Work has stopped on a 40,000-square-foot conference center planned for Roseville. The city-funded project was supposed to serve as a springboard from which Placer Valley would dive into branding itself as a premier business and sports tourism destination. Now, city planners are in a holding pattern, waiting for timing, funding and manpower to realign, so the region can move forward with its plan to compete in California’s massive tourism market, which, in 2007, accounted for $96.7 billion in consumer spending.

Try as they might, some people are incapable of keeping a plant alive. As easy as maintaining a regular watering schedule, proper lighting and keeping pests away seems, these black thumbs, as they’ve been termed, can still turn the hardiest species into compost after a few weeks. Two recent gadgets give a leg up to gardeners who can’t quite get the swing and offer a chance to bring the power of networks and databases to everyday life.

If Napa County is wine country and Calaveras County is frog-jumping territory, where does that leave a place like Solano? Trying to catch up, perhaps.Thirty years ago Napa County was where Solano is today, says Solano County Supervisor Mike Reagan. In 1992, Napa brought in $361 million in tourism revenue, and with $319 million, Solano wasn’t far behind. Fast-forward to 2006: Napa brought in almost $890 million, but Solano’s revenue only rose to $554 million.