Spokane seen from the rooftop of the Bank of American Financial Center

I’m procrastinating going to the gym so of course I’m searching for references of “Spokane” in recent publications on Google Books. It’s more than you think. I searched for 21st Century publications with the keyword of Spokane and I’ve found 66,700 results. It’s 2:05 p.m. and I figure I can delay another hour by picking out the more interesting selections and curating them here.

Common themes you’ll find. Traveling. Typically traveling from or through Spokane.  Mike says, “Sweetie, Spokane is not a destination.”

The Little Shadows
Marina Endicott

“East had tried to find Mayhew when they hit Spokane, but apparently he had no stayed in the city more than a month before he’d lit out for parts south with a dancer called Estella, or Elvira, and even in the small pond of vaudeville, nobody had heard of him since.”

Who doesn’t want to leave Spokane with a vaudeville dancer?

Border Junkies: Addiction and Survival on the Streets of Juárez and El Paso
Scott Comar, Howard Campbell

“…Joe told me that he had a road trip planned and that he intended to bring me along. He also mentioned taking an old road hand named Ronnie. The trip involved an airline flight to Spokane, Washington, where we would pick up a tractor-trailer, drive it to Montana, load it full of household goods, and drive it to Texas.”

When they say household goods, I’m pretty sure that means residential burglary.

Lean on Pete: A Novel
Willy Vlautin

“I’m not sure why he wanted to leave Spokane. I told him I didn’t want to go, I begged him that I didn’t want to go, but he said he’d rather go to prison and get the shit kicked out of him every day than spend any more time in a dump like Spokane.”

If only I had a nickel every time I heard that said about Spokane.

FDR, Dewey and the Election of 1944
David M. Jordan

“When he met the press in Spokane, Dewey’s major theme was that Roosevelt and the New Deal had neglected the West. He said he was pledged to its “limitless development” and promised to appoint a cabinet member from the West.”

I wonder what news outlet he said that to.

I’ll Get By: The Best of Harry Marlin, Volume 1
Harry Marlin

“I have never lived in Spokane, but I assume that the temperature was not a problem. I have been told that it is possible to leave a quart of Blue Bell ice cream on the coffee table for days there, and it never melts. It may get wet, but it doesn’t melt.”

Not this season.

Once There Were Castles: Lost Mansions and Estates of the Twin Cities
Larry Millett

“Nettleton moved in 1883 to Spokane, Washington (where he fell to his death from a railroad bridge under rather mysterious circumstances in 1905)…”

Keyword: Mysterious Circumstances

Driving Home: An American Journey
Jonathan Raban

“Spokane, on the hinge between the plain and the Rocky Mountains, was a dense five-minute metropolis, and it was already gone before I made up my mind to stop for it.”

I repeat: If only I had a nickel every time I heard that said about Spokane.

A Montana Homecoming
Allison Leigh

“He’d been there, wearing his jeans and that ridiculous Experience Spokane! t-shirt she’d found in the gift shop for him. Except, the shirt hadn’t looked at all ridiculous with the way it clung to his broad shoulders.”

No joke. This is a romance novel about a choir.

Rebels in Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp

“I used to sit in the barn and milk the cows and look out through the barn doors and see the aura of the lights above Spokane, which was some forty miles distant, and know that people were not milking cows in Spokane.”

But they’re raising chickens!

Il gusto segreto del cioccolato amaro
Kevin A. Milne

“Il parente piu vicino di Tim e la madre, una donna di nome Lucy McDonald. Vive dall’altra parte dello Stato, vicino al confine con l’Idaho, in un sobborgo di Spokane che si chiama Millwood. Qui c’e l’indirizzo.”

What.

There were so many pies to go around that at the end of the meeting, by order of the council president, pretty much everyone had to leave with one.

On the agenda this evening was a resolution to approve the city’s revised mission statement. Mayor David Condon came downstairs to introduce the statement, but before he strolled into the council chambers, he stopped for some pie.

This was an irresistible opportunity to strike up harmless conversation about pie favsies.

“What’s your favorite kind of pie?” I asked.

He responded with a chuckle, “Ooh, I don’t know. Are you going to blog this? Like you did with the cookies?”

At this point I’m just tickled that he remembered that one time at a neighborhood council meeting where I noticed what kind of cookie he selected.

It was Councilman Jon Snyder who recommended the  Dutch Apple Pie and after a quick taste test, Condon decided that flavor was his favorite.

“Once in a while, we need to celebrate these great things [National Pie Day],” Condon said to the council explaining that there was free pie for the taking.

For the second week in a row, I’ve found myself exiting the warmth of my home to explore possible breaking news on Spokane’s South Hill. This time I was about to start the next episode of Once Upon a Time*, when I heard sirens about to race by the SpoCats household. I don’t usually look to see what it is because it’s typically an ambulances. This time, I looked and it was a speeding patrol vehicle – lights on.

Let’s just say I got super excited. I turned on my 5-0 Police Scanner App and started hearing chatter about a pursued truck, spike strips along 29th and a foot pursuit. I ran around my house trying to collect my thoughts. It’s so close! How could I not go?

Well, I went. You can say it: I’m a nerd. Turns out some guy in the county decided not to pull over when Sheriff’s deputies tried to stop him for a broken tail light. Mike later remarked, “It’s ALWAYS a broken tail light.”  The man led deputies on a pursuit to Latawah and 29th where they caught him as he tried to flee on foot.

Read: Broken tail light sends Sheriff’s deputies into cross-jurisdiction pursuit

Last week when I covered “breaking news” on the South Hill, I mentioned I was doing KXLY’s Fit Club and I recently obtained a Fit Bit to track how much I walk, what I eat, etc. Here’s an update. Since I started, I’ve lost three pounds. Please hold your applause until the end.

* Regarding Once Upon a Time. - I hate the show, but I can’t stop watching it. Every single time “Madam Mayor” enters the screen, I can’t help but say, “She’s too hot to be a mayor.” I have no problem with the fairy tale part of the show. It’s the “reality” that kills me. In what world can a city mayor have any power over a sheriff or its deputies? Excuse me: STORYBROOK IS A FANTASY CITY SYSTEM. IN WHAT WORLD DOES A MAYOR ATTEMPT TO APPOINT A JOURNALIST AS A SHERIFF. IN WHAT WORLD CAN GUSTAVO “GUS” FRING PLAY A REALLY HARMLESS NEWSIE WHO SMILES. WAAAH!

Just before Maple closed on Thursday night, there was this.

I’m on a Storify kick lately. Rumor has it – it could save journalism.

I noticed that people have been talking about snow plows lately. Maybe it’s because it snowed recently.

Maybe.

As of 11:00 a.m. on Friday, the National Weather Service reported 7″ of snow. That snow was not enough to close Eastern Washington University, but it was enough to make some students displeased. They voiced their concerns on Facebook and even Twitter.

Other Spokane area residents had something to say about snow plows. It was either bad – or pretty much horribly awful. Okay, there were a few yays in there.

Using the following search terms with a 10k radius around Spokane, I found tweets through Storify that mentioned: “plow”, “plows”, “plowed, “plowing”, “plowed”, “snowplow”, “fakespokaneplow”, “berm”, “berms”, “burm” and “burms”. I found 61 tweets for Friday, January 20th.

Storify: Tell Us How You Really Feel About Plows Part 2

After completing this task, I learned that there is a neat Twitter account called @GonzagaProblems that documents problems only students at that school have. It’s very similar to the popular hashtag: #firstworldproblems.

The following Twitter accounts spelled “berm” wrong: @rock945 and @spokanepd.

When I added the search term, “plowed” to my Storify, the majority of tweets were from businesses saying their parking lot had been plowed.

Interesting.

In case you missed out on Part 1, it documents tweets from Thursday.

Storify: Tell Us How You Really Feel About Plows Part 1

Kootenai Kitchen

This is the one I hope makes Huckleberries Online a little jealous. Circa 1981. Kootenai School in Kootenai, Idaho (north of Sandpoint) wrote a recipe book. Some of the recipes include three different kinds of banana bread, jiffy doughnuts and “preserved children”.

“Take one large field, half a dozen children, two or three small dogs, a pinch of brook and some pebbles. Mix the children and dogs well together, put them on the field, stirring constantly. Pour the brook over the pebbles, sprinkle the field with flowers, spread over all a deep blue sky and bake in the sun. When brown, set away to cool in the bathtub.”

What the [censored]?

The Warren Report: The Official Report on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Because why not? This is the one that is going to look fabulous on my edgy bookcase. You can read it in its entirety online at Google Books.

Exploring Journalism With Special Emphasis on Its Social and Vocational Aspects.

How to be a journalist. Circa 1944. Let’s just share a selection from page 193 called “News About Women.”

“Although women read all parts of the newspaper, they appreciate especially the columns and sections devoted to such topics as women’s affairs, fashions, cookery, charm, housekeeping and buying. In the trend to departmentalization of newspapers, news about women is easily segregated.”

Does this still hold true today? Pinterest, Etsy, Outblush, Real Simple, Fine Cooking, etc.

Holy schmoly! There was breaking news down the street from me, but let me talk about something else to preface.

I got my “FitBit” device in the mail. It’s like a pedometer, but fancier. I got it to help out with the KXLY Fit Club, a bunch of teams made up of news, sales, production, etc, to see how much weight we can lose as a group.

It tracks my calories burned, steps taken, level of activity and tracks how well I sleep. The sleep graph also tells me that starting around 7 a.m., the natives become restless and start pawing at my face – or suckling on my ear. Eww.

In an effort to walk more, I took this opportunity after reading @SpokaneFire‘s tweet to see what was up a couple blocks away.

Incident: 2012001997 – MVA – Major Incident Location: E 38TH AVE and S GRAND BV

— Spokane Fire (@SpokaneFire) January 16, 2012

At first I tried to run. After a few steps I gave up and transitioned into power walking. I could see tons of lights flashing down the street. When we got closer, there were no “crashed” vehicles. Just a bunch of neighbors who came outside to see what happened outside their home. One woman said she heard a scream. Another said a guy ran off. There was a lot of speculation, but not a lot of solid information. Spokane Police say it could be a possible assault.

Read More: Police investigating possible South Hill assault

I waited until the scene began to clear so I could talk to an Officer. They didn’t know much. Hopefully a press release will come out. That’s pretty much all we can rely on at this point.

In case you didn’t know, it’s cold outside, so we power walked home. I was stoked to refresh my Fitbit data because I wanted to see how much activity I accomplished for the day with that last minute exercise addition.

Thanks to afternoon antiquing and breaking news, as of 10:37 p.m. I took 7,040 steps, traveled 3.03 miles and burned 2,185 calories.

I only ate 1,412 calories and according to my weight loss plan, I could still eat another 638 calories and be in my okay range. I said to Mike, “This means I can eat more! Yay!”

I don’t think that’s how it works, but a girl can dream, right?

Front and center is the Parkade parking tower, a well-known image in the Spokane skyline. The Riverfront Park clock tower sticks out along the river. Mt. Spokane is a popular sight for business employees in the Bank of America Financial Center upper floors.

A lot of people ask me how I gain access to unusual places for photography. Whether it’s hospital helicopter pads or missile silos, there’s a common theme behind each location – I ask.

Asking permission sounds scary at first. What if they say no? Is it a stupid request? The individual you’re asking might act a little off at first, but only because this is a rare question sent in their direction. In my experience, they’ve always said yes.

There are conditions. In some situations, you may need to be escorted around. When this happens, I keep my stay short and sweet. I know exactly what I’m doing when I go in. I don’t want to waste any one’s precious time. I’m courteous to those who are willing to show me around because I’m on their turf.

This was the situation for visiting the Bank of America Financial Center Wednesday morning. With permission from the property owners of the building, a security guard escorted me to the rooftop where I proceeded to take some shots of the surrounding downtown area. It took fifteen minutes max.

Read More: Photo Gallery: Great Views of Spokane

There was paper work involved. With locations like this, sometimes they may supply you with a liability waiver. This is for worst case scenarios. A lot of things could go wrong twenty floors high. They have a yellow line marking the boundary from the rooftop ledge for a reason.

Share: I’m interested to know your experience for photography on private property. How did you gain access or were you rejected?

People sometimes ask me what apps I use throughout the day on my iPhone. Every person has their own needs and uses for apps. Since I work in news, mine are geared toward news gathering and production.

Let’s start with an imaginary morning and talk about what apps I use starting bright and early when my alarm goes off.

7:01 a.m. – Clock - It comes with your phone and it tells you to wake up. I have specific alarms for different events. You can name them too. My 7:01 a.m. alarm says, “Wake yo a$$ up!”. That’s a little embarrassing.

7:20 a.m. – Flipboard - After hitting snooze a few times, I start flipping through my Twitter Flipboard to read the tweets in a visual manner that really gets the gears going in the brain. It’s a chance to see the visual elements in a tweet without having to click on it first. I can go through and retweet in a hazy mess and favorite tweets I want to revisit later for possible story ideas.

9:00 a.m. – Pandora - Call me old fashioned, but I like the surprises I get on my “Electric Light Orchestra” station mixed with Elton John and Queen. There was a week where every morning when I dropped off Mike, the song “Time of My Life” played every single time. Weird.

9:05 a.m. – 5-0 Radio - Once I drop off Mike, I dive into my guilty pleasure, an online app that allows you to listen to the scanners for multiple law enforcement agencies anywhere that allow public access to their frequency. Sometimes it’s nice to know what I’m getting into as I get into the work.

10:45 a.m. – Tweetbot - What’s this? A moose on the loose on the Palouse!? Only in television news people. I jump in a news vehicle and let the world know there’s a critter wandering their hood.

I used the official Twitter app for awhile, but after the recent update it was truly a pain especially for those who have multiple accounts. It became worse during live-tweeting when I needed as much patience as possible. It would simply waste my time with crashing and terribly slow loading. I have better things to do than waste my time like… quoting George McGrath during city council meetings.

11:15 a.m. – Camera+ - I’m a sucker for photo apps with filters. Unlike Instagram, this one has tons with the ability to adjust the white balance, rotate, crop and add borders. You can save right to your phone or upload straight to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, SMS or email. I tend to get a little fancy with my pictures. In some newsrooms, they would frown upon the “cross process” filter. As I said, I’m a sucker for photo apps with filters. MOVING ALONG.

Fish and Wildlife officers are walking through the tall grass. Might as well shoot a photo for Twitter purposes. Upload straight to Twitter after minor adjustments. Must be careful to not trip on rocks while fiddling with phone.

11:30 a.m. – Voice Memos - A voice recorder comes with your phone. Neat, right? I catch up with Fish and Wildlife officers to talk about the moose we didn’t end up seeing. They tell me all about the procedural steps behind the scenes on how they deal with moose. I have it all on a recording that I can go back to later in the newsroom. I throw on a pair of headphones and transcribe.

12:30 p.m. – Foursquare - Time to grab the $8 grilled cheese sandwich and potato salad at The Viking. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. One day I will telecommute from the fire place because it’s so much warmer than the newsroom.

6:30 p.m. - Untappd - Oh, look at the time. It’s beer o’clock. I don’t update this one as much as I should. I don’t have many friends on it either. Partly because I’m ashamed that I really love Trader Joe’s Simpler Times and… I drink it a lot. This app lets all my beer buddies know what brewskie I’m crackin’ open and what I think of it.

Do some of these surprise you? By no means am I revolutionary in my app routine. As I progress through this normal routine, I find myself accessing the Facebook app less and less. I check it out through Facebook, but the re-sharing opportunity is not as grand. Instagram lost its appeal to me because it was not playing nice with Storify. So I kind of gave up. I want to work it back into my life, but it’s hard to find the right moment.

Some of the “apps” on my home screen are not apps at all, but instead bookmarks. I have one folder dedicated to KXLY’s community sites and others dedicated to some of my favorite blogs in the region. I read The Slice daily – usually when I’m drinking my coffee in the morning.

Share: What apps help you during your day?

I came home to a pile of mail in the mailbox. Now that I think about it – there was a lot of mail including two issues of Fine Cooking. Isn’t it interesting that there was mail?

Moving along – I realized somebody wants Mishe to be healthy and awesome. It even had her name on the cover.

I wondered who would want Mishe to be healthy and awesome? I flipped to the next page and squealed with delight. Obviously it was William Shatner all along. His smiling face totally says Mishe to be healthy and awesome in the latest issue of “Healthy Pet”.

I asked Mishe for her thoughts, but she simply stared at me with amazement.

Apparently VCA Manito Animal Hospital sends this out to all their clients. Inge did not receive a copy. I asked her if she was upset, but she declined to comment.

I even learned the origin of the twitter avatar. It’s art by Karen Hull, an Australian artist. She even has tutorials you can print out for creating “realistic” artwork.

For anyone that’s curious, the domain for http://cat-ebooks.com expires in May of 2012.

cat_ebooks
http://cat-ebooks.com/

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