I just dropped off eight boxes of books at the Coastside Lutheran Church for their book sale, which begins at 9am on Saturday. I plan to get there early before all the good books are gone.

This is the second year they’ve conducted the sale. The church is located at 900 N. Cabrillo Highway, a little north of the 92. 

San Mateo County’s beaches did well in Heal the Bay‘s 2003-2004 Beach Report Card, with 80% of surveyed beaches receiving a grade of A in dry weather. Three beaches scored poorly in dry weather: Fitzgerald Marine Presearve, Pillar Point Harbor at Barbara’s Fish Trap, and Venice Beach at Frenchman’s Creek. According to the San Mateo County Health Services Agency, Venice Beach and the beach at Capistrano Boulevard in Princeton currently have elevated bacteria levels.

During wet weather, the impact of storm drains reduced the number of A-graded beaches to 50% of the total.

Soon it will be time for wildflowers on the coastside.  And, with some good rains already this winter, we should have an abundance of color.  Already the brilliant yellow oxalis is spreading in the fields across from the airport, and soon we’ll have Montara Mountain Blue Lupine (pictured here) on the hills.

After your next hike on Montara Mountain, you can click to plants.montara.com to identify some of the beautiful flowers you enjoyed on your walk.  (Thanks to Chuck Kozak for this resource.)

We’ve moved Coastsider’s calendars to Google Calendar.  This will give us a bunch of advantages. You will be able to subscribe to Coastsider’s calendars more easily in iCal, your RSS reader, or your own Google calendar.

There’s a lot more detail on our entries. Click on entries to see the detail. Experiment with the links to see what happens. You have a lot of control over how the calendar is displayed on Coastsider’s pages. Click on the links in the calendar header to see what you can do. You can take advantage of Google Calendar’s other features to add individual events to your own calendar or schedule reminders of particular events.

Soon, we will be able to integrate your organization’s calendar into Coastsider’s calendars. This means you’ll be able to update your own events on Coastsider’s pages by yourself.

We’re still working on updating the calendar, so please check all events with the organizer.

• Bach Dancing and Dyamite


• Cetrella


• Coastal Repertory Theater


• HMB Brewing Company


• HMB Chamber of Commerce


• HMB Review Events Section


• Coastside Film Society

• Local Government Master Calendar (unofficial)


• Midcoast Community TV Schedule


• California Coastal Commission

• Cabrillo Unified School District


• Cabrillo Unified School District events calendar

Please email additions, corrections, or comments to Barry Parr.