www.groceryoutlet.com
Grocery Outlet – Kennewick, WA

1325 W 4th Ave
Kennewick, WA 99336

The Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce had a ribbon cutting today for the Grocery Outlet. The business community showed up in force to celebrate. After all the photos were taken, those who attended were each given a bottle of wine and the store had set out some nice food platters and large cake. This was the first time in the three years I have been an Ambassador for the Chamber that we have received a full bottle of wine at a ribbon cutting. Definitely a tradition that needs to be encouraged!

According to the company’s website, the Kennewick Grocery Outlet carries brand name groceries, frozen foods, refrigerated items, housewares, health and beauty products, fine wines, and more. But, they offer these brand name products at 40% to 60% below traditional retailers.

I was pleasantly surprised at the wide selection of products available, including fresh fruit and fresh flowers. We will definitely be coming down here to do some more shopping. Best wishes to Dane and Jami Dorsey, the owner/operators of Kennewick’s Grocery Outlet. It sounds like they have quite a bit of experience in the grocery business. I think the location is perfect for a grocery store.

Here are some photos I took during the ribbon cutting. You can click on any of the photos to see a larger version:

As I continue my ‘book-a-week’ goal for 2010 I realized that it would be better to move my reviews and thoughts off to a separate blog for a couple of reasons that I will detail shortly. I am hoping to have it up and running in a week or so. I will put up a post once the new blog is fully operational. As I get the new blog set up, I will move older book posts to the new blog. I need to figure out how to do it ‘correctly’ so that folks who find an old link to the review will be pointed to the new blog and not just given a ‘post not found’ error.

The first reason I wanted to start a new book blog is because the posts could overwhelm the other content on this blog. Not that that would be a bad thing, but this blog is not set up as a book review blog. This blog is primarily for generic stuff I come across and do in the course of a day, be it personal or work related. If I find any one of these areas becoming a prime topic then they too might become a separate blog.

The second reason follows, a new blog would let me set it up with microformats that would make it easier to post reviews, quotes, etc. As I have been reading (and posted) about microformats it makes sense to have things set up so that I can fill in some blanks and let the blog do the work of keeping the format consistent as well as setting the stuff up for the search engines. If you look at the posts over at the new blog you will see they have a consistent look, and since all the ‘book data’, from the title and author to the ISBN and jacket cover, is stored in fields like a database for each post, if I change the book review template then all the old posts are updated too without me having to go back and fix them. This should make for a consistent look as well as allow me to tweak things as I learn ‘more and better’ ways of doing it.

The third reason follows from the second, a blog dedicated to just the books I am reading will do better with the search engines, bringing in those who are interested in books. Many who come now to a book post are probably not too sure about coming back to this blog because of its eclectic nature. If the new blog is just about books then they can follow it with their RSS reader or check back knowing they will not be bored by something about the latest program I have found for my Droid phone or a local business I visited as a member of the Chamber of Commerce.

Fourth, as I review books I receive requests to review more books. For the same reasons given in the previous paragraph, authors and publishers are less likely to ask me to review their books if the blog is not a ‘book blog’ and I don’t blame them. Making the new blog exclusively for books should help authors and publishers find me more easily as well as decide if they should send me a book (and I like free books).

Lastly, and very much related to the last two, Google likes homogeneity. If all the posts are about books then it knows what kind of ads to serve. Someone reading my post about a new book does not care to see ads about something totally unrelated but was served up because Google hadn’t yet figured out what this post was about. And I don’t need all the ads on this blog to be aimed at readers and writers because Google thinks that what this blog is about. So with a separate blog, readers of each blog should see ads that are more appropriate to what they came for and what they are reading. And yes, I do like getting a check from Google each month. It has never been enough to do anything more than take my wife out once or twice a month but it is nice to get (and I can dream of hitting it big).

There is still lots of work to do on the new blog. I am still working on the general design and have to get all the WordPress plugins installed that I have found useful as well as setting up the sidebars. Probably will look a lot like this one for now (and probably get tempted to update the theme of this blog while I am at it). One thing I will be doing is keeping a log of the changes I make and reasons for doing so on the new blog so that when I do decide to create a new blog or update this one I don’t have to remember how I did what I did but can go back and read my notes.

www.FocalPointMarketing.com
Focal Point Marketing & Multimedia

8551 W Gage Blvd, Suite K
Kennewick, WA 99336

The Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce had a ribbon cutting today for Focal Point Marketing & Multimedia. There was a large turnout for this event. Of course it never hurts attendance when wine and h’orderves are served!

Located next to Tony Romas near Costco, this new Tri-City business combines state-of-the-art technology with industry-proven marketing strategies to maximize marketing budget value. Focal Point specializes in almost everything marketing: strategy, media productions, web vignettes, print media, branding, broadcast placement, electronic press kits, communications, and web design. Their facility houses a fully equipped HD digital post suite, a media design center, and a first-rate sound booth. The design center not only has a state-of-the-art production studio but also has a 30-foot green screen.

I was impressed by the equipment they had out on display. Besides the video and computer hardware, the steadicam video camera looked quite impressive. Here is wishing them the best of luck in their new endeavor!

Last night was the 5th annual Second Harvest Tri-Cities signature fund raising event, “Taking a Bite Out of Hunger” at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick. What better way to raise money to fight hunger than bringing together hundreds of individuals and businesses for a silent auction and food tastings from different local restaurants as well as wine and beer. My wife, Von, and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. This is the 3rd year that our office has purchased a table at the event and we are looking forward already to attending again next year.

Nineteen of the areas finest restaurants provided samples of their signature dishes. But to call them samples is to do them injustice. I am not sure I was able to visit all the restaurants’ tables before I was overfull. I should have skipped breakfast and dinner!

I did have a glass of wine early in the evening but soon found the microbrewery table. Five area microbreweries supplied one of their brews on tap. The Atomic Amber was the darkest beer available and so was my first choice and I was not disappointed. Later, when I returned for more I realized this was a perfect opportunity to try them all. Over the course of the evening I “forced” myself to accomplish this daunting task. Of the remaining four brews the one that stood out was the “Steamy Cream” from Prosser’s Whitstran Brewing

The entertainment for the evening was a fun performance by Danny Vernon as “The Illusion of Elvis”. I tried to get Von to have her photo taken with him but she must be allergic to Elvis cause when he came near our table during part of the performance she disappeared faster than I could pull out my camera.

While taking a bite, all who attended also were able to take a bite out of hunger in our local area by bidding on items in a silent auction as well as purchasing items outright. All the money raised is used locally to help those in need. Von bought a ‘grab box’ with three bottles of wine for $50 and I purchased a John Clement print of the Wallula Gap and Two Sisters for $395. Nice to be able to help and enjoy ourselves at the same time.

Fighting Hunger, Feeding Hope

From the 2nd Harvest website:

Second Harvest Tri-Cities brings community resources together to feed people in need through empowerment, education and partnerships.

• Since opening in 1997, Second Harvest Tri-Cities has increased food distribution and improved services to people in need throughout the Columbia Basin.
• The 5,000-square-foot warehouse in Kennewick distributed 2.7 million pounds, including 1.5 million pounds of fresh produce and other perishable products, last year.
• More than 80 partner charities, including neighborhood food banks and meal centers, receive food to provide to people in need.

Second Harvest Tri-Cities is committed to ensuring a safe and nutritious supply of food is available to families, children and seniors in need in our neighborhoods. Thanks to generous community partners, Second Harvest is able to provide six pounds of donated food for every dollar donated. This makes every donation to Second Harvest a valuable investment in fighting hunger and feeding hope.

The Yoast article on Google & Microformats caught my attention. I have been working on the address links for my company’s website (you can check it out for great car, home, or renters insurance) and, from what I was reading, realized that I should use the microformat with each office’s address.

However, the use of microformats, a set of agreed upon HTML conventions used to describe content, can give you more control of the snippets displayed in Google SERPs. Once your site is properly using rich snippets, you will see them also appear in your Google custom search and Google site search results, so this technique is definitely worth exploring if you use those tools as well.

Google, of course, does a great job figuring out addresses, etc from a a web site but why not help it out and label what’s what. The microformat does this. I had no idea what microformats were set up but was about to learn.

Example

—- start code —-
<div class=”vcard”>
 <span class=”fn org” style=”display:none;”>
  <span class=”organization-name” style=”display:none;”>Mid-Columbia Insurance</span>
  <span class=”organization-unit” style=”display:none;”>Kennewick</span> 
 </span>
 <strong><a href=”http://www.MidColumbiaInsurance.com/Kennewick” class=”url” title=”Car Insurance Kennewick, WA”>
  <img src=”/images/Kennewick-145.gif” alt=”Kennewick, WA Office” title=”Kennewick Insurance Office” border=”0″ /></a></strong>
  <div class=”adr”>
  <span class=”street-address”>8601 W Clearwater, Ste A</span><br />   <span class=”locality”>Kennewick</span>,
  <span title=”Washington” class=”region”>WA</span> <span class=”postal-code”>99336</span><br />
 </div>
 <span class=”geo”>
  <span class=”latitude”>
   <span class=”value-title” title=”46.208625″ />
  </span>
  <span class=”longitude”>
   <span class=”value-title” title=”-119.237502″ />
  </span>
 </span>
 <span class=”tel”>
  <span class=”value”>(509) 783-5600</span>
  :<span class=”type”>office</span><br />
 </span>
 <span class=”tel”>
  <span class=”value”>(509) 783-0954</span>
  :<span class=”type”>fax</span>
 </span>
</div>
  —- end code —-

—- display start —-

Mid-Columbia Insurance Kennewick

8601 W Clearwater, Ste A
Kennewick, WA 99336

(509) 783-5600 :office
(509) 783-0954 :fax

  —- dispaly end —-

Now I have to look at other applications where I can use microformats, most likely for book reviews!

Links & More Info:

• Yoast: Google & Microformats
• Yoast: Implementing hreview in your WordPress theme
• Microformats.org Blog, wiki, & discussion
• Wikipedia: Microformats
• Google Webmaster Central
• Google Documentation on Rich Snippets
• Rich Snippets Tips & Tricks
• Rich Snippets Testing Tool

Ideas for later

• Personal Page: Jared Hanson, Roger King, Tim Van Damme

Pete Fromm and Jess Walter were the guest authors at this month’s Mid-Columbia Literature Festival. These were actually encore performances as both authors participated in the LitFest 2 years ago. Pete Fromm jokingly mentioned that this was the first time a group was ever willing to listen to him a 2nd time.

Pete Fromm

Pete Fromm’s latest novel, As Cool As I Am (2003), earned him an unprecedented fourth Pacific Northwest Booksellers Literary Award. Earlier winners were his novel How All This Started (2000), a story collection, Dry Rain (1997), and a memoir Indian Creek Chronicles (1993). Hailed as one of “America’s best-kept literary secrets,” he has published four other story collections, as well as more than 100 stories in magazines. His short story, Dry Rain, was recently made into a film that opened at the 2008 Seattle International Film festival. He lives with his family in Missoula, Montana.

Fromm joked that he did not want to read from his latest novel because he is afraid that he might just repeat the same reading as last time he was was here and, even worse, repeat the same jokes. Instead he read a chapter from his current writing project telling the protagonist’s heroic, yet quixotic struggle against M.S. The story was both hilarious and sad. I am definitely looking forward to reading this book when it comes out.

Jess Walter

Jess Walter is the award-winning author of five novels and one nonfiction book. His book, The Zero, was a finalist for the National Book Award. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages and his essays, short fiction, criticism, and journalism have been widely published in Details, Playboy, Newsweek, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe among many others. Walter also writes screenplays and was the co-author of Christopher Darden’s 1996 bestseller In Contempt.

Walter mentioned that when giving readings in Portland and Seattle, the mention that he is a Spokane Writer has about the same effect as saying one is a Umatilla Ballerina. Spokane is his home though and so, appropriately, he read a short work of his entitled, “Statistical Abstract of My Home Town, Spokane, WA”. It gave many facts about Spokane, most hilarious, starting with the fact that Spokane has more adult men riding child-sized BMX bikes than any other city. These men all wear caps, baseball caps in the summer and stocking caps in the winter, pedaling with their knees up above their ears. Even though he is sure that the Spokane Chamber of Commerce is not thrilled with the picture he paints of Spokane he concludes his statistical story with a very telling point: “Hating the place you are from is just another form of self-loathing”

Definitely was a fun evening with these two authors. They had a natural sense of humor that really clicked with me and the rest of the audience. I hope to get a chance to read some works from each of them. I do see that the Mid-Columbia Library carries both authors.

The next LitFest event is April 20th, featuring Tod Marshall on Poetry. Come if you have a chance!

You would think that I would get more read this month. I was on a week long cruise down the Mexican coast with lots of ‘dead’ time. 4 books went in to my suitcase, didn’t even finish one of them.

Still, was able to read through 4 books and listen to an audiobook for a total of 5 books this month. Since February only has 4 weeks, this will be a successful month for my book a week challenge.

I only was able to post one review. I believe that puts me about 8 books behind on writting up what I have read Hopefully in March I will set aside some more time to read and write.

So, what did I read in Febrary?

1. The Magician\’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo
   Summary: Great book on the power of hope and improbability
   Reason: Borders Books Most Popular Children’s Book Started: 01/24/2010 — Finished: 02/02/2010 — Source: Library
2. Kindred by Octavia Butler
   Summary: Slavery and prejudice leave scars.
   Reason: Recommended as better than Time Traveler’s Wife
   Started: 02/02/2010 — Finished: 02/04/2010 — Source: Library
3. Fields of Honor: Pivotal Battles of the Civil War by Edwin Bearss
   Summary: All Civil War battles were fought in National Parks — wish I could visit them with Bearss to narrate as he does in this book.
   Reason: LibraryThing Early Review copy and I am fascinated but can’t get my mind around all the civil war details.
   Started: 01/24/2010 — Finished: 02/08/2010 — Source: Owned (LibraryThing Early Review)
4. The Children of Men by P.D. James
   Summary: Even with the end of Humanity people seek security over freedom.
   Reason: Liked the movie and book was recommended by others.
   Started: 02/05/2010 — Finished: 02/15/2010 — Source: Library
5. The Calligrapher\’s Daughter (audiobook) by Eugenia Kim
   Summary: Korea comes of age with the fall of the Japanese Empire which dominated it Reason: Borders Book for Original Voices Award
   Started: 01/29/2010 — Finished: 02/17/2010 — Source: Library

My 30 minutes of audio Bible reading each morning:

• Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, & Habakkuk
• 1&2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon
• Leviticus
• Hebrews
• Numbers
• Mark
• Dueteronomy

My Book Queue is set for March. Since I will not be on vacation I will hopefully find a little bit more time to read.

People use Twitter to comment on every aspect of their life during the week but what about during that hour they set aside for worship each week?

I just read an interesting post 5 Reasons to Twitter During Church by Scott Williams. Like the author, I too use the YouVersion Bible app on my phone when I forget my ‘real’ bible or when I want to see another translation but I have hesitations about using social media during the actual worship service. I too suffer from Sermon Attention Deficit Disorder (SADD) but the problem is really just that I have a hard time listening to any speaker without having something else to occupy my stray thoughts. For myself I have found the best antidote is to take good notes. It keeps me focused on the message. It brings out questions that I can discuss later with the pastor. (And it makes me appreciate well structured messages.)

Lets look at Scott’s 5 reasons for using Twitter:

1. You have the opportunity to be a real-time extension of your pastor’s voice while he/she is communicating God’s word.
2. If the pastor shares something that moves you, inspires you or changes your life; there is a good chance it will have the same impact on the lives of your followers as well.
3. When Jesus said: Go into all the world and preach the Gospel… “All The World” applies to the Internet world, as well as the TwitterWorld. Do your part by going into all the TwitterWorld, tweeting the Good News.
4. You will have a stored database of your compelling thoughts and notes, from your favorite sermons.
5. You can spare a couple of minutes of (SAD) Sermon Attention Deficit during most sermons. It’s better use of your time Twittering great thoughts than drawing on the back of offering envelope

Now, here are 5 reasons not to use Twitter I compiled from Pastors Josh Harris and ;John Piper:

1. There is a difference between communion with God and commenting on communion with God.
2. Multitasking only makes sense when none of the tasks requires heart-engaged, loving attention.
3. The difference between taking notes and tweeting is that when I tweet I’m concerned with writing it for others. I’m focused on delivering instead of receiving. The medium (note pad or computer or iPhone) is less important than the issue of recording something in order to instantly share it with others.
4. You can tweet about the Sunday service after church. I love the idea of members of my church reviewing their notes and tweeting about what God spoke to them. But they can do that later on Sunday afternoon and nothing will be lost.
5. Something so important, so essential, so holy happens on Sunday morning when God’s church gathers that Twitter takes a back seat. When God is speaking through his word, we should all be silent–and so should our Twitter feeds.

Also let me give the normal ‘I am not prejudiced’ disclaimer.
I twitter.
I know people who twitter.
Some of my best friends twitter.
I believe a church should use twitter to reach the world with its message and any church that is not using twitter is missing an opportunity to be a part of a vital community that needs its message. The question is: “Is Twitter appropriate during the hour or so set aside for corporate worship each week.?”

I think that Harris and Piper have the stronger argument. The worship service is time set aside for worship. It is not a seminar in an auditorium, a concert, or some other venue that I am there to simply enjoy. One hour each week (plus or minus 30 minutes depending on your church) is set aside to participate in corporate worship of the Triune God. Let us try to keep our focus on Him and banish all distractions.

What do you think?