S&P Stocks Jump High Enough Today to Erase Negatives of 2009

The S&P 500 rose so high today that all losses from earlier this year were erased and a healthy increase was posted. The Nasdag also had substantial gains. Meanwhile the increase in the Dow hasn't completely erased this year's negative numbers, but they made it looked a whole lot better for the financial year thus far.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/business/05markets.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw

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Spring Continuing to Unfold

The first two photos were submitted by Catherine Moore of Norwich, England, Jasper's mum.


Jasper of Norwich, England joins us this week in celebrating spring by tiptoeing through or, at least, past the tulips.


Jasper enjoying stretching out on the lawn.

The following photos were submitted by Flo Harrah near Vancouver, B.C. Thank you, Flo for sending these. Apparently she's had skunks living in her yard for years. She went out this morning and got a new photo for us. I suspect that the fact she is feeding them might explain why they stay around.


Skunk Visitor


Bee & the Pear Blossum


Magnolia Flower

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Hometown: Poulsbo, Washington

(This entry was meant to post on May 2, 2009)

I have lived in a number of interesting and somewhat unusual places. While the place I'm going to tell you about today wasn't the first place I lived when I moved to Poulsbo, Washington, it was the only place where I've lived inside the city limits. I was in fact in the heart of the downtown area of historic Poulsbo, a Norwegian village not far from Seattle. I had an apartment right on Front Street on the Liberty Bay side of the road. If you've ever driven down into the heart of historic Poulsbo's downtown area, then you drove right past where I used to live. Just as you get to the four-way stop downtown, you come to the Olympic Outdoor Center, which rents kayaks and sells all manner of Northwest sports gear. I've provided a link to the shop so you can check it out if you'd like.

http://www.olympicoutdoorcenter.com/store.php

Above that shop there are two apartments. I lived in the one that was street side. If you looked out my front windows, you had a view of Front Street. If you looked out my side bedroom window, there was a view of Liberty Bay and the Sons of Norway meeting house. If you look at the building at their website, all the windows on the top half front side would have been mine because my apartment covered the entire front side of the building. On the side of the building, the first two windows were mine, the third was for the joint laundry room, and the last window was for the rear apartment, which was the larger of the two apartments.


View of Liberty Bay January 2004


View from front parking lot of Olympic Outdoor Center


View from across street, looking downtown


View of downtown Poulsbo from in front of my apartment


My car buried in snow in front of my apartment

The population of Poulsbo is about 7500, which is several hundred more than when I moved there in 2002. The sudden growth in population was caused by an expansion of the incorporated area of Poulsbo, rather than by a sudden influx of new people. During the year, various festivities occur in the downtown area. My absolute favorite is the art show in the summer. Some people get a thrill out of the 4th of July fireworks display (which generally occurs on the 3rd of July so as not to compete with Seattle's display, I suppose). Viking Fest, which happens mid-May, is also a big attraction. Below are links to Poulsbo websites:
http://poulsbo.net/downtown/
http://www.cityofpoulsbo.com/
http://www.gonorthwest.com/Washington/puget/Poulsbo/Poulsbo.htm

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Lots of Wind Power

The wind industry installed over 2800 megawatts worth of electricity producing wind generators in the first fiscal quarter of 2009. This brings the nation's overall total to over 28,000 MW of installed generating capacity.

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/39821

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UK Ends Conflict in Iraq

The United Kingdom has officially celebrated an end to combat operations in Iraq. Click on the link below to get the full story from BBC news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8026136.stm

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Time to Hum with Hummingbirds in the Pacific Northwest

I guess I should set up a hummingbird feeder or figure out what else to plant in my yard to draw them. Last spring I had a few in my yard, but nothing too noteworthy. In contrast, I used to get buzzed on a regular basis at the last place I lived and I didn't have a single feeder out for them. I would simply sit in my Adirondack chair and write poetry or essays while basking in the water view. A pretty innocuous activity, but apparently I was directly on the flight path of the hummingbirds in that yard. I must have inadvertently positioned my chairs in their air space. Whatever I did, it was pretty hysterical to sit there writing, pretty much just minding my own business, when I would suddenly hear the whir of their wings as they flew within inches of my head.

Maybe it was the poetry that attracted them. Perhaps I should forget the plants and go sit out in my chair and write verse. Who knows? Maybe there were simply some incredibly literary hummingbirds in that neighborhood. It's worth a try anyway, I'll let you know how my experiment works. In the meantime, if you live in the Pacific Northwest and want to draw hummingbirds to your yard, you'd better get out there and get busy setting up feeders and putting out tempting plants.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009149195_hummingbirds30m.html

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First Hundred Days for Obama and This Blog

This blog was begun the day President Obama was sworn in (sort of). Still chuckling over the almost inaugural oath, I launched this site with the objective of reporting all good news items. While it was a challenge on a few days to find something good to report, my helpers and I have managed every day to have something funny, interesting, or heartwarming to report. Except one day when I did look for good news in the morning and didn't find anything, but meant to look again later for something and just plain forgot about the second go around. My bad, but it happened only once in 100 days, so that's a pretty good record, I think.

As for the President's first 100 days, I'd say, "Well done, Mr. President!" I know it's not easy being President, but I do feel now that the folks in the White House are at least in touch with reality. That, I think, is a good thing and gives me great hope for the future.

To celebrate this 100th Day Blog (okay, so really just because I wanted to), I took a stroll along the beach right below my house and took a few photos to pass on to you to share the peace of my evening walk down to the Brownsville marina where I get my mail. I even included a shot of the mailboxes. To give you an idea about the size of this little village I reported on in Sunday's blog, the mailboxes in the photo are for every house that is in what is considered Brownsville. Enough said.

I'm still looking for input from people who have good news to report from their community: fundraisers for charities, heartwarming stories, travel photos from trips with interesting anecdotes, photos of spring flowers blooming, etc. Send an email to allgoodnewsalldaylong@gmail.com, and I'll let you know if we can use the link, article, information, photos, etc.


The beach directly below my front yard.


The Brownsville Marina at Sea Level


The Covered Picnic Area


World Famous Brownsville Deli


Brownsville Residents' Mailboxes (and my shadow)

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Hidden Orangutan Population Uncovered

I was delighted to learn about the hidden population of Irawaddy dolphins that had been discovered in South Asia. I am ecstatic now about another recent find, a previously unknown population of rare orangutans. These were found in the forests of Borneo. As many as 5000 endangered Bornean orangutans are believed to be living in the mountains in the East Kalimantan province. Surveyors found over 200 orangutan nests, which could indicate several hundred to several thousand orangutans living in the nearly 1000 square mile area. For more information, click on the link below:

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/39680

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Growing Green Job Market

Green Manufacturing is the future and we need to embrace it so we can get people back to work and improve the state of the earth at the same time. One plan in the United States is to transition to using renewable energies to generate electricity. 2.5 million jobs could result from moving the U.S. to using renewables to generate 25% of our electricity, so the campaign states. The Green Manufacturing Action Plan is being promoted by the Apollo Alliance, a national coalition of business, labor, environmental and community leaders.

To learn more and get ready for the wave of the future, click the link below:

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/39733

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More Flowers Springing Forth

I've had these photos in my possession for a couple of weeks, so I need to post them before I lose track of them again. They are all from Flo Harrah and are taken in British Columbia near Vancouver. The first one is the lowly dandelion, which has been much aligned as a weed, but I always welcome them in my yard. Once the rains in the Seattle area are a thing of the past, and summer is dragging on without much moisture to speak of, these hardy flowers hang in there long after the green grass has gotten totally brown. Many times the dandelions are the only beautiful thing left growing in my yard. So sneer at them if you like, but I like the happy, sunny flowers and so does my young cat, Anjolie. She thinks they're yummy to eat, and so do some people I know. Apparently my grandparents used to eat dandelion greens. They'd have a feast of it in my yard.

Flo told me a story about dandelions from when she was growing up. "We kids on the block always snapped up a dandelion and in the sunshine held the bloom under a chin. The sun cast the yellow from the dandelion under the chin which only proved that you loved butter. No margarine in those days. Never played the game on a dull day, no reflection on that kinda day. What else could it denote but butter?"

So go play the dandelion game, eat dandelion greens with your kitty, or make some dandelion wine, but don't bother to tell me they're just a weed. The definition of a weed is a plant you don't want growing in your yard, and since I've known people who dug up rose bushes and got rid of them, I'd conclude that one person's nuisance plant is another one's joy.



Two-toned Daffodil



Rhododendron



Rockcress




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