The Three Sisters

If you have been wondering, superb margaritas do exist on Folsom Blvd, and they can be found at the Three Sisters Restaurant located on the corner of 51st and Folsom Blvd. The tropical margarita can be ordered in multiple flavors such as raspberry, peach and mango, to name a few. The peach is highly recommended.

The margaritas are so high-quality it is hard to leave without ordering more then one. For the price, the margaritas could have been bigger, but that is a minor detail compared to flavor, and the margaritas are a hit in the flavor department. They have just the right amount of whatever it is bartenders put in margaritas, and after the first sip they tend to magically disappear. They even come with a lime wedge on the edge of the glass, but you will most likely end up squirting it over your chips because the margarita does not need the extra zest.

The atmosphere of the restaurant is complimentary to the traditional style margaritas. From the sidewalk to the multi-colored chairs, the Three Sister’s has a genuine look and feel. The small arched windows, bright colors and bamboo ceilings give the illusion of, at the very least, an effort toward authenticity.

This restaurant was empty on a Monday night, but by the number of tables filling the room anyone could come to the conclusion that it must get really busy at times. If you enjoy quite places to eat you should visit on a Monday or Tuesday, but if you like the lively scene Thursday, Friday or Saturday would be more up your alley.

All the expected items were brought to the table immediately and the waitress was accommodating to late arrivals and separate checks at the end of the meal. The menu was a long list of items served and was void of bolded headings. Unfortunately, they do not serve tortilla soup, or any soup, but they were accommodating to vegetarians and a few meatless options.

Once the food came out it was accented with beautiful plates and a traditional presentation. The food was above average but I wouldn’t say it was anything extra special. The chief did step outside traditional boundaries by making the rice plain and a chipotle cream sauce. The sauce was refreshingly different but the rice would have been enjoyed more if it was made in a more traditional Mexican style. The rice might not have been the right flavor but it was cooked properly and the sauce had enough flavor to make up for what the rice was lacking.

The Three Sister’s restaurant gets three and-a-half stars, and would be great for almost any type of casual event. This is a good place to stop in and have some chips and salsa and a couple of margaritas. Especially if you call East Sacramento your home this is THE Mexican food place to go to in your neighborhood.

Keeping culture and tradition alive

The County of Sacramento has made an effort to create a family environment for the people of Sacramento County. The County has thought of events, built facilities and offered activities that make everyone’s family-fun-day a blast.

On Oct. 6th the county’s Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Ancil Hoffman Park had an annual performance that attracts floods of people to Sacramento to watch traditional Maidu dancers, basket weaving and cooking with acorns. Maidu Indian Day happens at the nature center once or twice a month, which is an educational, fun workshop for children to learn about the Maidu people by making traditional jewelry and toys.

The Maidu Indians were native to the Sacramento area and uses the rivers as a source of survival and the county of Sacramento wants to keep their culture alive.

The nature center also has activities such as nature walks, beaver hikes were you can see beavers building a damn and owls of October, were you learn about owls and owl pellets. The facility has resident animals, a nature preserve, native plant landscaping, a discovery shop and a discovery room wildlife exhibit.

All of these wonderful offerings to the public might be owned and maintained by the county now, but the idea for the center came from the founder, Effie Yeaw herself. Yeaw promoted appreciation for plant and animal life and was a leader in the movement for protecting Sacramento’s natural environment.

The nature centers goal is “to create a greater awareness, understanding and appreciation of the natural and cultural resources of the Sacramento region, the need to conserve these resources, and their interrelationships and interdependences within in the Earth’s ecosystem.”

The message the county is trying to spread is a positive lifesaving message that everyone should take the time to learn. Even if the nature center had the smallest effect on one child and encourages them to pick up litter or preserve nature in any way then one less person will be working against the natural workings of the Earth in the future. The Earth is one of the only things humans truly need to survive yet most of us treat it like it owes us something.

It's Raining, It's Pouring

Summer is over and the rain has officially come down this year. It might even rain all this week. Rainy weather can be hard to get used to when you’ve been in the sun all summer long. Rain can also be unpredictable and could start drizzling at any time, but eventually the sun will come out and the clouds will move on. Another thing for Sacramento residents to think about is the flood factor in Sacramento. Knowing when it will rain and how much rain we are getting in the area might prove to be very helpful information.

Sacramento County has something that might help with all your weather and flooding information needs. A County website called Storm Ready can be located at http://www.msa.saccounty.net/waterresources/floodready/default.asp.

The County’s Department of Water Resources maintains and operates the website. Sections of the website are updated daily to maintain an accurate weather forecast.

This website is good for checking more then the weather. You can also check the stream levels to see if there is a chance of flooding in the near future, a picture of the water is also included, and the date and time of when the water level was last recorded.

A weather sensor page tells the viewer all about wind speeds, humidity, temperature and precipitation. This page is also broken down into regional areas so you will be able to locate the weather conditions in your immediate area. This can be really helpful if you would like to plan a day trip in a near-by region and want to know what the weather will be like. This information can also be extremely helpful for an expert kite flyer.

The chances of parts of Sacramento flooding are out there, so the County has set up sandbag sites. Explanations for where the sites will be located and the procedures of getting sandbags are also included. There are nine County sandbag sites and 10 non-county listed on the webpage. Information about what to do before, during and after a flood is also included.

This site is so helpful it goes as far as to provide a disaster relief plan for your home. The plan has four steps that are easy to follow. The first suggestion given is to call local authorities and find out what type of damage may occur in the area you live in. You may find out that your community has warning systems or that there are programs to help the disabled.

Creating a disaster plan is the next step. The site suggests sitting down with everyone that lives in the house and coming up with meeting places and escape plans in the event of emergency evacuation. It is important that everyone in the house knows how to turn off the utilities and practices the plan on occasion.

The site is full of important information and is another great example of information provided by the county. The county is using its website to maximize the amount of important, related information to conveniently deliver to the public. It’s brilliant.

U-Tube Blog

U-tube is a revolutionary tool that is being used, by almost anyone with the internet, for multiple uses that are unparallel to anything offered over the internet every before.

U-tube truly allows a person to freely explore the outer fringes of their freedom of speech and freedom of expression by creating any video of their choice and posting it on the internet for millions of people to view at their leisure. The postings can be anonymous or distinctively exhibit the creator’s name. It can be used to search for historical video footage, such as Frank Sinatra’s 1951 debut concert in Las Vegas, or to have some fun with friends.

U-tube is powerful. Simply having a video image attached to a message is a powerful way of trying to get a message across to a general audience. A video’s visual aspect has the ability to capture an audience; like the TV people will watch TV just to watch TV even if theirs nothing good on because visual images are stimulating. U-tube gives a powerful voice to anyone with the multimedia to create a u-tube posting.

U-tube can also be helpful when trying to stay current with the news. Any news clip you would like to view can be found on u-tube. A lot of times breaking news will be on u-tube before it can be seen anywhere else, and this is because people have the power to post video themselves. For example, Saddam Hussein’s execution was on u-tube before the news because witnesses used their camera phones to film the execution and immediately posted the video to U-tube.

U-tube is really anything visual. The idea that u-tube is virtually uncensored can become a negative design because of the limitless possibilities to the videos being posted. People are creating situations to film specifically for u-tube, and some can be very violent. For example high school boys seem to think it is a good idea to violently beat someone, capture it on film and display it on u-tube; which can be controversial. The fact that a person has the option of making themselves anonymous might be cause for more morally questionable video subjects. Maybe a good way to eliminate some of the negative videos would be to force people to proclaim who they are.

Even though controversial issues can be brought up about u-tube the majority of people use it for positive reasons. U-tube can be a helpful resource for a variety of tasks and is a revolutionary form of message boarding.

Jon Carroll

“Conservatives can do nothing except withhold endowments, join think tanks and work for lobbying firms, whereas powerful liberals can be tenured English Professors.”
Jon Carroll, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, uses bold statements and witty suggestive language, such as the above sentence, which was taken from a column written by Carroll, to attract his readers.

Carroll is such a busy columnist he was unable to comment for this article. Even after begging, an interview with Carroll was wishful thinking. I did learn a few things about Carroll though our brief correspondence: 1. He is very busy; 2. He loves to use the word alas. For example his e-mail responses to me read:

“Alas, this is a busy week. I wish you the best of luck.” Then as I continued to beg and offer an e-mail interview I received this e-mail, “Still a busy week. E-mail is not the solution to busyness, alas.”

Alas, the internet, and Jon Carroll’s home page, provided me the information I couldn’t acquire from an interview. Even though I couldn’t dig up an interview I was able to discover that Carroll was born in the same hospital Bobby Kennedy died in, the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. His first job with a newspaper was editing the crosswords, and then he went on to writing the capsule summaries for TV movies. After that I was able to find a laundry list of jobs he once worked and awards he received in the field of journalism.
• Rolling Stones 1970
• Assistant editor, Rags 1971
• Editor, Oui 1972
• Village Voice 1974
• National Magazine Award, 1979
Carroll was then forced to retire and in 1981 and wrote his first column for the chronicle in 1982.

Carroll’s style of writing is a freefall of thought pre-filtered from his mind; everything he’s thinking is dumped onto the table and sorted out with his pen. He ponders on events in the world and writes about them with his own spin and passion. There is an obvious stance and opinion in his column.

Even though I’ve never had the opportunity to interviewing Carroll, his views on Donald Rumsfeld were made apparent in his column on September 27. Carroll stated, “Donald Rumsfeld is not some guy who opposes sex education in schools, or believes that abortion should be illegal, or thinks that women should just stay home and make babies. He’s a guy who displaced 2 million Iraqi citizens. If the phrase “war criminal” means anything anymore, then Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal.”

Statements such as the one made above is the sort of raw, almost uncensored free speech I like. I hear him thinking through his writing and I like that. I also like his views and sense of humor. Anyone who can make fun of themselves has a great sense of humor.

The picture was also found on Jon Carroll’s home page. The red edits to the picture show Jon’s sense of humor, and as he says, “classic good looks.”