Still think San Leandro is virtually unknown to the outside world? Well, think again.

The city's unconventional marketing campaign to attract folks to downtown, aptly called "I Am San Leandro," apparently is attracting some unconventional interest.

A LiveJournal blogger recently wrote an entry about his fascination with one of the marketing campaign's tools. In the entry, he stated that he had been at a restaurant in Berkeley and noticed a small cut-out of a man used for the "I Am San Leandro" campaign (pictured above). Then he went on to say that he was so fascinated by the cut-out, he decided to name it "San Leandro" because, on the back, it read "I Am San Leandro." The next part is too hilarious to summarize. He went on to say:

I have been carrying him around in my backpack ever since, trying to decide what to do with him, and my current trip to Palm Desert has finally given me the answer. So, much like the Travelling Gnome and other such efforts, I have taken on the wholly unoriginal task of carrying San Leandro with me, taking photos whenever I can be bothered to remember it and hopefully not destroying his fragile paper body in the process. Wish him luck.

Unbeknownst to the blogger, the cut-out is not just some random piece of paper. It is actually a photo of a real person. In fact, it is San Leandro planner Elmer Penaranda. That was supposed to be the whole point of the marketing campaign: to show folks not familiar with San Leandro what the city is all about and that all kinds of people live and work there.

But I guess the blogger didn't quite get that point. Instead, he wrote that he will be taking his "little San Leandro" along with him on various trips for a few "traveling gnome"-type photo ops.

At least San Leandro is getting some props. But it makes one wonder: Are the people this marketing campaign was hoping to target — retailers — getting it?

As promised by today's story on a shoe fanatic's passion turned into a play at Chabot College, here are The 10 Sneaker Commandments by Kevin Palofox:

1. Thou shalt always bring heat!!!!

You always got to have a fly pair of shoes on. You want to be walking down the street breaking necks, meaning people are turning and looking hard at your kicks (shoes).

2. Thou shalt not rock (wear) beaters even if they are vintage.

Even if you have a pair of original Air Jordans 1's from 1984 — which is cool because they're classic — they're more than likely to be beat up because they're so old. You don't want to look like you took your shoes from a bum. Really, you want to always be wearing something nice and crispy.

3. Three is the magic number.

One pair to rock, one to store for the future and one to store, lose and later find to rock (wear) 10 years from now.

4. Thou shalt not camp out less than six to 12 hours for a highly anticipated release, or no more than two days.

Beyond that, you really have no hookup or no life. If you don't put in the time, you'll most likely lose out in getting the goods, but if you put in too much time — like, say, two days in line — then that's pretty extreme.

5. Thou shalt not exceed or recede more than one, maybe 1.5 shoe sizes.

You just don't want to look Read the rest of this entry »

I was driving down Sybil Avenue in San Leandro this morning and saw the weirdest thing. Actually, it's the newest addition to East 14th Street — the ZAP electric car dealership.

I saw the itsy bitsy three-wheeled sedans and trucks in the showroom as I was making a turn, and I couldn't help but pull over and check them out.

Turns out ZAP (it stands for Zero Air Pollution), which is based in Santa Rosa, has been open in San Leandro for only a few months now. Right now, the dealership is featuring its XEBRA sedan (pictured above) and truck, as well as its Zapino electric scooter and Zappy — which only can be described as a motorized tricycle-thingy for adults.

A salesman told me to call the general manager for a test drive. But being a reporter, I'll probably decline for the time being so as not to cause a conflict of interest. And just peeking at the little sedan, it looked like my tall frame probably wouldn't even fit in the front seat anyway. But if one of you pays ZAP a visit, make sure to let me know how your experience was.

I haven't been ignoring this on purpose, but a story that ran last week about Pierre, a 25-year-old African penguin at the California Academy of Sciences who recently got a special wetsuit made for him and a new lease on life, has apparently now turned into the story heard 'round the world.

By now, people all the way from the Bay Area to Iran have heard about this penguin's plight to rejoin his peers at the academy's penguin tank.

What's most interesting about this story, though, is the company that created the penguin wetsuit is Oceanic Worldwide, a dive gear supplier based in none other than San Leandro.

A number of Bay Area cities have recently announced their opposition to state plans to conduct aerial spraying to eradicate the light brown apple moth, even though a study reported there is no link between the pesticide spraying and numerous illness complaints reported last fall.

Alameda, Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany, San Francisco and a slew of other agencies have passed resolutions.

But not San Leandro.

The spraying is not scheduled to occur in San Leandro. But Mayor Tony Santos at the City Council meeting on Monday said he didn't agree with his counterparts in other jurisdictions throughout the region who have voiced their concerns about the spraying. He said many others, including San Leandro residents, have made assumptions about the spraying without scientific evidence that backs up people's claims.

He added that the state health officials responsible for determining whether the spraying is harmful are the only ones who can be trusted at this point because they are the experts.

When Vice Mayor Surlene Grant and Councilman Jim Prola suggested the council look into joining their counterparts in signing a petition to stop the spraying, Santos disagreed, saying he would rather put his faith in the state health officials.

"I can't believe a state agency would use a substance which would harm people," he said.

Prola interjected: "Well, they have before," followed by a few chuckles in the audience.

Dean Karnazes is at it again. The ultramarathon runner from San Francisco, who last year teamed up with San Leandro-based The North Face to run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days, is now leading another endurance race. And this time, he's going global.

Karnazes will now attempt to complete the world's five major desert foot races as part of The North Face Desert Grand Slam, the company announced today.

He has already started, as he is currently running the Atacama Desert in Chile. Throughout the rest of the year, he will run the Gobi Desert in China, Death Valley here in California, the Sahara Desert in Africa, and the desolate, arid plateaus of Antarctica.

I remember when I interviewed him over the telephone last year after he finished running the Endurance 50, he didn't even pause when he told me he had just run more than 3,000 miles — in 50 days. And he couldn't wait to get off the phone — not because he wanted the interview to be over, but because he had his running shoes on and couldn't wait to start running again.

If you want to follow Karnazes as he attempts to set another record, go here. Just be prepared to have your running shoes handy, because his endurance is contagious.

If you've been by Bayfair Center lately — and, hopefully, you have — you might have noticed that the food court is getting a makeover.

That's exciting news, judging by the fact that for years the food court only had about three restaurants and an awkward layout.

A Madison Marquette executive told me a few months ago that this was going to happen, and that the food court restoration was part of the mall's larger plan to make over the interior of Bayfair — just like the mall has been redone on the outside.

The new food court vendors haven't been disclosed yet, but look forward to a fall 2009 reopening.

As many of you know by now, Valle Vista Skating Center burned down yesterday.

The Mission Boulevard establishment has sat vacant for as long as I can remember, but when some of us from Hayward were growing up here, that used to be the spot.

The memories weren't that great, but it was one of the last places in town where young people could hang out on a Friday or Saturday night.

For instance, remember the wooden boards on the skating rink floor that were so uneven that if you were skating a little too fast around the place, you might have tripped going over one?

Those are the kind of memories that will be missed at that old place.

So, if you're driving down Mission and you see what's left of Valle Vista, give it a little salute. Because it's one of those things that sticks in your childhood memories.

And if you're reading this post, share with us your memories. Because, in a small way, we know you will miss it too.

Now, here's a suggestion on how to beat global warming.

At Monday's San Leandro City Council work session on affordable housing, Councilman Bill Stephens had an idea on how to reduce CO2 emissions while providing people with housing in the city: cut back the work week to four days instead of five.

He said he was surprised nothing had been proposed yet in any of the presidential debates to push back the work week since the global warming situation has become so dire. And he suggested that since people are living longer and spending more time at home, reducing the work week could keep people closer to home and less dependent on the automobile.

"It's astonishing that we're giving up more of our free time in America," Stephens said Monday night.

Does anybody agree with this?

Here's your chance to have a say in our content. The Daily Review is contemplating whether to add weekly columnist Jaime Richards to its lineup. Richards is a Castro Valley resident and a teacher in Fremont. His column already runs in our sister paper, The Argus. Please read these two pieces that recently ran in the Argus and weigh in on whether you would like to see this column appear in our paper.

Change of life

The otherworldly

 (You can leave a comment here on the blog, or if you're not comfortable doing that, e-mail me at ksantos@bayareanewsgroup.com.)