August 2005 Soni’s liquor store is across the street from our house in Upland. Upland is in San Bernardino County, part of the Inland Empire. In the last 3 years, more people have moved to the Inland Empire than anywhere else in the United States. Old Upland Downtown is over 100 years old. August 2005 cont'd Today is the country fair festival. There is a band in the gazebo, street vendors and pony rides. The event was widely publicized, but the turnout is terrible. Every week stores close downtown. A few miles away, in Rancho Cucamonga, is a typical crowded day at Victoria Gardens Mall. November 2005 My husband and I been restoring our house across from the liquor store for three years. We love it here and we love the house. It’s from 1900. I have tried to get historical status on the house, but there is no process for that in Upland. Everyone on our street really works on their homes. We all know each other and have an ecclectic happy community. November 2005 cont'd I have a theory that somehow, the liquor store keeps crime down... the owners seem to hire everyone who needs a job to hose the parking lot down. And people can get things on credit. It doesn’t seem to ever get robbed. A few months ago, a man came to our door and said that the city wants to put townhomes below the tracks. He asked us to sell, and we said no. We started looking at the developments that are beginning to surround us, investigating what the craze is all about. June 2006 Today, you can see the lightening over the Mojave. We watch it from our roof, which still radiates hear from the 105 degree day. We sold our house last week. I was offered a new job, and we are moving up north. We move in one week. Our neighbors got letters saying that our neighborhood is blighted and that the city of Upland can now use Eminent Domain. I had to explain to them what that meant.