Downtown Campbell's Creepy Crawly Trick or Treat

Downtown Campbell hosts a Trick or Treat every year — usually the Friday night closest to the actually Halloween date.

This year we will have the event on Friday, Oct 28, from 5pm to 7pm. This event is sponsored by the Downtown Campbell Business Association (DCBA).

Our celebration includes the door to door trick or treat and a costume contest.

This picture below shows kids trick or treating in a local shop. We have about 50 Downtown merchants participating in the trick or treat. The Downtown area for the trick or treat includes the businesses on E Campbell Ave between Third St and the railroad tracks.

We have a very dog friendly downtown — and this extends to the Trick or Treat event. People bring their dogs along with and also part of their enjoyment of the event. The picture below shows someone in costume with their dog part of their costume.

Dogs are not only welcome, we also have a costume category for dogs (any pet really) with prizes!

This picture below shows a costume contest from some years ago. The location for the contest has not been chosen at this time, the contest will start at 7pm and the DCBA will award prizes to the best costumes in several categories, from infant up to early teen.

We also have categories for Adult/Infant and best pet!

Visit downtowncampbell.com for details, and while there be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss a thing!

The Photo-Board is Finished!

John Cloud has completed his magic — the photo-board is now finished! I had it out last Saturday night, and during Downtown Campbell's Farmers' Market.

This first picture was taken Sunday with two children posing:

On Friday night children and 'children at heart' stopped by to use the board as a photo prop. Here are two of the later, Sharon Eakes and her daughter Lilliann

Here is another copy of the kids again. I mistakenly uploaded two copies up to Blogger and can't figure out how to remove it. My only thought would be to delete the blog and start over, don't want to do that. *sigh.*

The board will be out for free use most days that the gallery is open.

Stone Griffin Gallery
234 E Campbell Ave, Downtown Campbell.
408/374-5200

Stone Griffin Gallery's New Location!

Its been a while since the gallery has moved into the new space — and it is about time that I post all the new contact information here on Downtown Campbell's Blog!

The gallery moved into a real nice space, #234 E Campbell Ave. This location is two blocks east of the prior location.

To give you a handle on where this is, the gallery's new next door neighbors are The Olive Bar and Cardiff Lounge — and just across the street from Vintage & Vogue, Twist Cafe and Simple Smashing!!

All the proper details are:

Stone Griffin Gallery

234 E Campbell Ave

Campbell, Calif 95008

408/374-5200

www.stonegriffingallery.net

We still specialize in California landscapes by local artists, also display landscapes, figurative, and other work by local and national artists.

Come on in! We are open seven days a week — and open late Friday nights.

Plywood Cut-out Photo Op Board

Hello Downtown Campbell:

I have been moving along on my fun little Downtown Campbell community project — which is a board painted with the Campbell Water Tower, images of kids 'climbing' the tower, and with holes cut into the board so that kids can stick their heads out and pose for pictures.

The picture with this blog shows the board in front of the real McCoy. As you can see it has the base coat of primer, the image is sketched out, and the holes cut out.

I bought the board at Home Depot, had them cut it to size; the artist John Cloud sketched the images on the board; and Ed Arrowsmith just cut out the opening.

I will try to convince John Cloud to paint it this coming Friday night (as the Gallery is open late on all Fridays and John is always in attendance doing live painting); perhaps finishing it up on Sunday, as John paints here on Sundays during the Farmers' Markets — then I will have it set up and see how the kids react!

Life Insurance: Dispelling the Myths

Life Insurance: Dispelling the Myths
There is not always an absolute choice when it comes to choosing life insurance protection for either family or your business.  There is a significant difference between term and permanent protection, and each has an application depending on the needs and objectives of the user.

Brian Dixon of Fifth Street Financial Group sheds some light on dispelling the myths of what to know about life insurance and helpful answers to your questions.

Fifth Street Financial Group is an specialized insurance broker catering to startup and emerging companies, as well as established businesses.  We are also personal life insurance and California group health brokers.


As an Executive Benefits company, we provide risk mitigation strategies for founders, partnerships, business owners, C level executives and VC/Angel investment using corporate-owned life insurance. 

Learn more about Fifth Street Financial Group services and offerings throught their website!

A Brief History of Sundown Cinema

Let's say you thought it'd be really cool to show movies for free outdoors in your town, but you've never done anything like this before. You've also heard that other people have previously tried and failed to organize outdoor movies in your town. Now let's say that you don't have any expertise as an A/V technician, you don't have any of the equipment that you'd need, and you can't afford the thousands of dollars it takes to hire a company that specializes in showing outdoor movies.

These are obviously big problems and unless you had a lot of cash and expertise to throw around, you'd be forgiven if you concluded like others before you that it was more than you could tackle. If you're a single father of five and your name is Manuel Viveros, you'd be unfazed by the challenge. You'll end up applying for a grant from a charity run by your employer (Safeway) to get the funds to buy a modest projector. Then you'll pull apart your living room and drive around town to borrow other A/V equipment you needed. Somehow, you'll figure out where to plug in all those crazy wires. Finally, you'll do your salesman best and manage to convince your entire household and some of your friends that they really want to give up their Friday nights for the whole summer to help you pull off your improvised outdoor cinema.

It sounded crazy then and it still sounds crazy now, but on June 18, 2004, a modest crowd plopped down in their lawn chairs for the first time in the "movie lot" and watched Casablanca. It certainly didn't happen the easy way, but Sundown Cinema was born. It grew steadily through the years and somehow managed to stay relevant in the face of increasing competition from other movie series that were far better funded and professionally staffed.

It was a miracle that the first night ever happened at all and it's an even bigger miracle that Sundown Cinema is in the midst of its eighth season without interruption. It has almost folded several times for various reasons, but disaster would be averted each time when money, organizers, or volunteers would come through at the last minute. Manuel Viveros ran it for four years, a small business owned by a Saratoga resident did it for one year, and Jim Aspinwall and Sheldon Chang (me) have been running the show since 2009.

Since the early days, Sundown Cinema has been through a number of changes. In its original format, it scheduled classic movies almost exclusively because Manuel Viveros thought that it was worthwhile to preserve our cultural literacy of movies from past eras He intended Sundown Cinema to be artistically nutritious as well as entertaining. The current day format of Sundown Cinema has evolved, but continues to honor the spirit of its founding by keeping approximately half of its titles to movies from before 1970.

Our setup has evolved over the years too. We took advantage of a couple of good donation years and upgraded our theater equipment one piece at a time. We have a better projector now and our sound system thumps with 450W in the front and 220W in the back. Thankfully, we've finally amassed enough A/V gear of our own that we don't have to deal with returning stuff to someone's living room after the night is over.

Most importantly, we also now have a seasoned crew of over two dozen volunteers that includes one certified A/V technician. Sundown Cinema isn't quite the fire drill that it used to be, but from top to bottom we're all still volunteers. Once in a while, something unexpected happens and you can tell that we all have day jobs that don't involve running a movie theater. This is one thing that I hope will never change because it's part of the unique character of Sundown Cinema. It's still a movie series run by people who are doing it simply because showing outdoor movies in their community is a cool idea.

Casablanca was the first movie shown at Sundown Cinema in Downtown Campbell

Great things come in small (tasty) packages!

Bryan Robertson of Los Altos had the pleasure of stopping by the Frost Cupcake Factory last week after his dinner here in downtown Campbell. Deciding to venture in before the official opening, he was delighted to find two employees who were very welcoming and nice, as well as the owner (Andrea Parks) who was baking a fresh batch of cupcakes.  Andrea, came out to meet us as well as other customers to get our feedback.  She was very kind, nice to talk to, and offered a free sample cupcake to get our opinion.

Bryan says the new sweet shop is exactly what Campbell needed as a way of offering some truly distinctive variety to the downtown dining experience.  Sure, Campbell has had it's share of yogurt, ice cream, and sweet shops but let's face it, cupcakes are just different.  And in this case, different is better.  These cupcakes offer exceptional texture quality along with flavors that are subtle and distinct.  He also had the Tahitian Vanilla cupcake which had a sublime flavor that exceeds anyone's expectations for a dessert.  If you've had real vanilla, truly high-quality stuff, then you'll know what I'm talking about. 

They also had the mocha java and coconut.  All Bryan can say is "WOW!" to both.  He describes the flavors and textures are exceptional and it's like eating cake from a master pastry chef, all in a nice package you can eat at the shop.  The size of the cupcakes is more than enough to make a single enough for dessert.  I'm sure that some folks will feel that one isn't enough but I can assure you it is.  As with anything world-class, a little goes a long way.

So, after dinner downtown, he highly recommends stopping over there.  Frost Cupcakes is located at 199 E Campbell Avenue, between Aqui Restaurant and the Sonya Paz Fine Art Gallery in Downtown Campbell.

Submitted by Bryan Robertson of Los Altos and a realtor for the Sereno Group
To see Bryans blog and more on this story, visit his site!