A 12-year-old Alameda boy, Joe Carter, found a diamond ring in a little black box Sunday when he was boating with his father off Crissy Field. He then set off on a quest to find the owner. First posting on craigslist, and then catching the attention of Alamedan and Chronicle reporter Steve Rubenstein, who penned this article. If it is your ring—it’s a one-quarter carat diamond ring with a price tag indicating it was on sale for $499—or you know whose it is, you can reach the Carters through their craigslist posting.

On Sunday morning a message, which had been posted to several neighborhood google/yahoo groups, appeared in my email inbox:

We lost one of our black silkie chickens near Santa Clara and Court. If you see a small black chicken roaming around please call us 301-xxxx (cell) We miss her. She is a pet, not dinner.

Thanks,
Meresa

PS If you want to see what silkies look like check out this site.

Backyard chickens are becoming, it seems, an increasingly common Alameda phenomenon. Local writer Susan Davis described the trend for the March-April Alameda Magazine.

I didn’t go looking for the chicken, but I did wonder about its fate. Sunday night, around 10 pm, another message came through:

Our chicken is home! Thanks so everyone who read the email and spread the word. We are once again a happy family!

-Meresa

According to Meresa, who says her two little girls enjoy their five chickens very much, the chicken, Mama, wandered off Saturday afternoon when her husband was doing some yard work. When they went to put the chickens in their coop at dusk, they noticed noticed Mama’s absence. After scouring the neighborhood, they went to bed, hoping the chicken would return in the morning. When it did not, Meresa posted her notice. Late Sunday, around 10 pm, she got a a call to her cell. It was a neighbor who’d found the chicken in her yard. Chicken and family were reunited! “Turns out my chicken crossed the road and was hanging out in the backyard of our newest neighbor,” Meresa told me by email. “The neighbor had talked to a friend and mentioned the random chicken in her yard and luckily her friend had read my email….So Mama is back home and we will try to keep our side gate closed at all times!” In this case, it seems the chicken crossed the road simply because it could.

Lived in Alameda: Since August of 2005
Originally from: Born in Salt Lake City, grew up in Oakland, California
Most recently from: Fullerton, California
Family: Husband, Keene Wilson, retired city manager; son, Skyler, 21, junior at Becker College in Leicester, MA; son, Wyatt, 13, in seventh grade at Lincoln Middle School
Fact of note: Only member of immediate family not in a medical profession (father was a doctor, mother is a retired nurse, sister is a radiology technician and brother works for Kaiser)
Previous occupation: Assistant City Manager, City of Santa Ana
Current occupation: City Manager, City of Alameda

Why Alameda?
It had always been my goal to be a city manager. I was looking for a full-service city with a real strong community and interesting challenges and opportunities. And the timing of the opportunity in Alameda was right as well: my son was going off to college, and my husband had recently retired. Another factor that made Alameda an ideal opportunity was the fact that I had grown up next-door in Oakland, and my parents and siblings were all living in the Bay Area.

First visits to Alameda
When I was growing up, I would come over to Alameda with my family to go to the swap meet that used to be held every weekend at a drive-in theater at Atlantic and Constitution. There’s a housing development there now. We would go Read the rest of this entry »

Hola! “Life on the Island,” the column I write for the print edition of the Alameda Journal is up online already. It’s about the little friendly things that I enjoy about living here. Enjoy.

This Saturday will be the first of the “Alameda Walks!” a series of hour-long, morning strolls around different neighborhoods in our fine town.

Hosted by the Alameda Collaborative for Children, Youth & Families in partnership with the city’s Park and Recreation Department and Pedestrian-Friendly Alameda, the community walk program is now in its fourth year.

The Collaborative’s co-chairs Mayor Beverly Johnson, School District Trustee Janet Gibson, and Alameda County Supervisor Alice Lai-Bitker often join the group, which is out and about the first three weekends of each month, May through October. “We just walk. It’s not a history walk. It’s not a power walk,” says Audrey Lord-Hausman of the Youth Collaborative. “It’s a chance to meet some neighbors, and explore the nooks and crannies of Alameda.”

All walks start at 9 a.m. and are routed through different neighborhoods. “People get a chance to know each other and explore new places,” says Lord-Hausman. “I’ve heard people say, ‘My gosh I was born and raised here and never knew this was here.’”

The first stroll of the season will be this Saturday, May 3. Participants will meet at the Lincoln Park High Street entrance (between Central and Santa Clara), for a meander that includes Alameda’s often-unexplored East Shore neighborhood. On the May 10, walkers will meet at Central and Gibbons to explore the a Sather Mound area and on May 17 the meeting spot is at Encinal High. The complete schedule is here.

Please enjoy this brief and very jolly video of the Saint Joseph’s High School Percussion Ensemble.

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Morning, Alameda! Anyone out there want to discuss, face to face, eye to eye, any heated topics like, say, Measure H? Want to talk about our moral/ethical obligations to our fellow citizens? Want to discuss how, despite, say, an ideological commitment to ‘liberty,’ we all at some point in our lives, as infants or elders, or when injured or sick, require the help/support/even money of others. And while we might, on a good day, be able to keep up the charade that our ‘liberty’ is not contingent on others, at some time that notion will be faced with the cold, hard reality of its impracticality. Coffee anyone?

[A note: Tom Pavletic, who has not Read the rest of this entry »

Lived in Alameda: Since 7th grade
Age: 18
Originally from: San Francisco. Also lived in Oakland and San Leandro.
Family: Lives with mom, dad and younger brother
Current occupation: Senior at Alameda High
What’s next: San Jose State
Career goal: Find passion/leverage it to get rich

Why Alameda?
Alameda’s definitely a step up. It’s definitely got a lot less crime and it’s really safe.

Why San Jose State?
I chose it because it’s far from home but not too far and I want to just adapt and get out of my comfort zone and develop a sense of independence. It’s kind of like starting off on a clean slate but it’s not as clean as I hoped it to be. There’s a lot of people from Alameda High going. Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday’s “Life on the Island” is up online already.

(Thanks to all of you, by the way, for your compliments on the fabulous picture that goes with the print column—Laura Oda, a photographer and ‘photo chief’ for the Journal’s parent company, deserves all credit for her patience and craft.)

This Friday, May 2, at 7 p.m. in Kofman Auditorium (in Alameda High) there will be a benefit concert to try to keep music in grades one, two and three in our district’s schools. The concert is brought to you by Bay Farm parent Lorri Garrett and a host of other hardworking volunteers in the Save our Music crew. You can buy tickets to the hip-happening event online here and also learn more about the class acts, including on- and off-island talent as well as many of our district’s bright-eyed third graders. If you can’t make the show, there’s also an online auction, with items including tickets to the San Francisco Opera, a $100 gift certificate to Scott’s Shoes and a drum head signed by Metallica.

Measure H
As always, Read the rest of this entry »