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In the predawn hours of April Fools’ Day 2004, Santa Maria resident Alane Avila awoke in her bedroom with a start. “I just heard this bang and a flash,” Avila recalled. “I jumped up and my door came flying open, and there’s all these guys with ski masks on and guns pointed saying, ‘Get on […]
You can still see the scar on Vicky Duniven’s sternum. It barely peeks over the neckline of her shirt—a glint of mangled skin that hints at the remnants of a much larger wound left when her chest was split open to remove a cancerous growth the size of a grapefruit. Duniven is a quintessentially tragic […]
Dear Sun readers, After three years of traveling to San Diego to cover the international Comic Con, a Sun tradition, I’ve decided it’s time to hang up my geek girl cape/reporter hat and let someone else carry on the tradition. But have no fear; Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas said he’s willing to accept the mission. […]
Summer has a way of sticking in the fondest part of memories. Maybe it’s the warmth of the unbroken sun or the way everyone seems to adopt a more laid back way of doing things. The sights and smells help create that lasting impress; kids swimming at the pool, the crumble of sand at the […]
Open publication – Free publishing – More literature
The shark silenced the room. Hundreds of people had been talking, laughing, shouting, trying to spot the unmistakable predatory shape amid the other fish endlessly circling in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Outer Bay exhibit. Children on class field trips pressed as close as they could to the transparent wall, yelping whenever one of the tank’s […]
The Santa Barbara County Jail is a labyrinth of steel and cement. Walking through its dimly lit, stale hallways, it’s difficult to determine your exact location. The letters and numbers spray painted on the jail’s pale blue-gray walls—a blocky E-225 or W-140—offer little navigational help to the untrained eye. The letters, it turns out, stand […]
Tucked away just off Buellton’s Avenue of the Flags, the Zaca Creek Golf Course doesn’t look like much these days. Overgrown with weeds, overrun by gophers, and sporting greens more accurately described as browns, it’s certainly seen better days. But the city of Buellton is banking on bringing the modest nine-hole executive course back from […]
We’ve all seen it, especially in these techno-dependent days. A harried parent, in a desperate attempt to finish shopping for groceries, hands a smartphone to a fidgety child. Or a child in a doctor’s office plays a game of Angry Birds while waiting for a sibling to finish his visit. Young children are using technology […]
We’ve all seen it, especially in these techno-dependent days. A harried parent, in a desperate attempt to finish shopping for groceries, hands a smartphone to a fidgety child. Or a child in a doctor’s office plays a game of Angry Birds while waiting for a sibling to finish his visit. Young children are using technology […]
The light filters through oak leaves, dancing along the dusty path to Live Oak’s main stage. There’s just a whisper of a breeze as campers queue up for the early morning Acorn Roll, beach chairs in tow. This is how the mornings start at the Live Oak Music Festival, with people lining up to place […]
A small group of students stands around a picnic table in an outdoor cafeteria. Instead of typical street clothes, the students are wearing thick plastic aprons, rubber gloves, and goggles. And instead of gossiping about last night’s episode of American Idol or Justin Bieber’s haircut, they’re busy mixing concoctions in glass beakers. “OK, now we’re […]
