Dale Is Just...Gone

How unprofessional was this? The Dale Julin Show with Dennis Hart, broadcast live, for the last time, Thursday, July 20th and they didn't tell their listeners until the last fifteen minutes of the show.

There was no warning. Fans weren't even given a chance to say good-bye. That was a real bad way to leave the show after four years. Especially considering Dennis and Dale's long broadcasting careers around town.

Dale and Dennis' show was the only local talk show that played on the same "field" as Ray Appleton's show (every weekday,open format,callers,two hours).

Even though it was middle-aged-white-guy-radio, I was a fan of the show. I heard some great shows over the four years it aired. Things like: Miss Famous for the first time, Mike Oz making fun of Dale's lack of hipness and my old Fresno City history professor, Don Larson, dealing out political wisdom.

You can hear the last minutes of the Dale Julin Show by downloading the overly fowl mouthed Dorktown Podcast: Episode 28, featuring jackass commentary.

If you don't want to wade through the whole podcast, I'll let you cheat and download the final five minutes of Dale and Dennis, with no dorks - how professional:
finaldale.mp3

A Sight For Sore Quigley Eyes

  

For years it has been a corner of just weeds, tilled earth, weeds again and tilled earth again. It has been that way ever since the last of the area’s fig orchards were taken out some fifty-five years ago. I’m talking about the northwest corner of Dakota and Fruit.

Heck, I’m willing to bet even Al Radka drove by that intersection forty years ago wondering “When are they going to finally do something with that empty lot?" Well they are finally doing something.

The “they" in this project is the Fresno Unified School District. Bulldozers have now begun clearing out the property, making way for a new school that’s slated to be called Phoenix Elementary Academy and Pinnacle Middle School Academy.

New school buildings will be a welcome sight in the “spotty" Quigley
Park Neighborhood. But one wonders if they thought about the liquor store (the old Bottle-n-Cork) directly across from the school site. But there is a Fresno County Library next door so…I guess…it cancels that out?

Even though they had to tear down the Mount Zion Church that was in the Western corner of the lot (they were able to move to another location), it’s good to see the empty corner finally getting developed. Hopefully this will start a trend to search out long empty corners of Fresno and turn them into something positive.

Unfortunately for us, Al Radka isn’t around to finally see them do something with that lot, but at least the Ghost of Al Radka is. Maybe Al’s ghost can start haunting empty Fresno corners till something gets built. I suggest the Southwest corner of Palm and Shields for starters.

All Sprawled Out

BUILDERS ARE SUING AN ORGANIZATION FOR SIMPLY TRYING TO HELP CLEAN UP THE AIR AND MAKE FRESNO MORE LIVABLE.

If you read this ARTICLE from last month's Fresno Bee, you'll get all the back-story you need. To sum: There will be a fee placed on new housing developments that contribute to city sprawl but don't build air-enhancing features into to the new home and neighborhood. California Builders are trying to get out of paying this fee buy suing The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.

The number one developer complaint about this fee: "Owners of existing structures don't have to pay anything." Doesn't it sound like a nine year old complaining that their older brother can stay up late, so why do they have to go to bed early?

If the builder doesn't infuse "green features", then it will pay a fee of $780.
The builders claim they are worried that less people will be able to buy their homes. Really? You think $780 is going to stop somebody from buying a $350,000 house?

Yea guys, I can completely see this scenario happening:

SALLY: Hey, how's it going with the new house you're having built Mary?
MARY: Horrible Sally, we ended up losing the loan. I'm pretty upset about it. In fact I tried to kill myself over it last night.
SALLLY: Oh my, what happened?
MARY: Well I tried to put my head in the oven but I couldn't hold the door tight enough to my head so it was making a bad seal and it was becoming a big pain in the ass...
SALLY: NO, I mean with the home loan.
MARY: Oh, well the builder said they needed to put in this environment friendly crap. I told them "Hell no, I'm not letting you install some Hippy bullshit in my new home!"
SALLY: Good for you Mary.
MARY: Yea, except they said they've then got to pass along a fee for seven hundred and eighty dollars. That would have made our payment almost two dollars more. So the bank pulled the loan.
SALLY: That's too bad.
MARY: Yea. Hey, do you know how to tie a slip knot?