Life Style & Travel

UNITED STATES—All the optimistic predictions of a rainy winter do not help with the drought yet. Nice warm weather only makes the garden even drier. Many of us have let our lawns dry out, maybe with plans to replace them later. Some have decided to replace lawn with artificial turf, hardscape or other landscape features. The problem with this is...

UNITED STATES—The red pick-up flew along parallel to the train tracks in hopes of catching up with the train that had left Raveendran and Gloria in the dust. “I’ve got a plan,” said the man in the red T-shirt intent behind the wheel. Name of Rusty Nails. “What is it?” Gloria the Gluten-Phobe was able to say in a quieter stretch...

UNITED STATES—While Audi has always been considered the standard bearer of interior design, their exterior designs have not always progressed without hiccups. Case in point: the Audi TT. With its low to the ground, love-it-or-hate-it hunkered down stance, the TT was Audi’s first attempt at a compact sports coupe. In order to minimize the risk involved in entering a new...

UNITED STATES—Flowers provide color and texture. So does foliage. What is less often considered is that the bark of many trees and large shrubbery can be aesthetically appealing as well. Bark is usually thought of merely as something to cover up the trunks and limbs of the plants that provide all the colorful and textural flowers and foliage. Coral bark...

UNITED STATES—Raveendran’s eyes locked onto the dull silver string of cars that constituted the Southwest Chief, chased by a lone sagebrush tumbling to Ratón’s main street. The window of the general store supplied a beautiful view. Over the ridge disappeared the last car, and there only remained the rails, silver shiny on top. “A hamburger,” Raveendran said to the red-bearded...

SAN FRANCISCO—The American Beverage Association (ABA) sued the city of San Francisco in federal court on Friday, July 24, in an effort to stop the implementation of the city's new ordinances that will require health risk warnings to be labeled on sugary beverage advertisements, including sodas, energy drinks, and sports drinks ads. According to San Francisco officials, on June 9 lawmakers unanimously...

UNITED STATES—After spending some quality time behind the wheel of the new 2015 Mercedes-Benz GLA250 4Matic, two things have become very clear: 1) The days of drastically over-engineered compact luxury sedans have come and gone, 2) Safety features, overall utility, reliability, and cost of ownership are now at the top of consumers’ lists of priorities when choosing a vehicle,...

CALIFORNIA—The recent avian influenza epidemic has caused a price increase in eggs across the nation. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), there are two types of avian influenza classified as H5N1; one strain is highly pathogenic and capable of producing rapid widespread disease, and the other is a lower risk. The influenza virus is highly susceptible to mutation,...

UNITED STATES—Fads are not necessarily bad ideas. Some evolve out of good ideas. Others are recycled old ideas that worked. The current popularity of stone, gravel and artificial 'dry creek beds' is probably the result of the drought. Yet, they were becoming popular before the drought. This is not their first time around either. They were popular through the...

Back in the decade of decadence (the 1980s), members of (what we now refer to as) the Yuppie generation wanted something to brag about. These ambitious corporate ladder climbers wanted to one-up their peers in every way. Unfortunately, most yuppies were too young to have earned enough dough to afford a ticket to travel “S-class”. No, the flagship Mercedes-Benz...