It's not every year that Concord has a white Christmas. With the freezing weather coming from our friends up north, all of the elements collided and gave me a great view of a snow capped Mt. Diablo from my backyard. Since snow at Mt. Diablo isn't a normal occurrence, it's getting a lot of attention on mainstream news. Mt. Diablo's elevation is 3,849 so it must be pretty cold to get snow at that level. You can see a video from CBS5 here. There are a lot of pictures floating around the internet of snow capped Mt. Diablo, this is my favorite. by Kerry Reed

With the year coming to an end and all of the nominations being set for the Golden Globes featuring some of the greatest movies of the year. Some movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has not even been released yet but is up for Best Motion Picture, Drama. I did some searching for some movies in Concord and surrounding areas for videos of local directors that post their videos online. There are not a lot of people in the area uploading videos. Most of the videos I find are crap from real estate agents. No, I'm not hating on real estate but I would like to see more videos from people and not companies. Here is what I found. - Maybe these are not REAL Golden Globe quality but it's nice to promote some local talent.

I recently had a great conversation with GeoJoe, a guy that is involved in Geocaching. For those of you that do not know, Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value. Today, well over 800,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the pastime. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica. Yes, the East Bay has it's own Geocaching group and it's large. I heard about Geocaching a few years back when I was researching another post and I was interested in the concept but lost all of the links I had collected. Thanks to GeoJoe I was directed to all of the resources a newbie like me would need to start hunting for caches all over Concord and surrounding cities. A great place to start would be over at Geocaching.com where you can search by zipcode and get links to all of the ...

County supervisors of Contra Costa County had a vote in joining the lawsuits challenging the petition of Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage. Over 50% of Contra Costa County voted NO in the Novembers elections. A dozen more cities and counties — including Alameda, San Mateo and Marin counties and the city of Oakland — on Wednesday joined the petition challenging Prop. 8 in the state's highest court. Voters statewide passed the law Nov. 4, and the city and county of San Francisco, city of Los Angeles and Santa Clara County filed the petition the next day, claiming Prop. 8 violates the state constitution's equality provisions. In closed session Tuesday, Contra Costa supervisors voted 4-1, with Supervisor John Gioia of Richmond dissenting, not to join the lawsuit. Most other Bay Area counties have taken up the fight, with the exception of Solano, Napa and Sonoma, which have not decided what to do. Sonoma County supervisors plan to discuss the lawsuit in closed session Tuesday. - CoCo Times. Contra Costa County was very vocal on Prop. 8. There were people standing on corners for both sides holding signs in support or opposition of the ballot measure. The police even had to be called ...

I've been blogging for a while and if there is something that I was most misguided about in the past few months, it's this. Local blogging is very hard work. You look at some of the other bloggers in the Concord area and you can see that some are updating 4-5 times a day. It's amazing really. I have another blog that covers social media and in that niche, other bloggers that do this for a living may post 2-3 times a week and that's considered a lot. So my hat goes off to all of you that have a job and a family and still find the energy to keep the rest of us entertained and up to speed on our local world. This brings me to my gem of the day. I came across a local blogger that just happens to be a motorcycle cop. He has a blog where he talks about his work and the people he gets to deal with. I guess I should have known that cops can have blogs. I just never read one before and this one just happens to be in our back yard. Make sure you bookmark MotorCop. He doesn't post often ...

Martinez was hit with several burglaries over the past 30 days. The police eventually caught  two suspects as they got into a car with a pillow case of 'alleged stolen' property. Searches of the kids homes turned up more 'alleged' stolen property as well as a few guns. Claycord has more information from the Martinez PD. The kicker is that these kids did not live in the area and were attending school near the scene of the crime. The juviniles picked homes to break into based on their proximity to the bus stop they use. Just like how bank robbers choose their targets based on access to freeways for an easy get away, these kids that attend a continuation school were smart enough to time their heists to the bus schedule. Police believe that the two boys, a Bay Point resident and a Pittsburg resident who attend a continuation school on Glacier Drive near Arnold Drive, were burglarizing homes after school while they waited for the bus, which stops on Arnold Drive. The burglaries appear to have stopped the week of Thanksgiving when school was not in session.-Source I live in a house next to a County Connection bus stop. I've always been wary of ...

Just as an update on the Concord Police request I put in, I won't write too much on this. I got a call today from the CPD and spoke with Lieutenant Gartner. I kept calling him 'sir' or Lieutenant and I had flashbacks like I was talking to my old XO. As promised, he got back to me regarding the question of being added to the Concord Police Press Releases. 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.

The City of Concord appointed Laura Hoffmeister as the new Mayor last night. I don't know why we can't get any new people in the council. I'm not one for politics but I know there are other Concord residents that would bring new blood and ideas to the City. I am glad that Helen Allen didn't take over and we have someone that actually lives in Concord looking over the city. From Laura Hoffmeister's profile, I don't see anything that makes her unqualified. She has the opportunity to make an impact for the community and I hope she does. The City of Concord was quick to add Laura's new position to their website but I don't see an update to "Message from the Mayor". I can only hope that she is writing it now and it will be updated soon. I really hope that her message is not the same as Shinn's and just reformatted. Mayor Hoffmeister, embrace the people. Give us something to believe in for the city we call home. As a Veteran, I appreciate all you have done for the people in uniform. I don't know if you have family in the military but having public support is always welcome. You ...

Visited Your Shut-offs Lately? It’s time to get acquainted with your gas, electric, and water shut-offs. I’m finding in my earthquake consults that, even though most folks know where the cut-offs are, many aren’t sure how to operate one or more of them. Even worse: in more than half of my consults I discover that the gas valve is “frozen.” So, here’s the deal: 1. know where gas, electric, and water shut-offs are 2. make sure every capable person in the house knows how to operate them 3. test the gas & water valves (slight movement to make sure they aren’t inoperable) If valves are frozen, call PG&E (gas) or EBMud (water) and ask that the valve be replaced or repaired: they will take care of the problem with no charge. Reach Larry Guillot, owner of QuakePrepare, a Bay area earthquake consulting, securing, and gas valve installation service, at 707-965-3299; visit QuakePrepare.com to receive QuakeTip e-mails and safety reports.

The best part of having a local blog is being able to post information in support of great causes. In November I posted about a few eco-divas from MuseGreen. They contacted me again introducing me to a local non-profit group called the Peter Pan Foundation. The Peter Pan Foundation was founded in 2006 and is dedicated to using theatre arts, fundraising, and community service to teach teens, children, and young adults in our community about the importance of philanthropy. Founded by actress and philanthropist Leslie Noel, the vision is to instill selflessness, community awareness and service, as well as to help discover their own talents and build confidence through the expression of these talents. Noel established her nonprofit foundation to recognize Steffen Ryge, who had been one of Noel’s dedicated students and played Peter Pan in a revue. Ryge was killed in a car accident two months after his Acalanes High graduation. Noel was devastated, but when Ryge’s parents asked her to sing at his funeral, Noel agreed to perform—and realized that Ryge would have wanted the foundation to exist. - Diablo Magazine The Perter Pan Foundation is having it's annual Christmas musical "Twas the Opening Night Before Christmas". It’s on Dec 20th at 1:30pm ...

I was drinking my morning coffee and reading through my other local blogs when I saw a new post from Claycord saying the Pittsburg is better than Concord. This was a statement by the Mayor of Pittsburg Nancy Parent. Nancy Parent says that Pittsburg is closer to Walnut Creek than it is Concord regarding crime. At first I was thinking "WTF!", how can the Mayor of Pittsburg begin to say they have less crime than Concord. I have lived here my entire life and Pittsburg has ALWAYS been known as a city stuck with crime issues.So I figured I would look at the data and see what the deal is. Lets look at some crime data about Crime in Pittsburg. Lets look at Concord Crime Data So what does this mean. By looking at the data, I have a higher chance of being murdered in Pittsburg but my house has less of a chance of being burglarized. Then again, Concord has an higher violent crime number according to aggravated assaults and robberies. Should I be concerned? According to the research there were 107 registered sex offenders living in Pittsburg, California in early 2007. The ratio of number of residents in Pittsburg to the number of ...

Buying a car is not a fun process. Car sales people carry the stereotype of being shady and slimy, doing and saying whatever it takes to sell a car. I have had experience with car sales people like this and some that were very professional. Concord Toyota must have really pissed someone off because they have posted a video on YouTube explaining how Concord Toyota lied to him and when he went to straighten things out he was treated like an idiot. I don't know all the facts but Concord Toyota, you have got one angry customer and you might want to address this issue before they pull out a can of web 2.0 whoop ass.

You haven't seen Chico the Dog in the Contra Costa Times but he's been featured in Eye on Blogs. He is the only dog with his own blog. Chico lives in the East Bay and needs a home. I'm pretty big -- about 100 lbs. I'm a cross between a German and an Australian Shep. I'm pretty sure my mom was the Aussie since my tail is cropped. I will protect you -- and if you have gardeners with blowers, I'll scare the compost out of 'em. OK, I do have a few issues: I am an alpha male, and I really like cats (they taste good). So, if it's just you and me, we're golden! I'm an awesome dog. Really -- just ask me. I'll tell you.... I love people. I love to take walks. I know how to sit and lie down. Did I mention that I'm only 2 years old? Chico was found near Clearlake and is being taken care of by a foster family with the Contra Costa SPCA, based in Concord. Chico started his blog after moving to the East Bay and finally having  a broadband connection. I know the foster family and though they love ...