“The Man Who” opens at New Village Arts

Here’s a just completed promotional video I produced for a play that’s just opened at New Village Arts Theatre in the Carlsbad Village.  The Man Who, a non-conventional stage adaptation of “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” Oliver Sacks’ best-selling collection of case histories about the neurologically impaired.

It features Ron Choularton, Sandra Ellis-Troy, Manny Fernandes, Walter Murray, musician Scott Paulson and directed by Kristianne Kurner, also South O resident.

If you are not aware of their work, you really should check them out sometime.

Meeting of South Oceanside Merchants

All South Oceanside residence are welcome

Wednesday January 27, 2010
at 6:00 – 7:00 P.M.(1 hour only)
At Beach Break Café
1902 South Coast Hwy.

Carl Henger from Liberty Tax Service
Will be talking about:
·         Recordkeeping
·         Health Insurance Deductions
·         Business Use of Home & Car
·         Business & Entertainment Expenses
·         Depreciation

ALSO:

·       Meet with other south “O” business and residents.
·       Hear about what’s going on in the neighborhood.
·       Address South “O” issues.
·       Talk to OPD and City Staff.

Keep Informed!  We get great information from these meetings!

Questions call: Richard Fox (760) 802-5947
(Meetings every other month, last Tuesday or Wednesday of the month, alternating.)

Meeting of South Oceanside Merchants

As far as I know this is the only group that meets regularly (every 2 months) to discuss issues of interest to us who live and work in South O.  All local residents are encouraged to attend so put it on your calendar.  Here’s the info on this Tuesday’s meeting:

Tuesday, December 1, 2009
at 6:00 – 7:00 P.M.(1 hour only)
At Beach Break Café
1902 South Coast Hwy.

Learn about the NEW Beach Break Café

·       Meet with other south “O” business and residents.
·       Hear about what’s going on in the neighborhood.
·       Address South “O” issues.
·       Talk to OPD and City Staff.

Keep Informed!  We get great information from these meetings!

Questions call: Richard Fox (760) 802-5947
(Meetings every other month, last Tuesday or Wednesday of the month, alternating.)

Oceanside Taxi Cabs

We have Taxi Cabs in Oceanside?  Have you ever used these services?  If you have, you likely called one for a trip to a party, doctor or the local pub.  My concern for these services is the lack of return trips.  If they bring you to your destination– try getting back using the same taxi service.

When you do go to your destination, if you want to get picked up, you must have an address.  Then wait on the average of 1/2 hour or more.  If you call back to inquire about  your cab pick up– be ready to  deal with insubordinate dispatchers.  Some of my experiences were:

–dropped my group off at the Oktoberfest but refused to pick up our party because we could not provide an address at the park.

–after an auto accident, I called a cab to pick me up, they never came.  The tow truck driver took me to the repair shop, I walked 3 miles home from there.

–abandoned me at the company holiday party in Carlsbad.  Since we have the party at the same location each year this has happened 3 out of the past 5 years.  The last 2 years I have had the hotel (with extreme effort) have a cab pick me up.

The solution is competition. We do not have enough independent cabs so you are forced to use a company cab from the yellow pages.  If there are more cabs & companies, they will someday provide a service  that is acceptable.  Out of the three pillars of business: Quality, Speed and Price these taxi companies offer none.  Without a reliable public transportation system, we have to deal with this situation for a while longer.

Above the Fold

Today in the NCT paper, the headline above the fold read: “Rocky Chavez to Quit City Council”.  The reason given was to take an assignment in the veterans affairs office.  I am happy for Mr. Chavez that he can put his USMC background to good use in Sacramento.   Moreover, we thank him for his service in our community.  Right or wrong, he made decisions and was predictable.  After a while, I took comfort in that position.  It is not easy being at the top of the tree where everyone can throw rocks at you and can see your butt.  But I digress.

It would be easy to assume that our council would change from the typical 3 against 2 votes that brought us so many projects in Oceanside to something else.  I could speculate that we should be prepared  for a City council that will get bogged down in details and cannot reach a decision quickly.

We now have an opportunity for 2 new replacements on the City council within the next 3 months.  Choose wisely we do not have many resources left to squander.

City Contractors from Outside the Area

This is based on personal observations from the recent City awards for design and planning projects within the City of Oceanside.  This includes the recent Vision Plan project award.  Based on my observations, the City staff seems to believe no design contractors within Oceanside or San Diego can handle the City of Oceanside work.  It appears that our design work is being performed by companies from out of the county and sometimes based out-of-state (as with the Vision plan firm).  Please do not take my word.  Go to the recently awarded contracts over the past few years and see which companies were given contracts.  Typically not Oceanside nor San Diego County based companies.

The next logical question would be: Why?  Dealing with companies based outside the area has several disadvantages.  One would be travel time to /from meetings.  Guess who has to pay for that cost?  The City of Oceanside. The other disadvantage is dealing with a company that is unfamiliar with our local concerns.  Sure you can explain your local concerns to a design firm.  Would it be better to skip this time-consuming part of the project?  Unlike the firm that was awarded the Vision plan work, we do not need to have someone outside our community create our identity.  It already exists.

Furthermore, when a contractor has his equipment and offices based in another part of the state (outside San Diego County) and they have to transport equipment and personnel from a long distance and are under bidding local firms- pack your bags your about to take a ride on the change order train.  Be prepared for 20 percent or more increases to the existing contracts.

I wish I had the time to do a cost breakdown of  how the out-of-town contractors perform next to the budgets compared to the local firms.

I fail to understand why the City would pass up qualified local firms within blocks of the City offices for firms 100’s if not thousands of miles away.

Toss these questions onto the dog pile with the prevailing wage comments I posted months ago.  More examples of government waste that keeps me wondering about the judgment of these public officials.

 

Deep thought … Kern recall

A quote from the man himself excerpted from a recent NCT story on the recall effort:

“You have three people who want to take advantage of the situation,” Kern said. “None of them are really that credible, because they’re basically losers.”

… “the truest characters of ignorance are vanity, pride and arrogance.” – Sam Butler

Head Shops on the 101

Now that we have begun renovation on the old 76 station why not get rid of other eyesores.  The 101  head shops.  These are a left over from a time when a number of hotels on 101  were heavily patronized by drug addicts and prostitutes.  Since those establishments no longer rent rooms by the hour, why have a head shops?  Perhaps a request to the city council for a zoning change along 101 could reduce the number of less desirable business ventures such as these.   Perhaps we can have the Oceanside PD park a car across the street and check the patrons for DUI.

But then again, they are “smoke shops” which are not selling drugs and the paraphernalia that they sell is for use on legitimate tobacco products.

 

This morning 11/19/09 I observed two individuals sitting in a parked car smoking something odd in front of the store. They were waiting for the store to open.   But they could have been smoking just tobacco–right?

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

I believe we are blessed to have several restaurants around South “O” that are consistently good.  Some of these include the Hungry Hunter, 101 Cafe,  Beach Break Cafe, Hon Sushi and others.  We also have some fabulously bad ones that should gain attention in our posts.  But the ugly ones with bad food, poor service, high prices and poor hygiene should be covered in detail.

This is a request to the other 2 readers of this site.  Please post the names of the restaurants that are even bad for the average joe of South “O”.  We will use positive and negative scales 1 to 5 for each of the three categories with 5 being the best and 1 being the worst:

1) food quality

2) service

3) hygiene

I will offer my comments after you go first.  I have read readers choice awards and they just don’t get local enough for me.  In addition, they do not want to abandon the politically correct food critics policies.   You must be specific and use only local places in Oceanside or  Carlsbad.  Please do not go outside of those communities because we want to keep it local.

An example of a bad dining experience was in a place that had a large rat walk on the railing next to the patio dining area (I left immediately).  That would score 3, 1, 0.    Another at an expensive  restaurant where I ordered wine by the glass and had a fly in my wine (please no jokes).  The waiter removed the fly with his fingers. That would score 3, 0, 0

Those are just teasers to get some of you thinking about your past dining experiences.  The two places above are not local restaurants (because I do not want to influence your opinions).  I will reveal the names after others post.

 

Since there is some interest to this post based on a few reads (although no one wanted to post a rating) I will post my two examples here:

–The rat walk award goes to Il Fornaio in Del Mar.  I believe this location is now closed so I guess this is no longer an issue.

–The fly in the wine with attitude from the manager and the waiter goes to Georges at the Cove in La Jolla.  Disgusting behavior by the waiter and an attitude from the manager when a complaint was lodged.

Cattails in Buena Vista Lagoon

Just wanted to post a comment about our growing problem of cattail in Buena Vista Lagoon.  The lagoon is currently choked with cattail.  Previously this problem was ignored until it became a flooding and/ or fire hazard to the community.  I believe we now have both problems.    Not sure who is responsible for the removal of the vegetation.  Too bad the Department of Fish and Game doesn’t seem to remember that this is just as important as regulating the fishermen in the lagoon.   City of Oceanside likely doesn’t have jurisdiction.   Looking forward to using my row boat on Highway 101 in the lagoon this winter.   Perhaps we can post a picture here.