| Boarder slapped with hefty fine for sidewalk skating
HAYWARD Mason Francouer would have had to be driving a car pretty fast to earn the kind of ticket he picked up last fall for riding through downtown on a skateboard. The 17-year-old's first brush with the law happened after school one day. He was rolling down a B Street sidewalk when a police officer on a bicycle pulled him over and fined him $560. "I was going like 3 miles an hour and, I don't know, I got a ticket. It was kind of lame," said Francouer, a shaggy-haired high school senior who has been plying downtown on wheels since seventh grade. His parents were infuriated by the ticket, and his father, electrician David Francouer, took several hours off work to join his son in court. "We just thought it was kind of bogus," the teen said. "I don't mess up the sidewalk.
Bill Gates - You Asked The Questions
I've just emerged from the Microsoft machine, shaken but unscathed. I've interviewed Bill Gates three or four times over a 12 year period, and each time I come out impressed by the sheer professionalism of the Microsoft PR operation but wondering whether we've been successfully spun. This time we tried a new tactic - getting BBC viewers, listeners and readers to ask the questions. We had thousands, covering every aspect of Bill Gates and Microsoft - past, present and future. Over two hundred were seeking jobs, one gentleman was proposing himself as the next CEO of Microsoft, and another wondered whether the secrets of Windows software had been recovered from a crashed UFO. We did not ask that one, but managed to get through around fifteen questions during our allotted fifteen minutes.
Gripe of the Week: 99 B-Line bus passups on January 29 equal volume of ...
The snowy morning of January 29 was not kind to transit riders. It was especially unkind to those, like this reporter, who chose to take the Über-busy 99 B-Line bus to work rather than risk a bicycle accident. What transpired at the intersection of Clark Drive and East Broadway was ugly. Time for a quick bus riders rewind… Around 8:30 a.m., rolling into the exposed bus shelter at Broadway and Clark, on the northwest corner of that intersection, it was strange to see people lined up behind the shelter, out of the view of the road. That is because the slush and muck of the slowly-melting ice and sludge was being sprayed all over us by every passing vehicle in the slow lane. People were covered in muck, and the 99s creaking to a halt were all packed full of people who got on at Commercial Drive.
Presenting Christmas three-score past
The most frequently heard complaint about Christmas is how commercial it has become. Buying the best, the latest, the most impressive - electronic devices, clothing, toys, games, whatever - and receiving same is desired, expected, even required in some quarters. Otherwise, disappointment will reign, creatures will be stirring all through the house, and they won't be overflowing with joy. Is this fact or fiction? Are we Americans a bunch of self-absorbed materialists, or have we been saddled with an undeserved stereotype? If the lines at the doors of certain stores are any indication, the desire is there - when the price is right. But the reality is that retailers are seeing a slump this season because middle-American buying power is down. Despite desire, expectations have been lowered by sheer financial necessity and only among affluent households - a minority probably not exceeding 30 percent - do image and self indulgence still hold sway.
Scotsman takes the wheel at Coles
WESFARMERS has lured the chief executive of British car parts and bicycle retailer Halfords to run its newly-acquired Coles supermarket business with a $2 million welcome mat. Scotsman Ian McLeod, 49, whose current employer generates annual revenue of less than 10 per cent of the $20 billion business he will soon be managing, will receive a $2 million signing-on payment, another $2 million in annual salary and stands to make up to $2.4 million in annual bonuses. Wesfarmers managing director Richard Goyder said Mr McLeod had "lived and breathed retail" since joining British retail chain Asda as a graduate trainee in 1981, where he played a leading role in the turnaround engineered by chief executive Archie Norman in the 1990s. Mr Goyder said Mr McLeod was at the top of Wesfarmers's list of candidates to run Coles's food, liquor, fuel and convenience store business, and declared himself unconcerned at the new recruit's association with US retailer Wal-Mart's ill-fated German operation.
For families, green can mean baby steps
It does mean doing something, because parents are arguably the most powerful environmental force. "The most important people are people who care about the future. The people who care about the future are parents," said Dr. Roger Rosenblatt, a professor of family medicine and public health at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The problem is that today's parent also is one of the most harried people, potentially easily discouraged or frozen by the gloom and doom of melting ice caps, dying salmon and rising oceans. "You have to give people a sense of hope," Rosenblatt said. "If you create a sense of despair, then no one does anything." The key is to start small. "You don't have to turn your life upside down to make a difference," said Katharine Wroth, who oversaw a series on green parenting at the popular environmental Web site Grist.
Guba Debuts Online Video Store with Warner Bros.
Guba Debuts Online Video Store with Warner Bros. Posted by: Heather Green on June 26 Warner Bros. keeps pushing the envelope in delivering TV shows and movies in alternative ways. After announcing last month that it was teaming up with BitTorrent, the studio today is now offering videos via online video service Guba. Warner Bros. is starting with around 120 titles, ranging from movies such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Best in Show, to TV shows including Babylon 5. The shows can be rented, starting at $1.99 cents for movies. Or they can be bought and downloaded onto a computer or copied onto a laptop. Movies prices range between $9.99 and $19.99. They can't be copied yet to portable players, though that's in the works. The company is using Windows DRM, though Guba says they're looking into other formats.
Several bills up for passage in state House
The Chilton County Relay for Life group is getting ready to make their big walk in just two months. This year they had a goal set to raise $201,000 along with having 55 teams. So far, they are only nine teams away from having their goal, and they are working on reaching their goals for this year's total Relay for Life donation. Area Director Morgan Choat said, "Everyone needs to be registered for their Relay for Life teams by our next captain meeting on March 5 to make sure that we will have enough T-shirts for everyone on the teams." The different ways to register are online and by filling out the written form. Anyone with questions should visit http://events.cancer.org/rflchiltonal. This Web site can also be used to make donations to your local teams, who are all working extra hard to raise money for cancer awareness and survival.
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