Community Blog

Green energy is great. But is the proposed wind energy project going to do anything to give us financial relief with our local escalating electrical energy costs? Of course not! If my information is correct it will only benefit the electric suppliers for the Los Angeles area by giving them a cheap source of power to suck up and resell to their customers. We receive no benefits except the good feeling inside as we know the whirring and groaning noise throughout the night and day is helping the corporatons show a profit from our eyesore on our glorious mountain views. Meanwhile, as our area is raped by the LA concrete jungle we continue to pay more because we are out of the reach of any discounted rates.

If you think LA water and power is a good thing, try going water skiing on Lake Owens.

Frank

Midway Park in Lucerne Valley will be hosting two days of wild west action. If you remember back a few years this event was a lot of fun for everyone, and now the chamber is back at it with a lot of support from the community businesses and organizations.

The event will be held on the weekend of September 6th and 7th so it should be a little cooler to make it even more enjoyable to get involved in all the planned activities.

Call Susan at the chamber for more information and to get your group or business involved. (760) 248-7215

Frank

http://www.lucernevalley.net/chamber/frontier.htm

Have you noticed the new businesses that have sprouted up in the Victor Valley?

What do you think this will do for the Lucerne Valley economy?

If we continue to support our local businesses it shouldn’t have much effect. If we drive to VV to make the majority of purchases we may be in trouble.

It is so tempting to save a buck or two by making the drive but if you consider the cost of fuel, wear and tear, and how valuable your time is, it may not be such a bargain.

The state  has determined the reimbursement cost of operating a vehicle at 58.5 cents per mile. That would make a typical trip to Victorville of 30 miles cost $17.55 not including your travel time.

Shop local when you can and try to purchase products made in the USA whenever possible.

Frank

The new 99 Cent Store has only been open a few weeks and is already holding it own. If you haven’t stopped in to look around and say Hi! you could be missing the grand opening bargains.

Inside you will find so many good deals that can really help to stretch any budget. As an example cell-phone cases, chargers and hands free ear-pieces starting at a dollar. Kitchen cleaning products, soaps, paper products, etc also a dollar. How about a fresh loaf of bread for a buck. A large ice-cold drink for only a buck. So many items you really need to stop in and see for yourself. They are located next to the Crazy Coyote Mexican Restaurant.

Frank

Wow! Did I have a great dinner last night.

Went to Letty’s after getting a recomendation from Joy Shugert to try it again. (On my last visit the meat tasted like shredded shoe leather). Joy is cooking there on Friday and Saturday nights and she has been a restaurant chef for many years.

Well, the food was excellent! I ordered the carnitas plate and the chunks of pork roast were flavorfull, tender and not a bit of fat. The plate was as attractive as well as tasty, with fluffy mexican rice, refried beans and cheese, a nice garnish of pico de gillo, real guacamole, and sour cream on the side. There was enough on my plate that I needed a box to take the rest home for a great snack later.

My hat is off to Melody for hiring Joy! What a pleasure to eat an affordable, wonderful mexican dinner in my own town for a change.

Frank

The senior center is getting busier and are in need of more room to hold their events in. A fund-raiser is going on to help with some of the building costs and the prize is a gift certificate for $200 from Lucerne Valley Market and Hardware.

The drawing will be held July 4th at the park. See you there!

Frank

The rumors of no 4th of July parade are wrong. This years 4th of July parade is on as usual. It will start at 9:00 am at Tradepost and end at the park. The park party will begin with many fun filled events for young and old. There will be games, food and music throughout the day. Although Lucerne Valley will not be providing a fireworks display Big Bear (30 minutes away) will have their display as usual on the west end of the lake.

Frank

More trouble 5/21/2008.

This time it wasn’t a Verizon circuit failure, but a power supply failure at about 3:00 am that provided power to the Sunrise main broadband tower. The tower provides high-speed Internet to about 80 businesses and residences in town. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of the outage until receiving a call from Bob Delperdang at about 7:00 in the morning. The repairs were completed at about 9:00 am.

The cause of the failure is unknown. Sometimes equipment just stops working. The failed part had been in service for about five and a half years non-stop.

If you ever notice that our service appears to be down, please call and report any outages by calling 760 248-1000 during our regular business hours or 760 887-7483 after hours. Had I been aware of the outage at 3:00 am it would have been up and running again before most folks ever noticed.

Frank

Microsoft has released SP3 for XP. I read that it is a combination of all the security fixes and patches since SP1 and brings your system to the latest “patched” status.  I had no problems installing it. The download took quite a long time, though. I saved it and burned a few copies in case anybody wants it and doesn’t want to wait 14 or so hours for the download over dialup. Call me.  The installation took a long time on my Intel Cel-and-run system and there were a couple times I worried that it hung in the middle of the upgrade. But it didn’t … there were several times it went to a black screen (like a command screen), sat there a while and then came back. I know of one customer in town here that had his system not startup after the upgrade. I will check back with him to see if he ever got it to start up again without a re-install of XP.  Most likely this will be the last serious upgrade to XP as Vista is taking a stronger hold of the installed Windows base.

Frank

Welcome! If you agree or dis-agree, speak out and maybe we can get something started here.

Frank