The rains came and the water's flowing! This week's Phoenix Friday Cool Spot is the Salt River Recreation area. Tubing down the Salt River is a long-standing tradition in the Phoenix area. Everyone has to do it at least once, and some people do it several times per year. It's like visiting the Grand Canyon--you can't live here and not go tubing on the Salt. You can certainly go Salt River Tubing this and every weekend, but it is much less crowded during the week, if you can get away from your day job....

This Saturday, July 19, 2008, you can wear a costume at Salt River Tubing because it's Halloween in July! Will you ride on on Betty’s Haunted Bus?

Did you know that restaurant and food service employment represents about 10% of the total employment in Arizona? The Arizona Restaurant Association doesn't see that slowing down any time soon, projecting that over the next 8 years more than 70,000 additional new jobs will be created in that sector.

We'll have more places to eat, and the inspectors will have an ever increasing workload! I certainly hope that for health and safety, they are able to keep up with the restaurant inspections over the coming years.

This month was a slow month for violators. That's a good thing! I have never eaten at Speedy Pit Stop; it doesn't sound especially appealing, but then I don't expect I'll be checking it out soon, judging from the number of major violations they had. See who should be sitting in the naughty chair for June 2008, and check out the hundreds of restaurants that had zero major violations last month. Read more...

UPDATE, JULY 18: The City of Phoenix is starting to reopn pools today. Here is the list.

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UPDATE, JULY 17: A second pool within the City of Phoenix, the Marivue Pool at 56th Avenue and Osborn, has now also been confirmed to have the cryptosporidium parasite present. Did the same infected person visit both pools? They are very close to one another....Let's hope that that's what happened. In any case, the City of Phoenix won't open their pools until they are certain they are safe. The City of Glendale wants you to know that all their pools are open!

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The City of Phoenix is closing all 29 public swimming pools after a parasite (cryptosporidium) was found to be contaminating the Starlight City Pool at 78th Avenue and Osborn Road.

Although no other pools are known to have that parasite, Phoenix is closing the pools as a safety measure. They will be super-chlorinating all the pools and then stabilizing them. The process will take about a week. City officials assure us that the swimming pool parasite is unrelated to our drinking water, which is safe.

How do you know if you were affected the parasite? If you develop watery diarrhea that does not clear within a few days, you might have picked it up. Contact your doctor.

Gas prices, food prices, electricity -- if you ever leave your house you know that prices have gone up dramatically recently. Unfortunately, not everyone's income has increased commensurately.

That means you might have to consider cutting back on nonessential expenses.

The Glendale Public Library shared with me 5 very specific ways that you can save money by utilizing their extensive list of services and databases. Read more...