The week ahead
A look at upcoming news events:
Today
Record setting: A stuntman will attempt to set a record as the first person to sit on all 95,542 seats at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. The five-day event to raise money for Outward Bound Los Angeles starts at 10 a.m.
Tuesday
Hacking: Arraignment set for 9 a.m. in Newport Beach for two Tesoro High School seniors accused of being part of a scheme to hack into school computers and change grades.
Wednesday
Pageant: The 75th annual Pageant of the Masters with its “living pictures” performances will open at 8:30 p.m. in Laguna Beach and continue through Aug. 30.
Friday
Lotus: The 31st annual Lotus Festival begins at 5 p.m. at Echo Park in Los Angeles and runs through Sunday, with dragon boat races, music, dance and art celebrating the cultures of Asia and the Pacific Islands.
Saturday
Fort Days: The annual Old Fort MacArthur Days and Artillery Show opens in San Pedro with battle reenactments, living history performers and exhibits of war memorabilia.
The Tip
If you have leftover Fourth of July fireworks, don’t take them offshore for a floating display: You could incur a hefty bill for the party. In the weeks after the holiday, the U.S. Coast Guard commonly receives a flurry of reports of boaters firing off flares and fireworks.
Sending off a flare from a boat when there’s no emergency is the equivalent of pulling a fire alarm and can result in a felony charge, Coast Guard officials say.
Offenders could face up to six years in prison, $250,000 in fines and a bill for the cost of the rescue.
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-- Deborah Schoch
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Ask a Reporter
What happened to the “Repo Home Tour” that a Stockton real estate agent started after the city became known as one of the most foreclosed spots in the U.S.?
The bus tour for prospective buyers that Cesar Dias started last fall is going full speed ahead. In fact, it was honored in May in Sacramento as his region’s “California Small Business of the Year.”
Dias was proposed for the award, given in each of the state’s 80 Assembly districts, by Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian (R-Stockton).
“Houses are moving,” Dias said. “And a lot of them are semi-new -- just 2 or 3 years old. They’re just fantastic deals.”
The bus-tour concept is moving too.
Dias said he has spread it to more than a dozen cities throughout the state, where agents pay to learn the basics of the tour business.
Meanwhile, the world’s media are riding shotgun with Dias, using him and his brightly painted buses to illustrate stories about the U.S. housing crisis.
Last week, CNBC-Europe hopped aboard. Negotiations about a Repo Home Tour reality show have been ongoing, Dias said.
One problem, of course, is the gas that runs the bus. Last month, gas in Stockton was ranked as the nation’s most expensive.
“Maybe, for some reason, they’re punishing us,” Dias ventured.
-- Steve Chawkins