Go to the museum!

It's free on Sunday.

Admission to the San Bernardino County Museum will be free on Sunday, August 2, 2009 from 9am to 5pm. Visitors will enjoy special exhibits along with displays of specimens and artifacts that interpret local history, anthropology, geology, paleontology, and biological sciences in regional context. Free admission is sponsored by San Bernardino County's Second District.

Read the full release here.

Changing priorities in California

Technically this is a state issue rather than a local Inland Empire issue, but considering that the state is more than likely going to balance its budget on the backs of the cities, the discussion is valid.

Sid's Side usually talks about (in Sid's words) "a light-hearted view of sports, family and friends, the community and some of my life experiences." But the state budgetary problems are affecting everyone, as Sid said in this post:

...forgive me while I get sidetracked by real life.

After discussing recent fee increases at California State University, Sid shares this observation:

What’s happening is that the financial responsibility for public colleges and universities is falling more and more on the true users of the product, rather than on the general state population as a whole. This is actually more in line with what happens in other states, and not necessarily a bad thing, but is a contradiction to the California Master Plan for Higher Education, a 1960 roadmap for the state’s three college systems – the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges – to guarantee any qualified California resident who wanted a college education the opportunity to receive one. But in the past 49 years, it seems the CSU has gone from state-supported to state-assisted to now just being state-located, and that guarantee is becoming harder to promise. Access to higher education is more difficult. It’s not to the point where public universities are being privatized, but with fewer state funds from taxpayers, college students have to cover a larger slice of the pie. Geez, is it really that long ago that state university fees were around $75 a quarter when I was a student at Cal Poly Pomona? Nah, 30 years isn’t really that long ago.

This is actually related to an issue that I explored in my Reed College undergraduate thesis, which examined the efficiency and equity of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965. And it boils down to a question that affects every good or service that a government provides - is it better for the government to specifically charge users of the good or service in question, or are the benefits to society at large such that the costs should be allocated among a greater portion of the citizens?

Now we're never going to go to a completely "pay as you go" scheme, where you have to provide a credit card when reporting a burglary at your house, but it's easier to balance a budget by raising fees to service users than it is to raise taxes for everyone.

Whether this results in businesses saying, "I'm not going to go to California. They don't have educated workers" is open to question.

Oppose Traffic Calming in BERKELEY California?

Dave Winer raised the following question (courtesy Mark Haas) on Scripting News:

Do Berkeley's infamous speed bumps, traffic diverters and other traffic-related policies, like politically-motivated, too-low speed limits raise the city's carbon footprint?

Now perhaps the good citizens of my hometown of Ontario are less concerned about carbon footprint - let's face it, the Ontario Mountain Village Association wants people to drive all the way to Chino to shop, which certainly increases the carbon footprint - but it's an interesting argument.

Award announced - Most Valuable Member at Inland Empire .NET User's Group

I apologize to getting to this late, but it's still newsworthy.

The Inland Empire .NET User's Group held its second annual Most Valuable Member event.

You'll recall that I blogged about the first annual event last year, in which Volkan Uzun was selected.

This year's recipient? Volkan Uzun, who outpolled Matt Penner and Dennis Palmer for the MVM award. But I'm sure they're all valuable.

More here.

People are peaceniks until jobs are lost

California has a reputation as the land of fruits, nuts, and flakes, so you'd think that Californians would be cheering the demobilization that occurred after the end of the Cold War.

Not exactly. Politicians are so addicted to keeping money in their districts that they not only opposed the post Cold War cuts, but they have (in the past and today) opposed the military on several projects - the military wants to cancel them, the politicians want to keep them going.

But there are times when there is a happy medium and everyone can agree to spend military money. Such is the case in Barstow - a town which, in addition to being the site of the Barstow Station, is also a town surrounded by several military facilities.

You see, there are jobs to be had:

The Marine Corps Logistics Base in Barstow is seeking to hire 400 to 600 welders, mechanics and painters to fix up ground combat equipment that has been in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Robert Jackson, base public affairs officer....

Depending on the applicant's skill level, pay can range from $17 an hour to $30 an hour for the jobs that include electronic equipment repair, machinist and upholstery work, Jackson said.

Of course this raises the question - why hire outsiders? Why not have Marines do the work? Well, the Marines are needed to USE the ground combat equipment, so they need to get civilians to repair it.

I assume that any anti-war protesters in Barstow will not be treated kindly. They probably can't afford the gas to get out there anyway.

CSI San Bernardino - the real thing

I previously wrote about CSI work. Remember that the real CSIs don't get commercial breaks. Here's an excerpt from a report of recent coroner cases:

# Coroner case #700904544 — On July 10, 2009, at approximately 2:45 pm, Darrell Dykes, a 46 year old resident of Carlsbad, was driving a 2001 tan Chevrolet Silverado which left the roadway at a large asphalt turnout on State Route 18 at the 4000 foot altitude marker. When the Chevrolet reached the highway below, the vehicle impacted onto the northbound #2 lane of State Route 18. The driver was declared deceased at the scene by U.S. Forestry personnel at 3:11 PM. The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident. [071309 0826 SY]

More here.

Three Inland Empire business Twitter accounts

These businesses subscribed to me recently:

http://twitter.com/MelsInRancho
(Website: http://www.melsdrive-in.com/hoursandlocations/ontario.html)

http://twitter.com/My_Delight
(Website: coming soon)

http://twitter.com/WigwamMotel
(Website: http://www.wigwammotel.com/)

So you can have a burger and a cupcake, then do it in a teepee.

And yes, I wrote about the Wigwam Motel in June.

Why Claremont is so cool

It's tough. You want to keep your home habitable, but if you're at home during the middle of the day, and you're in the middle of a heat wave, it's tough. You turn the air on and you have to auction off your firstborn to pay the electric bill. Or you leave the air off and swelter.

In Claremont, there is another alternative:

If you need to get away from the hot temperatures we are facing, and even hotter ones in the next several weeks, you are in luck! Claremont's Human Services Department is setting up cooling centers immediately. Heck, they will even extend the service for a couple of hours longer if the temps exceed 100 for 2 days!

This is available at several locations:

* Hughes Community Center 1700 Danbury Road
* Joslyn Center, 660 North Mountain Avenue
* Blaisdell Center, 440 South College Avenue
* Claremont Library, 208 Harvard Avenue
* Youth Activity Center (YAC), 1717 North Indian Hill Blvd.
* Tracks Activity Center (TAC), El Roble 665 North Mountain Avenue
* Wading Pools (Memorial Park, Wheeler Park, El Barrio Park)

More info here at Original Skrip.

Another way to use cash

I missed this the first time around, but obviously Josh Dulaney didn't:

A Carson woman who tried to use a phony $100 bill at a Fontana store Wednesday knew arrest was going to be a tough pill to swallow.

But trying to eat the counterfeit currency to avoid being put behind bars proved to be just as difficult.

Apparently she didn't swallow the bill quickly enough.

I'd love to see how the defense attorney gets around this one. While defendants have a presumption of innocence, one would...um...reasonably doubt that someone would have a valid reason to swallow a $100 bill.

Fontana Arts Festival

A Fontana Arts Festival is coming up!

The public is invited to "An Evening of Art and Music" at the first Fontana Arts Festival on July 23, at the Miller Park Amphitheater, 17004 Arrow Blvd. The free event runs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

More here.

New hotel in Rancho Cucamonga

Inland Empire News recently ran a piece on a new hotel on Foothill Boulevard in Rancho Cucamonga. No teepees, but it does have some amenities:

Families will enjoy comfortable accommodations; in-room refrigerators and coffee makers; outdoor heated swimming pool; on-site restaurant; shopping and entertainment at nearby Victoria Gardens; and a 100% smoke-free environment. Business travelers will also appreciate free high-speed Internet; shuttle service from LA/Ontario International Airport; and on-site meeting facilities.

More here. The one that caught my attention was the free Internet. One oddity is that you usually find free Internet at the cheap family hotels, since the expensive business hotels figure business travelers will pay for Internet. Guess this is changing.

CSI San Bernardino - no, not a TV show, a museum piece

I work in the biometrics industry, and my employer actually provides tools used by crime scene investigators - although said tools aren't quite as sexy as the TV shows make them out to be.

If you want to learn what CSI work is really like, go to the San Bernardino County Museum on Wednesday, July 22, at 7:30 pm.

How much of what you see about forensics on television is good science and how much is just entertainment? David Van Norman, a San Bernardino County Deputy Coroner Investigator and Unidentified-Missing Person Coordinator, will compare what we see on TV with reality in his lecture, “CSI San Bernardino: Myth vs Reality,” at the San Bernardino County Museum on Wednesday, July 22 at 7:30pm. This guest lecture is free to the public.

More here. Presumably this is not for people with sensitive stomachs.

The spray from the spray enforcement

Whenever you use someone to catch someone else in a crime, there's always the accusation of entrapment that can be floated. When the person you are using is a minor, things are potentially more troubling. The Riverside County Sheriff's Department was sensitive to the latter item in this recent press release:

As a result of numerous and ongoing complaints regarding graffiti, deputies from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Jurupa Valley Station in conjunction with County Code Enforcement Officers conducted directed enforcement targeting locations that sell spray paint.

A minor under the age of 18 years old was sent into various locations throughout the Jurupa Valley area, under constant supervision...

Note the "under constant supervision" part. Let's continue.

to purchase spray paint. If the cashier sold the spray paint to the minor, they were issued a citation for selling spray paint to a minor.

But wait - there's more! Because if someone has committed one crime, then they most likely have committed others.

After the decoy left the premises, County Code Enforcement Officers entered the location to look for other violations regarding the proper storage of the paint and signs indicating the minimum age of 18 years to purchase paint. If the location selling the items was in violation, the business was cited for the violation(s).

Now some believe that this is an entirely proper thing to do, which reminds me of a Mike Royko story that I read years and years ago. When Royko wrote about civil liberties and privacy, he got a call from a person who said that criminals had no right to privacy. Royko, claiming that he needed to document information on people who called in with opinions, asked the caller for identification information, and continued to ask more personal information until the person objected.

More Inland Empire banks seized, including Vineyard National Bank

The Press Enterprise ran this story:

Two long-struggling Inland banks -- Vineyard National Bank and Temecula Valley Bank -- were seized and closed late Friday by state and federal regulators.

Complete details here.

It's educational!

At the lamp exchange at Montclair Plaza

Another FriendFeed user in the Inland Empire

I'm used to running across Twitter users in the Inland Empire, but FriendFeed is a less popular service so I don't see a lot of FriendFeed IE'ers.

However, I've recently run across one - http://friendfeed.com/mycitycorona.

Check him (Richard Bangert) out.

The small grocers burrow along

In my Empoprise-BI business blog, I recently wrote about how stores tend to grow bigger, so that markets become supermarkets and supermarkets become warehouses. As the smaller real estate spaces open us, various stores move in to fill the gaps, thus creating smaller markets that will compete with the big boys.

Two recent stories illustrate this trend. PE.com:

The competitive Inland grocery scene gets another player [July 10] when Phoenix-based Sprouts Farmers Market opens its first Inland store in Riverside.

Now I have a different perspective than the Riverside folks, and am therefore well aware that Sprouts has a store in Claremont.

PE.com also ran a story about a new distribution center in Fontana:

Trader Joe's has bought a 574,000-square-foot distribution center in Fontana and will eventually use it to supply its Southern California grocery locations....

Why expand? The Sprouts story indicates why:

The company in the past two years has gradually been building its Southern California presence, in many locations taking advantage of slumping commercial real estate prices.

If you have the money to expand and maintain, now's the time to establish your presence.

Bingo!

You don't have to go to a casino, or even a church, to play Bingo. You can go to the Upland Women's Club:

The Upland Women's Club Evening Section is hosting their 10th Annual Bingo Party from Noon to 4 p.m. August 2 at the clubhouse, 590 N. Second Ave. in Upland.

More here. Sorry, no free cocktails.

Some parts of which still exist today

I've been reading David Allen's blog posts on mid-20th century Upland (sourced from Shelby Garrett), but I didn't find anything recognizable until I got to the second post. I actually used to live a quarter-mile away from Foothill and Campus, but none of the places described in the first post appear to have been in existence by the time I moved there in the mid-1980s.

But I did see glimmers of things that I recognized in the second post.

Over on Foothill at Fifth Avenue was Booth's Market on the SE corner....

There is still a market on that corner today, presumably the same one.

On the north side of Foothill from Third Avenue on over to Euclid there was nothing but orange groves. On the south side were groves too, from Second Avenue west to Euclid, until Bob & Dave's Chevron Station went in on the SW corner of Second and Foothill.

The name had changed by the mid 1980s, but there was still a Chevron Station at Second and Foothill, called by that time Mike Adam Chevron. I actually used Mike Adam Chevron for some of my car repair needs, as well as for gas, but eventually it closed and was replaced by the Baker's fast food place.

However, most of the places that Allen mentioned either had disappeared or were very well disguised, such as today's Pep Boys.