Cover Story
In the dog house
Jack is a 9-year-old terrier-Corgi mix with floppy brown ears and a giant pink tongue. In human years, he’d be a member of the Baby Boomer generation. Ideally, that’s the time when a person—or family pet, for that matter—should get to retire from the hectic buzz of the working world, pull up a big comfy…
Where do you go to get away from it all?
Tempest Plott sandwich artist “Go swimming. It’s very peaceful to swim under water for as long as you can.” Adrienne Roy-Gaster retail worker “Go hiking up Orcutt hill.” Jose Guerrero student “My pad.” George Vivanco musician “My room.”
What is music?
Northern Santa Barbara County enjoys a diverse musical palette, a reflection of the diverse musical and cultural world we live in. But when was the last time you really stopped and pondered what music is, how it works, and what it’s good for? To understand music, we must first understand sound. It’s nothing more than…
Audition to dance
Dance Team and Santa Maria Civic Ballet are looking for dancers. Auditions for Dance Team will be held by Everybody Can Dance, 800 S. Broadway, on Oct. 8 from noon to 2 p.m. Youths ages 6 and older are eligible to participate. No previous training is necessary. Team members will participate in performances, workshops, and…
Exhibit art at Grossman Gallery
The Lompoc Library Art Advisory Committee invites area artists to submit artwork for consideration as an exhibitor in the Grossman Gallery of the Lompoc Public Library, 501 E. North Ave., and a smaller continuation show at the Village Library the following month. At its regular meeting on Nov. 3 at 4 p.m., the committee will…
Art Association seeks entries
The Lompoc Valley Art Association’s Annual Fall Art Show needs entries. An in-gathering for the show will be held Sept. 26 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Cypress Gallery, 119 East Cypress Ave., Lompoc. The show is judged, with awards given in eight categories, and is open to all artists 16 years or…
Fast times, hot cars
The 61st year of the Pebble Beach Concour d’Elegance is a premier automotive Super Bowl event that takes place every August. To understand the event, you have to know that there are thousands of applicants that are whittled down to just 850. Then a committee of automotive experts further carves that number down to the…
The last minute
A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine … unless you’re my kid and it’s regarding a school project, which means that I will be instantly thrown into complete and total panic mode. My kids have casually dropped the “project bomb” on me during more than one family dinner.…
On the roster
• Fallin’ 4 A Purpose: The second annual VIP skydiving event is coming Oct. 9, sponsored by Roblar Winery and Skydive Santa Barbara. VIP jumpers will have access to their own tents and lounge areas, private airport parking, a breakfast bar, live music, a silent auction, a seated VIP dinner, and admission to the event’s…
Golf tourney will benefit Flying Samaritans
CHW Hospitals of the Central Coast will hold its inaugural Flying Samaritans Memorial Golf Tournament on Oct. 17 at Cypress Ridge Golf Course in Arroyo Grande. All proceeds from the tournament will go directly to the Flying Samaritans—a volunteer organization operating free medical clinics in Baja California, Mexico—in honor of Roger Lyon, Dr. Graciela Sarmiento,…
Santa Maria Swim Club needs swimmers
The Santa Maria Swim Club is currently looking for 8- to 10-year-old swimmers to fill out their team roster. Skill assessments are Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Paul Nelson Aquatic Center, 600 S. McClelland St. in Santa Maria. Prospective club members need only bring a swimsuit. For more information,…
Creepy creatures come to Cachuma
Kids all of ages will have close encounters with bats, owls, scorpions, spiders, and snakes, along with real skulls and bones, at the Cachuma Lake Nature Center’s “Creepy Creatures” event on Oct. 22. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Nature Center, Gabrielle Drozdowski will introduce children to “Max,” her great horned owl, while…
Pablo Nicasio
Here’s an idea for a sport (to crib from Robin Williams’ comical breakdown of the origins of golf): Get a huge pack of guys and girls together. Send them running mind-boggling distances, over hills and around trees and through God knows what, with no referees or umpires anywhere to bear witness to any fouls, where…
Double vision
Starting from scratch, in just four short years, Orcutt Academy’s head tennis coach Patrick Ortiz has built his girls’ team into a feared playoff contender. This year marks his second varsity squad, a group beginning to turn heads and intimidate opponents who once overlooked them—not bad for a young charter school with just about 500…
Change of scene
Zaca Mesa Winery in Los Olivos has a lot of history. And it should; it’s one of Santa Barbara County’s premiere pioneer wineries. Established in 1972, Zaca Mesa developed its own unique method of wine production, since there weren’t many other wineries to learn from at the time. The winery eventually figured out that its…
Spend Sundays at the Dana Adobe
Starting in October, members of the public will be able to visit the Dana Adobe in Nipomo on Sunday afternoons to see the ranch’s restoration in progress. Because the adobe has become a major construction site, many end-of-the-year events have been postponed. The public last had access to a tour of the adobe before the…
Powwow with the Chumash!
Join the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians for a weekend of fun, food, and healing at the 16th annual Intertribal Pow-Wow at the Live Oak Campground on Oct. 1 and 2. Though powwows aren’t traditionally part of Chumash culture, other Native American tribes have gathered for decades to dance, sing, socialize, and heal. “The…
Lompoc school is on a mission
Mission Valley School, an independent-study and home-schooling charter in Lompoc, is offering dual or open enrollment for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. According to the Lompoc Unified School District’s website, lusd.org, Mission Valley School offers students an alternative learning environment designed to inspire youth, empower parents, and promote a lifelong love of learning. And…
Discovery Corner
Did you know there are 4,500 species of cockroaches? Have you ever seen a cockroach? Or heard one hiss? At the Discovery Museum, we have Australian hissing cockroaches that we take out and let people hold … yuck! There are other yucky things going on at the museum during the month of October, which we…
Help bail out a Sun reporter
Going weak in the knees because of that perfect first kiss is a dream. Going weak in the knees as a result of muscular dystrophy is a nightmare—but it doesn’t have to end a child’s dreams. On Oct. 6, Central Coast volunteers, including Sun Managing Editor Amy Asman, will be arrested and taken to jail—in…
Spotlight on: Sisters Gifts
“I always blame it on her,” Ana Curiel said of her sister. Curiel is owner of Sisters Gifts and Home Decor. This curio shop is tucked behind a large brown fence in the Rooney’s Irish Pub parking lot in Old Orcutt. Despite the name, it’s not run by two sisters. Curiel names it Sisters in…
A true tragedy
On Sept. 20, marking what would’ve been Rebecca Vegas’s 57th birthday, her surviving family members gathered at a cemetery plot in Lompoc to remember the good times, placing flowers and writing a message on a balloon before letting it drift away into the clouds. The following day, Vegas’s widowed husband Dan Vegas, Jr., a retired…
Weather or not
Bristling with what appear to be fireworks aimed at the sky, a remote mountain ridge south of Santa Maria looks set for a pyrotechnic celebration. But this is more of a rain dance, of sorts. This is one of a network of Santa Barbara County mountaintop sites used to launch a rainmaking chemical into storm…
In lieu of moratorium, county will require tighter scrutiny on ‘fracking’ operations
After exploring a moratorium on fracking, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors instead voted unanimously on Sept. 20 to amend the county’s land-use plan to require a special permit for oil drilling operations employing the technique. For all future fracking at new or existing wells, oil companies will now have to submit a detailed…
A federal grant will help complete the airport extension project
The second and final phase of the Santa Maria Public Airport runway extension project will soon be underway thanks to a major federal grant. On Sept. 22, Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) announced she secured a nearly $7.5 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program to complete the airport’s extension project. The…
Santa Barbara County law enforcement receives funds for jail and probation programs
A much-needed infusion of funding from the state Legislature will allow the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s and Probation departments to hire more staff members and revert the Santa Maria Jail back into an overnight holding facility. The almost $4 million in Public Safety Realignment Act funds will help county law enforcement expand services to accommodate…
Now they’ll have to pay
PG&E recipients of million-dollar bonuses, stock options, and other excessive executive compensations, over the years when funds were diverted, neglecting underground gas pipelines, now must help pay the costs of injury, death, and destruction. Republican and Tea Party leaders, those wanting to mix church and state, those wanting to privatize Social Security, as well as…
We want a voice in nuclear storage
Whether you believe Diablo Canyon should be relicensed, or that evacuation plans are workable, or that the spent fuel in pools and casks is safe, one fact remains: Thousands of tons of high-level radioactive waste have accumulated on our Central Coast, and more will pile up during the remaining license and possible relicensing period. The…
Quit studying and stop the ‘recreation’
I live on Nipomo Mesa. Like many other mesa residents, I have terrible lung congestion. Vehicles on Oceano Beach and Dunes disrupt the crust, releasing tiny (10 microns) particles, which are blown eastward. Rather than the Air Pollution Control District studying this for another four years, stop the dune “vehicle recreation” right now.
Turn. Out. Those. Lights.
Just visited Santa Maria for the first time tonight. My God, what happened there? The whole city looks like a hospital ward in a horror film after dark. Whatever you’re trying to save with the Alien Microwave Orange —the environment, money, whatever—it isn’t worth it. It makes Newark, N.J., seem downright homey by comparison. So…
Teach your children about money
Teens today are often accused of being entitled, materialistic, and impulsive—most of them spend money as though it grows on trees—but I think they’ve gotten a bad rap. They’ve been taught to spend. Since their days in a snuggly, they’ve watched adults buy ice cream, shoes, movie tickets, cell phones—endless purchases. Every magazine, billboard, and…
