Laura here. It's been a wild week at the Procession of the Species studio. Doug's giant anglerfish is officially dead; funeral arrangements are commencing forthwith.

The big rhino got a nose job (a rhinoplasty, get it?) that makes it more anatomically feasible.

We misplaced the strings of little batiks that everybody calls the "prayer flags," and are begging everybody to make more little ones FAST to replace them.

And Operation Chinook Salmon is progressing. Here's the story. Eight years ago, Chinook Middle School students and parents made a 300-pound, fifteen-foot-long Chinook salmon for the Procession. It's of cartonnage and built over what looks like the ribs of an ark. The kids carried it through the streets on their shoulders like junior Penitentes. Totally nuts. Then it got lost in the school's rafters until this fall. (And no, I don't know how you lose something bright blue, finny and the size of a farm truck either. I hope they count the kids at the end of each day.) So now the teachers, kids, and our own real-world carpenter Eli are trying to reconstruct it, but on wheels. It's going to be so much fun.

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So, it turns out I was wrong. Norm is, in fact, not a daddy. Given this information I'm a little (insert appropriate word here, but I can't think of an appropriate word that I am feeling) So, with that in mind I am taking a little break from the blog. Thank you everyone for all of the positive things that you shared with me, and all of the help that was given and offered. From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate it.

I'm gonna go find a beer now.

Norm

"Over on Olyblog Laurian insists that she's a woman. Her middle name's Martin. The reporter apparently believes Laurian to be Male. Others on Olyblog have made the same assumption. Oh well, you know how it is with some Tranny's in Olympia. Laurian is 48 - no wonder s/he hates music, s/he's gotten old. CCM Fan | 04.08.08 - 12:46 pm | #"

Anybody know who the aurthor might be? I sure would like to threaten the them with a suit or challenge them to a duel.

Sir, I say Sir, those are fighting words.

Ya know, as bad and crazy as the debate can get around here, we are Angels compared to the mouth breeders lurking around the Zip.

The City of Olympia invites local artists to apply for a project to design tree guards on Olympia’s West side. The City will commission one local artist to design a suite of five visually or conceptually related vertical tree guards at the intersection of Black Lake Boulevard and Harrison Avenue, for the functional purpose of protecting trees and supporting locked bikes as well as adding an aesthetic amenity to West Olympia. Fabrication of the tree guards will be undertaken by the South Puget Sound Community College Welding Program, with consultation from the artist.

For a prospectus, visit www.olympiawa.gov/cityservices/par or call Stephanie Johnson, Arts & Events Manager at 709-2678.

As sexy as the debate over the proposed noise ordinance was, the Planning Commission had other two other items on it’s agenda.

Kraig Chalem from Olympia’s Community Planning and Development briefed the commission on changes and clarification on Temporary Use permits. These are the kind of permit you get to site a demolition debris dumpster, to have a garage sale, (Bet ya didn’t know you needed a permit to sell that crap in your garage?) or to annex some sidewalk in front of your restaurant for tables and chairs. Most of the proposed changes were to clarify definitions or to eliminate redundancies in the OMC.

Preceding Mr. Chalem was Mr. Andy Haub, Planning and Engineer Manager for the city. He briefed the Commission on the projected impact rising sea levels will have on Olympia.

The Climate Impact Group (http://cses.washington.edu/cig/) predicts the sea level rise (SLR) in the South Sound could be as much as 22” by 2050 and 50” by 2100. Downtown Olympia sits between one to three feet above sea level. A one-foot rise would cause ponding on some streets and flooding during extremely high tides. A two-foot rise would interfere with stormwater pipes and even causing the flow of water in them to reverse. A three-foot rise will flood most of downtown. These predictions are based on the most dire SLR scenarios.

By a young woman from the Olympia area.

[City of Olympia News Release]

(Olympia, WA) Join the Olympia City Council for a Town Hall Meeting on Wheels, Tuesday, April 22, and experience how Olympia is putting sustainability into action.

“This will be a fun and informative twist to our semi-annual town hall meetings,” says Olympia Mayor Doug Mah. “Putting Sustainability into Action is one of the Olympia City Council’s four primary goals,” says Mah. “The field trips will give our community a chance to see first hand how Olympia is moving toward zero waste and managing our water resources in a forward-thinking, sustainable way.”

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Please join us on Thursday, April 10th for a presentation on NHibernate by Fred Hirshfield from Sierra Systems, Inc.

Presentation Summary:

"Relational databases and Object Oriented design sometimes conflict with each other making it somewhat difficult to make use of each technology the way they were intended. NHibernate is the *bridge* between these two technologies so that DBA's can manage and tune their database effectively and OOP designers and developers can manage their object model they way they need to and then use NHibernate to map these together.

This session will be an introduction to NHibernate and some of its features for mapping the object model to the database model. The demonstration solution will be made available after the session for those that would like to play around with it. We will explore the tool using a well known domain: Bug Tracking!

NHibernate (www.nhibernate.org):