Once upon a time, we launched this website about Tacoma called Exit133. Since then, we’ve tried to make Tacoma better, one small project at a time. Most of our work is online, but we do work offline as well. Occasionally the projects have paid. Usually, they don’t. We’ve worked with real estate developers and arts organizations. We’ve worked with young, aspiring entrepreneurs. We’ve taken up projects brought to us by our readers in the name of a better Tacoma. Somewhere along the line, Derek made Exit133 his full-time job, and we hired Whitney to hang out in City Hall, manage a few projects, and keep an eye on… all of you.

We have several advertising sponsors that have helped tremendously this past year. We can’t thank them enough. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

We’d like to now extend an offer to you, our readers, to join us as a financial supporter of Exit133. We rely you for the great discussion on the site, for interesting tips that keep us all informed, and for the civic-mindedness you bring to Tacoma in the offline world as well. Supporting Exit133 helps to keep things running smoothly on our end, and brings together our readers who want to participate in the growth of this community.

Does Exit133 help you get through your day? Does the civic discussion here help get you involved and know more about the issues? Do you appreciate the quick news items, interesting discussions, and opportunities to get out and enjoy Tacoma? We’re not looking for a handout or charity—just something that says “thanks for what you do,” “how else would I get through the 3pm lull at work?,” “we appreciate your time in the community,” or “I want to be a part of what you do.”

For the people and organizations that give us a little love we’ve set up an Exit133 Supporters page (names will show for one year). From there you can send contributions/subscriptions/donations via Paypal or to our mailbox. Our specified minimum is $1.33 – which almost gets us an Americano from Metro Coffee.

If we do good things for you, please help us continue to do good things. 2008 is looking to be a good year. With your help, we hope to make it great.

Thank you for reading Exit133.

The Exit133 Team

P.S. Our Job Board is the most read section of the site other than the homepage. If you need people, let’s talk about jobs!

P.P.S. We’re still looking for advertising sponsors for both the button ad on each page and several upcoming projects. Think… thousands of regular readers, a great demographic, hyperlocal focus…

Jump to the Supporters Page

21. March 2008, 12:55

We’ve received several emails from folks over the last few weeks asking about the various RSS feeds available on Exit133. Now, a lot of you don’t use RSS. That’s perfectly okay. But, for those that do, here are the most common feeds that folks seem to use.

Exit133 A Side Article Feed
This feed contains just the articles that appear on the homepage of Exit133.com.
Subscribe Now

Exit133 B Side Article Feed
As you can probably guess, this feed contains just the articles that appear on the B Side of Exit133.com.
Subscribe Now

Exit133 Comprehensive Feed
This feed contains the A Side, B Side, and 365 Days of Tacoma. It is the largest and most frequently updated feed, but also the most likely to have miscellaneous articles that you don’t care about.
Subscribe Now

Exit133 Comment Feed
This feed contains the most recent comments to articles on Exit133. This does not include the forum.
Subscribe Now

Exit133 Forum Feed
This is the forum feed. It includes the publicly viewable posts in the forum.
Subscribe Now

Exit133 Video Feed – High Quality
This is the video podcast feed and, while you could access it directly, it’s intended to be used with a Apple’s iTunes or Miro.
Subscribe Now

365 Days of Tacoma Feed
For those folks that don’t really care what we have to say and just want to look at pictures. This is the feed for you.
Subscribe Now

We hope this helps.

24. February 2008, 19:31 Comment [1]

Thanks to everybody who completed our reader survey at the beginning of the month. We received several hundred responses and we’ll be looking through the data for a while to figure out what it all means.

For those of you on the edge of your seat waiting for the results of the optional drawing for a $100 restaurant gift card. Well, we won’t keep you waiting anymore, a winner has been drawn.

Who was it? Out of the more than 200 names in the mix, the winner was Erin Gendron. She lives in Roy. She works in downtown Tacoma. What’d she get? $100 to Pacific Grill.

Congratulations!

Thanks again. Your input was very open, honest, and should provide us with a great foundation for the future.

22. February 2008, 15:22

Many times in the last few months companies have come to us looking for potential employees or people come to us looking for jobs. We get emails. We get phone calls. Then, we did the reader survey and it came up again. Y’all seem to think we know people … So, for all of you, we’ve now launched a job board on Exit133.

Where can you find it? Look toward the bottom of the right sidebar – below the search box. You should see a randomly selected job opportunity. Something like this…

Or you can click on the “see more jobs” list to get a full list.

It’s been up for one day and there are now a whopping 4 jobs from 2 companies. However, more are on the way. Interested in listing a job? Send us a note via the contact page and we’ll send you the details and hook you up. It’s not free, but it’s inexpensive. Plus, we have thousands of great readers that would make any office a better place. Well, most of our readers are great…

13. February 2008, 18:10

As many of you know, to create a link or bold some text in the comments, you had to know a shorthand language called Textile. But, just to confuse things, if you wanted to do the same thing in the Forums, you used BBCode. Well, things have changed!

Textile is now the default formatting language in the comments AND the forum. This should make things a lot easier.

If you have any problems with the change, please send us a note or post it in the forum.

Thank you.

10. February 2008, 22:00

Reminder
We’re nearly to the end of week 1 of the survey. With a couple hundred responses in, it would seem a lot of you are hungry for that gift card. Or, as some of pointed out, you’re addicted to surveys. If you haven’t had the time, please consider it. It’s Friday. Slow work day? We’ll keep it open until February 11th. Thank you.

Once upon a time, we asked you where you lived and worked. We plotted the results on a map and we all admired how the colorful pins formed patterns around Puget Sound.

It’s been a long time since we made that map and, well, there are a lot more of you now than there used to be. So, rather than make assumptions, we’ve put together a user survey via SurveyMonkey and would love it if you’d take time to fill it out.

The goal of the survey is to let us know what content you like, what content you don’t like, and a little bit about yourself. In what zip do you live and work? Who’s your favorite commenter? Useful questions that will help us as we plan 2008. A few notes:

• The survey is completely anonymous and uses a third party (surveymonkey) to administer it and compile results.
• It should take you between 5 and 15 minutes.
• Every answer is optional. If you don’t want to answer something, we won’t force the issue.
• While maintaining anonymity, we do have a $100 restaurant gift card for one respondent. You’ll be given instructions on how to enter to win at the end of the survey.

• The survey closes on February 11th. Fill it out today!

Thank you.

Click Here To Take the Survey

1. February 2008, 09:28

Comments are disabled until we get moved into our new home. When this messages disappears, you can rejoin the discussion.

Well… we’re almost there now.

12. January 2008, 17:53

…because Exit133 will be down for a bit of maintenance.

This weekend, we’ll be moving Exit133.com to a shiny new world of more powerful widgets and slicker code involving buzzwords we won’t inflict on you.

The site itself will be up, however, comments will be disabled. The forum will be shut down for maintenance.

This is actually the most thorough upgrade we’ve done to the site since it launched in 2005. It won’t look any different. But trust us, it’ll be a completely new world. Files will be copied. Databases moved. We’ll also be updating a bit of software here and there, tweaking the forums, and adjusting a few big levers that power this beasty.

The current plan is to start the work on Saturday morning.

Wish us luck.

p.s. By shear coincidence, we’ll be taking care of this as well…

I know that several of you received email messages last night originating from the Exit133 forum. And while it may be an intriguing business offer, I’m sure you aren’t looking to send money to the Ivory Coast any time soon. We had a user sign up for the forum, then start sending messages using the internal messaging system. We have banned the account, IP address, and will be looking into a few extra security features. This has never happened on the site before and we take it very seriously. Please note – the originator of the message does not have your email address. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Update

We’ve already run one update to the forum. The colors and layout will be out of order until the upgrades are done this weekend.

11. January 2008, 09:45

The return of the 365 Days of Tacoma photos have brought many back to the daily question of “Where’s the photo?” or “Why aren’t there pictures of my neighborhood?” Do you have photos that you’d like to share? We can’t promise we can publish everything, but we do like to see your photos. Send them to us at:

365Days@Exit133.com

29. October 2007, 16:13 Comment

Check out that happy family. They must read Exit133!

The first Exit133 shirt – the basic T – is ready for you. Several additional designs are in the works, but this is the first one and… folks are asking. So, just for you, send me an email via the contact page and I’ll hook you up. The price is $18.38 plus tax – so $20.00. The shirts were printed by Tacoma’s very own Post Industrial Press. They are Gildan unisex with sizes from Small to XL.

Designed and hand grommetted by Chris Sharp. If you know Chris, you know that there are some interesting designs coming soon… trust us.

You can avoid shipping costs by picking up your shirt from the barristas at Blackwater Cafe or from me at the KPLU tent in Tollefson Plaza this weekend (but you have to send an email first…).

We know you need one. Send me an email via the contact page and let’s get started.

10. August 2007, 09:15 Comment [7]

Just to let you know, we’re in the process of restyling the site. The project is only beginning, and it’s a work in process, but the new look and feel should help us to add new features in the coming weeks and months. Plus, every site needs a change every once in a while. Thank you for reading Exit133.

Send your bug reports, feedback, or requests for features via the contact page. Now’s the time to ask – or just say hello.

p.s. The 365 Days photos will be back online shortly. I didn’t forget about them…

12. June 2007, 09:24

Exit133 has been a bit quiet this week. I apologize. You seem quite capable of keep old threads going from what I can tell… What have I been up to? Well, this is the first week of the quarter at UWT. That’s keeping me busy. Oh yeah, and I’m hangin’ in Seattle at the Main Streets Conference. There’s a significant contingent from Tacoma here including several Exit133 readers. I’m amazed. I’ll be back downtown full time tomorrow afternoon. Then, we have some work to do. We’re scheming. Are you ready?

27. March 2007, 07:45 Comment [3]

We launched our forum a few weeks ago and it has been interesting to see the topics you want to talk about. We love it. Because it’s you. All of you. In all your glory. Have you joined the discussion yet?

I, the Kalakala, am not a hussy-boat.

Exactly. Come on in! All are welcome.

Link to the Forum

1. February 2007, 23:12

After much deliberation, we’ve decided to try a few new things at Exit133:

The Forum

There is now an official Exit133 forum. Several of you have asked for a less structured place for conversations. This is your opportunity and your invitation to try it out and jump in. We’re still figuring out the details. Forums, when they first start out, are such sad places. Categories with no topics. Discussions with no replies. Help us shape the discussion by providing your input. We need to know what you want to talk about. Quality comes from you!

As a note – you do need to be registered on the forum to comment. Also, for the geeks out there, there are lots of RSS feeds available for the forums. On the left sidebar is the feed for the whole forum. Inside the forum, you can subscribe to individual categories, forums, or discussions.

You can find it online at www.exit133.com/forum

Mailing List

This is not something I expected we’d get into – the occasional email via a subscribed list. Except, we’ve run into more and more people that have asked, “Can you send me an email when something good is going on at Exit133?” The general answer is usually, “No.” The realization is that while many folks have gotten into email, many haven’t gotten into reading websites like Exi133. Therefore, this will be an occasional email. I will add commentary not available on the website. I may summarize a few threads. I may make an announcement or two. We’ll have fun with this. Sign up now. The first email will come out… eventually.

Sign up here

14. January 2007, 12:54