The home stretch of business travel for 2006 took me to Bellevue, Washington, where the buzz is about the problem with cranes (as in those used for construction purposes). As this story indicates, a Microsoft attorney was killed by a crane in November, and since then there have been other incidents where cranes went ablaze and caused other havoc. Outside my hotel window, cranes are operating day and night. As someone familiar with Bellevue, Washington, and have seen it grow over the past 20-something years, it makes me sad to see the city lose its charm and become one, large mess of urban sprawl.