The Buzz 09.24.15

WHAT’S UP WITH THAT

A reader wants to know what’s happening near Del Monte Center next to the theater side of the property. Turns out the buildout of Merrill Gardens Monterey residential care facility is well underway, with foundations in place and framing taking place. Paul Davis Partnership is managing the project.

OVERHEARD

“Is Target closed now or what?”
- A shopper speaking to a California Highway Patrol 
officer at the perimeter of the crime scene where two Sand City police officers were injured and 
two suspects killed in a firefight.

GOOD WEEK / BAD WEEK

GOOD: A dozen volunteers, mostly from the CSU Monterey Bay Disc Golf program – which helped sow a national championship in the burgeoning sport several years ago – installed a nine-hole disc golf course at Marina’s Los Arboles Middle School Sept. 11. CSUMB Women’s Disc Golf Club President Traci Alger, who is also a Los Arboles staffer, worked collaboratively with the city of Marina to get the Marina Rotary Club on board to help build the course. School officials are still waiting for discs to arrive before “unveiling” the course to the students, but as far as the greater public is concerned, the course will be free and open to the public whenever the school isn’t using it. That brings the total number of disc golf courses in Marina to three, the highest of any city in the county, and school officials say there are plans to add another nine holes if the course proves popular.

BAD: After a humpback breached and landed on top of a kayak paddled by husband-and-wife British tourists off of Moss Landing, the wife commented it felt as if a bus had hit them. That tends to happen when a creature roughly the size of a bus jumps on top of you. Husband Tom Mustill, a wildlife filmmaker, told reporters they set out in search of the pod after learning an unusually large number had been sighted. While it’s great the couple (and the whale) survived, it’s forced officials to remind awestruck nature lovers that anything they do to change an animal’s behavior is a violation of federal law. Chase whales to snap a picture, and if they change course to get away, it means you’re bugging them – and violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Marine Sanctuaries Act.

WHO'S IN TOWN 

Where in the world is the next hotbed of terrorism or hackers? Analysts at the CIA's Open Source Center are tasked with finding out via reviewing foreign websites, newspapers and other media. Publicly available, or "open source" information like this "often lays the groundwork for understanding classified materials," according to the CIA. CIA officials come to the Middlebury Institute of International Studies this week recruiting fluent Pashtu, Russian, Farsi, Ukrainian, Arabic and other foreign-language speakers. They promise an exercise analyzing "real-world problems related to nonproliferation [and] counterterrorism." 

6-9pm Monday Sept. 28. Middlebury Institute, Morse Building room B105, 460 Pierce St. Free. 647-6676, www.ciaagentedu.org.