December 2012 Downtown Dimension Highlights

Here are my notes from the latest edition of Downtown Dimension:

• Starting Dec. 15th, Downtown Ice is expanding its daily hours to 11am - Midnight.
• The inaugural Santa Run Silicon Valley is Dec. 16th and is limited to 2,000 runners (only a few hundred spots left). Proceeds will benefit Downtown Ice and Christmas in the Park.
• The Mexican state of Jalisco is opening a business incubator, school, cultural center, and art gallery at 320 S. First St. in a 9,000sqft retail space. Entrepreneurs setting up their businesses in the US and Mexico will be able to utilize part of this space.
• At the corner of 3rd and Santa Clara, Freddie J's is getting a facade improvement. Next door Grub Shack--an Asian Fusion / Hawaiian restaurant--is doing its soft opening.
• San Jose Rock Shop now has a retail store selling musical instruments at 30 N. Third St.
• Flowers by KLEE Design opened at 28 N. First St. #702
• Agave Mexican Grill replaces El Sabroso at 17 S. Fourth St.
• Groundwerx installed two rows of decorative LED lights totaling 8,100 feet on South First and South Second streets [Josh: saw these, they look great!]

To read the full newsletter, click here!

SJDRA 2012 Holiday Party

Happy 12/12/12 =) Tomorrow is the annual San Jose Downtown Residents Association party. This event is a great way to meet people committed to Downtown and learn how you can help to make it a better place. You do not need to live in Downtown San Jose to join and the cost is only $15 for a year membership. This grants you free access to the Holiday Party and various other perks throughout the year. For tomorrow, there will be music, free parking, a raffle, and delicacies from Little Chef, 19 Market, Mezcal, Crepe Paris, Muchos, Robee's Falafel, and On a Roll. For more info check out the flyer below or click here to sign up.

Symphony Development Nabs Parcel Across from City Hall

A key chunk of Downtown land has been sold to Symphony Development for $4.25M. This sits right across the street from City Hall and encompasses 61,650 sqft. Currently this space is vacant with the exception of a car wash. This site hosted a few events like the San Jose Green Showcase a while back.

The purchaser is planning to build a high-rise housing development of about 12 stories, likely with retail on the ground floor. The housing could either be market-rate rentals or targeted at students. However, it is still so early in the process that plans can change.

Given the proximity to the airport, they could go to at least 20 stories here, maybe even 25. I'll take any new development Downtown, but I did wish Symphony was planning to shoot a bit higher in their initial plans.

Source: SJBJ

Montalvo Winter Camps: Spies & Clowns!

When my cousin and I were really little we liked to play a game we simply called "Spy." Every kid does this so I'm sure you can relate. We snooped around and "spied" on our family. We'd hide in painfully obvious locations, whisper about the person we were spying on and then giggle just loud enough to completely give away our awesome hiding spots.

Maybe my cousin and I would have been better spies if we had been sent to Spy Camp, but that option didn't exist for us.

It is, however, available for your kid!

Montalvo Arts Center, thanks to their Youth Scholarship Program, offers fun camps for kids this coming February.

"Taught by top arts instructors from around the Bay Area, these camp sessions encourage the creative process and give campers an opportunity to engage their bodies and their minds in challenging, thought-provoking fun, all the while making new friends."

SPY CAMP Monday, February 18 - Friday, February 22, 2013 9am-12pm (Ages 10-13) 1-4pm (Ages 6-9) Master the finer points of espionage and challenge your mind at this adventure camp! After exploring Montalvo's grounds and designing a 3D map of the property, students will learn about secret "languages," riddles, and other methods of encryption to create an alphabet that only their special team knows.  In addition to Spy Camp, Montalvo is also offering Circus Arts Camp! Now -- adult clowns I can do without, honestly. But cute little kid clowns are awesome! CIRCUS ARTS CAMP Monday, February 18 - Friday, February 22, 2013 9am-12pm (Ages 6-9) 1-4pm (Ages 10-13) Come join the circus! In a fun, safe, and challenging environment, students will dabble in the circus arts of juggling, tumbling, pyramid building, rolling globe, and more. Circus Arts train both the body and the mind, and help build self-confidence, discipline, coordination, and a great sense of humor. These classes are filling up fast, so if you are out buying gifts for the holidays or upcoming birthdays, register now! Registration price per class is $175 (members: $160), not including a $20 materials fee or $20 non-refundable registration fee. Montalvo coordinates a scholarship program for students who would not otherwise be able to attend. For more information on how to apply, please visit www.montalvoarts.org/programs/scholarships.

ANA (All Nippon Airways) Moves to San Jose

Well, the ANA news continues to get better and better. Their five-times-per-week direct flight between San Jose and Tokyo kicks off January 11th on a brand new 787 Dreamliner. Now they have announced that they are going to move from the San Francisco area to Gateway Place in San Jose, very close to SJC. This is a positive sign that if things go well with this flight they may double down on San Jose and add more routes and flights. There is already talk of making the direct flight to Tokyo 7 days a week instead of 5 in the summer.

Holiday Festivities at Evergreen Village Square

A quick heads up that there is a Holiday event at the Evergreen Village Square today:

~~~~~~~

This Saturday, December 8th, from 1pm to 3 pm. Free pictures with Santa! Take home a professional 5x7 photo with Santa! Face painting! Fabulous Holiday Entertainment Program by the famous Cotton Candy Express with Lori & RJ!   Plus much more!  Don't miss it!

Followed at 4:30 by The Festival of Lights! 

More info on the Evergreen Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/pages/Evergreen-Village/138625382867090?ref=tn_tnmn#!/pages/Evergreen-Village/138625382867090

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the Healthiest City for Women

San Jose made it into another top 10 list, and this one has nothing to do with salaries. 84% of women in San Jose exercise, only 8% smoke, 99.8% wear a seat belt, and in general women here eat far more fruits and vegetables than the average American. All these stats led San Jose to be proclaimed the top healthiest city for women in the country. The net result of the data above is a life span that is 3 years longer than average in the country.

That life span should get even longer in the future given the many billions of dollars of new investment into medical care happening throughout Silicon Valley hospitals. Another positive future factor is leading the country in hybrid and electric vehicle adoption, which will reduce pollution despite population increases.

Top 10 List
1.) San Jose, CA
2.) Bethesda, MD
3.) San Francisco, CA
4.) Santa Barbara, CA
5.) Honolulu, HI
6.) Santa Ana, CA
7.) Minneapolis, MN
8.) Fargo, ND
9.) Portland, ME
10.) Burlington, VT



Source: Self

Our Christmas in the Park Tree!

Seasons Greetings! 

Have you and your family or friends been downtown to check out Christmas in the Park this year? Well if not, the next time you're down there.. see if you can find The San Jose Blog's tree! That's right, we've got a tree!

In November, I set out to create ornaments for our tree. As a photographer, I've taken a ton of photos that showcase various details, buildings, people, or events that make up San Jose and the surrounding cities in Santa Clara County. I thought these photos could make for some fun ornaments.

The Process

I went through my photos and picked out shots that I felt represented the area: the cherry blossom trees and street banners in Japantown, the Silicon Valley Roller Girls, San Jose State, City Hall, The Tech Museum, San Pedro Square Market, Santana Row, San Jose Taiko, and much more. I had them printed (FedEx/Kinkos, simple, on paper thicker than normal printer paper) and cut them out in 4x4 squares. 

Next up - a trip to Tap Plastics! I needed to make these weather-proof, and while I could have laminated them, I wanted them to have some heft. I bought 4x4 acrylic squares. 

Back home, I Mod-Podged the photos to the acrylic squares. My apartment was quite stinky after doing that! (I had to glue a sheet of cardstock down before applying the photo as well.)

After they dried for a few days, I turned them over and glued hand-bent wire hooks to each piece. Dry.. dry.. dry.. and DONE.

One last item was, admittedly an experiment, had to be added the day I decorated the tree itself. 

I purchased batteries and LED lights to place on the back of each ornament. My hope was the light would show up on the edges of the clear tile as well as illuminate the back of the tile too.

Added some sparkly garland, some small colorful ball ornaments, and a big silver bow on top - our decorations were complete!

Now, this may seem a little out of order, but the last thing I placed on the tree was the two strands of Christmas lights that were provided to us by the Christmas in the Park organization. For such a large tree, two strands really didn't feel like much, but hey, that's what we were provided!

Fast forward to the big tree lighting ceremony. They played holiday music and special guests including Kristi Yamaguchi and Santa made an appearance. After the giant tree was lit, my husband and I made our way to the TSJB tree.

Upon seeing it, my heart sank. Only one of the two strands of lights worked. Our tree was in the dark and you couldn't really see anything on it. 

But, there is a happy ending! While the lights were never replaced by CITP, they did grant us permission to use our own SOLAR lights. So we're not even using the PG&E provided juice for our tree! 

Last night we were able to replace the lights and now we have a tree with a ton of little twinkle lights! (We are, however, missing our silver bow.. lost forever it seems!)

Hope you can check out our tree and all the other ones in the park - there are some really amazing and fun trees out there! If you'd like to see more photos, including some detail shots of some of the ornaments, check them out here.

Here's one more photo of Josh and I posing in front of the tree!

Happy Holidays everyone!