| Boarder slapped with hefty fine for sidewalk skating
HAYWARD Mason Francouer would have had to be driving a car pretty fast to earn the kind of ticket he picked up last fall for riding through downtown on a skateboard. The 17-year-old's first brush with the law happened after school one day. He was rolling down a B Street sidewalk when a police officer on a bicycle pulled him over and fined him $560. "I was going like 3 miles an hour and, I don't know, I got a ticket. It was kind of lame," said Francouer, a shaggy-haired high school senior who has been plying downtown on wheels since seventh grade. His parents were infuriated by the ticket, and his father, electrician David Francouer, took several hours off work to join his son in court. "We just thought it was kind of bogus," the teen said. "I don't mess up the sidewalk.
Google vs. Evil
We didn't want to do anything rash," Brin says. "The situation over there is more complex than I had imagined." Four days later, Chinese authorities restored access to the site. How did that happen? For starters, the Chinese government was deluged with outcries from the nation's 46 million Internet users when access to Google was cut off. "Internet users in China are an apolitical crowd," says Xiao Qiang, executive director of New York-based Human Rights In China. "They tend to be people who are doing well, and they don't usually voice strong views. But this stepped into their digital freedom." The quick workaround: Chinese authorities tweaked the national firewall, making the new Google China different from the site that was turned off. Today, Chinese who use Google to search on terms like "falun gong" or "human rights in china" receive a standard-looking results page.
Gable Oaks violence | Austin: Security is owner’s obligation
Austin said he is trying to arrange a meeting Friday with representatives of Gable Oaks owner, Transom Development, to discuss security at the complex, which was the scene of a shooting at about 8 p.m. Sunday that left a 19-year-old man dead and a 22-year-old man critically injured. Meanwhile, two city officers are regularly patrolling the Colleton Street complex off North Main Street 24 hours a day to "establish some sense of calm and stability," he said. "Residents at this point are feeling uneasy," he said. Mary Myers, president of the Gable Oaks tenants' association, said Tuesday she supports Austin's position "100 percent." "I understand (the owners) don't want to spend money, but they're getting all this money," she said. Efforts Tuesday to reach representatives of The Beach Co.
May be 'winter of discontent' for Royal Gorge
Back before Lakes Serena and Dulzura at Donner Summit were a twinkle in an early subdivider/developer's eye, they wore the much more prosaic name of Ice Lakes. True to form, every winter they obligingly iced over. For a brief time, a commercial ice-harvesting operation was carried out on the Ice Lakes. These lakes still freeze pretty solid. In colder years, before heavy snowfalls, they support ice skating and winter frolicking - think of a picture painted by Brueghel or a Currier and Ives print.
How solid do Serena and Dulzura freeze? This year, the Sierra Lakes County Water District directed employees to study the depth of freeze, and recent ice core samples have shown that at the channel between the lakes, it's frozen solid. The channel is 412 feet deep, so that's 412 feet of hard, solid ice.
Master Naturalists Hear Call of the Great Outdoors
Volunteer opportunities include helping at nature centers and parks, at plantings or in one of the many wildlife projects we do, he said. Just to name a few, were helping reforest the Bahia Grande, weve revegetated Ramsey Park in Harlingen with over 3,000 native plants, and we play an important role in taking sea turtle eggs to a coastal laboratory and releasing them into the water when they hatch. Mattei said the possibilities to explore and help nurture the great outdoors are endless. We do so much that the prospects for interacting with nature are as numerous as they are satisfying, she said. Jointly sponsored by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service and Texas Parks and Wildlife, the Texas Master Naturalist program begins with a 40-hour training course that includes classes and field trips.
Micro management
The entrepreneur, president of Sid Wainer & Son, which ships produce to chefs all over the world, wanted to be able to meet the demands of his customers. The scene inside the greenhouse is as verdant as late spring. And everything is miniature. Herbs like epazote, used in Mexican cooking, and aromatic lemon thyme will grow to about 2 inches high before being clipped, washed, and packaged. Pea greens will be harvested at 5 to 6 inches. By the next day, these darlings of trendy menus - they can cost $20 for an 8-ounce container - will be on restaurant tables. Chefs will create salads, garnish a fish course, even add a sprig or two to a dish of sorbet. The winter harvest in this and in two other Wainer greenhouses is colorful. The tiniest African blue basil is growing, along with other doll-sized plants: chervil, popcorn shoots, carrot greens, shungiku, peppercress, golden beets, arugula, and red shisho.
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