When Doug Erickson started the Santa Cruz New Tech Meetup in 2008, attendance was generally less than 20 people. Erickson, who lives in Santa Cruz but worked in Silicon Valley, says he had to beg his friends to attend. But he kept at it, driven by the desire to connect with tech people locally. “I…
UCSC's Hackathon is Out to Fix the World
I’m LOLing during my phone interview with Mark Adams, the UCSC senior responsible for creating the university’s first ever hackathon—a 30-hour sprint of coding and developing in which 150 students will team up to create new mobile apps and web programs from scratch. UCSC’s Hackathon, called HACK UCSC, is unique in that it will bring…
Letters to the Editor, March 26 – April 1
Give Credit Re: “Big Empty” (<a href="https://www.santacruz.com/articles/what_happened_to_the_e-c-_rittenhouse_building.html): Regarding your recent cover and article on the Rittenhouse Building, I would like to add some details that I feel were barely discussed in your article. First, Louis Rittenhouse has been extraordinarily generous to many, many nonprofit organizations and artists. I feel he has been extremely generous in…
Secret's Out About Sentinel Café
Lauren Bates-Rodriguez likes shopping at the farmers market to buy salad and soup ingredients for the Sentinel Café, where she’s worked for over a year. Located in the Cruzioworks building, the coffee shop also has pastries from Kelly’s Bakery, bagels from the Bagelry and coffee from Verve. SCW: What kinds of people come by here?…
Felton Gets a New Brew Spot
A vintage 19th-century hotel in Felton will soon find a new batch of patrons thanks to Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing‘s Emily Thomas, who is teaming with SLV New Leaf entrepreneur Bob Locatelli on The Cremer House project. The partners plan to transform the former 1880s lumberjack boardinghouse into a purveyor of craft brews wrapped around…
Preview: Leo Kottke at the Rio
Leo Kottke sits down with an acoustic guitar—likely one of his trademark Taylors—as the uproarious applause of the full theater before him quiets. He launches into “William Powell,” plucking and hammering away furiously at an open E chord for about four bars. Then he takes a breath and stops. “That’s a little fast. I’m going…
Should E-Cigarettes Be Banned?
“Secondhand smoke kills.” We’ve all heard it, and it’s been used as justification for <a href="https://www.santacruz.com/articles/smoking_ban_enacted_in_santa_cruz.html great and small—in bars, on campuses and throughout cities. At this point, most can agree that it is not fair for nonsmokers to have to suffer the negative health effects caused by cigarette smoke. But new rounds of smoking…
McCoy Tyler Band Shakes Up Local Scene
The McCoy Tyler Band has dressed up to play the Freedom Rotary Club’s 30th anniversary party. Drummer Clinton Brown threw on a dress shirt, and upright bassist Chad Bowen, the trio’s self-described “recovering jam band fanatic,” put his long hair in a ponytail with a rubber band he borrowed from the raffle table. The Santa…
Letters to the Editor, March 19-25
‘Nobody Made This Up’ Re: “Deep Web” (Currents, March 12): I am writing because I believe I am one of the few people who knows the truth about all this. I have been aware of the facebook profiles Tim created since December of 2012. I was concerned about them because after he created the, he…
West End Tap’s Unusual Influences
Geoff Hargrave, a Texas-raised chef, knows there’s beer for every occasion. “When it’s hot outside, I love a Kolsh,” says Hargrave, chef and co-owner at West End Tap. “When it’s cold outside, I prefer a porter.” The eight-month-old restaurant in the Swift Street courtyard sits in the former site of Le Cigare Volant, and will…
