NEXT MAN BELLIES AND HAIRY BACKS CARWASH COMING UP!

Here's the email I recieved from Pat and Kacie's Ride for Hope:

Hey all

Our carwash date is August 9th '09 at Breaker Glass on P'ville Dr. 9:00 am till 3:00 pm.

Just hoping to get some hairy backs and men's bellies out there to participate and have pretty fun day of it.

Last years went very well at just a short notice to those we know and our sexy dancers on P'ville drive just draggen' them in.

This year should be bigger and better.
Hoping all can come out on the 9th and give us a hand.
It is well appreciated.

Please let me know if you can join us.

Thank You
Pat

P.S. oh yes, I have more bellies to call than you see on the email list above, also the ladies are just money handlers and spectators, but are also very welcome to come on out.


So it's on for next wekend, Sunday the 9th. Placerville Drive crosses Hwy 50E to Tahoe just before Placerville. Take the off ramp and bear right till you cross over the freeway and while you are passing the El Dorado Co. fairgrounds on the right keep an eye open for Breaker Glass on the left for the carwash.

Hope to see you there!




I think we might try to be more vigilant about using sunscreen this year. We all got toasted last year...

Let them know if you're coming from out of town to support us and our cause to End Domestic Violence. It would be cool to know how far we're reaching.

Again, hope to see you there, I'll be having fun!!!
I'll be wearing the white beard...
Gene.

An Angry Groundhog and Other News

A friend sent me a link to a news item in a New Jersey newspaper that caught her eye. Would you believe a groundhog that attacked a man in his garage and then went on to go after two cops? Here is what the article had to say about the groundhog:

Police Sgt. Mike Danyo and Officer Paul Ryan on Thursday encountered a different type of aggressive behavior. The pair found themselves pitted against an angry groundhog at an Oak Street home.

The resident, Alex Scott, told police he had attempted to leave his house at 11:46 a.m. and entered his garage to get his truck when the groundhog began to chase him. Scott, who kicked the animal several times but was unable to evade it, ran back into his house and called police.

When Danyo and Ryan arrived and Scott attempted to show them where the groundhog was, the rodent sprang toward the officers, Cacciabeve said.

Danyo tripped and fell as the groundhog pursued him, Cacciabeve said. But Ryan, who jumped out of the way as the groundhog charged at his feet, discharged the pepper spray into the rodent's face, Cacciabeve said.

The spray disoriented the groundhog and allowed Ryan to retrieve a snare from the back of the patrol car, said Cacciabeve, who had responded to assist.

The officers snared the groundhog and held it until assistant animal control officer Sandy Burkhardt arrived to cage it. The animal was later euthanized and its remains will be shipped today to the Department of Health and Senior Services for rabies testing.

Click "HERE" to see the entire article, including the part about a thieving black bear who raided someone's garage and freezer for his dinner... I can't imagine being chased by one of these little critters. But then I suppose they can be just as bad as the possums who hang out on the property next to where I live and come wandering over here looking for food every evening. They have a really nasty bite if you get them cornered or angry at you. I've never been bitten, but I've sure had them hiss at me when I've gone outside and suprised one of them in my yard in the evening. Right now, my daughter and her husband (who live across the street from me) are trying to clear a family of possums out from under their house. They've trapped two yesterday and they think there are at least 2 more under there. I haven't talked to them this morning to see if they caught any more last night.

Other News
The local newspaper hasn't done any updates about last week's bank robbery, the robbers in custody or the one that they said was still on the run. I checked the jail website this morning and the two in custody are apparently still there and are still under a "no bail" condition.

The other story I wrote about in my previous post, the dead man that was found in the apartment in the neighboring town, had a followup article that said that an autopsy was going to happen yesterday, but nothing further in the paper today. I'm guessing the coroner will have to do a tox screen and other tests to determine the cause of death.

This morning's "breaking news" on the paper's website was about an accident last night where a truck drifted off the road and collided with two mobile homes in a trailer park north of Marysville. Fortunately, none of the residents of the home were seriously injured, but the driver of the big rig died at the scene because he was thrown from the truck. The California Highway Patrol are investigating the accident and are asking that anyone who witnessed the accident to call. Perhaps the man either fell asleep or had a medical problem before the truck drifted off the highway. I don't know, but I hope that the paper will say something when the investigation is finished. I have a feeling though, that this will be another of the stories that just go "poof" and we never hear about again. My condolences go out to the family and friends of the driver, Michael J. Angerer from Red Bluff, CA.

~~~~
Geez... I just looked at the front page of the paper's website and there is another "Breaking News" story... This time about a person that was found dead this morning in a vehicle pulled from a canal east of Gridley. The story says that a witness reported the submerged car a little after 6 am this morning. Crews from Cal Fire and Butte County Fire Department joined the search for the vehicle, which a tow truck pulled from the canal shortly after 8:20 a.m. A second person had been inside the vehicle but managed to escape, according to a CHP officer. How the car went off the road was not immediately clear and I'm wondering where that second person went. Was he the "witness" that called the emergency in?

UPDATE: Dead Body Story

The paper just posted an update to the story of the decomposed body that was found in an apartment in Linda, Calif. The state Department of Justice positively identified the decomposed body through fingerprints and the deceased man is Scott Dana Malmstrom and he was a victim of a homicide. The results of the autopsy showed Malmstrom was stabbed to death with a sharp instrument. Investigators are still going through evidence found at the scene and are calling for any witnesses to come forward.

Local News: Bank Robbery, Dead Body and More

Our local paper has been "interesting" lately. Just this past week, there's been a bank robbery in Yuba City on Wednesday, a decomposing body found in an apartment in the neighboring town of Linda yesterday, a retrial scheduled for a man accused of sexual assaults on a teenage girl, accidents and more... My main gripe about the local paper is that they will put the initial story up on the website (and I'm assuming what hits the actual newspaper is the same as what is on the website), sometimes with very sketchy information. Sometimes there will be a follow-up article giving you a bit more information, then the story evaporates. **Poof** No more information to be found.

Take the bank robbery for instance. On Wednesday afternoon they had a story titled "Suspects in Bank of America robbery caught". The story evolved over the course of the day on the website, since the initial write-up was "Breaking News" and as they got more information from law enforcement, they added to the story which was printed in the newspaper on Thursday. Then on Friday, they gave us another article titled "Yuba City bank suspects linked to more heists?" that gave us, the readers, a bit more information along with the mug shots of the two men who were arrested. Then late Friday night, they gave us an article meant for Saturday's paper titled "Third bank robbery suspect sought" which gave us very little "new" information other than there apparently was a third guy with the other two sometime before, during or after they robbed the bank. I suppose I should give a brief (if possible) description of this bank robbery so you don't have to go clicking on all 3 links unless you really want to. First of all, I'll give you the booking photos of the two that are in custody so far.

	George Saman Emseih, age 20 from Fairfield CA
	Aaron Christopher Watts, age 21 from Oakland CA

Ok, so there's the two that are sitting in the Sutter County Jail at the moment. (The jail website says they on a "no bail" hold right now, so I guess they haven't gone before a judge yet. Oh, the perils of committing a crime and getting caught outside the big cities.. No 24/7 judges here!)

So, Wednesday morning, around 10:30am, these guys from out of town robbed one of the local banks. One of the guys is from Oakland and the other is from Fairfield. (My question is why on earth did they drive all the way to Yuba City to rob a bank here? There are a lot of towns/cities between here and where they are from that have banks!) Anyway, they apparently waved a gun around and grabbed the money (The paper hasn't said how much they stole.) and took off, headed west in a black BMW. For some reason, a sheriff's deputy stopped the robbers about 5 miles west of Yuba City, near the town of Sutter. The deputy got one of the guys in custody, but the other one took off. (I'd love to know why the deputy stopped them.. Was it a traffic stop or did he know that these guys were bank robbers? The paper didn't say.) So, the guy who took off kept heading west (Right past the little town I live in! And I didn't hear a thing! No sirens, no helicopter, no nothing! LOL) with the CHP helicopter tracking him and he was captured about 10 miles north of Colusa, the town to the west of where I live. The distance traveled in this "chase" from the bank in Yuba City to where they picked up the second guy was approximately 40 miles, give or take a couple miles. Now the third article, the one that tells us that they are looking for a third guy (A fellow named Cory Jermon Edwards from Fairfield. He's the older of the three, the paper says he's 27. I checked the jail site and the guy isn't in custody yet. At least not here in Sutter County.), gives us just a wee bit more information. Like the fact that the gun that was used was a semi-automatic and that it had been recovered where they arrested robber #2 and that a K-9 unit from Yuba County assisted in finding the gun. (Ok, that would make at least 5 law enforcement agencies involved. Yuba City Police Department, Sutter County Sheriff's Department, California Highway Patrol, Colusa County Sheriff's Department and Yuba County Sheriff's Department.) This being the weekend, I'm not really expecting to see anything on the paper's website today, but hopefully they'll give more information tomorrow sometime. Or maybe the story will go "**Poof**" like so many others.

~~~

I suppose I should say something about the body that has been found in that apartment over in Linda. The paper is reporting that the man found is/was Scott Malmstrom and the comments below the article say that he is/was a sex offender and hadn't been seen in a few days. A search of California's Megan's Law Web site reveals that a man by that name lives at the Beale Star apartments where the body was found. Click HERE to see his listing on the web site. The paper isn't reporting anything about a cause of death yet, the autopsy won't happen until the weekend is over. There is quite a bit of speculation about the cause of death though. Everything from murder to suicide. Hopefully the reporters at the local paper will follow up on this story.

Earthquake Drill?

One of the things I do almost every day, in fact sometimes several times a day, is to check the USGS website to see what kind of seismic activity there has been. If there's been a quake over 3.0 in California or in the states nearby, I post about it on the California Fire News website (If I can beat the blog owner, that is! LOL). This afternoon, shortly after peeking in on the USGS site I went over to the LOLCat's site and found this cutie and just had to share:


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Skating Babies? Cute Commercial!

A friend saw this on a news broadcast earlier tonight and told me about it.. I had to go hunting for it on YouTube so I could see it... Watch this! It's great! LOL!!

A "Wow" Photo

Every once in a while you happen across a photo that makes you say "Wow!"... This afternoon, I found one of those. The Wallstreet Journal has a "Pictures of the Day" in their Photo Journal. I've had the pictures of the day in my Google reader for a while now, but this shot of a Sunrise at the Rams Island Light near Portland, Maine made me stop and admire the color and the composition of the shot. Kudos to Robert F. Bukaty from the Associated Press for a gorgeous photo.

~~~~~~

I've been avoiding posting on the blog for a bit now. One of the reasons is that there is really nothing "new" with most of the cases I've been watching.

Phil Spector is adjusting to life in the prison he's been assigned to (Corcoran) and his wife has been amazingly silent for the last couple weeks, so there is nothing new there. Especially since any kind of news about the two civil cases just doesn't make it into the main stream media. I keep searching though.. I'm really curious as to how the suit Spector brought against Robert Shapiro will turn out since Phil doesn't want to answer any questions in a deposition.. He just wants Shapiro to simply hand over the money..

Casey Anthony is still in jail waiting for the murder trial, which has been postponed with no definite start date thanks to Casey's new lawyer, Dr. Andrea Lyon. Apparently her teaching schedule is in conflict with the trial date that was orignially scheduled. So, the murder trial is postponed until sometime next year and there will be a status hearing in January. Meanwhile, the prosecution wants to push ahead on the financial fraud charges stemming from Casey's theft of Amy Huizenga's money and checks. During a meeting with all the attornies invovled in the murder trial, the judge requested something in writing from Amy invoking her right to a speedy trial. It'll be interesting to see how Jose Baez will try to squirm out of that..

I'm also watching for news about the murderer of Brianna Denison, James Biela. He's tried twice now to have all the charges against him split into separate cases instead of trying them all in one trial. He's failed at both attempts to have the cases split with the latest attempt having been denied in June. No word yet about when the trial will happen up in Reno.

There are a few other cases that I look for information on, but it's hard to find anything about. I'm not going to list them out until I find some kind of update. The problem right now with watching the news (Both print and televised) is that the majority of what we're seeing is all about Michael Jackson. Apparently we are supposed to hear all the rumors about him, his children, his ex-wives, drugs, illnesses, etc, etc, etc... I'm sorry, but I am tired of hearing all about this stuff. I've enjoyed his music, but I've never been a fan of the man. (shrugging my shoulders)

And so, to close, here's an LOL Cat that I shared on facebook last night:


see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Yep, I do feel like I'm in a rut... lol.. How about you?

Please Be Careful Out There....

Last night, after returning from the trip up to Redding my folks dropped me off here at my home and drove to Yuba City to their home. Not long after they left, my daughter (across the street) called me to ask if I'd heard from my folks, her grandparents, to let me know they'd made it home. I hadn't, so my daughter told me that there'd been a very bad accident on the highway between here and Yuba City... I tuned into the scanner and listened and then made my way to the local paper's website and then got on the phone......... (My folks made it home ok!)

Yes. It was a horrific accident as you can see in the photo to the left. A sedan and a van involved in a head-on crash. There were reportedly at least 9 people in the van and 2 people in the sedan. The driver of the sedan is the single (so far) fatality. Amazingly, the 9 people in the van, including an infant were not wearing seat belts.

Please, people. If you're going to be out and about on this holiday weekend, be safe! Use seatbelts and don't drink and drive! Don't be a statistic!

Source: Appeal Democrat

UPDATE:
They've identified the young woman who died in this accident... The Sutter County coroner's office reported her name was Lorretta Lynn Deniz, 22, of Yuba City. My condolences go out to the young woman's family and friends.......

Source and more information: Appeal Democrat

A Sundial Bridge and a T-Rex Named Sue....

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July yesterday and that everyone is still enjoying their holiday weekend. Yesterday was a fun one for my parents and I even though we saw no fireworks except on TV last night. My Step-dad had gotten bored with sitting at home and came up with the idea of going up to Redding and visiting the Sundial Bridge and the Turtle Bay Museum. I'd never gone to either the bridge or the museum before, so I was happy to be the driver for the trip. Redding is only about 2 1/2 hours from here, so it was an easy drive up there even with a stop halfway there for breakfast at a Black Bear Diner in the city of Willows. If you've never experienced a meal at a Black Bear Diner, I'd advise you to arrive at the restaurant hungry. The portions are big, the meals reasonably priced and definitely delicious!

Anyway, we found our way to the museum fairly easy, the route is well marked once you get into Redding. The park that surrounds the museum was apparently to be the site of the 4th of July festivities there in Redding, so there were lots of tents and awnings being set up, people wandering around and security directing traffic. I'm not going to give you a running commentary of the whole visit to the museum and the bridge... I'll just give you a few pictures of some of the things we saw...

When you first enter the museum, the first exhibit is of a sculpture of a tree set on a glass floor, and the view of the sculpture includes the root system of the tree!

We arrived at the museum about 15 or so minutes before the feeding time in the huge aquarium they have, so we made our way down into the chamber where you can view the fish.

As you can see from the image above, the children were fascinated by the fish swimming past the windows... There are sturgeon, striped bass and rainbow trout swimming around in this tank which is constructed to look like the Sacramento River. The fish kept in the tank are what would be found in the river itself.

The museum does have a couple of "rare" fish swimming around... Both are albino rainbow trout... The markings are quite different on the two fish...

Here's a view of the tank windows that also shows what we saw above the water level. That's one of the museum employees up there in the process of feeding the fish...

One of the exhibits that the museum is hosting this summer is called "A T. Rex Named Sue" that is on loan from The Field Museum in Chicago. That thing is HUGE! lol...

Another exhibit is called "The Art of The Brick" and consists of pieces of art that are constructed of Lego building bricks! The artist, Nathan Sawaya uses thousands of legos of different colors to construct his sculptures... Including a T. Rex not named Sue.. lol

Oh yeah.. I almost forgot to give you a photo of the Sundial Bridge!

I'd like to go back up there and spend some more time in the museum and see some of the other things they've got there. The arboretum, the butterfly house and I'd also like to walk across the bridge. Yesterday was hot. Too hot to do much walking about outside. My folks and I decided that we'd pick a cooler day to go back. Perhaps midweek and not on a holiday so there would be fewer people and spend some more time enjoying the place....