Cover Story
Conflicted
As the sun started its descent on a recent Wednesday, customers of a south county gas station were shuffling through its 10 self-service pumps with all the efficiency and anonymity that modern life allows: swiping, fueling, and moving on. At one point, drivers placed their cars in idle and waited their turn to fill up…
Parking fees at SLO airport may go up
San Luis Obispo’s airport is onboard for a $102 million facelift, with plans for a new three-story passenger terminal including the county’s first up-and-down escalator as well as a new $15 million parking structure to accommodate growing use. “This is not a question of ‘build it and they will come.’ They are already here,” stated…
How many landscapes can one barn hold?
The trolley doesn’t pass by CorkStop Studios. You won’t find it in the row of galleries on Embarcadero or in downtown San Luis Obispo. Instead, the large red barn home to artists Carol Paquet, Xenia Madison, and Anne Stahl is located in Corbett Canyon, down a winding green lane and past two cattle guards and…
The shape of kids to come
Your mama’s so old, she changed Bill Denneen’s diapers, which were probably made out of hemp. Sorry. In honor of Mother’s Day, I’m trying to praise my own mom by disparaging yours, and that’s the best I could come up with. That bearded eco-hooligan from Nipomo has been around for 80-some-odd years, by the way,…
Letters
Leave change up to our leaders? Seriously? Let me get this straight. Patrick Howe doesn’t think the individual has much influence on global climate change (“Global pizza,” May 3). And that corporations getting involved is highly suspicious. So the answer is our government leaders should be doing something about it. These, the same government leaders…
Unlock the keys to courtship
Successful technocrats, video-game tycoons, and driven workaholics, pay attention. There’s a new service in town that aims to improve the one aspect of your social life you’ve been hesitant to develop: pursuing a relationship of the female persuasion. # Courtship Coaching of San Luis Obispo is intended for successful professional men of any age and…
Vive la critique
Sharp wits armed with even sharper pens and a bastion of theatrical knowledge and experience can turn their critical butts around and return to New York or Los Angeles or Bakersfield, or whichever haven of theatrical criticism from whence they came. San Luis Obispo is a little too preoccupied with being inoffensive for serious or…
Nasty as you want to be
Gather ’round, little children, and let me tell you a story. Look over your shoulder to make sure your mom’s not spying on you, otherwise she might snatch this paper out of your hand. Are you safe? Okay. Here goes. About a year or so ago, a certain someone convinced me to take # her…
Bagels in the house
Fifty hungry citizens gathered outside the front door of the House of Bagels in Paso Robles on an early December morning in 2005 to be among the first to taste their authentic, crusty-chewy donut-shaped rolls. Clearly, the folks were impressed. Ever since, they’ve been buying out those fresh bagels, smears, and giant muffins and cookies…
Water woes
If the City of San Luis Obispo gets its way, your lush lawn is going to cost you more. So is flushing your toilet. Over the next two years, water rates may soar by 26 percent, and sewer rates by 21 percent. That’s bad news for folks who enjoy a thick green lawn or water-thirsty…
Imagining a home for community
Though Nipomo residents have longed for a new community center since the old one lost its site in 2004, visions of what that center might look like were hazy until Cal Poly architecture students began dreaming up designs. And while the center’s final approval and funding hangs in the balance, these designs are making the…
Fast facts
Legendary local caterer and Cal Poly graduate Bonnie Bardin recently opened a new retail location in Santa Margarita with kitchen enthusiasts and self-proclaimed “foodies” in mind. Bonnie’s Kitchen, located at 2200 El Camino Real in the historic Gasoline Alley Antique Barn, is a retail store that offers tasty gifts and delicious foods ranging from marinades,…
Trash talk
A rubble-strewn 13-acre parcel at 4398 Santa Fe Road sits in limbo, opposite an aging chain-link fence at the SLO airport. The land is one of the county’s most recent acquisitions, by way of eminent domain and by some accounts, the county got quite a deal. With a federal grant, the county paid $1.3 million…
Supes’ letter doesn’t get far
The SLO County Board of Supervisors voted on May 8 to send the Regional Water Quality Control Board a letter requesting that the body hold off from issuing 4,400 Los Osos property owners an order to stop using their septic tanks by Jan. 1, 2011, or face harsh fines. After reading the letter the next…
Shellfish warning doesn’t phase some
As state health officials and marine biologists continue to urge people not to eat certain types of seafood caught off the Central Coast, local fisherman say the effort is over-hyped. On April 20, 11 days earlier than normal, the California Department of Health Services released its annual quarantine warning, which noted elevated levels of domoic…
Sinking links
When Mary and Doug Piirto moved into their home in Atascadero nine years ago, part of the appeal was the nine-hole golf course around which the new subdivision was built. But for the past two years, the course has gone unused. The developer, Kelly Gearhart, told residents at a recent community meeting that he’d been…
Enjoy local trees indoors
Amazing. Stunning. Wild. Alive. Those are just a few of the words Cal Poly professor Mike Geringer uses to describe the new handcrafted kitchen cabinets in his Arroyo Grande home. # The cabinets are made not of standard maple or oak, but of a locally grown sycamore tree removed from Phyllis Madonna’s yard in a…
Correction
In the April 26 bike art story “Shifting into art,” we misspelled the name of the posse’s sheriff. The correct spelling is Bill Mulder.
