Amador County – California Congressman Dan Lungren issued a statement Friday saying the federal government shut-down was averted, and “now the real budget discussion begins.”

Lungren (R-District 3), Chairman of the Committee on House Administration said: “I am pleased that Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Reid have reached an agreement to keep the government running.” He said the “cuts are historic” and “represent the largest year-to-year spending cut since World War II.”

He released a summary of the “bipartisan agreement on spending cuts to support American job creation,” saying it was the “largest spending cut in American history in terms of dollars,” and will immediately cut $38.5 billion in federal spending “just months after President Obama asked Congress for a spending freeze that would mean zero cuts.”

Lungren said the agreement would make hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts over the next decade, and officially end the “stimulus spending binge,” which former Fed chief “Alan Greenspan and other economists say hurt job creation in America by crowding out private investment.” Lungren said the agreement set the stage for trillions more in spending cuts.

He said the “agreement reached with Senate Democrats guarantees a Senate debate and vote on legislation that would repeal President Obama’s government takeover of health care in its entirety.”

It also guarantees a Senate vote and debate on de-funding Planned Parenthood, and bans taxpayer funding of abortion in the District of Columbia. The agreement also denies additional funding to the IRS, and sets mandatory audits of “new job-crushing bureaucracy.”

Lungren said: “It is time that all parties get serious about cutting spending and I applaud Speaker Boehner for standing firm on this issue. Now is the time to have an open and honest debate about the course of our fiscal future.”

He said “House Republicans will now advance our fight from saving billions of dollars to saving trillions of dollars as we turn our focus in earnest to Chairman Paul Ryan’s ‘Path to Prosperity’ budget.”

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Amador County – A new auto shop teacher at Amador High School hosted dozens of students during a lunch hour automotive show outside the shop facility Friday, in an effort to raise money for tools and other items for the program.

He said he has brought some changes to the program to try to get in place, after taking over auto shop classes and the Regional Occupation Program in mid-semester.

Shop teacher James Lane said he does not come from a hotrod background, though the car show did feature some big motors. He said his background includes being an automotive and heavy equipment mechanic, a fleet mechanic for the state police, and a fleet manager for Sacramento Regional Transit, which he converted from diesel to compressed natural gas.

Lane said the Auto Tech Function class, with about 50 students, hosted the car show, with student and parent vehicles of all types allowed to enter. He said there are about 110 students in auto shop classes, from introductory to advanced Regional Occupation Program levels. He said classes focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and he is trying to get an engineering pathway into the school.

He has been there four months and tried to help increase alternative fuels awareness, so Lane asked Scott Trevaris of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District to bring a “plug-in” electric reach truck to be part of the auto show. Lane said he wants to emphasize that there are “totally different modes of transportation out there.” It stood quietly below a loud “surprise” brought by Universal Technical Institute – a 454 cubic inch Chevrolet Supercharged motor – owned by Ron Whitman. Whitman fired up the 454, as the crowd swelled, and watched the flames fly. It stood next to a Chevy 350, which the shop students built, which later was fired up for a demonstration.

Lane said he has brought an electronic diagnostics machine to the shop, to help with the classes and training. The classes do all types of automotive work at the shop.

Senior Jacob Kendrick helped organize and publicize the car show. Kendrick said they were selling hotdogs to raise money for tools and chemicals for cleaning, and anything they can purchase to benefit the shop. He said the shop works on jobs for up-front prices and they can do “pretty much anything if we have the time.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – Jackson sign-maker Kam Merzlak of Merzlak Signs was named in the top three of a recent KCRA Channel 3 “U-Local” photography contest.

Merzlak said he appeared on the channel’s 8 a.m. program Monday as a “finalist in their U-Local photo contest. They have had 50,000 entries and I have made it to the final three.” Merzlak said his picture, “Yosemite Winter,” was one of 21 photographs he entered, and was among 50,000 uploaded during the long-promoted contest.

He said it was also one of the later entries, as his girlfriend, Kellee Davenport, urged him to enter. After entering the photos, he was later notified that he was among 1,600 finalists. Then, he received an e-mail from a producer saying he was in the top six. Then came a phone call from a producer, and he was in the top 3, and went to the selection show, with Dierdre Fitzpatrick as the anchor.

Merzlak said they told them “all three of us were going to be considered winners,” although his was the first photo discussed. Merzlak stood in front of a flat-screen where they had his picture displayed, and Fitzpatrick asked him what he thought of the photo.

Merzlak said the key element to landscape photography is the composition, and he moved the elements of it around a lot. He said he looks at the foreground first and arranges different objects, or layers, and that’s “what actually draws you to the picture.” He said this particular photo, of El Capitan in Yosemite, “has about eight layers of subject from front to back.”

Fitzpatrick asked what inspires him as a photographer. Merzlak said that would be his father, Ralph, who was an internationally published photographer who died five years ago. He said lately he has been traveling to the same Sierra Nevada locations as his father did, on photography excursions.

It came after a photographic trip with Gavin Myers and Elanor Caputo in December 2009. The storm was just clearing and they had used four-wheel drive to get in. The sun was setting, and “in the last ten minutes of the lighting the clouds came in.”

In 36 years of going to Yosemite, he said that trip had the best winter time photography conditions he had seen in a long time.

The other two finalists were a professional wedding photographer, who took a picture of a lightning storm over Folsom Lake; and a lady who took a photo of her daughter.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – Jackson sign-maker Kam Merzlak of Merzlak Signs was named in the top three of a recent KCRA Channel 3 “U-Local” photography contest.

Merzlak said he appeared on the channel’s 8 a.m. program Monday as a “finalist in their U-Local photo contest. They have had 50,000 entries and I have made it to the final three.” Merzlak said his picture, “Yosemite Winter,” was one of 21 photographs he entered, and was among 50,000 uploaded during the long-promoted contest.

He said it was also one of the later entries, as his girlfriend, Kellee Davenport, urged him to enter. After entering the photos, he was later notified that he was among 1,600 finalists. Then, he received an e-mail from a producer saying he was in the top six. Then came a phone call from a producer, and he was in the top 3, and went to the selection show, with Dierdre Fitzpatrick as the anchor.

Merzlak said they told them “all three of us were going to be considered winners,” although his was the first photo discussed. Merzlak stood in front of a flat-screen where they had his picture displayed, and Fitzpatrick asked him what he thought of the photo.

Merzlak said the key element to landscape photography is the composition, and he moved the elements of it around a lot. He said he looks at the foreground first and arranges different objects, or layers, and that’s “what actually draws you to the picture.” He said this particular photo, of El Capitan in Yosemite, “has about eight layers of subject from front to back.”

Fitzpatrick asked what inspires him as a photographer. Merzlak said that would be his father, Ralph, who was an internationally published photographer who died five years ago. He said lately he has been traveling to the same Sierra Nevada locations as his father did, on photography excursions.

It came after a photographic trip with Gavin Myers and Elanor Caputo in December 2009. The storm was just clearing and they had used four-wheel drive to get in. The sun was setting, and “in the last ten minutes of the lighting the clouds came in.”

In 36 years of going to Yosemite, he said that trip had the best winter time photography conditions he had seen in a long time.

The other two finalists were a professional wedding photographer, who took a picture of a lightning storm over Folsom Lake; and a lady who took a photo of her daughter.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Amador County – A new auto shop teacher at Amador High School hosted dozens of students during a lunch hour automotive show outside the shop facility Friday, in an effort to raise money for tools and other items for the program.

He said he has brought some changes to the program to try to get in place, after taking over auto shop classes and the Regional Occupation Program in mid-semester.

Shop teacher James Lane said he does not come from a hotrod background, though the car show did feature some big motors. He said his background includes being an automotive and heavy equipment mechanic, a fleet mechanic for the state police, and a fleet manager for Sacramento Regional Transit, which he converted from diesel to compressed natural gas.

Lane said the Auto Tech Function class, with about 50 students, hosted the car show, with student and parent vehicles of all types allowed to enter. He said there are about 110 students in auto shop classes, from introductory to advanced Regional Occupation Program levels. He said classes focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and he is trying to get an engineering pathway into the school.

He has been there four months and tried to help increase alternative fuels awareness, so Lane asked Scott Trevaris of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District to bring a “plug-in” electric reach truck to be part of the auto show. Lane said he wants to emphasize that there are “totally different modes of transportation out there.” It stood quietly below a loud “surprise” brought by Universal Technical Institute – a 454 cubic inch Chevrolet Supercharged motor – owned by Ron Whitman. Whitman fired up the 454, as the crowd swelled, and watched the flames fly. It stood next to a Chevy 350, which the shop students built, which later was fired up for a demonstration.

Lane said he has brought an electronic diagnostics machine to the shop, to help with the classes and training. The classes do all types of automotive work at the shop.

Senior Jacob Kendrick helped organize and publicize the car show. Kendrick said they were selling hotdogs to raise money for tools and chemicals for cleaning, and anything they can purchase to benefit the shop. He said the shop works on jobs for up-front prices and they can do “pretty much anything if we have the time.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.