Blog Authors
Michael Fitzgerald
Mike Fitzgerald is The Record’s award-winning metro columnist. His column runs in the paper three times a week. Born in San Francisco, he was raised in Stockton. His column covers diverse beats including, sometimes, the offbeat. Read FullCategories
Archives
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
Latest Tweets
- Just passed a low-rider pickup on the Crosstown Freeway, custom painted and pinstriped. A rear-window decal read, "Praise the Lowered." 2009-11-11
- Moving to a new address on the blogosphere: http://bit.ly/1Sft50. See you there. 2009-10-22
- Recession Chronicles: Maxim's restaurant, which beat City Hall in court over dancing, closed today. More on my blog at recordnet.com/blogs. 2009-10-12
- Prison hospital scoop, inside info on the Stocktoberfest cross-up and giant tunnel-boring machines on my blog, recordnet.com/blogs. 2009-10-12
- A state assemblyman says the Peripheral Canal will be big enough for cruise ships. My light bulb moment in Friday's column at recordnet.com. 2009-10-01
- More updates...
Posting tweet...
Monthly Archives: May 2008
Darwinism at Ground Zero
A Stockton couple is the centerpiece of a money story in today’s New York Times. The story’s about the hard tax hit suffered by couples who lose their second home.
Two years ago, Lilia Garcia and her husband, Jesus, bought their dream house in Linden, Calif., for $535,000 and financed it in part by taking out [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
New criminal mastermind: The I-5 Siphoner
We ran a story this week about a new crime: gas-tank punching, done by gas thieves. As it happens, I had first-hand experience of a related crime, siphoning, just this weekend.
I borrowed a pickup truck from a friend. I needed it because I was cleaning out a garage.
My friend warned me her son often [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
Another Who Finds Beauty in Urban Stockton
Speaking of beauty in Stockton, which we were in this column about the Beautiful Stockton Photography Contest, another brilliant artist who captures beauty in unexpected places is Gill Dellinger.
A professor emeritus retired from University of the Pacific, Dellinger has picked some of Stockton’s grittiest locations as his subjects: the railroad crossing on North West [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
It’s raining bicycles
Saturday’s story about a newly emancipated foster kid who has to walk–or run–to work at 3:30 every morning, brought a call from Doctor Joseph Wilson.
“I want to give a bike to the boy,” he said in a message. He added later, when we spole, “It seemed like he was helping himself. He got a job. He’s [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
Party and preserve beautiful land
This is the late environmentalist Waldo Holt (right). For information on the conservancy created in his memory, click here.
This is the party his friends and admirers are throwing to help the county buy wilderness and preserve it. You can read about it in today’s column.
And this is the land. Strikingly beautiful.
Here [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
Why I show up to work on time and never complain
Articles like this, in which a former local newspaper employee finds herself a client of the Emergency Food Bank. Yikes.
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
Mayoral candidate escorts murder suspect to cops
Today’s paper reports that a 24-year-old man turned himself in Monday in connection with Saturday’s murder of El Capitan Circle resident Erica Orsino, 20. What it doesn’t say is who accompanied Andrew Bruce Thompson III to his rendezvous with justice.
Ralph Lee White.
The mayoral candidate says he was in Los Angeles late Saturday or early Sunday [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
Business unfriendly? Yep. Good? You betcha.
The bad news: tiny dust particles that abound the the Valley prematurely kill 24,000 Californians a year. The good news: thanks to regulation, the amount of PM 2.5 is down 45 percent. A health hazard that annually kills more Californians than AIDS, homicides and traffic accidents combined is being tamed. So is Big Ag and [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
Looking for beauty in Stockton’s downtown
Here’s photographer Steve Mullens: “I was intending to take dusk photos of the neon-lit buildings. While waiting for the “Blue Hour” where light from the sky and the neon signs balance the best, I’ll usually wander the vicinity looking for other shots to take.”
“I liked this view because the building is so symmetrical and the [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed

Collecting Stocktons: Yobs running wild