Wandering downtown Davis this afternoon, I ran across the Davis Jazz Artists Festival. Taking place both today October 4th and Sunday October 5th, this is a nice mix between visual art, spoken word and jazz. I happened to catch the Brubeck Institute Quintet and the Davis High Jazz Band. Today's events were free and it was nice to see the support for both the Davis High School music funds as well as a strong show of support for Measure W with people giving out stickers and yard signs. There was also a raffel and artists were painting onsite and it looked like there was spoken word events planned as well.

It was really fun watching both the Brubeck Institute Quintet and the Davis High Jazz Band and seeing the enthusiasm for the music from these young musicians. Reading about the Brubeck Institute Quintet, this is a group made up of musicians just out of high school. They can not have entered college to be eligible to compete for this position.

The festival contines tomorrow, Sunday, October 5th, 2008.

Contributed by Carolyn Gjerde-Tu, your resource for Davis CA Real Estate.

The Davis community as a whole has always been very supportive of the schools. One of the reasons people choose to live in this community is that Davis is well know for the quality of education and importance of education in the community as a whole.

Earlier this year, the Davis Schools Foundation set a big goal to raise enough money to prevent the layoff of dozens of Davis teachers and to keep special programs like elementary science, music programs intact. The fundraising campaign was a success and also provided a good message to the school board as well as the community as a whole how important the schools are to this community.

The voters of Davis will have an opportunity in Novemeber to pass a special parcel tax that will help preserve these school programs for the future. In a state with continued budget troubles, it is likely that individual communities will continue to step it up at a local level.

Visit the Yes on W campaign and learn for yourself why this is so important for the Davis Community.

Contributed by Carolyn Gjerde-Tu, specializing in Davis Real Estate

I was spending a little time around Youtube and found this video from earlier this year. Ever wonder what it is like to watch a world class bike race go through your town? Well this video is a good representation of the 2008 Amgen Tour of California when the pro bicycle tour passed through Davis back in February. The commentary is classic.


This bottom clip was filmed downtown and gives a better feel for the action around more fans.



Contributed by Carolyn Gjerde-Tu, specializing in Davis Real Estate and Homes in Greater Sacramento

Google just launched street views for the greater Sacramento area. If you haven't seen Street Views, it basically allows someone to view the area like one would in their car. Most of the San Francisco Bay Area has been available for some time but it is brand new to this area.

What this means to home buyers is they can "drive" around neighborhoods on their computers before going to see them physically. I think this will be especially useful when someone is relocating to the area and they are trying to get a sense of different neighborhoods.

Visit: http://maps.google.com and click on street view to get started. Click anywhere there is a blue line to get a 360 view from the street.

Now when you are exploring Davis CA Real Estate or Homes in Sacramento you have even more data available to jump start your home search.