The Amtrak Pacific Surfliner Train Serves Stations From San Diego through Ventura County to San Luis Obispo

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The Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train can be seen here from the beach in Ventura. This was taken from the beach at the Ventura River Group Camp at Emma Wood State Beach.

The Pacific Surfliner serves stations in San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties. There are daily round-trips between San Diego and Los Angeles, with some trips extending up to Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo. It's a fun alternative to driving to Santa Barbara. There are local Amtrak stations in Simi Valley, Moorpark, Camarillo, Oxnard and Ventura.

The Camarillo station to the Downtown Santa Barbara station is just an hour and 15 minutes. The Santa Barbara station is located on State Street, directly adjacent to the MOXI (The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation) and a few blocks from Stearns Wharf.

More on the Pacific Surfliner at www.pacificsurfliner.com.

There is a 15% discount available for travelers 62 and older on Pacific Surfliner trips year-round. (This is different than the 10% savings for ages 65+ offered by Amtrak nationally.) To get the discount, follow the instructions at THIS LINK.

Campgrounds and RV parks in Ventura County and nearby areas at THIS LINK.

Purchase a Snoopy License Plate to Support California Museums

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The California Association of Museums (CAM) has a program called the Snoopy Plate initiative. CAM has partners with the California DMV to issue a special license plate featuring Snoopy, the world's favorite beagle. Snoopy license plates are available at www.snoopyplate.com.

Proceeds from the official Snoopy license plate support California’s museums through a competitive grant program.

Each plate features a reproduction of an original Snoopy drawing by PEANUTS creator Charles M. Schulz. Snoopy will be doing his happy dance, probably in anticipation of a visit to a local museum in and around Ventura County (and other parts of California).

Standard Snoopy license plates are just $50 and $40 per year to renew. Personalized plates are $103 (as of 2022) and $83 to renew.

Go to www.snoopyplate.com today to sign up for your Snoopy license plate.

The Old "Agoura" Sign on Agoura Road

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I was running (literally running) around Agoura Hills, in the vicinity of Agoura Road west of Chesebro Road, when I looked up and saw this distinctly vintage "Agoura" sign displayed at the corner of Agoura and Lewis Roads. While I've driven that stretch of Agoura Road hundreds of times over the years, for whatever reason I never really noticed this interesting sign.

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I wondered how long this sign has been there. City of Agoura Historian Cim Castellon was able to help put some of the puzzle together by contacting Brian Rooney of R7 Media, who provided the image below.

This photo shows two women posing for the camera with the Agoura sign and Agoura Market and Gas Station, owned by Harold Neale, in the background.

Photo Credit: R7 Media (www.r7media.com)

Photo Credit: R7 Media (www.r7media.com)

On the east side of Lewis Road road is the old Agoura Post Office at 28249 Agoura Road, Agoura Hills. Brian thinks the Agoura sign was put up about the time the post office opened.

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The sign is located adjacent to what used to be Center Stage Music, in a building that originally was Fitzgerald's Market in the 1920s and later Agoura Market in the 1940s.

For more local history, be sure to stop by the Reyes Adobe Historical Site, the first home built in Agoura Hills back in 1850.

Street Number Painting on Your Curb in Thousand Oaks

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Did you ever wonder about those notices taped to your mailbox asking for $20 to paint a new curb address at your house? I think I paid $10 one time years ago and they did do a good job (and it saved me the time and effort of attempting to do it myself).

But these notices never seem to have a name or phone number on them. Just mysteriously taped to my mailbox.

According to the Thousand Oaks Public Works Department at 805.449.2400, this practice requires an encroachment permit and to date no one has filed for one.  The permit costs $320 (in 2022 - it was $126 in 2017) for an entrepreneur, or no cost for non-profit organizations and fundraisers (booster clubs, etc.).  The permit is good for a year.

Public Works requires that the provider's name and number be indicated on the notice.

More information at www.toaks.org/home/showdocument?id=692.

Anyone can paint their own curb address.  The numbers must be at least 3 inches high (preferably 4 inches), stenciled in black on white background.  It must cover up the previous numbers but if there weren't any, they must be within 3 feet of the driveway on the same side as the house.

The recent notice offered an American flag in full color painted along with the address for an extra $5.  This is very patriotic and if everyone did it would be quite cool, but technically the City only allows numbers on the curb, no images.  So fly the flag high but don't be painting it on the curb.

You are now educated on the topic of curb address painting in Thousand Oaks.

Originally posted in January 2009. Updated August 2017. and 2022.

The Largest Mega Millions Jackpots to Date and Other Mega Millions Information

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Tomorrow (July 29, 2022) night’s Mega Millions drawing is estimated at $1.1 billion (update: $1.28 billion), making it the 2nd largest Mega Millions jackpot of all time. The Top 10 Mega Millions jackpots to date are as follows:

  • $1.537 billion - 10/23/18 - Winning ticket in South Carolina. (5, 28, 62, 65, 70 and 05)

  • $1.28 billion - 7/29/22 - And if no one wins it, it will be even higher on 8/2/22.

  • $1.050 billion - 1/22/21 - Winning ticket in Michigan (4, 26, 42, 50, 60 and 24)

  • $656 million - 3/30/12 - Winning tickets in Illinois, Kansas, Maryland (2, 4, 23, 38, 46 and 23)

  • $648 million - 12/17/13 - Winning tickets in California, Georgia (8, 14, 17, 20, 39 and 7)

  • $543 million - 7/24/18 - Winning ticket in California (1, 2, 4, 19, 29 and 20)

  • $536 million - 7/8/16 - Winning ticket in Indiana (8, 19, 20, 55, 73 and 5)

  • $533 million - 3/30/18 - Winning ticket in New Jersey (11, 28, 31, 46, 59 and 1)

  • $522 million - 6/7/19 - Winning ticket in California (17, 19, 27, 40, 68 and 2)

  • $516 million - 5/21/21 - Winning ticket in Pennsylvania (6, 9, 17, 18, 48 and 8)

Mega Millions is sold in 45 states, Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The five states that do not participate are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah.

Locally, Kristine Wellerstein won a $426 million ($292.9 million cash) Mega Millions drawing with a ticket purchased in Woodland Hills on 1/28/22.

On 7/16/10, Zahra Vasseghi of Agoura Hills split a $64 million Mega Millions jackpot with a co-worker. Read about her story at nspyr.com/thevasseghifamilystory/index.html (you won’t regret it).

In Mega Millions, you pick five different numbers ranging from 1 to 70 and one number (the gold Mega Ball) from 1 to 25. The jackpot is hitting all 6 numbers, which is a 1 in 302,575,350 chance. You have a 1 in 37 chance of hitting just the Mega Ball, worth a $2 return of your money.

If you win the Mega Millions jackpot, you can either take one up-front payment that is equal to all the cash in the jackpot price pool (which in tomorrow’s case is $648.2 million vs the estimated $1.1 billion full jackpot) or you can take the annuity option.

The annuity option is not the entire amount divided by 30 years. It starts out at about 1.5% of the total jackpot and increases each year by 5%. So for example, if you win the $1.1 billion jackpot, in the annuity option, you would receive about $16.5 million immediately, followed by $17.3 million in year 2, $18.2 million in year 3, $19.1 million in year 4, and so on.

Good luck! www.megamillions.com

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Case Tallies and Deaths in Ventura County, California and the World (2022)

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This page will be updated periodically with information on Ventura County area cases from www.venturacountyrecovers.org, U.S. cases from the CDC and global cases from the World Health Organization (WHO).

This post covers statistics in 2022. 2020 case tallies are at THIS LINK and 2021 are at THIS LINK.

Note that previously reported case counts are subject to changes and updates. We report initial case counts reported on these sites that in particular in the global stats change over time. For more accurate up to date counts at the global level, visit the WHO website at who.sprinklr.com.