Gold medal at the fair: Roseville residents and authors Jennifer Martin and Bud Gardner – both have written for the "Chicken Soup" series – were signing books at the State Fair's local authors table when basketball star Ruthie Bolton showed up. They got to talking. "One thing led to another (especially since Bud used to coach basketball at American River College) and Ruthie pulled her Olympic gold medals out of her purse to show us," Martin told us. (Quite different from the many medalists who claim to keep their prizes in the sock drawer.) Bolton also picked the writers' brains about publishing, as she has a book in the works. "You never can tell who you're going to meet at the State Fair," Martin added. That's what Weird Al always says, too. …
Keeping an eye on SPLATs: It's the acronym that caught our attention. A SPLAT is a Strategically Placed Landscape Area Treatment. This refers to what forestry agencies are trying in Sierra forests to try to reduce the intensity of wildfires – treatments like removing ladder fuels. Now there's an Auburn-based SNAMP to watch the SPLATs. UC Davis is part of the Auburn-based Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project. Their job is to see what happens to wildlife, water quality and forest health in the SPLATS. They want public involvement, too. If you're curious about SNAMP and SPLAT, call the UC Cooperative Extension office at (530) 889-7385. …
E-candidate: Lincoln City Council candidate Allen Cuenca is taking advantage of Lincoln's tech-savvy nature. To stay in the public eye, he sends out political and local-interest e-mails to a 600- person list that grew out of a neighborhood watch group he organized more than five years ago. What we were curious about, though, was another high-tech gadget. His wife markets video phones. We can only think of the downsides, like catching someone just out of the shower. Cuenca thinks they're great, but he does acknowledge one drawback. "It does make it hard to call in sick for work." …
Got verse? Voices of Lincoln, the poetry contest, is back for another year, but with changes. Apparently, the city isn't the bottomless source of inspiration we thought it was. "A lot of people were saying, 'I don't know how many more years I can write about Lincoln,' " said Sue Clark, who organizes the competition. Entrants can still write about Lincoln. (The city, not the 16th president.) Now they can also tackle California, Comic, Cowboy, Journey, Nature or War and Peace. Or maybe a comic poem about a cowboy's journey to a war in Lincoln, Calif.? Genre categories are short (up to 16 lines), long (up to 30), rhyme and free verse. Deadline is Sept 17. Get contest forms from Lincoln public libraries, or by calling Clark at (916) 434-9226.
Call The Bee's Carlos Alcalá at (916) 773-6847. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/alcala.
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