Around Town Around Town (January 07, 2004)

GET YOUR ART ON . . . Don't worry if you thought you missed the inaugural First Friday Art Walk of 2004 - the starting date was not, as the name would indicate, Jan. 2. Rather, the walks start this Friday, Jan. 7. The walks are in the evenings and participants will get a chance to check out art and various galleries and cafes around downtown Palo Alto. The Pacific Art League are a few of the participants.

BLAST FROM THE PAST . . . A 1963 map and guide of Palo Alto recently uncovered by one Weekly staffer's family gives some interesting and giggle-inducing insights into Palo Alto's past. The brochure shares details of the city's "intrinsic beauty" and architecture that "represent(s) an unusually harmonious inter-mingling of the best in modern, transitional and romantic Spanish designs." It details local businesses, some of which are still around but many - like the former Dinah's Shack on El Camino Real and The Hippo in Menlo Park - are no longer in existence. According to the brochure, Dinah's hosted a men-only luncheon on weekdays. The city of Palo Alto is summed up as : "In short, for the man who seeks a pleasurable coexistence with progress yet despairs of the pace and prevailing surroundings normally contingent upon such a life, Palo Alto beckons gently. With its superb climate, with its own intrinsic charm enhanced by the sparkle of a university atmosphere, with its proximity to ... San Francisco ... Palo Alto revels in being the fair hostess with the mostest."

ALLEGED GRINCH STOPPED, GRINCH STRIKES AGAIN . . . A supposed thief of pro-traffic calming signs was stopped early Sunday morning in the Downtown North neighborhood but turned out to be nothing more than a person in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to Palo Alto police. A neighborhood resident called police around 5 a.m. when, according to an e-mail he wrote to the Weekly, he saw a sign stealer going at it. Police stopped a man who basically matched the sign-napper's description but "there was no sign in his car," police agent Tami Gage said. The man - who is not a Palo Altan, or even from Santa Clara County - was not arrested and no charges were pressed, Gage said. In other sign news, a thief spotted around Christmas stealing pro-traffic calming signs from the corner of Byron and Hawthorne in the Downtown North neighborhood struck again on Tuesday, Dec. 30 around 2 a.m. Resident Rob Williams, whose home security cameras recorded the Christmas thefts, said this latest sign-napping resulted in the removal of at least five signs.

GET MAC HAPPY . . . Tech aficionados can celebrate locally-founded Apple computers this week at the twentieth Macworld Conference & Expo at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The conference began Monday and continues through Friday; the expo began Tuesday and runs through Friday as well. Many new software and hardware products should be shown at the expo. For more information visit www.macworldexpo.com.

BREAKIN' THE LAW . . . Don't get caught doing something naughty behind the wheel - take a gander below at the skinny on a few of the new driving and traffic laws that went into effect at the start of the new year. On teens and permits: Instead of being able to get a driver's permit by age 15 as long as you're enrolled in a driver's ed class, teen drivers less than 17 years and six months old have to finish driver's ed before getting their permit. On video screens: Besides not being allowed to drive while a television broadcast is displayed on an in-vehicle video screen situated ahead of the drivers' seat, drivers can no longer put the pedal to the metal if any type of video display is on. Global Positioning Systems, or GPS, are not included in this law.

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