One reader applies logic to the arguments about Thrive, and another explains why he’s voting for Bob Fultz and not Mark Stone for Assembly in this Tuesday’s primary.
The Beauty of The Very Small Business
Your career path is dead. Save yourself. Such is the underlying premise of Chris Guillebeau’s new book The $100 Startup, a rallying cry to scrappy entrepreneurship.
Yes, job security and pensions have evaporated, but Guillebeau consoles us with the idea that we’re actually in charge. The subtitle says it all: Reinvent the Way You Make A Living, Do What You Love, and Create A New Future.
UC Wants Feedback on Protest Responses
UC–Santa Cruz campus provost Alison Galloway this week asked the campus community to comment on a new report about the handling of student protests on UC campuses.
Two-Way Pacific Plan Moves Forward
In an effort to stimulate business downtown and make Pacific Avenue more navigable, the Downtown Commission voted this morning to proceed with a plan that would turn the majority of Pacific Avenue into a two-way street.
Summer Soaking in the Santa Cruz Mountains
There’s nothing quite like swimming in the redwoods. It’s more liberating than swimming in a normal pool and less unsettling than treading water in the open ocean. There are no Great Whites in the San Lorenzo River, and the biggest risks are getting poison oak on your way there or maybe stubbing your toe. And even at its chilliest, the water is never as cold as the ocean is around these parts.
Summer Movie Preview
Superhero antics, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson and of course the Beach Boardwalk’s free movie night.
A Day at De Laveaga Disc Golf Course
It’s Sunday afternoon, and Asa Maestas, a Soquel High School junior, is standing on a concrete tee at De Laveaga Disc Golf Course’s fourth hole teaching a novice—me—how to play. Maestas instructs me to throw “nip to nip,” demonstrating as he pulls his disc horizontally across his chest and extends it out toward our target, a metal basket that appears to be several light years away.
Doobie Brothers Guitarist Pat Simmons Recalls His Santa Cruz Days
The selection of the Doobie Brothers as this year’s Santa Cruz Blues Festival headliner is an inspired choice, both because of the band’s deep connections to Santa Cruz and because they’re in their fifth decade of commercializing a sound that’s rooted in the blues and American roots music. Ahead of his appearance on the BluesFest stage, guitarist Pat Simmons reminisces about surfing, playing music with Tom Scribner on Pacific Avenue and living on Vine Hill Road.
Scaling Sandstone in the Santa Cruz Mountains
We gather in the parking lot at Castle Rock State Park, six people ranging in age from mid-twenties to mid-forties, here to learn the art and science of rock climbing courtesy Santa Cruz–based Treks and Tracks. Before we set off on the 20-minute hike to the site, our guide Daniel Laggner, who has a shock of curly sun-streaked hair and forearms like Popeye’s, warns us about what may be the greatest actual threat we face all day: poison oak. “Leaves of three, let it be,” he instructs us. Got it.
Sweet Swanton Strawberries at the Farmers Market
These fragrant, succulent strawberries from Swanton Berry Farms are just some of the many indicators of warmer weather and lengthening growing conditions. Our farmers markets are now loaded with strawberries, asparagus—delicious pencil-thin asparagus this week from Hog Farms—young red onions with long slender leaves, broccolini, tiny zucchinis and of course fava beans, the ultimate herald of springtime.
