Safety First for Our Newest Drivers

By Dave Trux

With kids now on their way back to school, parents have good reason to be concerned with safety. Safety is especially important for our new drivers, so now is a good time to have an overall safety check of your vehicle before you hand over the keys.

A teenage driver is a new and inexperienced driver. They tend to be less attentive when compared to more seasoned drivers. Kids have enough challenges operating a car on a public highway, so you don’t want to allow them to operate an unsafe vehicle. A good place to start is by making sure that the brakes and tires are in really good condition.

When inspecting your brakes, be sure to have plenty of life on your brake pads and that the rotors are in good shape. You really want to check the rotors to make sure they don’t have any ridges, even though the pad doesn’t run across the whole face of the rotor. With most cars nowadays, the old rotors are tossed out and new ones are put on. As for the brake pad itself, you probably want 3/32 of an inch or more. The issue with the brake pads is the more material it has; the more heat can dissipate, so the less likely it will stay under pad in stopping conditions.

When you inspect your tires, make sure you have a decent amount of tread on them, especially now that the rainy season is just a few months away. In the old days, people used to use a penny as a guide and measure to the top of Lincoln’s head, which is 2/32 of an inch. In the state of California, you’re allowed to have a minimum of 2/32 of an inch on your front steer axle. The rear axle must be a minimum of 1/32 of an inch of tread. A word of caution is that these are minimums, which means they will be pretty useless in the rain.

While examining the trend depth, be sure to also check the tread design. Most new cars now tend to be a little sportier, with tires that are designed for summer use. I recommend that you take your car to someone who really knows what they’re doing and ask if the tires will be good for the wet winter months ahead. 

Why We Love Ralph Opfer Floors

Lynn was really great about spending time with us and learning about our flooring needs. She gave us some great ideas, which made the process less overwhelming. Lynn and her husband Gregg were really professional and so was their installer, who did an awesome job. They just finished the job earlier this week and we have already recommended them to a neighbor across the street!

• Frank & Karen Jacobs 

Big or Small We Cater to All

By Bob Cox

Back in the stone ages of the 1980’s and just before I found the career I actually enjoyed, the highlight of my day was escaping the dry walled jail cell of retail management by grabbing a bite for lunch at one of the nearby restaurants. My favorite place to eat was a small locally owned deli that served delicious sandwiches, served on amazingly fresh and crunchy bread that seemed to melt in my mouth.

As the years rolled by, those memories were left in the dust until one day, after seeing the amusing Mr. Pickle’s sign for the 1,000^th time, I decided to take a leap of faith and try something new: a sandwich from Mr. Pickle’s. The second I walked through the door, I knew I was in for a memorable experience as I inhaled the intoxicating aroma of the breads baking in the ovens.

When I ordered my sandwich, I was offered several choices of bread, including Dutch crunch. I normally select wheat, but the Dutch crunch option sounded vaguely familiar. Once I sunk my teeth into that mouthwatering sandwich, those pleasant old memories came flooding back. After all the years, I remembered how amazing a fresh and delicious sandwich could be! From that day on, no ordinary sandwich would ever be sufficient to satisfy my hunger.

I recently met with Gary Osgood, the owner of three local Mr. Pickle’s franchises to learn more about how Mr. Pickle’s seemed to rise from nothing to become one of the fastest growing restaurants in the area. Here’s how our conversation went.

Q: How long has Mr. Pickle’s been around?

A: Mr. Pickles started in 1995 in Daly City. The CEO of our company had a few sandwich shops and he decided he could do it better.

Q: What does Mr. Pickle’s do to make such amazingly tasty sandwiches?

A: Every franchise is required to freshly slice everything every day. We can’t have any carryover. We freshly bake our bread about every 15-20 minutes. We serve five ounces of meat on our sandwiches, compared to other places that do considerably less. That’s what makes Mr. Pickle’s different. We’re into freshness, quantity and quality for your dollar while also providing superior customer service.

Q: What was your plan when you purchased a Mr. Pickle’s franchise?

When we opened up the Zinfandel location (Rancho Cordova) six and a half years ago, our plan was to run it for a few months and then sell it to a franchisee. But after we got into it, those plans changed. My wife Terrie and I enjoyed doing it so much, we decided to keep it and branch out to other locations. We opened our second store on Sunrise and Cirby in Roseville in 2012 and that has been blossoming so well, it basically let us take the chance on the Coloma and Sunrise location, which we’ve been running since November, 2014.

Q: How did you get involved with Mr. Pickle’s?

A: A long story short, the president and CEO of Mr. Pickle’s used to be my neighbor eight years ago. One day we looked out our window and saw a big giant pickle on the guy’s garage door! That’s how we got introduced to him and that’s how we got involved. We liked the product; we ate at Mr. Pickle’s for about a year before we decided to get into it.

Q: Did you explore any other franchise opportunities before choosing to go with Mr. Pickle’s?

A: Yes, we did a lot of research before we decided to go with the Mr. Pickle’s brand. We checked all the other sandwich franchises and Mr. Pickle’s was a superior product, for the main reason that everything had to be sliced every day. Too many people complain about the other sandwich shops in town. They say their stuff tastes watered down or old. We never have that problem because we get to work by 7am to prep for our day and to make sure that everything is fresh.

Q: What were you and Terrie doing for a living before you decided to invest in Mr. Pickle’s?

A: I was a contractor for 30 years and Terrie was a bookkeeper and a photographer.

Q: What were your greatest fears and concerns going into business for yourself?

A: It was a gamble, but we believed in the product and Mr. Pickle’s.

Q: What strategy did you use to overcome those concerns and how has it worked out?

A: So far, so good. Our concerns came from working with a younger staff and being able to learn the marketing things associated with the business.

Q: Aside from the walk up customers, the other big part of your business is catering. What are you doing to really stand out and make your catering service superior and unique?

A: We are known as the 911 of catering. Most caterers require a minimum 24 hour notice. We only require two hours. In two hours, we have catered from 100 people to 600 people. I have a great staff between the two stores in Rancho Cordova, so no catering job is too small or too big. We emphasize customer service by giving the customer what they need.

Q: Do you charge a delivery fee on catering?

A: If it’s over $100 or a house account, we’ll deliver for free. If it’s under $100, we charge $10.

Q: Does your staff provide additional service after the delivery?

A: Yes, we also offer to help set up an event. We’ll set up tables and arrange everything for you.

Q: Can you tell us about the box lunches you offer on your catering menu?

A: Sure, a box lunch is a half sandwich, a bag of chips, potato salad, a cookie and a bottle of water or canned soda. This is a perfect solution for corporate seminars or a school field trip, saving them the time and trouble of a lengthy clean up.

Q: Are there any local companies that you cater to?

A: Yes, each year, we cater a special event by Hewitt Packard. We make 600 sandwiches and supply chips and drinks for their Greek Games once a year. We’ve been doing that for the past three and a half years. Hewitt Packard has about 1,000 employees and every year, we’re up a 2 o’clock in the morning, baking bread and making cookies for an event that starts at 10:30am. So, while you’re sleeping, we’re slicing!

Q: What were the factors that motivated you to acquire the Sunrise & Coloma store in Rancho Cordova?

A: We purchased that location to help with a lot of our catering overflow from the Zinfandel store. That store is our highest volume store and is number five in the franchise.

Q: How important is customer service to you?

A: It’s extremely important. Our number one emphasis at Mr. Pickle’s is friendly and immediate customer service. The second you walk through the door, we always want to greet you with a smile.

Editor’s notes: For more information about Mr. Pickle’s, be sure to stop by one of the three restaurants in the ad below. http://www.goforitmagazine.com 

Extending the Battery Life on Your Cell Phone

By Alika Salazar

Don’t you just love it when you’re in the middle of an important call or video game and your smart phone dies just before you finish? Of course not! While we cannot undo those unpleasant memories from our past, we can certainly prevent them from happening in the future.

The best tip I can recommend is to make sure your phone is 100% charged before you leave the house for the day. Most smart phones only take around two to three of hours to charge, so if you’re plugging it in overnight, you’re actually overcharging your phone and reducing the life of your battery. Instead of plugging it in overnight, try charging it as soon as you get out of bed in the morning. If you give yourself two to three hours to get ready for work, that should be enough time for your phone to receive a full charge.

While the cost of a new battery is relatively inexpensive (about $50); it can be an annoying inconvenience to have to embark on a shopping expedition in the middle of a work day. Besides, I can think of a lot of things I’d rather be doing with that $50 and I’m sure you can too!

Some people will power their phones off during the day to save battery life. While that practice does work, I cannot wholeheartedly endorse that strategy. Why? Because if an emergency occurred and someone needed to reach you immediately, you wouldn’t get the message until your phone was powered back on and you checked your messages.

Another practice to avoid is not charging your phone for an extended period of time, like several months. The longer you go without charging your battery, the greater the likelihood that it won’t take a charge anymore. When the battery can no longer be charged, it will have to be replaced.

If you take care of your battery, it should last two to three years, but I’ve seen several that only lasted about a year. I’ve actually seen some phones where the battery dies prematurely because it has literally expanded while still inside the phone. Some people believe that could be caused by leaving the phone in the sun, but I’m not sure if that’s always the case. I have noticed that this does happens on certain model phones, like the iphone 3GS, but not the 3G. It also happens occasionally on the iphone 5C and the 5S and it’s really common on the iphone 5. I believe that the most likely cause is a manufacturing flaw.

Lincoln's Legacy: Two Minutes that Changed the World

By Bob Cox

America’s 16^th president was much more than that bearded guy looking back at us on the five dollar bill. He was an extraordinary individual who persevered in spite of numerous imperfections.

Abraham Lincoln suffered the bulk of his life with "melancholy," a condition which we now call clinical depression. He was considered lazy by many of his neighbors and family members during his childhood. They believed that Lincoln disliked the chores of frontier life so much, he would sneak away to read or write in order to avoid manual labor. On top of all that, his formal schooling was estimated to have been less than a year.

Historians have speculated that his melancholy disorder was exacerbated by the rigors of growing up on the frontier. The mortality rate in those difficult conditions was extremely high. During his lifetime, Lincoln would go on to survive the deaths of several close relatives. Among those were his infant brother Thomas, his mother (when he was nine years old), his sister Sarah and his first girlfriend, Ann Rutledge. Later in life, he endured the tragic loss of two of his four sons, Edward (age 3) and Willie (age 11).

What historians do know was that Lincoln was primarily self-taught as he cultivated a lifelong passion for reading and learning. Fortunately for future generations, Lincoln did not allow his limited formal education to stand in the way of becoming a pioneer of civil rights and one of the greatest presidents in American history.

His greatest accomplishment during his years as President of the United States was his unwavering leadership during the Civil War. As the Commander-in-Chief, he helped preserve the union while also abolishing slavery. While his initial primary goal was to reunite the union at any cost, Lincoln would go on to redefine the Civil War as a struggle for the principles of equality, freedom and justice for all.

During the war, he issued The Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. This was an executive order which changed the legal status of 3 million slaves in the South from "slave" to "free." Eleven months and eighteen days later, he delivered one of the most riveting speeches in American history near the battleground of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Those 271 words were delivered in just over two minutes on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863. His words gave our war torn nation a renewed sense of energy, purpose and determination to persevere.

Lincoln began the Gettysburg Address by integrating the timeless principles of human equality embraced in our Declaration of Independence: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...

The Civil War may have ended a century and a half ago, but the battle for freedom and equality rages on. With recent events like those that took place in Charleston, South Carolina, we clearly have a long way to go to end the war against racism. Fortunately, because of the courage and sacrifices of Abraham Lincoln and the brave soldiers that served under him, our world; despite all its flaws is a better place to live.

Abraham Lincoln wasn’t the first person marred by character flaws nor will he be the last. And yet, despite those limitations or perhaps because of them, he found the inner wisdom and strength to stand up for what he knew in his heart was right and changed the course of human history forever. That was Lincoln’s legacy. What will be ours?

The Holistic Chiropractor

By Dr. Beth Blakely

My patients often ask me why I became a chiropractor. I’ve had a lifelong interest in taking care of the body naturally. As a kid, my grandmother and father both enjoyed great success with regular visits to a chiropractor in the small town where I grew up. My dad was injured in several auto accidents and his chiropractor was the only person who really helped him. The difference it made in my father was huge. He had vision problems and all kinds of issues that were corrected with an upper cervical chiropractic technique, which is one of the techniques that I do. That’s what really pushed me into chiropractic. Here are a few other frequently asked questions.

Q: How did your interests evolve from chiropractic to also include holistic care?

A: What I’ve seen over the years is an obvious change in our environment. We’re exposed to a lot of toxic chemicals that are really affecting our immune systems and our digestive systems. I realized that for some patients, treating the spine was all they needed but there were always those few people that just didn’t seem to get well. Those were the ones that bothered me and I just felt like I had to figure out why.

Q: Can a toxic environment deplete or destroy a person’s health?

A: Absolutely! We now know that so many health issues are caused by depleted immune systems. Another area of the body I pay close attention to is the digestive system and how it affects our immune system. I saw a huge void in treatment protocol with other doctors. I’ve made that my focus so that I can tailor treatment protocols to patients and their needs.

Q: What happens during the first visit?

A: The initial visit takes about 45 minutes to an hour. I like to sit down and talk to the patient, get to know them and have a thorough understanding of everything that’s going on in their life. I have a thorough questionnaire and I request records from other facilities because most patients have been everywhere else. Unfortunately, I’m the end of the line for some people.

Q: How is your approach different from conventional medicine?

A: Conventional medicine wants to give you pills and perform surgery. I don’t want you to have to do that. I want you to get well and let your body heal on its own. I always do a thorough consultation, examination and x-rays if they’re indicated, along with the health appraisal questionnaire.

Q: What are the main things you look for when you do a holistic evaluation on a new patient?

A: There are four things I look for: 1. Undetected Nerve Damage. 2. Nutritional Deficiencies. 3. Hormonal Imbalances. 4. Toxicity. I’ve treated many people that have undetected nerve damage after they have been injured in automobile accidents. They think they’re okay, but they can suffer years down the road from the degenerative process that started with the accident.

Q: Do you offer specific help for people that are involved in auto accidents and personal injury?

A: Yes. I treat a lot of personal injury cases with great success.

Editor’s notes: Dr. Beth Blakely is a chiropractor that specializes in holistic health care practices. She can be reached at (916) 944-1444.