Author: CoolDMZ

"X-ray vision to see in between / Where's my kimono and my time machine?"

New walkways for rail station open Monday

Construction on the new tunnel. From City of Sacramento

As part of the Railyards project the Amtrak lines have been relocated and starting Monday, passengers will have to walk through a partially covered walkway and through a tunnel to reach the new platforms.

The Bee’s Tony Bizjak includes a quote from “city officials” citing that the walk will be “similar to those at many larger train stations around the country.” The only larger train station I have seen is Union Station in LA but I don’t recall a walk this large. Does anyone with experience know if this statement holds water?

Sac Library has LHS kids’ science kits with free passes

With school around the corner you may be looking for fun science projects to do with the kids, either to supplement the science/tech curriculum or to actually have one. Obviously the Sacramento Public Library is a great place to start, and its offering got even better recently with the addition of these “Check Out Science” kits from Lawrence Hall of Science.

Each kit includes a “Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading” book, a full activity notecard, and a “Check Out Science” observation notebook that is your child’s to keep. And another awesome thing about these kits is that they come with one free kids’ pass to Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science. Continue reading “Sac Library has LHS kids’ science kits with free passes”

McKinley Park Playground rebuild begins


from the City of Sacramento web site

The bad news over the weekend of an arsonist (allegedly) destroying the playground at McKinley park is giving way to hopeful news of fundraising already beginning on a replacement. City Council member Steve Cohn has established a charity fund, and Sac Press’s Melissa Corker has details on how you can help contribute. Continue reading “McKinley Park Playground rebuild begins”

Shaq Thompson is 0-32 as a pro baseball player UPDATED: 0-39

Shaq Thompson, the Grant High School football star headed to Washington in the fall to play big time college football, is playing professional baseball this summer as an outfielder for the Gulf Coast League Red Sox. How is he doing so far? Epic fail. Thompson is 0-32 with 31 strikeouts. Yes, that’s correct: 31 strikeouts and 1 infield grounder (which produced an RBI, however).

I’m with Bleacher Report’s Michael Felder on this. I think it’s awesome that Thompson is playing pro baseball, and the maturity and humility he’ll gain from this will serve him well when he is playing D-1 football. Let’s all root for Shaq to break out of his slump!

UPDATED 7/30: The long national nightmare is over; Shaq is reporting for Pac-12 football on Thursday. His minor league career ends at 0-39 with 37 strikeouts. There’s nowhere to go but up!

KJ’s Arena “Plan C”: Major League Baseball?

With potential arena operator AEG backing out of any future arena plan that did not include a major tenant, local news is reporting that Mayor KJ and his “Think Big” group are planning to pursue Major League Baseball. Specifically, it appears the Mayor is planning to seek the Oakland Athletics franchise. (Apparently the group doesn’t “Think Big” about hypocrisy.)

As this is still a town that was too dysfunctional to acquire a Minor League team, losing the River Cats to West Sac, I don’t know how they can promote this with a straight face. I think forcing the River Cats out of Raley Field would be a colossal mistake even if Sacto could support an MLB franchise, a question to which everyone except apparently the Mayor and the people advising him knows the answer: No it can’t.

But even as the arena negotiations were falling apart the Mayor had no problem getting reelected. So don’t expect the pro sports silliness to cease anytime soon.

Bleacher Report-er: Kings will make 2013 Playoffs

Thomas Robinson, courtesy of nba.com

Matthew Schmidt, checking in for Bleacher Report, makes the case that the Kings will be able to contend for the 8th playoff spot in the Western Conference in 2013. His ambitious claim is based on a prediction that Cousins will continue his rise and give us a 20 and 12 season, and that the backcourt of Evans/Thornton/Thomas will also improve their play. He barely takes Thomas Robinson into account.

Personally I don’t think he’s that far off. Cousins and Thomas are really exciting, and adding Evans and Thornton almost makes up for the lack of a true small forward.

What do you think, is the future looking bright for the Kings? More importantly: would it only serve to make them a better investment for another city?

Cheap kids movies this summer!

Every year I forget to mention the great deals on kids movies at Regal Theaters. In the last few weeks it has not been hot enough to make being indoors in the late morning into much of a thing, but it appears the heat is coming at last, so taking a matinee movie suddenly sounds appealing.

Most of the Regal theaters in the area, including the screens at Market Square and Natomas Marketplace (a great place to see a movie, if you don’t go mad from the parking), have a selection of family movies for $1 every Tuesday and Wednesday. The always crystal clear “portion of proceeds” goes to the Will Rogers Institute.

Continue reading “Cheap kids movies this summer!”

Crazy River Cats fan leaves epic voicemail about Manny Ramirez’s hair

Sports blog Deadspin posted this awesome recording left by a disgruntled River Cats fan and “viewer of television” with some issues about Manny’s dreadlocks–namely that they are the harbingers of the apocalypse, responsible for everything wrong with society. She is extremely concerned about dreadlock-caused blindness, and thinks that mandated short hair would reduce the instances of performance enhancing drugs: “If they have to act clean-cut, maybe they will be clean-cut.” It’s long and she repeats herself several times, but it’s worth a listen.

I think this goes here.

McClatchy Library getting more space! (By getting rid of books)

Yeah, it doesn’t look like this anymore.

The Sacramento Public Library branches are all closed today for staff furloughs, which is tough when the hours are already pretty terrible. Trying to find a branch open near you after business hours is like trying to find swim trunks once Summer has already started (amirite?). Wednesday night, though, the family and I visited McClatchy Library, the only central city branch open past business hours on that day.

At the moment the branch looks less like a library and more like the house of a book-loving couple (with a really pretty house). The pleasantly (IMHO) cramped quarters are less cramped these days, because almost all the books are stored on wall shelves with only 2 freestanding shelves. We saw an excited young patron park her bike out back, stroll through the branch for about 10 seconds before storming out, muttering something like “Not even worth it!”. Continue reading “McClatchy Library getting more space! (By getting rid of books)”

Isleton’s tenuous grip on civilization

Isleton, CA’s tenuous grip on civilization

The Sac Bee front page article on Isleton’s problems and the man who’s been hired to clean them up would be hilarious if it was not so sad. Scratch that, it’s just plain hilarious:

“The police force no longer exists, again, and one of its five patrol cars is covered in spider webs behind City Hall because someone put sugar in the gas tank.” Continue reading “Isleton’s tenuous grip on civilization”