SLO Homepage Blog

Pismo Beach 2010 Father’s Day Car Show

slohomepage — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 00:34:29 +0000

It was another great turn out for the Annual Father’s Day Car Show in beautiful Pismo Beach. Traffic was stopped for miles around making it necessary to park several blocks away. As always, the walk was worth it. The cars were beautiful and everyone was having a great time enjoying the music and great food. It’s wonderful living on the Central Coast. Below are only a few pictures of the hundreds of cars that showed up. To see more click here to see the video.

Local Spotlight: Kelsey Vineyard

jess — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 01:52:37 +0000

Longtime See Canyon residents Dick and Dolores Kelsey, with sons Keith and Richard are your hosts as they invite you to sample from a selection of outstanding wines.

What began as a retirement project back in 1999 has blossomed into a full time labor of love for Dick and Dolores. Along with renowned winemaker Harold Osborne, the Kelsey Family is hands on in all areas of the business. The apples used in our Apple Chardonnay and Apple Merlot are harvested from the decades old orchards on the Kelsey Family’s Ranch in See Canyon. This same ranch also grows our Chardonnay grapes.

Further north of the Cuesta grade in the tiny town of Creston, Richard and Laurie Kelsey are busy tending to their own ranch, growing Zinfandel, Merlot, Cabernet and Syrah grapes. With their 3 girls (all of whom want to be Grandpa Dick’s next winemaker), the vineyard is hand pruned, fertilized and farmed utilizing materials and practices intent on promoting a healthy environment. This entails a lot of hard work but the results are worth it.

Keith and Anne Kelsey along with their son and daughter can be seen at a majority of the wine pouring functions, making sure the customer is taken care of and enjoys the opportunity to sample our delicious wines. Keith, a former Avila Beach Fire Chief and Port San Luis Harbor Commissioner, can also be seen tending to the ranch and winery ensuring the premises maintain that luster that draws people in by its sheer beauty.

We hope you’ll stop by and visit us.

“We invite you to visit our family-run tasting room to relax and unwind, taste our award-winning wines and enjoy our picturesque grounds adjacent to See Canyon Creek.

Nestled among apple orchards in the heart of See Canyon, our winery is minutes from Highway 101 and the Pacific Ocean – a short drive through one of the most beautiful areas in San Luis Obispo County.

We focus on making your wine tasting experience enjoyable, with wines that are approachable and a tasting staff that will make you feel welcome, no matter your level of wine tasting experience.”

visit Kelsey online at www.kelseywine.com

San Luis Thursday Night Farmer’s Market

jennlaw — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:09:07 +0000

A Small Glimpse of the excitement every Thursday night down town San Luis Obispo. Enjoy one of the largest, oldest and best Farmers’ Markets in the state. Barbeque, fresh fruit and vegetables, live entertainment, cuddly ‘Downtown Brown’ for the kids and much more. Most stores stay open late. Taste the best of the Central Coast!

Bishops Peak Photo Post

jennlaw — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 19:53:55 +0000

Went to Bishop’s Peak last week and here are some pictures of one of SLO’s best local hike spots!!

Bishop's Peak

View from Top of Bishop's Peak

Bishop's Peak

View from Top of Bishop's Peak

View from Bishop's Peak

Back Side trail of Bishop's Peak

Bishop's Peak

Central Coast Oddities: Dub Robot Car

jess — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:02:07 +0000

Found this beauty parked on a side street in Grover Beach, January 2010. Thoughts? Explanations?

Local Spotlight: Bewley’s Rerun Productions

jess — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:48:39 +0000

About Rerun Productions
Bewley’s Rerun Productions is a family run design studio specializing in handcrafted lighting made from recycled items. Rerun’s lighting collections feature vivid shades in deep, rich hues, artfully crafted using the family’s proprietary development process. This eco-friendly secret process involves the use of banana tree leaves and non-toxic vegetable dyes to produce the paper shades and brilliant colors. Each lamp is unique in color and form, being constructed of all sorts of recycled items once would never assume could be turned into artwork.

Rerun Productions literally turns junk into artwork, with stunning results. Rerun’s lamps are around 80% recycled, utilizing items such as old computer drives, discarded scraps from NASA, reclaimed wood and more. In combination with their signature natural lamp shades, these artistic and functional lamps are as gorgeous as they are are earth-friendly…

Rerun’s work can be found in 30+ Calif. galleries and shops. Locally, you can experience Rerun’s products first hand at Habitat Home and Garden in SLO, Fiona Bleu Gallery in Morro Bay, Home Arts in Cambria, and Gibson and Co in Paso Robles. For more information, please visit www.rerunproductions.com or phone at (805) 489-5152.

Take a Trip to the Studio with Me
At first glance, the Studio appears like any other metal shop. Dirty, rusted metal debris litters the workbenches and floors. Welding torches and soldering guns are placed precariously in easy-to-reach locations for quick access. Bins of all sorts of discarded materials are stacked and stored wherever space permits. Even the flask full of fluorescent green antifreeze, with its paintbrush stirrer, looks perfectly at home.

But look a little closer, and the things being to come to light, so to speak. Among the rubble, innovative concept designs and half finished artworks take shape before your eyes. The sleek, curved lines of the unfinished coffee table catch your attention. Upon closer look, you realize those unique curves are cleverly constructed from pieces of the old wooden crutches crammed into the bin at side. Then you notice the overworked and beat up Sabian drum symbols stacked up on top of one another. Eventually you realize the beautiful lamp base next to the symbols, with its polished finish and green-bronze hues, was formerly the top symbol in that stack of throw-aways.

It is then that the vision of Bewley’s Rerun Productions comes into full focus…

Dynasty Floor Lamp in Amber

Dynasty Floor Lamps in Carmine

Modern II Floor Lamp in Mustard

Bowtie Floor Lamp in Ocean

Baseball Bat Lamp

Bowie Lamp in Amber

Bowtie Lamp in Celedon

Excaliber

Enjoying the Weather?

jess — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 08:37:19 +0000

Quite a storm system we’re having. Power out, flooded roads, thunder, lightning… the whole bit. I was starting to think we’d never have a glimpse of a “real” winter again. The waves are huge and churning with debris and bits of ocean floor. Grover and Oceano Beaches are closed to vehicles. I’m sure many are disappointed, but safety first. Anyway, here’s a video of a vigorous Shell Beach just under Margo Dodd Park taken on the 19th.

Ran across this photo. WOW that wave is HUGE!

Los Osos “Gumby Creator” Art Clokey Passes Away at 89

jess — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:41:13 +0000

“Art Clokey, whose iconic Gumby entertained generations of children, died at his home in Los Osos on Friday morning at the age of 89, according to caretaker Chrisanne Wollett.

Gumby — the slender, green clay character partly modeled after Clokey’s father — was a fixture on television through the decades, starting with an appearance on “The Howdy Doody Show” in 1956.

Through the years, the stop-motion film star made several comebacks, including a new series in the 1980s, after a “Saturday Night Live” television skit with actor Eddie Murphy made the character popular again.

Click image to see caption

Art Clokey with his creation, Gumby.

Gumby creator Art Clokey shows that the inspiration for the shape of Gumby’s head came from the hair style of his father, Arthur Farrington, pictured on the wall in the background at his Los Osos home in 2002.

By Joe Johnston | jjohnston@thetribunenew.com

Gumby creator Art Clokey, left, and Ron Dexter, work on the scene for a Christmas special in 2003.

Clokey characters Davey and Goliath.

Throughout Gumby’s long run, Gumby toys — most notably, the bendable Gumby itself — have been a staple of toy stores everywhere.

“I didn’t allow merchandising for seven years after it was on the air,” Clokey told The Tribune in 2002, “because I was very idealistic, and I didn’t want parents to think we were trying to exploit their children.”

Despite Gumby’s positive demeanor, his origins stem from tragedy. When Clokey was 9, his father was killed in a car crash. Clokey lived with his mother for a while, but when her second husband made her choose between him and her son, Clokey was sent to an orphanage.

A good family adopted him. But Clokey wouldn’t forget his father, whose head shape — characterized by a cowlick hairdo — would later provide the inspiration for Gumby’s trademark lopsided head.

After studying film at USC, Clokey taught at a private military school, where he tutored the son of Sam Engel, a 20th Century Fox producer. After Engel invited Clokey to the studio, Clokey told Engel about a 3½-minute film he’d made called “Gumbasia,” featuring abstract clay objects changing shapes to jazz music.

“He said, ‘Art, we’ve got to go into business,’ ” Clokey told The Tribune. “I went back and experimented with clay to make a character, and I took into account the density of clay and figured out how the character should be shaped so it would be easy to animate and easy to duplicate.”

While Gumby’s head was modeled after Clokey’s late father, his walk was modeled after his daughter, who was an infant at the time. And it was Clokey’s wife, Ruth, who suggested Gumby’s body have the shape of a gingerbread man.

By the late 1950s, Gumby’s first run was off the air. But the Lutheran Church in America paid Clokey to develop another kid’s show — “Davey and Goliath” — to promote morality themes.

The Clokeys used the proceeds to fund Gumby’s first comeback. The surreal Gumby shows of the 1960s paired well with the psychedelic pop and rock culture that emerged with the so-called British invasion.

Though Gumby toys were hot sellers, Clokey didn’t make a fortune. And by the late 1970s, he was broke, selling his possessions at swap meets to make ends meet.

But in the 1980s, Gumby was back, thanks to Murphy, who donned a foam green suit and portrayed Gumby as a cigar-smoking crank, who arrogantly boasted, “I’m Gumby, damn it!”

“Gumby can laugh at himself,” Clokey said, noting his approval of the skit.

With the popularity of Murphy’s portrayal, Gumby had yet another comeback, marked by more merchandise and a 1980s version of the show. Finally, Clokey was able to make money off his creation.

“It took 40 years,” he said.

Clokey, whose license plates bore a Gumby frame, moved to Los Osos nearly a decade ago. His office at the Los Osos home was filled with Gumby toys.

As Gumby passed the middle-age mark, his resilience once again came through, in DVD releases, commercials and products.

In 2008, he was honored with art shows in New York and San Francisco. “Davey and Goliath” also made a comeback, appearing in Mountain Dew commercials in 2001 and a Hallmark Channel special in 2004.

In the last few years, Clokey’s declining health had prevented him from doing interviews. And when he appeared at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival for a screening of “Gumby Dharma” — a film about Clokey — the animator had to use a wheelchair.

But Clokey’s love for Gumby never swayed.

While making stop motion shows was often time-consuming, Clokey never found it tedious work.

“When you’re doing it, it’s a creative activity, and you don’t notice time,” he said. “It’s so satisfying, and when you see it on screen, you feel like God because you’re bringing life to clay.”

Clokey’s son, Joe, could not be reached for comment Friday. Clokey was preceded in death by his daughter, Ann, and wife, Ruth.

His death comes six months after the death of Dallas McKennon, who was the voice of Gumby.”

Source: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/982773.html

Local Spotlight – Fort Hope

jess — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:57:26 +0000

Imagine a place where disadvantaged kids travel back in time to the old west and days gone past…

Designed to match an authentic western town of the 1850’s, Fort Hope is a non-profit, frontier style museum that features a sheriff’s office, blacksmith’s shop, feed store, school house, Native American village and much more. The museum is designed to be hands on and visitors get the full frontier experience. Kids can shoot period bow and arrows, go fishing in a small bass pond, build bricks from scratch and even pan for gold!

“The Loomis family has worked hard for the last 7 years to bring this dream to reality. We are so close, and with your support we know that we can make it happen! There are several ways to help out. All that really matters is the children, let’s do this for them.”

In April 2007, the San Luis Obispo County commissioners voted in favor of renewing Fort Hope’s non-profit use permit as a day use facility. At that time the county set forth specific conditions which had to be met before the museum could open. They are almost there, but still need your support.

For more information, please visit the Fort Hope website, phone at (805) 473-9462 or email pat@forthope.org.

We recently took a trip to Fort Hope and shot some video of the kids having fun. Check it out below.

Welcome to SLO Homepage 2.0!

jess — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:32:27 +0000

Welcome to the new and improved SLO Homepage. Over the past few years we’ve listened and watched our feedback and now we give our Central Coast residents what they’ve asked for in a Homepage. New features include:

Local Experts – find local businesses and experts for all of your needs
The SLO Blog – check back for event hilites, SLO Homepage contests, SLO Spotlights and much more
New Events Calendar – sync with your favorite calendar application, browse in map mode, add your commentary
Local Videos – browse videos submitted by local residents
News Headlines – get the latest local and world headlines
SLO Spots – we’re excited to offer commercial spots for businesses and individuals, cross promoted through SLO Homepage
Local Spotlight – showcasing unique people, organizations and businesses right here on the Central Coast
Tools & Resources – surf report, Yahoo! Movies, utility directory… and much more
Weather – 5 day forecast on every page, plus extended 10 day weather for any zip code.

SLO Homepage is updated daily with videos, calendar events, blog posts, virtual tours and much more. Explore the Central Coast with SLO Homepage!