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.

Think what you want, but I say a minor league baseball team would do wonders for Vancouver. With conditions, that is.

Youth sports have the capacity to develop values that kids can draw upon for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, far too many kids quit before learning the lessons of teamwork, sportsmanship, commitment and how to deal with successes and failures.

I’m a third generation junk aficionado—my grandpa owned a wrecking yard and my mom deals in antiques. By all accounts, I am a Second Hand Queen. I am known in these parts for getting good deals on used goods. Now that I live in suburbia, I’m surrounded by yard sales, garage sales, and estate sales. But suburban hell is garage sale heaven. I also put on a mean sale myself. With this experience behind me, I offer insight for would-be garage sale entrepreneurs.