As reported today in the Silicon Valley Business Journal, a new medical facility is being proposed to somewhat fill the void left by the closure of the San Jose Medical Center nearly five years ago. A site has been picked out at 14th and Santa Clara Streets, and the plan’s backers will be approaching the county board of supervisors for funding from Measure A bonds.

The proposed facility doesn’t sound like a true replacement for SJMC, more of a clinic than a hospital, and there is no mention of an emergency room in the plans. It does sound like the proposed owners have a history of serving uninsured patients, so this could really help out a lot of downtown residents.

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Metblogs is five years old today. The Metroblogging network that is; not San José Metblogs, we are not even two years old yet.

Metroblogging started five years ago in Los Angeles as blogging.la and has since grown with over 55 cities worldwide.

Happy Birthday, Metroblogging!

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El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe was founded on November 29, 1777 as the first town in the Spanish colony of Nueva California, which later became Alta California. San Jose was established as a farming community to support Spanish military installations at San Francisco and Monterey. When California gained statehood in 1850, San José served as its first capital. The city was incorporated March 27, 1850. The official name of the city is City of San Jose with no diacritical mark.

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I know many of you are probably getting into the holiday season. San Jose (and I’m sure other cities) have had holiday decorations up around town for a couple of weeks now. In downtown San Jose, you can already go ice skating, and the tree lighting ceremony will be Nov. 28 at Christmas in the Park. (More info on that here). And I’m sure holiday festivities are starting around the South Bay each day.

But I have to admit, I’m becoming somewhat of a humbug. It started two years ago, actually. All the stress of buying gifts for people seemed futile. The people I was buying for didn’t need anything. I didn’t want anything from them, except maybe some time to spend together over dinner or drinks. So last year I decided - no gifts. Instead, I would be giving my precious (and few) hard-earned dollars to those who needed it. Did my friends and family miss the presents? Not one bit. Especially when I told my mom, who works for the Girl Scouts, that I was donating money to her organization. And I told my pet-loving friend I’d be donating to the local SPCA. They didn’t mind one bit.

Call me Charlie Brown, but the holidays have become so focused on presents, that I’m afraid people are forgetting about those who will be the coldest, the hungriest this season.

Now more than ever we need to keep those less fortunate in mind. We’re facing an economic “recession” (a euphemism, I’m convinced), and the local foodbanks will be seeing more hungry, hopeful faces this holiday season than they’ve seen in a few decades.

As a board member of a local nonprofit, I can tell you firsthand that charities are hurting. They’ve been hurting for the last couple of winters, but this year is bad. People are scared, and are grabbing that wallet tight - for good reason. But we can’t forget that our neighbors need our help. Even if it’s $20, or 10 cans of food.

To raise awareness that charities need your help, the Silicon Valley Open Arms Coalition was created by local funders and nonprofits. The website gives several ways for people to contribute this holiday season, depending on which organization they’d like to support. Some of the nonprofits involved are First 5, Second Harvest Food Bank, Sobrato Family Foundation, Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County, and The Health Trust.

Read more

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The Mercury News is reporting today that though the ballots continue to be counted, measure B is now sure to pass. The measure authorizes a 1/8 per cent sales tax to fund bringing BART to San Jose.

I voted against B, agreeing with the argument that work on BART, even with additional revenue, would divert funds from other projects that could more efficiently connect us to the rest of the Bay Area. Hopefully I was wrong, BART will bring all of the benefits promised, and VTA will also be able to continue providing bus and light rail service around the valley. At the very least, it’ll give me a nice way to get up to Berkeley for an occasional football game (Go Bears!).

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FC Gold Pride players Barnhart, Buehler and Hamm

Women’s professional soccer returns to the Bay Area this spring. A return of women’s soccer since the San Jose CyberRays of the defunct Women’s United Soccer Association.

Los Altos residents Brian and Nancy NeSmith are the owners of the Bay Area’s team in the new Women’s Professional Soccer league.

Suzanne’s post covers the introduction of the team’s name, FC Gold Pride. Some think Golden Pride would be a more appropriate name.

The NeSmith’s believe a fun, family friendly league will be more successful than the WUSA. the league will stress keeping costs down.

Los Altos native Albertin Montoya will be the Pride’s coach and some of the Pride’s players attended Stanford, Santa Clara University, and UC Berkeley.

Montoya, an assistant coach for the Stanford University women’s team and previously an assistant coach at Santa Clara University, began his collegiate playing career (a midfielder) at North Carolina State and was an Atlantic Coast Conference First Team selection in 1994. He later transferred to Santa Clara and received player of the year awards with the Broncos.

Players from local universities include Nicole “Barnie” Barnhart (goalkeeper), Rachel Buehler (defender), Tracy Hamm (defender), and Leslie “Ozzy” Osborne (midfielder). Ms. Barnhart and Ms. Buehler are 2008 Olympic gold medalist.

The Pride will play their home games beginning April 2009 at 10,300-seat Buck Shaw Stadium. The other teams in the league’s inaugural season are Los Angeles, New York/New Jersey, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis and Washington, D.C. With Dallas, Atlanta and Philadelphia scheduled to join the league in 2010.

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The name, the colors and the logo of the new Bay Area Women’s Professional Soccer team has been unleashed this afternoon. And once again, neither the Merc’s nor the Chron’s coverage was as good as Center Line Soccer’s (or as funny as Melissa at The Offsides).

Quick rundown: The name FC Gold Pride comes from a swirl of influences. FC (short for Football Club) is common throughout Europe, Gold is a reference to California’s Golden State and the gold at the Olympics, and Pride is both a group of lions and that odd feeling in your heart that swells when you win something. The team’s owners are hoping more for the latter to be present at the games.

The team won’t play until the beginning of April, but they will for sure be sharing Buck Shaw Stadium at Santa Clara University.

And a truckload of audio interviews from people like Brandi Chastain, head coach Albertin Montoya, the owners and players like Nicole Barnhart, Rachel Buehler, and Tracy Hamm, are all here.

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This Tuesday is Santana Row’s 7th Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony beginning at 6:30 pm.

Festivities include live music, choirs, carolers, stilt walkers, hot chocolate sampling and activities for children.

The annual (40-foot) Tree Lighting Ceremony will take place at approximately 6:30 pm in Park Valencia; also, the lighting of more than 500,000 twinkling lights throughout Santana Row.

Scheduled on the Celebration Stage on Olin Avenue: San Jose native Katee Shean (So You Think You Can Dance), The Nutcracker performed by The Joy of Dancing, also a sneak peek of San Jose Repertory Theatre’s holiday production Around the World in 80 Days.

Santana Row
368 Santana Row, San Jose

Tuesday, November 18, 2008
6:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Free event

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A Healthy Day

In a store the other day, a nice man asked me about my medical bracelet. He wondered why some people wore them.  When I told him, he quickly understood, and told me about his Grandmother who had her legs amputated due to her Diabetes condition. 

I’ll bet that you know someone affected with Diabetes. If you don’t, well here I am, you know me. I have Type 1 Diabetes,  I was diagnosed in 2004 at the age of 36.   I fought some kind of weird illness in 2003, later the doctors told me it was a virus, that ultimately shut down my pancreas.  Apparently I had the inactive gene all my life, and this funky virus activated it. So there you go, long and troubled story short, I am Diabetic now, and will be forever.  I have made the best of it, and in the long run it has taught me to live healthy, happier and be more aware of life around me. 

Tomorrow, Nov. 14, is World Diabetes Day.  It is a day to reflect and understand what this disease is all about.  To help the person you know, or even don’t know, feel that they are not alone,  just don’t offer us a sugar laden dessert or beverage.   Awareness, understanding and a little knowledge is all that we can ask.  In honor of the day, the simplest thing you can do is wear your favorite Blue shirt.  

    To commemorate American Diabetes Month, cities around the world will light buildings blue on November 14, 2008 for World Diabetes Day. This year’s festivities to light San Jose City Hall blue was spearheaded by the American Diabetes Association in collaboration with Healthy Silicon Valley, and Youth Health Advocates of Gilroy.

Join Us for World Diabetes Day at City Hall in downtown San Jose!  On Friday, November 14, the world will light up the skyline with blue light for diabetes awareness in honor of World Diabetes Day!    

Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases to affect children. Every day more than 200 children are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  Many children in developing countries die shortly after being diagnosed with diabetes simply because they either do not have access or cannot afford insulin, the life saving drug discovered over 87 years ago.  A child’s access to appropriate medication and care should be a right not a privilege.

Join the 100 Youth Health Advocates and local dignitaries for a proclamation, presentations and for the lighting of the City Hall Rotunda in blue at dusk.  Here are the details:

San Jose City Hall

200 E Santa Clara St, San Jose, CA 95113

Friday, November 14, 2008

4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Nearly 24 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes, including 500,000 in the Bay Area. Moreover, diabetes can cause severe complications that lead to kidney failure, blindness, amputations, and heart disease. In contrast to declining death rates due to heart disease, stroke, or cancer, the death rate due to diabetes has increased by 45% since 1987. 

Along with San Francisco City Hall and San Jose City Hall, 740 buildings will be lit in blue globally, including the London Eye, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building in New York, the Tokyo Tower in Japan, the CN Tower in Toronto, Niagara Falls, the Sydney Opera House, the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai, the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. 

For more information about World Diabetes Day please contact Richard Alejandro, Executive Director, San Jose, American Diabetes Association.  In addition, if you would like to find out more information about American Diabetes Month, please call 1-888-DIABETES (1-888-342-2383) Information is available in English and Spanish.

American Diabetes Association - There is no cure, only help. Thank you.

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The soccer season has been over for a few weeks now, and I’ve been meaning to hammer out a long post for even longer. But there’s a couple of headlines that have popped up recently in the off-season news roundups at the Merc, at the Quakes’ official site, and also over with our friends at Center Line Soccer. So I’ll give the Readers’ Digest version:

• Our fabulous new friend Darren Huckerby has been named Major League Soccer’s Newcomer of the Year. That’s because he is awesome.
• The Tottenham Hotspurs, an English Premiership League team, recently announced a partnership with the Quakes in which the Spurs get to help develop the untapped and massive youth soccer talent pool here in NorCal, and the Quakes get to stare slack-jawed at the mighty EPL team and learn via osmosis. There’s a bit of confusion, however, because many of the Hotspurs top-tier dealmakers have been sacked. No real word on exactly how that affects the agreement.
• MLS Cup playoffs kick off tomorrow night as the Chicago Fire faces the Columbus Crew, and Real Salt Lake squares off against the New York Red Bulls. It all starts 7:30 pm Eastern on ESPN2. I anticipate my payola from ESPN2 any day now.
• Ian over at The Offsides recapped the top 5 Quakes games this season. I missed one of those games, but thank God I didn’t miss the game listed as No. 1. It was truly spectacular.
• I attended a charity dinner the night before our 2-0 trouncing of Toronto FC in our season finale. I got to meet several players. I have pictures. I am waiting for some lazy bums to send me theirs. Then I will post like a mad fangirl.

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Found this in my inbox, from the San Jose Downtowner newsletter:

Downtown Ice is set to open at 5 p.m. Friday.  Come early and have a chance to show your skating prowess to the Bay Area.  Weather permitting, NBC’ Bay Area’s John Farley will be at the rink doing live weather reports during the 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts.

On Sunday and again Nov. 23, you can skate with the hardest working fish in the NHL - Sharkie!  He will skate with the kids, help inexperienced skaters, and play around with the others. He will also have photo cards to sign. He’ll be there both Sundays about 3:30 p.m. for an hour.

Next Monday-Thursday, and again Nov. 24-27, families can take advantage of the early bird promotion.  That is, one free child admission (12-under, a $13 value) with one paid adult admission ($15).  Download the coupon here. Limit: two free kids with two paid adults per coupon.

Downtown Ice is open 5 p.m.-midnight Friday; noon-midnight Saturday, noon-10 p.m. Sunday and 5-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday.

Admission, $15 for adults and $13 for 12-under, includes skate rental.
Rink information is available here.

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The Cassini spacecraft has just entered its fifth year exploring the planet Saturn, its rings, and its large family of moons, including Titan.

This Wednesday astronomer Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute will give a non-technical, illustrated talk on Saturn’s Restless Rings: Latest Results from the Cassini Mission.

The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft launched on October 15, 1997 began its 7-year journey to Saturn arriving on July 1, 2004.

The Cassini-Huygens program is an international cooperative effort involving NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian space agency, as well as several separate European academic and industrial contributors.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is the first to explore the Saturn system of rings and moons from orbit. The European Space Agency’s Huygens Probe landed on Titan in January 2005. Instruments on both spacecraft are providing scientists with vital data and the best views ever.

Cassini has been making numerous orbits of Saturn, flybys of Titan along with flybys of some of the other moons.

Saturn’s rings, believed to be made of pieces of shattered moons, comets and asteroids, are the most extensive and complex ring system in our solar system, extending hundreds of thousands of miles from the planet.

Dr. Mark Showalter, whose research focuses primarily on ring-moon systems, will share some of the pictures from Saturn and take a close-up look at the “lord of the rings.”

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick theatre.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, November 12
7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

650-949-7888

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Tuesday, November 11, is Veterans Day; there will be a memorial ceremony and a parade in downtown San Jose.

The Parade‘s Opening Ceremony begins at 11:00 am with a memorial ceremony at Plaza Cesar de Chavez.

The Parade begins at noon from Delmas Street (near HP Pavilion) and travels east along Santa Clara to Market Street. The Parade then proceeds south on Market and ends at San Carlos Street; the reviewing stand is near Park Street.

Major General William H. Wade II of the California National Guard is this year’s Grand Marshal.

The United Veterans Council of Santa Clara County organizes the parade.

From the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Website where you will find a plethora of information:

World War I - known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

Since then, our main conflicts have been Word War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.

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The former residential neighborhood of College Park was mostly demolished to clear approach paths to SJC. Photo by Avi Morgan

What’s now the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens, just west of Highway 87 and south of the airport, was formerly a neighborhood of middle-class homes. When the expanding airport required clearance for its approach paths, the residents of College Park were forced out of their homes, and entire blocks were razed. Avi Morgan’s photos document the current state of the neighborhood where he grew up. Many of Morgan’s photos are accompanied by poignant commentary on his personal history in the neighborhood, and the loss of historical connections as the San Jose area evolved into Silicon Valley.

Morgan isn’t only interested in College Park. His photographic and historical interest covers the rest of downtown San Jose, and other areas of the Bay Area. For example, he has photos from IBM’s abandoned building 25 and threatened downtown buildings.

If you’re a San Jose newcomer like me, maybe a part of the corporate culture that dominates Silicon Valley, take a tour through Morgan’s photostream to gain an appreciation of how the area has changed. If you’re a native, Morgan’s photos should remind you of some of your own history.

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I knew the campus was going to explode Tuesday night. And that’s where I wanted to be. I wanted to see for myself the reaction of such a historical moment in the faces of the young voters that helped make it happen. So when I heard the television announce Obama’s win, I grabbed my keys and jumped into the car, barreling towards the San Jose State campus.

It seems that I had just missed the celebration near the Tommie Smith and John Carlos statue. According to the Spartan Daily, about 150 students spontaneously gathered around the iconic statue screaming their heads off.

I also found this clip from CNN’s iReport (some language NSFW). You can see just how pitch black the area around the statue is. This celebration was impromptu, but people knew exactly where they wanted to stand at this moment, right beside two of SJSU’s own black history icons, that total darkness couldn’t keep them away.

I didn’t arrive on the scene until that larger group splintered into pockets of excitement and migrated towards more well-lit areas of campus. Out in the plaza area in front of the dorms, students were hugging, high-fiving and occasionally breaking out into chants of “O-ba-ma!”

I followed a friend into the dorms where a group of about 75-100 students crammed into a meeting room to watch both McCain’s and Obama’s speeches. (See the Spartan Daily’s video here.) The RAs brought in stacks of pizza and it was gone in 20 minutes. People were excited. People were jumping. People were hugging and screaming and accidentally knocking over soda. Some were gasping, some were silent, and some were obviously disappointed at the election results. But everyone seemed to be in agreement on two things: both speeches hit just the right tones, and there was simply not enough pizza.

I walked out of the building only to find some of the more rambunctious students ride a shopping cart down a sloping walkway, thrashing their vocal chords with screams of “OOOOOOBAAAAAMMAAAA!” all the way down. A group of black students beat-boxed and improvised rap lyrics to mark the occasion. Another group hugged every moving thing that passed their way. I could still hear all the commotion on my way back to my car.

Knowing that SJSU couldn’t have been the only celebratory hotspot in the neighborhood, I drove downtown with my windows down and listened out for any whoops and hollers. Some came from an occasional bar or two, some came from bicycle bells ringing, but not a whole lot of outright festivities. So I drove down a little further, turned the corner, and found exactly what I was looking for: a group of about 30 people marching down the streets, chanting, singing, waving to honking cars and celebrating every little bit of feedback sent their way.

I wanted to jump out of my car and take some pictures, but alas, I forgot my camera AND my phone.

So to those of you who were witness to that crowd — or heck, if you have pictures of ANY Election Day revelries/pity parties around the South Bay — please post them in the comments. I and everyone else would love to see them.

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