Cover Story

Santa Maria business owner Lester Dalisay is hoping for a merry Christmas. In fact, he’s counting on one to save his hobby shop on Main Street. Dalisay opened Big Boys Toys, a store specializing in remote-controlled cars and planes, after relocating in January. With the recession and online merchants teaming up to dwindle his profits […]

A wise man once said: “This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption … beer!”   For all of recorded history, it’s been with us. Beer, in fact, may have been responsible for recorded history. According to Bryon Burch in his book, Brewing […]

It wasn’t a dark and stormy night, but it was a dark and quiet theater. It was a large theater, as theaters go: 2,000 seats. In the middle of the cavernous space sat a man in a lonely black chair, his fingers plucking the nylon strings of his classical guitar. With each complicated movement of […]

Before the sun rises each day over Baghdad, the predawn silence is broken by the muezzins’ calls to prayer, bellowing from electric loudspeakers throughout the city. For soldiers of the 425th Civil Affairs Battalion, the new day begins much like the last. Some of the reservists—most of whom have trained one weekend per month and […]

It’s a little after 1 a.m. We’re racing down a dirt road in a truck, with only the dim glow of sneak lights illuminating the way for 10 feet or so in front of us.   The plane overhead radios in: “They’ve stopped now. One of them is moving around to the back of the […]

Sitting in a Starbucks on North H Street, a steaming cup of coffee nestled between his fingers, Lompoc’s new mayor, Mike Siminski, was still in a bit of a daze. Within 15 minutes of sitting down, two fellow Lompocans came to congratulate the longtime city councilman on his new position.   “I just wanted to […]

They’re creepy, they totally disregard personal space, and they love Santa Maria berries as much as the next guy. They are pests of the winged, multi-legged variety that like to fly in your face or jump on your produce when you least expect it. And they’re here in Santa Barbara County, eating and mating and […]

Donna Patché is 72 years old. In 1988, doctors diagnosed the Santa Maria resident with multiple sclerosis, a debilitating auto-immune disease that causes her constant physical pain. With no family to fall back on, she relies on the daily assistance of personal caregivers—whom she calls her “lifeblood”—to provide for her basic needs, such as helping […]

On a recent weekday afternoon, the loudest sounds echoing across and around South Broadway in Orcutt were the repeated pneumatic blasts of a nail gun from a construction site. Engines rumbled as trucks roared along. The occasional small, droning plane motored overhead. Otherwise, there was silence, barely broken by twitters and chirps from small birds. […]

It’s a little after noon, and I’ve been driving down the road for the last five hours. I’m still north of San Diego, and traffic is stop and go. Suddenly, icy fingers grip the back of my brain as it hits me: I may not make it in time.   The “it” I’m steadily heading […]

When guests enter La Purisima Mission State Park, they’re not just visiting one of more than 200 state parks in California, they’re crossing the threshold into another time. After parking the car and taking a stroll through the state-of-the-art visitor center, visitors cross an old oak bridge and are immediately transported to the rugged California […]