Here’s some welcome news for ferry riders: the Steilacoom ferry terminal will finally reopen after more than five months of remodeling inside and out.
Pierce County closed the terminal, located at 56 Union Ave. in Steilacoom, closed Jan. 4 for the work.
“I think our ferry patrons will be pleased with the results and enjoy spending time there,” said Deb Wallace, Pierce County Public Works and Utilities airport and ferry administrator. “We appreciate their patience and support during the remodel.”
Riders are encouraged to be extra cautious on the ferry landing on May 22 and 23, as workers will be removing the temporary ticketing facilities.
Building improvements
The remodel was completed on time and within budget. Internal improvements include WiFi access, new energy-efficient windows, new flooring, ADA-accessible counter space, expanded office space and hardware upgrades to the ticketing and HVAC systems. External improvements include a new entrance, a new paint job, cedar siding on part of the building, and new columns and railings.
“Our goal was to make the building comfortable and serviceable,” Wallace said. “The upgrades were made to last and to expand the lifetime of the building. We focused on energy efficiency, and gave special consideration to using materials that are sustainable, durable and affordable.”
Merritt Arch PLLC was the architect for the project, and WestCoast Contracting, Inc. served as general contractor. The project cost approximately $470,000 and was funded by the Facility Preservation Fund, which is made up of funds set aside annually in the Ferry budget for preserving facilities.
The building was last renovated in 1986. A 2010 survey of ferry patrons helped create a mutual vision of the completed facility. The town of Steilacoom helped Pierce County Public Works and Utilities develop a plan that complies with the community’s historical preservation guidelines.
Ribbon cutting ceremony May 30
The public can help celebrate the remodel during a ribbon cutting ceremony at 3 p.m. May 30 at the terminal. Speakers include Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy, County Councilmember Dick Muri (District 6), Anderson Island Citizen Advisory Board ferry liaison Dave Jacobsen, Public Works and Utilities Director Brian Ziegler, and Wallace.
Parking is limited at the terminal. Two-hour spaces are available along Union Avenue. There is also a commercial parking lot just above the terminal on Union Avenue.
The winners of the 2012 ferry photo contest will also be announced at the ceremony. Amateur photographers are invited to submit photos to the Public Works and Utilities Facebook page until 11 p.m. May 24. Contest details are available by clicking here.
The Pierce County Ferry System provides service between the town of Steilacoom and Anderson and Ketron islands.
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Cliff Nunn, who grew up in New Mexico, wanted a house in the Mon Valley with a traditional feel. Easy, right?
Wrong.
“It was kind of a long search,” he said.
Then he found 1 Colonial Drive in the Mount Vernon neighborhood of Elizabeth Township, which a neighbor told him was built from the same stone that makes up the piers of the nearby Boston Bridge.
Sold.
Now he has put it back on the market for $219,000 with Howard Hanna Real Estate agent Lori Meyer (412-751-2200, ext. 131 or www.howardhanna.com).
The four-bedroom, 31/2-bath house (MLS No. 908462) looks as stately as its neighborhood’s namesake on the Potomac River. Surrounded by mature trees and a lush lawn, it has a two-story portico supported by four graceful columns and covered by a slate roof. Although it has only been on the market for a few weeks, it is already under agreement, Ms. Meyer said.
The main entrance is actually on the side rather than the front. Well-maintained oak floors begin in the large entry and run throughout the home. A large archway on the left offers a great view of the 14-by-13-foot dining room, which is furnished with a Queen Anne-style breakfront and Chippendale-style mahogany chairs. The walls have their original plaster wainscoting and feature a wallpaper mural of Colonial-style homes that was popular at the time of its construction, 1940.
“My father is an antiques dealer and told me that was a common treatment for that time,” Mr. Nunn said.
A pair of doors flank the large fireplace in the adjacent living room, which measures 23 by 14 feet. “You can get a great cross breeze when the doors are open,” he said.
Creamy butter-colored walls and crisp white crown molding give a spark to the roomy space.
The kitchen spans the back of the house and measures 21 by 10 feet. Mr. Nunn lamented that he never had a chance to remodel it. It has wood parquet floors, pale green walls and white oak washed cabinetry.
Some of the doors have glass fronts and all have brass knobs. A small bistro table and chairs offer seating underneath windows.
A second set of stairs leading to the second floor is at the far end of the kitchen. There are a pair of bedrooms on either side of the second floor. To the right, a nursery-sized bedroom measures 13 by 12 feet. Pale blue walls and white trim set a tranquil tone. To the left, the 15-by-13-foot master bedroom has taupe walls with arts and crafts furnishings. A master bath was added after the house was built, Mr. Nunn suspects, and he painted it in Southwestern tones. It has a shower stall.
Other bedrooms measure 16 by 12 and 14 by 14. Both are serviced by a nice bathroom that Mr. Nunn painted dove gray to play off of the Colonial yellow tile– a color scheme that is very hot right now.
In the basement, a laundry area sits in the unfinished part, while a large 23-by-14-foot room is ready for a remodel.
“It has a wood-burning brick fireplace, a dry bar and 1950s wood paneling.”
In the back of the house is a large Trex deck with a retractable awning for shade. The deck meets the portico on the side for more outdoor living space.
Other amenities include a two-car garage with an automatic door opener and central air. “The house is full of closets, shelving and storage, including a large cedar closet with built-in shelving and drawers.”
The house has an assessed value of $107,800. One house sold on Colonial Drive in the past three years. It sold for $210,000.
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Larry and Mary Eastland
2307 13th St.
This home was built in 1924 in the Dutch Colonial style that was popular between 1900 and 1945. The lines are based on the style of houses built by Dutch settlers during the 1600s in New Amsterdam, or New York City, as we know it today.
The home was purchased in 1936 by Bernise and Pearl Shager and is still in the family since Larry Eastland is the Shagers’ grandson.
The home has cedar siding and cedar shingles, and when insulation was blown into the sidewalls, Eastland plugged all of the holes with cedar to keep the wood the same throughout.
Painting the house took two years because of inclement weather — cold and then very hot.
A giant 800-year-old red cedar tree has been poached from a provincial park on southern Vancouver Island, but the culprits who repeatedly returned to the site to hack it down may never be brought to justice.
Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee said consistent budget cuts over the last decade mean park rangers rarely monitor remote sites such as the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park, from where the cedar was chopped.
“Whoever’s doing this knows that no one’s going to have eyes on this park for months at a time so it’s exceptionally easy to do what they’ve done,” Coste said Thursday.
He said that last month, a member of the environmental group became aware of the poached tree and took a photo of about 20 per cent of its remains.
‘It’s an example of how poorly protected our parks are that people can come and take our trees without fear.’—Torrance Coste
But when Coste went to the park about two weeks ago, more of the cedar had been cut and removed, he said.
“In the first photo, there were two big sections of the trunk beside the stump and when I went up there, there was only one.”
He said a stump measuring about three metres in diameter is all that remains of the tree that was dragged across a parking area, where steel cables were left lying around.
“It’s an example of how poorly protected our parks are that people can come and take our trees, without fear of repercussions, from our provincial parks.”
Coste said 10 full-time park rangers monitor about 1,000 parks and protected areas across British Columbia, down from about 40 full-time positions in 2001.
Don Closson, who supervises the Cowichan area for B.C. Parks, said Parks officials at the site a year ago noticed that about 80 per cent of the tree had been cut through and that a professional faller was hired to bring it down because it posed a safety hazard.
Valuable as roofing product
“On our return this year we noticed that somebody had gone in and cut up a large portion of the butt and dragged portions of it into the parking lot,” he said.
Blocks of red cedar are valuable as a roofing product, Closson said, adding officials have little information in the case.
“We have no eyewitnesses or licence plates at this time.”
RCMP Sgt. Dave Voller of the Cowichan Lake detachment, which is about a two-hour drive from the park, said police are investigating the case of the stolen tree but so far don’t have much to go on.
“There’s not much we can investigate since we have no physical evidence or description of offenders and once wood is removed from the forest, it’s extremely difficult to track where it came from,” Voller said.
“That’s one of the logistical problems with having a park that’s miles from anywhere, with no one who is on site as far as management goes,” he said.
Likely used for cedar shakes
One RCMP officer works at the Ditidaht First Nation reserve, about 45 minutes from the park, but doesn’t have time to patrol the area, Voller said.
He said whoever took the time to chop down the cedar was likely interested in the valuable return from cedar shakes used for roofing.
“It’s obviously much more gain than going out and taking a whole pile of firewood. A logging truck loaded with cedar would be worth thousands and thousands of dollars.”
Opposition New Democrat MLA Scott Fraser criticized the Liberal government in the legislature for inadequate protection of the province’s parks, saying it’s obvious people can chop down old trees without being detected.
“To suggest that anyone is able to protect all of those areas to the level that the member suggests is fiscally irresponsible,” said Environment Minister Terry Lake.
“I’ll tell you what irresponsible is, 10 years ago there were 194 park rangers in British Columbia, there’s under 100 now,” Fraser said.
© The Canadian Press, 2012
WASHINGTON – Roger Clemens scored a courtroom breakthrough Friday when prosecution witness Brian McNamee admitted stashing needles and cotton swabs allegedly used to inject the pitching ace with performance-enhancing drugs in the same crumpled Miller Lite beer can used for medical waste from other players.
The revelation by Clemens’ former strength coach raised the possibility that the only physical evidence linking Clemens to Major League Baseball’s doping scandal could be contaminated by traces of anabolic steroids or human growth hormone used by others.
McNamee told Houston defense lawyer Rusty Hardin that some of the medical waste came from other unnamed baseball players who had injected themselves with human growth hormone in 2001. The materials unrelated to Clemens included a bottle of HGH, a needle to inject HGH and a bottle of saline solution.
Hardin: “How would something from someone else get in there?”
McNamee: “I put them in there. … (But) I’m not sure where they came from.”
Hardin: “Haven’t you testified that everything in the beer can was for Roger?”
McNamee: “Not everything. I’ve said that all along – it could have been from three different players.”
McNamee did not name any other players. But he told congressional investigators in a deposition in 2008 that he believed the waste materials from human growth hormone shots came from Chuck Knoblauch, a Bellaire High School graduate who playead in the majors for 12 seasons, including with Clemens on the New York Yankees.
In addition to questions over the mixed medical waste, Clemens’ defense team has questioned the integrity of the prosecution’s forensic evidence. A variety of people, including McNamee’s subsequently estranged wife, Eileen, had access to the beer can during the seven years it was stored at McNamee’s home, first in a locked basement cedar closet in their home and later in an unlocked closet in the master bedroom, McNamee testified.
Prosecutors are hoping that traces of Clemens’ DNA on some of the items in the beer can – once presented to the jury – will bolster their allegations that the seven-time Cy Young Award winner used performance-enhancing drugs as McNamee claims between 1998 and 2001.
Clemens stands accused of lying to Congress in sworn testimony in 2008 when he said that he had not taken performance-enhancing drugs during a 24-season career that included pitching for the Astros.
McNamee repeated claims that he was keeping incriminating forensic evidence from players in response to his wife’s demands that he take precautions against becoming the fall guy for drug use in the major leagues.
“The purpose of keeping (the waste) was not to use against Roger but so I could have a decent home life,” McNamee testified.
stewart.powell@chron.com
“We needed to do some extensive work. We wondered who we could get with the right combination of design talent and construction and project management skills,” says Kevin. The right person was sitting at their dinner table: daughter-in-law Erica Burns, 31, a Washington interior designer married to their son Ryan, 33. The two have a 10-month-old daughter, Elle.
Erica has a degree in construction management and previously worked for high-end residential builders. “I can read plans and understand sequencing, and I know a lot about finishes,” she says.
She also was familiar with the patterns of life by the sea among the extended family, which includes Ryan’s sister Kate Coleman, 29, married to Joe Coleman, 31, and their daughter Lindsey, 1; Ryan’s sister Jaime, 36; and three dogs.
“It was so important to me,” says Erica, who got engaged here to Ryan, who manages an investment partnership. “It’s where my family will be going for years.”
The house had lots of great relaxing spaces inside and out. On the main level, a living room, kitchen and dining room are all connected, and there’s a screened porch off to the side. “It’s a very communal type of atmosphere that can accommodate a lot of people,” Erica says. There are two bedrooms and a bath on the first floor and a family room that holds the only TV in the house. Yes, that’s on purpose: Kevin and Nancy have always felt that limiting TV to one room encourages conversation and reading in the rest.
On the second floor, there’s a master bedroom and adjoining bath and two bedrooms with another bathroom. Up a narrow spiral staircase is a loft where you can escapebabies and dogs.
Kevin, a venture capitalist, and Nancy didn’t want too much change. It was important to preserve the casual, open feel of the house. But it was showing its age. The original plan was to renovate the kitchen and bathrooms, replace carpeting with wood floors and redecorate in a cottage style. The builder-grade details on the fireplace and trim needed to be improved. There was a deadline: the work should start October 2010 and be completed by Memorial Day weekend 2011.
Like any renovation, there were surprises. They uncovered extensive water damage requiring replacement of the cedar siding with cement board plank. Although unfortunate and costly, it led to more improvements: a bigger screened porch, new windows and the opportunity to create a spacious sundeck on the second floor. “It’s the cool new favorite place to go now because it’s breezy and has a view of the beach,” Erica says.
One of her favorite makeovers was the master bath, where a monster Jacuzzi tub (so 1990s) that nobody used was replaced with a large open glass shower lined with subway tiles and a new white marble vanity. Nancy wanted a white kitchen with marble counters, a bit tricky for a beach house where kids will be spilling juice boxes and adults will be mixing margaritas. Instead of marble, Erica went to Charles Luck Stone and found Antico Namibian White granite, which is less porous and shows fewer stains than marble.
Nancy and Erica agreed there would be no baskets of shells or wooden signs saying “Beach This Way.” Erica says they “focused on colors and textures that remind you of the beach.” They painted walls the color of sand (Winds Breath by Benjamin Moore), hung an oxidized lantern and chose a cotton rug in a sea blue.
Erica and Nancy selected reclaimed wooden tables and white slipcovered sofas. The bedrooms are spare and restful. They kept a few old things, including wicker porch furniture and quilts, which have a cottage look.
Throughout the eight-month redo, the family stuck together. “A lot of people said I was crazy for doing this with my in-laws, that it was a recipe for disaster,” Erica says, “Not true.” She says only a few things required a little convincing of Nancy, such as going with granite instead of marble and replacing Palladian windows with a more contemporary style.
Nancy says, “Now the house is better in so many ways. And with a new roof and good siding, it will last longer for our kids and grandkids.”
As Erica wrote in the first entry of the construction blog she kept for the family: “We will miss the days of cold/scalding hot showers, low bathroom vanities, jammed doorknobs, stubbed toes on loose deck nails . . . But we must move forward and welcome the new changes with exciting memories to come!”
Tribal house restoration on schedule;
Cedar Logs Received for Chief Shakes Tribal House,
Land for Carving Shed
May 17, 2012
Thursday
(SitNews) Wrangell, Alaska – Project Manager Todd White stated that he was “very happy” with the schedule the Chief Shakes fire pit pre-restoration is keeping, as walls have already been removed and concrete poured. “The concrete will go a long ways to help to battle moisture and helping prevent future insect and pest infestation by keeping the Cedar dry and off the ground,” said White.
While the Chief Shakes Tribal House in Wrangell will have a new floor and footings, the centerpiece of the structure, the fire pit, has been preserved. Original restoration plans had the Tribal House’s historic fire pit to be replaced; however, carbon dating conducted on the ash dated the pit back to the late 1800’s and White quickly changed the plans to leave the pit untouched. In the new renovation plan, the Shakes Island crew carefully covered the pit with planks as concrete was delivered one wheelbarrow at a time, creating a foundation around the fire pit to ensure visitors will enjoy the fire pit for another 100 years.
Project Manager Todd White pouring concrete around fire pit
Photo courtesy WCA
The Tribal House of the Bear on Shakes Island in Wrangell is an example of the architecture of the Tlingit Nation. The house, once the home of Chief Shakes, is a replica of the original house erected on the site in the 1800′s.
For the renovation, Sealaska Corporation donated 12 cedar logs to reconstruct the Tribal House, while Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority (THRHA) donated downtown property for the construction of the new carving shed. The 12 cedar logs donated to the project were found on nearby Prince of Wales Island and delivered to Thorne Bay where they were finished by the Thaja Plicata Lumber Company.
And, Sealaska Timber Corporation (STC) will also fulfill the projects request of six 40’ Red Cedar logs (40” at the butt) and another six 35’ Yellow Cedar logs (2 ½’ to 3’ in diameter). Had this donation not come through, the Wrangell Cooperative Association could have been looking at an estimated $100,000 plus to purchase the logs.
“When Sealaska steps forward with its logs, the end result is not in dollars,” said Sealaska Chair Albert Kookesh. “The end result is where that community stands after they rebuild.”
“We would like to thank Sealaska for the log donation, which is a critical step in the restoration of the Tribal House,” said WCA President Ernie Christian. “The biggest challenge has always been finding logs big enough to reconstruct the corner posts.”
Sealaska Lands Manager Michele Metz stated that “Sealaska is honored to be able to contribute to the Chief Shakes House restoration project … It is inspiring to see the cooperative spirit this project is generating, and we are looking forward to the completed project!”
Ground breaking for a new Carving Shed could happen as soon as 2012 after the news that land in downtown Wrangell has been secured.
Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority has signed over the lot adjacent to the SNO Building, currently known as the SNO Replat, to the Wrangell Cooperative Association. A temporary carving facility is currently located on the property and the new 4,000 square foot Carving Shed will soon call that spot home. A lease signed by WCA on March 9, 2012, shows that the property is theirs through 2062 at a rate of just $1 per annum, with an option to extend the lease until 2087.
Architectural plans have been completed, and some initial funding set aside, so wheels are already in motion on the new carving shed. The basketball-court-sized facility will include retail and office space, in addition to carving stations and storage, and WCA has been working with the City of Wrangell and Southeast Earthmovers to assure that plans for the Carving Shed will be included as the re-construction of Front St. continues to march through downtown Wrangell.
Upon completion, the Carving Shed will work “hand-in-hand with the SNO Building,” said WCA’s Carol Snoddy. The carving shed would aim to host one master carver per month for the first two years to help train our local carvers, and “the community would benefit as beading, weaving and fur classes at the SNO building could coincide with carving classes at the neighboring Carving Shed.”
“We had to flip-flop our priorities when we found out how bad of shape Chief Shakes House was,” said Snoddy on the numerous carving shed delays. Now, after years on the backburner, the Carving Committee is back and there is a chance foundation is poured within the year. “We now see the carving facility as Phase 2 in the Shakes Island renovation.”
1940 Chief Shakes Island Dedication
Photo courtesy WCA
THRHA Realty Corporation Broker Michael Ban stated that they were “glad we could make this happen. We look forward to seeing the finished Carving Shed.”
The Tribal House restoration progress has lead to the WCA commencing planning of the Chief Shakes Island Re-dedication.
Meeting are already being held to plan the ceremony, which is scheduled for May of 2013.
Tribal House re-dedications don’t happen often, so while WCA’s Tis Peterman is planning for as many as 500 visitors for the ribbon cutting ceremony, Peterman is leaving the door open for a lot more interested parties to find their way to Wrangell.
“Looking at numbers from similar events around Southeast Alaska, and throw in the fact that Haines and Kasaan are looking to do renovations to tribal houses like Shakes Island, we could be looking at more than the 500,” said Peterman.
“We will have a better estimate on total visitors after the dance committee gets filled up,” continued Peterman. “We’ll be conducting an outreach, hopefully recruiting dancers from communities all around Southeast. We could see as much as 30 dancers per community participating in the re-dedication, which would easily put us near that 500-visitor-mark.”
If you would like to help with the re-dedication, sign-up sheets can be found at the WCA office. Volunteers are greatly needed to help with housing, transportation, food, advertising, fund raising and much more.
Shakes Island is located in the harbor at Wrangell, Alaska and contains the Chief Shakes Historic Site, a National Register site that receives over 10,000+ visitors a year. The island stands as one of the few lasting reminders of Southeast Alaska Natives and their unique totemic art. The site’s main feature is a replica of a 19th century Tlingit tribal house which is set on the authentic location historically occupied by Chief Shake’s lineage. Not only is the site important to the national chronology of Native-white contact, it is still used today for Tlingit ceremonies and contains the prized clan artwork— at.óow —of the Stikine Tlingits. Shakes Island is owned and operated by the WCA.
The Tribal House of the Bear on Shakes Island in Wrangell, Alaska is a wonderful example of the architecture of the Tlingit Nation. The house, once the home of Chief Shakes, is a replica of the original house erected on the site in the 1800′s.
The tribal house, once the home of Chief Shakes, is a replica of the original house erected on the site in the 1800′s. It was completed in 1940 built by collaboration between the CCC, the Forest Service and the local Tlingit tribe. Except for minor repairs, no major reconstruction has taken place to the structure. Because the tribal house is listed on the National Historic register, the replacement timbers must be hand adzed. Master carvers from other communities are overseeing and training locals to complete the adzing. The old structure needs to be dismantled and then a new structure erected in its place with the hand-adzed timbers, new electrical and a new roof of split cedar shakes. The totem poles on the island also need to be refurbished.
Wrangell Cooperative Association (WCA) is the federally recognized tribe of the Stikine River region. WCA’s charter was approved by the Department of the Interior in 1942.
Of the 2,000 residents of Wrangell, approximately 800 are tribal members.
Edited by Mary Kauffman, SitNews
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Stories In The News
Ketchikan, Alaska
Source: USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Strength coach Brian McNamee said he felt “creepy” injecting Roger Clemens’ wife Debbie with human growth hormone at Clemens’ Houston home in 2003.
And when a government investigation turned up the heat in 2006, a testy e-mail exchange between Clemens and McNamee ensued.
Jurors saw a copy of an e-mail from Rocket22 (Clemens) threatening to send “his people” after anyone who would rat him out to authorities. McNamee assured Clemens he would not flip but would “hop on a plane, find you and slap you very hard” if he was implicated.
McNamee, who could be the government’s only witness to say he saw Roger Clemens use performance-enhancing drugs, resumed his testimony Tuesday, saying he injected the seven-time Cy Young Award winner with HGH “10 to 20 times” during the 2000 season alone.
The personal strength coach had no qualms injecting the pitcher, but said injecting his wife from behind as she raised her shirt in the couple’s bathroom was a different story.
“I didn’t feel comfortable bending down in front of my friend’s wife,” McNamee said. “It didn’t feel normal or right. Part of me asked, ‘Why couldn’t Roger do this? He’s seen how I do it enough times. … Debbie looked at Roger and said, ‘I can’t believe you’re going to let him do this to me.’ But I was just doing what he asked.”
McNamee said Clemens retained him as his personal trainer and paid him $5,000 per month after he was fired by the New York Yankees as an assistant strength coach following the 2001 season.
McNamee, under questioning from prosecuting attorney Daniel Butler, said that in 2001 he retrieved and saved medical waste from Clemens’ New York apartment, where injections often took place.
McNamee said he saved some medical waste at his home in response to his wife Eileen’s protests that he could become the fall guy if Clemens was caught. “You’re going to go down. You’re going to go down,” McNamee said his wife warned him.
On Monday, McNamee testified that he injected Clemens with steroids when he was a member of the Blue Jays in 1998. In 2000, with both men employed by the Yankees, McNamee said Clemens told him: “I’m ready to start up again.”
McNamee said he approached Kirk Radomski in late June or early July to supply what Clemens needed. “I asked (Radomski) if he had stuff starting pitchers would take. He said HGH was the latest and greatest product,” McNamee said. McNamee says he knew Radomski could supply what Clemens needed and knew Radomski “through David Segui,” a former Blue Jays player.
McNamee said he met Radomski in a bank parking lot to obtain the performance enhancers, brought them to Yankee Stadium and placed them under clothing in Clemens’ locker. Clemens then asked to be injected in his apartment that night.
In addition to administering injections in Clemens’ bedroom, McNamee said injections took place near the Jacuzzi in the Yankees clubhouse and on the road. In one case, when McNamee said he did not have the necessary rubbing alcohol, he said Clemens got the hotel manager to open the gift shop.
McNamee testified that he injected Clemens with “6 to 10″ shots of testosterone and “10 to 20″ shots of HGH during the Yankees’ 2000 championship season.
McNamee said he retrieved a crumpled beer can from under Clemens’ sink and stuffed into it the medical waste — ampoules, needles, cotton balls — that he brought home, placed in a FedEx box he labeled “Clem” and stored in a cedar closet. He said that in 2002, he added pills and needle tips that Clemens asked him to dispose of, to the same box in the closet.
The shipment of HGH for Debbie Clemens came from Radomski, shipped to Clemens’ Houston home to the attention of McNamee “in case it was flagged,” McNamee said.
McNamee said he used HGH himself after he severely cut his finger with what he called a “chop saw” in 2004 while he was training Andy Pettitte. “(The finger) was hanging,” said McNamee, who said the HGH he used also came from Radomski.
McNamee said the last time Clemens asked him to inject him was in 2001 but with steroids, not HGH. “He didn’t like the belly button shot (of HGH),” McNamee said.
McNamee said he often talked to Debbie Clemens in the kitchen. “We always talked about nutrition and exercise in the morning,” he said. “She was asking what I knew about growth hormone and I told her what I knew-aathat a lot of Hollywood people (used). “
Prior to Wednesday’s testimony, Judge Reggie Walton dismissed a juror who was “obviously sleeping … for an extended period” during the trial. That leaves 14 of the 16 original jurors, 12 of whom will determine a verdict and two alternates.
Copyright © 2012 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
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Ways to make your home, old or new, more fire resistant.
No matter where you live, making your home as fire-resistant as possible should be a priority for everyone. There are many ways to make your house fire-resistant, both on the inside and the outside.
To make your home more fire-resistant on the inside, there are several things you can do. One very good thing you can do is to buy and install solid wood doors in your home. They are an excellent fire barrier and stand up much better in a fire than the traditional hollow-core cheap doors that come standard in most homes. They cost more, but they are worth it in terms of fire suppression and beauty. Also, every sleeping area in your home should be designed to have two exits. For rooms that are on the second floor, an inexpensive choice is to purchase one of those escape ladders designed especially for fires, and store them near each window. Your family should have a plan for getting out and a place for meeting outside the house to make sure everyone is out. Never go back inside a burning house. No possession is worth your life.
How to make your house more fire resistant
Outside your home, the choice of walls, roof, etc. can make a big difference in your home’s fire resistance. Everything you do that provides fire resistance for your home improves the chances that there may be something left when the fire department arrives. Vinyl siding on homes tends to melt quickly and is not much of a fire barrier. Stucco or some kind of masonry, such as brick, stand up better in a fire.
Double-pane windows are also better than single-pane. Consider upgrading if your home is an older one with single-pane windows. Tempered glass is excellent for fire resistance, they tend to shatter less, providing both you and fire protection persons less opportunity to be injured by shattering glass.
Shingles can also play a role in fire resistance. Shingles made of asphalt, metal roofs, or terracotta tiles are a much better choice than cedar shakes or some other type of wood shingles, plus the upkeep is much easier! When planning your roof, think about fire-resistance as well as aesthetics.
Don’t attach your fence to your house. I know this sounds silly, but fire is an extremely lazy beast. It wants to follow the easiest path. A good way to fill in that space between house and fence is to build a stone or brick pillar. This will help keep the fire from jumping from the fence to your house. Also, consider building your deck from non-flammable materials. Besides being fire-resistant, they are also less maintenance than wood decks. There are many different new products out there for deck building, and it should be easy to find one that fits your needs.
As far as vegetation goes, there are a few rules to provide the best fire-resistant yard. You do not have to have a dirt circle around your house! Trees should be the furthest from you house-at least 10 feet apart and 10 feet from your roof. Use trees that don’t accumulate twigs and other matter beneath them unless you plan on clearing it out periodically. Shrubs can be closer to your house, but the best things to have right next to it are lawn and flowers. If you have a slope or lots of empty space, think about putting in some ground cover plants. Well-watered plants, lawn, etc. can help keep a forest or brush fire from consuming your home before fire protection arrives. However, over-watering can produce the opposite effect. There are some plants that are considered fire-resistant, so check with a local nursery or fire station about the ones that will flourish in your area.
There are many things you can do to make your home fire-resistant, regardless of where you live. Space your plants, shrubs and trees well. Prune them regularly. Inspect your home inside and out and make any necessary repairs. Use a common sense approach to fire safety, and teach your family members how to react as well.
Lastly, according to the American Red Cross, the MOST important thing you can do is to have smoke alarms in your home. There should be one smoke alarm outside every sleeping area on each level. Test and replace your batteries at least once a year. Make sure to vacuum and dust away any cobwebs that accumulate on your smoke alarms. Smoke alarms save more lives than any other fire precautions you can take.
