Sunday, June 14, 2009

Eastside Restaurant Review: Saigon In and Out

I'm so excited to introduce a new feature to Santa Barbara's Eastside Blog! I'll be asking residents and neighbors to write reviews of their favorite Eastside restaurants. This post comes from Cara -- who happens to be my darling baby sister and neighbor.



One of the best little spots for lunch or dinner in town!

Their menu is full of flavorful vietnamese dishes. You have to try the fresh coconut juice! Amazing!

Wonderful curry chicken. Fresh ingredients. And if you are in the mood for food with a kick, they have some amazing spicy dishes. It's perfect for a low key, quick, affordable dinner. They have such a friendly wait staff (Hi Patricia :). And with their new location on State, its difficult to keep my Saigon obsession in check. Stop in next time your in the neighborhood. You won't be disappointed.

Saigon In and Out
318 N. Milpas St.
Phone: (805) 966-0916
Hours: Sun-Thur 11am-9pm & Fri-Sat 11am-10pm
www.saigoninandout.com

Monday, June 8, 2009

Free Family Photo Event

Working together with Specialty Color Services, the Franklin Neighborhood Center Advisory Committee and the Santa Barbara Art Alliance Project we are pleased to announce the first ever Free Family Photo Event!!

This is a 100% FREE event to honor the families of Santa Barbara's Eastside.

Local photographers will be donating their time and talents to provide families with these high-quality precious keepsakes. Specialty Photo Printing, located at 230 E. Cota Street, has generously offered to provide a free portrait to each family which will be available for pick up after the event.

Saturday, June 13th
11AM - 5PM

FRANKLIN NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER
1136 E Montecito Street


Questions in Spanish: call Ricado at 805.963.7605
Questions in English: contact Chrystal at 805.252.5084 or eastsidesb@gmail.com

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Clean-Up Stats!

I received this email from Lorraine with Looking Good Santa Barbara today. Thank YOU, Lorraine, for coordinating such a great event!!

Good Afternoon!

I want to thank you all for the incredible Eastside Community Clean-Up event last Saturday. We had a great turnout and have the following statistics to be proud of.

450 - # Volunteers {YAHOO!!!!}
56 - # City Blocks cleaned-up
5.26 Tons collected at courtesy dumpsters to discourage illegal dumping
2.63 Tons of Green Waste Collected
7.87 Tons of Trash collected
10.5 Tons of TOTAL WASTE COLLECTED that would have otherwise been on City streets
88 People removing hundreds of small graffiti tags throughout the neighborhood
1000 Door Hangers (with information on parkway maintenance, illegal dumping, abandoned shopping carts and graffiti) distributed

1 - Creek Restoration at Punta Gorda & Liberty
1 - Park Maintenance Project at Sunflower Park {LOOKS GREAT!!}
51 - Trees Planted (Note: Randy Fritz, Tree Inspector said, "with the quality of volunteer tree planters that showed up we could have planted another 20 trees.")

1 - Private Property at 301 N. Soledad Street cleaned-up, including window replacement, hauling away old, piled up items and, weed abatement and laying wood chips

1 - Large bee hive removed from private property courtesy of JP's Bees {YIKES}
1500Lbs. of Electronic Waste Collected
4 - Areas where weeds were abated
2 - Bridges repainted

All done in 3 hours! {SO GREAT!}

Of course all of this could not be done without the help of many including:

All of the Church Groups (list below) with Calvary Chapel and New Life Church taking lead to proviide top notch volunteers, planning assistance, lunch and donations for supplies for the event.

JP's Bees for removing a very large beehive from a private property residence in preparation of clean-up.

MarBorg Industries for their generosity in providing portable bathroom units, refreshments, courtesy dumpsters, rolling trash carts and manpower for the event.

Franklin Advisory Committee for their support and large attendance at the event.

Larry Cassidy & ABS Glass for providing a window replacement at 301 N. Soledad Street.

Kristina Brumbaugh & Los Prietos Boys Academy for weed abatement work and providing much needed equipment.

Tri-County Produce for providing healthy snacks.

Kathi King with Choose to Reuse for providing free canvas shopping bags to all who made a pledge to make the switch from paper and plastic bags. {Read a little bit about Kathi's campaign here on page3. I'm super excited about her program and hope to devote a post to her soon!! Thanks for the Chico Bag, Kathi!}

Don's Net Café for providing students to help with event logistics.

City staff including the Streets Division for all their work preparing for and help running the event, Ricardo Venegas/Community Services for their help in coordinating the private property projects and translation assitance, Parks for running the Sunflower Park and tree planting projects, Creeks for organizing the creek restoration (and George Thomson for his follow up volunteer work on Monday), Environmental Services for running the E-Waste Collection and assisting with event preparation and the Police Department for making staff available to ensure a safe event.

Churches Involved:

  1. Bethany Church
  2. Calvary Chapel
  3. Community Covenant Church
  4. Free Methodist Church – Pura Vida Church
  5. Hope Community Church
  6. Montecito Covenant
  7. New Life Church
  8. New Life Church - Español
  9. Santa Barbara Coast Community Church of the Nazarene
  10. Santa Barbara Community Church
  11. Santa Barbara Mission

I will send a link to photos in a separate e-mail. MANY THANKS AGAIN! Looking Good Santa Barbara!

Sunday, May 31, 2009

DID YOU KNOW!: Redbox

I've had this unfinished post sitting around for a few months now and figured it was HIGH time I publish it...

We love redbox! I'm not sure how long the redbox vending machine was sitting in Scolari's before we decided to try it out but I think it was several months. Back at that time there was NEVER a line at the redbox stand. I'd notice it and think, "Wonder what the deal is with this?" and move on.

Well, last night I realized that I am not the only one in town to have fallen in love with redbox! Last night I stood in line for probably 20 minutes waiting to return my movie (before the 9PM dealine) and to check out another one. The line was to the door when I arrived. What's a girl to do?!
So, I waited patiently. And in the process, agreed to return movies for 2 other people. That's neighborly, right??

Here are a few things that occured to me as I waited...patiently...

1. I should have 'reserved' my movie ahead of time. On the website, you can create an account, put a hold on your desired movie and pick it up at the redbox location of your choice.

2. When scrolling for movies, use the helpful buttons on the left of the screen. If you are looking for kids movies, select the "genre" button and search for only children's films. If you know the name of the movie you want, try using the alphabetized listing. This saves time and is less annoying the people waiting behind you!

3. I wish I had a free coupon code on me! There are a few ways of getting these...

* First time users get a free coupon code when they sign up for redbox emails.
* Every Monday I get a coupon code sent to my phone via text message. Sign up here.
* Keep an eye on the redbox blog, redblog. In April, they offered a coupon code every Wednesday!

Thanks, Scolari's for having redbox. And thanks, redbox for giving us an option besides Blockbuster!

Neighborhood Clean Up!

Today was the Eastside Neighborhood Clean-Up! Tons of people turned out to support the event. From what I could tell, every street was touched by the team. It was a great community event. Thank you to Lorraine Cruz Carpenter from Looking Good Santa Barbara and her team for coordinating the event. And thanks to the many volunteers who turned out to help clean our blocks, educate our community and get DIRTY for the cause -- with smiles on their faces! :)

New Life Church and Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara accounted for a large portion of the volunteers. Pura Vida Church and Santa Barbara Community Church also had volunteers in attendance. So thrilled with the church involvement!

Many of the volunteers were Eastside residents who are familiar with the Adopt-A-Block program or received the LGSB news letter. What a great neighborhood we live in! And so nice and clean. Yahoo!

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Saturday, May 30, 2009

Pretty Parkways

A few more examples of some really pretty parkways on the Eastside. I love the lush green lawns but I also like the rustic bricks! Both are simple and well done. It takes a lot of work (and water) to keep a parkway green but the curb appeal is GREAT! I also love the fruitless olive tree in the third photo! So cute!
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Sunday, May 17, 2009

Tree Trimming!

Well, it only took 2 months and about 5 (unreturned) phone calls but we finally got the parkway trees trimmed on our street!! They were hanging so low that the street sweep had to drive completely aroud them. Every day, my neighbors could be seen sweeping up their own streets.

I don't have an 'After' picture but they are now nice and clean and leave plenty of room for the street sweep truck.

I'm still not sure I should have been calling the Street Sweep deparment or the Tree Trimming department? Or if my calls mattered at all? Maybe the trimmers would have come anyway because it was that time of year? Regardless, I do want to encourage everyone too take action! Whether it's a cracked sidewalk, massive tree or garbage...you are able to report these things and have every right to expect them to be managed by our city.

Tree Problems 805.564.5434
Street Sweep 805.897.1903
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