Forget warning people about testing their smoke alarms every six months.  Forget offering to give out free smoke alarms if people come down to the local fire station.  The Canby Fire District took things to a whole new level this week.

Firefighters went door-to-door in a high risk neighborhood (lots of older homes and elderly residents) for two days, checking existing alarms to make sure they worked and installing new alarms wherever they were needed.  More than 100 new alarms to be precise, all donated by the State Fire Marshall.

The service was spearheaded by firefighter Bob Bunnell who recently took a class in how to install and test the alarms correctly.

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A handful of Oregon Schools are getting props from US News and World Report.

Corbett HS brought home a Gold Medal and Lake Oswego High, Arts and Communication School in Beaverton, School of Science and Technology in beaverton, Lincoln and West Linn HS ALL earned Silver medal status in the magazine’s recent “Best High Schools” list.  Riverdale HS snagged a Bronze (Still no comment from Archie or Jughead, although Betty and Veronica seem super-pleased).  The medals are given out based on a variety of academic criteria.

Overall, Oregon ranks 22nd in the nation.

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IBM has a better-than-expected outlook for 2009 which put investors in a buying mood this morning (Our guess is that it’s kind of like when you took the trash out without being asked as a kid, mom and dad were more willing to hand over a fin so you could catch the matinee with your buddies).

The Dow rebounded 112 points early after a bit of a drop Tuesday.  Overall, the indexes were up over a full percent.  Not to be outdone, LM Ericsson (which makes wireless gadgets) also reported better-than-expected numbers for the end of Q4 (which is kind of like when your brother saw you were about to be rewarded for taking out the trash so he jumped in to volunteer and sweep the porch).

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It’s a rare skin disease that left Jeremy Lees a prisoner in his own home  Xeroderma Pigmentosum (which we will call XP) means Lees’ skin can’t protect itself from UV rays (found in everything from light bulbs to natural light).  Day to day life has left Lees with countless skin cancers , the first appearing in his early teens.

While Lees sticks to long sleeves and high SPF coverage whenever he leaves the house, inside his home he was forced to avoid any open window.  That is, until some neighbors decided to give him a gift.

Clear Innovations Oregon donated and installed some special protective film made by 3 M  after they were tipped off to the situation but the XP Family Support Group.  The new layer on every window in Lees home guards against 99% of the harmful rays.  You can read more in this story from the Valley Times.

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According to The Columbian, a man in Washougal is designing a thrille park that will rival Oaks Park, Thrillville and amateur night at PIR.

Derek Hoyte is constructing a massive ZIP LINE park on his 83-acres east of Washougal.  It’ll offer 300ft high rides over trees and past massive water falls.

The only question at hand is what permits he’ll need to get to proceed.

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Oregon is getting just shy of $20 million from the Federal Government to help areas hit hardest by recent foreclosures.  

The state’s Neighborhood Stabilization Plan is getting the cash from HUD.  It’ll allow people and companies to buy and rehab properties that were recently foreclosed.  

In theory, the infusion of money will help kill any ripple effect from the recent economic downturn.  One of the criteria is that people getting the cash cannot earn more than 120% of the media income of their neighborhood which insures the funds are getting to the people who really need it.

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Rather than invest in a day on the couch or catching up on odd jobs around the house, 250 Kaiser Permanente employees are taking their free day from work and giving back to the community (and as a gesture of good faith, KP will PAY any employee for a day’s work if they donate their holiday to a worthy cause).

In honor of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., they’re pitching in at the Oregon Food Bank on Monday.  And they aren’t coming empty handed.  The volunteers kicked in $30K worth of food to hand off to the bank.

Beyond the food bank, some KP employees are offering free medical care to those in need while others are painting local classrooms and recycling donated bikes.  All told, about 600 KP employees are helping out on the day of service throughout Portland and Salem.

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Tickets are going fast for the rare opportunity to see Fergie, the Duchess of York, best-selling author and Weight Watchers spokesperson, speak April 3rd in Salem.

About half the seats have been sold though they’ve only been up for grabs for about a month.  Formely Miss Sarah Ferguson’s words will help raise cash for the Medical Foundation of Marion and Polk Counties.

In recent years, other speakers have included Jane Goodall, Chris Gardner (the guy who wrote Pursuit of Happyness . . . they made it into a movie with Will Smith) and former first lady Barbara Bush. 

You can hear The Ferg-meister by visiting TicketsWest to claim your seat.

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Borrowing from the “teach a man to fish” philosophy, the Portland City Council vows to invest a half BILLION dollars in public works projects this year.  That will create 5,000 jobs before the ball drops on 2010 (the local unemployment rate is over 8% and is targeted to hit 10% before dropping again).

Better than the overall job creation is that the projects are not one or two month gigs.  The 84 tasks on the cities “to-do list” are scheduled to roll out over a 5-year span which means job stability for those 5,000 families.

Guess that’s why they call it the “City that Works.”

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Pot Hole -- Portland Tribune

It happens every year.  A deep freeze hits the city of Portland, moisture gets under the pavement, freezes, expands and . . . (sing it with me kids) “POP goes the pot-hole.”

While the city averages 133 pothole repairs a week, crews are working triple time to catch up with the devastation wrought by Arctic Blast 2008.  Last week alone, they filled 555 axel-braking, tire-jarring obstacles on Portland roads.

If you have a pot hole on your street that you’d like to have fixed (or maybe you just want to build some mini-speed bumps on your neighbors driveway for a mid-winter chuckle) call 503-823-2867.

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