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Best of SLO County 2011
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What purchase do you regret making?
Martin Andrada firefighter “In 2007, I bought a brand-new Chevy pick-up with a V-8, and two months later gas prices shot up. My monthly gas bill was more than my truck payment.” Jacob Smith beekeeper “I got really into trading card games for a while and ended up spending over $1,000. When I stopped playing…
CLUBS
Goin’ South … THE CLIFFS RESORT: 2757 Shell Beach Road, 773-5000 or cliffsresort.com. F. MCLINTOCKS SALOON: 750 Mattie Road, Pismo Beach, 773-1892 or mclintocks.com. Live music every Fri.-Sat., 6-9pm. Tennessee Jimmy Harrell, Doc Stoltey. GATHER WINE BAR: 122 E. Branch St. in the Village of Arroyo Grande, 474-4771 or gatherwinebar.com. Music, event, and winemaker lineup: 5/6: Rocky Logue,…
Music made for fun
Voted the Best R&B/Soul Band by readers of SF Weekly and nominated by the Blues Foundation in Memphis for Best New Artist last year, the California Honeydrops are a rising-star party band that digs deep into the roots of American music. Their joyous, can’t-stop-dancing sound includes New Orleans rhythm and blues, old-school soul, old-time Piedmont…
Righteous waves
The pieces resemble primal shrines or obscure reliquaries filled with mystical artifacts—tokens, totems, and talismans sacred to some wild saint lost to the modern church. An animal skull bears unusual dual lines of ocarina-like holes. Sea urchin tests sit like squat, calcified pincushions. Shimmering thread highlights the veins in dull leaves bound to thick, rough…
Art After Dark
Annika Laurel Designs Lauren Spigno’s photography. 570 Higuera St.; suite 220, in the SLO Creamery; 459-7016; annikalaurel.com. Art Central Tricia Reichert’s “Serendipitous Journey.” 1329 Monterey St.; 788-0887. ARTS Space Obispo Al Schnupp’s “Understudies and Stage Crossings.” 570 Higuera St., suite 165 in the SLO Creamery; 544-9251; artsobispo.org. compact: Marfa, Texas-based artist Jeff Elrod’s paintings and…
These heels aren’t made for walking
They say you can’t truly understand people until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, experienced their struggles, and seen the world from their point of view. It’s usually damn near impossible and purely hypothetical, but the folks at the Sexual Assault Recovery and Prevention (SARP) Center have taken the idea quite literally and marched…
A beginning to end all beginnings!
“There’s no way I can conquer Beethoven, so I might as well just laugh.” With this charmingly absurd statement, composer and Cal Poly professor Craig Russell explained his latest effort, Celebrations!, a musical composition that faces the challenge of sharing a program with “one of the greatest accomplishments of human history.” Namely, Beethoven’s Symphony No.…
Guigal 2009 Rose Cotes-du-Rhone
This is one great rosé from France, and it’s consistently delicious year after year. It has aromas and flavors of cranberry, strawberry, and citrus, which result in a refreshing quaffer that’s easy sipping alone, and fabulous with picnic foods, charcuterie, paella, or bouillabaisse. Don’t even think of saving this—it’s meant for early consumption, and you’ll…
Evening Land 2009 Pinot Noir Eola-Amity Hills
If you love Pinot Noir as I do, you’ll want to buy enough of this delightful wine to age some in the cellar. It’s classic Oregon in its fruit and herbal character, and quite Burgundian in style. Bright cherry and plummy aromas harmonize with notes of minerals, herbs, and spice in this delicious red. I…
Sensitive schnoz
Could you swear you’d recognize your favorite scent even if you smelled it without being provided a clue as to what you were about to sniff? Well, like me, you might find it’s not so easy once you’ve had lessons in smelling by an expert in perfumery. To my great dismay, I had that experience,…
It’s childish to pin hope on corporate regulations
Who’s more moral? A “soulless” corporation that provides goods, services, and jobs to the people (“Beware of the soulless corporations,” April 28)? Or a government that forcibly takes the earnings of its citizens’ hard work? What does it mean when a corporation gets more profits? It means that more people have voluntarily chosen to purchase…
We need a ballot initiative to fix health care
Our private health-care system is failing. Soon, only the rich will be able to afford the premiums. Obamacare will not change this. The only other potential legislation that I hear about in California is a government-run, no-responsibility-for-your-own-health, single payer system. Although such systems work fairly well in Canada, Australia, and Japan, the World Health Organization…
Take a walk in the park and be thankful
Don’t you just hate all the mail asking for contributions to save the world? I must get 40 pieces a week—maybe because I was not selective enough in my donations. I thought it was better to give a little to many organizations so they could swell their membership to appear advocating for a wider populace.…
It’s still going on …
After the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, local celebrants dragged the dead bodies of U.S. servicemen through the streets. With Osama bin Laden’s death, the celebration continues.
I applaud you, youth
I am so proud of our college students and all those who went out to their campus and streets to celebrate the end of a tyrant and killer, bin Laden. When I stood on the rubble of Ground Zero, with a very heavy heart, I knew America would not forget or give up on making…
On the death of Osama bin Laden
Imagine the chaos, criticism, and outcry from liberals if this was done by Bush. Instead they are all mum, with a few subtly nodding their approval.
It’s clear: Selling medical marijuana violates federal law
Charles Lynch just doesn’t get it (“Down—but not out,” April 28). He can continue to push this rock uphill until it rolls back down again and flattens him. Again! Boo-hoo. Some people lack the capacity to learn. As much as it may pain some regular readers of New Times and some New Times writers to…
Don’t forget how stocks motivate corporations
Kudos for the good opinion piece by Jim Duenow (“Beware of the soulless corporations,” April 28). I can’t disagree with his fundamental points, but would like to add a couple of my own. Corporations may be inherently amoral, but the people who run them are not necessarily so, even though they’re legally expected to be…
Look where Reaganomics brought us
Thank you, thank you, Jim Duenow (“Beware of the soulless corporations,” April 28). Someone finally has put the whole damnable corporate position into eloquent full view. I am tearing out this piece for my own use in telling people what I see and what I believe to be the truth about corporations. If Reaganomics had…
Representative McCarthy, have you no shame?
As you read this, Cal French has should be just about finished walking across California. At the age of 74, the retired high-school teacher and Paso Robles resident is a 45-year member of the Sierra Club and longtime member of the Santa Lucia Chapter’s executive committee, with a shelf full of national Sierra Club awards…
Santa Lucia Birth Center
NEW TIMES When did you see the need to offer classes at the Santa Lucia Birth Center? EVERETT I think that we tried to offer classes that are not really being offered anywhere else. Also, we wanted to give instructors a bigger place, a bigger voice. NEW TIMES I saw that you are offering…
The Big O
Anyone up for a friendly game of hide and seek? I gotta warn you, I’m a champion hider—despite my girth and pungent odor. It’s all about commitment, you see. I’ve been known to scale chandeliers, squeeze into air ducts. Once, I spent three hours in my refrigerator’s cheese drawer—we weren’t actually playing hide and seek…
Cougars & Mustangs
As gas prices keep soaring (and depleting college kids’ beer budgets), a team of Cal Poly students found a way to get more bang at the pump. The Cal Poly Urban Concept Car Team drove off with the Southwest Research Institute Technical Innovation Award and a third-place finish in the urban concept car category at…
Adventure racing
Anyone who thinks competitive gumshoeing sounds like a good time needs to check out SLO Revealed. An ambitious little project—in a good way—SLO Revealed pits teams of four against one another in a race of the feet and mind. Each riddle, when solved, leads to another one; when all is said and done, even those…
Falling down
In early March, a Cal Poly professor tripped and fell on a San Luis Obispo city sidewalk. He fell flat on his face, breaking his glasses, and leaving him with a nasty headache that lasted for days. Picking himself up after his fall, the professor noticed the sidewalk was broken where he had fallen. The…
Played out
On June 30, Paso Robles’ recreation department will lose about a dozen employees and with them, more than 100 years of experience. Though the official stance is that this is merely the result of an early retirement incentive to save the city money, the exodus points to signs of turbulence in a department that is…
Correction
The name of the author of The Silken Web was misspelled in an April 28 Hot Date. Her name is Custis Piper.
Arroyo Grande enacts year- round water conservation
Though the drought is officially over, one city is ramping up its water conservation program. The Arroyo Grande City Council put the brakes on its citizen’s water use by enacting severe drought restrictions on a permanent basis. Starting in late May, Arroyo Grande residents won’t be able to use water for cleaning driveways or patios;…
A curfew’s coming to SLO
Better be home early kids, or the bogeyman will get you. Actually, the cops will. The San Luis Obispo City Council voted 3-2 at its May 3 meeting to impose a curfew on unaccompanied minors. Starting in early June, anyone younger than 18 out on the streets between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. on weekdays,…
SunPower sees big buyout
On April 28, utility scale solar manufacturer SunPower announced plans to sell 60 percent of its shares to the French oil company Total SA. SunPower recently gained approval to begin building a 250-megawatt utility-grade solar project in California Valley on the outskirts of San Luis Obispo County. County supervisors on April 19 unanimously denied an…
SLO police file suit against SLO City
San Luis Obispo’s largest police union filed a civil lawsuit May 3 against the city, claiming the City Council is attempting to unfairly upend established bargaining processes. The San Luis Obispo Police Officers Association (SLOPOA) claims in its lawsuit that SLO city councilmembers violated “meet and confer” laws by deciding to place two items on…
Fishing group hopes To sink harbor manager
The Port San Luis Commercial Fishermen’s Association is seeking to remove Port San Luis Harbor Manager Steve McGrath. Speaking twice to the Harbor Commission—most recently at the commission’s April 26 meeting—association member Butch Powers stated publicly the organization wanted the district to dump McGrath. In a subsequent phone interview, Powers, who was appointed to lead…
SLO to Avila: Don’t drink our effluent
How clean should San Luis Obispo’s treated wastewater have to be before it’s discharged into San Luis Obispo Creek? The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board says the water should be clean enough to drink, especially since the creek is officially designated for use as domestic or municipal water supply. An Avila Valley water…
Cambria CSD general manager axed
A series of controversial firings, an alleged trend of poor community relations, and the highest compensation package of any community services manager in San Luis Obispo County proved to be a losing combination for Cambria Community Services District General Manager Tammy Rudock, who was terminated on April 29. Rudock served as the district’s general manager…
