SLO County News BlogGolf, Wine, Real Estate, Business & Travel NewsShop SLO - OnlineTuesday, November 30, 2004 You can now do your holiday shopping from home, but still enjoy the benefits of Shopping SLO.
Lund's Gifts, located in the Historic Village of Arroyo Grande, now provides its Distinctive Body & Bath Products, Home Fragrances, Scented and Unscented Candles, Wine and Gourmet Food Gift Baskets, Fine Central Coast Wines, Glassware, and more - online for your holiday shopping convenience. Bob Lund is well known in San Luis Obispo County as an expert on Central Coast Wines. He carries a large inventory of local wines as well as fine wines from all over the world. Visit their store to see Margareta Lund's fine art on display as well as an extensive selection of home furnishings and decor. Visit their new website - recently redesigned by Arroyo Web Design - where you're certain to find that perfect gift you've been looking for! Lund's Gifts and Fine Wines Seekers Glass GalleryMonday, November 29, 2004We ran across an article in The Tribune this morning that gives a good glimpse into the obstacles you may meet running a small business in San Luis Obispo County - dealing with earthquake damage, economic recessions, road closures, finding employees who can afford to live nearby, and even price hikes at local attractions like the Hearst Castle that affect business. We thought we'd share the article here since The Tribune failed to provide a link to their website.Lynda and Michael Adelson established their Cambria glass art gallery in 1981. Seekers Glass Gallery has earned a reputation as one of the world's most comprehensive sources for top quality American Studio Glass Art. In 2003, Seekers was named one of the "Top 100 Retailers of American Crafts" by Niche magazine, a national trade publication for craft retailers, for the ninth time. Last year, Adelson said Seekers stays competitive with big-city galleries by offering unique artwork and developing good relationships with artists and customers. The gallery also does not sell commissioned pieces, which helps keep costs down, and offers unlimited exchanges on unblemished pieces. While last year's slowing economy affected sales slightly, she said purchasing and selling less expensive artwork and using smart business strategies helped them stay afloat. "We have weathered three recessions and road closures, and we are still standing," she said. The gallery had a slow start this year, but business is up slightly from 2003, Adelson says. She declined to report annual sales, noting that they are in the low- to mid-seven figures. The gallery now has 20 employees, up from 19 last year. Seekers is always hiring, although Cambria's building moratorium and high gas prices make it difficult to find workers in the area, she said. The 2003 San Simeon Earthquake and increased admission prices to Hearst Castle has had a negative impact on business, she said. The gallery didn't make the Top 100 retailers list this year because the earthquake slowed down their purchasing, she added. "The earthquake couldn't have come at a worse time," she said. "Almost every piece over $1,000 was destroyed, so it took a lot of time to restore our gallery." Future plans include expanding the gallery's Web site catalog, which makes up 15 percent of their sales. She and her husband, Michael, may expand in the Newport Beach area. With the holidays approaching, Adelson is optimistic. The three days after Thanksgiving and most of December are their busiest times of year, she said. Earthquake slowed start of year at Seekers - Dawn Rapp, The Tribune Seekers Glass Gallery FREE SLO NewsSunday, November 28, 2004As we mentioned in an earlier post, we get all our San Luis Obispo County news online (for free). We don't subscribe to any local newspapers or magazines. It's not that we're cheap, we just prefer the convienence of finding and reading local news online. Plus, newspapers and magazines seem to just accumulate in the office, home or landfill. We do pick up free newspapers and magazines on occasion like HopeDance and New Times, then after reading them, use them to get a fire going in our fireplace.We usually don't even visit our local news websites directly, but obtain our news by searching for it. A simple search for "obispo" or "slo" at Google News, Yahoo! News, Feedster, Rocket News, Topix.net, etc. will provide you with up-to-date local news from practically all of our local news publications. The news we share on our own news page is from an RSS feed at Topix.net that we access from our webserver and transform into HTML using XSLT before returning it to your client browser. Apparently, many share our preference for obtaining news online - and this certainly presents a problem for our newspaper and magazine publishers. According to a Wired article posted this week, young people just aren't interested in reading newspapers and print magazines. In fact, the Washington Post learned that focus-group participants declared they wouldn't accept a Washington Post subscription even if it were free. The main reason - they didn't like the idea of old newspapers piling up in their houses. Adam L. Peneberge at Wired shares, "Don't think for a minute that young people don't read. On the contrary, they do, many of them voraciously. But having grown up under the credo that information should be free, they see no reason to pay for news. Instead they access The Washington Post website or surf Google News, where they select from literally thousands of information sources. They receive RSS feeds on their PDAs or visit bloggers whose views mesh with their own. In short, they customize their news-gathering experience in a way a single paper publication could never do. And their hands never get dirty from newsprint.... And when young people go online, they tend to browse for news in much the same way they window-shop for jeans or sneakers: sampling a headline here, a blog entry there, a snippet of a story there, until their news cravings are satisfied." A twenty-something blogger interviewed by Wired believes that "as news-reader programs improve and become more widely used, adding the sort of auto-filtering and smart-sorting capabilities of a decent e-mail client, their popularity will snowball." He also predicts that print media, which he says his generation has largely rejected in favor of digital dissemination of news, will die off within 30 years, "when the dead-tree readers will die off." What this world will look like is anyone's guess, but it probably won't include The Tribune delivery guy racing down your street at 6 in the morning (another reason we choose not to subscribe). Newspapers Should Really Worry - Wired News SLO Blog Explosion - SLOggersSaturday, November 27, 2004The size of the blogosphere has doubled every five months over the last year and a half, according to blog analysis firm Technorati. According to David Sifry, Technorati's chief executive, the current number of blogs is now over 8 times bigger than the 500,000 blogs it measured in June, 2003. The company tracked 3 million blogs as of the first week of July, and has added over 1 million blogs to its stable since then.In an announcement dated November 18, blog-search company PubSub Concepts claims to already monitor over 6.5 million blogs. Perseus Development, meanwhile, estimates by the end of 2004, there will be 10 million blogs, the vast majority already dead. According to a Perseus study, over 90 percent of blogs are authored by people between the ages of 13 and 29, with nearly 52 percent between the ages of 13 and 19. Weblogs Inc. founder Jason McCabe states "There are millions of blogs, but I would say less than 1 million are updated regularly," So less than 1 percent of the country is blogging, but that figure is going to grow over the next five years to some percentage of the folks who e-mail today. Here in San Luis Obispo County, it doesn't take much effort to find dozens of blogs - most of which appear to be authored by the 13 to 29 age group as reported above. There are dozens of blogs authored by Cal Poly students sharing their academic challenges and lively experiences in SLO, lot's of local teen bloggers to be found at at Blogspot, Live Journal, Xanga and Myspace, and a number of local websites with blogs authored by SLO County residents and businesses. 
For you SLO Bloggers (SLOggers) out there, we found an interesting site recently that helps boost traffic to your site while broadening your mind by exposing it to a lot of interesting randomness. Blog Explosion provides guided web surfing and a clean (though somewhat wordy) interface to keep you coming back. Most of their features circle around the idea of earning credits while browsing other people's blogs to draw more visitors to your own blog. 
If you'd like to keep up with all the interesting stuff we SLOggers have to say, we setup a public feed for your convienence at Bloglines - providing a list of local bloggers who have provided RSS feeds. Feel free to inform us about any SLOggers with RSS feeds we may have missed. SLOggers You can also find a complete list of SLOggers at our new SLO Bloggers directory under the Community menu. This list is automatically created on-the-fly by Bloglines. We also included a few links to SLO Blogs that don't provide RSS feeds. SLOggers - San Luis Obispo County Bloggers Articles referenced: The Blogosphere By the Numbers SLO SignsFriday, November 26, 2004 While you're out shopping in SLO this holiday season, start paying attention to the signs on the storefronts around you. If you see one that really catches your attention, there's a good chance it was designed and created by Dave and Robin McDonald at Avila Sign & Design in Grover Beach.
You'll find their signs on storefronts all over San Luis Obispo County. They're popping up throughout the Village of Arroyo Grande, Grover Beach, Pismo Beach, Avila Beach, Cambria, and San Luis Obispo. Avila Sign & Design is a nationally recognized leader in the sign industry, having been featured in practically every sign industry publication including many cover features in Sign Business Magazine. Avila Sign & Design was featured as one of the top sign firms in the 1996 Portfolio Edition of Sign Business Magazine. Check out their extensive portfolio at their new website designed by Arroyo Web Design, where you'll see samples of their 3-D Carved, Gold Leaf, Painted & Printed, Goverment, Wayfinding, Address and Vehicle signage along with their logo and mural artwork. You'll be amazed not only by the creativity and quality of these designs, but by how many of these signs you'll recognize from around the county - Old Cambria Car Wash in Cambria, Custom House Restaurant in Avila Beach, Steamers Restaurant in Pismo Beach, Granite Stairway Outdoor & Travel Outfitters in San Luis Obispo, Nipomo Market Place & Car Wash in Nipomo, Village Papery in the Village of Arroyo Grande, City and Goverment signs in Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach, and so many more. We're fortunate to have such talent right here in San Luis Obispo County! Avila Sign & Design SLO Cards for the HolidaysThursday, November 25, 2004 If you're ready to shop for holiday greeting cards, check out the new stationery store in the Village of Arroyo Grande - Village Papery. You'll save 25% on Boxed Xmas Cards through the end of the year. Village Papery is also your Holiday Headquarters for Gift Wrap, Bags and Tags, Chamilia and Fashion Jewelry, Seasonal Gifts, and much more!
Happy Thanksgiving! Village Papery Keep SLO CleanWednesday, November 24, 2004Looking for a business opportunity? In our efforts to find additional small business blogs in San Luis Obispo County, we uncovered one by a couple in SLO who provide a local cleaning service and provide all the information you need to start your own cleaning business. Suzanne and Evan started Suze & Ev's Custom Clean over 8 years ago and moved themselves and their business to SLO about a year ago. Building their small cleaning business has proved lucrative and rewarding. They make a good living, make their own hours, and absolutely love being their own boss.
Check out their website and Start Cleaning Business Blog if you'd like to learn more about their services or if you'd like to learn how to earn up to $100k a year with your cleaning business, with an initial investment for well under $100, and be earning excellent money within two weeks! Suze & Ev's Custom Clean Start Cleaning Business Blog SLO MusiciansTuesday, November 23, 2004New Times has a "Strokes & Plugs" section much like our own SLO Pages Blog where local businesses and people who deserve plugs get an honorable mention. The latest New Times has a "Fast Fact" we'd like to make you aware of in case you missed it there - an extensive local music directory to help musicians find other musicians, equipment, rehersal space, venues, recording studios, and even lessons.Jeff Cannon of Grover Beach has created an invaluable reference tool for anyone interested in keeping tabs on the local SLO County music scene. Cannon launched JamLinkz.com in September of this year, and he likens the web site to "a Rolodex listing of the area's up-and-coming players as well as a direct link to seasoned pros." By offering information and advice on booking gigs and arranging recording projects, Cannon hopes his web site will help bands and fans alike to keep in touch and preserve the Central Coast's live music scene, which he fears is fading away. We're happy to see our San Luis Obispo County favorites listed under their business directory - The Drum Circuit Drum Shop (designed by Arroyo Web Design) and Lightning Joe's Guitar Heaven (designed by Joe himself). JamLinkz.com - The Central Coast's Musician's Resource Get Your SLO NewsMonday, November 22, 2004We like to share local news here at SLO Pages about interesting San Luis Obispo County businesses and events. We don't receive any newspapers or magazines at our office, but get all our news online. Here's a list of some of the news resources we use on a daily basis. The Tribune
We get most of our news at The Tribune which provides the most thorough county-wide news with special sections for SLO City, SLO County, South County and North Coast. We also look to The Tribune for local Business News. KSBY Channel 6 We then head over to KSBY's website and usually find some reports on news not available elsewhere. We even watch them on TV on occasion. We like Wendy's smile. Times Press Recorder For South County News we look to the Times Press Recorder. At our request, TPR now provides their content online for free for a full month instead of only one week. Since we often provide links to their content, this is appreciated by our readers. Paso Robles Press For North County news, we look to Paso Robles Press. At one time we succeeded in getting PRP to post their SLO County Magazine articles online in entirety, but we no longer fine this publication online at all. News Feeds and Searches If you check out our own News page, you'll find articles gathered via an RSS Feed from various local news sources by Topix.net. We also search for local news each day using Yahoo! News. For a complete list of local news and radio media, see our San Luis Obispo County News and Radio Media page. Best of SLO County Readers PollSunday, November 21, 2004 For nearly 20 years now, New Times has presented a special issue honoring the winners of the "Best of SLO County Readers Poll". This annual issue highlights the top 3 businesses for Shopping, Restaurants, Services, Entertainment and other categories. A lot of hard work goes into this issue each year, but the results are worth it. You can find the Best in SLO in their annual issue or online at the New Times website:
New Times Best of SLO County Shopping You'll find the best in Gift Shops, Home Furnishings, Women's Clothing, Men's Clothing, Kid's Clothing, Vegetarian Food, Bookstores, Used Bookstores, Travel Agencies, Toy Stores, Thrift Stores, Shoe Stores, Salad Bars, Real Estate Agencies, Pet Stores, Loan Offices, Wine Stores, Seafood, Outdoor Apparel, Music Stores, Nurseries, Movers, Internet Service Providers, Lingerie Shops, Jewelry Stores, Hardware Stores, Salons, Flower Shops, Computer Stores, Computer Service, Cellular Phone Carriers, Bike Shops, Banks, Auto Repair, New & Used Auto Dealers, Audio Equipment, and Antique Shops. Food & Drink You'll also find the best places for Wine Tasting, Tri-Tip, Thai, Steak, Seafood, Salsa, Ribs, Beer, Pizza, Mexican, Margaritas, Local Wines, Japanese, Italian, Ice Cream, Frozen Yogurt, Groceries, Fish Tacos, Deli, Coffee, Cocktails, Chinese, Burger, Brunch, Breakfast, Bakery Goods, and Bagels. You'll also find the best restaurants by region - SLO, South County, North County, North Coast... and the Most Romantic, Best Views, Outdoor Dining, Most Pricey, Best Value, Late Night, Kid Friendly, and the Best New Restaurants and one's with the Best Service. Feeling Good If you're looking for fun or relaxation, New Times lists the best in Massage Therapy, Fitness Centers, Day Spas, Health Food, Surf Shops, Sports Stores, Golf Courses and Bike Rides. Art & Entertainment If you're looking for culture or entertainment, you'll find the best Bars (by Region), Radio Stations, Live Music, Music Clubs, Dance Clubs, Cowboy Bars, Movie Theaters, Local Bands, Local Artists, Happy Hour, Community Events, Art Galleries, and places to go on a First Date. Miscellaneous Then there's the best of the rest – Web Designers (they apparently didn't know about SLO Pages last year), Local News Sources, LASIK Eye Surgery, Community Watchdog, Community Theater Group, Beaches and Places to Tie the Knot, Take the Kids or Get a Tatoo. New Times Best of SLO County Cal Poly SLO Survival TipsSaturday, November 20, 2004We learned tonight that San Luis Obispo's Daniel "K." O'Leary has graced our incoming Cal Poly Freshmen with his Top Ten Survival Tips for Cal Poly Freshmen. We decided to share this here since he does make some good recommendations for things to do and places to eat in SLO. Plus he said some nice things about SLO Pages (even if he didn't mean it :). While you're there, I'm sure Dan would want you to look around his website and get to know him a little. You can also learn more about life in San Luis Obispo from Dan's articles in the monthly newsletter from VirtualSLO.com - Panorama.Depending on SLO WineMichaela Baltasar, who contributes weekly to The Tribune with her Wine Notes column, sheds light this week on just how central, Central Coast Wines are to San Luis Obispo County's local economy.Wine begets other opportunities - Michaela Baltasar, The Tribune We at SLO Pages are certainly recent beneficiaries of this industry, with new sites being designed at this time for a local winery and wine store. When visiting these clients this week, I was struck by all the activity (and subsequent employment) going on around me. At the office of Saucelito Canyon Vineyard, a construction crew is busy finishing work on their new Tasting Room on Biddle Ranch Rd. in San Luis Obispo, which opens Thanksgiving Weekend. At Lund's Distinctive Gifts and Fine Wines in the Village of Arroyo Grande, local wine distributers are busy introducing Bob Lund to the Central Coast's latest releases. He has an incredible selection of local wines on display. Both of these websites are undergoing a redesign at this time. Later this month, you'll be able to purchase Central Coast Wines online at www.lundsgift.com. Shop SLO -- Keep it LocalFriday, November 19, 2004San Luis Obispo retailers are getting a little help from the city this holiday season. City officials have launched a "shop local" campaign to educate residents about the benefits of keeping money in town to pay for schools, police and other services. As part of the campaign, businesses in the city will receive a sticker saying, "Shop SLO -- keep it local," to display in their windows.
"It is actually one of our major city goals to increase sales tax revenue in the city," said Shelly Stanwyck, the city's economic development manager. "We hope when people see the sign, they'll make a connection between their shopping habits and city services." Sales tax dollars -- about $11.5 million annually -- are the main source of general fund revenue for the city. One cent of every dollar spent in San Luis Obispo is used for city services, projects and programs, including building new sports fields or maintaining city streets, she said. The city's program will be year-round, but it is kicking off at the same time as First Bank of San Luis Obispo's holiday shop-local campaign. Kristin Johnson, marketing director for the bank, said First Bank has used newspaper, TV and radio advertisements to promote local holiday shopping for the past three years. "Being a business bank and having so many retailers as customers ... we think it is important to find a way to say, 'Hey, keep your money in the area,' " she said. While the city's shop-local decals will appear in store windows this week, First Bank's ads start the day after Thanksgiving. SLO is stoking local retailers' holiday flame - Leslie Griffy, The Tribune Shop SLO -- Keep it Local begins - KSBY Of Land and Legacy in SLOThursday, November 18, 2004We ran across a great article about the Truocchio family ranch in San Luis Obispo County and the challenge they meet in keeping the ranch in the family due to the threat of huge estate taxes. Makes you realize that tax breaks for the "rich" help our our local ranchers who may be "land" rich, but "cash" poor. Do we want the tax revenue or open space owned and operated by local families instead of investors and developers?Eleanor Truocchio is a fourth-generation Central Coast rancher. Unfortunately, the fifth generation may collide head-on with skyrocketing land values and the vagaries of U.S. tax law. By Matthew Heller, Matthew Heller's last story for the magazine was about anti-polygamy activist Flora Jessop. Off in the distance, on a bare, straw-colored hillside fringed with coastal oak, Eleanor Truocchio spots a dark speck. It's at least half a mile away; to the untrained eye it looks like nothing more spectacular than a rock. But Truocchio stops the pickup she has been driving around her family's 4,100-acre cattle ranch north of San Luis Obispo and grabs her binoculars. "There's a cow by herself," she announces. "There's something wrong with her, or she has a calf." She pans away from the cow until she focuses on a brownish form almost camouflaged by the grass—the cow's newborn calf, probably less than a day old. How could she even suspect there might be a cow there? "Oh," she replies with a shrug, "you get to know these things better than the back of your hand." In her hawk-eyed stewardship of the ranch she calls Lone Valley, Truocchio is maintaining a family tradition that goes back four generations. At 70, she is a bronzed, sinewy dynamo—branding cattle, rounding up strays, fixing fences, heaving hay, still getting satisfaction from all the tough, physical things a rancher needs to do. "When an animal is in the corral, I've won," says the former San Luis Obispo County Cattlewoman of the Year, wearing jeans and a checkered shirt with a Cowgirl Co. logo. "I can come home and say, 'There's a lot of people who couldn't do that.' " Truocchio eventually would like to pass along her domain of rolling chaparral hills, cottonwood copses and 250 head of cattle to her daughter, Pat Abel, and thus avoid having it developed into 10-acre ranchettes or sold to a corporate ranching enterprise. That's how the American dream is supposed to work, isn't it? The beloved land stays in the family, and the child profits from the parents' labor? The family ranch, that symbol of the pioneer spirit in the West, would live on. If only it were that simple. The Truocchios, like many other families ranching cattle on California's Central Coast, face a vexing dilemma. With profit margins of less than 1%, ranching is a cash-poor business. Yet in terms of assets, notably real estate, ranchers are among California's rich. Truocchio and her husband, who formerly owned an auto-repair business, live in a modest bungalow near Santa Maria, and she tours her land in a Ford pickup without air conditioning. But in San Luis Obispo County, land values have become so inflated that Truocchio estimates Lone Valley is worth around $16 million, or $3,900 an acre—60 times what her father paid for it in the 1950s. If her daughter wants to keep the ranch, she may have to pay an estate tax bill of as much as $6 million, even after exemptions and credits. If Truocchio puts the ranch in a trust, either the estate or gift tax would still apply. Your average mansion-dwelling family in Bel-Air may have enough cash to handle the estate tax. But Truocchio's daughter is a single mother of two who is employed as a geologist by the state Department of Conservation. Lone Valley, in short, could be just too valuable for her daughter to inherit. "You have this for future generations," Truocchio says. "You want to stay on the land." Telling the story of her family's land with faded copies of deeds and black-and-white photographs, Truocchio says it was her great-grandfather, a German immigrant who farmed sheep in the Sierra, who got them into cattle ranching. In the late 19th century, he acquired part of the Rancho Nipomo land grant just across the Cuyama River from Santa Maria. Truocchio's parents, Vernon and Rebecca Wineman, both ranched that land, and their three children helped out from an early age. "I was riding horseback at 3," Truocchio recalls. "I was scared. The ditches looked awful big." Land was still so cheap in the 1950s that the Winemans paid only $265,000, or $65 an acre, for the additional San Luis Obispo property. After Vernon's death in 1962, the family sold an alfalfa farm in Madera County to pay the estate tax. By the time Rebecca died in 1992, she and her children had bought a third cattle ranch adjacent to Lone Valley, bringing their total holdings to 8,500 acres. And land values had risen sufficiently to make the estate tax a real headache. It has taken 12 years to probate Rebecca Wineman's will, in part because of a dispute with the IRS over the value of some of her assets. In 2000, the U.S. Tax Court valued them at $2.4 million, but said the estate was entitled to a "special use" exemption that reduced the taxable value by $750,000. The Winemans' children now plan to dissolve the family's Coastal Ranches holding company and divide the three ranches between themselves, with Lone Valley going to Truocchio, who could be running the ranch for some time to come. "Retire? What's that?" she asks. Then it would be up to her daughter, who has helped out on the ranch since she was a child. "When you're raised on it, it's something you enjoy," Abel says. "You feel like it's a good day's work." But how much protection will—or should—she get from the taxman? Congress enacted legislation in 2001 that will gradually increase the amount of property exempted from the tax to $3.5 million by 2009 and reduce the maximum tax rate from 55% to 45%. But most of the value of Truocchio's ranch would still be taxable. And without future congressional action, the law will expire in 2010, and in 2011 the tax structure would revert to its pre-reform levels. The ranching industry is lobbying for complete repeal of the estate tax. "It would be a tremendous relief," says Truocchio. "Every rancher ought to be fighting for it." Critics of the repeal decry it as another big tax break for the wealthy—a projected $61 billion in 2014 alone—that our deficit-plagued economy simply cannot afford. The dilemma reflects conflicting priorities. If agricultural land is valuable, then surely society as a whole should see some benefit from that, even if it comes from a "death tax." But at the same time, we don't want that symbolic family ranch to disappear from the landscape. Truocchio says she is "more optimistic than quite a few" of her colleagues that family ranching will survive. Maybe it's the pioneer spirit talking. That, after all, is what makes her such a vigilant and skilled steward of her land, and what makes her see the issue not in terms of dollars, but something perhaps more valuable. "I think this place is beautiful," she says as she completes another inspection of her ranch, closing its main gate behind her. "Whether it makes a lot of money or makes no money, it's really beautiful." Of Land and Legacy - LA Times SLO Photography BlogWednesday, November 17, 2004In our quest to find small business bloggers in San Luis Obispo County, we're happy to pass along that we found another one - Sara Heinrichs Photography News. Looks like it just got started and lacks many posts, but its a start.Finding SLO EmployeesTuesday, November 16, 2004San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce members are having a hard time finding qualified employees, and they're concerned about the lack of quality health care and affordable housing.But they're also upbeat about future economic growth, believe in development opportunities for the city and want chamber leaders to take tough stances on business-related issues, according to a new chamber survey. "Even though people see various difficulties with health care and finding good employees, there's still this optimism," said Constance Jones, communications director for the chamber. Indeed, 63 percent of respondents said the economy would grow in the next 12 months, and about 65 percent agreed with the City Council's decision to go forward with the San Luis Marketplace project. Seventy-eight percent said more intense development should occur within certain areas of the city. For example, survey participants said that three- and four-story buildings could be built if it would help protect open space and prevent sprawl. Almost 70 percent of those surveyed said moving up the city's seismic retrofit deadline was a good idea because it will benefit public safety. As well, more than 92 percent said they supported greater chamber involvement in state issues that impact business. However, a majority -- 87 percent -- said the lack of affordable housing has made it more difficult to hire employees, and 82 percent agreed that the quality and availability of health care in the community is declining. About 200 chamber members -- about 15 percent of the chamber's membership -- participated in the online the survey, which was given in September. The chamber board will use the results to help set goals for the coming year, Jones said. Survey finds optimism, some issues in chamber - The Tribune, Julie Lynem SLO Buy Fresh, Buy LocalFriday, November 12, 2004 Residents of the Central Coast spend billions on food and eating out every year. Most of these food dollars leave our region because food that could be locally grown has been raised, processed, or owned by a company elsewhere.
We can keep more money circulating in the Central Coast region when consumers and food buyers purchase locally grown or raised food. This strengthens our local economy and community. In 2003 a group of farmers and ranchers began looking for ways to market their products more directly to consumers in order to strengthen their economic viability. Soon, various businesses saw that keeping agricultural dollars circulating in SLO County strengthened the county economy as well. Other organizations saw that keeping agricultural operations in business helped to preserve the popular "open space". As consumers became more and more concerned with their food's closely nutritional value and freshness, buying local food started making more and more sense. All these interests came together to form the SLO "Buy Fresh Buy Local" Campaign. The goal is to help family farms to be more sustainable while ensuring a wholesome economy and nutritious food system in SLO County. When you buy local food, you ensure that family farms in your community will continue to thrive and that healthy, flavorful, plentiful food will be available for future generations. To help support our local economy and enjoy the benefits of fresh food, look for the "Buy Fresh, Buy Local" label. It identifies locally grown products in grocery stores, farmers markets, and restaurants near you. Shop at your local farmers market, farm stand, or CSA for the freshest, best tasting food available and encourage your local grocery stores and restaurants to purchase more products from local farmers. The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) is organizing this statewide Buy Local campaign. CAFF is a statewide non-profit organization with regional chapters throughout California and over 1000 members. SLO Buy Fresh, Buy Local SLO's BestThursday, November 11, 2004One of the things we like best at SLO Pages is the opportunity to design websites for such a wide variety of small businesses in San Luis Obispo County. Instead of specializing in one business - such as Realty or Legal websites - we enjoy delivering quality custom websites for the best local businesses in each business category.And we've had the good fortune of attracting the best! Just this year, we've developed a website for South County's undisputed top attorney, James R. Murphy, Jr. A Law Corporation; one of the Nation's top sign designers, Avila Sign & Design; the nationally renowned drum shop, The Drum Circuit; and the Central Coast's leading experts on Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF), CSI Building Solutions.  Now, we're working on another website that we're very excited about - for one of San Luis Obispo County's most talented photographers - Bill Crane Photography. Bill has been serving the South County at IMAGEMAKERS Photography with Wedding Day, Family Portrait, Modeling, and High School Senior photography for the past 10 years. However, Bill Crane is now providing his "Lush Vivid Exotic" Tropical Art Photography for sale on canvas.
We've only been at work for a day on this new website, but it's already far enough along to show off! This new website design can't help but impress since it contains such striking photography. These prints will be available for sale online by the end of the month. Good luck Bill with this new pursuit! Bill Crane Photography New SLO Business DirectoryWednesday, November 10, 2004We've been planning to provide a business directory at SLO Pages for some time, but have been putting it off due to other priorities. However, today we got inspired to start this effort after being invited to a meeting for members of "Best in Business" - a local San Luis Obispo referral network. We were impressed by this group's effort to attract some of the best businesses in San Luis Obispo County and help them grow through an effective referral network."Best in Business" members are encouraged to refer their friends and peers to other business members of the group for supported services and to invite new members to their weekly meetings to grow the types of businesses represented. We happen to be their first web designer. Their mission results in building a network of quality businesses, since most of us only want to recommend the best. So, we got started with our business directory by posting only a small sample of our "best pick's" for businesses in a variety of categories. As this directory grows, you'll be able to easily find a plumber, contractor, attorney, cpa, bookkeeper, web designer, graphics artist, sign designer, or whatever - recommended by SLO Pages and "Best in Business" members. One of these days, we'll get our Shopping Directory online too! San Luis Obispo Service Businessses SLO Mosaic ArtTuesday, November 09, 2004"A passion for smashin'!" says it all when describing Fred and Donnell Pasion's love for making mosaic art.
What started as a hobby in 1999 turned serious after the Pasions, native San Luis Obispo County California residents, were approached with their first "big commission", a fireplace surround for a local interior designer. "We all loved the results, and knew this was something we had to keep doing," says Donnell, who soon after left her job as a mail carrier to pursue mosaic art. Fred, a landscape gardener for 25 years began to scale back work to join her. In 2000 they established Passiflora Mosaics after converting their 1940's detached garage into a working studio. They tossed out years of accumulated 'junk' then gutted and whitewashed the interior. Even cracks in the concrete floor were not spared the facelift. These were mosaicked into colorful 'snakes' that seem to slither across the blue floor. Today the self-taught mosaicists are carving a niche for producing truly one-of-a-kind works. As for style, theirs is a personalized expression of traditional Pique Assiette, an early 20th century folk art form of mosaic made famous by Raymond Isidore of France. Besides colorful tile and vintage china the Pasions also incorporate an eclectic array of ceramic figurines, jewelry, glass, stones and other found and recycled treasures into their work. Most of their pieces are functional as well as decorative. Fred and Donnell blend their own unique approaches to art into a partnership that just seems to work. They collaborate on virtually every phase of the process from design to fabrication and finishing. Passiflora Mosaics currently specialize in custom private commissions and are considering small-scale public art opportunities as well. They also offer mosaic workshops. SLO Pages designed a website earlier this year to present the mosaic artwork of a Fred and Donnell. Their website was just updated with photos of a new project in progress that has already taken 350 hours of work - a 21' "Sunburst Bench" at a San Luis Obispo residence. 
Their mosaic creations can be seen online at www.passifloramosaics.com. You can also see many of their mosaics in person at Ron's Nursery in Grover Beach and The Gallery At the Network in San Luis Obispo. Ron's Nursery, 1207 S 13th St., Grover Beach, CA 93433, (805) 489-4747 THE GALLERY At the Network, 778 Higuera Suite B, San Luis Obispo, Ca. (805) 788-0886. Passiflora Mosaics Intellectual Property Rights Presentation in SLOMonday, November 08, 2004California Polytechnic State University News ReleaseHarvard Law Professor To Speak on 'Digital and Intellectual Property Rights' at Cal Poly Nov 12. SAN LUIS OBISPO - William W. Fisher III, professor of intellectual property Law at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society, will give a free public forum on "Digital and Intellectual Property Rights" and the future of entertainment industries on Friday, Nov.12, from 3 to 5 p.m. in Phillips Hall in the Performing Arts Center at Cal Poly. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society is dedicated to exploring cyberspace and assisting in its development. The students, professors and professionals involved in the program seek to investigate issues that have yet to be settled in cyberspace, such as the governance, intellectual property, privacy, electronic commerce, and the need or resistance for legal reforms, according to Robert Webber, a member of Cal Poly's English Department faculty and director of the university's Consortium for Arts and Media. Fisher's new book, "Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment," provides the groundwork for his presentation at Cal Poly. "Fisher's book details the extraordinary cultural potential that digital technologies have created for society," Webber said. In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of the conflict surrounding music distribution and the emergence of digital communication networks, Fisher's book presents a proposal for radically transforming the way in which our society funds its music and film industries, detailing a combination of legal reforms and new business models that will pay artists more fairly and make entertainment more accessible to those who desire it. The forum will include a panel debate on Fisher's presentation. There will also be a free raffle of Fisher's new book. Fisher is the Hale and Dorr Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Harvard Law School. He earned his graduate degrees from Harvard University in the history of American civilization. He previously served as a law clerk for Judge Harry T. Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C., Circuit and then for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U. S. Supreme Court. Fisher's presentation is sponsored by Harvard University's Berkman Center, Cal Poly's Consortium for Arts and Media, and the College of Liberal Arts. For more information contact Webber at 756-1436 or rwebber@calpoly.edu. SLO DrummersFriday, November 05, 2004Two new drum sites were just introduced simultaneously in San Luis Obispo!Central Coast musicians are all familiar with our nationally-renowned drum shop - The Drum Circuit. SLO Pages had the good fortune of both redesigning their website and introducing their extensive drum products online! The official launch of this new site is tomorrow. The new site maintains the "local feel" of the old site with tons of information about future and past local events including drum competitions, drum clinics, drum circles and worship drumming. The site also promotes their growing Drum School with lesson locations now in both San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles. Most importantly, the new site provides online shopping for their huge inventory of drumsets, snare drums, electronic drumsets, cymbals, thrones, drumsticks, drum heads, racks, stands, djembes, congas, bongos, chimes, bells, blocks, books, dvds, parts, accessories, and more... Support your local drum shop and visit The Drum Circuit in San Luis Obispo or buy your drum gear online at their new website! The Drum Circuit - Service you'd expect from a Professional Drum Shop Interestingly, as we're preparing to launch the new Drum Circuit website, a local drummer attending Cal Poly just introduced a new Drummer's Blog - The Drum Report. This blog promises to be a success. The Drum Report features reviews of drumming equipment and articles written by real drummers. No endorsements. No bias. The reviews presented are from their our perspective. Looks like the start of an informative blog for drummers! The Drum Report - Articles, Lessons and Equipment Reviews by Drummers, for Drummers SLO County Youth Orchestra Holiday ConcertThursday, November 04, 2004The holiday's are quickly approaching, and that means students of the San Luis Obispo Youth Symphony are getting in tune for another concert season. 52 young musicians consisting of local high school students were chosen to play this season in the prestigious San Luis Obispo County Youth Orchestra. The orchestra will open the season with a holiday concert Dec. 12 (at the Clark Center - we think).In addition to the holiday concert, the Youth Symphony will play March 6, 13 and 20 with a season finale May 13. And they will play a special show June 18 with Los Angeles Opera conductor and Youth Symphony alumnus Kent Nagano. The orchestra has been picked to play in Las Vegas and will perform in Japan in 2006. SLO Youth Symphony to showcase local musicians Lynda Weinman visiting SLOTuesday, November 02, 2004Cal Poly News Release:Husband-and-wife team Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin, leaders in Web design and developers of the first Web-safe color wheel, will present a free public forum on "Digital Entrepreneurship and the Dynamic Colors of the Web" Friday, Nov. 5, from 2 to 4 p.m. in Phillips Hall in the Performing Arts Center at Cal Poly. The forum is intended for anyone who creates presentations or artwork and needs to pick color relationships that communicate with intent and purpose, said Robert Webber, a faculty member in Cal Poly's English Department and director of the university's Consortium for Arts and Media. "Their presentation will benefit anyone who uses the Web to communicate in compelling ways." Weinman and Heavin's goal is to help media designers and communicators use Web, print, motion graphics and color to develop techniques that can lead to better forms of communication. The presentation is co-sponsored by lynda.com, the university's Consortium for Arts and Media, and the College of Liberal Arts. For more information, contact Robert Webber at (805) 756-1436 or rwebber@calpoly.edu. Leaders in Web Design to Speak at Cal Poly Nov. 5 Central Coast AviariesMonday, November 01, 2004In our search for unique businesses in San Luis Obispo County, we came across one for our bird lovers - Central Coast Aviaries. Bob Harvey constructs hi-quality, traditional aviaries, coops and gazebos from his rural home in Arroyo Grande. What started off as some simple projects for his own birds and chickens at home, gradually turned into a growing business of his own. If you're in the market for an aviary, coop or gazebo, we highly recommend Bob's work!And while you're visiting Bob, don't forget to check out his wife's sought-after "Plein-Air" paintings of the Central Coast - Laurel Sherrie Central Coast Aviaries Read More
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