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More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com On YouTube.com LakeFest is a street fair that was held last Saturday and Sunday August 1st and 2nd on Lakeshore Avenue between Lake Park and Mandana near the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. After a long absence, it's back for its second year and with great bands and vendors selling clothes and representing everything from the new Lake Chalet restaurant to "Friends of the Oakland Public Library." I talked with a number of Oaklanders about the festival because there was a long period of time that, well, there was not an event of this kind at this location. That is until Helen Wyman stepped in. Helen Wyman is an event producer currently best known for the first, successful Uptown street fair held June 18th of this year. She explained that this event has nothing to do with the version of year's past and is brand new. "'LakeFest' was a concept we

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com On YouTube.com In the ongoing gaga of the Parkway and Cerrito theaters in Oakland and El Cerrito respectively we have read or heard the views of many people over the past seven months except two: Catherine and Kyle Fisher, who created both the Parkway Theater in Oakland, California and the Cerrito Theater in El Cerrito, California.  I was honored to be given the exclusive first video interview with the Fishers over brunch at the Lakeshore Cafe in Oakland.   They talked with me on video for 19 straight minutes - nothing edited - about what happened that led to the closure of the Oakland Parkway Theater and that led to the current very messy relationship between the Fishers and the El Cerrito Redevelopment Agency (ERA) regarding the Cerrito Theater, a situation which saw the Fishers lose that business too , and watch as the owners of the Rialto stepped in to take over.  Firs

From LakeViewFriends on YouTube. (I wish these video channel owners would let me know when they put out a video!) who wrote: "This is a short video about the history of Lakeview Library, near the top of Lake Merritt in Oakland, California"

From Contra Costa Times on YouTube - The Oakland Women's Rowing Club (OWRC) has been rowing on Lake Merritt since 1916. The Ladies of the Lake as they are known, row every Wednesday morning. Their ages range from 50-80s.

Lake Chalet interior The Lake Merritt Boathouse is being transformed into what will be one of the Bay Area's most popular restaurants: The Lake Chalet . The new restaurant will be the focus in part of a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday, August 6th at 2 PM reopening the historic boathouse. According to conversations I've had with employees, the new outdoor waterfront eatery setting will be just plain awesome. The creators of the Lake Chalet are known for the landmark Beach Chalet and Park Chalet in San Francisco at Ocean Beach.

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com YouTube , Yahoo , MySpace , Metacafe , DailyMotion , Blip.tv , StupidVideos , Sclipo and Viddler Thursday, President Barack Obama held a "Beer Summit" , as some have called it, with Harvard Professor Henry Lewis Gates, Jr., Cambridge Police Sergeant Officer James Crowley, and Vice President Joe Biden, bring an end to an unfortunate but necessary event in American Cultural history, and starting a new chapter in American race relations. It was the first time in American and world history a sitting president met publicly with a white police officer and the person the officer arrested, a black man. And to add to the moment, the president is African American. I think the teachable moment President Obama referred to was that two gentlemen of seemingly different stripes but of one culture can not only meet, but (as they agreed to do) meet again and again.   Sgt.