London 2012 Summer Olympic Games Schedule, Information and Other Tidbits

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Believe it or not, the 2012 Olympic Games started TODAY, two days in advance of the opening ceremony on Friday, July 27th!

The first competition of the 2012 Olympic Games was a women's soccer match between Great Britain and New Zealand at 8 a.m. PST., followed by top-seeded USA vs France at 9 a.m., and other women's soccer matches. Tomorrow, men's soccer starts with Honduras vs Morocco at 4 a.m. PST. NBC's complete Olympics viewing schedule can be viewed at www.nbcolympics.com/tv-listings/index.html. There's a nice summary-level schedule available at www.nbcolympics.com/results-schedules/index.html.

The theme of the 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony is "Isles of Wonder" and NBC will begin 4 1/2 hours of coverage at 7:30 p.m. Friday night. The show will feature over 10,000 performers, including British duo Underworld and an appearance by Paul McCartney.

Keep in mind that London is 8 hours ahead of us here in California, so many events will be shown tape delayed.  The NBC Olympics website, however, will be streaming LIVE coverage of all events! But you must register your TV service (e.g. Time Warner, Verizon, Direct TV, etc.) to gain access to the streaming content. I've tried it already and it works great!

The 2012 Summer Olympics will have 19 competition days, from today, July 25th to Sunday, August 12th. The closing ceremony on the 12th titled "A Symphony of British Music" will start at 9 p.m. local (London) time. According to Rolling Stone, the lineup at the closing ceremony will include The Who, a Spice Girls reunion, George Michael and Jessie J among others.

Olympics Facts, Statistics and Tidbits

Some 10,490 athletes from 204 nations will be represented at the 2012 Summer Olympics, playing 26 sports in 39 disciplines at 34 venues. Talk about a logistical challenge! There will be 302 medal events, which translates into a total of 906 gold, silver and bronze medals (though of course many more medals will be distributed for events involving more than one player on a team).

Ten sports account for fully 74% of the 302 events. The top 10, including medal count, includes: Athletics (Track & Field) 47 medals, Aquatics (46), Wrestling (20), Cycling (18), Gymnastics (18), Canoeing (16), Shooting (15), Weightlifting (15), Judo (14) and Rowing (14).

If you include the n

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New Ventura County Clerk and Recorder / Registrar of Voters Website Looks Great

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The Ventura County Clerk and Recorder / Registrar of Voters recently launched a new website that has a really nice new look and feel. Check it out at recorder.countyofventura.org.

Here are some excerpts of what the 3 divisions (County Clerk, Recorder and Elections) of the County Clerk and Recorder office does from the website:

The County Clerk issues marriage licenses, performs civil marriage ceremonies, processes fictitious business name filings, and provides for the qualification and registration of notaries, process servers and miscellaneous statutory oaths and other filings.

The Recorder is responsible for the recording of deeds, deeds of trust, court decrees and other documents affecting title to real property in Ventura County.

The Elections Division conducts all Federal, State, County, school and special district elections in the County, as well as the general municipal elections for all 10 Ventura County cities. It also administers voter registration and outreach programs, among other duties.

I've seen the before and after of the County Clerk and Recorder website and have to say this was a dramatic transformation all around. Many websites receive facelifts on the home page but as you click through to sub-pages find old, outdated pages and broken links dispersed through the site. Not so in this case. Nice job!

The Elections Division section highlights current voter registration information right at the top of the site, which is a nice feature. For example, as of 5/21/12, there are 406,644 registered voters in the County, including 157,539 Democrat, 150,919, Republican, 77,994 Non-Partisan and 20,192 Other.

The 2012 Presidential Primary Election was yesterday. Although the Vote By Mail ballots aren't fully counted yet, the Election Results page indicates 101,986 ballots cast as 2 a.m. this morning (6/6/12); a 25.1% voter turnout. In the 6/3/08 Primary, voter turnout was 29.5% of 392,088 registered voters. Not a good trend to see.

Turnout in the 2012 General Presidential Election s

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Presidential Elections - Can I Buy a Vowel? Obama, Adams, Eisenhower, Oh My!

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Conejo Valley Guide generally does not cover politics as we like to focus on things to do throughout  Ventura County and adjacent areas. And this post really is not political in nature. It is more along the lines of "useless yet potentially amusing information."

Barack Obama is running for re-election in 2012. If he loses, this would be the first time since 1828 that a President whose last name starts with a vowel loses a re-election. After one term in office, John Quincy Adams (like Obama, a Harvard graduate) lost to Andrew Jackson, considered the first Democratic President. Also notable (ok maybe not) is that Obama honored another Quincy...Quincy Jones, with a National Medal of Arts in 2010. The Obama/Quincy connection.

If Obama wins his re-election, he'll follow in the footsteps of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, who demolished Adlai Stevenson with 86% of the electoral vote. Obama also has something in common with Eisenhower. He received his bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1983 whereas Eisenhower was President of Columbia from 1948 to 1953.

Truth be told, there have not been a lot of Presidential candidates whose last names begin with a vowel. In fact, while 19% of the letters in the alphabet are vowels, less than 10% of thos

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Register to Vote . . . Then Take the Time to Actually Vote!

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About 79% of Ventura County residents that are eligible to vote actually register to vote.  Do your civic duty and register to vote! Visit www.sos.ca.gov/nvrc/fedform/ for an online form that you can complete and mail in. For additional information about voter registration, including timing deadlines, visit www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm

You may register to vote in California if:

  • You are a United States citizen
  • You are a resident of California
  • You are at least 18 years of age (or will be by the date of the next election)
  • You are not in prison or on parole for a felony conviction. For more information on the rights of people who have been incarcerated, please see the Secretary of State's Voting Guide for Currently or Formerly Incarcerated Californians.
  • You have not been judged by a court to be mentally incompetent

YOU HAVE UNTIL MONDAY, MAY 21ST TO REGISTER TO VOTE!!

But of that 79%...only 40% actually vote!  That's pitiful! Come on, register to vote...then VOTE! To make it easier on yourself, apply for a Permanent Vote by Mail status when you receive your Sample Ballot! That way, you never even need to visit a polling place to vote.

TO VOTE BY MAIL IN THE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTION ON JUNE 5, 2012, YOUR APPLICATION MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN MAY 29TH.


 

Camarillo Pop Artist's Latest Piece Inspired by Mid-1970s Visits to the Local Arcade

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This new piece entitled "Arcade Pop" by Camarillo artist Chuck Trunks was inspired by his visits to the local arcade to play Pac Man and Space Invaders circa 1975.  See Trunks' other work on Conejo Valley Guide here.

While arcades are not as prevalent in this day and age with the advent of Xbox, Playstation, DS, iPads, iPhones, Facebook and the like, there still are some around town:

LazerTag Extreme in Camarillo (CLOSED 3/18/12 - TO BE RELOCATED)

Big Z Family Fun Center in Simi Valley

Ventura Harbor Village Arcade

Buena Lanes in Ventura

Brunswick Zone in Simi Valley

Harley's Bowling Centers in Simi Valley and Camarillo

MB2 Raceway in Newbury Park

Golf N' Stuff Ventura

Effective Today, Conejo Valley Has Been Renamed Squirrel Valley!

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Herbie the Squirrel smiling for the camera in Thousand Oaks.

Herbie the Squirrel smiling for the camera in Thousand Oaks.

It started with a little squirrel named Herbie. Herbie was known to munch on seeds and plants outside the National Park Service Visitor Center in Thousand Oaks. Herbie is pictured to the right. Cute little guy, isn't he.

Conejo Valley resident Rocky N. Bulwinckel took notice 2 years ago. Rocky, third cousin once removed of Carolyn Lawrence, the voice of Sandy Cheeks, well known squirrel character on SpongeBob SquarePants, was impressed at Herbie the Squirrel's amicable behavior and ability to interact with humans.

Bulwinckel and his neighbors, the Rowe-Dent family of Thousand Oaks, also noticed the proliferation of friendly squirrels throughout the Conejo Valley. In fact, the squirrel population seems to have overtaken the rabbit population, namesake of the Conejo (Spanish for rabbit) Valley! Bulwinckel and the Rowe-Dents decided to pursue a change in light of this squirrely situation.

Local squirrel in celebration mode. Name unknown. We call him Bubba.

Local squirrel in celebration mode. Name unknown. We call him Bubba.

So, after two years petitioning local residents and numerous presentations to the city councils of the Conejo Valley communities of Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills,

Oak Park and Calabasas, it was proclaimed that, effective today, the Conejo Valley is officially renamed the Squirrel Valley!

Here at Conejo Valley Guide we enjoy and cherish bunnies. However, we have already made preparations for the transition to Squirrel Valley Guide.

Please join us by reviewing our new website at www.SquirrelValleyGuide.com!

APRIL FOOLS'!

Happy April Fools' Day!

April Fools' fun in prior years

Who Wants to Be a Half Billionaire!? A Review of Historical Mega Millions Numbers

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BREAKING NEWS UPDATE 3/30/12: The estimate jackpot for tonight's drawing has skyrocketed to $640 MILLION or a $462 MILLION cash payout! WOAH!

As pretty much everyone knows at this point, tomorrow's Mega Millions jackpot is the largest jackpot in world history. At $540 million, a single winning ticket will make the holder of that ticket a half billionaire, on paper at least. If they took the estimated cash payment of $390 million and paid the roughly 35% in Federal taxes (California and local taxes are don't apply), they, or I should say, I, will have roughly $253 million in cash to play around with. Heck, that's enough money to run for President these days!

I have quite a terrible track record with my Mega Millions tickets. I've never won even a measly $2 Mega number using my strategy of a combination of Quick Picks, birthdates, "lucky" numbers, my IQ, golf score, 5K time, etc. So tonight, given the unprecedented size of tomorrow night's drawing, I took it upon myself to do a statistical analysis of previous winning draws.

The CALottery website provides historical winning Mega Millions numbers going back to June 24, 2005, representing 706 previous drawings. I took that data and populated an Excel spreadsheet. Remember there are 5 winning numbers in each drawing ranging from 1 to 56, and 1 winning Mega number ranging from 1 to 46. Basically you have a 1 in 176 million chance of winning, no matter what numbers you pick. But I thought, maybe it would be smarter of me to take a look at the winners that won and didn't win most frequently. So I did.

The results of this exercise are as follows:

Number 48 is a winning number standout, having been selected 83 times, or 11.8%, of the last 706 Mega Millons draws. That is 9 times more than the next two lucky numbers, 36 and 53, which were both selected 74 times during that same period. These were closely followed by 12 and 51 (72 wins), 27, 31 and 52 (71 wins) and 14 (70 wins). Noticeably absent from this top nine list are single-digit numbers. Well, 2 had 69 wins and 4, 5 and 9 had 68 wins, so they aren't too far behind. But bottom line here is, perhaps the number 48 should be closely considered.

The least frequently picked winning numbers were 41 (48 wins), 49 (quite coincidentally 49 wins), followed by 47 (50 wins), 37 (51 wins) and 55, 34 and 6 (52 wins). I do find it interesting that 47 and 49, both perennial losers, sandwich 48, the biggest winner.

On the Mega number side, the clear winner, with 25 wins in the last 706 draws, is number 36. Good ole #36 was followed by 9 (6 wins) and 7 and 35 (20 wins). If you truly want to win something, anything, in the Mega Millions, perhaps your best bet is to pick 36 for your Mega number each time, as statistically it hits around every 28 draws. Hitting the Mega with no other winning numbers gets you a whopping $2. Yippee!

The least frequently winning Mega numbers were 28 (a lousy 6 wins in 706 draws), 32 (10 wins) and 46, 14 and 1 (11 wins).

Now just you watch...all the losing numbers above will hit tomorrow. That always happens. But as statisticians say, each draw is independent of the others and thus the odds of choosing the winning numbers technically DO NOT CHANGE from draw to draw. Thus, while you may or may not find interest in this statistical information, I'd advise you rely upon it solely for its amusement value.

Shown below is the winning number information for all numbers sorted by most to least wins over the last 706 Mega Millions draws. Good luck to all and make sure to CONTACT ME if you win THE BIG ONE tomorrow!!

Winning Numbers

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