Pet Project The greatest animal center in known history comes to Silicon Valley.
The Humane Society of Silicon Valley (HSSV) is preparing a spectacle of almost Willy Wonka-like proportions – and it’s all in the name of animal welfare. Their forthcoming Animal Community Center is a $25 million, 48,000-square-foot structure near Milpitas Boulevard and Montague Expressway, scheduled for completion in spring 2009. A sort of megamall for the four-legged, the center will feature a huge array of both nonprofit and for-profit businesses, including a cage- and chain-link-fence-free adoption galleria that will place dogs, cats and rabbits in homelike settings; an education center; an indoor amphitheater; a daycare center for dogs; a dog park and training center; a pet supply store; a pet-friendly café; an affordable spay/neuter and vaccination center; a boarding facility; and a veterinary hospital with a public viewing room.
“The new center will transform our organization from a traditional animal shelter into a one-of-a-kind Animal Community Center that serves animals and people,” says Christine Benninger, president of HSSV. Benninger adds that HSSV wants to build a sustainable, environmentally friendly center that will not only help animals, but promote water savings and energy efficiency. To this end, the center will be a “green” structure that meets Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards as established by the US Green Building Council. More than 90 percent of the materials from the previous building on the site will be recycled for use in the construction of the center.
In large part, the Animal Community Center is being built in response to the yearly euthanization of tens of thousands of animals throughout the Bay Area. This new facility will allow for as many as 10,000 annual adoptions. “Silicon Valley has long been a leader in technology,” Benninger states. “We want to put Silicon Valley on the map as a leader in animal welfare as well.”
El Béisbol Es la Vida New book shows how baseball is everything for many Latin players.
For many Americans, baseball remains one of the great pastimes: a game we play at school or after work, a sport we watch on television or at the ballpark. But throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, baseball embodies a passion closely entwined with the great American dream.
That’s the focus of Far From Home: Latino Baseball Players in America, a pictorial history by celebrated novelist and onetime San Francisco Examiner sportswriter Tim Wendel and award-winning photographer José Luis Villegas (formerly with the San Jose Mercury News, now with the Sacramento Bee). Published by National Geographic Books in association with Major League Baseball, the book chronicles the ups and downs of the many Latinos who have come to the US to pursue the dream of baseball stardom. As Villegas notes in the book’s title essay, baseball for many “is an immigrant’s story, the essence of which I saw written on a T-shirt worn by a prospect in the Dominican Republic: Baseball is Life. It is an ethic that drove the great, old Latino players of yore and it still drives today’s superstars and would-be superstars.”
Far From Home captures that ethic and passion through candid interviews with such past and present Latin-American players as Giants Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal (who also wrote the book’s foreword), current Giants shortstop Omar Vizquel (also featured on the book’s cover), Giants Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda and pioneer Chicago White Sox outfielder Minnie Miñoso. The first Latin player to play in the big leagues, Miñoso “is to Latin ballplayers what Jackie Robinson is to US black ballplayers,” notes Cepeda in Far From Home. The book also features over 100 photographs, including a poignant photo essay by Villegas (also entitled “Far From Home”) that follows the divergent paths of former Oakland A’s shortstop Miguel Tejada (now with the Houston Astros) and his close friend and fellow Dominican, Mario Encarnación. Though both began as highly touted prospects in the A’s farm system in 1996, Tejada reached MVP status with the A’s, while Encarnación struggled before his career ended in tragedy.
Spring training is in full swing this month, with the start of the new season just three weeks away. After a tumultuous offseason that saw the indictment of Barry Bonds, the release of the Mitchell Report and the implosion of Roger Clemens on Capitol Hill, baseball fans could use a feel good story. Far From Home provides that, and more. The legacy of Latin American players is a stirring reminder of how a seemingly simple game, when combined with passion and hard work, can embody life itself.
Far From Home: Latino Baseball in America will be officially released Mar. 18.
Highway Star The Tesla Roadster helps drivers kick the fossil-fuel habit in style.
If you think all electric cars look like flying saucers, golf carts or parking attendant vehicles, get ready to kiss that notion goodbye. On Mar. 17, San Carlos’ Tesla Motors begins production of its first electric car, a $100,000 two-seat convertible called the Tesla Roadster. This all-electric, high-performance sports car goes from zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds, can reach speeds of more than 130mph, gets the equivalent of 135mpg and, best of all, looks hotter than Jessica Alba in a police uniform.
In true Silicon Valley fashion, Tesla uses rechargeable lithium ion batteries (the same power source used for laptop computers) to charge the Roadster, as opposed to the nickel metal hydride batteries found in many hybrid vehicles. One battery charge buys the Roadster driver at least 220 miles on the road.
Tesla plans to build slightly less than 600 Roadsters in 2008. The company’s ultimate goal is to crank out 40 of the cars per week. Names on the waiting list for a Roadster include Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney and Google Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both of whom are financial supporters of Tesla Motors. Service centers for the Roadster will be built in Menlo Park, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Miami. More centers will be built as different models of Tesla electric cars hit the streets.
One such model that the company plans to build is a $55,000 to $68,000 sports sedan that goes by the code name of the Tesla WhiteStar, to be followed by a $30,000 electric car code-named the BlueStar. For people who want to go green without letting all of their green go, this is good news indeed.
