Is a steady stream of state regulations driving the price of housing out of the reach of most Californians? And I visit the new Happy Hour Bar and Tapas while readers give me tips of dealing with weevils

 * ... HOUSING CRISIS: A steady stream of state mandated regulations is increasing the cost of new home building, creating a housing crisis that is pushing the cost of an average home out of reach of most Californians. That was the word from Matt Towery and Dave Dmohowski of the Home

Builders Association of Kern County who appeared on my radio show this week. Dmohowski, the HBA's executive officer, said there are literally more than 130 bills pending in Sacramento that would increase the cost of building a home, legislation that could add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a new home. The regulations deal with everything from mandating homes be more energy efficient to small transactional fees that drive up the cost of housing.

 * ... HAPPY HOUR: I finally got around to checking out Happy Hour Bar and Tapas, one of our downtown's newer eateries. Located on 18th Street near Chester Avenue, Happy Hour is a cheerful bar featuring some amazing smaller dishes. Among my favorites were the chicken waffle sliders and a delectable version of the standard chicken tender that come with a mouth watering white sauce.

 * ... SPOTTED ON TWITTER: "Relationships should come with an icon that shows you how much time you have left like your phone’s battery."

 * ... SPOTTED ON FACEBOOK: "Attended a health fair today and a young, presumptuous sales clerk asked if I wanted a free diabetes cookbook. I responded, 'Why would I want to cook diabetes?'"

 * ... WEEVILS: When I wrote about the appearance of weevils in my cupboard and gnats outside, it triggered a few responses like this one from Mary Helen Barro: "Tell your readers that they should put a few bay leaves in all flour products. It will keep the weevils away. Also, it may be time to remind folks again about taking vitamin B-1 to repel mosquitos. Mosquitos tend to bite people that are low in B-1. At least, that’s what my doctor told me decades ago, when I was attacked by a swarm of mosquitos. Since then, I take B-1 and have not been bitten."

 * ... WEIGHT WATCHERS: This note from Chuck Doremus showed up in my mailbox: "At Weight Watchers (WW) last Monday morning, one of the members, while waiting to weigh-in, noticed she had lost an earring. Later during the meeting, Laurie, an employee at WW, came in announcing she had found the earring as well as the back to it. There was applause. Then someone asked, "Do you take off your earrings to weigh-in?"

 * ... GNATS; And Gary Kozy added this: "A few years ago there were a large number of gnats in my area. Enough that it was difficult to breathe, afraid I might breathe one in my nose. No matter how careful I was gnats still managed to enter my home. I found a simple solution.  Just fill a sink or two with water and a sweet smelling liquid dish soap. I use Costco brand. The house will be free of gnats. But don't be surprised to see a mess in the sink in the morning. Ever since then I continue to fill a sink with  soapy  water. It attracts other bugs also. And gives me confidence in having a bug free home. A side benefit is that it leaves the sink sparkling clean. No scrubbing necessary."

A Stanford historian takes California to task for its man-made role in our drought, and a British newspaper puts the spotlight on Crisp and Cole

 * … DROUGHT: The Fresno Bee ran an interesting opinion piece on our drought from Victor Hanson, a historian at Stanford University. In it he lamented our "two droughts," one of nature's

making the second of our own making in which we divert millions of acre feet of water to protect an ailing, small fish. Said Hanson: "Instead of an adult state with millions of acre-feet stored in new reservoirs, California is an adolescent culture that believes that it has the right to live as if it were the age of the romantic 19th-century naturalist John Muir — amid a teeming 40-million-person 21st-century megalopolis. The California disease is characteristic of comfortable postmodern societies that forget the sources of their original wealth. The state may have the most extensive reserves of gas and oil in the nation, the largest number of cars on the road — and the greatest resistance to drilling for fuel beneath its collective feet. After last summer's forest fires wiped out a billion board feet of timber, we are still arguing over whether loggers will be allowed to salvage such precious lumber, or instead should let it rot to enhance beetle and woodpecker populations. In 2014, nature yet again reminded California just how fragile — and often pretentious — a place it has become."

 * … COLE: The Financial Times, a respected London-based newspaper, put the spotlight on the housing and mortgage crisis recently with a long interview with Carl Cole, one half of the now disgraced Crisp and Cole mortgage empire. The story traces how Cole became partners with the

younger Crisp, and it follows Cole through the rapid rise and catastrophic fall of their company and his eventual guilty plea to mortgage fraud. The author noted that "Bakersfield was a fitting place for Cole to start over. It has been giving Americans second chances since the Joad family came to the Weedpatch work camp, a few miles south of the city, in John Steinbeck’s Great Depression novel, The Grapes of Wrath… People came to Bakersfield because it was the kind of place where they could make a living with their hands – in oilfields and farms and the businesses that grew up around them." (photo by 23ABC News Bakersfield)

 * … NORIEGA'S: I was the guest at a birthday party this weekend held at Noriega's, the award winning Basque restaurant that serves some of the best garlic fried chicken you will find anywhere. Everytime I stop by Noriega's I leave thinking: I need to do this more often.

* … BENTZ: It was nice to see more than 60 cyclists show up for a memorial ride Saturday to honor the late Doug Bentz, the ski chalet owner who died last week at the age of 70. The group retraced the route that Bentz and his son would take every week, a fitting tribute to the popular local retailer.

 * … TWITTER: My favorite tweet of the week comes from the Twitter feed of actress Jennifer Lawrence: "Some people are like clouds. When they go away it's a beautiful day."