Category Archives: La vida Chico

The death of KPIG in Chico: A look at the numbers

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Old KPIG Paradise logoWhile much has been made of KZAP-FM 96.7 switching formats from a simulcast of KPIG‘s Americana/folk music to talk radio, I don’t think there’s been much talk about audience numbers. Laura Urseny’s article about the change does quote market manager Vince Shadrick saying there weren’t enough listeners to support the ‘PIG. Looking at the radio ratings for Chico, it would appear that Shadrick is on to something — KZAP’s ratings last fall were about half of what they were five years ago.
According to numbers from Arbitron, Inc., KZAP in spring 2006 had 4 percent of all listeners in Chico — good enough for eighth place in the crowded market. KZAP switched formats from hiphop-oriented Club 96.7 to KPIG in summer 2007. By fall 2009, listeners had dropped to 2.1 percent and the station was in 16th place.
Interestingly, KZAP once ranked as high as second place in spring 2005 with 6.3 percent of listeners.
In Chico, Arbitron’s ratings are based on diaries that selected listeners fill out twice a year. There can be some fluctuations in the numbers — KZAP’s numbers went from 3.2 percent in spring ’09 to 2.1 in the fall.
I only have access to the broadest ratings available from Arbitron, Inc. These are total listeners older than 12 listening at some point from 6 a.m. to midnight everyday. Many radio execs will tell you that they look more closely at more detailed breakdowns based on specific time periods and listeners’ ages and buying habits.
Still, looking at the overall numbers can tell an interesting picture. Three years ago, when KZAP picked up KPIG, market manager Michael Kemph said KZAP had the weakest numbers in a station group that included KFM (KFMF-FM 93.9), The Point (KQPT-FM 107.5) and KALF-FM 95.7. That appeared to be the case last fall, when KZAP again trailed behind its sister stations in total listeners.
KZAP’s switch to “Bold Talk” and its stable of right-leaning talk shows may lead to higher numbers. The news-talk-information format appears to be doing well in Chico. KPAY-AM 1290 was first in the market in fall 2009 with 6.8 percent of listeners. Out-of-market talk stations also pulled in decent numbers. Sacramento-area stations KFBK-AM 1530 and KSTE-AM 650 both ranked higher than KZAP in the Chico market.
And although it isn’t exactly a “talk” station, Northstate Public Radio (KCHO-FM 91.7) and its mix of news magazines from National Public Radio and music programming was third with 6.4 percent. (Disclaimer: I am a volunteer disc jockey at KCHO.)
While news-talk does well, I don’t know if the Chico market _needed_ another station in the format. Also, KZAP has switched formats four times in just over 10 years (from Star to Club to KPIG to Bold Talk). Who knows if news-talk will fit the station any better than the other choices?

Seasons greetings with the 2009 Christmas card

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The 2009 Christmas card.

The 2009 Christmas card.

Another Christmas is upon us. To celebrate 2009, I created a new card for friends and family.

I sent most of the cards on Monday, and I hope they were received by today. If not, I’m sharing the card with everyone here.

From the bottom of my heart, I wish everyone the merriest of Christmases.

Sharing was this year’s theme. Last year, I tried to combine something uniquely Chico with the holidays and came up with the yo-yo card.

I thought about revisiting the Chico themes for 2009, but I didn’t feel I could pull anything off in time.

I still liked the Sierra Nevada Santa idea, but I grew a little reticent. After all, it seemed a little less than wholesome, but it could be pulled off if it was done tastefully. I worried about my ability to do so.

It’s still an idea I may do in future years.

I settled on “spreading a little holiday cheer” because I wanted to do something active beyond the traditional holiday photo. I settled on the tree because I thought it was an unlikely object one would give, but it’s also an icon that embodies the spirit of the season.

So with many, many test shots in my apartment’s small hallway and some Photoshop magic, here is this year’s card. Merry Christmas.

As Christmas shopping days tick away, check this tip list twice

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With Christmas just days away, I’m offering some holiday shopping advice. Thinking of gifts can be pretty stressful, so my list is a slightly humorous take on the tradition. Here’s a sample:

Christmas
shopping tip #001–while there is _huge_ difference between “The
Clapper” and the clap, neither is a welcome holiday gift.

It started with that one and I was inspired to keep going. I’m dishing these tips every day on my Twitter account, but you can also view all of them on this page.

I hope to have a tip every day up until Christmas, but coming up with them can be tough (especially if I was trying to be funny). If you have any ideas, please share them in the comments.


Cold snap may turn City Plaza fountain into skating rink

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With overnight temperatures in Chico dropping into the low-20s, the fountain in City Plaza may be turning into an accidental skating rink after the sun sets. During the summer, the fountain is a ground-level delight for children and adults to splash in, but it may be a potential safety hazard when the thermometer drops below 32º.

By its very nature, the fountain creates a wet surface that doesn’t drain completely when it is shut off at night. The remaining water freezes in the evening’s chill.

It’s hard to say how big of deal it is. When I walked across City Plaza to head home after an early Tuesday meal, there were only a few patches of ice over the fountain. I stepped on a few patches to glide along on the friction-reduced ice, but they ended quickly.

One element that may reduce the patches is the roughened surface caused by what appears to be pebbles and textured concrete.

It’s fun to shuffle along and pretend I’m ice skating, but I am concerned some reckless person may slip and injure themselves. It’s possible people may not notice that the fountain has frozen — at night, the plaza is often illuminated solely by street lights (and during December by the Community Tree).

I noticed this issue a couple of years ago. I called the police to let them know about the safety concern. They indifferently brushed the matter off, suggesting that I call the city’s blandly-named General Services Department the following morning. I never did pursue the matter.

This seems to be an issue that comes up just once or twice a year, but the early cold snap has piqued my curiosity.

Speaking of skating rinks, seeing the ice in the center of City Plaza reminded me of all the cities that have outdoor rinks in the winter. I’ve seen setups in colder cities, like Salt Lake City, Chicago and New York City, but they’ve also cropped up in warmer places like Sacramento and San Diego.

It might be cool to put a small rink in the center of Chico City Plaza for a few weeks every year. By my eye, an oval stretching about a half-block might be possible in the shadow of the Community Tree.

It’s unlikely for a number of reasons — including cost and the generally warm temperatures — but it would definitely add a strong touch of winter fun to our city (especially because we don’t currently have any ice rinks at all).

Photo: Chico City Plaza’s fountain is depicted in part of a photomontage I created over the summer. I find it funny how subjects show up multiple times.

A graphic example of recycling plastic bags

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20091204_recycling.jpgThe time arrived last week to recycle all the plastic bags in my apartment. It’s funny how this time just happens to coincide with a family visit.

I hate to throw things away that I know can be easily recycled. It’s led to some messy stashes around my apartment because my landlord doesn’t offer multifamily recycling (in flagrant violation of Chico city code).

As I waited to take plastic bags to the recycling center (or supermarket), I’ve tossed them in a old mattress bag in my bedroom. Over the past 18 months, this bag has gotten stuffed from the numerous places I get bags — grocery stores, convenience stores, newspapers, etc.

By the time, I threw the bundle in the car, it was about four feet tall. The bag was almost like its own entity — it certainly had more presence in my apartment than almost anything else.

Half of the bag filled one of the store’s recycle bins. I planned to return later to drop off the remaining bags.

I had mixed feelings having so many plastic bags. Part of me is glad that I’m keeping these out of the landfills or in that giant plastic mass in the Pacific Ocean. On the other hand, I know I should reduce the number of plastic bags I take while shopping.

Already, I refuse bags when I buy just a handful of items. I can easily carry those to and fro.

I also have a ChicoBag and other reusable bags for larger purchases, but I don’t always have them handy. For the ChicoBag, I recently found mine in my car trunk, being used to wrap up a pub glass.

Hopefully, I’ll keep reducing the plastic I use and it will take a lot longer than 18 months to fill the bag again.

Photo: A mattress bag stuffed with plastic bags on display outside a downtown Chico business on West First Street on Sun., Nov. 29, 2009.

Secret Shame: Short-sighted stargazing leaves me adrift in stellar sea

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Once upon a time, I was a member of the Young Astronauts. That’s not the secret shame — my membership in this esteemed club and lifelong fascination with space merely provides some background for my tale.
One of the coolest things about camping in the mountains is the breathtaking views of the night sky. The deep darkness provided a suitable canvas for the cacophony of coldly glimmering stars and the faint band of the Milky Way.
There was even the blaze of an occasional shooting star. It was a wonderful sight.
There was one downside wherein my secret shame resides — I couldn’t recognize any of the constellations. While I’ve never been good about picking out the more obscure formations, I always thought I could spot Orion or the Dippers.
I felt lost amid this stellar sea. It was like looking at a map without labels or a legend. The navigational points I had learned over the years had sadly escaped me.
I looked toward the north to find the Big Dipper and hopefully follow it to the northern star of Polaris.
No joy — I couldn’t see anything that I recognized. I was walking through the darkened campground with a friend who was having similar difficulties.
We had several theories about why the night sky was so strange to us. The massive black shadow of Eureka Peak loomed more than 2,000 feet over the campsite. The mountain was northwest of the campgrounds and may have obscured a good part of the sky.
What the mountain didn’t obscure, the cover of tall pines did. Gazing through the tree canopy was sometimes like peering through a celestial porthole.
In the days and nights upon returning to Chico, my consternation at myself grew as I continued to try to spot the basic star patterns. After staring up in the sky for about 10 minutes, I couldn’t pick much out. I thought I spotted Cassiopeia, but I wasn’t sure.
Determined not to let this get me down, I took one more look at the night sky. Finally a lightbulb went off as I peered into the dark. There was relief as I could spot at least a couple of constellations.
The Big Dipper scooped close to the horizon, providing credibility to my theory that I couldn’t see this constellation in the mountains because of the tree cover or hills.
While I’m glad that I’m not going senile and forgetting what I learned about the stars, I think a refresher or two may be in order. Thankfully, the mountains are close by and there’s an open-air observatory at Bidwell Park.

You’ve got to change your ‘big city’ ways

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Frazier CreekComplaining about the ill effects and encroachment of large cities on smaller communities is a common pastime. In this area, it seems that people in rural Butte County complain about Chico and Chicoans complain about the Bay Area.

If you go back far enough, the rural Romans would knock Rome, saying that it’s not what it’s cracked up to be and why is our empire named after this city anyway?

I saw a bit of this disdain towards cities during a trip to Plumas-Eureka State Park. We listened to a few minutes of the 50th anniversary celebration of the park. Here’s what colleague Heather Hacking wrote about it:

Plus, they had a big table set up with birthday cake, for which we felt
obligated to hear a speech by an area supervisor about how visitors are
welcome to the area but discouraged from “bringing their big-city ways.”

First, let me say that the birthday cake was totally worth listening to a few minutes of congratulatory back-patting. There were two sheet cakes — white and chocolate. The white cake was delicious, with layers of some light pink frosting with traces of fruit.

I digress. I found the county supervisor’s comments a little funny because they seemed more like a candidate speech instead of a salute to a thriving state park. I don’t think he would be a big fan of the curry test.

For the rest of the day, my party poked gentle fun at the comment, mentioning how the backcountry probably didn’t need such newfangled conveniences as horseless carriages, satellite TV or modern medicine (leeches are just fine, thank you).

The thing is, I can understand some of the supervisor’s feelings — there are many undesirable things about big cities, including traffic, crowds, crime, etc. But his short comment also seemed to dismiss the things that make cities worthwhile — culture, diversity, the hum of humanity, opportunities, etc.

In some ways, maintaining and preserving this idyllic realm may be impossible. The supervisor said he wouldn’t mind if people come up to the mountains and put down roots … if they didn’t bring their big city ways with them. However, we bring at least some aspect of this larger civilization with us, no matter how hard we try to escape or transform it.

Looking around the communities the supervisor represents, I could see the encroachment of the “city” — highways, railroads, motor home parks, golf courses, cell phones, manicured lawns, and satellite TV dishes on many homes. There’s a wine bar outside Graeagle and there is a restaurant that wants $36 for surf-and-turf in a town with 70 summer residents.

As much as we would want to keep the city’s troubles at arm’s length, many aspects of civilization follow us like footsteps through snow. Instead of fearing a clash between civilization and nature, perhaps we can seek a more beneficial interchange.

Image: A view of Frazier Creek just upstream of Frazier Falls outside of Graeagle, Calif. on Sat., July 18, 2009. (Ryan Olson photo)

The curry test

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The curry test

I was camping last weekend when my group decided to duck into a local market for some ice. While they went to make their purchase, I walked around and decided to look for some curry sauce mix.

I wasn’t planning on mixing up some Asian food during the camping trip — it’s part of an ongoing test I have to determine the quality of grocery store.

I call it, the curry test.

It’s a simple test — I just check to see if the store carries my brand of curry sauce mix (S&B) in the Asian food section.

The test is simple and straightforward for my needs. It allows me to make some snap judgment on the quality of the grocery and the town it resides in.

If a store has the curry, I generally tend to think that the store is well stocked in more cosmopolitan fare and perhaps serves a more diverse group of shoppers.

Stores that don’t stock it seem incomplete in my eye and to some extent the community also seems to be missing something.

There may not be any rhyme or reason for why a store would stock curry. Population may be a factor with larger cities being more likely to have it. When I lived in Hancock, Mich., the smaller markets near my house didn’t have it, but the larger supermarket across the canal in Houghton did.

The Thriftway market in tiny Dunsmuir, Calif. had it on the top shelf of a rather small ethnic food section. However, it wasn’t at the Graeagle Store in the even tinier Graeagle, Calif.

College town Chico has the sauce mix at most stores, but I almost wrote the town off because it wasn’t at the first store I checked (the college neighborhood Safeway on West Sacramento Avenue).

Geography may play a factor too. While curry can be found in small rural communities, it can also be missing in larger cities, like Saginaw, Mich.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the large chain supermarket in left-leaning Middletown, Conn. This is a town with a lot of diverse eateries, but I had to ship relief packages to my New England friends because their local store didn’t stock it.

Here’s are some of the towns and stories where I have sought curry (by population):

Graeagle, Calif. (pop. 831): No.
Dunsmuir, Calif. (pop. 1,801): Check.
Hancock, Mich. (pop. 4,158): Nope
Houghton, Mich. (pop. 6,878): Definitely at EconoFoods.
Middletown, Conn. (pop. 48,030): Not at the Stop & Shop.
Saginaw, Mich. (pop. 55,620): We tried the Kroger and settled for Thai curry mix.
Chico, Calif. (pop. 83,791): Many stores do, but not the student neighborhood Safeway.

Of course, this test is purely subjective. You may have some essential comfort food that you just can’t live without. For me, you’ve gone a long way to gaining a new customer if you’ve curry boxes on your store shelves.

Image: Several boxes of curry sauce mix were for sale at the Thriftway store in downtown Dunsmuir, Calif. in Feb. 2009.

What the media companies giveth, they can taketh away

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In just two days, I’ve seen a pair of reminders of the power media providers have when it comes to providing access to content. These providers are Amazon and Comcast.

On a national scale, some people have been crying foul about Amazon reaching out and deleting copies of books on their Kindle e-book reader. Many have noted the irony that the books being deleted in this Orwellian fashion are those by George Orwell, he of “Animal Farm” and “1984” fame.

As Ars Technica notes, it appears that a third-party publisher may have not had the rights to sell Orwell’s books. I can appreciate Amazon’s desire to try to correct a situation a third party has put the company into, but I also hope that Amazon sticks to its word and doesn’t automatically delete purchased books in the future.

On the personal level, I received a letter from Comcast regarding their On Demand service. In its letter, Comcast wanted to tell me that my wide access to use On Demand to watch shows and movies from most channels at any time was a mistake. Comcast stated they were limiting most of my access unless, of course, I chose to upgrade to a more-expensive package.

I downgraded to local channels to save money. While On Demand is a nice perk for a handful of shows I don’t have access to anymore, it’s simply not worth the additional $40 per month to return to Standard Cable with Digital.

I don’t quite understand it — Comcast should be encouraging use of On Demand because it offers a lot of the advantages of watching shows on the Internet, but from the comfort and convenience of your living-room television. Instead Comcast is helping me opt for the cheaper solution with more available programming on the Internet.

At least Comcast is giving me a heads up about the change. It’s pretty easy for media companies to simply flip a switch and take away stuff that we take for granted.

Generic ‘Chico’ T-shirts a disservice

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A generic "Chico" shirtThere’s nothing wrong with wanting to show your hometown pride, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it with this frightfully misleading “Greetings from Chico” T-shirt. It says it’s from Chico, but it could really be from Anytown, U.S.A.

I don’t want to name the store where I found this shameful garment, but I discovered it at a local drug store next to a burrito restaurant across from One-Mile Recreation Area.

Aside from slathering “Chico” all over the shirt, is there any aspect of the shirt that is appropriately Chico?

Do any of the elements (police and fire stations, a post office and bus) resemble anything in Chico? Has anyone ever gone to school at “Butte County School District”?

There’s a farm in the background, which might satisfy Greenline supporters, but it’s not a specific image I would associate with the city of trees and roses.

It’s not too bad that the T-shirt is trying to evoke the idea of an idyllic town, including the cute dog. My beef is that it’s not an idyllic image of a town named Chico.

Change the words around a tad and the shirt could’ve read “Greetings from Chino,” Oroville, Walla Walla or Poughkeepsie. Surely they too must have police and fire stations, post offices and farms.

It’s this T-shirt’s relative lack of effort that raised my hackles. It must be fairly easy to take a basic design and slap a couple of words on it. To this shirt’s credit, the word Chico was placed in five areas.

I became aware of the practice of customizing generic shirts when I bought a sweatshirt from my university as a gift. It was dark blue with a line of white tropical flowers and the school’s name. Although I was happy with my purchase, I was disappointed to come across an identical sweatshirt with a different university’s name emblazoned on it.

Ultimately, Chico may be a “great place to live!” but there are better ways to express oneself.

The Sierra Nevada shirt is a pretty common sight around here as is Chico State garb. Anything that is uniquely Chico or of the north state would be a terrific improvement over this generic garment.