Estil Wallace Coming to Seattle Washington

Seattle Washington news and information. Look for up and coming artist Estil Wallace to be playing the Seattle Washington music scene soon. For more information, go to www.estilwallace.com or email your request for more information to webmedia@cox.net.

Seattle Washington wine auction coming up

Seattle Washington news and information -- The 21st annual Auction of Washington Wines event, titled "Coming of Age," will be held Aug. 14-16 in and around Woodinville (in the Seattle Washington area).
The three-day celebration of Washington wine kicks off with the Picnic with the Winemakers & Barrel Auction on Aug. 14, on the grounds of Chateau Ste. Michelle. It runs from 4:30 p.m. until dusk. Tickets are $125 per person.
It is followed by a series of winemaker dinners on Aug. 15. The dinners will be held in a variety of sites, all with a different menu. Details can be found on the website: www.auctionofwashingtonwines.org/Home.cfm. Cost is $250 per person.
The 2nd annual Covey Run 10K and TalkingRain 5K run/ walk will wind through the streets of Woodinville's wine country the morning of Aug. 16. Register online at www.runforchildrens.org.
The Gala Auction celebrating the "Coming of Age" of Washington state wine will be held the evening of Aug. 16 at Chateau Ste. Michelle. The event runs from 4:30 p.m. to midnight. Cost is $500 per person and includes a gourmet meal, wine and dancing, plus silent and live auctions.
Proceeds from the Auction of Washington Wines benefit uncompensated care for patients and families at Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center and the Washington Wine Education Foundation.
For more information, or to buy tickets and sign up for the run/walk go to www.auctionofwashingtonwines.org/Home.cfm. Or contact jashley@washingtonwine.org or 206-326-5754.

Pike Place Market is Seattle's heart and soul

Seattle Washington News and Information. Seattle has grown up around Pike Place Market, which draws about 10-million visitors a year. The market is home to more than 190 commercial businesses, 50 restaurants and 200 table spaces rented daily by merchants.
“Is anybody ready to buy a fish?" barks the man called Bear at the Seattle fish market. The onlookers are stone silent, looking now at the slippery floor rather than through the camera viewfinder. Moments before, with a headless salmon flying over ice, they clicked and clapped, oohed and aahed.
"We don't throw 'em unless you buy 'em," says Bear, a 20-year fishmonger whose real name is Keith Bish. He wears Creamsicle waders and a couple of layers of shirts, just the way everyone says you should dress for the Seattle Pacific Northwest drizzle. The layers, not the waders.
With that simple declaration, it is clear that the Seattle fish market, one of most popular tourist destinations exists for more than the amusement of visitors. The Seattle fish market is a business, and to see a 3-foot salmon tossed, somebody has to want one for dinner.
The flying fish routine started as a way to save a few steps. By chucking the fish over the elevated counter, the guy working the front doesn't have to walk around. It's pure geometry: The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The thrower yells, the catcher behind the counter hollers back and the fish is launched.
There are other fish markets at Pike Place Market, though Pike Place Fish gets the most TV time. Bear & Co. seem to be a fixture before every nationally televised Seattle Seahawks game.
The fish market is just one of 10 stops on the Savor Seattle tour of Pike Place Market, a 9-acre warren of food, drink and flowers that sits on a hill above the city's waterfront. Each stop includes a little history and a taste.
Seattle has much to keep visitors busy; among the attractions are ferry rides to bucolic islands, the Seattle Space Needle, funky neighborhoods and the Experience Music Project with its Jimi Hendrix memorabilia. Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, built the music project to house his extensive collection of Hendrix guitars, clothes and handwritten diaries and lyrics. Hendrix was born and raised in Seattle.
Seattle's hip vibe is not hype. Dripping with java and oozing environmentalism and computer savvy, it still draws young people and mid-career dropouts looking for nirvana. On a June weekend, a group that "cultivates community sustainability" holds a workshop on raising chickens in the city. Why city chickens? For fresh eggs, of course. How Seattle.
A stop at Pike Place Market is a compact introduction to Seattle, its eccentricities and green-haired alt kids. Whether you go on a tour or go solo, go hungry.
For more than 100 years, Pike Place Market has fed Seattle's hunger for unique, affordable and fresh food while giving farmers, fishermen and other merchants a place to make a living.
Besides Pacific Ocean seafood and Washington produce (wild porcini mushrooms! Rainier cherries in the shadow of Mount Rainier!), you'll find artisan cheeses, organic spices and teas, award-winning New England Clam Chowder (hah!), baked goods hot from the oven, flowers so brilliant they'll make you weep, and coffee, lots of coffee. Seattle, after all, is the home of Peet's and Seattle's Best and Starbucks.
The world's most famous coffee shop got its start near the market in 1971, not at the market as some spin doctors like to say. It moved to the market in 1976 and a sign at its current location erroneously boasts that you're standing in the first store. Still, that was a whole lot of lattes ago.
Starbucks is one of the most popular spots for street performers. A musical note on the sidewalk signifies a busker-welcome zone. Heavy foot traffic ensures good tips. The musical notes are scattered about the market and serve to corral singers and jugglers and the guy who plays the guitar while hula-hooping.
Like the Lexington Market in Baltimore and Soulard Farmers Market in St. Louis, Pike Place is a living history of the evolution of a city. In a world of super-marts and mammoth parking lots, there is no reason it should still exist, except that people insist. Concerned citizens rallied in the 1960s to save Pike Place from developers and city officials who saw big bucks rather than continuing big drain. The market's prime spot overlooking Elliott Bay would provide great views for high-rise offices and condominiums. That's what the skyscrapers that surround the market today look out on. The city has literally grown up around the market.
Pike Place is always in need of funds to keep up appearances and hold down rents. Not all the tenants, especially the day vendors who sell handcrafted jewelry and homemade aprons, have the benefit of free TV publicity. Individuality is at the core of the market's philosophy and, Starbucks aside, this is the sole outlet (this and the Internet) for most purveyors. Rachel the Pig, a large cast bronze piggy bank near Pike Place Fish, contributes $9,000 a year to the upkeep.
About 10-million people browse the stalls and eat at the restaurants every year. That includes locals who still shop — and live — here. About 500 low-income apartments are upstairs in the various buildings that make up the market; some renters are also employees. On weekends, the aisles are nearly impassible as streams of people squirm along like those legendary salmon swimming upstream. Even at the most crowded times, a tourist can't help but be jealous of locals who get to shop here whenever they want, carrying home $10 spring bouquets wrapped in butcher paper.
In summer, there are weekly organic markets on-site. The market-within-a-market is an embarrassment of riches, but that's what the Pacific Northwest is all about, physical beauty and the good life.
Tim Primeaux, our Savor Seattle guide, knows what happens when he holds out a tray of handmade cheese nibbles from Beecher's or smoked salmon pieces from Pike Place Fish. He prepares us early in the tour.
"Get close. Elbows up," he says. That's our cue to form a tight circle around the food, warding off the curious who nudge forward like greedy seagulls. A deal between Savor Seattle and the vendors provides us with a taste or two of their specialties; there's not enough for everyone who spies the action. In return, the merchants hope we'll return with a 10-percent-off card to shop after the two-hour tour.
(We came home with alderwood smoked sea salt and a savory heart-healthy spice mix from MarketSpice, the tea and spice shop that's been at Pike Place since 1911. Oh yeah, and there was another stop for the world's best mac-and-cheese at Beecher's and more than just a sample of the clam chowder at Pike Place Chowder.)
Everyone on the tour has their favorites, but folks linger longer over the smoked salmon pate piroshky at the Polish bakery and chocolate-nut-dried-fruit treats at Chukar Cherries. The politeness of strangers at the first stop has each of us demurely declining the last warm pillow from Daily Dozen Doughnuts. Manners are gone as the tour winds down at Etta's Seafood. Triple coconut cream pie will do that to a traveler. "You gonna finish that?" someone asks.
After the tour ends, we strut back through the market, feeling a bit like we own the place. After all, we were behind the counter at Chukar and we know the guy at Pike Place Fish by name.

Washington Global Health Alliance -- Seattle as a Center for Global Health

Seattle Washington news. On July 24th, Seattle will provide a forum to discuss global health information. Seattle has emerged a hub for global health innovation and application. Recently formed Washington Global Health Alliance works with CityClub to put together a luncheon to discuss what this means, and what's being done to keep up with activism, research and ethics. The heads of three of the alliance's member organizations: PATH, UW Dept. of Global Health and Seattle Biomedical Research Institute will lead discussions about their organizations, collaboration,and more.
$45 includes lunch. For more information, visit www.seattlecityclub.org.

Solid AAU circuit gives Seattle more hoops products

Seattle Washington News. The Seattle Sonics are headed to Oklahoma City. Washington, after back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances, didn't make the NCAA tournament for a second consecutive season. For the first high school season in a long while, the area didn't produce an elite Division I basketball recruit. In a general, shortsighted way, hoops in Seattle Washington might appear dead or on life support -- the "206" doing a deep six.
It's fair to say the area, which has produced five NBA first-round picks since 2005 -- six if our list can include an hourlong ferry ride to Bremerton, Wash., to pick up Marvin Williams -- suffered a notable downturn in 2007-08. But the scuttlebutt at the grassroots level is that Seattle remains a basketball hotbed, particularly if its twin city of Tacoma -- the "253" -- is included.
That's where two of the nation's top 50 prospects reside: Bellarmine Prep stars Abdul Gaddy (No. 14 on the ESPN 100) and Avery Bradley (No. 49). Toss in fellow guard Peyton Siva (No. 26) of Seattle Washington powerhouse Franklin High, who has committed to Louisville, and it becomes clear that the Seattle Puget Sound area will remain a critical stop for hoops recruiters in the Pac-10 and beyond.
Peyton Siva, who has verbally committed to Louisville, is one of the up-and-coming stars from Seattle. Even after the NBA abandons the city.
Seattle's respected place in the hoops firmament exceeds what it should be based on demographics. Its metropolitan area ranks 15th in population among U.S. cities, but its eight NBA players in 2007-08 ranked the city fifth.
Bottom line: The Seattle area produces more than its share of NBA and Division I talent.
The reason isn't that complicated, either. Grassroots hoops in Seattle -- read: the AAU teams -- is organized and well coached. Talent gets every opportunity to realize itself. "I applaud what the travel teams in our area are really doing," Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said. "I think they really teach basketball."
Anyone who has followed the scene lists the same names. In the 1990s, first Francis Williams and then Albert Hall and Jim Marsh, with an assist from former Sonics coach George Karl, created a strong foundation of youth basketball -- Williams with Rotary Select, Hall and Marsh with Friends of Hoop. "The quality of youth coaching -- in high school and AAU -- got a lot better and became a source of pride for those involved," said Marsh, a former NBA player and Sonics broadcaster. "It was no longer some dad down in the corner who was just doing a good deed for the neighborhood boys. The bad coaches weeded themselves out."
Though Marsh's "bad" coaches are those who don't know squat about coaching the sport, he also noted that the early commitment to quality leadership mostly kept at bay many of the oleaginous opportunists who lurk around youth leagues.
Notably -- and probably not coincidentally -- the Seattle area's list of elite youth prospects who became Division I and NBA players includes very few who ran into substantial off-court trouble.
Part of that can be attributed to skilled and demanding coaches who cared about their players' best interests. Another part is Seattle itself, which has a lower crime rate than most major cities. "I don't know if you have the low low-income families as much as some other bigger cities," Romar said. "We have it in Seattle, but I don't know if it's as widespread as other cities. I think there's more mentorship in the Seattle area than maybe other cities."
That mentorship eventually helped 14 Seattle-area athletes play in the 2008 NCAA tournament for schools across the country, ranging from Louisville (Terrence Williams) to Stanford (Mitch Johnson) to Cornell (Conor Mullen) to Kansas (Rodrick Stewart).
A necessary interlude: Folks residing around Spokane on the eastern side of Washington reading (again) about Seattle hoops probably are wondering what in the name of Adam Morrison they have to do to get some credit, and not only for Gonzaga's long-standing and Washington State's recent success.
They would be quick to point out that their side of the state has dominated 4A basketball -- the state's largest classification -- of late, as two-time state champions Ferris High became the state's first team to go undefeated in consecutive seasons, while the Lewis and Clark girls team won its third consecutive title.
Still, programs like Franklin, Rainier Beach, Seattle Prep, Garfield and O'Dea, among others, are pumping the most talent into Division I schools. And the future is bright. Garfield's 6-foot-5 rising sophomore guard Tony Wroten, Nate Robinson's cousin, already is a YouTube phenomenon and is widely considered one of the elite prospects in the class of 2011.
The Sonics may be bolting, but Seattle remains a hoops town, with plenty of A-list talent representing the 206.

Seattle Washington a blue state and city

Here you go Seattle Republicans...reasons to vote Republican you can share with your friends. LOL.

Miss Seattle

Miss Washington Apologizes for “Foolish” Photos



Elyse Umemoto, Miss Washington and second runner-up at Miss America 2008 apologized for the embarrassing pictures of her brought to the public eye by the gossip Web site TMZ.com.
Umemoto, who is also Miss Seattle, said the above mentioned pictures were stolen from her and police has been notified about the theft. During a press conference in downtown Tacoma she also said that the pictures were taken before she was designated Miss Washington.
The Pierce County resident described the photos which made it on the internet as “foolish.” Despite the scandal of the photos, the 24-year-old beauty will retain her Miss Washington title according to a contest official.
The “foolish” photos depicted Umemoto drinking, partying, making obscene gestures, flipping off the camera while wearing a crown and playing drinking games.
During the news conference held at the Hotel Murano, Umemoto said that she was wearing the Miss Seattle crown in the controversial pictures. She took those pictures during a private setting and her trust was violated, she told reporters.
Miss Washington is a Pacific Lutheran University student and she has taken a year off school.
“This is me genuinely apologizing, this is me genuinely admitting that I am only human,” she said.
Umemoto will not be disciplined for the controversial photos, said Miss Washington Scholarship Organization's field director, Mike Miller. He also said that the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office has been notified about the alleged electronic theft.
“We are convinced that Elyse has learned a brutal but effective lesson and that any additional sanction we might impose will be overreacting,” Miller said.
A new Miss Washington will be chosen this weekend.

Set Sail From Seattle Washington

Are you having fun? Try this! A great way to go to Alaska.

Seattle Washington News

Move Over Starbucks, Seattle Baristas Are Brewing Coffee In Their Bikinis
Known for its coffee and home to renowned Starbucks, Seattle, Washington is making a name for itself once again: bikini clad baristas serving up your favourite latte. Not everyone is happy about the scantily clad coffee making beauties, though.
Only the best of coffee connoisseurs (aka: coffee snobs) understand the true art and flavour of a freshly pulled shot of espresso. In fact, if you've ever been on the receiving end of a poorly extracted shot or one that has sat longer than its designed time frame, you know that bitter taste associated with bad espresso.
Now, you can have your expertly pulled shot and well, drink it all in too.
An outdoor coffee house in Seattle, Washington has kicked off the clunky black shirt and khaki pants required by Starbucks employees and has moved onto a less restricting uniform for its baristas, at least the "hot" ones.
Adorned in string bikinis, baristas at an espresso bar created coffee drinks for what appeared to be mostly male customers and tourists lined up to give their order and get a closer peep at the preparation processes.
One of the baristas explained that her morning tips had risen five times the amount due to shedding some extra weight, claiming her $30 morning tips are nearly four or five times that amount in the same time frame due to her wearing a bikini.
The line of men with cameras waiting to order their "skinny latte" substantiated her claim with some getting extra "sprinkles" as they stood between their coffee creators, with a smile as big as enzyte Bob's, and struck a pose befitting for the family photo album.
One female interviewed about how she felt towards the bikini clad baristas agreed to the question that it brought a negative image to Seattle, however, the line in front of the espresso bar might prove a little different as far as bringing tourism to Seattle.
The only concern here is that bare skin and hot beverages just don't seem to mix but at a 400 percent tip increase, I'm sure safety issues are ever elusive.