With gift cards continuing to soar in popularity, a Woodland-based startup aims to bring their convenience to small businesses while cutting down on plastic.

For many dogs, cats, birds and fish, a veterinarian visit is best taken at home. There are several veterinarians in the Capital Region that offer this service for families willing to pay extra for the convenience and comfort of seeing a vet who comes to them.

Micah Kearns is no stranger to mistakes, failures, snafus or rock bottoms. Life experience, along with a gentle demeanor that suggests he is the physical embodiment of a “safe space,” make him quite the fit as chapter organizer of F—up Nights Sacramento.

Lance Hastings became president and CEO of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association in November 2018. Comstock’s spoke with Hastings about challenges faced by manufacturers and how CMTA works to improve the business climate.

Corey Sholes, a self-described skateboard fanatic, was 18 years old when he cut his first skateboard. Eventually, he started pressing his own boards using a vacuum press system, and making handcrafted boards became his full-time job and his business, Legend Skateboards, in 1994.

With industries moving at the speed of the internet, many companies have trouble keeping pace. Zennify, a Sacramento-based cloud solutions and consulting firm, wants to help legacy businesses catch up.

Sparrow 5 owner Marsha Taylor, who has a background in interior design and art, has operated her 2,100-square-foot shop in Roseville for seven years. Besides selling furniture and home accessories, Sparrow 5 carries the work of more than 70 local artists.

If you’ve ever started a new job and were told you were going to be “onboarded,” you may have had nightmarish visions of being connected up to the Borg or having your retinas scanned. (No? Just me? Maybe I watch too much science fiction.)

One in four Californians is unable to perform basic reading skills, but illiteracy is even higher among the prison population. State prison systems across the country are investing in education programs to give inmates a better chance at rehabilitation.

For anyone in the Sacramento area looking to get away for a day or weekend, the Capital Region has plenty of hidden gems — the many downtowns in rural enclaves that are easy to drive to and explore by foot.