The Ambrose Recreation and Park District, in partnership with the Bay Point Chamber of Commerce, will host the Community Yard Sale on Saturday May 14, 2011 from 8 am-1 pm at the Ambrose Community Center, located at 3105 Willow Pass Road in Bay Point.

The yard sale will give the community a day to sell those old items that have been sitting in the garage, back yard, or just taking up space around the house. This is your opportunity to make some spare change while having fun. There will be a pancake breakfast to start the day and food will be available to purchase throughout the day.

This year we will have an E-Waste truck here to accept old electronic waste that can be recycled and kept out of our local land fill. We will also have information booths to show you how to recycle your old household items and a charitable organization truck available for donations.

Booth space is available to rent for $20.00 and a refundable cleaning deposit of $25. Sign-ups are currently taking place at the Ambrose Community Center during regular business hours, 8 am – 5 pm, Monday-Friday. Sign-up and booth locations are on a first come first serve basis; sign up early to secure the best space. For further information about the event contact the Ambrose Community Center at 458-1601.

Design credit goes to Todd Sweeney, graphics to Abigail Cecilio, photography to Favian Orozon and programming to John Chandler. Community activist and webmaster Brittney Gougeon volunteered to host the site.

Join the Filipino-American Association of Pittsburg this Saturday, April 9th in celebrating the 69th annual commemoration of the Fall of Bataan-Corregidor at a luncheon buffet at Humphrey’s on the Delta.  The surviving veterans and war widows will be honored thruout the ceremony.

Photo submitted by Principal David Castillo.

Education Officials from Contra Costa County visited Oakland Unity (an independent public charter school), the highest performing high school in the Oakland Unified School District.  The school has a 96% attendance rate for the past 6 school years with 94% graduating and 74% accepted to 4-year universities/colleges.

CCC Board of Education Trustee Cynthia Ruehlig (4^th from left) and Antioch Unified School District Trustee Walter Ruehlig (behind) toured the campus to meet with students and faculty members, examine data and observe classes.

The Antioch Police Department is investigating two unrelated shootings that occurred April 4 on Sycamore Drive in Antioch.

The first shooting occurred at 4:07 p.m. in the 1500 block of Sycamore Drive.  Officers were first dispatched to a large fight at this location, and soon after a report of shots being fired. Officers located a 24-year-old Antioch male suffering from a single gunshot wound to his leg. He told officers that he did not know who shot him, but that the shots were fired from a small, black car. This victim was treated at a local hospital and is expected to survive.

The second shooting occurred at 9 p.m. in the 1700 block of Sycamore Drive. Officers were dispatched to the area for the report of several people shooting at each other. Officers arrived and located a 19-year-old male Antioch resident suffering from a gunshot wound to his face. This victim was taken to a local hospital where he was placed into a medically induced coma.

He is expected to survive, although he may be paralyzed from the chest down, according to police.  Officers found casings from several different types of weapons. Several cars and buildings were hit with stray bullets, but no other victims were located. This shooting appears to be gang related.

An Antioch Police Officer was injured April 5 at 1:53 a.m. after a parolee-at-large knocked her down with his car in the Valero gas station at 2101 Somersville Road then rammed her patrol car.

The officer was conducting a traffic stop on Dante Curry, 28, of San Francisco, for driving with no headlights on. Curry provided the officer with a false name upon first contact.  The officer opened Curry’s driver’s door and asked him to step out of the car in order to try and confirm his identity.

Curry instead put his car in reverse and knocked the officer down with the car door and then rammed the officer’s patrol car, according to police. The officer was knocked to the ground with such force that she had to be treated at a local hospital. She was later released and is expected to make a full recovery.

Curry sped off in his car and a pursuit ensued with other APD officers. The pursuit ended several miles away near Sequoia and Redwood Drive in Antioch. Both the driver and passenger fled on foot. The passenger was apprehended with the help of an Antioch police K9 unit.

The driver, Curry, fled over several neighborhood fences and was eventually caught after and extensive search with the help of a Brentwood PD K9.  Curry was found to be a parolee at large out of San Francisco. He is on parole for weapons and explosives violations.

By Dr. Brandon Roberts

The lifestyle choices that you make for yourself and your family can literally change the course of your history. It used to be thought that if you had a family history of heart disease or cancer then it was your destiny to get these conditions too because they were “in your genes.” Through the science of epi-genetics we are learning that nothing can be further from the truth.

Epi-genetics, which means ‘around the gene’, has shown that your lifestyle choices, both positive and negative, can influence the expression of your genes, turning them on and off like a light switch.

A recent report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA found the activity of more than 500 genes in the normal tissue of thirty men with low-risk prostate cancer changed after the patients began eating diets higher in fruits, vegetables and whole grains and lower in red meats and fats while also implementing an exercise and stress reducing regimen.

After three months the men had changes in the activity of about 500 genes including 48 disease preventing genes that were turned on and 453 disease promoting genes that were turned off.

In the largest nature/nurture study that was ever done, on 44,000 pairs of twins, it was found that the primary determinates in most cases of cancer were environmental or lifestyle factors such as tobacco use, diet and exercise habits rather than the inherited disposition of their family history.

So here is a very important message if you want to live an active, healthy, quality of life for 80, 90, 100 years and beyond…stop blaming your genes. Too many people rationalize unhealthy choices with words like, “Why bother, it’s in my genes.” You can’t get away with this anymore.

Adjust Your Lifestyle

Changing the course of your history is not rocket science. Eating a diet filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean meats will keep you lean and healthy and they will activate healthy genes. Exercise, as a part of a lifestyle, reduces stress, strengthens your heart and muscles and has been shown to reduce the risk of nearly every disease.

Optimistic thinking has been shown to keep people motivated to make healthy lifestyle choices regardless of their circumstances. In addition, chiropractic care as a part of a healthy lifestyle, Lifestyle Care, keeps your spine and nervous system aligned, balanced and healthy and free from deterioration, this ensures that the vital messages between the brain and the body are optimized. Reducing stress is also important as stress has been shown to shorten the telomeres, or caps on the genes, which can reduce the life expectancy of your cells.

One of the life-changing principles of The 100 Year Lifestyle is “Change is easy, thinking about change is hard.” It is much easier to eat healthy and exercise regularly as a part of your lifestyle than it is to be on a weight gain, weight loss rollercoaster or to chronically have to deal with being sick or injured.

Chiropractic care as a part of a lifestyle is a much better option than the crisis to crisis suffering that comes with an unhealthy spine and nervous system. Bringing these values into your home can literally change the course of your history and ensure a healthy future for you and your loved ones.

Please take advantage of the resources our office is providing this month to help you and your loved ones rewrite your history and a healthy future will be yours for decades.

Dr. Brandon Roberts, DC of Deer Valley Chiropractic is a 100 Year Lifestyle Affiliate Office. This column is reprinted with permission of The Family Practice, Inc.

WHAT: Groundbreaking ceremony for the next phase of the State Route 4 widening through Pittsburg and Antioch in the area of the Somersville Road interchange. Construction on the project began in March. The prime contractor for the project is R&L Brosamer.

WHEN: Friday, April 8, 2011, at 9:00 a.m.

WHERE: Southwest corner of the State Route 4 Somersville Road Interchange, next to the Denny’s restaurant at 2006 Somersville Road, Antioch Ca.

SPEAKERS: John Garamendi, Representative, 10th Congressional District; Mark DeSaulnier, Senator, California Senate 7th District; Cindy McKim, Director, California Department of Transportation; Randell Iwasaki, Executive Director, Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA); Federal Glover, Supervisor, Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors; James Davis, Mayor, City of Antioch; David Durant, Board Chair, CCTA; Joel Keller, District 2 Director, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).

INVITED: Susan Bonilla, Assemblywoman, California 11th District Mary Piepho, Supervisor, Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors

WHY: This is the second of five projects planned for the corridor that will widen the freeway from two lanes to three mixed flow lanes and one HOV lane in each direction. The project will also widen the median to accommodate the eBART extension to Antioch.