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Why I Love the Santa Ynez Valley and Why We Must Protect It

Editorial – Brian Carrillo, Solvang

There’s a special place in the heart of California where time seems to slow down, where natural beauty is in abundance, and where the spirit of community is alive and well. That place is the Santa Ynez Valley, and it’s a land we love deeply. From the rolling vineyards and the scenic hills to the charming streets of Solvang and the quiet corners of Los Olivos, this valley is not just a place—it’s a way of life. It’s a place that calls to the soul, offering a peaceful escape from the hustle of everyday life and inviting us to connect with nature, history, and one another. But to preserve what we love so much, we all need to do our part in protecting this precious valley.

We love the Santa Ynez Valley because of its diverse towns and the unique charm each one holds. Solvang, with its Danish-inspired architecture and vibrant community, transports you to another world. Santa Ynez, with its mix of rustic beauty and agricultural roots, embodies the very spirit of country living. Los Olivos, a haven for art and wine lovers, offers an inspiring blend of culture and charm. Ballard, with its quaint history and rural charm, feels like a step back in time. Buellton, the food lover’s paradise, is home to great eats and a welcoming community. And Los Alamos, with its blend of old and new, is a place where surprises await at every turn. Each town in the valley tells its own story, yet they are all woven together by a shared love for this land.

But it’s not just the towns that make the valley special—it’s the people. The Santa Ynez Valley is a place where neighbors are friends, and everyone pitches in to ensure the community thrives. It’s a place where you see familiar faces every day, whether it’s at the local market, the coffee shop, or along the hiking trails. The sense of belonging here is palpable, and it’s this community spirit that makes the valley so unforgettable. We love the valley because it’s not just a place to live—it’s a place to belong, to build connections, and to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

Of course, we also love the Santa Ynez Valley because of its natural beauty. The vineyards that stretch across the hillsides, the oak trees that dot the landscape, and the golden sunsets that paint the sky are what make this place a visual masterpiece. Whether it’s hiking in the mountains, strolling through the town squares, or enjoying a glass of wine while overlooking the valley, the natural surroundings are a constant reminder of why we are so fortunate to call this place home. The wildlife, the clear skies, and the open spaces are irreplaceable treasures that we must protect.

But as much as we love the Santa Ynez Valley, we also recognize that growth is inevitable. As more people discover the valley’s beauty and charm, there will be increasing pressure to develop and expand. While growth can bring new opportunities, we must ensure that it’s done in a way that respects the valley’s unique character. Development should enhance, not overwhelm, the towns and the landscape we love. We need to make sure that new projects are in harmony with the area’s agricultural roots, preserve the scenic vistas, and protect the open spaces that make this place so special.

We love the Santa Ynez Valley because it has remained a place of peace, beauty, and connection. It’s up to all of us to make sure it stays that way. Responsible growth can be part of the future, but it must be growth that respects the valley’s identity. We need to make sure that the natural beauty, the small-town charm, and the agricultural heritage are preserved for generations to come. From smart zoning policies to careful planning, we must advocate for development that complements the valley, not detracts from it. It’s about finding a balance between progress and preservation.

This is where the Santa Ynez Valley Citizens Council (SYVCC) comes in. The SYVCC is committed to protecting and preserving the values that make this valley so special. It’s an organization that works tirelessly to ensure that new developments are in line with the valley’s unique character. If we truly love the Santa Ynez Valley, we must support these efforts and be part of the conversation. Together, we can make sure that the future of the valley is one that honors its past while embracing thoughtful growth.

I invite everyone who loves the Santa Ynez Valley to join in the effort. Become a member of the Santa Ynez Valley Citizens Council, share your thoughts, and participate in shaping the future of the valley. Whether you are a lifelong resident or someone who has recently discovered this place, your voice matters. Together, we can ensure that the valley we love so much continues to thrive for years to come.

So, let’s show the world just how much we love the Santa Ynez Valley. Let’s protect it, preserve it, and pass it on to future generations in all its beauty and glory. Join the conversation, join the movement, and help us make sure that the Santa Ynez Valley remains a place of love, beauty, and community for generations to come.

Thank you for being a part of this amazing valley. Your involvement is the key to ensuring that we preserve the place we all love.

Author:  Brian Carrillo – Community Volunteer

Brian Carrillo is a seasoned expert in building and construction, with over 40 years of experience working on large-scale commercial and public projects across the Western United States.  Brian is a dedicated advocate for responsible development and preserving the unique charm of the Santa Ynez Valley. He actively engages with the community through his roles with the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, the Santa Ynez Valley Western Historic Foundation, and as a board member of the Mission Oaks Homeowners Association. Brian is also expanding his service efforts through involvement with the Solvang Rotary Club.

Learn More About the SYVCC or Join in the Conversation

11-14-2024 LoveSYV

 

 

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Dad Gummit, Hombre

Welcome to my wacky corner of the web!

Dadgummit, dagnabbit, or goldarnit – these alternative swear words were like secret codes our grandparents used to dodge any divine retribution for “taking the Lord’s name in vain.” Sneaky, right?

But let me tell you, what in the world is going on out there? Holy jumping jalapenos! We’ve got gas prices soaring higher than a rocket ship, inflation going through the roof, crime running wilder than a pack of wild coyotes, and a president who seems to be mumbling his way through press conferences like a crossword puzzle gone wrong. And if that’s not enough, it feels like World War III is brewing up a storm in Europe. Can I get a God Dammit or a Dad Gummit?

Come on, join me in the chorus: “Dad Gummit!” We need some serious change around here, or we’ll all be heading straight to the fiery depths down below.

But hey, let’s have a laugh amidst the chaos. Stick around and explore this quirky little corner of the web where we can find humor in the madness. Together, we’ll navigate this crazy world with a smile on our faces, a sense of humor intact, and maybe, just maybe, make a difference along the way.

So buckle up, my friend, and let’s embrace the absurdity with a hearty “Dad Gummit!” ‘Cause if we can’t change the world, at least we can have a good laugh while we’re at it.

Stay tuned for more shenanigans, musings, and a dash of humor. It’s going to be one wild ride!

Yours hilariously,

Brian Carrillo

Coming Up Resources and Library

 

 

 

Lady Who?

If 524268_10151132219959574_2112484074_nyou listened to her sing the night of the Oscars then you know this girls has talent. Lady Gaga also has talent when it comes to transformation. Does she do all this on her own or does she have help? It does not matter. After all, we are all the net sum of all we do and if it doing it with the aid of others helps us transform then so be it.  Hats off (I mean, shirts off) to this awesome woman of change and transformation.

This is the first post of a brand new direction for this website. I am changing the name to “Coming Up Magazine” (Formerly “Coming Up”). Coming Up Magazine , or C.U.M. for short, is about the people, places and things that are shaping our world , particularly about the artist, musicians, writers, magazines, what ever it might be, that is on the Up Swing. A sort of reflection and review of aspiring new bands, talent, brands, that are raising the bar and rising to the new occasion to inspire and motivate the next generation of humans. I doubt if politicians will be found here, but who knows.

This generation needs change masters and innovators. Individuals who sacrifice all to be better humans and the best at what they do.

Truth behind Thanksgiving

After the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth in 1620 on the Mayflower,they almost starved to death. Members of a local tribe, the Wampanoag, helped the newcomers, showing them how to plant corn and other local foods. In the fall of 1621 the Pilgrims celebrated their first successful harvest with a three-day feast with the Wampanoag.

The friendliness of the Wampanoag was extraordinary, because they had recently been ravaged by diseases caught from previous European explorers. Europeans had also killed, kidnapped and enslaved Native Americans in the region. The Plymouth settlers, during their desperate first year, had even stolen grain and other goods from the Wampanoag, according to Wikipedia’s entry on Plymouth Colony.

The good vibes of that 1621 feast soon dissipated. As more English settlers arrived in New England, they seized more and more land from the Wampanoag and other tribes, who eventually resisted with violence—in vain. We all know how this story ended. “The Indian population of 10 million that lived north of Mexico when Columbus came would ultimately be reduced to less than a million,”.

Let us all be thankful that the Native Americans did not kill our forfathers the minute they stepped off their boats and that the Wampanoag Indians where here to help us through our very first winter in the new world.

Robot Car Drones

 It does not take you too long to figure out the many uses for this cool new remote control military vehicle. Riot control, border patrol, parking lot monitoring, school sentry, the potential uses for these smart cars on steroids is endless.

The Guardian shown here was used in the recent middle east conflict along the border of Israel and Gaza Strip

The Guardium is an unmanned armored car that carries more than 660-pounds of cameras, electronic sensors and weapons, according to the Israel Defense Forces’ blog. The killer go-kart can be operated in real time by a driver sitting in distant command center — similar to the way armed drones are flown by far-off pilots — or they can be programmed to “run patrol on predetermined routes without human intervention,”.

The Guardium is fully operational, according to the IDF.

Unlike the Army’s robot jeeps, which are pretty much serving as pack mules that accompany infantry units, the Guardiums are being used in a similar manner as UAVs, running patrols by themselves and using their sensors, equipped with “auto-target acquisition, to look for the enemy and their weapons and…well, we’ll see. The IDF says the little robo-cars can use various forceful methods to eliminate threats.

I say we use these futuristic robot cars to patrol the beaches.  Who knows, maybe they can offer paid subscriptions to view  live video feeds to help offset the cost?

Weird Bumps in the Night

Along with Bigfoot, the abomnibal snowman, UFO’s and poltergeist, “strange sounds” is also an interesting topic to search out on the internet.

If you are not familiar with this very strange phenomenom, check this video out and then do some of your own “armchair” research on the subject. It’s some very freaky shit.

Have fun!

Space-Time Cloak Possible, Could Make Events Disappear?

It’s no illusion: Science has found a way to make not just objects but entire events disappear, experts say.

According to new research by British physicists, it’s theoretically possible to create a material that can hide an entire bank heist from human eyes and surveillance cameras.

“The concepts are basically quite simple,” said Paul Kinsler, a physicist at Imperial College London, who created the idea with colleagues Martin McCall and Alberto Favaro.

Unlike invisibility cloaks—some of which have been made to work at very small scales—the event cloak would do more than bend light around an object.

Instead this cloak would use special materials filled with metallic arrays designed to adjust the speed of light passing through.

In theory, the cloak would slow down light coming into the robbery scene while the safecracker is at work. When the robbery is complete, the process would be reversed, with the slowed light now racing to catch back up.

If the “before” and “after” visions are seamlessly stitched together, there should be no visible trace that anything untoward has happened. One second there’s a closed safe, and the next second the safe has been emptied.

Event Cloak “Fun” but Challenging

The concept of an event cloak “is definitely an interesting idea and great fun,” said invisibility researcher Ulf Leonhardt, a physicist at the University of St. Andrews in the U.K. who wasn’t part of the study team.

Steve Cummer, a cloaking specialist at Duke University, calls the concept “interesting and exciting,” but he thinks that actually making such a cloak would be “really, really challenging.”

“All of the material parameters need to be time-varying in a very specific way,” Cummer said by email.

Currently, nobody knows how to do that except in fiber optics, in which the speed of a signal can be varied by a few percent by changing the intensity of the light.

“You can use an intense control beam to slow a signal down,” Kinsler said. In that way, an event occurring inside a fiber optic cable—such as an electrical signal moving from “on” to “off”—could be hidden from view.

“You would see the fiber, but some event occurring in the fiber could be cloaked,” he said. Such a proof of concept, he added, could be possible within a few years.

Powerful Laser Key to Cloaking?

There are still a few hitches to address, though, before attempting such an experiment, according to the University of St. Andrews’s Leonhardt.

For instance, being able to cloak an event lasting more than a few femtoseconds—one-millionth of a nanosecond—would require light from an immensely powerful laser, he said.

“The experiment is not entirely impossible, but it is at the limit of what one can do with present technology in an ordinary university laboratory,” Leonhardt said.

Study co-author Kinsler agrees that the fiber optics experiment is a technological stretch, but he counters that the problem can be eliminated by using a miles-long cable, as is routinely done in telecommunications.

“You can reduce the required power by using a longer fiber,” he said. That’s because the duration of the event you can hide depends on how long you can delay the light. A longer cable would allow you to get a longer delay from the same percentage slowdown, which would take less power.

Still, it may be a long while before police have anything to worry about—the materials needed for speeding and slowing light precisely enough for a bank heist have yet to be invented.

The event-cloak story and an accompanying article by Leonhardt appear in a special issue of Physics World magazine published June 30

This story was lifted from the cool National Geographic Website

by Richard A. Lovett

for National Geographic News

Live – Learn and Love

Home is where I Am

I moved this passed weekend. Can’t say it was fun, but it is nice that I am out of that dusty old apartment.  I think I sneezed a zillion times. My new place is dust free thanks to my wonderful girlfriend. She loves a spotless place and has worked hard to make her house comfortable and tidy.

Sometimes it is a good idea to clean house. Now I am speaking allegorically now. Cleaning house allows us to evaluate what we have, what we want, what we can do without and what we really need.  Without cleaning up a bit and getting rid of the old junk, i.e., ideas, misconceptions, prejudices, baggage, etc., we can not move forward. It is also extremely difficult for us to self evaluate and adjust our thought processes to allow us to improve and move forward.

Our happiness and contentment depends on what we know we have and what we know we need in order to live productive, healthy loving lives.

Self reflection is critical to this process. Standing – or sitting  back looking at ourselves gives us a chance to get to know ourselves and to become more intimate with our inner person. It’s the inner-self who decides what we do, where we go, how we treat others and what we expect to see and achieve each day. This person could be trying to sabotage us, or challenge us. They could be trying to lift us up or tear us down. You will never know, until you take a moment and get to know them. Are they your friend or are they your enemy?  Strange huh? When you look at this inner-self as something or someone separate from yourself you can begin to hear what they saying or not saying better. Consider it someone who is ‘for you” or “against you”.  If they are for you, well, great, you can move up. If they are against you, well, watch out. You have lot’s of work to to get them over to your side, and as long as they are against you and not on your side, they will be trying to block you and stop you from moving ahead.

Thought of Today: Today I am here and in the moment. I am not in yesterday and I am not in tomorrow, but now. I will live my today one moment at a time and with one purpose, To be where I am.