The IKEA Museum Opened in Älmhult, Sweden in June 2016

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Overview IKEA Museum. © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2016

Overview IKEA Museum. © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2016

As noted at this link, IKEA will be relocating early next month from its existing location in Burbank to a new location nearby that is nearly double the size.

There was a massive outpouring of excitement about this new store on the CVG Facebook Page and several folks hoped that the new store could perhaps travel 35 miles west to Thousand Oaks or Camarillo. IKEA does not share its expansion plans but with only 43 stores in the entire U.S. and the new Burbank store occupying the largest footprint of any U.S. store, I would venture to bet that we will not be seeing an IKEA store in nearby Ventura County for the foreseeable future.

IKEA was founded in Sweden in 1943 by 17 year old Ingvar Kamprad, who named the company after his initials, Elmtaryd (the farm he grew up on) and Agunnaryd (his hometown in southern Sweden). Kamprad turned 90 in 2016.

Now, for IKEA fans planning to be visiting Scandinavia in the future, you'll have to check out the IKEA Museum.

Opened in June 2016 this 75,000 sq ft museum is located in the original building that housed the very first IKEA store in Älmhult, Sweden in 1958. The museum features a main exhibition in three parts, a temporary exhibition, a gift shop and a restaurant.

IKEA Museum tells the story of IKEA and how an entrepreneur from the southern parts of Sweden, the province of Småland, together with his co-workers decided to create “a better everyday life for the many people."

Visitors are invited to explore the driving forces in society that shaped IKEA, the people behind it, the ideas and inspiration for the products – but also what IKEA may be tomorrow.

Learn more about the IKEA Museum at ikeamuseum.com/en.

Mosaic of smaller portraits of IKEA co-workers. © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2016

Mosaic of smaller portraits of IKEA co-workers. © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2016

Unsubscribing From Email Lists to Help Save Time Over the Long Run

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Here we are, nearly halfway into the first month of 2017. Some of us have new year's resolutions, some of us don't. Those of us that do may or may not have made progress towards these resolutions.

Perhaps the best approach to feeling like we are actually accomplishing a new goal in 2017 is to set goals that are achievable. Not a lofty goal that could take months or an entire year, but a goal that can be accomplished fairly quickly and easily with a little bit of focus. A goal that, when achieved, can provide immediate benefits.

For me, that achievable goal is to reduce the size of my email inbox. 

Over the course of the year, I buy stuff online, sign up for services and sometimes sign up for email newsletters. While I try to pay attention to un-check the box asking me to sign up for a newsletter, in my haste I sometimes don't do so.

As a result, the daily email inbox grows and grows and grows. Sometimes to 100, 150 or more emails a day.

My daily routine includes deleting emails, usually by quickly clicking a box next to the email, then clicking the delete button. It doesn't take a lot of time to do, but it is a distraction, especially when it continues to happen all day.

If your email inbox is an annoyance to you, consider doing the following:

  1. Instead of deleting unwanted emails daily, consider letting them accumulate in your inbox for a week.
  2. Then take an hour of focused time to open up each email and decide if this is an email you want to receive on a regular basis.
  3. Click the Unsubscribe button. Sometimes that one click unsubscribes you. Other times it leads you to a page that asks "are you sure?" Of course you're sure! Other pages ask multiple questions; would you like a weekly or monthly digest, would you like to receive these emails but not those, etc. Look, decide and take action!
  4. A "digest" option is sometimes offered as a way to receive individual messages consolidated into one email. The Nextdoor neighborhood social network website offers a "Daily Digest" feature as one example that can certainly take a load off your inbox.
  5. Do you get reminders from Facebook, like birthday reminders? That's something else you can put an end to if it is causing too much clutter by simply clicking the link at the bottom of the email to opt out.
Don't click links in spam emails!

Don't click links in spam emails!

Now one thing you don't want to do is click a link in an email from an unknown sender, otherwise known as Spam. You may be telling a spammer that yes, this email is active, so send me more spam. You don't want that. Gmail does a good job of identifying spam and placing it in the spam folder but there's also an icon you can click for true spam from unknown senders in your inbox.

Now that you have freed up all that space in your inbox and have created hours and hours of extra time, be sure to sign up for the weekly Conejo Valley Guide Updates Email for highlights of things to do and see in and around Ventura County. You have plenty of room now to enjoy these! :) SIGN UP FOR CVG UPDATES VIA EMAIL

One more aside, there also some free online tools out there that do the unsubscribing on your behalf. While I have not personally used them, they may be of interest: Unroll.me  getunsubscriber.com 

Free Online Tool Makes It Simple to Make Any Page Print Friendly

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It was a request from CVG reader Eileen posed that prompted me to find something pretty simply, useful and cool, not to mention free.

Eileen asked how could she save the comprehensive guide to finding family bike paths in and around Ventura County article to a pdf file so that she could print it out and bring it with her.

My first thought of course was, this website is very mobile friendly, so if you have a smartphone, just click the article and you'll have what you need in the palm of your hand. No trees consumed. But, hey, I see the benefits of printing out documents too. Not to mention, as recently as 2015, 32% of adults in the U.S. did not own a smartphone.

Problem is, that print feature does not currently exist on this environmentally conscious website. So what is one to do?

I discovered a simple and very easy solution. Simply click the URL of the page you would like to print to pdf and paste it into to the box at www.printfriendly.com. Within seconds, the article can be printed in a nice format directly to your printer, printed to a pdf file or emailed to someone.

Additionally, you can change the size of the text of the article (although the header text size stays the same) and you can change the size of the images in the article or even remove them.

You can also click any highlighted text links, full sentences or images in the converted article to literally remove it. This could come in handy if something is converted that you don't want in your printable version.

Very impressive and very simple to use. Simple is the key. I like simple and easy. And free. 

2016 Ends With a Beautiful Double Rainbow in the Conejo Valley and Surrounding Areas

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As soon as I stepped outside just after 4pm today, I noticed the sun shining amid the clouds and I uttered out loud, "This is rainbow weather!" 

Sure enough, I was right. We drove a block and noticed the beautiful, massive rainbow in Thousand Oaks, but we missed the double rainbow that wowed local residents after an entire day of cloud cover, cold and rain.

Here are some of my favorites from THIS FACEBOOK POST.

Taken from Newbury Park

Taken from Newbury Park

July to December 2016 Restaurants New and Restaurants Adieu in Ventura County

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Here's the latest compilation of restaurants in the Conejo Valley and throughout Greater Ventura County that opened, announced plans to open or closed during the period July through December 2016. 

(Click here for previous January through June 2016 activity.) Let us know of any we missed!

Restaurants That Have Opened Since June 2016

Restaurants That Are Planning to Open Soon

Restaurants That Have Closed Since June 2016

California Lottery "Lucky Retailers" in Ventura County and Surrounding Areas

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The California Lottery was created by ballot measure Proposition 37, approved by 58% of voters on November 6, 1984. Current law (Assembly Bill 142, passed in 2010), limits administrative expenses of the Lottery to 13% of sales, with 87% of sales going back in the form of prized and contributions to education.

Since inception in 1985 through the California Lottery's most currently issued financial report as of June 30, 2015, the Lottery has sold $85.1 billion, contributed close to $29.4 billion to schools, paid $45.9 billion to Lottery winners and another $5.6 million as compensation to retailers.

What happens if you win a big Lottery prize? Your name is public record, as is the name and location of the retailer that sold you the winning ticket, the date you won and of course, the amount. For most Lottery draw games, you have 180 days to claim your prize; however, if you win the Powerball or Mega Millions, you have a year to claim your prize. You will receive your first (or in most cases, only) check with your prize winnings six to eight weeks from claiming your prize.

So how do you win "a big one?" I wish I had the answer. One idea to ponder is to pursue purchasing tickets at retailers that seem to have the winning touch.

The Lottery has a "Lucky Retailers" database that shows, of its 22,000 retail locations, over 4,000 retailers considered "lucky." Lucky is defined as, within the last calendar year, either 1) sold at least one winning ticket of $100,000 or more; 2) paid out an average of 400 or more winning tickets per week or 3) paid out an average of $4,000 or more of winning tickets each week. You can access this searchable list at https://www.calottery.com/Where-To-Play and search for “only Lucky Retailers.”

What most interests me is retailers in Ventura County that meet parameter #1; selling at least one $100,000+ ticket over the previous calendar year. So let's take a look at which local retailers meet that parameter as of late November 2016. It is actually quite a short list!

  • Hi-Time Liquor, 140 W. Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks

  • 7-Eleven, 609 Rancho Conejo Blvd, Thousand Oaks

  • Mobil, 855 N. Wendy Drive, Newbury Park

  • 7-Eleven, 1840 Cochran Street, Simi Valley

  • Simi Valley Smoke Shop, 2902 Cochran Street, Simi Valley

  • 76 Station, 2605 Stearns Street, Simi Valley

  • Shell Station, 1604 Ventura Boulevard, Camarillo

  • Log Cabin Liquor, 2457 Alameda Avenue, Ventura

  • Pat Holden Liquor, 860 South A Street, Oxnard

  • Goode's Liquor, 1271 Saviers Road, Oxnard

  • 7-Eleven, 2201 E. Gonzales Road, Oxnard

  • Superior Grocers, 2401 Saviers Road, Oxnard

That's it! Pretty short list!

Prior to the "Lucky Retailers" program, here are Ventura County area retail locations that sold at least two winning tickets of $1 MILLION or more from 1985 to 2013:

  • Allan's Market Wine & Lotto, 2521 N. Ventura Road, Port Hueneme (This is the only retail location in the entire state of California during this time frame that sold SIX winning $1 million or more Lottery tickets!)

  • 7-Eleven, 2201 E. Channel Islands Blvd, Oxnard (3 winning tickets)

And there you have it! Learn more about the California Lottery at www.calottery.com.

New Cell Phone Law Effective January 1, 2017 Requires Mounting of Phone For Car Use

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The Camarillo Police Department’s Traffic Bureau reminds motorists that a new cell phone law takes effect on January 1, 2017. On the 1st, the existing cell phone law, California Vehicle Code 23123.5, is being repealed and a new cell phone law signed by Governor Brown in September 2016 (Assembly Bill 1785) is being put in its place.

California Vehicle Code 23123.5. now states:
(a) A person shall not drive a motor vehicle while holding and operating a handheld wireless telephone or an electronic wireless communications device unless the wireless telephone or electronic wireless communications device is specifically designed and configured to allow voice-operated and hands-free operation, and it is used in that manner while driving.

(b) This section shall not apply to manufacturer-installed systems that are embedded in the vehicle.

(c) A handheld wireless telephone or electronic wireless communications device may be operated in a manner requiring the use of the driver’s hand while the driver is operating the vehicle only if both of the following conditions are satisfied:

(1) The handheld wireless telephone or electronic wireless communications device is mounted on a vehicle’s windshield in the same manner a portable Global Positioning System (GPS) is mounted pursuant to paragraph (12) of subdivision (b) of Section 26708 or is mounted on or affixed to a vehicle’s dashboard or center console in a manner that does not hinder the driver’s view of the road.

(2) The driver’s hand is used to activate or deactivate a feature or function of the handheld wireless telephone or wireless communications device with the motion of a single swipe or tap of the driver’s finger.

This new cell phone law means if drivers intend to use their cellphones while operating a motor vehicle, drivers must have their cell phones mounted to the dashboard, center console, or windshield and can only use a “feature” on the phone with a single swipe or tap of the driver’s finger.

A violation of this law is an infraction. The base fine for the first offense is $20 and $50 for each subsequent offense.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), “The percentage of drivers text-messaging or visibly manipulating handheld devices increased from 1.7 percent in 2013 to 2.2 percent in 2015. Since 2007, young drivers (age 16 to 24) have been observed manipulating electronic devices at higher rates than older drivers. Data shows the average time your eyes are off the road while texting is five seconds. When traveling at 55mph, that's enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded.”