Air Supply - The One That You Love (Live at Snoqualmie Casino, Snoqualmi...

I couldn't find our party, but saw folks I know in this video of Air Supply going out in the crowd in their concert at Snoqualmie Casino in early July.

Live Music At Taste Of The Valley

 

The Fabulous Johnson's rock the annual Taste Of The Valley festival last night.  The event, which consisted of food along with beer, wine, and liquor tastings, took place at Wilderness Village in Maple Valley.

Acrobatic Entertainment

A Bellevue restaurant with a Las Vegas flair, we watched this acrobat perform at The Suite.

ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME 2013 - HEART

It was exciting watching this band hit the big time.  A band from here is in the Northwest, that broke barriers and put on a show that was entertaining and personable, lead singer Ann Wilson had an uncanny ability to make every member of the audience feel like she was singing directly to them.

Here is their well deserved induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, from 2013.

Twilight In Maple Valley

Beautiful night in Maple Valley after a super hot day.

Banner Bank

Even though we're less than 300 miles away from my hometown of Walla Walla, it's great to see a branch of Banner Bank.  Banner was originally First Federal Savings And Loan of Walla Walla.  I had my first savings account there. 
This was taken at the Kirkland branch, right next to the Heathman, where Deb and I stay last Thursday for my birthday.

Puget Sound Radio Blog Back

One of my favorite blogs, Pugetsound.media is back on line after announcing late last month that it would cease publication.  After some adding addition help and an influx of  acquired information, the blog picked up and continued on July 14th.

Over 360 Goldens Come To Scotland

It was a sea of gold at Guisachan  Estate in Tomich, Scotland where over 360 of Golden Retriever's met to celebrate the 150th birthday of the breed.

The event was held at location where the golden retriever was first bred, reports were that the dogs were remarkably well behaved.

Benicio Bryant On KING 5 Feature

A couple of weeks ago, KING 5 came to Maple Valley to do it's "Beyond The Studio" feature.  In this segment, they interviewed local singing sensation Benicio Bryant who has previously been featured in this blog.

NPI Calls Out Rodney Tom

Rodney Tom is one of the area's more interesting politicians. A Republican member of the state house of representatives from Medina representing the 48th LD, he switched parties from Republican to Democrat.  It was no a surprise since he seemed a little more Liberal than most of his party members. 

He was elected to the state senate as a Democrat, however, he earned the wrath of the Democratic party when he joined a coalition of Conservative Democrats and Republicans to give control of the senate to the Republicans, while becoming Senate majority leader.

He then declined to run for a second term.  

This year, he has returned to run for his old senate seat and the NPI blog has found that Tom has two brochures describing two different Rodneys.   

Click here

Hometown History IV--Shorty Bennett Era Begins

The final Wa-Hi coach hire of 1975 was Blaine "Shorty" Bennett.  He had an incredible 45-5 record at Ellensburg High, ironically, the city where his son, Blaine would eventually become the head coach at Central Washington.
Like Jim Thacker, Bennett proved to be a very smart hire, staying at the school for many years until moving on to coach at Whitworth in Spokane.
The Bennetts moved a few blocks away from us, and remember dropping with some mail for them that was delivered to our house by mistake.

Lee Goldberg and Lee Goldberg

Cousin Lee Goldberg was has been at a writer's conference in New York where he met with a popular WABC 7 TV weatherman, also named Lee Goldberg.  The TV Lee Goldberg read from the writer Lee Goldberg's book.  Maybe the next time, the writer Lee can do the New York weather.

Hometown History III--Joe Karp Takes Over Wa-Hi Baseball

Another part of the 1975 coaching shakeup was Joe Karp.  When Bill Bieloh was removed as head basketball coach, he resigned as head baseball coach.  Karp was hired from Colville High to replace Bieloh as head baseball coach and be assistant basketball coach to the just hired, Jim Thacker.
Karp had been a head coach of both basketball and baseball at Colville.  He was also a star baseball player at WSU.
In addition to his coaching duties, Karp was also the speech teacher.  I was in his 2nd period speech class.  He was unique in that he had longer hair than most of the other male teachers and never wore a tie.  Instead, he wore pullover shirts.  Kind of a laid back look that was popular in that era.
I remember that every speech in his class got 2 grades, one from him and one from the combined total of classmate's evaluation.  I remember him as a very tight grader.  One student did a demonstration speech of rolling a cigarette using oregano, that his considered funny then, it may not fly today.
Being that I was a senior that year, I don't know how  successful Karp was with the Wa-Hi teams or how long he stayed at the school

Hometown History II-2 New Jims For Wa-Hi Gym

Apparently, the Walla Walla school board took the petition circulated by a group of local citizens very seriously, as the fall of 1975 saw Wa-Hi with a full slate of new coaches.  Jim Thacker, who had incredible success coaching at smaller high schools in the Northwest,  was hired as head boys basketball coach, along with Jim Meredith, a well known WSU basketball standout who would be Thacker's assistant.  

Thacker and Meredith were emblematic of a new era of young, upwardly mobile coaches that would be hired at high schools and colleges.  There ranks would include, Dennis Erickson, Pete Carroll, etc.  Thacker got off to a rocky start in his first, but did get the team into the playoffs (with a regular season record under .500) where they placed number 8 in the state. 

Home Town History--Handfull Of Local Sports Fans Grow Impatient With Local Coaches.

In the mid 70s, while I was a student at Wa-Hi, a group of local fans decided that our high school athletic teams were not competitive in it's conference, which consisted of schools in Yakima, Tri Cities, Wenatchee, and Moses Lake and made headlines in the Walla WAlla UB by circulating a petition to replace the current coaches.
  This inspired another petition by supporters of the program and coaches to continue as it is
Before my Senior year, in the fall of 1975 (I was class of '76), three  new head coaches and one assistant coach were hired. All from other Washington cities.
We will present more on this topic soon.

Hanging At Redmond Derby Days

Neil Diamond impressionist for the band Cherry Cherry wades into the crowd for "Kentucky Woman".

Our Summer Joint

Every summer, we try to have dinner at least once at the Triple X in issaquah.

KING 5 Goes To Maple Valley Part 2

Another well done report from Monday, if this segment, Mimi and Jake interview the city manager about things to do in our town.  I may post a couple more.

Celebratrating

Deb and I enjoy a free desert after having dinner at Salty's at Redondo Beach in South Puget Sound last Sunday.  We were celebrating our 23rd anniversary.

Former Sonic Lonnie Shelton

I was saddened to read of the death of Lonnie Shelton.   Shelton helped lead the Seattle Super Sonics to the NBA title in the 1978-79 season.  It was an exciting time for Northwest sports fans.  

Shelton came to Seattle as a compensation player after the team lost Center Marvin Webster to the Knicks.  Shelton was a power forward known for his hard physical play. 

At the time that Shelton joined the Sonics, he was not new to the Northwest.  He played his college ball at Oregon State.

KING 5 TV Goes To Maple Valley

I was surprised to flip on the TV and see KING 5 crew reporting on our town of Maple Valley.  It looks like they were well received and everyone enjoyed their coffee.

Celebrating 23 Years!

Taken at our wedding, Grand Atrium, Seattle on July 8th 1995.

Air Supply Concert

The Australian band Air Supply performed tonight at the outdoor stage at Snoqualmie Casino. Below is lead singer, Russell Hitchcock.  The other principal in the band is Graham Russell, who plays guitar and also shares lead singing duties as well as writes many songs.  

The band interacted well with the crowd, at one point going down every aisle while performing. 

Dasher Gets In Wrong Pool

We had already filled the little pool for Dasher, but he wanted to lay in the bigger pool with no water.  Fun with the dog on the 4th!

Visit To Palouse Falls

This is actually a combination of 2 videos that I made during our visit.

Enjoying Everett AquaSox Baseball

On the 4th of July.  Fireworks will follow the game.

Happy 4th Of July

Is There A Pot Of Gold At The Whitman?

A big rainbow greeted us when we drove into Walla Walla last weekend. After a second look, it seems the rainbow ends at the Baker-Boyer Bank.

Seahawk Safety Kam Chancellor Ends Career

The risk of paralysis after a season ending neck injury was has caused Kam Chancellor to retire.  Chancellor, a 4 time Pro Bowler, has been with the Seahawks since 2010 when he was drafted out of Virginia Tech.

Chancellor was a key player in the Seahawk defensive backfield known as the "Legion Of Boom" that help bring the Seahawks it's first Super Bowl championship in 2014.

Lebron Now A Laker

Michael Jordan never played for the Lakers, but Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West , Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neil, and Kobe Bryant have all played for what can jokingly be called the NBA other Hall Of Fame.  Now Lebron James will join all the greats who either started with the team or joined late in their career.  

In a move that surprised no one, James announced that he will sign a 4 year  154 million deal with the Lakers.

After returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014, James lead to the team to it's first NBA championship in 2016.

Bledsoe Winery

Ex NFL great Drew Bledsoe now operates a public tasting room in his native Walla Walla. 
Drew has a by appointment only tasting room elsewhere in the town.