Carmichael woman, 98, conquers Facebook

Marjorie Loyd is 98. She uses a walker. She can't hear that well. And her macular degeneration makes it difficult to read the print on a computer screen.

Still, the Carmichael resident has linked to 19 friends on Facebook since joining the social networking site two weeks ago.

"I don't think there's anything in life that takes the place of people and friends," Loyd said. "I love people, and I love contact with people."

More than 250 million people use Facebook, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Linder. The fastest-growing demographic are those 35 and older, but the company doesn't break out how many users are 98.

Loyd was born in Tennessee on Oct. 18, 1910. Her family had a horse and buggy, a party-line telephone shared with a handful of neighbors, and an outhouse. Loyd can still remember that junior high school day when her family received indoor plumbing.

With surprising speed, Loyd now wheels a walker through her senior residential facility, where she is known by name to everyone who passes. Inside her spacious apartment, she settles onto a chair in front of a laptop, on which the 18-point font is enlarged 150 percent. Loyd e-mails, writes letters in Microsoft Word and reaches out with Facebook.

Her 66-year-old daughter in Richmond, Va., joined Facebook a few days after she did.

Loyd said she joined to keep tabs on her former pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Sacramento.

The Rev. David Thompson said he was blown away when he received a friend request from Loyd in his e-mail inbox.

"I suggested to her that it would be a good idea, but I didn't expect her to follow through with it," Thompson said.

Loyd learned to use a computer three years ago, at age 95. She had just stopped driving and wanted to stay linked with family and friends. Her husband, long-time Sacramento physician Herlan Loyd, had died in 2001.

She had a friend at church pick out a laptop with a good screen, and after several quick tutorials, taught herself how to use it.

When her eyes deteriorated so much it was difficult to read the letters, Loyd hired a computer specialist to enlarge fonts on the display and put icons on the desktop so they would be easily accessible.

She swapped out the keyboard letters with larger-lettered keys herself.

"It's kind of humbling because every time I learn something, I learn I have a lot more to learn," Loyd said.

Loyd has frequently defied expectations. Before many women ran businesses, she owned a used typewriter company in Chicago to support her siblings after their father died. This was just as electric versions were being launched.

Now, even in her tenth decade, Loyd travels every odd-numbered year. She has a trip planned next month to visit family in Tennessee and then plans to celebrate her 99th birthday at the Long Island home of one of her eight grandchildren. She booked her airline ticket online.

She also continues to confront hurdles as they come. When she can't read something on the computer, she hits the print button and places the printout in a closed-circuit television machine that magnifies letters via a video camera.

That's how Loyd reads the Wall Street Journal every day and her subscription to Forbes magazine.

"It's amazing," said Thompson. "She finds ways to do everything."

Source Sac Bee

Rockin' and rollin' on the river

All right, music lovers: Take a hike. Go jump in the river. Or better yet, take a whitewater ride down the river.

Consider those a prelude to two days of really fine Americana roots, blues, jazz – and whatever moves the players – at next weekend's American River Music Festival.

I was there last year (this is the third annual event) and did all those things, and I'm going back. I even agreed to be a judge at next Friday night's open-mike event in which two acts will win a spot on the mainstage schedule as "tweeners" (between-act performances, one Saturday and the other Sunday).

The festival is the work of American River Music, a nonprofit whose mission is "to teach, inspire and enjoy music." The organization's goal is to raise money to foster music in schools, but so far the festival has failed to show a profit, says organizer Matt Semonsen. He holds hope that growing popularity will lead to actual fundraising soon.

"Each year has been really wonderful," Semonsen said in a recent telephone interview. "I get the distinct impression from people (who have attended both previous festivals) that it's building.

"It's hard to get a new festival off the ground – especially in these times – but we're encouraged."

Early advance ticket sales were ahead of last year's at the same time, he said, and many were returning buyers from 2008.

"I'm pretty pleased with that," he said, but "a small stream is still a small stream until it becomes a big stream."

Organizationally, the festival is still run by volunteers – 125 of them to put on the three-day event.

The festival will be larger this year in several ways, Semonsen said. "We've expanded the number of musicians and the choices in the evening time. There are nine different places where music takes place in the community," he said.

Music is presented on the mainstage from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Music performances and workshops are scheduled before and after each day's mainstage concerts.

For the first time this year, there will be a gospel component to the festival – an 11:30 a.m. Sunday performance by the eight-piece outfit Fret Not. The group has performed since 1994 and does much of its work in prison ministry. They are "the inmates' favorite band inside San Quentin," Semonsen said. They play old-time, traditional roots gospel like that heard in African American and rural churches.

Among the better-known performers at this year's festival are Eliza Gilkyson and Nina Gerber performing together and Americana singer-songwriter Jimmy LaFave and band. Danny Schmidt, an Austin, Texas, singer-songwriter who won the prestigious Kerrville New Folk award in 2007, has drawn comparisons to the late Townes Van Zandt and to Leonard Cohen. He is the only solo act to command the mainstage.

Other highlights include:

• Handful of Luvin': Saturday night's closing act is a young quartet from Seattle with such influences as gypsy, folk, funk and rock.

• Twilight Hotel: Smart songs and gorgeous voices meld in this alt-folk duo from Winnipeg, Canada. Twilight Hotel is nominated for a 2009 Juno (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy Award) for roots album of the year for "Highway Prayer" – buy it at the festival.

• City Folk: This trio (Keith Greeninger, Kimball Hurd and Roger Feuer) was a household name in the Bay Area in the 1990s and a popular festival act. The group disbanded in 1995 but has recently reunited and will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, leading into the festival's closing act – the Skinny Singers, featuring Jackie Greene and Tim Bluhm (of Mother Hips, which performs tonight at The Palms in Winters).

"It's a very nice mixture of music," Semonsen said. "A little bit of blues, some rock (not today's definition of rock), great folk, gospel, indie, dance band. … It just goes on and on."

There is a vibe to the festival – relaxed air, good music, friendly crowd – that organizers continue to cultivate. Bigger should only be better, Semonsen said.

Source Sac Bee

New cuts may put Sacramento County health department in 'survival mode'

Sacramento County health officials are bracing for more than a swine flu outbreak as the Board of Supervisors holds hearings this week to discuss further budget cuts.

The Public Health Department stands to lose $750,000 more in general fund money for the year. That means the public health budget would drop from about $47.4 million at the start of last fiscal year to $40 million after the latest round of cuts, said Glennah Trochet, the county's public health officer.

"We're in survival mode," Trochet said, predicting: "There are some diseases we won't investigate at all or will have to investigate retroactively. ... We will be regretful we weren't able to act more quickly."

Drops in property tax, sales tax and state revenue, combined with the board's decision to shift more money to the Sheriff's Department, means the county needs to cut an additional $54.5 million from this year's budget.

Possible cuts to public health include:

• Three people who work on communicable diseases and the control of sexually transmitted diseases, including an epidemiologist

• Two microbiologists from the public health lab

• Reduced hours for public health staff

• Reduction or elimination of contracts with community-based organizations testing high-risk populations for HIV

• Reduction or elimination of programs that help prevent child mortality

One-time federal funds for H1N1 – also known as swine flu – may allow the department to temporarily keep several positions, but the department has lost considerable resources in the past two years, officials said.

If the cuts go through as proposed, field nursing staff will have dropped from 54 positions in fiscal year 2007-08 to 29 this year; bioterrorism preparedness will be down to nine from 14; and childhood disability prevention programs will have lost almost eight positions leaving 24, according to figures the department provided.

The public health officials say the department provides critical services such as containing the spread of disease, testing for gonorrhea and HIV, preparing and handling bioterrorism incidents, providing field nurses and more.

The public health lab processes most tuberculosis swabs and tests for rabies and other communicable diseases, said Anthony Gonzalez, the lab's director.

The lab already lost two support staff and a lab technician in June.

Why should the average Joe care?

"I think that Joe should be aware the way a public health system manages infectious disease is by information and data collection. And that starts in the lab," Gonzalez said. "A lot of Joe's safety and health starts with specimens coming in here."

More cuts could slow turnaround time in the nearly 80,000 specimens processed annually, he said.

Reduced hours for staff who work on communicable and sexually transmitted diseases could mean "400 incidents will be delayed in being considered or will not be acted upon," which in turn could result in the spread of disease, according to public health documents.

Despite board hearings on the proposed cuts, no one seems optimistic alternatives will be found.

"It's going to be tough to mitigate cuts to anything," said Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan.

The county could appropriate more money for public health if swine flu sweeps the region, but the money has to come from somewhere else, she said.

"I'm hesitant to throw more money at that and have it turn out not to be that severe."

Source Sac Bee

Free Mortgage Protection Program For First-Time Buyers

Under this FREE program provide your qualified buyer up to $1,500 a month for up to six months in the event of job loss to help pay the mortgage; a $750 monthly benefit also is available for a qualified co-buyer. There is no cost to you! See below for program qualifications.

In order to qualify for the Mortgage Protection Program, applicants must:

• Be a first-time home buyer - someone who has not owned property in the last three years (includes co-buyer)
• Open escrow April 2, 2009, or later, and close on or before December 31, 2009 (purchase agreement cannot be dated before April 2, 2009)
• Use a California REALTOR in the transaction
• Purchase the property in California
• Be a W-2 employee (cannot be self-employed)

If you would like more information or have any questions please contact Brodie Stephens or Sami Siddiqui at www.localhomelink.com

Source California Association or Realtors

Increased Home Prices in Some Cities

A number of American cities posted increased home prices during the second quarter.

This represents the first quarterly improvement since 2006. The numbers are encouraging, although overall prices are still substantially lower than a year ago.Among those cities reported as showing improvement, in the Case-Shiller 20 city index –

Cleveland - 4.2%
San Francisco - 3.8%
Minneapolis - 3.1%
Washington DC - 2.8%
Dallas - 2.7%
Boston - 2.6%
Denver - 2.5%
San Diego 1.6%
Atlanta - 1.5%

Also tracked as showing some improvement were Los Angeles, Chicago and Phoenix with 1.1% improvement. Portland, Charlotte, Miami, New York, and Seattle logged minor gains.

Likely helping the housing markets is the government economic stimulus effort, including an $8,000 first-time homebuyers tax credit. Many first time or entry-level buyers have been helped by the program.In some metropolitan housing markets, feeding frenzies, multiple offers, and bidding wars are taking place while home-buyers become concerned the market bottom has been reached, and prices may go up once again.There is an article at money.cnn.com which goes into depth about these latest numbers. It can be accessed as follows:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/25/real_estate/June_CaseShiller/index.htm?postversion=2009082510

Bay Bridge repair forces longer closure

The Bay Bridge will remain closed until at least Wednesday morning as crews work nonstop to repair what's been described as a "significant" crack in the bridge's east span near Yerba Buena Island.

The bridge had been shut in both directions since Thursday night as part of a major seismic project, and had been expected to reopen for today's morning commute.

However, the surprise discovery Saturday of a large crack in a steel beam forced emergency repairs requiring the bridge to remain closed.

"Our new target is 5 a.m. Wednesday," said John Goodwin of the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission on Monday evening.

He declined to say how confident officials were of meeting the new deadline. "We're 100 percent confident we will give 100 percent effort to reach that goal," he said.

Commuters and others traveling into San Francisco can expect delays today on other bridges and crowds on BART and bay ferries, officials said.

"We know this is going to be a major inconvenience for Bay Area commuters, but this should not overshadow the tremendous work that was completed this weekend," Caltrans Director Randell Iwasaki said.

The bridge is the most heavily used in the state, typically handling 248,000 vehicles a day, Caltrans officials said.

Bay Area officials made a point of saying workers and other travelers should be able to get into San Francisco.

"Our advice is to take transit and be patient," Goodwin said. "You'll get there. The city is open for business."

The bridge had been closed through the Labor Day weekend to allow crews to cut away a 300-foot section of the bridge and slide a new section into its place, at an angle, linking to a new detour route at Yerba Buena Island.

The detour section will be used for the next four years while work continues on a new east span to replace the existing bridge. The new section is scheduled to open in 2013. The existing East Bay span will be demolished.

The project is part of a statewide seismic upgrade program initiated after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged a section of the east span.

The seismic work, overseen by Rancho Cordova contractor C.C. Myers, remained on schedule to be finished by this morning. Myers is also handling the repair job.

State bridge inspectors on Saturday found a significant crack halfway through a 2-inch-thick beam called an eyebar on the bridge's cantilever section. An eyebar is a straight bar with a hole at each end connecting to other bridge parts.

The crack was not related to the weekend work, officials said, and appears to have occurred since a 2007 inspection. Officials said the crack was serious enough to have required a bridge closure had the bridge not already been closed for the seismic project.

"We are fortunate this was discovered when so many experienced contractors and skilled workers were on the scene, able to respond immediately," said Bob Alvarado of the California Transportation Commission.

Support pieces were rush-ordered Saturday from an Arizona company. The pieces were manufactured and sent to the Bay Area on Sunday.

"This repair had to be designed on the fly," Goodwin said. "They are having to fit the pieces together."

The stress load at that section of the bridge had been taken up safely by seven similar beams, officials said, but the damaged beam needs to be fixed. The repair essentially involves placing a metal splint around the broken piece.

Caltrans officials warned drivers that when the bridge reopens, speed limits at Yerba Buena Island will be reduced from 50 to 40 mph to accommodate two turns on the detour route.

Those two turns allow space for construction crews to build the new bridge directly toward the island's tunnel.

Unlike the existing east span, which is a double-deck bridge, the new bridge will be a set of side-by-side bridges, and will include a single suspension tower.

Source Sac Bee

Update: Sacramento police arrest 17 at 'safe ground' homeless camp

Sacramento police arrested 17 homeless residents at their "safe ground" campsite this morning, including one advocate for the homeless.

Rev. David Moss, a Methodist Minister, was taken into custody along with other campers, charged with illegal camping, Sacramento police Sgt. Norm Leong said.

A press release by Loaves & Fishes early morning claimed Sister Libby Fernandez, executive director of the Loaves & Fishes homeless services group, was arrested together with other campers. But later Sacramento police clarified that she was only detained for a short period when police arrived to search the camp.

Only those who had been previously cited for illegal camping and who police have evidence to show for having camped there for more than 24 hours were taken into custody, police said.

Sacramento police said they were responding to complaints from neighbors, including an elderly man whose house is adjacent to the site. The man, Pedro Hernandez, 71, has told The Bee that campers have insulted him, left trash in the area and generally disrupted his life.

Fernandez said she has slept at the site periodically but never in the presence of officers. She said that she and others plan to continue to occupy the property until the city stops issuing ordinances and establishes a legal camping site with basic services such as running water and garbage pickup.

"They want to stand tall and bring this to court for a solution," said Fernandez.

"We know that making an arrest is not a solution for the homeless issue," Leong said. "But we have to enforce the city ordinance, to protect the rights of the neighboring residents and businesses."

Leong said those who were arrested were taken to the Sacramento County Jail and will be booked and probably released later in the day.

Joan Burke, advocacy director for Loaves and Fishes, was present during the arrests and characterized the scene as "very sad."

"They are arresting a nun and a minister who are here to help poor people," Burke said. "They are arresting people whose crime' is being poor."

Officers arrived at the campsite about 7:30 a.m.

The action followed a police search early Wednesday, when officers cut a lock, walked onto the C Street property and issued citations for illegal camping. They also seized 32 tents, sleeping bags, cots and other items as evidence. The property is owned by Attorney Mark Merin, who had given permission for campers to live at the site.

Civil rights and religious leaders, business people and others who support the campers were planning their strategy following Wednesday's citations. One plan is to challenge in court a city ordinance that prevents people from camping in non-designated areas for more than 24 hours at a time.

However, Hernandez, who lives next to the homeless camp, earlier told The Bee that the campers have caused him problems.

"I have had vertigo in the last few days," said Hernandez in an earlier interview. He suffers from diabetes and heart problems. "My mind is filled with anger and resentment."

Tuesday morning, he was jarred by the sound of his new neighbors hurling curse words, Hernandez told The Bee. "They yelled vile words," Hernandez said. "When they saw me, they quieted down."

Source Sac Bee