Cathie Anderson

Rob Roscoe was hoping for a miracle March when he and his fellow Carmichael Water Buffalos met for a beverage and began prognosticating on the final snow survey.

Sherman Clay will end its 100-year history of selling pianos in the Sacramento region at the end of May, closing its Roseville store at 771 Pleasant Grove Blvd.

My former colleague Bob Sylva told you Michael Kyalwazi's story back in 2005 – how this Ugandan immigrant fled from ruthless dictator Idi Amin, how he found a home in Sacramento and put in 20 years of work at La Bou, and how he rose to district manager at the chain before he struck out on his own.

In reading the Health Care Quality Report Card, released Wednesday – reportcard.opa.ca.gov/ – you get the sense that health care consumers are much more satisfied with a doctor who's a pain in the neck.

Look at the region's economy from the perspective of Arman Sadeghi, and you'll see a definite sign that the business outlook is improving.

Look at the region's economy from the perspective of Arman Sadeghi, and you'll see a definite sign that the business outlook is improving.

In midtown Sacramento, where Randy Paragary got his start almost 45 years ago, he is his own competition. The restaurateur said that he didn't realize until the recession, though, just what a good idea it was to have restaurants in both the casual and white-linen dining segments.

Everyone knows that Americans are buying a lot more apparel from thrift stores than they did when the economy was booming, but not many people understand the impact this has down the line any better than Marcus and Crystal Gomez.

After 15 years, California Emergency Foodlink is preparing to shut down the truck driving school that gave thousands of people, many of them homeless or unemployed, a chance to earn a livable wage.

A brutal economic downturn left many for-profit companies scuttling building plans in 2007, but Beth Hassett pushed ahead with a $2.6 million construction project she inherited when she became executive director of the nonprofit WEAVE.

Chef Jacob Burton has discovered that home cooks are hungry to learn the cooking techniques he picked up at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.

Look around the region, and you'll see that Molina Medical is expanding almost everywhere: doubling the size of its Norwood Avenue location, opening a new clinic this summer on Mack Road and hunting for larger space in Citrus Heights.

Perhaps, like me, you have walked through the Davis Farmers Market and occasionally paused to admire how artfully arranged it all is. Well, it seems we have Randii MacNear's 89-year-old mother to thank for it.

Much of the wreckage from an economic downturn washes up at flea markets. Eric Denio has seen the pain of it at Denio's Roseville Farmers Market.

People see fresh-faced Sacramento native Tom Leach working as a TV executive, and they say: "Wow! You're really young, and you just walked into this job."

Mansions are really starting to sell in the Sacramento real-estate market. That's the message Pat Shea, the president of Lyon Real Estate, has been giving his 900 agents in 17 offices around the region.

As associate vice provost at Drexel University, Sandra Kirschenmann is telling the Philadelphia-based institution's story with a Sacramento voice.

You might say that the Federico brothers – Jeremy, Adam and Joseph Federico – inherited a vision. It just took them awhile to see it and to put their stamp on it.

Nicole Ix was accustomed to being a giver, but a diagnosis of Stage 4 colon cancer forced her into the role of recipient.

Maria Harrington is working to nurture pride in the Spanish language in the Sacramento region, something she almost lost as a child.

Inventor Christopher Johnson of Wilton will see his Rapid Ramen cookers on the shelves of 1,000 Safeway stores nationwide by June, so he's ramping up production.

Michael Halbern prepares students at Sierra College for careers in the greasy, grimy world of locomotive propulsion, the clean rooms of a wafer fabrication facility and the hive of backstage activity at a Cirque du Soleil show.

If you don't know the explosive power of a giving circle, don't feel bad. Josh Leachman, Michael Smith and Randy Sater didn't understand it either until 2011.

Rick Lewis and Bobby Coyote teamed up, and last December, Dos Coyotes introduced its green chile stew at 25 Costcos.

Chemical engineer John Bissell is preparing for the day when the people of Chindia consume plastic bottles, polyester clothing and other goods the way that everyone in the United States does.

To get a picture of African American life in the Sacramento region over the last 50 years, all Larry Lee need do is dive into the archives of his family's newspaper.

Dan Bunz is still hungry for wins. He'd like to see the 49ers bring home their sixth Super Bowl victory on Sunday, but he's more invested in a winning return for his Bunz & Company restaurant in Roseville.

The Sacramento Ballet launched its 2012-13 season with softer ticket sales than it had hoped on "Romeo and Juliet," but Executive Director Gregory Smith told me that momentum is building.

A crazy dream bonded Marisa Minasian and Terry Buccat back when they were classmates at the Home of the Mighty Matadors, back when Marisa went by the nickname Morris, yeah, way back before college.

Lisa Heschong and Douglas Mahone met while pursuing master's degrees in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They graduated, married, had a baby and then struck out for California.

Let gamblers enjoy the card tables and slot machines at the front of the house at Red Hawk Casino. Foodies would prefer to play in the rear.

The Compañia Mazatlán Bellas Artes de Sacramento will audition dancers Friday evening under the watchful eye of a new artistic director, Zenón Barrón.

Almost as soon as Robin Bernardoni heard about Folsom's Palladio at Broadstone shopping center, she began to worry that it would spell trouble for her thriving Runway Boutique in El Dorado Hills.

Go ahead; do it. Sell your home in Land Park with its dormer windows and backyard pool, move down to the desert in Southern California, open a hamburger joint and rake in $1.2 million a year.

The restaurant at 535 Howe Ave. looks just like Fresh Choice.

Christmas typically brings bright, shiny new treasures, but over time, bright and shiny and new becomes worn, rickety and damaged.

As 2013 opens, I'm updating news on stories I told last year. This is the last of three columns using the economical dot-dot-dot format made famous by the late San Francisco newspaper columnist Herb Caen, but look for other updates as the year unfolds. …

As one year ends and another begins, I'm updating news on some of the business people I've featured in the past. This is the second of three columns using the economical dot-dot-dot format made famous by the late newspaper columnist Herb Caen. …

As we move into a new year, I'll be using several columns to check back in with some businesses and nonprofits I featured in 2012.

George Cummings was serving in Vietnam when his aunt and uncle, Beulah and Elliot Adams, started construction on a building at 1555 Fulton Ave. It would become a Pier 1 store.

Interviews with smart, passionate leaders yielded a treasure trove of quotes, memories and anecdotes this year.

If you haven't heard of "The Guilt Trip," the movie from Paramount Pictures starring Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand, let Sacramento resident Tami Harris tell you all about it.

Runyon Saltzman & Einhorn, one of Sacramento's most successful communications firms, named a new president Wednesday who doesn't come from the trio of pioneering women who founded the firm.

Lisa Spurney saw the recession coming a year or so before it hit as foot traffic withered away for her business, Bogy's Barkery and the Palette, at 1014 24th St. in midtown Sacramento.

At least once a month, Joseph Simpson gets the call. Simpson invented a combination-lock cap that fits onto a prescription medicine vial and deters drug theft.

Darden Restaurants gets a big share of Sacramento's dining dollars with its Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Yard House brands, but that's just not enough.

Jennifer Rogers takes care of two preschool-age boys and manages the family budget while her husband, Sgt. Greg Rogers, serves in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.

Allison Shaw's eyes scanned this way, then that, her chin tilted upward, as she browsed the merchandise at Hobrecht Lighting on Auburn Boulevard in Sacramento.

Eric Knopf listened. Well, eventually, he listened.