Gold Mine: February 2023

A-1 Guaranteed Heating and Air Conditioning considers whole home

SUSAN HILAND SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

Richard and Krissy Hiteshew opened A-1 Guaranteed Heating and Air Conditioning 27 ago on Valentine’s Day.

The idea to run his own business came to Richard Hiteshew after working for a company that didn’t really fit with what he wanted for his life.

“My daughter had a birthday and I asked for the day off a month in advance and I didn’t get it,” he said. “I came home that day and told my wife I was quitting and starting my own business.”

Their four children are now grown and three of them are working with him today, along with a crew of about 25 employees.

One of the employees just celebrated 20 years with the company. They threw him a small party in celebration of that accomplishment.

Hiteshew said he has learned a lot over the years as his own boss and expanded his repertoire to include not only repairs and installations of heating or air conditioners but to see the whole house as being part of the solution to a client’s home comfort.

He became a certified plumber, although he doesn’t actually do plumbing, but got certified so he could install the solar.

“After taking a BPI certification, I look at the house as a whole heating and air solution,” he said.

Building Performance Institute certification helped teach him to

perform comprehensive, whole-home assessments, identify problems at their root cause, and prescribe and prioritize solutions based on building science.

“This helps to make the system more efficient, safer and more comfortable for clients,” he said.

A-1 Guaranteed can install solar water heaters, tankless water heaters, windows and more with the idea of

heating or cooling being the most efficient as possible.

The company was considered an essential business during the pandemic, which means they were able to keep the doors open – and they were busy.

“People were working from home and realized that the furnace needed to be replaced,” co-owner Krissy Hiteshew said. “It made a lot of people aware of their HVAC.”

With the extra time and money from the government, many people finally did the upgrades they needed to get done. They also put in new units.

“So it wasn’t all doom and gloom,” she said.

One of the things she noticed was the amount of rebate money that came back to people, which she said was more than in past years.

“I saw people getting $3,000 to $4,000 back on rebates,” she said. “Now that isn’t the same as during those years, but people are still able to get rebates back.”

One thing people are not willing to compromise on is their comfort – and proper heating and cooling is essential for creature comforts.

A-1 Guaranteed has also implemented Kasey’s Club, which is a service club for customers that helps keep customers’ air conditioning and heating in tip-top shape. It also happens to be named after the Hiteshews’ daughter.

“It is like a gym membership club where customers can get discounts on home repairs,” Krissy Hiteshew said.

COURTESY PHOTO

A-1 Guaranteed is an HVAC contractor serving Solano, Napa and Contra Costa counties.

La Guagua offers culinary tour of Central, South American nations

SUSAN HILAND SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

La Guagua Latin Café is a family business that brings the tastes of many Latin countries together under one roof.

The owners’ dream of opening a café started back in 2020 but with the pandemic raging, they felt it was not the best time to open a new business, manager Fernanea Flores said.

“We started looking for a space and it was very difficult,” Flores said.

Eventually they decided on a spot in the Marina Shopping Center.

“They thought about opening in Vacaville but this just felt like the place it should be,” she said.

“We wanted a restaurant that celebrated Latinos and showcased the many flavors and cultures of their countries,” Flores said.

Visitors to La Guagua can taste candies from Mexico and dive in to dishes from Puerto Rico, Cuba, El Salvador and Peru, to name just a few places.

“This is a very diverse family,” Flores said. “We all come with different favorite recipes.”

A lot of people get confused thinking this is a traditional Mexican restaurant. It is not; it is a restaurant with the flavors of many Latin countries all in one place.

The name “guaguas” in many Latin countries refers to buses, which is a little like the experience of eating at La Guagua because it’s a ride through the cuisine of many nations.

The restaurant offers a mix of diverse traditional plates, baked goods, homemade empanadas, drinks, and coffee from Latin America.

One of the challenges with that is the spicing because many of the spices are not ones found in the United States.

“We found a wholesale place in San Francisco that helps us with that issue,” Flores said.

The cafe has partnered with Vasquez Coffee, a local coffee roaster in San Francisco that imports the best coffee beans from multiple Latin

American countries.

“She brings in beans from all over,” Flores said.

La Guagua also offers a special of the month, changing out dishes each month from different countries.

The cafe is not just a restaurant but also a bakery and coffee shop.

“Everything here is homemade,” Flores said. “Our breads, our pastries and our dishes.”

The recipes at La Guaguas are from the homes of family members.

“The mission is to share with the customers dishes the way we love them,” Flores said.

ROBINSON KUNTZ/DAILY REPUBLIC La Guagua Latin Café is located in the Marina Shopping Center in Suisun City.

Solano County Animal Care serves pets, strays, families

SUSAN HILAND SHILAND@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET

Solano County Animal Care Division is responsible for the care of all stray, injured, abandoned and unwanted animals for the seven surrounding cities: Benicia, Dixon, Fairfield, Rio Vista, Suisun City, Vacaville and Vallejo.

The shelter offers a variety of programs and helps assist in facilitating the safe return of pets to families in addition to the other work they do.

Many people don’t realize, but a lost pet may be picked up by Animal Control and taken to the facility, or if someone finds a pet, they can bring it to the shelter.

The found pet can be brought to the shelter during regular business hours. A government-issued identification is required to drop off an animal.

The person who brings in the found pet will fill out a form with all the information they know about the situation. The shelter staff will post that information on the shelter’s website to help families find their lost pet.

The animal shelter also has a “Lost Animal” binder for people to look at to find their pet. People may stop by and look at the binder during normal business hours.

A found animal can be scanned at the shelter for a microchip or at a vets office. The chip will have the animal owner’s information on it along with a phone number.

If the finder choses to keep a found animal longer than 30 days, they have assumed the responsibility of ownership. This includes doing their due diligence to locate an owner as described above and feeding feral cats. Dogs must be licensed within 30 days of ownership.

Solano County Sheriff’s Office Animal Care Division places animals in its foster program that are under the age for adoption and also for medical reasons. With the foster program, the agency provides all supplies that are needed for the care of the animal, including veterinary services.

They also have a program for cats, called the Community Cat Programs.

Community Cat Programs assess the needs of every community cat entering care and provides the most beneficial pathway.

Studies have found the best approach for healthy community cats is to spay/neuter and vaccinate them, and then quickly return them to their outdoor homes. Community Cat Programs are the most humane and effective way to manage free-roaming cat populations while reducing their impact on wildlife populations and public health, according to the shelter’s website.

If an adult community cat is sick or injured, it should be assessed to determine treatment and returned once it

is safe for that cat. In some cases, when sick or injured cats require more extensive medical care and are not eligible for return outdoors, they should be admitted to the shelter.

Kittens less than 4 months of age should be individually assessed to determine the best live outcome for each one.

Shelters that support community cats are not “putting cats out there” but rather supporting the cats that are already there, thriving in outdoor environments, and altering them to slowly, effectively and humanely reduce the overall population, according to the shelter’s website. Euthanizing community cats in shelters does not reduce the number of free-roaming cats, nor does it decrease the predation of wildlife. Instead, removed cats create a vacuum that is filled by new cats.

The shelter also offers a place to go to rehome pets.

Shelter staff hope pet owners will look into all other options before surrendering a pet because the shelter is stressful for animals that are giving up.

The shelter does have a surrender fee for pets.

The animal shelter of course offers adoptions for animals. The animals available may be viewed at solanocounty.com/animalcare or at petharbor.com: Type the ZIP code 94533, select the Solano County Animal Shelter box, then choose the adoptable pets option.

The Solano County Animal Shelter is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. They are closed for lunch from 1 to 2 p.m. and are closed all day Sunday and Monday.

For more information, call 707-7841356 and choose Option 0.

AARON ROSENBLATT/DAILY REPUBLIC FILE (2018)

Ian, left, and Lori Shubin, center, introduce their dog, Moose, back, to their newly adopted dog, Cane, during Empty the Shelters at the Solano County Animal Care in Fairfield, Dec. 1, 2018.

ACROSS

1. River in Tuscany

5. A way to represent

8. Rocker’s guitar

12. Civil Rights group

14. Brew

15. Scratch

16. W. Asian country

18. The Eye Network

19. Clarified butter

20. Part of the Cascade Range

21. Downwind

22. A way to steer

23. Loop

26. Not ingested

30. Swampy coniferous forest

31. Musician

32. Signing

33. Containing iron

34. Part of a theorem or proof

39. Veterans battleground (slang)

42. Of enormous proportions

44. Italian city

46. Come before

47. Balm

49. Undergarments

50. Male parent

51. Ropes

56. Ear part

57. Investment vehicle

58. Dictator

59. Cain and __

60. A type of code

61. Border river along India and Nepal

62. It’s what’s for dinner

63. Consume

64. Christian __, designer

DOWN

1. Cuckoos

2. Skin issue

3. City in central Japan

4. Sorrels

5. Twinned diamond

6. Canadian province

7. Monetary units

8. Head honcho

9. Goddess of wisdom

10. Part of a play

11. Get rid of

13. Applicant

17. Bowling alleys have many

24. Explosive

25. “The Say Hey Kid”

26. Ultrahigh frequency

27. No (Scottish)

28. Make a mistake

29. Credit card term

35. Keyboard key

36. Woman (French)

37. In the middle of

38. Score perfectly

40. Coat a metal with an oxide coat

41. Deadly disease

SOLUTION ON PAGE 14

42. A place to dock a boat (abbr.)

43. Belch

44. Member of U.S. Navy

45. “In __”: separate from others

47. Examine extensively

48. Adjust

49. Tattle

52. Actor Pitt

53. Gulls

54. Within

55. Exceptionally talented performer

PUZZLES

Sudoku

FUN BY THE NUMBERS

Like puzzles? Then you’ll love Sudoku. This mind-bending puzzle will have you hooked from the moment you square off, so sharpen your pencil and put your Sudoku savvy to the test!

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:

Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve a sudoku, the numbers 1 through 9 must fill each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can figure out the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes. The more numbers you name, the easier it gets to solve the puzzle!

PUZZLES

Word Search

VISION CHECK

ABERROMETER

ALLERGY

ANISOCORIA

ASTIGMATISM

BENIGN

BIFOCAL BLEPHARITIS

BRIDGE

CATARACT

CHAMBER

COATING CONE

CORNEA

DIOPTER

DISORDER

GLAUCOMA LENS

MACULA

OPTICAL

REDNESS

SOLUTION ON PAGE 14

REFRACTIVE RETINA

SWELLING TEARS

Find the hidden words vertically, horizontally and diagonally throughout the puzzle.

PUZZLE SOLUTIONS ANSWERS

PAGE 10

PAGE 8

PAGE 12

WORD SEARCH SOLUTION