It is going to be a great night down on the Ruston Way waterfront. The temperature is perfect, sun is out, sailboats should be everywhere.. Wednesday on the Water is just one of many reasons why summers in Tacoma are as good as anywhere. Kayaks, rafts, paddle boards and power boats are all great fun out on Commencement Bay.

For those of you who may be new to kayaking or looking to learn more about kayaks, please hit up Backpacker's Supply on July 12th. They are running a free kayak demo (Paddlesports Demo Days at Owen Beach/Point Defiance). Take advantage of this rare opportunity to try several different boats! There is no better way to find the best boat for you than to compare different ones back to back on the same day. Free.

Happy paddling.

The blues festival formerly known as Tacoma's Wintergrass has left the building.

It gets worse. Wintergrass will now be in Bellevue. Here's another giant step backward for the City of Density. Gracious me, what is going on in this town? We just lost a cool music festival to BELLEVUE!

That is disgusting.

Bellevue sucks.

They have no business pulling a rainy-season blues event out of the gritty city. It's getting harder and harder for me to call Tacoma gritty. Who coined that anyway? If it was you, please chime in with justification for said nomenclature. We have an industrial port, our fair share of condemned buildings and a burgeoning meth scene. I guess that's sorta gritty.

The economy is quietly bouncing back, spurring me to request no further setbacks for Tacoma until after summer. I want positive momentum. I want positive economic development. I want more culture, not less. The Old Town Blues Festival is coming up on July 11th; hopefully people will turn out in droves to show their support.

Is the Weekly Volcano downsizing? Reorganizing? Shape-shifting? Dieting?

As I regularly browse the Volcano over coffee and breakfast, I hope for an as-close-to-full-strength-as-possible Weekly Volcano to continue entertaining me for the foreseeable future. I would like to start the unofficial "Keep the Volcano Active!" club, as of this writing.

There are other perspectives, however. A long-time contributor to feed>>tacoma, Dave L, has a great idea: "Maybe do the back Volcano-section upside down so either the Volcano or the Ranger is in front, depending on how you hold it."

Not bad. I can live with this. The concept has conservation at its core. Nothing's more sustainably hip than that.

Whatever it takes, I will be patient with them as they attempt to adapt to our changing economic environment. If you are a fan of keeping things local, you should be patient with them as well. It worries me to think of our local cultural reporting stream coming from a non-really-local group. Don't let the Stranger or other outside organizations in on Tacoma's arts & entertainment scene! I love the Stranger, but it belongs to Seattle. Tacoma needs a homegrown outlet.

Dave's Meat & Produce is unique. Small market stores generally have a difficult time providing enough variety to draw a consistent shopper base away from the big grocery stores. In this case, the big competition combo of Safeway and Metropolitan Market lurks just 3 stoplights west in the heart of the Proctor District.

Times are tough. People are watching their pennies. Like many other small businesses in Tacoma, Dave's Meat & Produce needs our help to stay alive. I noticed that the coffee stand in front of their building went out of business recently. This concerns me. I want to make sure the coffee stand is the only thing on that lot that fails. Dave's is more than worthy of staying in business here for a long time.

By supporting local growers, and providing top quality produce, meat, seafood and personal service, Dave's has everything you'll need to make an entire meal, big or small. You'll be in and out of this place in minutes - and if you're really in a hurry, there are several prepared dishes ready for the grill or the oven, facilitating gourmet, homemade meals in minutes. They may not be the cheapest place in town, but you should remember to drop in the next time you want a fun, convenient shopping experience and a healthy meal at home.

Dave's Meat & Produce
1312 North I Street
Tacoma, WA
(253) 280-9999

Map

The University of Washington Women's Softball Team just became the 2009 National Champions after defeating the Florida Gators 2-0 in a best of 3 series. This is the 1st time the University of Washington has won a National Championship at softball. I am currently a huge softball fan, thanks to this World Series I just watched over the past few days. Go Dawgs!

Baconnaise. Stops you in your tracks the first time you see it. At least it did me today at Proctor Met Market. Needless to say, it's here with me now. I am about to take my first bite of Brotvurst de Baconnaise. So far I can tell you it smells not a lot like bacon and appears to be a thicker version of 1000 Island.  Here goes...

First bite: surprisingly delicious. Bacony.

Second bite: surprising yet again. Still delicious. I'm a believer.

I went 1/2 with just Baconnaise and 1/2 with Baconnaise, ketchup and mustard, and the Baconnaise was able to deliver plenty of bacon flavor right through the other condiments. As we always used to say back in college, a little dab'll do ya.

Until tomorrow's lunch sandwich experiment is complete, we won't know if this makes a great mayo substitute, but I can tell you that it makes a terrific bacon substitute. Unlike Bacon In a Can or Squeeze Bacon, this has real potential. Camping burgers will never be the same.

We owe it all to a little company by the name of J&D out of Seattle, Washington. Try some today!

    

The Bank of California Building at 1011 Pacific Ave in downtown Tacoma is for sale. I had the privilege of meeting owner Jay Yi last week and he allowed us a full tour of the historic site. The impressive structure is packed with an arsenal of equally impressive contents. Never having been used for anything other than a bank, the facility is uniquely tailored for a certain purpose. Like housing millions of dollars in cash, jewels and other valuables for decades.

You pass through the giant, classic pillars on the outside and into an expansive lobby where your eye is immediately drawn 40 feet upward to the cathedral ceiling. The ornate wood and plaster detail overhead is unlike anything you will find in new construction today. Gold carvings tell a story that wraps around the top of the room. Solid granite walls line the staircase leading downstairs.

An old bank manager's office at the front of the building is luxuriously decorated with gorgeous wood paneling and feels like something out of Scooby-Doo. We could not find any of the secret compartments in the walls, but I'm certain they are there somewhere. If I had an office, I would want it to look just like this one.

We took the old world elevator to the basement and that is where things really got interesting. Exiting the elevator, I suddenly felt as though I were thrust headlong into the middle of a scene from Ocean's Eleven. I've never had free run of a giant vault before. Have you? There were thousands of old, empty safety deposit boxes and multiple safes for the storage of exactly who knows what.

Movie set. That's all I kept thinking. Well, that and the fact the building may have access to the old tunnels under Tacoma. Stay tuned.

The Rock has long been a nighttime take-it-or-leave-it for me. Crowds, pricing and mediocrity have generally kept me away, save for the weekday lunch buffet (a Tacoma classic). After granting The Rock another chance, I can tell you the food, drinks and service were all off the charts. Bravo, Rock, bravo.

Everybody knows that Pagliacci has the best pizza in the world. Well, I am here to announce that this is no longer the case. In the words of the not-so-great George Thorogood, move over little Pagliacci, a big, old Rock is movin in!

My comprehension of the experience is already cloudy, after having just finished my leftovers 15 minutes ago. The crust is hand-tossed, thin and crispy - it's the closest crust to Pagliacci I've ever seen. What was so great about it? There was this prosciutto, meatball, almond and mushroom pizza that seriously 'knocked my socks off' <== I have never used that phrase before. You can't imagine how good it was. They have an impressive selection of pizza toppings, providing endless possibilities to appease even the pickiest of eaters (I brought one of them with me and she loved her mushroom n' olive pizza).

Last night we walked right in and sat down at a booth in the bar. This new room they've created is cozy and comfortable compared to the old setup. To top it off, our server was one of the best I've had anytime, anywhere. I went in with little enthusiasm for a place I'd been many times and left with a new favorite.

Our urban center is in big trouble. While local and national economies were booming, albeit on false hope and shady business practice, downtown Tacoma was just okay. As the recession persists, downtown Tacoma struggles to maintain a grip on relevance to groups of people who are not otherwise forced to be there.

Students and employees of downtown organizations remain constant, but they are fading into isolation. We the people of Tacoma who don't need to be downtown have but 2 reasons to be there: food and drink. As "Annie" points out in her response to a recent article in the Weekly Volcano, downtown Tacoma needs a retail anchor. Unless we catch one or two big fish, our small businesses will continue to ebb with time-sensitive trends and fashions.

Parasitic recycling of commercial space in downtown Tacoma has held the region back for decades, while repeatedly stripping away elements of history and identity. Thank goodness we have the Tacoma Dome, neon lights and all, lest we be symbolized by what? The Swiss? Old Spaghetti Factory? These are fine establishments, but not cornerstone material. Where else have people been going in downtown for more than 25 years besides the theaters? Think about that for a minute. Tacoma calls itself Grit City. Does not this imply persistance, longevity and established identity?

The list of household name retail shops in downtown Tacoma currently amounts to squat. Zilch. There is an adequate supporting cast of mom-n-pop shops, but nothing remotely close to must-visits like markets, grocery, sporting goods, or department stores. Unless you are the opposite of diabetic, requiring entire boxes of cupcakes on a daily basis, you are on the outside looking in. You need a better reason to be there often.

Here's the problem in a nutshell: retail anchors don't want anything to do with downtown Tacoma. There could never exist a more inconvenient downtown road system than the one we currently have in our glorious City of Density. Pacific Avenue is a nightmare, yet it is the only semblance of a direct route from the freeways through downtown. It is our backbone, yet it absolutely strangles the potential flow of traffic through the city.

Crucial problems for Pacific Ave. are as follows. The timing of the stoplights is atrocious. If you are not lucky enough to hit green lights all the way, it can take 10 minutes. We're only talking about traveling 25 blocks! Even at 4am, amid no other signs of life, you will wait and wait and wait. When trying to park near the UW Bookstore you may end up "going around the block" for several blocks if all the angle-in parking spots are full. Jefferson Street's diagonal approach through the Convention Center/UWT (CCUWT) exacerbates the situation. It would sure be nice if there were other streets right above Pacific that added parking as well as a better flow to the traffic bottleneck. Instead, Jefferson comes down like a guillotine, severing all flow of traffic behind Pacific. If you don't care to "go around the block" in the shape of a massive triangle, you hang a U-turn and try again. This 2 lane purgatory is one of the more awkward driving experiences I've seen on a city's main drag.

Most major, urban areas have at least 2 parallel streets handling the bulk of the area's traffic, especially near freeway access. This creates a circular flow. City blocks are supposed to work like wheels in a tank track. Take downtown Seattle, for example. There live 10 times the people and cars, but one can traverse the sizable area in 5 minutes on a handful of adjacent streets. Traffic clogs exist, but they are generally on the perimeter of downtown Seattle. Lower Queen Anne, Pioneer Square, Capital Hill and the waterfront are all a mess but you only have to deal with them if they are your final destination.

The entire area around the CCUWT is a giant plug, smack dab in the middle of everything.  You cannot cross through downtown Tacoma without a) driving all the way down Pacific Ave, subjecting yourself to cruel and unusual Link light rail and stoplight queues, b) traveling all the way up the hill and utilizing the more effective Tacoma and Yakima Avenues, or c) encountering the CCUWT plug.

If our goal is to entice retail business to root down, our capacity for vehicles must be expanded. Now that we have the aforementioned limitations in place, it's going to take some rather creative efforts to improve the overall capacity. Perhaps a more fluid connection between Pacific Ave and Dock Street can exist? How about a strategically-placed off-ramp direct to the hilltop/Nu Tacoma area, shifting some of the traffic burden up the hill? Fortunately for me, it's not my job to figure this out. For those of you who do take on this responsibility, I salute you.

A constituency in Tacoma feels that parking stalls are a blight and that good traffic flow can lead to visitors leaving the area too easily. What is this, a prison!? We intentionally degrade our infrastructure to look fancy while people are forced to buy things as a result of being stuck here? This is not a sustainable method for building a positive commercial reputation. The same group who brought you red light traffic cameras must be responsible for seminating such an ideology.

Before we wrap, I have something for the environmentalists. Generally speaking I agree with most of your perspectives, most of the time. I'm sorry if better roads in downtown don't benefit the environment - we'll have to make up for it in other areas of the city. I'm sorry that many of you detest cars - heck, I don't like cars. I'm sorry if you prefer to optimize downtown Tacoma for bicycles and pedestrians - this is traditionally the 2nd biggest city in Washington, not Port Townsend. Please accept the fact that Tacoma is supposed to be an urban hub of traffic, economy, activity and culture; it is not the time or place to conduct a preservation experiment.

I could go on and on, but will reserve myself to field your thoughts and opinions, should I be granted access to them.

Annie Wright is on modified lockdown at this hour. An internet threat of some kind has turned up, causing authorities to take several precautionary steps to assure safety on campus. This is certainly not the type of place you expect to see this. My money is on this being a hoax. More info will follow, as it becomes available.