June 2011

By Jessica Johansson, UW News Lab student.
Edited by Anne-Marije Rook

After 21 years at Ballard High School and inspiring hundreds of students along the way, Nohra Giraldo is retiring from her post as the Proyecto Saber teacher.

A native of Colombia, Giraldo moved to Seattle at the age of 20 with her husband, Gerry. She knew that she wanted a career and aspired to become an ambassador. Her husband’s idea, however, was for her to become a teacher.

“When he told me that I thought, oh no, that’s not what I am thinking,” Giraldo said. “Then I went to Seattle Pacific University and graduated from there and became a teacher. I am so glad I became a teacher. I just love what I am doing.”

In 1990, Giraldo introduced Proyecto Saber at Ballard High School, a program that has been around since 1975 designed to provide academic support for Chicano/Latino students. The programs aims to motivate students, monitor them, and help them graduate. It is offered as an elective at both Ballard High School and West Seattle's Chief Sealth High School and has been very successful with a large increase in graduation rates.

Carl Montford got his dog Becka 12 years ago from a breeder "way out in the country in Marysville," he said. Though she's a Bichon Frise "I think there's a poodle in her background somewhere around the grandfather level," Montford said, "She's a little longer of leg and body than our other standard Bichon was. She made it to fourteen, and she was a little shorter. But I think the poodle makes her a little healthier."

He and Becka are constant walking companions. "I'm here today," in Jack Block Park, " because of the guilt she lays on me about this time every day to go for a walk." Becka will jump on top of him when he's sitting down and look him right in the eye and whine a little, urging him to get up and get moving. "We can't even spell W-A-L-K hardly anymore because she is understanding that I suspect."

The park isn't just Becka's favorite place to walk, "It's OUR park," Montford said, "You guys are guests! We've been here since they opened it." They come to the park every day, rain, shine or even snow. "I sold my boat several years ago so I come here for my salt water fix and it doesn't cost me a thing for the salt air."

Press release:
The Alaskan Way Viaduct will close this weekend between the West Seattle Bridge and the Battery Street Tunnel. Drivers heading to Saturday’s Sounders FC match at Qwest Field should plan for delays and use alternate routes.

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) will close both directions of the viaduct at 11 p.m. on Friday, June 10. During the closure, crews will remove and temporarily replace two of the structure’s support columns to make room for construction of the new State Route 99 southbound roadway through SODO. WSDOT also will test the automated viaduct closure system.

Skanska, WSDOT’s contractor, is on track to complete the southbound lanes of the new elevated SR 99 roadway and demolish the southern mile of the existing viaduct by October. This weekend’s closure gives crews space to finish building the bridge deck of the southbound elevated roadway.

PubliCola asked the question, 'Whose neighborhood is better?' to "instigate a little summer rivalry" and our columnist Peggy Sturdivant responded:

"The notion that Ballard is just a neighborhood of slow-driving Scandinavians dedicated to the preservation of lutefisk is hopelessly outdated, but a convenient cover for Ballard’s embarrassment of riches (which Seattle just had to make its own in 1907).

Ballard can deliver all of the essential services: Full hospital, library with green roof, high school, farmer’s market, live music venues and restaurants that represent practically every part of the world. Although Ballard isn’t yet known for its ethnic diversity or its architecture, a new resident recently said, “I’m an African-American woman from Texas, who’s participating in a Norwegian parade by doing a Latin dance with the health club.” Yah betcha."

Read more, here.

SLIDESHOW: Click on the above image to see the sweat and the blood in Kurt Howard's dynamic photos of this awesome fight.

TACOMA -- Wily and wise Kelsey Arnold goaded and taunted "Vicious" Vincent Thompson, hoping to coerce the young fighter to lose his cool in their pro heavyweight bout Saturday evening at a packed Emerald Queen Casino.

Thompson would have none of it.

Instead the Federal Way boxer stuck to his game plan, using a crisp, punishing jab and hard body punches to keep Arnold at bay, winning for his eighth consecutive time as a pro in a unanimous six-round decision in the main event.

Arnold (4-8-2, KO), who has faced 11 fighters who were then unbeatens, played cat-and-mouse in the early rounds, letting Thompson come to him.

"I wanted to feel the power and see how hard he could he hit," said Arnold, his nose still bloody after the fight. "He couldn't hit hard. He never hit me, he didn't hurt me."

Arnold let his opponent know this by sticking his tongue out at him after any series of good punches Thompson threw, as if to say, "Is that all you got?"

(Editor's Note: In February, Stringing the Pearls columnist Lee Ryan wrote in the Times/News about her plans to take off a significant amount of weight as a New Year's resolution. She promised to report back to readers on her progress. Here's her happy report.)

And so we pick up where we left off, but not quite. The "picking up" will be a lot easier, now that I've lost 60 pounds. Yep, you heard me right; I lost 60 pounds since Jan. 18th of this year.

The picture is one of the visual aids I used to keep track of how many pounds I was losing. The butter boxes were stacked in a prominent place, so that I could marvel at my continuing progress.

And I did NOT use any medical procedures, special foods, fasting or pills. I eat normal food (you can pick up at any grocery store), take good vitamins (all capsules), work out (two times a week), wear my ExerSpy band and plug in everything I eat into the DotFit computer program.

I don't like to promote a product or program, but when it works this well and is this consistent; I think that I'd be robbing you of the possibility of this kind of success, if I didn't share the wealth of my experience.

When I looked out the front room window this week I was amazed. There was a big Mallard duck and his wife or girlfriend standing on the lawn looking into the picture window.

I figured they belonged to some farmer who owned them and they were hungry because he had not fed them.

I opened the door and stepped outside. I figured they would fly away but instead they waddled over and stood by my feet. The little female fluttered her eyelashes and her boyfriend boldly moved forward and waggled his tail feathers like he would on greeting an old friend.

I was puzzled. We get a lot of squirrels and blue jays, some geese, some Hummel birds (Elsbeth was born and raised in Germany) and some woodpeckers but we never see a duck.

In the '60s we lived at the headwaters of Salmon Creek (near Schick Shadel hospital in Burien. We had some wild ducks that loved to wallow and flutter in a Boeing surplus aluminum tub we filled with water.

We named one friendly mallard Dewey Thoreau. It became quite domesticated.

Sometimes he even went riding as a passenger under the arm of number-two son Ken as he trotted his pet quarter horse around the front yard.

Man allegedly videotapes teen showering
A SeaTac man is facing voyeurism charges on allegations that he secretly videotaped a teen girl showering at his home. King County prosecutors contend John J. Champion set up a spy camera in the bathroom of his home. Then he recorded an acquaintance's relative as she showered in his home. The girl, who was 14 or 15 years old at the time of the incident, told a school counselor that her mother discovered the tapes and promptly severed ties with Champion. He had purchased a pinhole digital video camera claiming he was going to set it up above the entrance to his home. Instead, he allegedly installed it in his bathroom. Champion has been charged with voyeurism, but has not been jailed or entered a plea and has declined to make a statement.

Sea-Tac Assault

Willy Aybar, a former major league baseball player with the Tampa Bay Rays, was arrested near Seattle, accused of assaulting his wife at the Sea-Tac Hilton.

Burien residents will have the opportunity to review the draft "Vision for Burien" statement and discuss it with city officials and Vision for Burien steering committee members at an Open House on Monday, June 13, 5:30 - 7 p.m., in the first floor meeting room at City Hall, 400 S.W. 152nd St.

The City Council is scheduled to adopt the vision statement at its June 20 meeting, 7 p.m., at City Hall.

The draft vision statement is the result of meetings, public forums and surveys over the past several months on what Burien residents want their community to be in the next few decades. The visioning effort will provide the city with a sense of direction and framework for evaluating future policy decisions and will help shape the long-term future of Burien.

The public can also review the draft statement at the city booth at the Wild Strawberry Festival on June 18 and 19 at Burien Town Square. The draft vision can also be viewed online at www.burienwa.gov/vision4burien/

On June 21, another hearing on the civil complaint against two Des Moines police officers involved in the shooting of Rosie, a Newfoundland dog, was set for Aug. 2 in Snohomish County Sueprior Court.
The judge is still considering a motion to dismiss the civil complaint.

Here's our previous coverage:

A date has finally been set for the civil complaint being brought against two Des Moines police officers by Chuck and Dierdre Wright.
Snohomish County District Court Judge Tam Bul will hear the case on June 21 at 10 a.m. in his courtroom in Everett.
On Nov. 7, Des Moines police officers shot and killed the Wright's Newfoundland dog, Rosie, when attempts to capture her failed. After the King County prosecutor reviewed the case and found no criminal culpability with the actions of the officers the Wrights filed a civil complaint against the officers involved in Rosie's shooting.

The civil complaints are filed against Sgt. Steve Wieland, who authorized the use of deadly force and Officer Michael Graddon, who shot and killed Rosie.

The civil complaint accuses the officer of animal cruelty and trapping an animal, both misdemeanors.