in the night.The guys in the adobe van became pretty brazen about shooting up. When one neighbor found the vehicle parked in front of his house, occupants with needles stuck in their arms, he confronted them. "Get out of our neighborhood!""This is my neighborhood," the driver insisted, a 40-something long-haired white guy with the haggard looks of a practiced junkie.They were both right. The driver's neighborhood friends included white, black, and Latina prostitutes, drug users, and drug dealers, familiars to the scene. He was really an equal opportunity employer, with connections to almost every problem house north of the Beacon Hill business district, up to I-90.
For the Franklin High School Boys Basketball Team, Quaker State isn't just another name for a brand of motor oil. For the team, Quaker fans chanted the catch phrase as they defeated Central Valley of Spokane last spring for the KingCo 4A Conference State Championship. They completed the 2005 - 2006 season with a 23-5 record. This was the fifth state championship in Franklin's school history. They also won the state title in 1954, 1994, 1995 and 2003. With the start of the Quakers season on Dec. 5, the team defeated their well-known rivals, Garfield High School, in a 95 -74 victory at Lincoln High School. The Quakers start the 2006 - 2007 season at a record of 1-0 and met the nationally ranked Oregon state champions of Lake Oswego High School on Dec. 8 in the Les Schwab Hoop Challenge at Bellevue Community College. This was non-league game. The Quakers toughest challenge against Lake Oswego was defending the inside game of big man Kevin Love. Standing at 6-foot-10 and weighing in at 255 pounds, Love is a two-time Oregon player of the year and an All-American who will be playing for the UCLA Bruins next year. "Kevin Love is a tremendous player and one of the best in the country. I don't think you can shut down a player of his caliber," said Jason Kerr, Franklin's Varsity Head Coach, in an e-mail. "What we will try to do is limit his touches but pressuring their guards while trying to keep the tempo at our preferred rate and try to tire them out by the end of the game," said Kerr. However, Lake Oswego had to answer to Venoy Overton's, Franklin senior guard and team captain, quickness in driving left-handed to the hoop, and clear vision of the floor while spotting his teammates up for the right shot. During Overton's junior year, he averaged 17.9 points, 3.6 assists and 2.6 steals according to The Seattle Times. In addition, he was selected to the All-KingCo Conference and named to the all-state tournament first team.
Remember little Jack Horner who sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie? He put in his thumb and pulled out a plumb, and said, "What a good boy am I?"This is where Christmas pudding comes from. In medieval times, at the end of the feast there was no Christmas pudding as we know it. Its ancestor was a wheaten porridge enriched by dried fruits, nuts and spices. In later times, flour was added to make it into the solid-type pudding that we know today.George the First, when he arrived from Hanover, really enjoyed his Christmas pudding: he considered it a large fruit dumpling. Modern mince pies did not exist either, although there were Christmas pies, which were savory, meat-based affairs. When Brits talk of "pudding," it's not a thin, gooey mess in a plastic cup but a solid, even stodgy, cakelike affair made with suet and fruit, sometimes covered in jam or treacle, and finally steamed in a cloth-covered bowl in a double boiler or steamer. Or in Mrs. Cratchit's case (from Dickens' A Christmas Carol), boiled in the wash-copper. The making of the Christmas pudding is a tradition that began in 18th-century England, when families gathered to supply all their luxuries saved through the year: white flour, dried fruit, currants and large quantities of ale and brandy.