..when the fair weather parkway users dust off their bikes and baby joggers to hit our region’s treasures out in nature.

The American River Parkway is the most popular place in the area for all ages and fitness levels to get the blood pumping. If you’re unfamiliar with the rules and customs, please check out Tony Bizjak’s column today.

Here are the basics:

Continue reading “It’s that time of the year again..” »

Tonight at 7:05 the River Cats take the field of Raley for the 2008 season home opener against the hated Las Vegas 51s. The Cats have won 3 straight behind solid hitting, and Dan Meyer looks to get a win in his first start tonight. I’ll be there and will post photos. There is a scheduled non-virtual meetup with Nick Miller who is doing gonzo blogging at River Chat and wrote this great feature on the Cats for SNR.

In preparation you should check the roster because it’s quite different from last year’s. Go Cats!

From a recent Kevin Johnson for Mayor campaign email, listing the recent activities of the campaign:

3. Thought you knew everything there was to know about “The Dunk”, Kevin’s infamous thunder-dunk on NBA Hall-of-Fame center Hakeem Olajuwon — one of the most famous NBA clips of all time? Think again, and check out an amazing video where Kevin tells — in his own words — how it really went down…see the “Recent Videos” section at our homepage www.kevinjohnsonformayor.com, or email this link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kidpegzfFc) to your friends.

As always, from The Simpsons, “Brother’s Little Helper“:

Bart: But why, Mr McGwire?
Mark McGwire: Do you want to know the terrifying truth? Or do you want to see me sock a few dingers!
Everyone: Dingers! Dingers!
(Mark McGwire socks a dinger, and as everyone looks at the dinger, he takes the info from the satellite.)
Mark McGwire: Yoink.

Do you want a mayor who talks boring tax stuff? Or do you want a mayor who can dunk over Hakeem freakin Olajuwon??!! You decide, Sacramento…

Tomorrow, the CIF will bring the best high school basketball teams from Northern California to Arco Arena for the NorCal championship games. Next weekend, the NorCal champs will face the SoCal winners in the finals. The Sac-Joaquin Section boasts several teams that have a shot at the state championship, so let’s get pumped and show some support! Woo!

In Division 1, Kennedy has the #2 raked girls team in NorCal. They will face #1 ranked Berkeley High in the semi-finals to see who will face the SoCal champion.

In Division 2 girls, #1 St. Francis will face #6 Archbishop Mitty.

The game of the year is definitely the Division 3 girls semi-final, with the only two undefeated teams in California vying for the NorCal title. #2 St. Mary’s of Stockton (GO RAMS!!!!!) will face #1 Sacred Heart Cathedral (SF).

The Division 3 boys match features a battle of the upsetting underdogs, with #7 Sacramento High battling #6 Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Best of luck to all of our local teams!

The News & Review’s Cosmo Garvin is reporting that Kevin Johnson is rumored to be considering a run for mayor and could announce his candidacy as early as tomorrow (I think; SNR says “Friday, January 24″). Garvin of course brings up the Bee’s report last fall about citations at KJ’s Oak Park properties. I wonder how Mayor Fargo will deal with that.

P.S. Thanks to FFT for posting it

According to the AP, local (Woodland) product Dustin Pedroia has won the American League Rookie of the Year award.  Voting wasn’t even close, with the Red Sox second baseman getting 24 of 28 first place votes.  It’s a nice trophy to put on his mantle next to his World Series championship ring, but I’m sure the biggest accolade he could hope for is a RIGHT AWN! from the ‘Rag.

So here’s to Dustin Pedroia- RIGHT AWN!

In our ever-diligent pursuit to keep you well informed about the stuff that we, The Sac Rag board of directors, are planning to do with our down time, and consequently what you, The Sac Rag Readers, should think about doing with your down time since we, The Sac Rag board of directors, are screwed in to the local scene like a CFL bulb (since we respect a flex alert too), we bring you another edition of “Watcha’ Doing This Weekend?” In this edition we talk about college football, comedy, outdoor sports, the parting of a local celebrity, and cheese. Continue reading “Watcha’ Doing This Weekend?” »

Have y’all seen KCRA promoting “our new site, highschoolplaybook.com”? And have you also seen the commercial on KCRA for highschoolplaybook.com, clearly indicating that our region is just one of the communities featured on the site. (That commercial, by the way, is very confusing … the young gal is interviewing the football star, and then suddenly the sound goes out on them? implying to me that they are falling in wuv, but without that classical music snippet that they play when people are in wuv, you know the one. I assume it was written by Mozart.)

I assumed it was one of those mistakes about computers that old people make, like saying “how can I download the internet.” It made me wonder why they didn’t promote their new video feature a few months back as “our new online video site, YouTube.com”…

However, it took the wind out of my sails when I saw that the site is actually a property of Hearst-Argyle Television. Abort snark!!

Dogs were executed
by hanging, drowning,
and crushing

Can anybody tell me what Martin McNeal is attempting to say in today’s piece about Michael Vick? He talks a lot about the “race card” and how it doesn’t really exist. I haven’t really been paying much attention to the media coverage of this scandal. It seems like he’s trying to say that the Bonds home run chase and the Vick scandal point out that black and white people think differently, but I don’t understand what specifically he means. Are people saying that Vick is being unfairly prosecuted? And what exactly does Barry Bonds, who probably rubbed cream on his butt to make his muscles bigger, have to do with Michael Vick, who probably allowed his friends to torture animals and made money off it? I’ll assume they belong in the same sentence only because the scandals are “dropping” in the same calendar season.

Also, in his conclusion about war, is he saying that American soldiers or Iraqi citizens are equivalent to dogs? One or the other.

The Mrs. and I haven’t been riding our bikes much this summer. Ok, to be honest we haven’t ridden our bikes at all this summer. Mainly because they’ve been stuck in the back of the garage since the move and all the tires were flat. So, any thought of a bike ride first started with the concept of attacking a Jenga-like mound of garage detritus, then pumping up the tires (only to find that the tires had leaks, in all probability), and then giving up out of sheer desperation. This was, until last week. With a free weekend day, we attacked the garage, pulled out the dormant velos and piled them onto the car so they could be examined by professionals.

For no other reason than proximity, we schlepped the units over to Carmichael Cycle on the corner of Arden and Fair Oaks Blvd. Contrary to previous raggers’ general cyclery experiences, our transaction at this bike shop was great. The staff was extremely friendly, knowledgeable, and didn’t look down on us at all for not wearing tight shorts with gel inserts. By the time our repair jobs were finished on our three separate bikes the bill came to a only a modest amount. On the way out, the staff helped us load the bikes back onto the car and told us in parting, that we had the “coolest bikes ever.” Sure, he says that to all the people not wearing gel shorts, but it gave us the warm fuzzies anyway.

Carmichael Cycle, 5141 Arden Way, Carmichael- Highly Recommended