Super Bowl Sunday is not just an epic day for football fans, but for anyone tied into the social media grid. Aside from watching the championship game and the commercials, half the fun for me is reading commentary during the game on Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter hit an astounding 12,233 tweets per second at the end of the Giants vs. Patriots game and 10,245 tweets per second during Madonna's halftime show.

Bakersfield resident Jerry Christen said he doesn't need much to be happy.

On a brief tour of his home in a large senior living complex just off California Avenue Monday, the 58-year-old pointed out items such as a coffee maker and a microwave. He opened up the freezer, showing off the stacks of frozen hot dogs, his favorite food. A vacuum cleaner leaned against the wall of his own closet and his bathroom, which he doesn't have to share, was spotless.

A Tehachapi continuation school was one of 25 campuses named Monday as a 2012 Model Continuation High School by the California Department of Education.

Monroe Continuation High School and others were honored for their programs to help struggling students stay in school.

It was windy and warm in Kern County on Monday thanks to a low-pressure system headed this way from the coast, said National Weather Service Meteorologist Brian Ochs.

But by this afternoon, he said, that same pressure system is expected to bring a bit of rain -- the first Bakersfield has seen since Jan. 23.

A judge on Monday prodded a Lamont composting company to move forward with a county-ordered environmental review but rejected requests that he shut down or otherwise intervene in the operation pending final resolution of the case.

Kern County Superior Court Judge J. Eric Bradshaw called on county lawyers to draft and return by Feb. 17 a set of conditions that essentially turn back the clock to July 2010. That's when county supervisors ordered the company, Community Recycling & Resource Recovery Inc., to pay for its first environmental review of the operation and come up with clear definitions of what kinds of waste the company can accept and process.

A Kern County Sheriff's Department incident review board announced Monday that two deputies acted within department policy in January when they fatally shot a man in a Buttonwillow park.

Deputies Jeremy Storar and Tommy Robins shot and killed Christian Chavez Jan. 23 after Chavez pulled out a knife during a pat down. Family members said Chavez, who had just turned 18, suffered from schizophrenia and depression.

Bakersfield High School beat out 18 other high schools to take first place in the 32nd Kern County Academic Decathlon this past weekend.

The BHS team outscored defending champ Stockdale High. The two schools have won the last six county decathlons. Stockdale won four straight before being unseated by BHS in 2010.

The median sale price for existing single-family homes in the Bakersfield area was $130,000 in January, down 3.7 percent from December but up 2.4 percent year-over-year.

That's according to the Preliminary Crabtree Report, a monthly gauge of the local housing market prepared by Gary Crabtree of Affiliated Appraisers.

The scene was much like any other Super Bowl party: burgers on the grill, chips on the table, and fans screaming loudly as the Giants scored their first touchdown.

But for the mostly homeless crowd at St. Vincent de Paul's Sunday, the gathering meant more than just a good game.

INCOME TAX: Tax season has arrived, and if you are still trying to make sense of the new rules or what information you need to file your return, there's help -- free help, especially if you make less than $50,000 a year. The nonprofit Mexican American Opportunity Foundation is currently scheduling appointments for individuals or families to process their tax returns at no charge. The free service is available only to those of low to moderate incomes, said Magda Menendez, MAOF administrator. The nonprofit is able to offer this service through its involvement with the Kern VITA Partnership, a coalition led by United Way of Kern County.

Menendez said many families and individuals qualify for the free tax preparation service but end up paying money to have someone process the returns.

THE BUZZ: The talk downtown is that former city Fire Chief Ron Fraze may run for the Ward 2 City Council seat being vacated by Sue Benham. Benham, now vice president of development at Memorial Hospital, has said she won't run for another term in the ward, which covers much of the downtown area. Fraze lives downtown and supporters feel his inside knowledge of how the city works would serve the area well. I talked to Fraze Saturday, and he told me he is considering a run and is honored that some folks are urging him to enter the race. Stay tuned.

WRESTLING: Had coffee the other day with Craig Tobin, a local businessman who is among a growing group of people trying save the wrestling program out at CSUB. Wrestling is one of those sports that is basically fending for itself in an era of extreme budget cuts, and Tobin and others have been committed to finding ways to keep it alive. There have been fundraisers and some guerrilla marketing, and last week, they put more than 1,000 people in the stands at the Icardo Center to watch CSUB take on Arizona State. Craig will be my guest today on Californian Radio KERN 1180 beginning at 9 a.m. Stay tuned because you will hear from from these folks.

Over the past several months, random drug testing of Bakersfield Police officers, and Kern County public safety as a whole, has been a topic of intense interest.

I have made it quite clear I am an advocate of drug testing of all public employees, especially law enforcement officers. The reasoning behind my conviction includes increased transparency of public safety employees to the community, public employee accountability to those we serve and the development of a new level of public trust.

Q: I've noticed over the past few months along H Street, mostly along South H Street, there are some new types of antennas on the traffic lights. Just wondering what those are for; I haven't really seen them elsewhere in the city.

-- Justin Rodriquez

WASHINGTON -- California will lose a measure of clout in Congress after November's election no matter which party best exploits the state's freshly redistricted regions and election rules.

Six California representatives with a combined 133 years of seniority have already announced their retirement. Another nine incumbents are regarded as vulnerable.

The tragic death of logger Bill Bennett last fall was bad enough.

But it's been made far worse by nagging doubts that his rescuers may not have done everything in their power to at least try to bring him out of the woods alive.

If you want to build a rail line between Anaheim and San Francisco, people are going to have to get out of the way.

Literally.

If you are disappointed, annoyed or fed up with the Democratic and Republican parties to the point of abandonment, you have a growing number of friends.

More Californians than ever are choosing to register as "little i" independents -- "decline to state" in California's electoral vernacular. And, as a result, fewer voters are registering with the major parties.

County officials engaged in a court fight with a Lamont composting facility say they have identified several alternatives for disposing of more than 1 million gallons a day of sewer water, a contention that strikes at the heart of claims that closing the business would endanger nearby residents.

In court papers filed in advance of a hearing set to resume Monday, county officials state that the city of Bakersfield has offered to accept the sewer water for up to five years. Other options listed in the filing would divert the effluent onto nearby dairy land, agricultural fields owned by the composting facility's owner or "percolation ponds" that would allow the waste to seep into the ground.

As part of its agreement with the Office for Civil Rights, the Tehachapi Unified School District established a new system to track cases and investigations of bullying and harassment at its campuses.

The system tells the district if students are being targeted or if students are harassing more than one student. It also puts the district on the clock for resolving cases.

This isn't the first time federal officials have demanded the Tehachapi Unified School District fix its ways.

In 2009, the district instituted sexual-harassment policy changes to resolve a federal complaint brought by parents who claimed a teacher sexually harassed their daughter.