MyNorthwest Blog
Random ramblings and musings from the staff
Among so many other skills, 97.3 KIRO FM's John Curley is a professional auctioneer.

He showed off his skills to KIRO fans and colleagues at Wednesday night's KIRO Radio on Tour at the Pantages Theater in Tacoma.

Check out those crazy legs!

Check out the photo gallery from the event or listen to the whole event.

do something

Babies are having babies.

I've known this since I was in high school. Our school had a day care. It wasn't for the children of teachers.

My high school also didn't have a program in health class where students would pair up and share the responsibilities of caring for a child. Perhaps the administration decided to skip the program because the pregnancy rate was already so high, or, maybe, that's why the pregnancy rate was so high.

The number of child-bearing teens in my high school didn't mean that I haven't witnessed the babies taking care of babies experiment on television. And, throughout time, it's been an evolution in technology. It started with a sack of flour, then an egg. When they were done with food products, many schools' health programs received babies that would actually cry and needed a special "key" plugged into the baby to indicate that the class assignment had been fed, diaper-changed, and burped. A disk would tell the teacher later how well that baby had been cared for.

A computer inside a baby doll? That's pretty high tech, but it's nothing compared to DoSomething.org's new campaign. It's designed to encourage teens to feel the constant necessity of parenting: A text that comes straight to a willing teen's phone.

Will it be successful? A scholarship prize is offered to teens who can encourage their friends to sign up, in what looks like a willing pyramid scheme to spam out friends' phone numbers. The prize is $2,000.

But before the cash, you have to text "diaper" to a number received in an email.

A writer at Jezebel signed up for her own texting baby and had a humorous exchange with the "crying infant" on the other end of the phone.

What those texts seemed to be lacking, however, are the real constant pressures of raising a baby. It appears that text baby needs less attention than the average Tamagotchi toy. I miss phone calls and texts from time to time. The texts are not like the computer baby doll that actually emits a crying sound until you turn its magic key. It's also certainly not as fragile as the egg, shared between you and the (hopefully good-looking in the awkward adolescent stage) partner that had to ensure that thin shell didn't break. Your egg-kid had to literally be in one piece.

DoSomething.org's program is apparently not meant to reach out to potential teen moms, but instead, hit the dude demographic. According to the DoSomething website:

America has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any industrialized nation. If you're a girl* you may already know this, since most teen pregnancy campaigns target females. We think guys should learn a bit about this too, don't you?

When the baby texts you with needs, you're supposed to text back. From these responses though, it sounds like the "baby" might have some attitude; and without the constant carrying pressures, some of the weight of the matter seems to be lifted too.

A real baby's daily schedule is also far more pressing then the text baby. Take for example the schedule of MyNorthwest.com editor Stephanie Klein's baby:

4-4:30 a.m. Eat
Play, diaper, cry
5:30-8:30 a.m. Sleep
8:30 a.m. Eat
Play, diaper
10 a.m. Eat
Diaper
11 a.m. Eat some more
11:30-1 p.m. Sleep
Diaper
1:10-2 p.m. Eat/sleep
2-3 p.m. Play/Diaper
3 p.m. Go for a walk with mom/sleep
4-4:45 p.m. Eat
Diaper
5-6 p.m. Sleep
6-8 p.m. Awake/playing
Diaper
8:30-9:30 p.m. Eat/doze
9:30 p.m.-2:30 a.m. Cry
2:30-4 a.m. Sleep

and Repeat.

Text baby: You're just not that hardcore.

cookies

To celebrate, please indulge in a delicious chocolate chip cookie today.

Posted by Alyssa

That means it's time to have a cookie!

Without doing the hard-hitting news research about where this national holiday came from, we don't have much to actually report. But, when it comes to my personal favorite chocolate chip cookie: It's Nestle Tollhouse's recipe found on the back of chocolate chip bags. (Here it is if you don't have the chips available in a convenient location.)

Ingredients: 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 3/4 cup packed brown sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 2 large eggs, 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLE TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels, 1 cup chopped nuts (I skip this ingredient.)

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 375 degrees F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

PAN COOKIE VARIATION: Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan. Prepare dough as above. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack. Makes 4 dozen bars.

SLICE AND BAKE COOKIE VARIATION:
PREPARE dough as above. Divide in half; wrap in waxed paper. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm. Shape each half into 15-inch log; wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.* Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices; place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

* May be stored in refrigerator for up to 1 week or in freezer for up to 8 weeks.

As you might remember, these are also Phoebe's favorite cookies on FRIENDS.
(Start at 28 seconds in):

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Music for family at the zoo, it seems like a winning combination.

In its 29th year, ZooTunes won't be short on familiar names, either. From k.d. lang to Los Lobos, and Grace Potter & The Nocturnals to Melissa Ethridge, you're bound to have heard of more than one name on the list.

Here's the lineup:
June 27 - Leo Kottke / Jake Shimabukuro ($24)
July 3 - k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang ($38)
July 18 - Grace Potter & The Nocturnals ($22)
July 19 - Ziggy Marley ($28)
Aug 1 - Los Lobos / Steve Earle and the Dukes ($28)
Aug 5 - The Johnny Clegg Band / Ladysmith Black Mambazo ($28)
Aug 12 - An Evening With Melissa Etheridge ($39.50)
Aug 15 & 16 - An Evening With Pink Martini ($34)
Aug 22 - Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue / Robert Randolph & the Family Band ($26)
Aug 29 - Rosanne Cash / Madeleine Peyroux ($26)

Concerts that start in the afternoon sun are more than just a gathering of family friends to listen to tunes. Proceeds from tickets sales help support care of the aniamls, education programs and wildlife conservation.

Tickets go on sale on April 27 at 8 a.m.

Posted by Alyssa

In case you didn't know, the folks at MyNorthwest love a good timelapse video - and this one is particularly great. Photographer Andrew Franks first shared it with the My Ballard blog, but it was too good not to pass along.

The video was taken on March 15, when there was a spot of good weather, and a long queue to get through the Ballard Locks.

_

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From their naps to their playtime, the zoo babies have inspired the quietest of "ohhhhhhs!" and the largest of "awwwws!" and they can be found at two of Western Washington's zoos.

We already told you about Woodland Park's baby wallaby Joey who can sometimes be spotted poking out of mom's pouch.

The zoo has also seen two penguins hatch recently, on April 3 and 5. Currently, they're out of sight of zoo visitors, hanging out with mom, dad and zoo staff for some parental care and R&R. (They look like this little guy that was born in 2010.)

Penguin Chick Ryan Hawk 4-1-10

Four additional penguin chicks are expected to break out of their shells between April 16 and 26.

In Tacoma at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, two clouded leopard cubs are growing up nicely under zoo care. One even got some scratches during nap time, which lead to some involuntary leg thumping - it was pretty cute.

The cubs still need names, which you can vote on here, and you can see them at the Cat of the Canopy exhibit at Point Defiance. You can even see their feeding times at 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.

UW

Young college students have been making moves to get degrees that would make them more marketable once they hit the job market, and doesn't business sound like a sensible degree? (AP Photo/File)

The recession has led to a slew of problems, particularly for young college graduates, trying to get their first, career -defining job. Some college-aged kids have even opted to not go to college, to make self-made men or women out of themselves.

That approach has been particularly popular in the tech industry, where giants like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs were college dropouts with ideas too big for colleges to handle.

But, young students have also been making moves to get degrees that would make them more marketable once they hit the job market, and doesn't business sound like a sensible degree?

Yet more and more recruiters that hire recent grads are shying away from business degree-holders, according to the Wall Street Journal. Apparently, those students don't have the critical thinking skills that are developed when studying liberal arts.

Business degrees offer the "nuts and bolts" of the white collar trade. Recruiters have been saying, however, that it's the nuts and bolts that are easiest to include in on- the-job training. What's not as easy is developing the analytic, debating, idea-spawning skills that come from classrooms varied in subjects like those offered at liberal arts colleges.

It's great news for English or philosophy majors. Often the butt of jokes in the job world, (you know, as a great way to get a job in the food-service industry) these well read and eager to debate-types are proving their own job market value. They do more than just read.

That doesn't mean recent high school grads should bank on a liberal arts education. One of the most in demand fields is still tech. Companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook continue to grow, which means they'll continue to wade through piles of resumes to fill new positions. The seemingly continuous growth in tech will be good for the Seattle area, one of our city's most popular career fields.

Mailie

The Seattle City Council will consider an ordinance to prevent discrimination against breastfeeding moms. Councilmember Bruce Harrell will introduce the proposal at a hearing on Wednesday at 2 p.m.. Breast-friends.org is asking moms to fill the council chambers and show the city council that it's an important issue. (AP Photo/File)

If a mother breastfeeds in Washington state, regardless of where she does it, she can't be fined for indecent exposure. In fact, the state has made it a civil right of a woman to breastfeed her child in "any place of public resort, accommodation, assemblage, or amusement."

The state fair in Puyallup? Yes. A summer movie at Esther Park in Vancouver? Of course. And if a mother chooses to breastfeed her hungry child while attending the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival in Seattle, she can do that too.

A breastfeeding mom could legally be told, however, that she should be more discrete if she is at a privately owned business that is open to the public.

The current state legislation isn't enough for some mothers in Seattle.

The debate is taking place between two extremes, according to 97.3 KIRO FM's Dori Monson: The jerks who insist on asking breastfeeding mothers to take their breastfeeding somewhere else, the mothers who insist on making a big fuss about a jerk asking them to move while they're breastfeeding, when they could just ignore it.

While Dori agrees that moms should be able to breastfeed when and where they need too, he also said that a business owner should be able to make the call on whether it happens on their turf.

"Why can we tell people that 'no shirt, no shoes, no service' is okay, but having a preference on breastfeeding is not okay?"

For 97.3 KIRO FM hosts Dave Ross & Luke Burbank, breastfeeding isn't offensive, and even though every time there is a story of a woman discriminated against, it seems like a growing problem. They think most women can breastfeed without encountering discrimination.

What Dave finds unfair is the inconsistency, people who turn up their nose at the natural act of breastfeeding, while a girl wearing a halter top at the same venue is ogled.

It's the other immodesty that Dave thinks should be policed better. As Luke reminds him though, "We, the men of the world, and some of the women, we like one kind of immodesty because it arouses us, but we don't like the other kind of immodesty so much because it's not arousing, necessarily [...] it's utilitarian."

The Seattle City Council will consider the ordinance to prevent discrimination against breastfeeding moms. Councilmember Bruce Harrell will introduce the proposal at a hearing on Wednesday at 2 p.m. Breast-friends.org is asking moms to fill the council chambers and show the city council that it's an important issue.

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