Linda Vista Auto Repair Opens for Business
Plus: Upcoming Access Job Info Session, USD Toreros Baseball, and Book Recommendations
Have you been putting off that necessary car maintenance? Are you tired of ignoring that red engine light? Or have the inflated prices found at car lots motivated you to think that repairing and driving your current car is the more economical thing to do? If so, you might want to go pay a visit to Linda Vista Auto Repair—the latest newcomer to the LV business scene. Linda Vista Auto Repair opened its door to the public just last week, and this business’s owner is eager to provide you with quality service.
Linda Vista Auto Repair is located at 6952 Linda Vista Road, at the corner of Linda Vista Road and Ulric Street, in the small business mall that houses Linda Liquor and Sushi Yorimichi. It is operating in the same building space as the former TH Auto, which closed a few months ago.
The owner of Linda Vista Auto Repair happens to be a native Linda Vista resident—Carlos Sotelo. He is a local resident who grew up attending Linda Vista Elementary, Montgomery Middle, and Kearny High School. Sotelo also grew up a car enthusiast, working on and driving a succession of muscle cars (his favorite muscle car is the Mustang) while learning the auto repair trade. He first learned about cars while working alongside his dad, and then went on to work with a couple auto repair shops in the San Diego area. He also gained experience working with the off-road community, doing suspension and repair work.
Prior to opening last week, Sotelo and several of his family members spent a month remodeling his new facility. As he made clear, the layout of his shop is very important. He prefers “to maintain a shop that is clean, with all the tools organized.”
Now open for business, Linda Vista Auto Repair is operating Monday-Friday from 8 am to 5 pm. Sotelo’s shop handles domestic cars and most imports; if he can’t handle a certain kind of car he will do his best to “direct customers to the right place for service.”
When working with customers, Sotelo insists that safety is a main concern. “I want to build relationships with customers by making good repair recommendations,” he said. “I don’t like to scare people into making repairs.”
Though opening a business in these turbulent economic times has its risks, Sotelo has noticed that many people are currently interested in getting repair work done on their cars after experiencing sticker shock at both new and used car lots. “People want to hold on to their cars right now,” he said. “They want to keep their current car running by following through with repair work.”
When asked to provide auto maintenance advice to Linda Vista Update readers, he offered, “Check the oil and do oil changes. When people ignore oil changes, they’ve probably ignored other things too.”
So whether your car is making strange noises, or if you know your car is due for some regular maintenance work, think about paying a visit to Linda Vista Auto Repair and see what Carlos Sotelo can do for your car. And tell him the Linda Vista Update sent you.
Linda Vista Auto Repair
6952 Linda Vista Road
San Diego, CA 92111
Lindavista.auto@yahoo.com
858-308-3631
ACCESS Holds Job Info Session Tomorrow
On February 25 (tomorrow) at 3:30 pm, Access, Inc, a non-profit agency based in Linda Vista and focused on workforce development, will be sponsoring an information session for young people age 16-24. As reported in last week’s post of this newsletter, Access, Inc—located at 2612 Daniel Ave, off of Linda Vista Road—will hold the informational session, complete with free ice cream for all session participants, to help familiarize young people with Access, Inc, job training opportunities.
Young people can sign up for a two hour on-line training course designed just for them. They will learn what can be done to get a job now, or keep the information in mind for the future.
This is a special program made possible through the San Diego Workforce Partnership, and everyone who finishes gets a $50 gift card. Although it sounds too good to be true, it is intended to give young people a taste of what it is like to earn some money and motivate them to look for work to keep the wages coming. If they decide to just take the course and not look for work now, they still keep the gift card.
If you know of any young people in the above age group, please let them know about this informational session.
Questions about available job training programs or the informational session can be referred to Kimya Crawford at kcrawford@access2jobs.org. Young people can also sign up for the programs online at https://www.access2jobs.org/connect2careers
To learn more about Access, Inc. please visit www.access2jobs.org. You can also refer to the below posters.
USD Toreros Baseball Opens the Season
Baseball fans…don’t be too discouraged. Yes, the Padres have yet to open up their spring training season, and Major League Baseball’s opening day is in danger of being postponed. However, Linda Vista fans desperately in need of their baseball fix have a more than suitable option at their disposal. The University of San Diego (USD) Toreros baseball team, under the leadership of new head coach Brock Ungricht, offers up an exciting brand of baseball as well as a great facility from which to see the team play. No doubt about it, as the Toreros demonstrated during their season opening series against Oregon this past weekend, Fowler Park on the USD campus is a fantastic place to enjoy the game of baseball.
With team owners imposing a lockout of their facilities as a labor negotiating tactic, a work stoppage has hit MLB, preventing teams like the Padres from starting their spring training schedules. And no one knows how long this work stoppage will last. There is a strong possibility it could extend past the scheduled March 31 start date of the 2022 season. But if the work stoppage leaves you hungry to see some great fielding, hitting, and pitching, you need not look further than Fowler Park as an alternative. When you attend a USD game, not only do you get to see one of the premier West Coast Division I collegiate baseball programs, but you also get to see a high caliber of competition at one of the most attractive college stadiums in Southern California. The price of admission for a game is only $10.00, and there is not a bad seat in the house. Sitting in the stands during an afternoon game is a great way to soak in the San Diego sun. The enthusiasm of both the players and the crowd guarantees a festive atmosphere in a picturesque setting.
As far as the quality of the play is concerned, the Toreros have established themselves over the past twenty years as a perennial power. Since 2000, they have produced twenty major league players, to include Kris Bryant, one of the top players in MLB. During that timeframe they also scored 6 first place finishes in conference play.
The team is led by rookie Head Coach Brock Ungricht, a former player standout at both Mission Bay High School and San Diego State University. As mentioned in a profile of Ungricht previously published in this newsletter, Ungricht also served one year as head coach of Kearny High’s varsity baseball program.
The Toreros opened the 2022 season on a successful note this past weekend, compiling a 3-1 record against the visiting University of Oregon Ducks.
The team’s next three games are all at home; they play on Feb 25 at 6:00 pm against the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), followed by a game against Fresno State on Feb 26 at 5:00 pm, and then once again against UNLV on February 27 at 1:00 pm.
Get out to the stadium this weekend and enjoy a game!
Update Book Recommendations
We are happy to say our intrepid book reviewers are at it again. Marla and Martha both have impeccable taste in picking books that are thought provoking and real page turners. We wish to thank them for sharing.
Steve and I hope that these reviews have pushed you toward reading not only the reviewed books, but books in general. You also might want to think about joining or forming a book club. Books have been very important to us during the long pandemic. We spent many a day just sitting quietly and reading either hard copy, tablet, or even on our phones. A book club has enabled me to keep in touch with my friends, even virtually, where we not only discuss the book but many other things as well. Sharing experiences through associations with others keeps us from feeling isolated and is a lot cheaper than therapy.
So, go to the wonderful Linda Vista library, get a library card and borrow books there, through Libby or other on-line methods and start reading, or in the case of audio books, listening. You will be glad you did.
***
We Are Not Like Them
Reviewed by Marla M.
I found this novel intriguing because the author Pride is Black and coauthor Piazza is White.
Lifelong friends, one Black, the other White, find themselves on opposite sides of an unspeakable tragedy. Riley and Jen have been best friends since kindergarten. Riley is on her way to becoming one of the first Black female anchors of a top news station. Jen, who is white, is pregnant and married to Kevin, a metropolitan police officer.
Riley is assigned to cover the shooting of a 14-year-old black youth, Justin Dwyer by two white police officers. Jen and Riley‘s relationship collides when it is discovered that one of the officers involved in the shooting is Jen‘s husband, Kevin. While Riley tries to objectively report the incident she is experiencing difficulties hiding her feelings that what happened to Justin could easily have happened to her father, brother, or to any other black male in the community where she grew up.
While Riley is outraged, Jen loves her husband and is defending and supporting him. Jen and Riley have to wrestle with their different perspectives. As inseparable as Jen and Riley have been, Riley is still a white woman who doesn’t understand the ancestral pain that Riley knows. And Jen can only know what her life experiences have been.
As someone who has a lifelong interracial friendship, We Are Not Like Them caused me to pause and reflect on what circumstance could create a crack in my seemingly unbreakable relationship.
The Jack Reacher series
Reviewed by Martha B.
The crime thriller eight-episode first season of Reacher was recently released on Amazon Prime. The first Reacher season is based on one of the books in Lee Child’s phenomenally popular, award winning Jack Reacher series which has garnered more than 60 million in book sales.
Childs’ protagonist, Jack Reacher, is a 6’ 5” bear of a man with years of special ops military training and experience. He is essentially a Superman with formidable intellectual and physical powers, who takes vengeance against the evils of the world when they present themselves, which is often. After retiring from the military he takes on a life of free ranging travel with few ties, arranging for his military pension to be delivered to him throughout the US and Europe. The Reacher series is intelligent but violent, full of interesting detail, very commercially readable, and satisfying in that Reacher’s fight against the forces of evil always seem to prevail in the end.
Though not high literature, the Reacher novels are a pleasure to read or listen to, if you are a fan of the genre. The library app Libby has many of these books available in audio and digital format without a wait, since most are not currently on the best seller lists. The books of another popular and very enjoyable crime writer, Michael Connelly (Lincoln Lawyer and Bosch), are also easily available for free at the library with a few clicks on a smart phone. The audio books, in particular, are pleasant company for driving, walks, and household chores.
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The Linda Vista Update publishes informative, interesting and fun news about Linda Vista and its neighboring communities.