I have a few new posts already drafted and have spent the past couple months putting together new ideas for posts that will be interesting for the readers. Thanks again for your support and I look forward to getting some new posts up in the weeks to come.

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THANK YOU!

Starting from basically nothing but the desire to write about the City of Concord and the surrounding area, we have made this site grow larger than I would have ever expected. I was even approached by a company that wanted to buy the rights to the site. I turned it down for several reasons but mainly because I wanted to see what happened if I kept this up. I couldn’t have done it without the readers and people who shared my stories with their friends.

Bay Area News Twitter

The Bay Area News Concord Blogger) Twitter profile is busting at the seams and is close to matching the following of CBS5.  For the most part the Mayor of Concord Twitter profile is used to share news about the area from multiple sources as well as new blog posts. In the next year, I plan on being a lot more interactive with people and maybe running some special Twitter only contests.

Mayor of Concord RSS Feed

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

It had been a while since I checked in at Feedburner to see what my RSS readership was like. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I have 971 (from date of post) people subscribed to my news feed. I was so impressed that I added the little chicklet under the RSS link in the sidebar just to show it off. There are some really cool things I can do with the Feedburner feed like free offers and special promotions and now that I know there are a large number of people subscribed I will start implementing them.

Bursts of New Traffic

In October I requested that my blog be syndicated by some mainstream news sources. After a few emails back and forth, the company agreed and my headlines were being fed into major news sites like Reuters and Chicago Sun Times. Since my headlines are mixed in with other headlines from blogs all over the US, it wasn’t expected to be a huge form of traffic for the site but over the past year I have been very fortunate to be placed in over 100,000 related news stories across the United States.

Local Advertising

I wasn’t sure what would come of my request for local advertisers. Once I had a good idea of the numbers I was getting, it made sense to reply to the emails I was getting from small businesses in the area asking for some promotion on my site. This blog is not a revenue source by any stretch of imagination. I think to date I have made a total of about $180. from advertisements on this site. That helps keep the servers running and fuel me with some coffee so I can add more posts.

Great People Read Concord Blogs

I have been very fortunate to meet some of my readers. I’m not a very hard person to track down or get a hold of. My entire life is pretty much online in some form.

I really want to express my appreciation for all of you that read the site, leave comments and send me emails of the stuff you want to know more about. Without you, this blog would have stayed in the shadows of the internet.

Local blogs are a growing trend all across America. People will still get their news from the Contra Costa Times or KTVU but local blogs shed a different light to many stories and highlight news sometimes not covered by mainstream outlets.

Happy 1st Birthday Mayor of Concord

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Taking the Car to the Doctor

My check engine light has been on for about a month. I know what the problem is. I found out when I went in for my last tune up a couple months ago. My catalytic converter was bad and I would need to get a new one. My trusty mechanic explained to me that it would be a little pricey but I could hold off for a bit if I needed to. Since it was time for my SMOG  check too, I made an appointment and brought it in yesterday morning with the expectation it would be worked on. I was told he would run the SMOG and see if it passed or not, if not then he would work on the catalytic converter, since that would be the only reason it would fail. In the end, I expected too much.

I called after lunch for an update and there wasn’t one. “We haven’t had a chance to look at it”. At 4PM I called again and ‘the tests hadn’t come in yet’. (Maybe I was annoying the guy but I just wanted to know what was happening) The mechanic called me around 5:30 and said he had the results. He told me that my catalytic converter needed to be replaced.

I just about fell out of my chair. Was he really calling me to tell me something we both have known for months? I asked if the SMOG was completed, he said they hadn’t even checked. So, they’ve had my car all day and all they have is information we both have known for months. Even better is that the parts have to be delivered and it could be a few days. I’m not happy.

I don’t just drop my car off without notice. I called to make an appointment with the same person I always work with, he understood what I wanted to get fixed. If a part was needed and he knew it had to be ordered, couldn’t we just have made the appointment for a few days from now?!?

Concord Car Repair Recommendation

So, instead of writing about some story in Concord, I’m making a post asking for some help. I want to know what car repair places in the area you use and might want to recommend to me.

I’d prefer a place in Concord but feel free to let me know what repair shops you use in the surrounding area if they are a place you REALLY like to use.

Thanks for the help.

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We can be rich in cotton and mining metals and silkworms and we can makes things, we can make things cars, the machine can make it for us…on the East Coast they have slaves and they believe in slavery and made in China, but on the West Coast, the new West Coast, we don’t believe in that. We believe in the union and that’s what we are.

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A couple things I learned from the last movie contest will come into play with this one. First off, I am not going to say what theater you go to. This contest is open to everyone and anyone can win the tickets.

I am giving away 2 tickets. You can enter to win in a few different places and increase your chances of getting the free movie tickets. Here are the rules.

Chance to win on the blog:

• Leave a comment on THIS post for a chance to win.
• One comment per person.
• Valid email address must be provided. (So I can notify you as a winner)

If you are a follower on Twitter, you can get another chance to win

• Tweet “@concord_blogger I want the free Harry Potter movie tickets“
• Can be entered more than once. Just Retweet again. Dont go crazy. One a day should be fine.
• Must be following @concord_blogger. (So I can DM you when you win)

Tell me you want the tickets on the Mayor of Concord Facebook page. If you are not a fan already you should become one.

• Another chance to win the tickets by writing on the wall.
• Write anything but make it clear you are looking for the tickets and not just saying HI.

There you go. Three places you can enter to win the tickets and other than the blog comments, you can enter multiple times. I will choose the winner on July 10th using the randomize method used last time.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock Voldemort’s defenses and, to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old friend and colleague, the well-connected and unsuspecting bon vivant Professor Horace Slughorn, whom he believes holds crucial information. Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry finds himself more and more drawn to Ginny, but so is Dean Thomas. And Lavender Brown has decided that Ron is the one for her, only she hadn’t counted on Romilda Vane’s chocolates! And then there’s Hermione, simmering with jealously but determined not to show her feelings.

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History of Fathers Day
The idea for creating a day for children to honor their fathers began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father’s Day while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909.

Having been raised by her father, William Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora’s father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father’s Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.

In 1926, a National Father’s Day Committee was formed in New York City. Father’s Day was recognized by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1956. In 1972, President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father’s Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. So Father’s Day was born in memory and gratitude by a daughter who thought that her father and all good fathers should be honored with a special day just like we honor our mothers on Mother’s Day.

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After some chatter back and forth with a few people in the area that were interested, I think we can make a meeting of the minds happen. It won’t be a huge crowd but even if a dozen people show up, it would be worth it just to see everyone. There is so much support for the local blogging community and our area as a whole so getting together to share some stories and get to know eachother sounds like fun.

Because of the little Mayor, I can’t travel too far but the idea of Orinda, Lafayette or the general area would be fine with me. Diablo Magazine shared some interest and I think George aka CCTimes is out at SXSW but I’m finding out.

If your interested in in meeting up, having a few adult beverages and a good time with some other locals, leave me a comment or contact me on Twitter and I’ll be sure to keep everyone in the loop of the details.

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I strongly believe that businesses are what keeps a city strong. You can tell a lot about a city by the number and types of businesses that take up shop there. The problem with that is that many small businesses starting out in a city have a difficult time getting the exposure they need to grow and thrive. Typically bigger businesses take all the spotlight and the small businesses struggle. With the internet being the primary source people find information, many smaller businesses can not keep up with larger ones in amounts of exposure. I wanted to help change that on some level.

I have a couple businesses in the area that support the blog in different ways. I was getting emails from other businesses in Concord that asked about getting some free advertising on the site. I did a few but then more emails would flood in asking for the same. I want to keep the Mayor of Concord for news and events of the area and though I do not mind highlighting a company that stands out to me, I couldn’t accommodate all of the businesses in the area that wanted a post about them, so I got creative.

Small businesses especially in these economic times are watching every penny and advertising is not always a top priority. Many businesses still rely on the Yellow Pages for advertising and I’m not going to be the first to say it but the Yellow Pages are archaic. I haven’t looked for a business in the Yellow Pages for about 10 years. I’m sure some of you will disagree but when I need something, I look online for it.

Announcing Concord Business Reviews

I built on an extension of this site for Concord Businesses. I have scowered the internet looking for businesses in Concord both big and small and started cataloging them all. This isn’t your run of the mill directory for local businesses though. I wanted to highlight the Best of Concord within these businesses so I set up a system for that.

Review a Local Business

There are other review sites out there but they try to cover a mass audience. I want to focus locally, on Concord businesses and the immediate area. Companies like Yelp have been getting stung recently because they are manipulating user reviews. When you’re as big as Yelp I guess you can get away with it to some point.

I want to get real feedback from the community on where the best places in Concord are to shop, eat and get my car fixed. I know the rest of Concord would like to know also. By reviewing a local business you help bring attention to them and in effect help grow their business. I sent emails to some of my most active readers to look and initial feedback was great..

Currently I have several categories set up and a dozen more to add.

• Active Life
• Dentists
• Kids
• Pets
• Restaurants
• Salons & Spas

In the business listing you will be able to leave a comment and rate them through a series of stars. Both Positive and Negative feedback will be allowed. We want this to be an open forum for people to rate local businesses on their actual experiences. If someone has a bad experience and puts that in the comments, we will allow it.

Your rating will be calculated and show up at the top of the listing as an average and show number of positive and negative reviews given. The higher the rating the higher up the list it will go.

All in all I have about 200 businesses that will be featured on the site. But that’s just the beginning. I want YOU to help by letting me know other businesses in the area to highlight.

Add a Local Business

If you have a small business in Concord or know someone that does, you should have them listed here. Many small businesses can’t get enough exposure to their communities and I want to help change that. I want every small business in Concord to have as much exposure to the community as possible so I am allowing any of your businesses to be listed for free.

Since many small businesses do not have a website, finding them online is difficult. Since I will make sure each business listing is listed in major search engines like Google and Yahoo, finding them will be that much easier.

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Layoffs at the job have increased my workload and having a new baby in the house doesn’t exactly allow for prime blogging time. But that doesn’t mean I’m not doing work on the site.

Instead of writing I have been building a new feature (soon to be announced) for the blog that I have been working on for the past month. I wanted to put something together that could benefit the people in the city as well as allow for reader input. It’s something I’ve received several emails about since I started this blog and until recently, I wasn’t sure how to make it happen. It has been a bigger project than I anticipated but I wanted to put as much under the hood as I could to make it of any value to you. The addition to the site is almost finished and I’ll be sure to let all of you know once it’s online.

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I am going to give away 2 tickets to see the Watchmen at Concord Brenden Theaters opening night of Friday March 6th.

“Watchmen” is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity… but who is watching the Watchmen?”

All you need to do for a chance to win the free passes to Watchmen is to leave a comment on this post. Make sure you leave a valid email address (never republished) so I can validate you as the winner. You can use any name you want but make sure your email address is valid. If you’re an avid comic book fan or just a connoisseur of great special effects, this movie will please you.

The contest will end Sunday March 1st at midnight. Any comments after that will be out of luck. The winner will be selected at random using http://randomizer.org/.

Good Luck!!

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My thoughts are that media is so enamored with stories every day and there are much bigger stories to write about like the budget crisis that the local blogs fill the gap. The MDUSD blog covers a lot, the Monday memos give some insight but these are public officials and they have to toe the line with many issues. A local blog as no line to toe and since we have a platform to write about our opinions it makes for a great conversation.

We spent some time talking about the other blogs in Concord and discussing my thoughts on them. Over all, it was a nice conversation and I’m looking forward to the article which should be published on Sunday. Theresa is going to reach out to the other blogs in the area for the story as well. Should be a great read!

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Claycord has been blogging about Concord for almost 2 years. Using a combination of breaking news and general information about Concord captured through emails and police scanners, he seems to have his fingers on the pulse of whats happening in Concord all of the time. He has also been able to break stories before many mainstream news outlets because he seems to have eyes and ears everywhere. In the time he’s been blogging, he has become the go to site for local news and has gained a large following in the process. Some of his following has been indoctrinated into the Claycord Council. This is a small group of readers that contribute a lot to the site through content and comments. There is Radar the photographer, Apollo, Shasta Daisy and a few others that always stand out in the comments. Claycord is really the poster child for a local blog. The problem many people have with Claycord is that he’s anonymous. That anonymity is a double edge sword, he has free reign to say what he wants with little repercussions and the search for his identity is a constant goal for people.

I bet there are people that have spent many hours trying to discover who Claycord is. Searching through his posts for clues and trying other ways to crack the Claycord code. When I was meeting with the Contra Costa Times, I was told that Concord Mayor Laura Hoffmeister has spent days trying to figure out who Claycord is and has yet to find out. Honestly she should be spending that time writing her vision for the city. When the Mayor of a city is trying to find your identity and comes up empty, you know you have done a great job at covering your tracks. There are people that know Claycord’s secret identity. In emails with Claycord, he explained that there are a select few (not necessarily his council) people that know who he really is. Keeping your true identity a secret for almost 2 years is an accomplishment in itself.

I have been contacted by a lot of people in my short 6 months of this blog asking for any information I had on Claycord’s real identity. I’ve been asked by average readers as well as others in more high profile positions for his name. I was once even accused of being Claycord using this blog as a way to be more public. To all of those people, my answer was always the same “I have no idea who the mystery man is that you are wondering about.”

When I started this site and dealt with the initial backlash of people thinking I was stepping on Claycords toes, I must admit I was also fixated on who he was. At first I didn’t want to assume anything and thought Claycord may actually be a girl. I also thought that Claycord may have been one of the people trying o’so desperately to shut me down. I apologize for that Claycord, but I really had no way of knowing. In that process, I was consumed with the task of finding out WHO Claycord was. I did the fruitless task of looking for clues in his posts and though there are some basic tidbits of data in them if you look hard enough, his identity is never hinted at.

One day I sat back and put on my thinking cap. I have some experience tracking people down that want to remain hidden. This was the first time I had zero information to go off of other than a website. So that was my starting point. Once I put my mind to it, it took me about 30 minutes and a bit of help from some super geeky friends to crack the Claycord code.

Once I had the information in hand, I felt a bit guilty. When someone wants to remain nameless for so many valid reasons, should I really have taken the time and energy to figure him out? By then it was too late, I had his name and with that it was only a few extra keystrokes to get everything else. As guilty as I felt initially, there was a sense of pride knowing something that so many others have searched for. Like Indiana Jones on the search for the Holy Grail.

Why is Claycord’s identity in such demand? Mostly I think it’s because he has been able to remain secluded for so long. Partly because there are MANY people that have an idea but with out confirmation they really have nothing. It’s either a case of ‘I knew it!’ or ‘who is that?’. Claycord is a mysterious puzzle that keeps some people awake at night.

Instead of responding to the weekly emails asking for information or wanting to know if I know who he is, I’ll make it clear here. Claycord’s identity is not open for discussion.

There will be a point in time when Claycord goes public. No one can remain hidden forever. But the time and place for Claycord’s unveiling should be one of his choosing. Maybe it will be some grand expose by the Contra Costa Times who also is on the hunt or maybe he will just post his identity on his blog one day to squash all the rumors. But HE will choose.

I understand Claycord’s desire to remain anonymous and in many ways I envy it. He has the ability to be a chameleon in the area. You could be standing next to him at Safeway and not know it. Who are we to reveal the man behind the blog? I am waiting for the day that Claycord comes out of the closet. The fact that he is giving interviews to the Contra Costa Times shows that he is more comfortable than last year with the idea of being known. So stop trying to figure out the man behind the curtain. You are losing sight of the big picture.

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How they choose their stories is a mystery to me but I am going to find out. Either way I appreciate all of the new visitors that have stopped by due to these posts in Reuters.

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The story in the Contra Costa Times really pulled my heart strings. Maybe that’s melodramatic but the article did touch me enough to do something about it. I wasn’t always the Mayor of Concord, I remember growing up with financial problems and I have made every effort to make sure my family and I don’t have to worry about food on the table or a roof over our heads. As I mentioned in the previous post about homeless students, kids should not be going without food and from the stories I heard while talking with Lori some of them don’t even have enough blankets to stay warm at night.Tragic.

This is the season of giving and I am asking the readers of this blog to give something to help support these kids.The MDUSD does not have an online system to receive donations which they really should look into, so in the meantime here are some ways you can help if you can’t drop off your gift.

Gift Card Mall is the company that serves Safeway gift cards as well as the other hundred stores you see filling those end caps at the grocery store. At Gift Card Mall you can purchase a card and have it mailed to the school district if you can’t drive it there yourself. (address at the bottom)

Since many of these kids don’t have warm clothes or even blankets, you can also get gift cards at Target.com, order one online and have it sent to the district as well.

Now you are always welcome to pick something up and drop it off at the MDUSD office.  I know that most of you are busy people and may not be able to get to the office before they close at night, that’s why sending them something is just as good.

Anything helps. Gift Card Mall can create a card as little as $5.00, Target starts at $10.00. So there is really no reason you can’t donate something. Sure, I’ll be going without my Venti Nonfat Mocha for a few days but somehow I feel better knowing that I just helped feed some people.

Here is the information again about how and where to donate.

Target, Safeway or other gift cards for homeless students can be dropped off at the Mt. Diablo school district office, 1936 Carlotta Drive in Concord or sent to James Wogan, Riverview Middle School, 205 Pacifica Ave., Bay Point CA 94565. Check donations, which will be used for homeless tutoring services, should be made out to the Mt. Diablo Unified School District, noting homeless and foster youths. Receipts available on request. Information is at 925-458-6858 or www.mdusd.k12.ca.us/hope.

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He explained that bloggers do have to meet some standards to get added to press releases. The mainstream media gets added since their is an implied professionalism not always found with bloggers. That and the amount of requests that a police department could get for these requests could be inundating.

I have been added to the Concord Major Crimes Press Release distrubution list. WooHoo for me. As these come through, I will post them.

Thank you Lieutenant Gartner.

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