TAKING A RIDE with the San Jose Bike Party is a test in courage and sobriety for some. Pitfalls lie at every turn—a sloshed cyclist, the inconspicuous nail cloaked in the shadow of night, the littered can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. But for all the dangers present in the monthly bike orgy, none of these come close to the hazards seen in the annual Race Across America (RAAM).
Articles by Josh Koehn
Nate Roybal is part of the 99 percent. A 24-year-old salesman for a Mountain View telecommunications company, Roybal has unpaid student loans for a degree he never completed. His income keeps him just above the poverty line but doesn’t allow him to pay his bills. For nearly two weeks, Roybal has spent his days working a full shift before driving his car to San Jose to sleep in a tent.
San Jose citizens who want to know if the city’s becoming more dangerous will no longer have to pay the police department to find out. A key victory for public information access was scored last week when the city’s Rules and Open Government Committee—comprised of three council members and the mayor—voted unanimously to overrule a $42 charge request by the SJPD’s research unit for an annual crime stat.
While its much larger neighbor, San Jose, awaits league approval for a baseball stadium, Santa Clara has jumped to the front of the queue. The city is only a few steps from completing a billion-dollar deal by pulling off the near impossible: making a professional sports franchise foot almost the entire the bill for a stadium while also giving much of the revenue back to the city.
When typing the name of Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck into Google, the second-highest recommended search is “Andrew Luck girlfriend.” That designation; we’ll call her “Lady Luck”; apparently goes to a Stanford gymnast, but it’s a title any gold-digger would be happy to have. The kid is more or less guaranteed to be the top pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, and with that comes a google of dollars in contracts and endorsements.
Cameras trained on public streets may deter crime. Or maybe not. Complaints from business owners in Gilroy about rowdy drunks fighting and urinating in front of their shops at late hours prompted the city’s unprecedented move this summer to monitor and record the actions of its citizens at all hours of the day.
Remembered more for his outgoing nature and affinity for interacting with fans—especially kids—than his tricks, Tim Brauch’s legacy lives on in the annual skateboarding contest named in his honor, which will be taking place for the 13th year this Saturday.
San Jose State football is hoping its starting quarterback makes a speedy recovery in time for the Spartans’ home opener at 1pm Saturday against winless Nevada, a program that is known as the Wolf Pack—minus one Zach Galifianakis. Meanwhile, the No. 2 ranked Stanford women’s volleyball team has been crushing almost everyone to start the season.
Our new Questions & Answers column, SJ Q&A, starts with one of the rising stars in baseball, San Jose Giants centerfielder Gary Brown. Still in his first season with the Giants, Brown was named the California League Rookie of the Year last week. He was a first-round pick by the San Francisco Giants in 2010 and could be making a move to the Big Leagues in the very near future. For now, though, Brown and the Single-A Giants are focused on the playoffs starting Saturday.
After losing 10 straight games to close out coach Mike MacIntyre’s first season at San Jose State University, the Spartans begin the 2011 fall football campaign Saturday with a renewed sense of optimism. Unfortunately, all those good vibes could vanish by the end of Week One, when SJSU makes its way to the Farm to take on Heisman Trophy frontrunner Andrew luck and the No. 7-ranked Stanford Cardinal.
