Shop 'Til We All Drop

With the Christmas buying-orgy now in full swing, it's interesting to come across this article in Newsweek's International Edition. Clyde Prestowitz, President of the Economic Strategy Institute, has some very interesting things to say about the state of globalization, and we in this country (and by extention the rest of the world, since we are all now interconnected whether we realize it or not) ignore him at our peril.

The basic point of Prestowitz' piece is that the world's globalized economy has evolved a functional but unstable status quo. In essence, the rest of the world--but particularly Asia--produces things, and we in America consume, consume, and consume some more. Consumption of the stuff that that other people produce has now become America's vital, and in some sense only, role in the world economy.

For years now Americans have held to the belief that while we may import cheap manufactured products from abroad rather than producing them ourselves, we balance that out with the world's best high-tech and technical service industry, along with a thriving agriculture sector (though not thriving for the American small farmer, but that's a subject for another time). Unfortunately, this belief no longer holds true: In under ten years we've gone from a high-tech trade surplus of $30 billion to a deficit of $40 billion. Well-educated and highly skilled workforces in China and India can now compete with the American worker on a level playing field thanks to the internet and complex transportation networks, and the fact that they require lower costs means that the decision to produce your semiconductors in New Delhi rather than Cleveland is a no-brainer. And as if that weren't already cause for concern, now a trade deficit even exists for American agricultural products for the first time in history. America's modern economy has become a giant black hole of consumption from which almost nothing of tangible value escapes.

So how, then, are we able to maintain our extravagant lifestyles despite the fact that we produce less and less of value every day? It's a simple strategy that both the country as a whole and we as individual Americans have adopted wholeheartedly: We charge it.

As Prestowitz puts it,

"For the United States, globalization has meant building its economy into a giant consumption machine. Easy consumer credit, home-equity loans with tax-deductible interest payments, markets largely open to imports, policies that emphasize growth through demand management and accommodative monetary policy, and myriad other incentives have led Americans to save nothing while both households and government borrow at record rates. This is often justly criticized as excessive. But it is important to understand that American buying drives most of the world's growth because the United States is virtually the only net consuming country in the world."

But isn't this a win-win situation? Americans borrow money like there's no tomorrow to finance lifestyles that we couldn't otherwise afford, and the world's other countries support their own economies by selling us the stuff we want. Why doesn't everyone just shut up and be happy?

Well, aside from moral issues and the spiritual vacuousness created by living in a society that exists only to consume, this system can't last forever. Oh, it functions alright for now, because the rest of the world will keep allowing us to borrow and keeps investing in the U.S. dollar. The way the system is currently set up, they NEED us to continue to buy what they produce. We are essentially the only country on earth that fulfills a very key role, namely buying much, much more than we produce. If tomorrow we wake up and stop consuming, the world economy would be in shambles. So because the rest of the world is as invested in this lopsided system as we are, things may seem to run smoothly for a time. But the party can't go on forever.

"The growing trade imbalance . . . makes the current mode of globalization unsustainable. To finance the deficit, the United States is already absorbing about 80 percent of available world savings. The value of U.S. imports is now more than double that of exports. To merely stabilize the deficit at its current rate would require that exports grow more than twice as fast as imports.

But this cannot happen if the supply side continues to move offshore. If it doesn't happen and the deficit keeps growing, world savings will eventually be insufficient and a financial crash will be inevitable."

In other words, in the end there just isn't enough money in the world to support this system as it currently exists. It won't be today, it won't be next month, but sooner or later this imbalanced system will either collapse or evolve into something else.

So what's the answer? How do we avoid calamity? Well, I think it would be a positive start for those of us living in this great consumer culture to admit that a society in which we produce so very little and buy so much is fundamentally unsound. Then we're going to have to do something that we as Americans have never been very good at; we're going to have to show some restraint. At the very least, we should consider whether borrowing money to support opulent lifestyles is really such a good idea. Our standard of living may be the envy of the world (at least among the more well-to-do segments of our society), but it isn't worthwhile if we mortgage our nation's future economic wellbeing to achieve it. And while we're at it, we're going to have to find ways to create markets overseas in order to soften the impact on the global economy of a reduced rate of U.S. consumption. And if possible, is it asking too much that we find ways to start MAKING things in America again? We used to be so good at that.

Like it or not, a global economy is what we have and we must contend with that reality. But just as over-consumption and excessive debt are no way to run a household, it's also no way to run the nation's economy. Just some food for thought this Christmas season.

In Which I Review The Movie "Rent"

I went to see the rock-opera "Rent" tonight. It was my payback to Melissa for her sitting through "Walk The Line" last week.

I had a really difficult time entering the theater. Even though the concession stand prices are outrageous, even though we paid $8.75 a piece to get in and bought a $3.50 "junior" sized popcorn, and even though absolutely everyone on the face of God's good earth does it, I still feel like scum for sneaking cans of soda into the theater. I can just feel the accusing eyes of the nineteen-year-old minimum wage earner as he stands there and tears my ticket. I just know he can see the aluminum can-shaped bulge in the interior breast pocket of my ski jacket. It's not worth his time to single me out, but oh yes, he knows.

The guilt makes it very difficult for me to just crack the can open, even in a darkened theater. The noise of a pop-top soda can is a dead giveaway. Not that anyone is going to stand up and make a citizen's arrest or anything, but they'll know, they'll all KNOW, don't you see? Often I have listened with envy as a fellow smuggler has popped open his contraband can with reckless abandon, obviously secure in the knowledge that no one in the theater cares that he is putting himself above the rules. Oh how freeing such confidence would be. As a strategy this devil-may-care style of opening up your illegal soda can doesn't do much to hide the crime, but it is at least better than the tortuous, guilt-wracked method of trying to open the can slowly, carefully, one creaking and aluminum-twisting millimeter at a time. I often hear it in the darkness. This slow-motion method, employed in the hope of making the sound less noticeable, only succeeds in making the noise of the top being popped that much more painfully audible for a much longer period of time, turning the ill-gotten soda into a veritable telltale aluminum heart.

No, the only method that I am truly comfortable with is the ever-popular "wait until the crescendo of the always overly-loud coming attraction, then dive into your dirty filthy business under the cover of crushing waves of sound and get it done as quickly as possible" method. And yet, even when I am sure that no one but me and my better half is aware of my crime, the cool, reasonably priced carbonated beverage offers no real comfort. Verily, the taste is as ash upon my tongue. No, my conscience just won't let me enjoy my forbidden Diet Coke. Such is the dilemma of the moral man.

Oh, the movie "Rent?" It sucked.

Adam Morrison's Moustache

My brother thinks I should post something about Adam Morrison's moustache. He says it's the worst moustache he's ever seen.

I'm reluctant to post on this for two reasons. One, until my brother explained it to me I wasn't sure who Adam Morrison was. Turns out he's a pretty good college basketball player who's having a terrific year at my law school alma mater, Gonzaga University, and I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't know that. Two, I've been posting about sports an awful lot lately and I don't want to get into a rut.

But the bottom line is that I haven't had any brilliant inspiration for a couple of days now, and I guess I should at least make an attempt to comply with the desires of my readership, even if that readership is related to me and has an inexplicable love for futbol mundial. So here goes:

Adam, my brother hates your moustache.

Go Panhandlers!

Just FYI, we've posted a new poll question. We're attempting to help out Reno's fledgeling professional baseball club, the Reno Silver Sox, in anticipation of next year's season. The team is currently running a "name the mascot" contest. However they have yet to explain how a Gecko mascot makes sense in Northern Nevada, where geckos are not native. We've attempted to list some potential mascots that are more truly representative of the Reno area. So far the choices we've come up with are:

1. Angry Panhandler
2. Non-English speaking casino employee
3. Abandoned shopping cart
4. Bus from Bay Area retirement home
5. California transplant paying cash for overpriced house
6. Highway ramp permanently closed for construction

Please vote in the poll on the left for the best choice, or if you have any other ideas please add them to the comment section of this posting.

Is This A Bad Sign?

Last winter my 2001 Kia Rio gave out on me when the timing belt broke, conveniently enough just after the warranty ran out. Needing transportation, I was forced to make a quick purchase of a cheap used car.

I went to a small used car dealer on Kietzke Lane, Reno's car dealership row. I found what I felt was a pretty good bargain on a '96 Suzuki Sidekick with pretty low miles and a reduced price because of some imperceptible damage to the driver's side door. I give a name to every vehicle I own, and I named this one Grond, Hammer of the Underworld (check your Tolkien for an explanation of this name).

The car has held up well over the last year or so, and I have no complaints. However, something happened today that made me a bit nervous.

I happened to be driving down that part of Kietzke where the dealer that I bought the car from was located. I say "was located" because it is now gone. Entirely. No cars, no offices, nothing but an empty asphalt parking lot. And no explanation. The only indication that a used car dealer ever occupied the now-empty space is the dealer's sign which still stands at the entrance to the lot, a sign that even now advertises "Lowest Prices Anywhere." Otherwise, it's like the whole business just flew away into space. That makes me feel really confident about the sort of people I find to do business with.

Let's talk about more positive things. The Wolf Pack won their big showdown with Fresno State last night in thrilling fashion, coming out on top by a score of 38-35 and winning a share of the WAC title. As expected the gametime temperatures started at bone-chilling and plummeted from there, but Nevada appears to have managed to get enough people through the door to average 15,000 for the season, thus preserving their Division 1 status with the NCAA. Still, the announced crowd of 17,765 was pretty sparce, even when the cold weather, vacation weekend and the fact that the game was nationally televised are factored in. I like to think that it was my last-minute appeal on this blog that managed to put the attendance numbers over the top. It isn't true, but I like to think it.

Hopefully the Wolf Pack has put the days of perennial losing seasons players getting busted for robbing banks behind them for good. But then again this is Reno, so you never know.

Not Quite There Yet

Melissa and I went up to Truckee yesterday to meet up with my brother Daniel's (aka "Tundra Sully") girlfriend Rebecca, who was visiting a friend in San Francisco. Conveniently, the friend's name is also Rebecca. We had a great time showing them Squaw Valley and the Lake--is it weird that I so love playing tour-guide?--despite the fact that yesterday was the first day in about three months that we've had rainy weather.

By the time we got back to Truckee it was late in the day, and the rain had turned to snow:

I was elated because I thought that maybe at long last we might be getting some real snowfall in the Sierra. Unfortunately this morning it appears that most of the ski resorts got only two or three inches, not nearly enough to consider opening up. We're going to have to continue to wait.

I Hate To Take Credit, But...

I wasn't going to post this, but Melissa wanted me to.

I made Thanksgiving dinner for the first time ever the other day for Melissa and I since we are stranded so far from our families (But I'll see you guys at Christmas!). When it was all done I was so happy that it all worked out that I felt like I had to take a picture to memorialize it.

Dinner included Turkey steaks (I didn't think we needed a whole breast), mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, crescent rolls, and a chicken and green bean casserole that Melissa made. Everything came out really well if I do say so myself. I felt like a picture was necessary since this is probably more cooking than I will ever do again in my life.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

You've may have already seen this, since I think it's been making the rounds, but click here. Props to my friend Christina Q.

Ours Are Bigger Than Yours

When I first moved here four years ago I was told that in addition to our officially-sanctioned slogan, "The Biggest Little City In The World", Reno is also unofficially known as "The City With The Biggest Balls" because of buildings like the Silver Legacy Hotel

and the National Bowling Stadium.

Well yesterday the City of Reno officially opened up the redesigned and remodeled Rink on the River after a two-year absence. I managed to snap this picture of a pint-sized skater warming up for the opening ceremony as I was walking home from work:

The ice rink is right in the heart of downtown in a public park on the Truckee River. It's great to have the rink back, but what's really nice is to see that the redesign of the plaza that hold the rink includes these interesting two-foot high, solid stone architectural features:

Like we needed more big balls. But you gotta love thematic consistency.

Seriously though, the rink is really nice and if you're in the area you should stop by and try it. Also--and I'm sorry to be a booster here but this is embarrassing--if you live in Northern Nevada or the Tahoe area please show up at the University of Nevada Wolfpack football game against Fresno State on Saturday. Attendance problems at Wolf Pack home games are a long-running joke, but now things are getting serious. Although they haven't beaten any big-name opponents this year (except perhaps for the rivalry game against a bad UNLV team) the University of Nevada Wolf Pack could go 8-3 with a win on Saturday, possibly earn a share of the WAC title and might be going to a bowl game. And yet local businesses and even Mayor Bob Cashell have been reduced to giving away free tickets and Pack players have been on local TV and radio begging people to come on Saturday, all because UNR is not going to make the Division I requirement of an average of 15,000 attendance per game for the season unless about 18,000 people show up for the game. If they don't hit that attendance mark, Nevada might be in danger of dropping to Division II.

I know it's Thanksgiving weekend and a lot of students will be home. Yes, it will be cold out, and yes, the game will be on ESPN2 so you could watch it from the comfort of your house. But it would be a total embarrassment for not only UNR but for Northern Nevada as a whole if the Wolf Pack were to drop out of Division I because we couldn't average a measly 15,000 people per game. Big college basketball programs average higher than that! Honestly, getting 18,000 out to see a pretty good Nevada Wolf Pack team play a nationally ranked opponent for a chance at a bowl berth shouldn't be this difficult. Not for the City With The Biggest Balls.

Endless Summer

As anyone who knows me has been hearing ad nauseum for a couple of weeks now, the Sierra Nevada are currently suffering through an unseasonably warm Autumn. As a result, all of the areas ski hills, which had planned to open a couple of weeks ago, still sit dormant. In the bright afternoon sun the temperature climbs to about 60 degrees Fahrenheit almost every day, so not only can Lake Tahoe's many ski resorts not take advantage of natural snow, they can't even make artificial snow since it would melt faster than it can be produced.

Surprisingly, as this RGJ article points out, it turns out that the ones to blame are the ski resorts themselves in their lack of concern about Global Warming. We have met the enemy, and it is us.

1,000 Hits

If you will be so kind as to indulge my brief dip into Lake Me, I'd like to note that since I put a hit-counter on this blog earlier this month, I've now gone over the 1,000 hit mark. Even cooler than that, for the past couple of weeks I've been obsessively watching the Clustrmap on the left to see where people are stumbling into this site from, and it's fascinating. People have been logging in from all over the world (including Australia--sorry for calling you out in a previous post, mate). Thanks to everyone who drops in, even if it's by accident. Although I write this blog for purely cathartic purposes and would probably do it if only my own family checked in, it's good to know that other people are reading what I write. Well okay, glancing at what I write. But still, it's something.

I notice that I'm getting a lot of hits from Canada. I wonder if this is because of the word "Yukon" in the blog's title? Without going into too much detail, I should explain that Yukon Sully is a nickname that I acquired years ago during a brief stay in Alaska, living on the Yukon-Kuskokwim river delta. It has nothing to do with the Canadian territory that shares it's name with that might river. Sorry for the confusion.

Looking For A Villain

My father, who reads this blog occasionally but doesn't approve of just about everything I write, says that one of my problems is that I spend way too much time looking for villains. He might be right. I guess I know deep down that the Bush Administration isn't evil, it's mostly just incompetent. Well okay, Cheney is evil, but the rest are just incompetent. And oil companies that rake in record profits while charging people $3.00 a gallon so that they can drive to work? They're not capital-E "Evil", they're just entities created by law that are designed for one purpose only, namely to make money for their investors. If that means that everyone else on earth gets screwed, that simply doesn't enter into the equation. There's no malevolent conspiracy, it's just corporations doing what corporations are designed to do, particularly when there is a lack of proper government oversight.

So I suppose I have to own up to my father's criticism. But I also think that it's worth pointing out that I'm far from the only one who has a tendency to see villains behind every tree.

Take for example the second annual installment of the latest iteration of the War On Christmas. If you haven't heard that such a War has been declared don't worry, it hasn't. But there are a handful of people who have decided that it is beneficial for you to think that it has because your believing this helps them push their own agenda.

People like Jerry Falwell. Ever the spiritual father of peace and harmony, he has decided that it's time to take the fight to the infidel buy suing the bastards. Through his "Friend Or Foe Christmas Campaign", he's going to wage holy litigation against anyone who would spread what he and his organization see as misinformation about the public celebration of the holiday. Just like Jesus would do. I guess when it comes to celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace, you're either with us or against us.

Or how about the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who launched a boycott of that subversive anti-American organization Wal-Mart. Why? Because a woman who complained to Wal-Mart customer service that "Wal-Mart . . . was replacing 'Merry Christmas' with 'Happy Holidays'" received an e-mail response from someone named Kirby ("Kirby?") which explained that various traditions associate with Christmas have their roots in non-Christian cultures. Horrible, right? But what really seemed to get the League's goat was the fact that clicking on "Christmas" on Wal-Mart's website brings you to what they call a "Holiday" page. So from one semi-anonymous e-mail and one click on Wal-Mart's web page that mentioned a "Holiday", the League comes to the obvious conclusion that "Wal-Mart Bans Christmas" and called for a boycott. Two days later they claimed "Wal-Mart Caves" and called off the boycott. And all Western Civilization breathed a sigh of relief.

My favorite is John Gibson, the Fair and Balanced Fox News personality who just published the book "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought", in which he spins a sort of conspiracy theory wherein "[t]he wagers of this war on Christmas are a cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers [obviously not the same lawyers as the 700+ that Falwell has hired--Sully] cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wracked Christians -- not just Jewish people." I guess he can't be called anti-Semitic if he's also paranoid about liberal, guilt-wracked Christians, right?

Much as I hate to have to point out the obvious (or side with Wal-Mart--blech!), there is no War on Christmas, either literal or metaphorical. This phony war isn't going on today, just like it wasn't going on in the late 1950's when the John Birch society argued that "Reds" and the United Nations were plotting to "weaken the pillar of religion in our country" with "the drive to take Christ out of Christmas", and just like there was no such war in the 1920's when Henry Ford railed about "Jewish Opposition to Christmas" in his infamous work "The International Jew."

Sorry to pull the always-comforting rug of victimhood out from under those who are eager to declare a jihad to save a holiday that isn't actually threatened, but no one is "banning" anything, nor is anyone being denied the right to celebrate anything. What Falwell, Gibson and others hawking this phony war are doing is taking a handful of anecdotes, exaggerations and silly examples of petty restrictions from people who are usually making misguided attempts at being pluralistic (perish the thought!) and turning it into the work of a shadowy cabal for whom banning Christmas is just the first step in their diabolical plan to force Red State boys to marry other men.

What this made-up "war" is actually all about is the need of the Religious Right for powerful enemies, even when none exist. Movements like theirs can't exist without enemies. It isn't enough for them that Christianity is the majority religion in this country, or that they have a stranglehold on the Federal government and most state governments, or that for every example of supposed "oppression" of Christmas we could probably find ten examples of government promotion of the holiday despite the questionable constitutionality of such things. No, apparently they need the emotional validation of victim status as well.

See, it just wouldn't do for them to state the truth, which is "It isn't enough that I and those who share my beliefs celebrate this sacred holiday--I must have my religion validated by the government, all the corporate institutions that I encounter on a daily basis, and anyone else upon whom I can force myself." They can't acknowledge this because not only does this sound tyrannical and un-American, but it also speaks to a certain weakness of spirituality; after all, if your faith actually means something to you then it's not going to matter one iota whether or not the pimply teen at the Wal-Mart checkout stand says "Happy Holidays" as you leave the store. So the leaders of the Religious Right (and those who rely on them to provide support for their policies) have created and fed a powerful meme based on the illusion that Christians in America are an oppressed minority instead of a powerful cultural and political force that enjoys virtually unlimited freedom of worship. Making yourself the victim in your own mind is a useful way to help justify aggressively forcing your will on others. As Michelle Goldberg wrote in Salon.com, "The war on Christmas trope lets the right pretend to be playing defense when it's really on the offensive -- against the ACLU, separation of church and state, and pluralism, to name just a few targets."

If Christmas is a meaningful holiday to you, then I hope you enjoy it this year. And I hope that the season means more to you than the opportunity to advance a cultural agenda.

Shouldn't He Be Saving The Third World Or Something?

I thought this was neat:

My sister Maureen went to see U2 in Atlanta last week. She sent me this picture, which she got off of a cameraphone. This is actually the second time she's seen the band, the other time being sometime around the late 80's or early 90's (which I think would have made her about three or four years old at the time ;-)). She says that back then everyone held up cigarette lighters, and now everyone holds up cameraphones.

To everything, turn, turn, turn....

It's That Time Of Year Again

Just a quick entry to mention that last night (just before going to see Higher Ground--see previous post) Melissa and I attended the City of Reno's official Christmas tree lighting. It was actually a lot of fun in a Norman Rockwell sort of way. Here are some pictures:

This is a shot of the tree from it's base a moment after being lit. I would like to have gotten a picture that gives you a sense of the size of the crowd which showed up to watch the lighting (it probably helped the attendance numbers that lighting ceremony was also the end destination of the wine walk that takes place every third Saturday of the month in my riverfront neighborhood) but unfortunately in the dark my limited picture-taking technology proved to be a little, well, limited.

I'm not exactly sure who these folks were. They were some kind of chorus dressed in Renaissance Faire clothing, except for the guy in back who obviously thought it would be just sooo wacky to wear that candy cane hat. They sang Christmas Carols before the lighting of the tree. Actually the one who stole the show was the woman in the front row on the left, who was very animated and sort of acted out every verse of the song.

Also along was my friend Dominique (aka 'MiMi', the person who first got me into blogging, for which Melissa is forever grateful ;-)) and her boyfriend. Dominique's boyfriend is French, but I can't spell French names and so I won't embarrass myself by trying.

Dominique was nice enough to turn the camera on Melissa and I and snap this picture. It is not her fault as a photographer that I appear so pasty--that's just my genes.

This final shot was taken earlier today; it's my view of the tree from the observation deck of the Fortress of Solitude. This gives you some perspective of just how big the tree actually is--not bad for a white-trash mountain town.

Higher Ground

Last night my better half and I took part in one of those annual rituals that herald the coming of a new season: We went to see Warren Miller's latest annual film (he's put one out every year for 56 years now, if anyone's counting), this one called Higher Ground. The shot on the left is from the film, featuring snowboarder Chelone Miller (younger brother of skiing legend "Bullet" Bode Miller; obviously the younger brother is more evolved, having progressed to snowboarding) and was taken in Courchevel, France. The picture below is Tahoe's own Brent Abrams, taken at Heavenly.

There are no complaints about the movie itself that I can offer. Warren Miller movies follow a very basic formula: Gather together a few of the world's greatest skiers and snowboarders in some of the world's greatest locations for winter mountain sports, film the whole thing and paste together the highlights, then back it all up with some high-octane music. I don't know if the result could exactly be called "art", but it is both beautiful and God does it make you want to go riding after a long summer.

No, no complaints about the movie, which was pretty much everything you expect from Warren Miller. My complaints are reserved exclusively for the organizers of the event.

The showing was held in the brand-spanking-new Reno Events Center, which I had never been inside before last night. It's a nice, good looking building that will supposedly seat bout 7,000 people (I don't know if this includes floor seating or not). It seemed like it would be a great facility for a concert, a large trade show or maybe, I don't know, pro wrestling. Unfortunately it turned out to be a miserable place to watch a movie. First off, the price for the event was about double what it was last year, but this was justified by the fact that this screening was also a fundraiser for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Although we were told that doors opened at 6 p.m., we were not told until we were inside the building that the movie was not scheduled to begin until 8 p.m. I'll grant them that if we'd checked the website we'd have found that out, but no indication of the schedule was given either on the ticket or outside the building. Once we were inside, we were told in no uncertain terms that if we left we would not be allowed back in, so we had a choice of killing two hours by either sitting on uncomfortable seats in the screening area or listening to sales pitches from ski industry sales reps at booths set up inside another part of the Center.

As if that weren't bad enough, the movie itself didn't actually start until 8:30 because several of the local Tahoe-area residents featured in the film were introduced and interviewed on stage. I admire the skill and bravery of these men and women as athletes, but honestly they didn't seem to have much to say outside of "Being in a Warren Miller movie is totally awesome" and "I love skiing Lake Tahoe." Yet somehow this took half an hour.

Then when the movie actually started the sound was so badly adjusted that none of the dialogue or voice-overs could be heard. And maybe the organizers felt that it would help people get into the spirit of the event, but I really don't understand the need for the theater to be air conditioned down to about 35 degrees Fahrenheit--great skiing temperatures, but not so much fun for watching a movie with your non-skiing girlfriend who's somewhat cold-sensitive. The movie's main screen was surprisingly small, nowhere near the size of a standard movie screen, which greatly subtracted from the experience. After the film had been going for about 45 minutes we got an intermission (Warren Miller movies always have intermissions), but the intermission itself was about 45 agonizing minutes long. Conditions were so bad, and the whole event so haphazardly put together that a significant chunk of the audience left at intermission. When the film ended, those who were still there practically sprinted for the exits despite the fact that ski and snowboard clips were playing over the credits. All in all, it was a virtual clinic on how to make seeing a movie as unenjoyable as possible.

But despite the best attempts of the organizers to sabotage the event, seeing the movie did accomplish it's goal: Getting me and a whole lot of other people excited about the upcoming season, which coincidentally will be the first one of my life in which I will own both own all my own equipment and possess a season pass. The current lack of snow in the Sierra is the source of a great deal of frustration to me (see our poll question on the left), but no matter. In the end, nothing can keep snow from coming to the Sierra--at least, not yet--just like in the end nothing can ruin a Warren Miller movie.

At Last! Trench Day!

This will probably mean nothing to anyone who doesn't live in or near Reno, but today at long last the first train is going to roll through the Train Trench. And somewhere in the background a choir will be singing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah.

Even in a city that seems to accept badly-designed and dysfunctional infrastructure as a fact of life, the trains that roll right through the middle of downtown Reno are the source of a whole other level of hatred and contempt from locals and visitors alike. The railroad tracks run right through the heart of downtown on an east-west axis, and because they pass through the dense urban core of the city the trains are forced to creep through town at about 10 miles an hour, blasting their diesel engine whistles the whole way through. The fact that this brings all north-south traffic in town to a dead standstill is a great annoyance. But the real problem is the damn whistle. The trains run through town at all hours of the night and those whistles (which must be blown continuously for safety reasons in the crowded downtown area) are loud enough to wake the dead.

But no more. Today the first train rolls through the Trench, which has been under construction for a couple of years now. The Trench has been on the drawing board in one form or another since WWII. It's the largest public works project in Reno's history and it's final construction was the defining issue of the last mayoral election in 2002. The Trench has always met stiff resistance from certain local sectors, but I can't imagine why (I suspect that more than anything, it's just the deeply-rooted Western conviction that anything the government does won't work and wastes money).

But none of that matters now. Starting today, trains will roll through town below street level. Traffic will not be brought to a dead standstill all over downtown a couple dozen times a day. Visitors and downtown residents will not be awakened five times a night with train whistles. New urban green-spaces will be built over the trench and will help beautify the city. All our dishes will be washed and the garbage will take itself out. Lions will lay down with lambs. No one will ever go hungry again.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But this is going to be a very good thing. And I for one am looking forward to a decent night's sleep.

UPDATE: Here's what the first train through looked like, courtesy of the Reno Gazette-Journal:

Yellowstone Griz

In news that is of great importance to me, it looks like the way has been cleared to de-list the Grizzly Bear as an endangered species in the the land in and around Yellowstone National Park.

This news affects me because like a lot of people I feel a very close connection to Yellowstone. I worked there as a National Park Service volunteer in 1996, during what was probably the best summer of my life. Have you ever gone somewhere or done something that completely changes the way you look at the world? In Yellowstone, as in other wild places, the natural world moves according to it's own rhythm, not according to the artificial order that we have tried to impose on it. Spend enough time in a living, unspoiled ecosystem like Yellowstone and you will begin to feel it. You feel it in things you never noticed before but that now, free from electronic distractions, you wonder how you ever missed them. Things like the migration patterns of birds, or how spectacular alpenglow can look, or how small you feel when you walk across a mile-wide meadow with no other human being or man-made structure in sight, and with the full knowledge that out here you are not the top of the food chain. Though rarely seen, the presence of North America's largest predator seemed to be everywhere in Yellowstone. It was as if he watched over his domain like a distant, all-powerful monarch. But at the same time, no matter how intimidating the presense of the bear was in this wild place, there was also the knowledge that the bear had retreated into this high, cold corner of the continent because he could no longer survive in most of his former domain. What a strange contradiction: tremendous animal potency with a razor-thin survival margin.

The fact that the bears are going to be de-listed means that management of the Yellowstone Grizzly Bear population (which today totals about 600 animals in parts of three states) will be taken out of the hands of the Federal Government and given over to state officials. I have mixed feelings about this; on one hand, the Grizzly population has definitely recovered significantly in recent years. When they were originally listed in 1975 the population was estimated to be 136 animals, and Federal protection has brought the bear population up to a much healthier level. De-listing may not be an unreasonable measure in the Yellowstone area. On the other hand, this is a measure being taken by a Federal Government that is now controlled by people who don't value the preservation of wild places, who see the natural world as something that exists only to be exploited and used up as quickly and profitably as possible. Call me paranoid, but if the gang that currently runs Washington D.C. wants to do this, then I doubt that they have either the bear's best interests in mind, or the interests of Yellowstone itself. These are people who would toss out the Endangered Species Act without a second thought if they could. Heck, they'd eliminate the National Park System entirely if the American people would stand for it.

I strongly suspect that in the minds of powerful men in Washington, de-listing the Yellowstone Griz is one more step in their long, patient slog toward eliminating any and all Federal protections over the few remaining wild areas of the West. The People would never stand for an oil platform in the middle of Yellowstone Lake, at least not today. But over time, with a steady drip, drip, drip of small losses of protection here and there, the dreams of the industrialists may yet be realized. It's a scary thought.

And I Thought We Were Going To Put Wild Horses On Our State Quarter

The design for the Nevada State Quarter has just been issued:

Truth Is Stranger Than Television

An e-mailer asked me the other day if Reno was actually as funny as it appears on Reno 911. I told her that it's even more interesting here than it appears in the fictionalized version--the truth is, the world isn't ready for the REAL Reno. Most mornings I myself don't feel ready for it. But I think her question probably deserves a more detailed answer than the flippant one I gave her.

Exhibit A: Today I had to work with a case that involved a charge of disorderly conduct. Now I won't use proper names, tell you the outcome or give away any specific information so as to protect the anonymity of anyone involved (although it is all a matter of public record if you care to hunt it down), but the charge was based on the report of an officer who came across the defendant at a city bus terminal and found that said defendant had just relieved himself on the sidewalk and was now sitting on a bench with his pants around his ankles and his Special Purpose available for inspection by any interested passer-by. So as you can see, sometimes life in Reno does resemble it's fictional counterpart.

Of course, I'm probably being too harsh. In a lot of ways that show is totally unrealistic. Like for example...., uh,....well, there's....well, we don't actually have any palm trees. There sure do seem to be a lot of palm trees on that show, but we haven't got any in this part of Nevada. So there you have it: totally unrealistic.

What A Clustr

As some of you might have noticed, I've installed a Clustrmap in my blog gutter to the left. This is a neat tool that lets me and everyone else see where in the world people are checking into this site. As I expected, most of the hits are coming in from the West Coast, particularly here in Northern Nevada. For some reason I also seem to be big in St. Louis.

I have to say that I'm very disappointed in those of you back east. Sully's supposed allies in Boston and back home in 'Bama appear to be checking in about as regularly as folks in Korea, Spain, Labrador Island and the Canadian Arctic (How's it goin' up there, eh? Save me a room if Bill Frist wins the election in '08--I'm not kidding this time). I'm also a little upset that I'm only being read on three continents. What's your excuse Australia? I suppose I could cut South America a break, but you speak our friggin' language for God's sake!

But what really disappoints me is no hits from Atlanta. THE PEOPLE I'M TALKING ABOUT KNOW WHO THEY ARE! I'm sorry that you've made me resort to this, but start checking in or no more postings of niece pictures, no matter how cute.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I'll continue to post niece pictures. Put please check in once in a while.

Avery Update

I just got these pictures from my sister and her husband. My new niece Avery seems to be doing quite well, thank you very much.

Never to be outdone, of course, is my other niece Kira.

I'll see you this Christmas, ladies.

Yep, This Is Reno Alright

Yesterday in Reno a man walked into a bar while he was "engulfed in flames." There's no joke here, this really happened.

You gotta love this city.

UPDATE: What was the name of the cross-street to Virginia St. that the flaming man was on? Why it was "Caliente", of course.

Mea Culpa

In the previous post I chastised L3 Development for not having any information on the plans for The Montage (currently The Golden Phoenix) online, and for not making any pictures available. Boy, did I speak too soon, as the picture above makes obvious. Click here for The Montage's website. Sorry about that, guys. Can we still talk about my reserving a penthouse?

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

A small piece of the story of Melissa and I, not to mention the city of Reno, passed quietly into history last night.

If you live in Northern Nevada, or perhaps Northern California, you have probably seen evidence of the fact that downtown Reno is undergoing a serious building boom, one which is probably still in it's early stages if the plans of developers are to be believed. The most noticeable change going on downtown is the much-heralded conversion of old, unprofitable, and in some cases completely derelict casinos into state of the art condos. You can read a very good (though already somewhat out of date just two months after having been written) summary of the various condo projects going on in Reno here.

One of the projects that is changing life--hopefully for the better--in downtown Reno is the conversion of the Golden Phoenix Casino--formerly the Flamingo--into something called The Montage (all these developments need to have very snooty names). Here's what the Golden Phoenix looks like today:

The developers who are planning to convert this behemoth into condos will be shutting the casino down for good on December 6. No links or photos are available on the web as to what the developers are going to be doing (you might want to get on this, L3 Development), but the plans call for a complete overhaul, replacing the hotel-casino with condos, lofts, rowhouses and retail space.

One unfortunate aspect of this closure is that The Top is closing as well. The Top is, as you might guess, a lounge on the top floor of the hotel. This place holds special meaning for me, because Melissa and I went there on our first date. The Top was one of those places that, much like the Phoenix itself, never quite worked out. This fact has always perplexed me, since The Top undoubtedly had best 360 degree view of the city and the surrounding mountains, and the atmosphere felt urbane and sophisticated. Perhaps it just never figured out what it wanted to be. It tried presenting itself in various ways: It failed as a dance club because it attracted way too many lowlifes and wanna-be gangstas. It failed as a mellow jazz lounge because, well, c'mon, this is Reno, and no one comes to Reno to enjoy a mellow jazz lounge (not yet, anyway). And it failed as a fine restaurant because, in my mind, it was too hard to get to and, to put it bluntly, was a little too nice for much of the crowd that frequented the Golden Phoenix.

Last night was The Top's final night, and Melissa and I were there in honor of the event. The lounge already doubles as a sales office for the development company out of Chicago that is turning the Phoenix into condos, but the atmosphere was still the same, the food was great, and the views were spectacular as always. I'm sorry to lose the place.

In the end, however, I think it will be for the best. Frankly, up until this year downtown Reno had been in a state of decay for years if not decades. The city had become a smoky low-rent Vegas, which is already a pretty low-rent place to start with. Despite all the neon and cheesy glitter, downtown had become the domain of transients and petty criminals, full of liquor stores and tacky t-shirt shops. It had become the sort of place decent people didn't go, which was probably another reason a nice place like The Top didn't work there. In a lot of ways, downtown is still that sort of place, although these days you can sense a change, particularly as you get closer to the river. The new movement currently underway to transform downtown from a haven for junkies and schizophrenics into a place people are happy to call home is making great strides (the video at this link is again already dated, but you get the idea). Unfortunately, there's still a long way to go.

Last night, as Melissa and I were walking to the Golden Phoenix to visit The Top one last time, I noticed a commotion at the corner of 2nd and West Streets. This is a corner where a lot of new construction has been going on to in the name of yet another condo conversion, turning the horrible old Comstock Casino into a nice development that's being called Riverwalk. When I looked over, I saw a man fall helplessly on his butt into a small ditch that had been dug for street work. He looked like he might have been hurt, and so I ran over to see if he was okay. As I ran up the street I saw him try several times to climb out of the little ditch (which was a foot deep at the most) only to fall back helplessly to the ground every time, as if his legs simply didn't work.

When I got over to where he was I asked if he was okay. He didn't answer, just continued to try to fight his way out of the tiny ditch on his uncooperative legs. Finally he turned a filthy face up into the light and looked at me with completely uncomprehending eyes. I held out a hand so that he could grab it and I could pull him to his feet. He took my hand but made no move to pull himself up. As he did this a wave of smells washed up from him; mostly liquor, but lots of other unpleasant things as well. After several tries I was able to get him to his feet, but I practically had to hold him up to keep him from stumbling right back into the ditch again. The poor man was beyond drunk, and obviously had no where to go.

I tried to steady him, told him that he should probably find somewhere to sit down before he hurt himself, and we went on our way. When we got to the Phoenix, I told their security where the man was (less than a block away) and asked them to call the Police to do a welfare check. I don't know what became of him.

I kept thinking about that man the whole night. He represents two problems that the city faces as it attempts to transform itself. One, no one is going to want to live in a half-million dollar home (which is what some of these condos are going for) if guys like this are stumbling around their front door, or if police officers are getting shot on those very streets, as one was on that block a couple of months ago. Two, although this man obviously has a drinking problem and from the look of him was probably homeless, he is still a human being and he can't simply be left to rot in the street. If we turn downtown Reno into an attractive neighborhood that doesn't abide this sort of thing, this man and those like him aren't simply going to disappear, and I for one am not comfortable with the notion of pushing him down the block and making him someone else's problem.

Reno is becoming a very different place. In two years, I think it will be almost unrecognizable compared to what it is today, never mind what it was two years ago. But there are a lot of problems yet that still need to be dealt with.

In any case, I'm glad Melissa and I got to relive our first date before the winds of change made it impossible.

Gut-wrencher

Ugh. What a horrible way to lose a game. And don't get me started on how much I hate that ridiculous overtime system the NCAA now uses. It's like deciding baseball games that are tied after nine innings by switching to Home Run Derby. But no matter how you look at it, the song remains the same: Alabama just can't seem to find the end zone. The only difference is, this time it cost them a 'W'.

However, all is not lost. The most important game of the year is yet to come. There's another bunch of Tigers out there that need taming a lot more than those from the Louisiana swamps.

The Evil Empire Strikes Again

I was minding my own business yesterday, heading to the ShopKo up on McCarran and Mae Anne to pick up a couple of small items. This ShopKo, which has been there since I moved to the area in 2001 (and probably long before that) is just across the street from a brand new, gigantic (say it with me kids) Wal-Mart that went in a couple of years ago. I continue to go to this ShopKo for items that I cannot find at local businesses in my neighborhood specifically because it is NOT Wal-Mart. Yes, it is still a Big Box store, but not THE Big Box store, so my conscience is eased a bit.

You can image what a terrible sinking feeling I had when I saw the hand-drawn sign on the door that said something to the effect of "After November 11 there will be no refund policy no items sold from this store."

I spoke to the cashier and yep, you guessed it: They're going out of business. No one would officially say why, and no one seemed to know what was going to become of the building itself (another Wal-Mart, perhaps?) but naturally I have my suspicions as to what is behind this development. I suppose I'm assuming a lot, but honestly I don't really have any doubt that this store would not be going out of business if it weren't for the Beast from Bentonville next door.

Seriously Wal-Mart, what do you want? When will you be happy? When no one is able to buy anything for any purpose unless they do it at a Wal-Mart? When the entire population of this country is divided up into Wal-Mart stockholders and wage-slave Wal-Mart "associates" who spend their lives hovering around the poverty line? When you are allowed to rename the whole planet in your own honor?

Oh well. At least we've still got Costco.

Happy Veterans Day, Dad

Trace Amounts

Interesting results from the poll to decide whether or not we need polls at The Adventures of Yukon Sully. As it turns out, I don't care what everyone else wants and am going to do what I feel like regardless. So we have a new question posted on the left looking for predictions on this Saturday's Alabama-LSU football game.

In other news, this past week was supposed to bring us our first winter storm of the season up in the mountains, but even at over 10,000 feet atop Mount Rose there appears to be little more than a dusting of snow. This Spring it seemed like Winter would never end, with storm after storm rolling through the region and day after day of cold, gray, wet weather. Now in mid-November it seems that it is Summer that will never end, as the weather today was sunny and comfortably in the 60's. Mount Rose Ski Resort had originally hoped to open this weekend and the other resorts were planning to come online next week. If the weather stays warm, I'm not sure how they're even going to manufacture snow. I shouldn't be so impatient--I know that there will come a time in the not-to-distant future that I'll wish for winter to be over. But for now, I just can't stop jonesing for the season's first ride.

Truth with a Capital "C"

If you haven't done so yet, check out Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. It comes on at 11:30 Eastern and Pacific time just after The Daily Show, from which it so recently spun-off. The Daily Show (which I also love) has evolved since the smug Craig Kilborne era into a hilarious satire of cable news anchored by the brilliant Jon Stewart. Now The Report--'Report' pronounced with a silent 't'--takes the lampoon even further, in the form of a fantastic send-up of cable news' worst bastard spawn, the personality-driven opinion show that dresses itself up as real news. The Report hits plenty of ripe targets among the Joe Scarboroughs and Tucker Carlsons of the world, but Colbert's primary mark is obviously the current king of TV bloviators, Bill O'Reilly. As a parody The Report constantly hits all the right notes, from the flag-waving, screaming eagle opening graphics to the pompousness of the opening "Word" segment (a clear shot at O'Reilly's ridiculous "Talking Points" lectures) to the relentless self-promotion, right down to the way he begins every interview by dancing--complete with flashing lights, theme music and blown kisses to the audience--across the stage to where the guest is already seated instead of having the guest walk out on stage in the manner of a traditional talk show. One wonders why O'Reilly never thought of that. Check out some clips here.

The only question will be whether or not the joke gets tired over time. The Daily Show endures because Stewart is a witty and intelligent everyman forced to wonder constantly why it is that he seems to be the only person among the show's regular players who notices the sheer idiocy of everything going on around him--not only the reliably moronic pronouncements of politicians and media personalities, but also the gullible, self-important world of TV news that he pretends to inhabit.

Colbert, on the other hand, is attempting to carry an entire half-hour program by playing his Daily Show correspondent character: often ill-informed but always highly opinionated, egomaniacle and full to the brim with gravitas. It's funny now, but I wonder if it will still be funny in six months or a year. But for the moment, to quote Stephen himself, he's "just swallowed 20 condoms full of truth, and [he's] smuggling them across the border!" Trust me, you'll want to get a sample.

I Knew It!!!

It turns out beer is good for you. Oh happy day! Now who looks stupid over the whole 'years of binge drinking' thing?


I don't have a lot of time to blog tonight, but I just I'd mention one other potential addition to the site: Opinion polls. To help me decide whether or not this site needs opinion polls I'm, uh...doing an opinion poll. Page down until you see the blue box on the left that says "We Pretend to Care About Your Input" and add your vote. So far negative responses are outpacing positive responses by approximately an infinite percentage, which would be one to nothing. Of course, both responses are being beaten hands-down by people voting for "Pat Buchanan." Maybe the ballot is a little confusing.

New Features!

Hello loyal readers. I've got big news that all five or six of you are going to be blown away by: The Adventures of Yukon Sully has added some new features!

Page down and keep an eye on the column on the left. First, you'll notice that my beloved Melissa and her faithful dog Daisy have volunteered to appear in cartoon form and keep the world updated as to the current weather in Reno. Okay, not exactly the current weather...for whatever reason the weather updates from the Reno-Tahoe International Airport only come in every few hours, so you're going to actually be seeing a representation of what the weather in Reno was two or three hours ago. But really, how many times a day do you catch yourself wondering "Man, if only there were some way I could find out what the weather was like in Reno three hours ago!" Well suffer no more my friends, because Melissa and Daisy are here for you.

Second, just below Melissa and Daisy I've added a feature that allows you, the loyal reader, to leave your own personal icon on my reader-map, along with a no-doubt pithy little message. Just click on the box that says "View My Guestmap" or "Place Your Pin" (it alternates--how frackin' awesome is that!?!?!). Please make free use of this service.

Finally, I've finally got a site hit counter and stat button--it's the last thing in that column on the left. This is really just for me, so that I can finally verify that very, very few people are ever going to read a word of this blog.

Excelsior!

Of Brown, Bears and 'Bama

Melissa and I joined our friends Reina and Steven up at Crystal Bay at Lake Tahoe last Friday night to see Junior Brown in concert. Although I like to consider myself musically knowledgeable, I must confess that I'm not really sure I'd ever heard of Junior Brown until last week when Reina asked me if I was interested in going. Junior is out of Austin Texas, and is an old-school Country musician with an unmistakable dash of R&B thrown in. Although I detest new Country music with all it's 'proud to be a redneck' posturing and jingoism contests, I have a real soft spot for traditional--what I would consider "real"--Country music. You know, the Outlaw stuff, from the days before it was all about how very very much the meticulously-image-controlled "artist" loves Jesus and his or her children. Give me Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash (has there ever been another man to walk God's green earth who was as cool as Johnny Cash?), guys who weren't about marketing music to dental technicians, but who understood that the best music, like the best art of any kind, is informed by the pain that comes from hard living and is just a little bit subversive. Junior Brown, with songs like "You're wanted by the po-lice, and my wife thinks you're dead", is something of a call-back to those days and I really appreciated it. Melissa, on the other hand, just can't get in to any sort of Country music and although as always she was a trooper, I got a real sense of relief from her when the show ended.

Driving back along the Lake between Crystal Bay and Incline Village we rounded a bend and came across a black bear along the side of the road. He was a small one, maybe 300 pounds, and looked thin and jittery at a time of year when bears really should look fat and sleepy in anticipation of the coming winter. Bears have been a problem at the Lake this year, breaking into trash containers and on occasion even homes. This guy was probably risking being so close to human settlements because he knows the winter is coming and he must put on weight if he is to survive. Though humans mean danger, they also mean huge amounts of food just sitting around for the taking. I feel bad for him, but I image that for Melissa seeing the bear was probably more memorable than seeing Junior Brown, so at least there's that.

Oh, and I just have to mention that Alabama is now 9-0 heading into the most vital part of the season. Up next is LSU, then Auburn, and then if all goes well the SEC title game, probably against Georgia. 'Bama beat Mississippi State 17-0 yesterday, but didn't score an offensive touchdown and lost another key offensive player, Center J.B. Closner. At this point the Defense looks earth-shaking, having given up one only one touchdown in the last five games, but the offense just can't seem to stick the ball in the endzone.

Now I'm getting pretty sick of friends of mine who keep saying things like 'Oh, Alabama shouldn't have beaten Tennessee' or 'You know, Alabama probably should have lost to Ole' Miss.' And there will probably be a lot of people who want to harp on the continued lack of Offensive production in this game as well. Well let me explain something: The rules of the game say that whichever team scores the most points is the winner. Ergo, if Alabama scores more points than their opponent is able to score and doesn't cheat, then Alabama is the team that "should" win. This reminds me of nothing so much as 1992, when Alabama had a world-beater Defense and a lackluster Offense and won a lot of games that their opponents "should" have won, right up until they beat the Miami Hurricanes in the Sugar Bowl and won the National Championship.

Do I think this team is bound for a National Championship? No, although I didn't think that in '92 either. The point is, a win is a win. The Offense is probably going to have to find a way to score points if Alabama has a prayer of beating LSU, Auburn or Georgia, and the losses of Closner and Tyrone Prothro definitely hurt. But this morning there are three unbeaten teams in College football and Alabama is one of them. Considering where the program has been the last few years, I'm pretty happy with that.

That's One Theory Proven

The results of last night's scientific experiement: If a guy who's six feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds drinks five or six bourbon and Cokes and a couple of shots of Captain Morgan in the space of a couple of hours, he will wind up with a blood-alcohol content of about 0.133. Plus, he'll have a wicked pissah of a hangover at work the next day. No, don't thank me, I'm not a hero. I'm just doing my civic duty.

Evil Wears a Puberty Moustache

I rented George Lucas' Revenge of the Sith the other night, and something in the opening crawl caught my eye:

"War! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere."

Mr. Lucas, however disappointing Episodes I and II may have been (and that would be "very" disappointing), and despite the fact that you can't write two lines of believable dialogue to save your own life, you hit the nail on the head with that one. Indeed, Evil is everywhere.

Here's an example: Yesterday I was driving back from lunch on 4th street. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a car passing me on the left. It was some kind of beat-up, vintage 80's economy car. In the front passenger seat sat a tubby dude with a puberty moustache and a ratty-looking jean jacket. He was staring straight at me with a completely neutral look on his face, and his right arm was extended out the window so that he could give me the finger. I did not know who this person was and I had not cut off the car he was ridding in or done anything else that could be reasonably assumed to be bothering him. Yet he sat there, flat-faced, giving me the international signal for 'fuck you' for a good five seconds or so as we traveled down 4th Street. I looked at him and laughed (it actually was kind of funny, this grown man giving me a gesture that kind of loses it's impact once you're over age 12 or so) and went on my way.

Why this happened is something of a mystery. I've considered a number of alternatives, most notably the notion that the guy may have been retarded--his blank look and slovenly appearance would not be inconsistent with this theory. But I think the most likely explanation is simply that the guy was Evil. Pure, malevolent, capital "E" Evil. And perhaps he was angry that I obviously know how to tie a Windsor knot and my career options weren't limited to working the counter at Texaco. But mostly I think it was just that he was Evil.

Anyway, this evening I'm getting drunk for science. Really. One of our local law enforcement agencies is coming to pick me up this evening in order to ply me with alcohol so that the newbie cops can be trained on operating DUI equipment and conducting field sobriety tests. It's going to be a fun evening. Updates will follow as events warrant.

Catching Up

Because of technical problems (read: I lost the cable that attaches the digital camera to the hard drive) I haven't been able to download pictures for a few days. Here's a shot of Melissa and I at the Reno 20-30 Club's Halloween party last Thursday night:

No, we didn't stay handcuffed the whole night, but it was fun while it lasted. As a special bonus we were accompanied for some of the evening by Captain Orgazmo.

If you've seen the movie, you can appreciate just how dead-on Captain Orgazmo's costume was. Choda Boy put in an appearance too, but his costume was dead-on as well, and again if you know the movie you'll know why I'm not posting it. The shot of me drinking a beer in a prison jumpsuit is bad enough. Instead enjoy this picture of Melissa and local TV news celebrity Sarah Johns:

Saturday Melissa and I got up early and drove over over to Napa-Sonoma for the weekend. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: if Heaven doesn't look a lot like Northern California then I'm not so sure I care to go. It's perfect in nearly all respects--ideal climate, fertile soil, and not least of all a beautiful landscape worthy of the greatest of poets. It's the kind of land that can inspire love at first site, the sort of place nations go to war over. Indeed, this country has fought one war over this land already.

We met Melissa's friends Tim and Shannon, formerly of Missouri and now residents of the Bay Area, at around noon in Fullerton. Neither Melissa nor her friends had ever been to Wine Country, and as usual I was eager to act as tour guide. But right out of the box I made the mistake of pointing the group toward some of the biggest-name wineries in Napa Valley. Specifically, I steered the group toward Robert Mondavi, Fracis Ford Coppola's vineyard Niebaum-Coppola, and Sterling. The picture on the left is Niebaum-Coppola. Going to these places was a mistake because, as Ferris Bueller said, they were like museums; very beautiful and very cold, and you aren't allowed to touch anything. Honestly, I had forgotten how much I disliked Napa's corporate wineries with their manufactured ambiance and their 'you could never afford this' ostentatiousness. Both Mondavi and Coppola were crowded and impersonal. Unlike family-owned wineries (not that there are many of those left in Napa) and some of the smaller operations, both of these two 'biggies' made you pay by the glass for tasting each individual wine. That's if you could find your way through the gigantic Disney-like gift shops and fight your way past the tourist-hordes up to the counter, where the attendant might actually pour you a taste but will make no conversation with you--at those places, that probably costs extra.

By the time we got to Sterling, which sits at the far northern-end of the valley, I was starting to realize that I was going about this all wrong. If I wanted these people who had never been to Wine Country to really appreciate it, I had to try to present it to them on a more human level. Sterling is famous for the gondola ride that visitors take to reach it, but on this day the gondola was apparently not running. Not to worry, though; we were happily informed that for full price of $20 (each) we could take a van ride up to the winery. We rejected the idea immediately and that was pretty much the end of corporate wineries for us.

After abandoning Sterling I was feeling a little desperate, so in a moment of pure random impulse I asked to stop at St. Clement, a tiny winery I'd never heard of in Victorian house on a hillside surrounded by a small vineyard. Immediately upon walking in we were greeted by one of a handful of attendants who not only gave us free tastes, but talked to us endlessly about the wines, winemaking, Napa, and whatever else seemed important at the time. We bought a bottle of fantastic Sauvignon Blanc, and the attendant was nice enough to give us all free samples of that variety. We sat out on the porch in the shade overlooking the valley, talked about nothing in particular, and everything seemed right with the world.

The next day Tim and Shannon went back to San Francisco, but Melissa and I took some extra time and drove over to Sonoma. In Glen Ellen, near the the final home of one of my literary heroes Jack London, we found Benziger, a winery as committed to Biodynamic Farming as I am. In case you don't know, Biodynamics goes beyond organic; it is a belief in the complete integration of the vineyard into a self-sustaining ecosystem. As the San Francisco Chronicle said: "Biodynamics is the aikido or ashtanga yoga of winegrowing -- a way to focus energy and awareness for peak performance and exceptional health. Sick vineyards need homeopathy; biodynamic vineyards radiate a vigor that can be felt. Like Barry Bonds turning a 100-mph fastball into a soaring arc headed for McCovey Cove, biodynamic vineyards are completely aligned with their purpose, and therefore able to channel all the forces of the moment into a powerful result." I'm not sure it's the wave of the future, but it's nice to know that there are a few people out there who share my values.

One of these days I'm going to wander off into a place like the Wine Country, find a corner of it for myself, and just never come back.