Weight Watchers Misses A Trick

   I married my bride 21 years ago. Good stuff!

   Along the way her philosophy of life’s rubbed off on me: “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.”

   She said that to me in March when I considered buying fuzzy
promotional creatures with eyes, feet and a hat glued on. I thought I’d
give them away at speaking gigs. She pointed out they’d do nothing for
the business.

   Scratch that idea.

   The wisdom of her words also hit me at the San Diego County Fair in
Del Mar when I came face-to-face with the greatest temptation known to
mankind: Chocolate covered pickles. Sounds like something perfect for
pregnant women.

Golf tournament serves dual purpose

   The eighth annual Dan Fager Memorial golf tournament was held Saturday at San Vicente Country Club. 

   “Dano” was a 1984 graduate of Ramona High School. After attending
Sonoma State University, he and his wife Leslie settled in Petaluma,
Calif., where he was a teacher and high school baseball coach.  Since
his death in 2003, his parents, Dave and Margie Fager of Ramona, have
celebrated Dano’s life by holding an annual golf tournament that serves
as a fundraiser for his children and also is a great opportunity for his
friends and family to get together.

Bulldogs prepare for next level

   Two Bulldogs who are dual sport athletes and good students are having
a busy summer. They are preparing not only to compete for the Dawgs but
both would like to play football at the next level.

Kwayde Miller
  
   The big man, Kwayde Miller, will only be a junior next school year,
but the 6’8” tight end in football and center in basketball has been to
three football camps conducted at Division I universities.
  
   Miller has been to camps at San Diego State University, the
University of Southern California and the University of Notre Dame. San
Diego State has offered to save a scholarship for Kwayde. USC and Notre
Dame are among the elite football schools in Division I, which is now
called the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Ramona Girls 12U All Stars end season with 28 wins

  The Ramona Girls Softball 12U All Star Team had a fantastic year. 
They played in seven tournaments, including District and State, for a
total of 35 games.

   They lost only seven of those games. They scored a total of 282 runs
(averaging 8.06 runs per game) and allowed only a total of 92 runs
(averaging 2.63 runs per game). The 12U team went undefeated in all pool
play games.

   To summarize their season, they took second place in the Lakeside 
tournament, lost in the semi-finals in the Ramona tournament in an
international tie-breaker against Alpine, finished second in the Poway 
tournament, second in the Big Bear tournament, second in the Rancho
Bernardo tournament and first place in the South San Diego “C” District
tournament, which sent them to Camarillo, Calif., to participate in  the
California State tournament where they finished in the top 8 of 16 
teams.

Backstretch Bob loves running

  Backstretch Bob Verhoest loves running. He still runs competitively.
He has coached cross country and track. He loves to watch thoroughbred
horses run. Running is and always has been a part of his life.

   Del Mar has also been a big part of his life.

   As a youth, racing was always a part of Bob’s life. His father,
Raymond, and his mother, Madeline, were in the military. When Bob’s
father left the military, he had a job working on a top secret aircraft
and went to work on Monday morning and returned on Friday evening.

Montes selected for Mexico National team

   AJ Montes is a member of the Mexico National U-19 rugby team.

   His selection was based on his performance during a tryout with the
Mexican team while on a U.S. tour, playing games against San Diego and
Los Angeles All Star teams that fielded many current and future college
bound rugby players from rugby power houses San Diego State University,
University of California Los Angeles,  St Mary’s and UC Santa Barbara. 

   Montes received an invitation to try out from the Mexico Rugby Federation.

   He is scheduled to join the team in Mexico City and train at the
Olympic Training Center. From there, the Mexican National Team will
travel to the Bahamas for the North American and Caribbean International
Rugby Tournament. The top teams will qualify for the U-19 Rugby World
Cup. 

Splitting fairs shows lack of courage

   Ramona, how dare you complain about your government, your elected
officials and your economy, when you cannot even make a good decision
that directly impacts your own community. Some of our most ignorant
people, the fair board maybe, maybe the 4-H board, possibly the chamber,
only you know who you are.

   For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, the Ramona
Fair this year is going to be separated. Partially because those of you
who knew this months ago said nothing, or you did not attempt to change
anything but instead sat behind closed doors and complained rather than
standing up, you have the lack of courage and mostly intelligence to
hold those who made this decision accountable.

Now Is the Time to Prepare

  Property owners typically start thinking about the wildfire season in
the fall, when dry Santa Ana winds kick up the fire threat a notch or
two.

   In reality, fire is a year-round threat in San Diego County, a point
driven home last week with a handful of lightning-started brush fires in
San Diego County’s backcountry and a 3,000-acre, weapon-started blaze
aboard Camp Pendleton.

   Local fire officials are saying that the past wet winter helped
germinate a whole new generation of grass and weeds over land that has
previously burned in the Cedar and Witch Creek wildfires. This thin,
low-growing vegetation accelerates a fire’s progress, the experts say.

Ozzie finds a permanent home in Ramona

   And we think WE have a housing crisis.

   Take a moment to think of poor Ozzie of the Owens family in Ramona, who has had three homes in a single month!

   The first was taken over by a swarm of bees, so Ozzie and his parents were forced out.

   The second was a makeshift affair, thrown together quickly on the kitchen floor.
And the third, hopefully final, home, is a brand new single-story
California ranch-style job that Bill Owens put together with his power
tools and now sits atop the backyard trellis that has the roses on it.

Village Design Group waits for funding

   Last year at this time, the Ramona Village Design Group was in full
swing, meeting with consultant Howard Blackson and preparing for a
three-day design workshop that would produce plans to transform Main
Street and highlight Ramona’s town character.

   The ambitious conceptual plans from that workshop are now sitting,
and the design group members are struggling for ideas to stay active
until the group receives a major component: money.