Wendy
Home: College Point
Stats: 34A,26,36
Height: 5’6'
Age: 32

One of Wendy’s dreams is to be a strong female figure in an action movie. But this martial arts expert and Tae Kwon Do blackbelt candidate will have to wait.

Wendy never had to physically use her skills. "I have the brains to get out of situations. I know how to fight, but choose not to." In between the kicking and punching Wendy is a model. "I have a commercial look," she says and admits she’s not Victoria’s Secret. She’d be picked as the athletic, executive or the young mom type.

Wendy grew up in Flushing, and moved to College Point a year ago and found out it’s more than just a strip of auto body stores.

"It’s a little town. It has a nice little mix. It has some very beautiful parks," reports Wendy.

She has everything she needs in walking distance including Target and Old Navy. She loves to bike ride and rollerblade at McNeal Park, which overlooks LaGuardia Airport and lets her watch the planes taking off.

One of her favorite places in Queens – which she turns into a mandatory annual trip – is Alberto’s Italian restaurant on Metropolitan Ave. She describes it as "gastronomical ecstasy" and doesn’t leave without eating their chocolate mousse cake.

She likes that Queens is smack in the middle of everything.

"I think growing up here is great. I had the experience of going to school with so many different people," says Wendy.

Wendy attended PS 165 and IS 237 in Flushing. For high school, she went to Stuyvesant in Manhattan and hated it partly because of the long commute.

She attended Queens College and minored in journalism, which is how she met her friend Tamara Hartman, the Queens Tribune’s editor.

After college, Wendy bounced around until recently becoming a certified dance instructor for Kripalu DansKinetics and a reflexologist. She instructs at the holistic Integrative Healing Arts Center in Bayside, which she opened up with her boyfriend – who is also her former martial arts instructor.

Taliban Spin-Meister From Bayside

Once upon a time there was a businessman from Bayside who decided to pack his bags and join the Taliban.

QConf has learned that in 1998, a former Queensite decided to give up on America and head for Kabul to join the movement that is now harboring terror monger Osama Bin Laden.

According to Deb Amos, a correspondent for ABC News, the former Bayside man who identified himself only as Rateb, is the English-speaking translator for the Taliban’s ambassador in Pakistan – a job that includes the daily briefing of the Western press on the war in Afghanistan.

According to Amos, Rateb said he was "an Afghan fighter in 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan" and he has the scars to prove it.

"His black eye patch makes him look more like a pirate than a politician. Rateb is missing three fingers on his right hand and has a prosthetic hand on his left," she said.

"He had enjoyed all America had to offer. He said he watched a lot of American television. He was a baseball fan. And yet, here he was in Islamabad helping the Taliban get the message out in English. It’s just another example of the complex emotions stirred by the United States in this part of the world — part love, part hate, part envy, part fear," Amos said.

Sticky Beginnings

No night is perfect. Just ask Tony Avella, the Dem who won District 19’s City Council seat. Sure, he had a splendid Nov. 6, defeating Repub Dennis Saffran in the City’s closest council race. But his night of hugging and smiling didn’t go off without a hitch.

Before a victorious Avella returned to his College Point headquarters, campaign workers set up sandwiches, snacks and sodas for the many volunteers. Surprisingly, there was no coffee. Why? Because somebody put the coffee pot in a small side room, plugged it in, locked the door, and left with the only key.

Desperate, coffee-crazed campaign workers tried to get the door open using every key they could find, but nothing worked. "This place is going to burn down," one volunteer said.

At about 10 p.m., Avella returned to headquarters, gave a thank you speech, hugged his wife, and informed his workers that he too couldn’t open the door. Worried faces could be seen throughout the headquarters until, finally, the person who originally locked the door returned and opened it. Good thing. A political mob without coffee is a dangerous thing.

Subpoena Envy

Gary Condit is back in the news. Apparently he was served with an information subpoena in the Chandra Levy case. That means life is getting back to normal.

Queens-Born, Not Airborne Anthrax

QConf has learned that a Congressional staffer had his own brush with Anthrax years before any of us knew how to pronounce the word "cutaneous" and Housemembers fled Capitol Hill.

But the only ill effects of this encounter in the early 1990’s were photos of a bad hair day, he told us.

Jordan Goldes, presshoohah for Queens Congressman and Trib founder Gary Ackerman, said he first met Anthrax – the Queens-born band, not the airborne bacteria – during his stint as a college radio DJ.

Goldes interviewed the lead singer who told him the band came up with the name for the heavy metal outfit after learning about the deadly disease in their biology class at Bayside High School circa 1981.

He said, "They were learning about anthrax and thought the name sounded powerful and hard-hitting. They also played on the name by calling their albums ‘Spreading The Disease,’ and ‘Among The Living,’" Goldes said.

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Anthrax was one of the bigger heavy metal bands, playing alongside big-name acts like Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne and fellow Queensites KISS.

"Now unfortunately, Americans are learning the real meaning of anthrax, no longer just tapping their feet to some good tunes," Goldes added.

See You In A Few

Green Party candidate Paul Graziano was convincingly defeated in his bid for District 20’s City Council seat by Democrat John Liu, a disappointment to Graziano considering the wonderful ad placement that the Tribune gave him during his campaign.

To thank the Trib for its advertising assistance, a persistent and optimistic Graziano called a certain associate publisher on Nov. 8 and left the following message, "Thanks for the advertisement. Will be calling you in a few years."

See you then, Paul.

A Slight Glitch

What’s a mortor vehicle?

The Department of Motor Vehicles seems to know. They are listed in the latest edition of "The Green Book," on page 459, as Mortor Vehicles.