(04-29-2021, 09:54 AM)King Bob Wrote: The coyotes like Ariana Grande?

(04-29-2021, 10:47 AM)Dr. Ivor Yeti Wrote: Everyone knows that.

(05-23-2021, 10:38 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote: ‘That crash’

Quote:By Avery Johnson
Published May 27, 2021 11:51 AM

Santa Cruz County resident dies in crash on Seabright Avenue

Santa Cruz Police

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KION) A 29-year-old Santa Cruz County resident has died as a result of a crash on Seabright Avenue, according to Santa Cruz police.
Investigators said they received 911 calls about a crash involving one vehicle shortly after 1 a.m. near Seabright and Windsor. When they got there, they found a man pinned under the vehicle.
Crews with the Santa Cruz County Fire Department were able to get the man out from under the vehicle, and the driver was pronounced dead.
Police believe the driver was speeding while heading north on Seabright and lost control around a curve at Windham. That is when they believe the vehicle hit a curb and became airborne. They said it hit a tree and two parked cars before it landed back on its wheels, pinning the driver underneath it.
The identity of the driver will not be released until family members are notified.
Anyone who saw what happened or who has any information is asked to call Sgt. Michael Hedley at 831-420-5777 ext. 4834.

Quote:Police believe the driver was speeding while heading north on Seabright and lost control around a curve at Windham. That is when they believe the vehicle hit a curb and became airborne. They said it hit a tree and two parked cars before it landed back on its wheels, pinning the driver underneath it.

Quote:FBI raids Santa Cruz County home of entrepreneur linked to Rudy Giuliani

• Categories:[/url][url=https://www.eastbaytimes.com/news/politics/]
  

George Dickson III (YouTube — Contributed)
APTOS — The home of a local entrepreneur with ties to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was the subject of an FBI raid this week.
George E. Dickson III, founder of Seismic Warning Systems and CEO and co-founder of Continuity Capital Group in Scotts Valley, did not respond to a call requesting comment Friday.
For hours on Tuesday evening, FBI agents converged on Dickson’s Meadow Ranch Estates home in Aptos “to conduct court-authorized law enforcement activity,” an FBI spokesperson confirmed Thursday.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office was notified that the FBI would be conducting an operation, said department spokesperson Ashley Keehn, but did not participate in the raid.

Dickson, 64, who heads numerous businesses with mailing addresses listed at the same Scotts Valley Drive office park, was linked in a May 28, 2020 Mother Jones news investigation to efforts by Giuliani to raise some $10 million to produce a documentary related to Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden. Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, was reportedly recruiting investors for his project with the help of Dickson and California Republican fundraiser Tim Yale. The Sentinel was unable to confirm whether or not Tuesday’s search of Dickson’s home was related to his dealings with Giuliani.
“We cannot comment further due to the ongoing nature of the investigation,” FBI San Francisco public affairs representative Katherine Zackel emailed in response to a Sentinel inquiry.
Giuliani’s New York City home and office also was the subject of an FBI search and seizure of his personal electronics on April 28, according to national media reports. On Thursday, Giuliani was suspended from practicing law in the state of New York. A state supreme court backed its decision, writing in a ruling that Giuliani had “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020.”

Among Dickson’s businesses is Cannasortium, a cannabis consulting agency founded in 2017. The company’s mission is described on its website as “We partner with founders in the industrial CBD hemp and cannabis industries, harmonizing unique insights and exceptional skills to build legendary companies and make history.”

Dickson’s Seismic Warning Systems, founded in 2000, features “QuakeGuard,” an earthquake early-warning notification system. His Continuity Capital Group, founded in 2016, offers capital advisory, management consulting and mergers and acquisitions services.

Quote:CALIFORNIA NEWS
Human Remains Discovered at Santa Cruz High

ByTodd Guild[/url]
Posted on August 6, 2021

 
 
 
COMMENTS

Workers performing power infrastructure upgrades in July at Santa Cruz High School discovered human remains at an archeological site that halted the project for two weeks as archeologists and tribal members investigated it.
That work has concluded, and all services such as water, power and sewage will be up and running when school starts on Aug. 11, Santa Cruz City School District spokesman Sam Rolens said.
According to Rolens, the workers were digging when they hit a layer of dirt that included organic material such as fish bones and skin, indicating human habitation.
When such discoveries are made, Rolens said, the school district works with a “most likely descendent” that serves as an advisor during the discovery, excavation and recovery process.
“The district is working closely with the tribal community, specifically Indian Canyon Mutsun Band of Coastanoan and the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, in all aspects of the work,” Rolens stated in an email.
That community will release further details as they are known, Rolens said.
Santa Cruz High, along with much of the city, is known to sit over areas where civilizations have existed for thousands of years.
The Amah Mutsun occupied the region in as many as 30 contiguous villages stretching from the Pajaro River Basin and into where Santa Cruz now lies. Before European occupiers arrived in the 1700s, they thrived here for thousands of years due to the rich land and abundance of fresh water, fish and game, according to [url=http://amahmutsun.org/history]amahmutsun.org. Their language—called Mutsun—was one of the first Native American languages studied in North America. They lived in domed structures topped with tule and grasses.

Quote:
Boomer and Lexi
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

WILDFIRES

‘Hero of the neighborhood’: How a Bonny Doon neighbor’s resolve helped save a Santa Cruz musical treasure

BY WALLACE BAINE
Source:  Lookout Santa Cruz 

Quick Take

The name Boomeria comes not from the dramatic churchy sounds that emanate from the pipe-organ, but from the man, Preston Boomer, who built not only the organ but the bizarro playland that surrounds it. It was the 90-year-old’s neighbor Alexis “Lexi” Seath who took it upon herself to save “the Chapel” she grew up next to.

Published 20 Hours Ago 

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On a hot, suffocating Saturday afternoon in July, a few dozen people gathered in a redwood grove near Bonny Doon. Noshing on finger foods and sipping wine or sparkling water, they congregated outside a tiny house with a steeply pitched roof like a mountain chalet, known locally as “the Chapel.” A few were inside the Chapel, while others stood near the door, and a few more sat in plastic chairs nearby under the trees.
Of course, you didn’t have to be that close to hear the music coming from inside. It could likely have been heard for miles. The music was haunting, ethereal, vaguely Medieval, lending a kind of surreal majesty to a landscape still charred from the fires of 2020.

Lookout checks in on how the recovery effort is going in Santa Cruz County 

In a multi-part series, we talk to the folks who were hit hardest by nature’s wrath last August — and those who are helping them rebuild, regather, recover.

Inside the Chapel is a massive pipe organ, a one-of-a-kind apparatus that has expanded like a living organism for almost 70 years. It’s a Bonny Doon landmark, and it’s an eccentric, irreplaceable California treasure. And it very well could have been destroyed, if not for one determined neighbor and a nearby swimming pool.
This is Boomeria.
The name comes not from the dramatic churchy sounds that emanate from the pipe-organ, but from the man who built not only the organ but the bizarro playland that surrounds it, including a castle, guillotine, catacombs, and dungeon, where friends and neighbors have been waging playful water-gun battles for generations.
He is Preston Boomer, aka “The Boom,” a former San Lorenzo Valley high school science teacher and master of this mini kingdom. In 1953, Boomer rescued the pipe organ that was set to be replaced at a church in San Jose. Over the years, he and his students at SLV added to it, until it collected close to 2,500 pipes. It’s gotten media attention both locally and around the world as a delightful cultural artifact in an unlikely setting.

Boomer himself.
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

For the last few decades, the Santa Cruz Baroque Festival has made a visit to Boomeria an annual summer event, with accomplished musicians invited to take a seat at the enormous pipe organ. July’s concert was a return to Boomeria after a one-year pandemic-related absence. And many on hand at the show were all too aware that they were witnessing something like a miracle.
This magnificent instrument, as well as the charming chalet that houses it, could have easily been consumed by the CZU fires that destroyed several homes nearby. But a year after the apocalypse, here it stood, completely intact, again filling the air with exalted organ music.

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That’s no accident.
Alexis “Lexi” Seath grew up on a piece of property a minute’s walk from the Chapel. Now in her 30s, she still lives on the site, in a small house she built near the much larger main house where her mother lives. The castle and the catacombs of Boomeria were a big part of her childhood.
In mid-August of 2020, when fires began encroaching upon the area from the west, Seath sensed danger. From her house, she had a view and a perspective from which she could make out the progress of the fire. One night, after midnight, she decided to take action.

Lexi Seath
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

“The fire came,” she said in her wide yard as organ music wafted in the air from Boomeria up the hill. “The sky was red and it came down this way. I drove around the neighborhood honking the horn. That was about (1 a.m.).”
“She’s the hero of the neighborhood,” said Preston Boomer who, at 90 years old, lives in a small house just steps from the Chapel. Boomer, like most of his neighbors, evacuated and, for days, knew little or nothing about the status of his home, Boomeria, or the pipe organ.

‘CZU, One Year Later’: The only recovery consistency lies in a community’s selfless nature
[url=https://lookout.co/santacruz/environment/wildfires/story/2021-08-15/czu-lightning-complex-fire-one-year-later-bonny-doon-boulder-creek-slv]


Seath, however, stayed behind.
Her first priority was her home and her mother’s home. She put sprinklers on the roof, and applied Phos-Check fire retardant everywhere she could. She had set up a system to water the Douglas firs on her property and believes that the consistent watering saved them as well.
Over the course of the next few days and nights, working alone, Seath turned to her attention to neighbors’ houses. She used as many garden hoses as she could find or borrow to set up hose lines to the houses. Then she sensed Boomeria was in trouble.

Lexi Seath surveys the area where she dug in.
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Right next to the pipe organ, Boomeria had a swimming pool. Armed with a holster generator and a sump pump, she began to use the water from the pool to wet down the Chapel and Boomer’s house. All the while, she was keeping an eye on her own home, other neighbors’ homes, and perhaps most crucially a clear avenue for escape if and when she decided to leave.
She, in fact, did leave the grounds a couple of times, to get more sprinklers (“I couldn’t afford to pay for all these sprinkler things I was getting,” she remembered. “And I told the guy, ‘Look, I’m going back up to the fires.’ And people in line were all, ‘Hey, here’s 20 bucks.’”).

Quote:

That was super sketchy. You had to hide from helicopters because you weren’t supposed to be out there.

At another point, running low on supplies, she decided to walk to Bonny Doon, several miles away, and carry back with her water, food, and supplies, taking a path that only someone who knew the area as intimately as she did would know about. Familiar trails had been obliterated by the fire. It took her about four hours to get back to her home. “That was super sketchy,” she said, “you had to hide from helicopters because you weren’t supposed to be out there.”
Armed only with a pump, a hose, and a generator, she spent one entire night at Boomeria making sure the fires didn’t reach the Chapel and the pipe organ inside. “The idea was to keep things wet and keep things from touching so they wouldn’t come and wick back.”

Boomer and Lexi.
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

Almost a year after the fact, Lexi Seath doesn’t remember exactly how many days and nights she spent alone defending her and her neighbors’ properties. Ironically, the only damage from the main house on her property was water damage from her efforts.
At one point, the smoke was so bad, she found herself locked in an interior closet in the house wearing a swim mask and a wet towel wrapped around her face. “Smoke inhalation was one of the gnarlier things that was just overwhelming,” she said.

Quote:

Smoke inhalation was one of the gnarlier things that was just overwhelming.

When it was all over, she remembers seeing Boomer for the first time since he had returned. “We sat down by the pool, and he pulled out a bottle of wine, about 11 in the morning,” she said. “And I was like, ‘Sure.’ I mean, what are you going to do?”
Seath was not able to save everything. Some houses in the area were completely lost. At Boomeria, the battle towers, the engine room, and a few other parts of it are gone. The ruins of the guillotine still sat in a pile in the yard at July’s Baroque Festival concert.

Boomer, at the center of ‘the Chapel.’
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

But Preston Boomer is back at home, ringing a large bell that can be heard as far away as Roaring Camp — or so he claims — every day at noon and 4 p.m., just as he did for years before the fire. The woodsy hills surrounding Boomeria are much more sparse now. Before the fires, many of the homes were not visible through the trees. Now, that’s not the case. But the grand old pipe organ still floats in the air.
Boomer isn’t planning on rebuilding the structures he lost. “The Lord must like kids because the playground is still pretty much intact,” he said. Of the debt of gratitude he owes the neighbor who grew up playing in the castle, he said, “We tried (to thank her). She won’t take money, or anything. She’s just a great person.”

(04-16-2021, 03:17 PM)Drunk Monk Wrote:

Quote:FOOD & DRINK
Saturn Cafe Closes Its Downtown Santa Cruz Location
Owners say they are looking for a new Santa Cruz location

SATURN CAFE IS LEAVING ITS LOCATION AT LAUREL STREET AND PACIFIC AVENUE IN SANTA CRUZ. PHOTO: TARMO HANNULA

BY[b]MAT WEIR
POSTED ON APRIL 16, 2021[/b]
If you’ve felt like the Covid-19 pandemic has done a number on businesses in downtown Santa Cruz, then prepare to see stars, because the latest casualty is out of this world. 
Saturn Cafe, known for its all-vegetarian and vegan comfort food, announced on its Facebook page it will close its doors at the Laurel Street and Pacific Avenue location for good. 
“Sadly, we will not be reopening our 145 Laurel Street location, which has been our home for over twenty years,” the post reads. “We will be relocating to our new neighborhood in Los Angeles.”
Once a bastion for late-night burgers, nacho fries, non-dairy shakes and maybe a nightcap beer or two, the Santa Cruz Saturn Cafe was the chain’s original location, opened in 1979 by Don Lane—who would later become mayor and a prominent local politician. Over the years it went from its hippie-vibe roots to an eclectic space theme in the late 1990s to early 2000s to its latest, more mellow incarnation.
But throughout it all, it was always known as a staple in town, gaining love and notoriety from locals, tourists and college students alike, as well as national publications like the Washington Post. 
However, in more recent times, the downtown restaurant was closing earlier and earlier, even before the pandemic hit. While it continued to stay open and serve food throughout 2020, Santa Cruzans paying attention may have noticed the lights have been dark for several months. 
According to the restaurant’s Facebook page, food was served at least until Nov. 28. It was its last remaining location in the Bay Area, having closed its Berkeley restaurant in July 2019 after almost a decade. Their Los Angeles location, in the Eagle Rock district, opened last July 25—in what many took as a sign of hope for the business. 
But for anyone needing their Diablo Burger fix, don’t despair! The closure announcement comes with a hope tastier than their tomato soup. Owners say they are currently looking for a new Santa Cruz location, although no details on when or where they will open have been given as of yet.
“We are also in search of a local partner or two who will help guide Saturn Santa Cruz through this next era,” the announcement says. 
So while we anxiously wait to dig our teeth into our next Space Cowboy Burger—with shoestring fries, the best fries—we find comfort in knowing this won’t be the end of Saturn in Santa Cruz, just another period of adjustment in a long line of Covid-19 torment. 
“Saturn without Santa Cruz has been so hard for us to take in,” the announcement says. “And after over forty years, who wants to think about Santa Cruz without Saturn?”

Major bum out. Saturn was always a tad overpriced, but their shakes rocked and given my and my families dietary practices, we have to support veg joints. I did like Saturn's color, very Cruz. And some of their burgers were good.

Quote:In Saturn Cafe’s next life, it will be a Drunk Monkey — only now, ‘we can basically do whatever we want’

BY MAX CHUN
Source:  Lookout Santa Cruz 

Quick Take

Popular food truck Asian fusion fare will morph into new things as the Cruz Kitchen & Taproom takes shape at the historic site of the former Saturn Cafe at Pacific and Laurel in downtown Santa Cruz.

Published 15 Hours Ago 




Santa Cruzans were stunned when the Saturn Cafe closed its doors for good in April. Founded in 1979, the vegetarian restaurant was an establishment that seemed invincible — but the COVID-19 pandemic had other plans. While the space has been empty for about six months, the hollow shell of what used to be the Saturn Cafe will be coming back to life in the near future.

Lost in space: After more than 40 years, the Saturn Cafe announces its permanent closure
[/url]


Dameon Deworken of Drunk Monkeys food truck, along with business partner Mia Thorn, will be taking over the spot and opening a new Asian fusion restaurant to be named Cruz Kitchen and Taproom.
Deworken’s burnt orange food truck with illustrations of grinning faces could be found roaming around the Westside for the better part of the past decade, until the itch to try something new kicked in and he put the truck up for sale last month.
Thorn, future co-owner and operator, said that taking over the Saturn Cafe location became a great backup plan after the first location they had their eyes on fell through.
“I live in Felton, and every time I came home I saw the [url=https://localwiki.org/santacruz/Trout_Farm_Inn]Trout Farm and got really curious about it,” Thorn said — and so she soon contacted longtime friend Deworken, who was immediately interested in the idea.
“It was really easy to join forces with Dameon,” Thorn said. “I was like, ‘Hey, do you want to play in a restaurant with a pool?’ and he said yes, so we had to find an investor and do a whole search for that.”
While the duo’s poolside restaurant dreams didn’t materialize, they had sparked a conversation with downtown property veteran George Ow, whose family used to own the Saturn space, and a great backup option emerged. And during their original search, Thorn and Deworken learned that they enjoy working together.

The Saturn Cafe.
(Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz)

“We’re good friends and speak the same language,” Thorn said. “We continued to look at a few more places and talk about some plans.”
Now with a revamp of the site at Laurel Street and Pacific Avenue coming together, they have a vision for a quick-service model that builds on the Drunk Monkeys style of food.

“Dameon has to let his freak flag fly and do his food, but we also want to offer other things like salads, sandwiches, and burgers,” Thorn said. “We want to do a pretty easy grab-and-go thing where people can have that casual ‘in and out’ meal.”
Deworken says the menu is still under construction, but he is looking forward to expanding his horizons.

More seafood will likely be coming to Cruz Kitchen and Taproom.
(@drunkmonkeyssantacruz / Instagram)

“With the name change we’re not pigeonholed anymore,” he said. “It’s cool because we can basically do whatever we want.”
Specifically, Deworken is looking to venture into more seafood.
“It’s hard to sell fish out of a food truck for some reason,” he said.
Additionally, Thorn says they are committed to molding a business that invests back into the community.
“We’re going to have local art featured on the wall, serve local beer, and even feature local musical artists,” she said. “It’s really about uplifting the local community and letting our people shine.”
Currently an oncology nurse, Thorn will be pivoting to focus on this project for the time being.

Asian fusion cuisine will be carrying over to the new spot.
(@drunkmonkeyssantacruz / Instagram)

“I’m going to be a nurse until I die, but I’m on a sabbatical and really want to focus on being the owner and operator here,” she said. “It’s just kind of a shift to living the celebratory life for a little while.”
Don Lane, former Santa Cruz mayor and founder of the Saturn Cafe, was understandably sad to hear that the eatery had closed, but has been looking forward to something moving in for a while.
“I’ve been watching to see what happens there and was excited when the windows all got covered up,” he said. “I saw people in there working on stuff with the lights on more recently, so I was glad to see that something was coming.”
Lane opened the Saturn Cafe just a year after he graduated college back in 1979. The restaurant’s interesting food options and self-assured identity helped it grow into a Santa Cruz favorite and cornerstone of the town’s culture.
For decades, the retro-futuristic, space-age-themed diner was filled with the hustle and bustle of locals, visitors and college students eager to dig into their favorite vegan and vegetarian comfort food.
Lane, now a part-time public policy instructor at UC Santa Cruz, still finds students excited when he mentions that he founded Saturn. He is looking forward to the new establishment emulating the same exciting, vibrant energy the Saturn brought.
“The Saturn changed a lot over its 40 years,” he said. “I expect they’ll bring a lot of good energy to that place.”