Colorado Peace Ride

Davidson County, NC– With school out and more families looking to have fun on the water, one company wanted to send a message about safety.

Parents and kids were invited to come to High Rock Lake Saturday to have some fun and learn about water safety.

The free event comes two weeks after a boating accident that killed a mother and her child who were from Guilford County.

Alcoa hosted the event at High Rocks Pebble Beach swim area and gave away 100 life jackets to children who attended. Organizers also had food and other freebies for those who attended.

Parents and their children were able to see the patrol boats used by the Davidson County Sheriffs Office to patrol the lake.

The safety event was held on High Rock and Badin Lakes. Both lakes are owned by Alcoa.

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Hyundai has quite an array of sedans, from the Accent economy car to the Equus luxury machine. Hatchbacks, coupes and SUVs are in the mix, but sedans are the brands core.

The Sonata midsize sedan is perhaps the best known. And for people who want a bit more in size and features than that — but not the luxury trappings of the Genesis or Equus — the automaker redesigned its Azera sedan.

You can think of it as a bigger, fancier Sonata and youd be close enough. Its often compared with Toyota Avalon and Buick LaCrosse, which are about the same size.

Those are what pass for full-size cars today, but they really all are closer to midsize inside, offering about the same total passenger space as a Honda Accord, which is midsize.

Azera, at 107 cubic feet of passenger space, is the overall leader, but the range in the segment is small. Accords is about 103 cubic feet.

A higher or lower roof can affect the overall passenger space measurement quite a bit, so dont take those numbers as a perfect index of roominess. Azera shines in the space race in front-seat legroom. Its about 45 inches, which is 5 inches more than for most cars. The tradeoff is modest rear legroom, a few inches less than in rivals.

Unfortunately, theres not a lot of lateral leg space up front in the Azera. The center stack control panel that runs from the bottom of the dashboard to the floor console is wider than it needs to be. And the door handle/power-window-switch pod is your legs enemy on the other side.

After a short while, based on Test Drives time in a nicely equipped Azera, you can begin to feel a little pinched up front, especially if you like to lean your legs sideways instead of keeping them perfectly straight. The rivals, such as LaCrosse and Avalon, dont seem to have that problem.

Physiques and driving positions differ, so the space issue might be a bigger deal, or a smaller one, for you.

The bigger point, though, is that you shouldnt have to worry at all about such things if youre buying what you thought was a big car.

Also worth noting about the Azera:

Fuel economy. By our heavy-footed standards, it was terrific, nearly 20 mpg in a challenging mix of driving including some dense city-center traffic. Azeras only engine is a 3.3-liter V-6 rated 293 horsepower and 255 pounds-feet of torque. Those are competitive within the class.

Performance. Ho-hum. That engine runs well but isnt much fun. Floor the gas, no joy. Adequate, but nothing that makes you want to drive in sporting fashion. Which no doubt contributes to the good mpg.

Handling and ride comfort. A bit heavy-feeling in corners, as in the old days of front-drive cars. But the suspension tames wrinkled asphalt pretty well, and thats probably more important to buyers of large, premium sedans. Thing is, others do it better. Toyota, for example, did such a great job on the Avalon overhaul that it is both sporty and comfy and thus more appealing to drive.

Interior. Nicely done. Surfaces and textures and shapes are pleasing to see and touch. Controls are mostly logical and easy to operate. Leather upholstery is standard, as are navigation and heated front and rear seats. Hyundai has not forgotten that being a good value is a huge part of its brand appeal

Styling. Its what Hyundai calls the fluidic look, matching Sonatas theme. Test Drive finds it appealing, though thinks it may look dated in a few years. Porsche 911 sports cars have looked different over the years, but they never look out-of-date, or wrong. So its possible to be both stylish and enduring.

Pickups are that way. Some look older, some newer, but they all look right. You might refuse to buy a used truck because of its equipment or the miles it has gone, but youd be unlikely to reject it because of looks.

Reasonable people often disagree on matters of taste, so your eye might give you other signals.

A word about that $4,000 technology package a lot of Azeras will have. Its not a tech package, its a comfort/convenience package. The car has so much tech stuff standard that its hard to figure why Hyundai uses technology as the name for a suite of features headlined by bigger wheels, brighter lights and an adjustable steering column.

And, a word about the cars turning-circle diameter. Its not very big, tighter, in fact, than some midsize sedans. That makes Azera, despite its hefty exterior dimensions, a snap to park. Theres been a tendency toward ever bigger turning circles, often due to todays trendy big, wide tires. A car thats hard to turn around, or requires you to stop, back up, then finish the turn, doesnt do anybody any good. Thanks, Hyundai.

Azera has a lot going for it, but it wont satisfy people who like sporty engagement with their cars.

HYUNDAI AZERA DETAILS

What? Not-quite-full-size, four-door, front-drive sedan that slots into Hyundais lineup above the Sonata and below the Genesis; redesigned for 2012 model and unchanged for 2013.

When? The 2013 has been on sale since September after a brief 2012 model year after the redesign rolled out earlier in the year.

Where? Made in South Korea.

How much? Starts at $33,145 including shipping. Many will have the technology package, a $4,000 option.

What makes it go? 3.3-liter V-6 rated 293 horsepower at 6,400 rpm, 255 pounds-feet at 5,200, six-speed automatic transmission with manual-shift mode.

How big? About the same as Toyota Avalon, Buick LaCrosse.

Passenger space, 107 cubic feet. Trunk, 16.3 cu. ft.

Turning circle diameter, 36.5 ft.

How thirsty? Rated 20 mpg in the city, 29 mpg on the highway, 23 in combined city/highway use.

Trip computer in test car registered 19.5 mpg (5.13 gallons per 100 miles) in mix of routine suburban driving, fast highway driving and a heavy dose of urban stop-go.

Burns regular, holds 18.5 gal.

Overall: Spiffy looking, lavish standard features, but unexciting to drive.

Tags: Fun

When I was a youngster, my mother surprised the family one evening by setting upon our dinner table a platter of what, by tradition and consensus, should have been brownies, but werent. Theyre blondies, she exclaimed. I just found the recipe in Wednesdays food section.

There were glum faces all around, especially mine … until I bit into one of these newfangled confections, and then we had a new dessert favorite around the house.

All this came to mind recently when I bit into a new chocolate bar from Valrhona called Dulcey Chocolate Bar. It is a blond chocolate and it is like no other chocolate youve tasted. I expect there will be numerous copycats pretty soon.

Perhaps blond or blonde (have it your way) is becoming a bit of a trend now that Starbucks has triumphed with its Blonde coffee roast, aimed at people who havent quite figured out why anyone likes their ultra dark roasts, or what diehard Dunkin Donuts drinkers call Charbucks.

The blondie my mother made reminded me of those shortbread cookies that came in fancy cans from gourmet stores. Valrhona, in fact, describes its Dulcey bar as having the aroma of roasted Breton shortbread.

But to me this new bar tastes like a shockingly rich dulce de leche, which is an insanely popular dessert in Latin America. You make it by slowly cooking sweetened condensed milk until in caramelizes and turns the irresistible color of butterscotch. You can try this at home by standing an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk in a pot of water and then boiling it for several hours — which is a perilous thing to do since the can can explode, covering your kitchen, and you, with molten liquid. But Ive done it several times, and can safely confirm that Valrhonas blond chocolate is a dead ringer for dulce de leche, only better.

Between Starbucks and Valrhona, perhaps were watching a new market category emerging. After all, Americans also are abandoning dark colas in droves, shifting to lighter juice blends and waters.

Hmmm. How to describe it? Tasting nothing like conventional milk chocolate, and unlike dark chocolate, which requires some serious chewing, butterscotch-hued Dulcey melts voluptuously in your mouth. It is at once caramel-ly and uber-creamy with a lovely rich aftertaste. And it was invented by mistake! FrÃdÃric Bau, director of Valrhonas chocolate school, Ecole du Grand Chocolat, inadvertently left a bowl of molten white chocolate on top of a bain-marie and let it cook for hours until it morphed into a brand new category. The company is careful to say that Dulcey is not, however, roasted white chocolate but is, instead, a distinct shelf-stable product due to its unique production process and ingredients.

Ive heard that serious pastry chefs are experimenting with this new flavor profile and Im intrigued how theyre using it. Ghaya Oliveira at Boulud Sud in New York City has created Cremoso — a panna cotta made with dulcey, hazelnut paste, napped with sumac cream and garnished with chocolate hazelnut crunch. And others, coast-to-coast, are experimenting with it now. From Colleen Grapes, the pastry chef at The Harrison in NY (just love her name), to Elwyn Boyles, pastry chef at Per Se, Michael Aguilar of Wolfgang Pucks WP24 in Los Angeles, Kelly Fields of John Beshs August restaurant in New Orleans, to Dana Cree of Blackbird in Chicago. Others are flocking.

I, too, am eager to try tucking Dulcey into dessert somewhere between a brownie and the blondie that my mother made for dinner all those years ago. Note to Ben Jerry: Blond Coffee Ice Cream with Blond Chocolate Chips would be quite divine, no? You could call it Marilyn.

Rozanne Gold is a four-time James Beard award-winning chef and author of Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs, Healthy 1-2-3, and Radically Simple: Brilliant Flavors with Breathtaking Ease.

Rozanne can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RozanneGold.

Tags: Fun

Tags: Fun

NEW YORK — Its your standard all-in-one consumer-oriented desktop computer: the guts of the system are concealed behind a 27-inch touch-screen. Microsofts tile-based Windows 8 operating system inhabits that screen.

Except it is anything but standard. Lay it flat, and something funny happens. Windows 8 disappears, and a new touch overlay called Aura takes over.

You have entered Lenovos world of tabletop computing, a social environment for playing games, sharing photos and listening to music. Im testing the companys new IdeaCentre Horizon, a dual-purpose system that was one of the coolest things I saw at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

I was pumped to try it then, and now that its finally becoming available to consumers, I was equally eager to try it at home. While Im not ready to predict that table computing will catch on in a major way, Lenovos machine promises to keep you engaged and (literally) in touch with friends and family.

As a table PC, it is fun: Two or more people can simultaneously interact, competing in virtual air hockey, Monopoly or trying their luck spinning a roulette wheel. The Lenovo supports what the industry refers to as 10-point multitouch, so a bunch of you can get your paws on it at once.

But it is also an all-in-one that functions like any other Windows 8 desktop PC.

Whatever you think of Microsofts latest operating system — enough people have complained loudly that the company is already preparing an update, code-named Windows Blue — there have been some innovative, if not always compelling, hardware designs meant to take advantage of Windows 8s flexibility. Weve seen laptop designs that fold or twist or have components that can be detached altogether to transform into a keyboard-less touch-screen tablet.

A different transformation takes place on the IdeaCentre Horizon. Its not a laptop and wont ever be a tablet. Youre not removing parts or twisting or folding anything, youre merely changing the way that you position the computer. In desktop mode, it can be propped up at various angles via a stand on the back. Lay it horizontally, and Windows 8 retreats in the background while Aura commands center stage. (You do still have the option to run Windows 8 while the machine is flat or run Aura when the computer is propped up.)

Thats when you and your friends are encouraged to gather round this touch-friendly interface, essentially, a rotating circular widget with icons for games, education, music, video, photos, apps and a Lenovo App Store. As part of Aura, you can be watching a video in one corner of the display at the same time that your pal is admiring pictures in another area. Theres ample room on the screen for a bunch of things to be happening at once.

When you tap an icon to select photos, say, all the pictures spill out into a filmstrip. You can tap or drag a picture onto the surface using familiar pinch and zoom gestures to manipulate the images. You can rotate pictures or have them almost fill the screen. When youre done, you can cast them off to the edge of the screen using a five-finger push gesture. You can repeat the gesture to make them disappear altogether.

Aura is at its best in game-play mode, though it wasnt always obvious how to shut down certain programs or silence annoying music.

Another frustration: I pressed an auto rotate button on the bezel so that some full-screen applications were upside down from my perspective. But pressing the auto rotate button a second time didnt reorient the display. I could only make things right side up again by opening the Windows 8 desktop, then pressing the auto rotate button.

Still, I had a good time playing air hockey against my daughter, with each of us using a physical striker to shoot a virtual puck. The striker is one of the real physical pieces that you can use in some games, activities that Lenovo refers to as phygital. For example, I used rechargeable e-dice, when playing Monopoly. The e-dice communicates with a dongle connected to a USB. You can also use a joystick accessory with certain games.

Among other apps preloaded on my system is DrawRace 2 from Ubisoft, and Texas Hold Em. You can also fetch Android apps from the BlueStacks app player. My daughter was partial to a Lenovo Fishing Joy game.

Lenovos machine conjures up memories of the original Microsoft Surface, not the tablet computer that Microsoft now sells, but rather a 30-inch, interactive tabletop computer pushed by Bill Gates that recognized and responded to objects and human touch. Now rebranded Microsoft PixelSense, you can still spot such machines in stores, hotels and other commercial establishments, but they never quite made it to your den or living room.

Where exactly in your house Lenovos IdeaCentre might reside remains anyones guess. In standard computer mode, it might belong in the home office. But that may not be the ideal location when you want to play and go social.

At nearly 18 pounds, the machine is light enough to lug to another room. It even has a lithium-polymer battery thats useful if connecting to a power outlet is an obstacle. But youre looking at only two hours of juice, at best.

My test $1,849 configuration (which ships in a couple of weeks but can be ordered online now at lenovo.com) has an Intel Core i7 processor, GeForce video graphics, webcam, 8 gigabytes of memory and a 1-terabyte hard drive with a (1920 x 1080) high-definition screen. On board are two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI connector, a memory card slot, and pretty good-sounding stereo speakers backed by Dolby Home Theater sound. Similarly configured versions will drop to $1,599 when it hits retail, with a Core i5 model fetching $1,499.

Lenovo will also sell an adjustable multimode table on wheels as an accessory this summer to accommodate the Horizon system. Its expected to cost about $149.

Bill Gates had a grand vision for table computing when he was still a full-time Microsoft executive. Lenovo has latched onto the idea with IdeaCentre and made an all-in-one PC all the more appealing.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow @edbaig on Twitter.

The bottom line

Lenovo IdeaCentre Horizon table PC

www.lenovo.com

$1,849 (for test configuration)

Pro. Can be transformed from all-in-one PC to more social table computer thats good for games, pictures and more.

Con. Not always intuitive to use.

Tags: Fun

The American Idolresults are in!

On the heels of the news that Randy Jacksonwill be leaving after 12 seasons of sitting in judgment of hundreds of aspiring pop stars (news that Ryan Seacrest couldnt help but acknowledge), another talented young lady was sent home tonightjustshy of next weeks finale.

Of course, a little later on, well be revealing whois leaving our show, Ryan said, turning Randys chair slightly and giving him a pointed look. The veteran judge played coy, shaking his head and laughing as if he didnt know whatRyan could possibly be referring to.

NEWS: Four new Idoljudges wanted for next year

Maybe a heads-up? Ryan cracked before moving on to the first order of business of the night: Candice Glover, Kree Harrison and Angie Miller joining forces on Selena Gomezs Who Says.

But the piegrave;ce de resistance was, of course, the elimination.

And it is Angie who will not be competing for the Idolcrown. She couldnt help but choke up as her most memorable moments on the show flashed by in a montageand then, tears flowing, she was barely able to power through a cover of Colton Dixons Never Gone, one of her biggest hits from earlier in the season.

So, its Candice and Kree for all the marbles next week! Best of luck, ladies!

Do you think the right pair made the finale? Sound off in the comments!

PHOTOS: All-time greatest Idol hits

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SANTA CRUZ — Two brothers who died in a canoe accident at Lexington Reservoir on Sunday were remembered by their friends and family as a fun-loving pair who both worked for Apple.

Nicholas Xavier Nell, a 35-year-old from Scotts Valley, and Raymond Jacob Nell, a 30-year-old from Aptos, drowned after their canoe flipped in windy conditions, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroners Office.

Nick, as his friends called him, was married to Renee Goodrich for 11 years and worked as an iTunes corrections manager.

Ray was a mentor at an Apple retail store in Monterey. He graduated from San Lorenzo Valley High School and CSU Monterey Bay with a degree in education.

They loved challenging themselves and each other with physical sports and elaborate word games and puns, the Nell family said in a statement Wednesday.

They loved helping their friends and assisting people in need with no thought for recognition. They teased each other endlessly, and they stood together when any of their siblings needed support.

They are survived by their brother Ben Nell, sister Meggie Nell and parents Fernando Nell, of Scotts Valley and Diane Nell, of Felton.

Authorities have not said what caused the canoe to flip. The brothers 16-year-old and 25-year-old cousins, who also were in the boat, swam to shore and survived.

No one was wearing a life jacket, which are required to be worn or readily accessible,

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Review: Sightseers is bloody good fun

Ben Wheatleys latest comic assault features an ecocentric Bonnie and Clyde who are out to rid the British countryside of societys modern ills. A litterbug? Be very afraid.

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I know you are tired of Tebow talk, as am I. Is there a way to voice our support to Caldwell, Bradley and Khan so they know there is a large contingent behind doing things their way and not Gator Nations way? We need to be heard.

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San Franciscos Exploratorium, one of the nations most successful science and technology centers, has just opened its brand new location. Spencer Michels reports on how the centers hands-on teaching approach peaks the imaginations of children and adults alike.

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