Maze Cup, Plein Air Festival and Haggard home all happening this weekend, some good form about town and a shout out to the Cynthia Lake Charitable Trust

 * ... WEEKEND: Here are three things to consider this weekend, each unique and affordable: this is the weekend of the Plein Air Festival and on Friday a dozen artists will be painting downtown with their works on display at the Metro Galleries on 19th Street for First Friday. On Saturday, other

paintings by these artists will go on sale at The Bakersfield Museum of Art from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. If that doesn't suit your tastes, head over to Stockdale Country Club where the Maze Cup features some of the best 16 and 18 year old tennis players in the nation, and admission is free. Finally, on Sunday you can drop by Kern Pioneer Village to check out the public debut of Merle Haggard's family home, appropriately opening on the year anniversary of his death.

 * ... CYNTHIA LAKE: And by the way, here's a big shout out to the Cynthia Lake Charitable Trust that funded the restoration of Merle Haggard's childhood home, an expensive undertaking that will serve generations of Kern County residents.

* ... RAIDERS: The move of the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas triggered this note from Alan Hine: "Good news for Bakersfield Raider's fans. Google says it is only two minutes longer to drive to Las Vegas than it is to drive to Oakland, and there is a lot more to do in Vegas than there is in Oakland and the food and lodging is also better."
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* ... TRASH: My earlier post about the people who use Fairfax as their personal dumping group drew this response from Sam Colt: "Thanks for the article on trash along Fairfax. I too have seen alot of it along Comanche Road on the way to the dump. It might be a good idea to refresh memories the city will pick up large items (matresses, etc) from your house just call them at (661) 326-3114 to make an appointment."

* ... SPOTTED: In the Kern River near Beach Park a man is being baptized on the shoreline. Nice to see a little rain bring out the religion in us.

* ... SPOTTED ON TWITTER: "When going on a roller coaster bring nuts and bolts, lean to the person in front and say… 'Woah dude, these came out of your seat!'"

 * ... GOOD FORM: Here's a note from Larry Jenks that should brighten your day: "I would like to share with you a recent event my wife and I were party to. We were having dinner at Chili's Monday night. After ordering and receiving our meal the server approached and handed us our bill, saying a couple had paid for our meal. Written in the bill was the following: 'We wanted to treat you to dinner! This is our second anniversary, we pray to be as in love and as cute as the two of you are as we grow older together. Have a super blessed night. Love, the Swatzells.' My bride and I are going to celebrate our 65th wedding anniversary June 28. We are blessed!"

 * ... MORE GOOD FORM: And there was this from reader Don Luvisi: "Purchased some items at Floyd's this week and when checking out the cashier asked if I wanted to round up my three cents to an even five e cents with the two cents going to a charity. A great idea. If more stores followed suit less pennies to deal with and local charities would benefit."

Yahoo! and Las Vegas: struggling in the desert

Spent a few days in Las Vegas enjoying a wonderful suite at Mandalay Bay for roughly the price of a room at the Red Lion in Bakersfield. The place was a ghost town and what tourists I did see had distinctly Slavic accents. How can Serbs afford to travel in this recession? Also had a chance to hear Carol Bartz, the new Yahoo CEO speak before a group of newspaper executives. (800 newspapers have partnered with Yahoo to sell behavioral targeting ads) Bartz is impressive, tough as nails, and she needs to be to pull Yahoo out of the also-ran doldrums. There's some cool stuff on the horizon, including new social networking applications and opening up the Yahoo platform to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, as well as Flickr which Yahoo owns. Yahoo believes the cell phone is the single most powerful application of the future, and already there are more than four times as many cell phones as any other single device. Watch also for Yahoo to continue to partner with newspapers to go deep into local content (think high school sports) with applications for the cell phone (think posting pictures of your kid's prep baseball game via your phone).