My mother-in-law just sent me this little list to brighten my day and make feel feel proud of where I live.

I don’t intend to spend hours fact-checking it all, so let’s just assume that it is all factual. Feel free to point out anything you see in error!

1. It is America’s coffee capital with more coffee bean roasters per capita than any other state.2. ‘The Wave’, a popular fan cheer for the past 25 years, was started by Husky fans at the University of Washington.

3. Adam Morrison, a Washington State native and Gonzaga University basketball star, leads the NCAA Division I in scoring this season. (My husband says he has been in the NBA for two years, now, so obviously this is not a new list!)

4. The state is the nation’s largest exporter, representing $34 billion and 5 percent of all U.S. exports: forest products, aerospace products, apples, tulips, hops, mint, whea t and several other quality food products.

5. Leading innovators — Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Paul Allen,
Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, wireless pioneers the McCaw family, and the Boeing family — live in Washington State.

6. Washington State is America’s gateway to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C.

7. Washington leads the country in technology industry employment.

8. Grand Coulee Dam, the largest concrete structure in North America, is in Washington State.

9. Washington’s residents are educated; it’s the state with most residents holding high school diplomas. Seattle leads the country in residents with more college degrees per capita.

10. Father’s Day was founded here in 1910.

11. The state is home to the world’s largest private car collection featuring over 3,000 vehicles.

12. Washington is home to the largest land mollusk in North America, a foraging banana slug that grows up to 9 inches long.

13. In Washington, a Seahawk is an athlete, not a bird. The closest thing to a Seahawk is an osprey hawk.

14. Washington’s entrepreneurial climate has made it the leading state for both start-up and gazelles, or fast growing young companies.

15. Washington, the 42nd state in the union, is the only state named for a president.

16. Seattle gets less rainfall annually than Atlanta, Boston, New York, Houston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Miami, with 37 inches.

17. Seattle has the highest concentration of aerospace jobs in the world, led by Boeing’s 50,000 workers.

18. Our homegrown musicians include Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Kenny G, The Wailers, Pat Boone, Bing Crosby, Quincy Jones, among others.

19. Petrified wood is the state’s gem, and there’s a petrified forest here that’s considered the most un usual fossil forest in the world.

20. Washington State defines innovation. Some of the leading employers include Microsoft, Amazon.Com, Nordstrom, Boeing, Costco and Starbuck’s.

21. Washington has hosted the World’s Fair twice: 1962 in Seattle and 1974 in Spokane.

22. Washington produces 70 percent of the nation’s hops used to brew beer. Coincidentally, to overcome beer breath, the majority of the nation’s mint is also grown in the state.

23. The longest accessible beach in the U.S. is in Washington, the 8-mile-long stretch aptly named Long Beach.

24. Washington is a leader in health sciences research; it ranks tops in scientists and engineers as a percentage of workforce.

25. ‘Tales from the Far Side’ cartoonist Gary Larson is a Washington native and still lives in the Seattle area.

26. Washington has the largest ferry system in the nation — 26 million passengers travel by ferry each year. (Not sure how those numbers add up now with all of the ferry drama we have been having.)

27. The state’s nickname is the Evergreen State for its abundant evergreen forests. (Not the moss?)

28. It is America’s raspberry capital, harvesting more than 57 million pounds of raspberries each year.

29. Washington is the country’s second largest producer of wine, with its more than 350 wineries gaining international attention.

30. More people in Seattle commute to work on bicycles than any other city nationwide.

31. Washington’s Hells Canyon is the deepest River Gorge in North America, deeper than the Grand Canyon at over 5,500 feet deep.

32. One in every six Washingtonians owns a boat in this state where recreational and the commercial boating industry leads the country.

33. Kennewick Man, a 9,000-year-old skeleton, the oldest ever discovered in the Americas, was found in Washington in 1996.

34. The first revolving restaurant in the continental U.S. was built in Seattle’s Space Needle for the 1962 World’s Fair.

35. The cleanest air in the nation is found in a Washington community, Bellingham, according to the EPA and American Lung Association.

36. Washington’s cows produce more milk per cow than any other state, totaling 1.3 billion pounds of milk each year.

37. Seattle’s world-famous glass artist Dale Chihuly has put Washington on the international map, second only to Venice in number and skill of glassblowing artists.

38. Mark Rypien, 1992 Super Bowl MVP, is a Washington native and resides in Washington State.

39. Washington is the nation’s top apple producing state, with 10-12 billion apples handpicked annually.

40. Seattle sells more sunglasses per capita than any other major city in the nation. (I believe this is because we misplace our sunglasses on the dark days between the sunny days and have to replace them!)

 

One of my co-workers looks forward to Daylight Savings Time.  She sees it as “extra time.”

I have always thought DST was stupid.  The sun is up when it is up.  There are the same number of hours in the day.

I have struggled to understand why we do it and was always told it was to help the farmers (which really made NO SENSE to me, since the farmer doesn’t care what the clock says, he works with the light.)

So, the Wall Street Journal now reports that DSL actually incurs extra costs to the average consumer.  I don’t believe for a minute that we will scrap DSL, but I do feel vindicated!

 

If there is one thing that makes you look like you know what you are doing, it is a spiffy logo.  A salon logo should be designed to help customers get a feel for what the salon is like.  Potential customers should have an idea what they are in for long before they step inside.  Your logo is a HUGE part of that branding.

Logo creation can be intimidating.  I understand.  But you still have to do it.  If you don’t have a client in the graphics world who can help you, there are other (affordable!) options.

Click over to Small Business Trends to see the process from start to finish.