The Conejo Valley Guide "Welcome" blog covers a wide range of topics, local information, highlights of local things to do, compilations and other items. Focus is on information relevant to Ventura County and surrounding areas, including Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Newbury Park, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Malibu, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Moorpark, Somis, Fillmore, Santa Paula, Ojai, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Santa Barbara and Moorpark.
The Conejo Valley Guide® "Welcome" blog covers a wide range of topics, local information, local things to do, holiday event compilations, announcements and more.
You've gotta watch this amazing performance...particularly the acrobatics and contortionism after the first 55 seconds of singing. Amazing!! The Ross Sisters performed this in 1944 and perhaps were the inspiration for Art Clokey's creation of Gumby in the early 1950s!!
Last night around 8:30 pm there was a short 3.9 magnitude earthquake centered near Point Mugu that was felt around Ventura County. I was with my young kids upstairs when the loud but short quake hit. Intuitively I grabbed my 4 year old and crouched under a door jamb***. It reminded me that we should all do some homework on how to protect yourself during a quake (courtesy of www.earthquakecountry.info).
DURING an earthquake, if you are:
Indoors: Drop, cover, and hold on. Drop to the floor, take cover under a sturdy desk or table, and hold on to it firmly. Be prepared to move with it until the shaking stops. If you are not near a desk or table, drop to the floor against the interior wall and protect your head and neck with your arms. Avoid exterior walls, windows, hanging objects, mirrors, tall furniture, large appliances, and kitchen cabinets with heavy objects or glass. Do not go outside!
In bed: If you are in bed, hold on and stay there, protecting your head with a pillow. You are less likely to be injured staying where you are. Broken glass on the floor has caused injury to those who have
NOTE: This was originally posted in April 2010. I believe the CAD described below was replaced with the interactive Crime Maps now used to post information and incidents, arrests, calls for service and the like.
The Ventura County Sheriff's Department recently upgraded its website to incorporate a Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) display, YouTube video updates, press release updates via Nixle and a Twitter feed. So if you are looking for up to date Ventura County crime information, definitely check out the VCSD website at www.vcsd.org.
The CAD display is pretty interesting. It is updated every minute with details (time, location, nature of call) and can be viewed by anyone. There is a short delay placed on activity display
During Spring Break we decided to take a 3 day excursion to Lake Tahoe to play and ski in the snow. We stayed and played at Northstar in North Lake Tahoe and had a blast!
There were four of us; 2 adults, 2 kids. We decided to fly from LAX to Reno as a test to see how our 4 year old would behave on his first flight. Overall, it went o.k. (though don't ask the guy who sat in front of him). We learned a lot on this very first trip involving more than just driving our car somewhere. Let me summarize what we learned:
Don't Stuff Too Much Into a Big Suitcase
We have two BIG suitcases and the rest are small enough to be carry-ons. My wife refused to use the 2nd big suitcase because it was "dirty." I said no problem, I'll take MY stuff out of the big suitcase and repack it into the allegedly dirty bag. She refused and instead made me stuff everyone's ski clothes into the one big bag...I had sit on the suitcase to zip it up.
Sure enough...the bag weighed 56 lbs and Southwest charged us an extra $50 EACH WAY for the bag because it weighed more than 50 lbs. It made no difference that the 4 other bags weighed 10 to 20 lbs. They don't take an average as I so begged them to do. I was pissed. But...cha ching...had no choice but to fork over the $$.
Don't Buy Auto Rental Insurance if You Don't Need It
I did not make the mistake of purchasing the $10/day Loss Damage Waiver from Hertz as I'm covered by my own personal auto insurance AND my American Express card offers this coverage for free. So don't waste money on this insurance if you don't need it. Do your homework and don't throw away $$.
Don't Wait to Fill Up the Gas Tank on Your Rental Car
So we checked out of our hotel and drove back to Reno. I thought it would be fun to stop by the Circus Circus so the kids could play some games in
I was at Costco grabbing a bargain (and quite nutritious) lunch of a hot dog and Coke and noticed that the shiny pennies I received in change looked different. Sure enough, these brand spanking new 2010 pennies had a redesign on the back.
The Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 among other things authorized a redesign of the back of the penny in 2010 to reflect Abraham Lincoln's preservation of the U.S. as a single and united country. So the backside of the penny now displays a shield with 13 vertical stripes representing the 13 original states in union. The familiar E PLURIBUS UNUM is retained to indicate "out of many, one."
These new pennies are composed of 2.5% copper and 97.5% zinc, roughly the same composition they have had since 1982. Prior to that they has been 95% copper and 5% tin/zine since 1909. Apparently the pre-1982 95% copper pennies are worth more than 2 cents each due to their copper value. However, don't even think about it...since 2006 there have been laws that criminalize melting pennies/nickels for their content,
Thirteen months ago I highlighted some stocks that pay decent dividends, as an alternative to low yielding bank CDs and bonds. Since then, the market has made a nice comeback, up over 40% overall. A monkey could have made money in this market by throwing banana slices at ticker symbols on CNBC.
The good news is that the 19 stocks highlighted grew by nearly 40%, even before taking into account the 5% to 6% dividends paid out during the period!
While I can't predict where the stock market is headed (seems like it should be taking a breather at some point, but who knows...), let's take a fresh look at these stocks!
What prompted me to write this article is that I helped an employee save $1,900 on her 2009 taxes. Why? Because she wasn't aware of the American Opportunity Credit for the money she spent on college education last year.
There are 3 Federal education credits in 2009, the new American Opportunity Credit, the Hope Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit. Of course, you can also claim a tax deduction for education costs (in lieu of credit), but most people will benefit more from a tax credit (particularly a refundable tax credit) than a tax deduction.
American Opportunity Credit ("AOC")
Conejo Valley Guide covers events, activities and things to do throughout Ventura County and surrounding areas.
Conejo Valley Guide® covers thousands of events, activities and things to do throughout Ventura County, California and surrounding areas.
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