I’m back

Back from a long planning meeting. Now on to see what we have for the newspaper and online.

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Swenson Park Golf Course

I spent part of Friday morning at Swenson Park Golf Course.

Course description sign.

Stockton’s golf courses have had their challenges as the economy has turned. Brookside and Stockton Country clubs have had specials to try to up their membership.
Swenson has made a few changes including swapping the front and back nine so that golfers must pass the restaurant after they finishing the 9th hole.

Sign directing golfers to the "new" 1st and 10th tees

This is the view from what is now the 10th tee.

Their hope was that business would increase at the restaurant with more traffic passing by. Previously, a golfer could only pass the restaurant after finishing a round.

The range ball dispensing machine has been shut down for a longtime. I asked the starter in the pro shop if it was ever coming back. She said it was not as it was too costly to keep up with the tokens that are used to get balls from the dispenser.

Golfers hitting balls on the range.

She said that in two years Swenson Park had gone through 3,000 tokens. There are people who take them home as souvenirs or don’t use them and carry them around with them. At a cost of 60 cents a piece, that’s $1,800, not a small amount of money at all.

She said they can just as well dispense balls from the pro shop.
I didn’t ask if, like other courses, Swenson could go to a ball dispensing machine that used a card similar to a Regional Transit bus pass. The cost of purchasing one of those also would probably be well out of the budget.
I still had a good time as well as others who took advantage on a Friday morning.

Golfers preparing to hit on the 10th tee.

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Lovin’ Stockton: A preview

Many thanks to all of the Stocktonians who responded to my request to send in what they love about the city. Many of the submissions will be included in a full-page package on the Sunday (Aug. 22) Opinion Page.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t fit everything on the page. Here’s a submission from Stocktonian Gene Beley about his love for Stockton’s waterways:

Statue of Liberty House-film size (2)

Stockton is like actor Tom Hanks’ face that has both a bad guy side as well as a leading man’s side.
One of my greatest joys today in retirement years is taking out-of-town guests on our 28′ Bayliner Contessa Flybridge on a waterfront cruise. We leave from Village West Marina with two outstanding waterfront restaurants, proceed out 14-Mile slough, and go south on the San Joaquin River/Stockton Deep Water Channel and turn left by Wndmill Cove down to the Calaveras River.
On the point there, our boat guests can see Joe Faso’s riverfront mansion that has a Statue of Liberty facing the Stockton Deep Water Channel. Two doors down, they see Adam Farrow’s 110′ yacht that began life as a Navy vessel before it was sold to race car driver, Carol Shelby, who transformed it into a private yacht.
Shelby then sold it to a famous attorney who died. Adam bought it out of the attorney’s estate and has been busy restoring it. After cruising up the river by Brookside water front homes, past the contrasting old houseboats on the opposite bank, I show them the Stockton Yacht Club and turn around just before reaching the 5 Interstate freeway. After we return to the Stockton Deep Water Channel, the boat swings into Atherton Cove to show guests the ultimate waterfront homes in Stockton on that small bay with a variety of yachts parked at private docks.
At that point, every guest I’ve had usually exclaims, “Wow! This changes my perception of Stockton!” The problem with Stockton is the good side of the city’s face does not show its side to visitors unless you get in a boat and see it from the water. From there we usually go up Smith Canal, then return to cruise downtown to the new City Marina. On the way, they ask questions about the Klamath Riverboat that is the corporate headquarters for Duraflame. And of course, they ask more questions about the Port of Stockton and gasp at the large ocean cargo ships docked there.
Our waterfront tour apex is visiting the new Stockton City Marina and having lunch at either the wonderful deli there or Chivitas’ Mexican Restaurant where we dine on the waterfront patio. My nephew from Sacramento thought it was much better there than Old Town Sacramento’s tourist trap. He could not believe we were the only ones sitting outside that day with the umbrellas on the patio overlooking the marina! Since then more people like the “go-fast” boating crowd last weekend on a poker run, who stopped there for several hours, are learning about Stockton’s best-kept secret and will hopefully spread the word.

I can’t close without adding Stockton is the most under-rated medical center in California for seniors with several outstandng hospitals with good supporting doctors and services within five miles of where we live on Lake Lincoln. We also respect we have a good Medicare supplementary Senior Advantage program (SCAN) with no monthly payments and $10 to see a primary doctor. As a boater and five year resident, I find all these amenities of the lake, the many good marinas, the nearby Marina Marketplace shopping center, medical facilities, and the climate hard to duplicate anywhere in the nation.

And the sunsets are sen-sa-tion-al!

We need to promote the good side of Stockton’s face now that all these amenities are in place. The city has spent millions to get this far with the redevelopment downtown with the City Center Cinema, the remodeled Fox Theater and the new marina, but one city official told me they couldn’t spend money now to promote it. Word of mouth and social network advertising today is perhaps the strongest advertising tool, so let’s all work together to promote this future star, Stockton, rather than emphasize the bad side of the face that gets far too much publicity.
Give this city a starring role for its good guy side and it will get at least a People’s Choice Academy Award!

Gene Beley

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If I were a car guy

I am not a car guy, meaning I view a car as a way to get from Point A to Point B and usually don’t usually get excited about high-powered vehicles. But this 2002 Dodge Viper even garnered my interest.

This vehicle was at a local auto repair shop. Mechanics there said that in three years, it had only been driven an additional 27 miles. They said the owner did not have time to drive it. I think it was just begging to be taken for a round trip on Interstate 5 to Los Angeles.

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World of Wonders

My kids had a great time at the World of Wonders science museum in Lodi two weeks ago. Here is one of them near a parabolic dish used for communication.

As you speak softly into one dish, your voice can be heard in another that is about 50 feet away (I’m guessing on the distance). It is one of those cool science experiments that can feed a child’s curiosity and create maybe another Jose Hernandez, Stockton’s first astronaut.

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Cheaters never prosper

Here is an interesting story about a pro fisherman caught cheating during a tournament. His scam was sunk when officials discovered lead sinkers in the mouths of the fish he caught.

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A change to Monday’s column

Monday’s column was originally to be about biking, however I’m following the news and instead will write about the police shooting of James Rivera shooting. Biking column is scheduled to run Aug. 2.

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Coming Monday

I’m back on the bike and on the road after fracturing my left wrist and breaking my left arm in a bike crash nine weeks ago. But I wasn’t the only cyclist who went down. Of course the Tour de France riders dropped left and right and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa went down after a taxi pulled out in front of him. Even several members of my bike club were injured. I don’t consider cycling dangerous, but it does carry risks. More on this in my Monday column.

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New business update

A frozen yogurt business is coming to the now shuttered Starbucks location at 7910 Lower Sacramento Road at the Hammer Lane intersection. This was one of three  area Starbucks coffee shops that shutdown last year. More details to come later.

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Archive: Live chat with Mike Klocke

Record Editor Mike Klocke chatted live with readers today as part of our weekly 30 on Thursday series. Here’s the archive of the chat:

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