Association of College Unions International Collegiate 9-Ball Championships / Normal, IL by Lea Andrews College 9-ball players from all over the country are gathered right now at the Bone Student Center at Illinois State University in Normal, IL, for the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) Collegiate 9-Ball Championships. The event, which is being held July [...]

Omar Morales, a recent graduate of Foothill High, installs computer wires under the desks at Martin Luther King, Jr. Technology Academy on Tuesday.

Computer wires sat tangled on the tile floor while hardware waited for repair. Each classroom at Martin Luther King Jr. Technology Academy needed attention from Twin Rivers Unified School District information technology workers.

Instead of turning to costly vendors or overloading district support staff, Twin Rivers brought in high school interns to help prepare the technology-focused junior high, which is fitted with computers at all 32 student desks in all 35 classrooms.

And the results have district staff and the teens smiling about the partnership.

The teens are gaining valuable work experience in a $8 per hour internship paid through the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency. And the district is receiving a considerable discount for the services.

"This is fun. I love doing this," said Andrey Becherskiy, 16, who will be a junior at Grant High School in the fall.

Kevin Hall, a computer systems specialist for the district, said getting the computers in good operating shape before the new school year would have taken weeks longer if not for the help of the four interns who have worked with him through the summer.

Two more interns were added after their custodial internships ended. Another intern has spent her summer working on the district's Web site.

This is the first summer Twin Rivers has placed teens in information technology internships.

The idea stems from a pilot program at Foothill High School. Last spring, Foothill started MOUSE Squad of California, a student-run IT help desk that offers the district computer support while training students.

This fall, Foothill plans to build on the MOUSE Squad, which comes with its own curriculum. After further training, Foothill hopes to offer community members computer repair services and also will accept e-waste for recycling.

The district plans to expand the MOUSE Squad to other high schools in the future.

"These kids are working side-by-side with our IT department," said Sarah DiRuscio, director of instruction and information technology. "They are setting up computer labs and getting hands-on technology experience that can be used in the real world."

Becherskiy said he probably would have spent his summer bored at home if not for the internship. Now, he says he's saving for a car.

"I get money and I learn more stuff," Becherskiy said. "It's great. I'm really glad I got a summer job."

Becherskiy said fixing computers at the junior high has had its surprises. He showed a souvenir – a razor blade – he recently recovered from inside a computer.

Most of the computer problems are normal wear from repeated use by junior high kids, although it's not uncommon to find items shoved into a USB port or discover other mischievous acts.

"Some kids take their frustrations out on the computers," said Jeremy Briggs, manager of computer support at the district. "They end up (needing repairs) after a month. We continually have to put more manpower into it. With the work these (interns) have done, it's going to make it to where we don't have to come in. Everything will be more durable and the school won't have to spend as much money on equipment."

Andrey Becherskiy, a junior at Grant High School, does maintenance on a computer station router. Morales and Becherskiy are paid IT interns for the Twin Rivers Unified School District, which said getting the computers ready for the new school year would have taken weeks longer without them.

IT interns Omar Morales and Gennadiy Moskalenco work on computer wiring Tuesday morning at Martin Luther King, Jr. Tech Academy. The internship program was inspired by a pilot program at Foothill High School called the MOUSE Squad. The Twin Rivers Unified School District plans to have the Foothill program assist the community with its computer repair needs and accept e-waste for recycling.

Blaze 9-Ball Tour / Egg Harbor, NJ by Jose Burgos Newly signed by Cue & Case Sales, Inc., Shaun “Get Some” Wilkie did his new sponsors proud by taking first at the July 19 stop on the Blaze 9-Ball Tour. Atlantic City Billiards in Egg Harbor, NJ, hosted the $1,000-added event. Leading the top half of the bracket [...]

OptiSolar's 700,000-square-foot industrial space, above, in McClellan Park is looking for a tenant. The solar panel manufacturer's prospects seemed brighter last November, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, top, spoke at the North Highlands site.

Sixteen months after OptiSolar Inc. roared into Sacramento, the cavernous building it was converting into a factory at McClellan Park is seeking a new tenant.

As recently as last fall, the nearly 700,000-square-foot space was on track to be the largest solar panel manufacturing plant in North America. OptiSolar had torn out walls to connect several former Air Force storage bays, each larger than a football field, and was spending millions on heavy-duty plumbing and air conditioning systems. In November, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stood in front of the factory as he ordered the state's big utilities to get more of their power from renewable sources.

But the bad economy and a manufacturing glut in the solar power sector combined to choke off the financing OptiSolar needed to fuel its rapid growth. Mass layoffs started in January, and in early March the company merged with much larger First Solar Inc., based in Tempe, Ariz., in a deal worth more than $400 million in stock.

OptiSolar, now a subsidiary of First Solar, listed the McClellan site with global commercial real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle earlier this month. Derek Johnson, a vice president with the brokerage, said OptiSolar is looking for one or more tenants to sublet or take over the lease on the entire site.

"They are not planning on using it," he said.

The OptiSolar vacancy adds to the region's growing expanse of empty industrial space.

Garrick Brown, research director in Sacramento for commercial real estate broker Colliers International, expects vacancies to rise from 11.5 percent today to roughly 14 percent by next year, meaning an additional 6 million square feet of industrial space will come onto the market.

"It's going to be very, very challenging" to find a new tenant for the OptiSolar site, Brown said. He and others said the space is likely the largest on the local industrial real estate market.

OptiSolar initially held a 10-year lease worth $22.5 million. McClellan Business Park sued OptiSolar in late March for unpaid rent and other expenses, but the parties settled quickly. Larry Kelley, president of McClellan Business Park, declined to provide details of the agreement Monday, but said OptiSolar has recently been making payments.

OptiSolar's troubles are part of a broader shakeout in a global photovoltaic sector likely to post a greater than 30 percent drop in shipments this year. It will be the industry's first year of contraction on record, according to Paula Mints, a solar market expert with Navigant Consulting in Palo Alto.

Photovoltaic manufacturing capacity worldwide will reach 11 gigawatts this year, but the industry is likely to ship less than 4 gigawatts worth of panels, Mints said.

Hayward-based OptiSolar once envisioned the McClellan factory employing as many as 1,000 workers building low-cost panels for solar farms that would cover thousands of acres in rural areas.

A $20 million package of tax incentives from Sacramento County helped lure the company here in March 2008, and for several months OptiSolar was the centerpiece of the region's green jobs push.

The company's local operations never got big enough to trigger the tax breaks. Employment at the McClellan plant peaked around 200.

OptiSolar did not respond to requests for comment.

Tracey Schaal, director of strategic marketing at the Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization, said green-technology companies, particularly European and East Asian firms, remain among the region's best prospects for new manufacturing jobs.

"People are seeing this as a good time to get into the region at a good price point," she said.

Schaal said one renewable-energy company is likely to announce a local investment shortly, but declined to give details.

Allen Wright, a junior at Del Campo High School, came up with his idea one day when feeling lonely. His iPhone application will, if it's approved by Apple, let people reach out to God through cyberspace; others can see the prayers and offer support with a thumbs-up sign.

For eons, people have reached out to the Almighty with prayers and supplications. Soon they might be able to use their iPhones.

Fair Oaks teenager Allen Wright thought up an application for the Apple iPhone called "A Note to God."

It lets iPhone users send prayers into cyberspace and allows them to read the prayers of others. The messages are stored in a database, and users remain anonymous.

Wright, 17, submitted his proposal to Medl Mobile, a Los Angeles startup that is developing apps for Apple to sell on its Web site. It selected "A Note to God" from 20,000 proposals.

"It's so simple, it's brilliant," said Andrew Maltin, one of the co-founders of Medl Mobile. "We think it's going to be extremely successful."

Wright, a junior at Del Campo High School and regular churchgoer, said he came up with the idea while lying in bed and feeling lonesome.

"If you want to send a message, and you don't have anybody to talk to, you could send a little prayer," he said.

Apps, which iPhone users download from Apple, range from free to $5 or more. Users can play games, find restaurants or transform their iPhones into remote controls. There are hundreds of other applications.

Successful apps can generate thousands or even millions of dollars for developers. Any proceeds from "A Note to God" would be split between Apple, Medl and Wright.

If his app becomes a big seller, Wright said he'd like to use his share of the profits to go to college.

Maltin said his firm is still waiting for approval from Apple, but it could come any day now. The Silicon Valley giant didn't respond to inquiries Monday.

Apple has rejected apps before for what it deemed inappropriate religious content, but Maltin said he didn't think that would happen with "A Note to God."

The application is not a joke, but a sincere way for people to reach out to the divine and to each other, he said.

Users can read each others' prayers and be supportive by clicking on a "thumbs up" sign, he said. Otherwise, they can't leave feedback or respond, he said.

Religious scholars contacted by The Bee on Monday welcomed the concept, although one offered a note of caution.

The Rev. James Murphy, vicar general of the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, agreed the iPhone app "could be a high-tech form of prayer and an authentic way to express our desires to God."

"There is in each one of us the need to communicate with the divine and to reach the transcendent," he said.

But he cautioned would-be users to question their motivations.

"Prayer is direct to God, and God should be the primary motive," he said. "If the motive is to be seen by others, be careful. There's a sense in which prayer is private."

He said whatever the form, prayers are heard. "God will hear it," he said. "You don't have to have his e-mail address."

Darleen Pryds, an expert in medieval religious practices at the Franciscan School of Theology – part of the Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley – called the app "a brilliant use of technology" that brings to mind the 13th-century bells summoning people to pray.

"This application sounds to me like a call to prayer," she said. "It creates a community of prayer, and by seeing other people's prayers, it is a reminder to pray yourself."

Wright, a lanky fair-haired teen, said he prays regularly and attends the New Life Community Church in Fair Oaks.

His favorite iPhone app is one that calls up quotes from Scripture.

In his suburban home on a quiet cul-de-sac, Wright demonstrated the working model of "A Note to God" on his iPhone.

He said the need to write a message focuses his prayer. The messages can be as long as you want, he said.

Wright's father, Tod Wright, said he was badly hurt in a bulldozer accident two years ago and has struggled to raise his children as a single dad while being out of work.

He said his family has been through a lot of hardship in the past five years. Cancer, divorce and the death of a baby grandchild have taken their toll, he said.

The 44-year-old Wright said people need a way to reach out when they are grappling with heartache, trouble and tragedy. His son's app might provide an outlet for their prayers.

"It's going to do something for a lot of people to help them through," he said. "Having a place you can send a message to your lost and loved ones – people you believe are your guardian angels."

"All of us could use some place to reach out," he said. "I think Allen's is perfect."

A working model of an iPhone application by a Fair Oaks teen.

Taylor Road Productions, promoters of the Galveston World Classic, will be announcing a deal for U.S. distribution of televised programming for the event. The event will be held at Moody Gardens in Galveston, TX September 11-20, 2009 and features over $1,000,000 in prize money. With large prize funds, huge crowds, and 24 hour free live streaming [...]

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3-Cushion USBA National Qualifier to be Held Three Days Taylor Road Productions, promoters of the Galveston World Classic, have announced that they will host a qualifier for the United States Billiards Association (USBA) National Championship. The Galveston World Classic is a heavily anticipated pool tournament that features over $1,000,000 in prizes and will be held [...]

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Dominiak Cues Northeast Amateur 10-Ball Tour / Windsor Locks, CT by InsidePOOL Staff The 2009 season of the Dominiak Cues Northeast Amateur 10-Ball Tour concluded with its finale July 18, with Tom Acciavatti coming out on top to take first place. The 40-player field was hosted by Pool Table Magic in Windsor Locks, CT, where owner Mark [...]