Back in January of 2008 I put up a post on a then new consignment shop called Tozeero located at 1040 Park Ave. Now there is a new kid on the block. Joanne Perez has opened a cool shop of her own called Time Zone Vintage just across the street at 1045 Park Ave.

Perez has put together a vendor block sale featuring vintage collectibles.

Saturday, June 27th
10 AM to 3 PM
1045 and 1040 Park Ave.

Megan McArthur

Megan McArthur, a Silicon Valley native who graduated from St. Francis High School in Mountain View in 1989, will be making her first spaceflight She is one of seven astronauts picked to fly in an 11-day mission to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. Atlantis (STS-125) Hubble Servicing Mission scheduled to launch Monday May 11 at 11:01 am.

McArthur’s parents currently live in San Jose, and she considers California her home state, although she was born in Hawaii. She has a doctorate in oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego.

For the Hubble mission she will be responsible for the robotic arm operations during the capture and release of Hubble, as well as during the spacewalks and Atlantis’ heat shield inspections. She also will serve as the flight engineer, assisting on the flight deck during ascent and landing.

Atlantis’ 11-day mission will include five spacewalks to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope with state-of-the-art science instruments, expanding the telescope’s capabilities and extending its lifetime through at least 2014.

Refurbishing and restoring will include installing new Battery Module Units, new Rate Sensor Units, New Outer Blanket Layer material, an upgraded Fine Guidance Sensor, Advanced Camera for Surveys, Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, along with upgrading the Wide Field Camera and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. Now you know.

Identifying the Spacewalkers:
John Grunsfeld – Solid red stripes
Drew Feustel – No markings (solid white suit)
Mike Massimino – Broken horizontal red stripes
Michael Good – Diagonal red stripes (barber pole)

Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4 – STS-125
Launch: May 11 – 11:01 am PDT
Landing: May 22 – 8:41 am PDT

Follow the mission on NASA TV, Twitter, and other Social Networking Sites

San Diego, the second largest city in California and the eighth largest city in the United States, has joined the Metroblogging network of city-specific blogs,

San Diego is the 57th Metblogs city and the sixth in California.

When I think of San Diego, the world famous Zoo first comes to mind. Also in the area are Seaworld, Wild Animal Park and Legoland!

You want museums. Balboa Park has four popular museums. The Columbia district has historic ship exhibits as well as the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum.

As with any large city there is the symphony, opera, plays, musicals, art galleries, the whole nine-yards.

Of course, everyone and their puppy heads down to San Diego for Comic-Con.

Please welcome San Diego Metblogs.

It has been almost two years since we posted about the 2-1-1 services.

The free 2-1-1 services connect you to various information including support groups, drug treatment, elderly needs, homework help along with how to volunteer or provide assists during a crisis. The service is available in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Mandarin, and 140 other languages, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The call is confidential.

Now, along with dialing 2-1-1 you may access the information online through their website’s online database. You may search the database or drilldown within topics.

The United Way reports that from September 1 to November 30, 2008, calls to the 2-1-1 Santa Clara County information and referral service seeking food increased by 58 percent over the same period last year. Requests for housing jumped 22 percent.

Information available online or by dialing 2-1-1 include:

Clothing, Food, Personal Goods and Services
Disaster Planning, Response and Recovery
Drug and Alcohol Treatment
Education and Training
Employment Services and Financial Assistance
Family, Individual and Community Services
Health, Fitness and Environmental Services
Housing, Shelter and Transportation
Legal, Immigration and Criminal Services
Mental Health and Counseling Services
Self Help Groups and Services
Senior and Disability Services

To access the 2-1-1 database along with more information about the service and United Way’s involvement, check here.

If 2-1-1 is unavailable via your service provider: 866.896.3587

TTY dial: 866.390.6845

The 2-1-1 services are available throughout the Bay Area.

You remember KFRC. It is that station roaming the radio dial looking for a home. Well, it has found a new home again at 1550 on the AM dial.

Now KYOU (KYCY) is without a home. For those of you at home keeping score, KYOU was the “podcasts” station at 1550.

KFRC is not coming back with Dave Sholin, Celeste Perry, and the other on-air personalities. Nope, this time it will be canned programming. One of the reasons for listening to KFRC over the years was the local programming and personalities. Local news updates are provided by KCBS with music programming from True Oldies Channel, which claims to have an extensive play list.

You probably cannot even receive the weak signal station here in the South Bay. They have been streaming the classic hits format at KFRC.com and on KFRC-HD2 (106.9-2 FM) and will continue to do so.

With advertising dollars moving to the Internet and with the economic downturn CBS Radio may feel an oldies format will give them a rating that is a smidgen higher than the podcasts format.

Now, go get that old cat’s whisker radio out…

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!

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.

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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.

After you vote Tuesday, head on over to Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, and Ben & Jerry’s for your free goodies!

At Starbucks tell the barista you voted and receive a free tall (12 oz) cup of brewed coffee.

If there is a Krispy Kreme in your area, take your coffee with you to pick up your free star-shaped doughnut.

In the evening between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm head on over to Ben & Jerry’s for a free scoop of ice cream.

Limit one per customer at all of the establishments mentioned (participating locations).

California Elections Code section 18521 (b) prohibits rewarding people for voting or not voting. The law was created to prevent any form of bribery for voting (or not voting) through free food, gifts, loans, or money. Thus, you need not prove you voted to receive the free item.

Starbucks locations: where isn’t there a Starbucks.

Ben & Jerry’s locations, check here.

Krispy Kreme locations:

Mountain View
2146 Leghorn Street, 94043
650-254-1231

Union City
32450 Dyer Street, 94587
510-471-6121

Pinole
1441 Fitzgerald Drive, 94564
510-262-6590

Daly City
1575 Sullivan Ave., 94015
650-985-5612

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission which operates the 511 service has added a new feature “511 Freeway Aid” that allows drivers to use their wireless phones to summon non-emergency roadside assistance on any freeway in the nine-county region.

A motorist in a non-emergency situation (out of gas, flat tire or mechanical problems) can dial 5-1-1 on their wireless phone (you may be charged airtime by your wireless service provider). At the main menu, the caller says “Freeway Aid” and the voice-recognition system will transfer the call to the privately operated call center that now handles incoming calls from the roadside call boxes.

Freeway Service Patrol tow trucks, which provide their services free of charge, will be dispatched to respond to 511 Freeway Aid calls during peak periods on the Bay Area’s busiest routes. Towing companies that operate on rotations under contract with Caltrans and the CHP will be dispatched at other times and will charge motorists for their services. You may wish to inquirer if there will be a charge.

If you are on a toll bridge or in a tunnel, the information will be sent immediately to Caltrans and/or the CHP.

You will no longer have to hike to one of those roadside call boxes.

The MTC nine-county regions: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma.

“511 is a free phone and Web service that consolidates Bay Area transportation information into a one-stop resource. 511 provides up-to-the-minute information on traffic conditions, incidents and driving times, schedule, route and fare information for the Bay Area’s public transportation services, instant carpool and vanpool referrals, bicycling information and more. It’s available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”