An old client of mine recently started up a new company over on the peninsula that sells hardwood flooring. I've been helping to promote his flooring styles on Craigslist and wow… what a completive market! Most times I post an ad, it's flagged and deleted within an hour or two. Other ads stick around long enough to keep renewing although they aren't much different. I'm very careful about sticking to the rules so it's frustrating that it keeps happening.

Well… my friend Victor is definitely the man to see for good deals on hardwood flooring. And unlike his previous business, they also offer full installation. WholeWood.com is centrally located in San Carlos to serve everyone from San Jose and San Francisco to Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Burlingame, Millbrae, and Redwood City. He says he gets a lot of visitors from Sacramento too but not so many from the East Bay (where I am.) Read more about Best Deals on Hardwood Flooring in the Bay Area

Traditionally, I'm a tequila and beer guy. And far from a wine snob. But in the interest of taking advantage of the Bay Area -- and the fact that my kids seem to have swim meets up in Napa Valley regularly -- we've been getting to know the Napa region fairly well. Read more about Napa for Newbies 101 - Jack's Visitors Guide to Napa Valley

053011-1134 hrs - phone com

The Alameda Fire Department has just released the dispatch communications during the Crown Beach debacle. Read more about "Pandemonium" at Crown Beach

We did something different for Monday night's QotSA show at the Fox Theater in Oakland. We sat down! I can't remember the last time we sat down for a show, but we had 8th row center mezzanine (row H) and it was rather civilized. Perhaps too civilized for a Queens of the Stone Age show, but being a Monday night after a long week of travel, it was a good call. Unlike the Warfield in San Francisco, you can bring drinks to your seat (nice cup holders) and, given that they were moshing downstairs, it was civilized indeed.

And do you know what else is civilized? QotSA is punctual! The opening band went on exactly at 8:00 pm and the Queens went on EXACTLY at 9. They play a fierce, condensed show so we were back home to pay off the babysitter at 11:15. Read more about Queens of the Stone Age are the most Punctual Band in Rock

The "public" version is limited but I will grant login permissions by request. You could then customize your URL, upload straight to Twitter, and monitor the number of hits you get. You can also generate an API key if you want to use it in a 3rd party program (like I do on Supercleanweb.com). Read more about Shorten your URL's without feeding the sillycon valley data miners, courtesy of Superclean