We Used to Live in the Ghetto

Ever since we moved in to our current place, I've never really had any regrets about leaving our old place in Richmond. The only thing I miss there is seeing Sammy, our former next door neighbor's super orange cat, though even that had its drawbacks (like the time he sprayed our Christmas tree, meh).

"OMG, he's ORANGE!"

Things I totally do not miss include:

• The super annoying trains: trying to outrun them in the morning when I'm already late; seeing it running parallel to me along the freeway when I'm coming home and trying to outrun it; sitting at the crossing for 20 minutes, watching the train go forward and backward as it switches tracks; and, hearing loud honking 17 times in a row at 4:00 in the morning as the train approaches.

• The multitude of creepy crawlies that would find their way into our house ALL the time, especially the never-ending collection of spiders in the kitchen pantry and the worms that would crawl under the front door when it rained, only to die on the living room carpet. Yeah, those worms were smart.

• The very annoying next door neighbors with their two bratty kids, one of whom would always cry pathetically at 7:00 on Saturday mornings, even though he was probably about 4 years old.

• The stupid homeowners' association that would not let us park in the guest parking spaces (we had three cars, but only two assigned spaces), even though there were always 50 open guest spaces available at any given time. We ended up having to pay our neighbor to park in one of her assigned spaces that she never used until Bear moved out.

But most of all, this article made me unbelievably glad that we no longer live there, off of Marina Bay Parkway. I told you we lived in the ghetto!

Leads on I-580 Shooting Pouring In, Richmond Police Say


By Kimberly S. Wetzel Contra Costa Times
Published: Yesterday

Police say an unusually high number of promising leads have investigators close to making an arrest in last week's Interstate 580 homicide in Richmond.

Lt. Johan Simon said the department typically gets few calls from the community on murder cases, but this time around investigators have received several calls.

Detectives have "received a lot of information that will hopefully lead to a swift conclusion on who the shooter is," Simon said. "The community has just been as helpful as I've ever seen."

Marcus Russell, a 21-year-old Richmond resident and aspiring rapper, was shot and killed Tuesday during the afternoon commute near the Marina Bay Parkway on-ramp. His passenger, a 19-year-old Pittsburg woman, was struck in the leg but survived.

Witnesses described seeing a red van pull along the left side of the Nissan driven by Russell. A hand holding a gun poked out of the side window and shot about two dozen rounds into the victim's vehicle. Russell's car veered off the interstate, crashed through a fence and eventually stopped on a frontage road. A portion of I-580 was closed for hours while police investigated.

Those with information about the case should call Detective Mike Rood at 510-620-6625.