Meet the New Owner of Valley Motorwerks

By Dave Trux

Hi, my name is Dave Trux. I recently purchased Valley Motorwerks from Walter Ford and I could not be more excited! I've had a good professional relationship with Walter for many years and that effectively morphed into me buying the business. If you’re a Valley Motorwerks customer, I’m sure you will have some questions, which I will be happy to answer. Here’s a few that publisher Bob Cox had for me.

Q: When did you meet Walter?

A: I've known Walter since 2004 during our years in BMW racing.

Q: Will Walter be around for awhile to help you get off to a good start?

A: Yes. During the transitional period, Walter will still be around and visible. Walter has other business interests in Sacramento, specifically a race car preparation and fabrication shop that he will now have more time to invest in.

Q: Do you have a background in automotive?

A: Yes, I've been in automotive industry for over 20 years; I'm 56 years old and still play with cars!

Q: Why did you choose to buy Valley Motorwerks?

A: The level of service to the customer and the professionalism that I received as a customer at Valley Motorwerks told me that this would be a good fit for me. Truly, Walter’s vision and my vision are one and the same. Going forward, I want to maintain our high level of customer satisfaction, high level of communication and the high level of quality that people have come to know. That is Valley Motorwerks.

Sunshine Natural Foods Sacramento

Bob Cox

Navin and Ulupi Patel are the owner-operators of Sunshine Natural Foods.  Both have formal education in the sciences, are certified Herbalists and tirelessly supplement this background with continuing education in nutrition and alternative medicine.

The Bargain Hunter of Flooring

By Bob Cox

Q & A with Ralph Opfer Flooring Sacramento

Q: You have a reputation for being “The Bargain Hunter of Flooring”. How did that get started?

A: That is something that my dad always did. Suppliers would call him and say, “Hey, we've got these leftovers, do you want them? And he’d say yes! So, he had a warehouse full of decently priced quality merchandise and I've just kept that going.

Q: How are you able to give people such great bargains on flooring?

A: I do the same thing now that my dad did. My suppliers all have close-out lists and I check those all of the time for special buys I can pass on to my customers. I get the lists sent to me on a regular basis, so I always have access to special buys.

Q: Can you recall the last time you purchased a really good deal on a close-out?

A: I just bought several pallets of Pergo because it was three colors they were closing out. They wanted to totally close them out, so they lowered the price to where I bought everything they had left. Now I can sell it at a lower price. Normally, it sells for around $1.99 to $2.29 a square foot. It’s at $1.39 right now!

Q: Does a bargain on flooring ever mean inferior quality?

A: No. I will never buy anything that I think is inferior quality. I could go to a couple of suppliers here in town and buy laminate for 59 cents a square foot. I won’t do it because the quality is not there.

Q: Does being a bargain hunter mean either inferior service or no service?

A: Absolutely not! My service never changes, whether it’s a bargain or a full priced item. I’m here to help people make a big decision and I’ll put in as much time as I need to help them make that decision, whether it’s a bargain or not.

Caring for Exotic & Beautiful Baby Birds

By Dana Strome

When Steven Hildreth and I first met several years ago, he had been breeding exotic and rare parrots for over 35 years. He’s one of the best breeders in California and possibly the United States. About 15 years ago, I started the Wing Foundation, which is a parrot rescue group.

The bird world is surprisingly small as people who own parrots tend to know other people who own parrots, so word of mouth travels very quickly. Steven and I noticed that a lot of pet parrots were sold without the proper knowledge of how to care for them. People aren't going to stop buying them as pets, so we thought a better way would be to raise our own birds and then educate people as to how to be responsible parrot owners. Eventually, Steven and I opened Parrot Planet last July in East Sacramento.

Parrots are not like a dog or cat. They’re very specialized creatures. With Steven’s amazing knowledge of breeding, we decided that we were only going to breed birds that really do make good pets. There are lots of types of parrots but we don’t recommend some of them as pets because they scream, they bite and so on. Bob Cox, publisher of Go For It Magazine stopped by the other day and had several questions for us. Here’s how our conversation went.

Q: Are you trying then to match the right bird with the right owner?

A: (Dana) Yes, exactly!

Q: Does your mission statement involve education in order to create the best possible environment for the bird and the owner?

A: (Dana) Exactly! We have a lot of customers who have children. There are certainly parrots that make excellent pets for families with children. They come in all different shapes, sizes and personalities. It’s like you said, we try to match up the right bird with the right family. (Steven) The fact that we raise all of our own birds allows us to offer the bird at a much lower price than most retail stores. It also gives us a tighter control on any kind of viruses. By breeding our own birds, we don’t have to worry about any kind of diseases being introduced to our flock.

Q: What are some of the common challenges with owning an exotic bird?

A: (Dana) They’re addicting (laughs). You get one and before you know it, you have a house full! So many times, people who have never owned a bird, after they've come here and purchased one, guess what? They come back and want another one! Because we hand raise and hand feed our birds, they are extremely tame. They’re really sweet. We don’t keep them in cages as they’re out on stands where they interact with people all day.

Q: What is your breeding facility like?

A: (Dana) Since Steven is such a fastidious breeder, the farm is absolutely clean, sterile and very state-of-the-art. (Steven) And all outdoors.

Q: Since your birds are not in cages, how have your customers responded in your store?

A: (Dana) They love it! One thing we find also is parrots get to choose who they like. So, when a parrot is out on a stand, and we've seen this quite often, a person will walk by and a parrot will jump on them! It’s kind of endearing really. Guess what, now you have a parrot, whether you want one or not (laughs)!

Q: What are some other things you’re doing in your store to really stand out amongst other stores that offer exotic birds?

A: (Steven) One of the things we try to do is carry high quality cages and high quality food. Even the toys we have here are much better quality that most other stores. We try to educate our customers and answer any questions they have, whether they own a parakeet or a parrot. We’ll help anybody out in any situation. We are one of the few stores that actually rescue and re-home birds, which is a real plus. (Dana) If you have a parrot that can’t be re-homed, we do have a sanctuary in Florida where parrots go and live out their lives in aviaries. If you’re going to sell parrots as pets, you have to be willing to help people with all the steps along the way that involve owning a parrot. Some people, for what ever reason, can’t keep the parrot, so we try to assist people in whatever they need because we feel a responsibility as breeders to make sure that everybody is happy.

Q: It sounds like you have a huge heart and a lot of compassion for these birds and their owners. Would you agree?

A: (Dana) Yes. In all the years I've been doing rescue, I've seen such sad things and I want to avoid that. (Steven) We purposely don’t raise Umbrella Cockatoos as we were saying earlier because they tend to wind up in our rescue 90% of the time. So, being a responsible breeder and being responsible as far as educating the public, I think this approach is really, really important. A lot of other stores are chasing the dollar instead of chasing what’s right for the bird and the owner. For example, if someone lives in an apartment, a macaw or cockatoo is not a good fit. We want our customers to have the right bird so they don’t get themselves in a bad situation and the bird ends up neglected or abused. So why not put the right bird with the right owners so we don’t have that situation.

Q: I can see how a noisy bird living in an apartment complex could create a bad situation for a lot of people as well as the bird.

A: (Dana) Exactly. That can be very problematic, even for people who are experienced and really love their birds. Birds can be complicated, so we do offer classes on how to be a good bird guardian.

Q: Do you have a few simple common sense tips you can offer people interested in owning an exotic bird?

A: (Dana) Parrots live a long time, 20-30 years or more, so it’s a long term commitment.

Q: Steven mentioned earlier that you offer your birds at much lower prices than other stores. Can you tell us a little more about that?

A: (Dana) Since we do breed our own birds, we can offer them at extremely reasonable prices. Some people that have always wanted a parrot have had to put it off because they can be very expensive. We want our birds to be reasonably priced so that more people can experience owning one. It’s such an amazing thing to own a bird. It’s like nothing else I've experienced!

Editor’s notes: For more information about Parrot Planet, visit their store at 4819 J Street in Sacramento or their website at www.parrotplanet.com. Their phone number is (916) 594-9290.

Digging Deeper for Sterling-Silver

The Hidden Agendas of Donald Sterling & Adam Silver

By Bob Cox

Unless you've been secluded in an underground bunker in a melting iceberg somewhere in the Antarctic, chances are you've heard about the recent scandal involving Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and his racist rant caught on tape. An organization called Deadspin acquired an extended, 15-minute version of the conversation between Sterling (DS), a married man of over 50 years and his then-girlfriend V. Stiviano (V). Here are a few low points of the dialog.

V: I don't understand, I don't see your views. I wasn't raised the way you were raised.

DS: Well then, if you don't feel—don't come to my games. Don't bring black people, and don't come.

V: Do you know that you have a whole team that's black that plays for you?

DS: You just, do I know? I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? Do I know that I have—who makes the game? Do I make the game, or do they make the game? Is there 30 owners that created the league?

We've heard many people speak out against these offensively racist comments and rightfully so. What we haven’t heard as much about is the equally disturbing and unacceptable comments Sterling directed towards all his players, regardless of their ethnicity. Sterling is living in the delusion that giving is a one way street, flowing down majestically from his palace among the clouds. What’s he’s failed to grasp is that if his wasn't for the dedication of all the players and members of his organization, he wouldn't be a part of the billionaire club in America. Sterling purchased the Clippers 33 years ago for $12 million and it’s now conservatively valued at $575 million by Forbes. Patrick Rishe, a professor of sports business at Webster University, says that the team is worth at least $750 million and that a bidding war could quickly take the sales price up to $1 billion or more.

Sterling’s tyrannical views on how to run a successful sports organization are nothing new. Sterling’s history of despicable behavior is long and well documented within his sports organization and also the real estate he owns. Sterling has been guilty of abusing his financial power for many years and it finally caught up to him. This type of exploitation has been going on long before Jackie Robinson courageously broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. From the sweatshops and factories of the industrial revolution to the southern plantations two centuries ago, an unhealthy combination of greed and an appalling lack of compassion and empathy for the common man has existed in the cold-blooded hearts some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in the world.

When Adam Silver, the new commissioner of the N.B.A. fined Sterling the maximum amount of 2.5 million and banned him for life from all activities related to the N.B.A. the vast majority of Americans rose as one and applauded his decision, a decision I wholeheartedly supported. There is; however, a skeptical part of me that wonders about the conversation Silver had with other key participants behind closed doors. How much was Silver’s decision based on a directive from his heart to do the right thing versus external pressure from the outside world. I’m pretty sure that a fine and suspension that was less than the maximum might have created a hornet’s nest of potential future problems. Would millions of dollars be lost via massive boycotts, corporate sponsorship cancellations, declining attendance and fewer television viewers? Even worse, would justice be served out in the streets of major cities across America (rioting and looting) if Sterling’s punishment was perceived as a slap on the wrist?

In the final analysis, I believe that Adam Silver made the right choice. Racism, intolerance and blatant disrespect have no place in our society. But is casting out any member of society, even one as rotten as Sterling, without the opportunity to rehabilitate and atone for their grievous ways the enlightened choice? We have accepted a lower standard of quality among the products we use every day, despite the fact that we have the technology to create better and longer lasting goods (another example of appalling greed), so we've grown accustomed to accepting less and paying more in the long run while our landfills pile up like monuments of waste. Should we do the same thing to our people who don’t measure up by permanently casting them out?

In the sorted case of Donald Sterling, perhaps, a more fitting decision would've been a second option: An opportunity to redeem himself and atone for his transgressions. How? By imposing a combination of generous financial donations from Sterling that go directly to organizations that are committed to helping others along with several thousand hours of community service by Mr. Sterling himself. Doesn't he truly deserve the opportunity to serve those that he has callously walked on for years? This, along with the requirement to work many more hours in each and every position of the employees that he has regarded as being beneath him. I believe that if anyone is served a steady diet of humble pie, even the most despicable characters could have a change of heart. By disparaging, punishing and judging our fellow man, we not only harden the coldest hearts of those we seek justice for, we create a colder and less compassionate heart within ourselves. If the real bottom line question is how do we create a better world for ourselves and future generations and this becomes the authentic bottom line (not net profit) that drives us forward, the real answer is pretty simple: though good deeds that only come from the heart, we uplift and inspire our fellow man to be the best possible version of themselves. This is the enlightened choice.