18 fire pits may be taken away and it will solve all our problems.

Since this article I read last night made it’s way to the Drudge Report today I figured I would put in my two cents.

The Seattle Parks Department is thinking about banning camp fires at Seattle’s two popular beaches. Considering I live a short walk away from Alki Beach this is particular frustrating for me. There are six fire pits at Alki and another twelve at Golden Gardens. They want to cut this number in half next year and eliminate the pits the following year. Any idea why they may want to ban the fires? Yes, of course… Global Warming. I’m not going to get into that debate, but regardless of where you stand, burning wood has been around for quite awhile. The fact that these fires are contributing much, if any, to global warming seems absolutely ridiculous to me. I wonder how many fire pits there are nationally? To focus on 18 pits for the entire greater Seattle area to enjoy just seems ridiculous to me.

There are plenty of other places to focus your efforts to help protect the environment than a place where up to 18 fires can be going. Of course, this year, I doubt there have been that many days where people have even been able to enjoy the pits. I hope that someone comes to their senses and realizes that the Seattle government should be focusing their time on many, many, MANY other issues.

Taking away the fire pits at the beach would just be WAY over the line.

Seattle bonfires may be banned (Also calling these “bonfire” pits is ridiculous, they can’t be over a few feet high)

Seriously Seattle?

Well as I am trying to get to bed I decided to take a look at what the week will bring us as far as weather goes.

As you can see, it’s not pretty. I’m getting a little tired of this Seattle weather. I think we’ve had about 7 days where it’s been actually hot (er, warm) and sunny this year. Yes, since January. It’s now June! C’mon Seattle get it together. Where’s global warming when you want it?

No that’s not an ad on the right, that’s Seattle’s 10-day forecast.

However, Fortune has just announced that Corvallis is the 48th best place to “Live and launch a company in 2008.“  I have known some great companies to be founded, created, and launched in Corvallis, but wow I just am still not used to seeing Corvallis mentioned in a financial magazine like Fortune.

To see that Seattle is not even on the list seems a little crazy to me.  Especially with Bellevue being names the number 1 city on the list!  Bellevue is a great city if you’re into living in the ‘burbs, but it just seems that Seattle is such a better city for finding and keeping the young tech savvy workers happy.  Other notable cities in the Northwest, Portland (#6), Bellingham (#26), Eugene (#96, Yes, the Beavers win).

HT: John Cook’s Blog

Fortune Article

For starters he is the 43rd richest man in the world, only two spots and $1B behind Paul Allen. He became the CEO of the company that Allen founded and has been with it through it’s ups and downs and has made it into what it is today. Pretty incredible ride if you ask me.

What makes me think he is the new Paul Allen though is that he is making a last second move to help keep a professional sports team in Seattle. Something that Paul Allen is famous for doing with the Seahawks. Who now, with their success have turned Paul Allen into a local hero. Along with a few other big money names here in the Seattle area, Ballmer has put together a team that has, not only offered to buy the Sonics from an outside ownership team that is trying to move the team to Oklahoma City, but also offered to pay $150M of the $300M Key Arena renovation. This is a huge move! The Key Arena is desperately in need of a major renovation in order to keep up with the other sports teams in the city as well as the NBA as a whole. I know people aren’t fans of public money going to private owners, but in the case of Key Arena, this actually makes sense. Key Arena is owned by the city as part of the Seattle Center which hosts festivals, concerts, and many other events throughout the other 300 days that don’t have basketball games. So in this case, it actually doesn’t make “sense” for the private investors, Allen and Co., to be giving money to the Seattle Center. These renovations will bring more top tier concerts that have recently began to skip Seattle for the easier in and out access of the Tacoma Dome because the facilities didn’t match up with the extra 30 minutes of driving and much more complicated logistics of getting trucks in and and out of the city of Seattle. These renovations should pay for themselves, and at the least, not turn the Seattle Center into a ghost town which it would be without a renovated Key Arena.

So, although I wish that Howard Schultz and his group of the investors had not sold the Sonics, especially to a group that everybody knew wanted to move the team to another city, it could provide Seattle with a new billionaire hero. Think about it. Ballmer saving the Sonics shortly before they leave would turn him into the modern day Paul Allen if the Sonics turn into the team they could in the near future with their salary cap room and draft picks coming down the line (6 first round picks in the next 3 years). They would also be two of the main Seattle Centers if this deal does get done (Allen with the Experience Music Project and of course Ballmer with the Key Arena). So if this deal does go through, is this the beginning of Ballmer making his mark on the Seattle area outside of Microsoft?

With the stock price dropping 50% over the past 12 months and hitting a 4 year closing low last Friday Starbucks had to do something to help their stock and this appears to be the biggest step they could have made.  Howard took Starbucks out of a bean selling coffee shop in Pike Place to the International company that it has become.  Already, the stock has jumped 10% since the announcement and we will see where it goes from here.

Since Howard instilled the original values of the Starbucks Experience, I am looking forward to seeing what will happen over the next 6 months to a year.  We will see poor performing stores closed, better training for front line “parnters,” and an overhall on the entire coffee experience.  One prediction I will make, some kind of change to the breakfast sadwich stations.  They create an aroma that covers the coffee smell that I understand Howard hates.  I know they’re a high margin item, but if Howard wants to take back the coffee shop experience, I see a change happening here.

Oh, and for those of you that I asked about investing in SBUX last Friday…man, I wish I would have pulled the trigger.  I still think there is alot of room for growth.  What do you think, will SBUX bounce back to the high $20’s low $30’s?

Forbes Article

Starbucks Press Release 

Video: Bill Gates Last Day CES Clip

Actually, he’ll be heading up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but a rich man can dream can’t he?

Horizon Airlines, which is based out of Seattle, has decided to paint four of their planes to match the four major universities in Washington and Oregon.  I’m most excited about the Beaver plane, and very uncertain how I would feel if they asked me to get on a duck plane.  I know that there are people that give much more money than I do to their respective schools and I wonder how they would react to being asked to board their rival schools plane.

Now if I could request to fly from PDX to SFO on the Oregon State plane to watch the Emerald Bowl I would love it.

So is this a worth while marketing move by Horizon or will the painting and eventual repainting (and a few upset customers) be more than the stunt was worth?  It shows that they’re a Northwest brand and says that they support the Northwest, but to me it seems to be a little to much effort for how uch positive PR it will produce. Of course, I don’t know how much painting a plane like this costs and maybe it’s not that big of an effort.

[Article with all the planes and the press release]

Some Seattle natives may remember when Tully’s in their continue quest to find something, anything, that will help lure customers away from Starbucks had the 3:21 special.  It was a promotion that would give you between 33% and 50% off of your drink between 3:21 and 3:51.  I loved the promotion, and in turn became a big fan of the Tully’s Espresso Oreo Shake (still highly recommended), however I felt it was a gimmick.  I also felt that it was to early in the day to add new customers and what it was in fact doing was cutting into their margins during a time in the day where people are needing a quick pick me up from the after lunch lull.  Their thinking, I take it, was to get people in the mind set that you do in fact need that afternoon coffee everyday.  It did help engrain that thinking, but once they stopped the offer, I returned to Starbucks for my coffee needs.

A happy hour though in its most true sense could really drive additional business into Starbucks.  Imagine a happy hour from 5pm until 6:30.  You aren’t cannibalizing the post dinner group and you aren’t cutting into the margins on the afternoon coffee break from work crowd.  If you implemented a more open atmosphere with the Baristas (some would shine, others would not) where the Baristas could become more like your local bartenders and the patrons could find a new place to interact after work.  I go to happy hours fairly frequently and usually more than the food or the drink the place is decided upon based on price, atmosphere, and location.  Starbucks has the locations (any location) down, and if they were to offer happy hour prices and a more open barista atmosphere along with different music there would be the other two deciding factors.

Howard Schultz founded Starbucks after a trip to Italy where he saw how much people were interacting in the cafes there.  This could rejuvenate the cafe environment in the US as well as increase profits for Starbucks.  In my opinion, after the lackluster performance and the many competitors who cannot offer the atmosphere that Starbucks can, it is now time to create the new Starbucks Happy Hour.

A few problems

1. Pike Place Market is a market not a neighborhood.  It is in between the West Edge, Downtown, and Belltown neighborhoods.  I think there’s only a single condo building in the market and I don’t think that can make up an entire neighborhood.
2. There is a picture in the article of "residents" enjoying Steinbrueck park.  Umm, they’re either homeless (not a part of the neighborhood if you don’t have a home I guess?) or tourists.  Again, this park is not a place that the residents hang out at.
3. Over 10 million people supposedly visit Pike Place Market every year.  I live in Alki and get sick enough of the ammount of people that come here in the summer, I couldn’t imagine that the "residents" of the "Pike Place Market community" would really enjoy that many visitors if they did in fact live there.

I wonder how this list was created, how Pike Place became a neighborhood, and really if there was any local research done on this piece.  Lake Oswego also was named one of the best neighborhoods.  Way to represent NW.

[Top 10 Neighborhoods in the US]