West Sacramento-based Raley's said today that it will close its Bel Air store at 8787 Elk Grove Blvd., in Elk Grove.

The local closure was one of two announced for in Northern California. The other is a Raley's supermarket at 2401 E. Orangeburg Avenue in Modesto.

Raley's said the closures, set for March, "will likely result in employee layoffs."

Read More HERE

There are only nine questions.
These are not trick questions. 
They are straight questions with straight answers.. 

1.. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward? 

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables? 

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle? 

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters ' dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter 'S.'

Answers To Quiz:

1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends: Boxing. 

2. North American landmark constantly moving backward: Niagara Falls ... The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.

3. Only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons: Asparagus and rhubarb. 

4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside: Strawberry. 

5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle. The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems. 

6. Three English words beginning with dw: Dwarf, dwell and dwindle... 

7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar: Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation mark, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses. 

8.. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh: Lettuce. 

9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with 'S': Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts. 

You may go to www.elainemackobooks.com to order the book in advance and bring to the signing, or Elaine will have a supply on hand.

Hors d’œuvres and wine will be served at the book signing.

I would like to know if any other homeowners are having a problem cooling their houses down on these hot days. Closed up the house in the morning...at 2:30 it was 79 and I turned on the air....5 hours later it had dropped 1 degree....is this normal? Shall I post something on the site? Please advise...thanks a lot.

I hate to think I can't have my doors and windows open and let cool air in.....I also hate to think that this system only 'maintains'....so if I turn it on when it's 80 in the house...it won't get any warmer...but it won't  get any cooler....in a quandary here....

1. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put 'PHOTO ID REQUIRED.'

2. When you are writing checks to pay on your credit card accounts, DO NOT put the complete account number on the 'For' line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling your check as it passes through all the check processing channels won't have access to it.

3. Put your work phone # on your checks instead of your home phone. If you have a PO Box use that instead of your home address. If you do not have a PO Box, use your work address. Never have your SS# printed on your checks. (DUH!) You can add it if it is necessary. But if you have It printed, anyone can get it.

4. Place the contents of your wallet on a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each license, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel.   Keep the photocopy in a safe place.
Also carry a photocopy of  passport when  traveling either here or abroad.
Here's some critical information to limit the damage in case this happens to you or someone you know:

5. We have been told we should cancel our credit cards immediately. But the key is having the toll-free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them.

6. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one).

But here's what is perhaps the most important of all:
7. Call the 3 national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your name and call the Social Security fraud line number.
The alert means any company that checks your credit knows your information was stolen, and they have to contact you by phone to authorize new credit.

Here are the numbers you always need to contact about your wallet, if it has been stolen:

1..) Equifax:  1-800-525-6285  1-800-525-6285

2.) Experian (formerly TRW):  1-888-397-3742  1-888-397-3742

3.) Trans Union :  1-800-680 7289  1-800-680 7289

4.) Social Security Administration (fraud line):
1-800-269-0271  1-800-269-0271

If we go down to the local card store it is unlikely we will find a birthday card proclaiming Happy 161st Birthday.  But that is how old California will be on September 9, 2011.

California was the 31st  state admitted to the Union. It had been a part of Mexico prior to statehood. The momentum for statehood was the four letter word. GOLD. Gold rushes occurred all over the world. Once gold was discovered, hordes of get rich quick miners came in search of fame and fortune. Few found true fortune and most moved on to the next gold discovery. My father's family arrived in Oakland in 1852 but as butchers, not gold miners . Prior to the California Gold Rush, Georgia had a gold rush in the 1820’s. The next rush was to British Columbia in the 1850’s.

We all know the story of James Marshall discovering gold in the mill race of Sutter’s mill on the American River near Coloma. But did you know we had a minor gold find on Dry Creek near Galt just a few miles from here  6 months earlier. No one knows how much Gold was mined from the Dry Creek diggings. John Sutter, the property owner, got the lions share but the family who found the gold while washing clothes in the creek kept around $15,000 of the find as their share for the discovery and recovery of the gold from the creek. An even today small nuggets and specks of gold are still found in parts of the Cosumes River.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CALIFORNIA.

When leaving, the elderly woman unknowingly
left her glasses on the table, and she didn't
miss them until they had been driving for
about forty minutes.

By then, to add to the aggravation, they
had to travel quite a distance before
they could find a place to turn
around, in order to return to the restaurant
to retrieve her glasses.

All the way back, the elderly husband
became the classic grouchy old man.
He fussed and complained, and
scolded his wife relentlessly during the
entire return drive. The more he
chided her, the more agitated he became. He
just wouldn't let up for a single minute.

To her relief, they finally arrived at the restaurant.
As the woman got out of the
car, and hurried inside to retrieve
her glasses, the old geezer yelled to her, 

While you're in there, you might as well
get my hat and the credit card.

Elk Grove city council members moved Wednesday to close a loophole in the city’s zoning code regulating large retail stores that one resident said was “big enough to drive a refrigerated truck through.”

Friends of Madeira member Peter Gaffney urged the council Wednesday to close the loophole.

“Please do not use our zoning code to lure new or expanding business,” Gaffney said. "We are encouraged by the effort you’re making to get it right. It protects residents while creating opportunities for the right kinds of businesses to flourish in our city.”

For full story see ELK GROVE PATCH

Our cell service is surprisingly spotty inside our house.  I first tried walking around with my old phone, looking at the signal strength bars to see where the service is best, and then improved my ability to measure by using Darcie’s smart phone, which comes with a much more precise measurement  (both IPhones and Androids have this feature).

I found that my best signal was in the garage, it got a little worse in the kitchen, and progressively worse as I worked my way to the back of the house, where dropped calls are common.  I originally thought I might buy a signal booster, and so took readings in the attic, where I presumed I would put the antennae. However the signal was much worse up there – strengthening my belief that the foil insulation was a big part of the problem.
I took a trip to the Verizon store (my cell carrier), but didn’t find any helpful guidance there. However,  a bit of googling led me to a slightly different alternative.  It turns out Verizon has sold a femtocell device for a couple years now, which piggybacks on my internet connection. It essentially becomes another cell phone tower, right in my home.  List price on this little solution was $250, but lots of them were available new on Ebay for a bit over a hundred dollars, so I bought one there.

The femtocell arrived today, and I installed it in just a few minutes.  It took much longer to get through to tech support to have it activated, but once that was done, with just a few more minutes wait, the mini cell phone tower was up and running.  Signal strength looks very good everywhere except our guest bedroom, and if that becomes an issue, I can move the device closer to the middle of the house.

This particular solution only makes sense if you have Verizon as your carrier, have high speed internet already, and don’t usually download movies while talking on the phone.
So I'm wondering -
Do you get good cell phone service inside your house?
Which cell phone service do you use?