Gas prices vary across Laredo

You can trust your car to the man who wears the Star!

Looks like the lowest price of gas in town at the moment happens to be $2.52 a gallon at the Stripes store located at 602 North Zapata Highway.  Coming in at 2nd place is the Valero store at 1601 Chihuahua street where gas is at $2.59 a/gallon. The HEB gas station at 2301 East Saunders  comes in at 3rd place with a gallon of gas there costing $2.65. Actually, this is pretty close to the prevailing range of $2.65 - $2.69 per gallon. I guess if you're looking for an additional perk, the HEB receipts have some coupons printed out on the back in case you're hungry for an extra (free) Whopper.

Now that's a finger-licking good deal on twitter

Looks like a california 17 year old student has earned herself $20,000 for college thanks to a simple twitter. Amanda Russell was the lucky and creative winner of a contest sponsored by none other than Colonel Sander's KFC.  Russell used all of the allotted 140 characters in her prize-winning twit, earning $142 per characther. She wrote:

"Hey Colonel! Your scholarship's the secret ingredient missing from my recipe for success! Got the grades, drive, just need cash!"

Of course, it didn't hurt that she had a 3.9 GPA at her LongBeach highschool. She plans to major in biology and hopefully get to be a doctor or medical researcher. The article doesn't say if she'll be using any chickens in her field of research.

From Congressman Cuellar's News desk

Don't worry the $20,000 for this costume doesn't come out of the Kid's food bill

 

Washington, Dec 2 - Today, Congressman Henry Cuellar (TX-28), announced that the House passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the most significant improvement to child nutrition programs in more than 30 years. The bill is expected to be signed into law by President Obama. 

 

Focusing on improving children’s health and reducing childhood obesity, the bill authorizes $4.5 billion over 10 years to provide an additional 21 million meals to children annually and connect approximately 115,000 new students to the school meal programs, as well as establish national nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools throughout the day.

 

In Texas, 2.9 million children participate in the National School Lunch Program, feeding 65% of all Texas students. Currently, the national poverty rate for children is 20.7 percent – up from 15.6 percent in 2000 – and childhood hunger is correlated with poverty.  In addition, one in three children is currently either overweight or obese – up dramatically over the last 20 years.

 

A majority of school districts in the 28^th district use the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program, which will benefit greatly from this bill through the increased funding to purchase healthier foods and increased nutritional standards.

I don't remember seeing these at Best Buy

Are these the Dinosaurs Sarah Palin says existed a "couple of thousand years ago"?

Technology is probably the only thing that moves close to the speed of light . Above ad heralds the 10MB hard disk that must have been all the rage when it came out. I don't remember it but probably only because I didn't have a computer at the time. I do rememeber when the only computers took up a whole room or at least that's how they were presented to us on Television. Notice the low, low price.

On the City of Laredo's agenda

XI. GENERAL COUNCIL DISCUSSIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

Request by Council Member Mike Garza

1. Discussion with possible action on permits for special events

for the WBCA and other related matters dealing with sales of

street vending in the City of Laredo.

The above item appears in the City of Laredo's agenda for this coming Monday, December 6th. I was just wondering if this is a pro-small business move or is it to prevent or hinder those vendors from competing for the WBCA's business.  I know there are health issues and those should be addressed. However, I hope they're not out to lower the boom on any entrepreneurial Laredoans who might be out to take advantage of the increased population out and about.

We used to have our own Borderfest

I don't know when the last Laredo BorderFest was held. I do recall that it was held during July at the Laredo Civic Center "grounds".  I know it was during the Summer because I would always wonder why they didn't have such an outdoor the cooler months like during October or November. Well, although we don't have a Borderfest anymore, the concept and name is still thriving down in the Valley. Another thing they do down there -that we don't, is hold an annual  conjunto festival. These are they type of things that seem so ordinary and routine to us, but not to others. It's hard for the people who live here to figure out what would outsiders want to see when they come down here. But at least, we know what they go to other parts of South Texas for.

Study shows Winter Texas still big in state as a whole

The University of Texas-Pan American at edinburgh has released it's most recent study on the economic Winter Texans have on the state. In, 2008-2009, the latest figures available, it is estimated that Winter Texans spent around 802.5 Million dollars in the Lone Star State. The study reveals that most of the visitors during the Winter come from either Minnesota and Canada. The average Winter Texan spends about $10,700 on the U.S. side and some of the most popular destinations are surprisingly, flea markets.

There are other reasons that these visitors gave for coming to Texas. Naturally, the main reason is to get away from the unforgiving Winters up North. However, many said that they come South to stay in touch with freinds they've met on prior trips to Texas.  South Padre Island, birding tours and other nature-related activities are always extremely popular. The best news is that the numbers have been increasing. Between 2004-2005, 127,000 visitors came to the state. In the Winter of 2008-2009, the number had increased to 144,000. The areas that have most attracted these "snowbirds" are those who have taken the initiative to build RV parks to accomodate the yearly migration.