Here's to a healthy and happy new year to all.

(Click picture for surprise)

A local woman, Debbie Leung, is one of several gardeners featured in the Organic Gardening magazine, Dec 2005/Jan 2006. Along with a photo of her there is a short piece written by Pam Ruch:

For 14 years, Debbie sold quantities of fancy greens, Asian vegetables, herbs, and flower bouquets grown on an intensively tended acre. She has now scaled down to a "large produce patch" that feeds "only" seven families, so that she has more time to write. Debbie is often sighted at dawn or dusk with a sharp pair of clippers, slicing slugs into gratifying pieces. She loves the culinary and ornamental plants that share her Asian ancestry, and the diverse wildness of her gardens and property. When asked to describe her garden in five words, she chose sustenance, serenity, connection, and getting dirty.

Tumwater School District administrators must take a hard look at racism in their schools.

In a recent incident, a white Black Hills High School student flew a Confederate flag from his truck on campus, prompting a verbal dispute with at least three black students.

Link

I know Olyblog has quite a few self-proclaimed defenders of free speech. What say ye?

You know you need to. Rain is falling. The year is turning. Celebrate change, cut that hair.

I suggest:

• Bryce at Bryce's Barbershop, near The Spar on 4th Ave E downtown, he can usually take you in right off the street

• Jamie Lee & Company, for women and also for those non-barbershop styles for anyone, 309 4th E, #786-6027, appointment usually needed (I suggest with Cole)

Both places are locally owned and active in positive community endeavors. So, get that hair cut.

It isn't everyday I wander down to the library. I head to either the Lacey or Olympia libraries at least once a week, but mostly to pick up a book I've reserved or to read a paper I can't find anywhere else. But, I've had the week off and reading at home is a bit boring. Plus, we talked about the Timberland Libraries introducing wireless (which seems to be working) and Sarah has written a couple of reports on the mall (here and here) and I thought I'd counter with a library report.

I was going to head to my own Oly library, but I had a side trip come up, which landed me in the neighborhood of the Tumwater library. On a rainy Friday before New Years, its a surprisingly diverse and large crowd. I hang out at libraries a lot so I'm not one to say "I can't believe how many people are down there," but today in Tumwater, I expected less.

On a side note, in general, I expect more out of libraries. Instead of asking our libraries to compete with Barnes and Noble,  we should ask them to fill a space that many people try to fill when they head down to the mall. They should be a town square, a place to hang out, etc.

In that direction, this libraries wireless network is really good, better than the one I have at home. The only thing I don't like is the need to go to the information desk to get a password. Yes, secruity is secruity, but it was annoying to have to pack up my laptop, truck it across the library, get the password to come back and sit down again. That said, in the future I'll obviously pick up the password first.

Now that the libraries have set up wireless networks, it might be a good idea to change the furinture makeup. Possibly more single chairs or one/two person desks, and fewer desktop work stations (especially if the library ever decided to offer loaner laptops).

From CNNMoney:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Sixty-five of the nation's 299 biggest real estate markets are severely overpriced and subject to possible price corrections.

That's according to the latest (third quarter) Housing Market Analysis conducted by National City Corp, a financial holding company, in conjunction with Global Insight, a financial information provider.

The report named Naples, Florida as the most overvalued of all housing markets in the United States. A single-family, median-priced home there sells for $329,970, 84 percent more than what it should cost -- $180,956 -- according to the analysis.

National City arrives at its estimates of what the typical house in these markets should cost by examining the town's population densities, local interest rates, and income levels. It also factors in historical premiums and discounts for each area.

Other markets deemed wildly overpriced included Merced, California (by 77 percent), Salinas, California (75 percent), and Port St. Lucie, Florida (72 percent).

Olympia comes in at 25% overvalued.

From The Olympian:

Last year, the coalition ran an emergency cold-weather shelter at St. David's Episcopal Church in Shelton. Hayes and the Rev. Jeff Sells applied for an extension of a conditional-use permit to keep the shelter open, but city staffers wrote a letter in August that said the church did not meet fire code requirements.

The church is in the process of raising $15,000 to bring the building up to code, Hayes said.

The conditional-use permit application has been resubmitted, and city staff plans to turn it over to a hearing examiner for approval within the next several weeks.

Until then, Mason County has no place to shelter homeless people when the temperature dips below freezing.

Mason county officials considered bussing homeless to Olympia, but we don't have enough space here to take them in.

Cooper Point was named in 1841 during a visit by the Wilkes Expedition. Actually, I think he called it Point Cooper. It was named after John Cooper, a member of the crew. In one of those little ironies of life, Cooper was the ship's armorer.

From Cascadia Scorecard Weblog::

The US Census Bureau has issued population estimates for the states, which allow us to give an updated Cascadian population tally. As of July 1, 2005, the region -- counting British Columbia, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington -- had 15.6 million people. (Adding western Montana, southeast Alaska, and northwestern California pushes that figure up by another million or so, but running the county-by-county figures takes more time than I've got at the moment.)

The (four main jurisdictions of the) region added 227,000 inhabitants over the preceding 12 months. That's about the number that live in greater Olympia, Washinton. And it's a 1.5 percent increase, the largest since 1997.

I had no idea so many people live in the greater Olympia area.

Here's the details on the blogging conference scheduled for next week.

The forum (and workshop) will focus on Internet communications strategies and the emerging progressive infrastructure and tentatively will be called “Help Us Help You