Santa Barbara

It's been almost a year, but Benjamin Markowitz still has trouble believing his childhood friends could have kidnapped and killed his younger brother. "In my worst nightmares, I never would have thought that that would have happened," Markowitz, 23, said last week in an interview. It was a brazen crime that stunned the West Valley, where most of the young suspects had grown up. They'd played baseball together on the well-groomed fields of a private league.

MUSIC The canonical L.A. songwriter and sonic collagist Beck hasn't released an album since 2008's "Modern Guilt," but he maintains a strong following and perhaps is rustling from a hibernation on this tour with the vagabond singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart. Santa Barbara Bowl, 1122 N. Milpas Ave., Santa Barbara. 7:30 p.m. Thu. $33-$51. sbbowl.com.

This tract, at the edge of the grand canyon of the Santa Ynez Mountains, is one of the most magnificent, in point of scenic glories, in Califor nia. --The view from Knapp's Castle, as reported by the Santa Barbara Morning Press, April 9, 1916 In 1916, George Owen Knapp's recurrent bouts of hay fever sent him high into the Santa Ynez Mountains behind Santa Barbara to seek relief.

Robert Van Handel remembered the boy as about 9 years old, tan, effeminate. "Now that I think back on it, he was probably the most beautiful child that I molested," Van Handel wrote to a therapist. Van Handel, a priest who ran a boys choir in Santa Barbara, said he coaxed the boy into posing for nude photographs. He described the experience as "stimulating" in a graphic account of improprieties he said he carried out at a Franciscan boarding school there. For decades, the now-shuttered St. Anthony's Seminary was awash in dark secrets.

I pulled aside the curtain and peered out the motel window. Palm trees swayed gently in the breeze. A cyclist pedaled along the oceanfront. Beyond him, the Pacific stretched out calm and blue as far as the eye could see. Nice view, I thought, given that my room rate was $79. Especially considering that I was in Santa Barbara, where hotel tariffs usually fetch a king's ransom. And my overnight stay even included a hearty free breakfast. Impossible, you say? Not with our travel-secret guide to Santa Barbara.

BASEBALL Richard Feliciano, Arcadia: Pitched two-hitter, drove in five runs in 6-1 Pacific League win over Glendale. SOFTBALL Lisa-Marie Kohrs, Malibu: Pitched three-hitter as Malibu beat Santa Clara, 6-2, for school's first Frontier League win in three years. BOYS' VOLLEYBALL Steve Klosterman, Huntington Beach Marina: His 48 kills and 10 aces led Vikings to four-game intersectional victory over Carlsbad La Costa Canyon.

He's a real swell guy--the strong, silent type. Having the appearance of a living, breathing 6-foot-tall, 180-pound macho man, Safe-T-Man is really just an inflatable doll made of latex, weighs only 7 pounds and deflates into a neat 2-foot-square package.

Like a horror-movie monster that pops up again after being pumped full of more holes than a pepper shaker, a plan to expand oil drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara just kept rising from the dead. Until now. After the ongoing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico delivered a better-late-than-never epiphany to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger , he announced Monday that he no longer supports the proposal. Given that the prime contenders for Schwarzenegger's job, Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Meg Whitman, both say they oppose new offshore drilling (Whitman says she'd approve new projects only if the environmental risks were next to zero)

What are we to make of Twitter? Just about anything we want. A blizzard of tweets on the micro-blogging website from Saturday night's celebrity-crowded White House Correspondents Dinner showered us with froth, frou-frou and photos. An audience of hundreds of thousands, or more, had access to the treacly tweets. From the far coast, meanwhile, an amateur Twitter reporter (Tweeporter?

I recommend this Santa Barbara bed-and-breakfast for its customer service, dedication and professionalism. I continue to love the quietness and peaceful atmosphere. The evening wines, pastries, cheeses, crackers, cakes and pies are excellent. Bath Street Inn, 1720 Bath St., Santa Barbara; (800) 549-2284, http://www.bathstreetinn.com . Rooms from $135. Thomas Ashley Carson

UC Santa Barbara, according to old stereotypes, may still conjure up the image of a lush campus by the beach, where students can squeeze in a few hours of surfing after class and live in a nearby neighborhood that is one of the nation's best-known party zones. But in reality, UC Santa Barbara over the last three decades increasingly has become a center of scientific research, and its move in that direction was strengthened Saturday with the announcement of a $50-million private donation to energy efficiency research and engineering programs.

The Boy Scouts of America is seeking to reverse a Santa Barbara judge's order to release 20 years' worth of confidential files detailing allegations of sexual abuse by troop leaders and others within its ranks. Lawyers for a former Scout, who was 13 when a volunteer leader sexually abused him in late 2007, contend the files will expose a "culture of hidden sexual abuse" in the organization and its failure to warn boys and their parents about "pedophilic wolves. " The negligence suit alleges that a local Scout executive tried to talk the boy's mother out of reporting the crime to police and cites that as an example of a longstanding effort to conceal widespread abuse in Scouting.

Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants bought the Canary Santa Barbara hotel and is looking for more Southern California inns to purchase, the company said. No major changes are planned for the 97-room boutique hotel on West Carrillo Street in downtown Santa Barbara, said Joe Long, chief investment officer. “The former owner's vision is consistent with what we do,” Long said. Kimpton favors highly designed, stylized hotels with chef-driven restaurants intended to appeal to local residents as well as travelers.

Before the launch of a top-secret spy satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base, a fleet of small drones will be doing some spying of their own. In yet another use of robotic aircraft, RQ-11 Raven drones equipped with high-powered video cameras will fly around the craggy launch site northwest of Santa Barbara, scouring the ground below to ensure that the area is clear for blastoff. "Public safety is our first priority during launch operations, " said Staff Sgt. Brandon Johnson, who is a Raven operator and crime prevention officer.

If ever there were a sure bet on the weather, Sunday would appear to be it. "We have 100% chance of rain," said Todd Hall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Rain is expected throughout the day, with a slight chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon, Hall said. The system will taper off to showers by afternoon or evening and clear out in time for Monday's commute. Rain amounts will range from three-quarters of an inch to as much as 3 inches in some Southern California mountain areas.

If you go Vintage Surfari Wagons, Costa Mesa; (949) 716-3135, (714) 585-7565, http://www.vwsurfari.com . Low season (November and March): three-day minimum; $100 a day, $650 a week. Mid-season (October, April and May): five-day minimum; $110 a day, $750 a week. High season (June-September), $850 a week. El Capitán State Beach, (805) 968-1033, http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=601 . Cold Spring Tavern, 5995 Stagecoach Road, Santa Barbara; (805)

Santa Barbara International Film Festival Where: Theaters in and around Santa Barbara, including the historic Arlington Theatre When: Thursday to Feb. 14 Price: Opening night film and gala, $60; four-ticket pack, $57 Contact: www.sbiff.org

The first smile came from the mechanic at the Jiffy Lube at the bottom of the hill. You know you're on to something good when you can make a tired guy light up, even if it's just for a second, at the end of a long workweek. By the time the weekend was over, we'd amassed way too many smiles to count and moved on to peace signs. (My favorites: from the surfer who looked like a bleached-blond Jesus and the panhandler who carried a sign saying, "I won't lie. I need beer. ") I'd like to think it was because we gals were so fetching, but I must admit it was probably - OK, certainly - the thing we were riding in: a spring-pea-green vintage VW camper with a paint job so shiny you could imagine that it was 1979 and that we'd just driven it off the showroom floor.