Power outages plagued a portion of downtown Bakersfield Monday, leaving government offices and at least one school without air conditioning on one of the hottest days of the year.

PG&E spokesman Kory Raftery confirmed that equipment failure caused an outage from about 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., which affected about 900 customers at its peak.

The loss of electrical service affected an area stretching from 14th Street north to 30th Street, and from Chester Avenue to Union Avenue.

The power outage brought a premature end to summer school classes at Bakersfield High School and cut power to Kern County Superior Court and the county administration building on Truxtun Avenue.

Even at The Californian, which is equipped with emergency generator power, the power clicked on and off at least three times.

Meanwhile, PG&E asked customers to conserve electrical use during spikes in temperature.

What about you? Has your power gone out today? If so, let us know where you live, when your power was out and how it affected you.

As the mercury rises, I keep telling myself, daytime high temps during most of June were well under normal -- so we're overdue for a spike.

Well, it's definitely here NOW with highs in the San Joaquin Valley expected to be between 102 and 110 degrees Sunday and Monday, with more hot days ahead.

The upside? I've been munching on an incredible canary melon that tastes like a cross between a honeydew melon and a firm pear. And blackberries, cherries ... well, you get the point. With the heat comes great fruit treats.

Also ... it's not just Bakersfield. Beautiful Yosemite Valley is expected to reach at least 102 degrees today.

But Bako people are experts at surviving and even thriving in the kind of heat that would melt a New Englander.

Share your secrets. How do you get through the dog days of summer?

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Bad medicine: People skimping on treatment

Bakersfield waitress Rebecca Maitz knows what it's like to choose between buying groceries and paying for a doctor's prescription.

When she contracted a serious double infection, her doctor prescribed a super antibiotic. But when the clerk at her pharmacy rang up a bill for $365, Maitz knew she was in trouble.

But she's not alone.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation health tracking survey, a majority of Americans say they or someone in their household have put off health care for cost reasons over the course of the last year.

Yet experts say cutting corners can endanger your health and jack up long-term health costs.

In this troubled economy, have you skipped medical tests, put off dental care, cut prescription pills in half or taken similar steps because of cost?

Hart Park has become the scene of a worrisome spike in hate crimes in recent weeks.

But two Oildale men have already been sentenced to state prison as a result.

In as many as three incidents in as many weeks, skinhead gang members from Oildale have reportedly visited Hart Park and shouted "white pride" style slogans and racial epithets at people visiting the park.

Physical assaults have followed, authorities have confirmed. Criminal charges, too.

Tough economic times have historically brought out the worst race-bashing blame-gaming in Americans, but haven't we grown up a lot in recent decades and gotten past blaming the "other" for all that ails America?

If any blog could devolve into finger pointing and race-based crap, this is it.

DON'T LET IT HAPPEN. Let's talk about this like intelligent life forms.

First read the full story here. Then come back and BLOG!

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It’s been about three weeks since Bakersfield reopened a completely transformed Central Park east of the city’s downtown district.

The $3.3 million project boasts a late-19th-century-theme featuring a covered bridge, a canal transformed into a beautiful waterway, and a wireless hot spot designed to draw business people and those riding the digital wave.

The park’s towering shade trees have remained in place as have the paddling ducks that delighted generations of Bakersfield children.

But some wonder if the park’s million-dollar makeover is enough to bring families and business people back to the park in significant numbers.

For years, Central Park has been a haven of sorts for the homeless and dispossessed who haunted the nearby Salvation Army or rented rooms at Union Avenue motels a few blocks to the east.

It wasn’t unusual to see men sleeping in the park, or small groups sharing a bottle wrapped in plain brown paper.

During several visits to the park since its grand re-opening, the sight of men sleeping under the trees has been fairly common.

There’s no law prohibiting a nap in the park during the regular hours of operation. That’s true.

So what’s the answer?

We've all seen forecasts for fair weather turn to cinders. We've all had our hopes dashed when the powerful summer sun turns up the heat, erasing shadows all over town and making our heads feel like chicken livers jumping and sizzling in a hot iron skillet.

But with high temperatures in the 70s and low-80s for the past 10 days (and weather looking great for the next week), many locals seem to be developing a coastal state of mind.

How 'bout you? Are the windows open at home? A/C off? Top down on the ... convertible? How has this incredible June changed your life?

First up was the county assessor's office .. in line for nine layoffs in addition to continued vacancies in several unfunded positions.

Believe it or not, supes were leaning toward giving the appraiser's office more money, not less. Why? Because tax appraisals generate revenue.

Interesting! But they want to be sure the need is there.

The Kern County grand jury is sending a strongly worded message to the county Board of Supervisors: Think twice, jurors warn, before cutting deeply into the budget of the Kern County Public Defender’s office.

Even as the grand jury acknowledged the need to chop spending in a variety of county departments, jurors concluded that large cuts to the public defender’s office would simply shift the cost of representing the accused, resulting in even higher costs to the county.

“The county administrator’s office is not paying attention to all consequences of an across-the-board 15 percent cut in the budget,” the grand jury said in its report. “The habit lately seems to be show the cut and deal with the consequences later.”

The grand jury said county administrators need to go back to the drawing board and take another look at “reducing the budget hit on the public defender’s office.”