I visited Buena Vista Elementary school Friday and read to fourth and sixth graders. Here are the photos.

I read to Ms. Kelly Lukens’ 4th grade class and Ms. Heather Bair’s 6th grade class.

This was sent in by alert reader Curt Dalton. Ever catch anything unusual around here?

Hi Dianne:
 
You're probably not interested in this, but I thought I would send it to you anyway.
 
This is a photo of a piranha caught in a local lake.  The photo was taken by my father-in-law,  retired Kern County Fire Captain Jim McCullough and shows a piranha in the bottom of a five gallon plastic bucket. 

Do you know if anyone else has ever encountered an exotic species in the wild here in Kern County?
 
 
Curt Dalton

The fire happened at Mohawk and Truxtun Avenue. It involved a three car wreck and no one was injured according to fire and police.

And a lot of people saw it. The truck on fire put out really visible black smoke. We got a call from an off duty reporter and three people sent us photos. It''s really great to see so many people get out and record breaking news. Keep it up y'all.

The first four photos are from Sean Kenny, who appears to be shooting from the grass off the road from the fire.

The next four are from Waldo at Waldo's Pest Control. His job is to remove bee hives, he told me.

And the last shot is from Philip Smith, who is an air conditioning tech.

They were a lot of fun and I hope I didn't bore them, either. Took a lot of coffee to get through that morning. They've got a lot of energy.

I spoke to one of Ms. Dana Schilly's classes at West High on Sept. 29 about the work we do in journalism. Hope it wasn't too boring. Thanks for having me, y'all and keep working hard.

I was riding my bike to work this 4th of July morning when I nearly ran over several little kids crossing the street as part of a parade. I stopped and took a couple pictures.

A collegue tells me this parade is organized every year by Sue and Herb Benham. Sue of the city council and Herb, the Californian columnist.

I added another picture I took at the parade.

I visited a bunch of kids at a day camp program at Del Rio Elementary School today. The school is in southwest Bakersfield. They asked me a ton of questions about what reporters and photographers do at The Californian. If they've got more, and I'm sure they'll think of some, just e-mail me at cgeorge@bakersfield.com.

Check out the pictures. I think you'll have to agree these are pretty cool kids.