I’m just excited about what’s going on downtown Vancouver. It’s hard not to be. Art in the Heart is almost among us, a new tap room and outdoor market (see page 10) is here and there is plenty more on the horizon.

I was going to write a column about 10 ideas to better downtown — working water fountains, creative space filling ideas (co-ops and such), an annual beach volleyball tournament in the intersection of Main and 7th St. (think about it) and so on.

Fort Vancouver Regional Library is prepared to ask voters to pass the first operating tax increase in 17 years. The Vancouver Voice editorial board supports the levy as a sound community investment.

A funny thing happened the other week when I went to meet the Vancouver Downtown Association’s new executive director, Lee Rafferty, and tell her The Voice was moving and I was opening an art gallery connected to the office: she already knew.

Later in the week, I called the city’s business development manager, Alisa Pyszka, to ask about the steps to opening a business: she already knew, too.

I like having a good buzz around town.

I have always been more keen to column writing and feature (or soft news) writing than I have to hard news and investigative journalism.

When one door closes, another opens — as the saying goes. So when the doors closed at 1012 Washington St. earlier this year, it opened the doors of opportunity for something else.

For over 50 years, that spot was home to Koplan’s Home Furnishing, a downtown retail icon. It now sits empty — 25,000 square feet of potential. In this economy, finding a single suitor for the space is not as likely as filling it with multiple tenants and individual business ventures.

I have been saying it for weeks: I’m ready for fall – very ready.

It’s football season. It’s crabbing season. It’s surfing season. It’s back to school season, which means nothing to me any more, except the warm fuzzy feeling I get again of walking by the grade school playgrounds and seeing the little tikes run around the playground instead of in the road.

Most importantly—it’s not summer.

In this job, it’s certainly the little things that keep me going. Day in and day out, I’m reminded of dowry red area that this paper continues to be in. There’s a constant feeling that there is too much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. Not to mention the wonderment that perhaps this pond is just a little too damn big at the moment. Or, the fish is too small. Potato, pitahto.

Recently, very recently, I graduated from college. I reached the end of the long road of academic toil, and felt like collapsing at the doorstep. Only trouble was, I still don’t know to what this door belongs. And, in this day and age, it seems I’m not alone in this.

Some people are smart enough to know just what they want to do when they’re in high school. They draw up a plan, mapping out each class they’ll take over the next four or more years, and take each step necessary to reach that sacred sheepskin.

It’s smack dab in the middle of summer, and I’m stuck covering politics. Suck it, legislature, for making the primary election in August. I should be covering boating, sun-bathing and swimsuit contests, not campaign promises, big-ticket issues and who-said-she-said-they-said junk.

Oh well. Whether we like it or not, ballots are mailed out. We have until Aug. 18 to decide who we want to vote in office and why.

One year. That’s how long it’s been since I transplanted myself in Vancouver. It seems like just yesterday that I spent my first night in Vancouver, drinking a beer at Shanahan’s by myself and eating a huge order of tater-tots and chicken strips. It’s an anniversary worthy of some reflections. Here are 10 things I’ve learned about Vancouver and Clark County in the last 12 months.