Sorry, been slacking...

Yeah, I know it's been quite awhile since the last update to the Oakley.now site. We've been heavily involved in other activities since September. I'd like to think that I'm gonna post a new greeting here in a few days or weeks. At the very least we'll get up a few more of Roni's recent "Our Back Yard" columns. Suffice it to say that a lot has been happening in Oakley recently, what with new construction and the recent hiring of a new assistant city manager, so we'll have plenty to talk about when we do the next update... any day now.

It's cold out!

We went out to the Oakley-Antioch Regional Shoreline for about an hour this afternoon to kick the old soccer ball about and just about froze. The wind was brutal and the chill cut through sweaters and jackets. This is some winter-like cold front moving through.

The up-side is that all the gook that usually obscures the view during the warmer months has been blown away, allowing a crystal clear view all the way east to the Sierras. Those mountains received a decent coat of snow in the past 24 hours. I wouldn't be surprised if our own Mount Diablo gets a little frosty upstairs overnight.

The fishermen don't seem to mind the cold at all. They were swarming over the Bridgehead pier with lines extended into the Delta. I understand the bass fishing is awesome right now. Ought to be decent for sturgeon as well.

Another one bites the dust

My son, Ben, and I went out for a walk along the Marsh Creek Trail last Thursday, but were dismayed to find the Fetzer Lane entrance closed off with caution tape and a message that said the trail won't be open again until it is made safe to the public. No problem, we thought, we'll just go to the Cypress Road entrance and walk north along Marsh Creek. Unfortunately, Western Pacific Housing has begun grading for its new subdivision between the trail and Delta Vista Middle School, so that segment of the trail is closed as well.

Anyone else bothered by this? Hopefully we'll get this most beautiful segment of the Marsh Creek Trail open again very soon.

Breaking with tradition 8-(

Regular visitors to our Oakley.now site know that we have made an annual tradition of posting photos from the Oakley Almond Festival. Unfortunately, we won't be able to carry on the tradition this year as plans take us away from the fest this weekend. Yeah, we're sorta bummed about that. But it looks like there should be some nice weather Saturday and Sunday, so hopefully those who can will pay a visit to O'Hara Park to check out the fun.

Another blog is launched into Cyberspace

Welcome to the Oakley.now-and-then blog. We figured this would be a convenient way to post updates to the site rather than hassling with HTML code every time something happens that calls for comment.

Don't expect to see stuff posted here all the time. Much like the rest of the Oakley.now site, we update it when the mood strikes us. But it is a good bet that we will post here more often than the rest of the site -- blogging is really the wave of the future on the Web. Or more likely, it's already part of the present and we're just late adopting it.

Please check back occasionally.